"They are politicians!" – the Politics thread

Topic

Sponsored by General Martok, (Lord Vetinari declined to be involved) here’s the thread for covering political goings on.

Replies

We live in a world of currency.

There’s nothing wrong with markets – there’s a problem with financial instruments and the banking sector, but not markets.

The two best books I can recommend on the topic are An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (A Smith, the OG) and Pikkety’s Capital in the 21st Century.

 

Markets are fantastic but they shouldn’t rule over verything. With things we want everybody to have like healthcare we should pool money together to make sure people can have it.

 

The basic principle of markets can’t be overcome I think and they shouldn’t. All goods have a price, if people want to have something they’ll give money for it. Even if you do something radical like abolish money that’s still true, people will just barter with other things.

What is better than markets, though? Complex systems cannot be productively managed top down or from central planning. Homelessness, global warming, warfare, social media— no crisis that needs solutions can be determined from a dictatorial or definite point of view. Market influence – essentially incentive vs disincentive- is the best approach to ensure not only alignment of interests but also effective solutions.

 

Market strategy is not a “faith based” approach. It essentially is an organizational principle – technology – that gives all interested parties a stake in the solution. Government regulations can guide the solution representing the democratic social interest, but it can  – and usually – make the problem worse if it is the only party whose interests count.

Politically there are opposing forces ta play when it comes to housing. Housing affordability is a huge issue in Australia too, with buyers and renters hard done by. In the past schemes like first home owner grants and waiving of particular taxes or levies were launched, despite them obviously only pushing up prices – they are wholly counter-productive.

 

So we get to the idea of cooling the market; flood the market with new private properties to outstrip demand, or public housing. In both cases the investor class (and a section of mortgage holders) will be angered as their wealth and/or income will be deliberately negatively impacted by the government’s actions.

Here, about a third of people rent, a third are paying off mortgages, and a third own their homes. Renters tend to be younger with little political sway, while the others are older, with much more influence.

Yeah, it’s tough to be a renter. However, why should any body care if you don’t buy in?

That’s essentially the question here. The people who have political “sway” on either side of any significant question are those who’ve invested- not just in terms of money but in terms of risk- often the same thing since money is our social metric.

 

The advantage younger people have is that they will still be here longer than the older. BUT the payoff will come to those who invest the most. The problem is that it’s easy to be swayed by those who will use unrest to advance their own position.

 

in the USA, the leaders of the “progressive” movement are not reflective of the members of that movement. They are older and they are sure as hell “bought in.” I’d wager it’s the same outside the US as well.

Buttigieg takes the lead in another state in the polls, New Hampshire. I think the deep state wants him.

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah, it’s tough to be a renter. However, why should any body care if you don’t buy in? That’s essentially the question here. The people who have political “sway” on either side of any significant question are those who’ve invested- not just in terms of money but in terms of risk- often the same thing since money is our social metric.

The societal benefit of affordable housing, including rental properties, is too important to be overruled by owner’s and landlords’ desires for profit, no?

This also entrenches inequality by entrenching wealth; it’s bad.

Andrew wrote:

The societal benefit of affordable housing, including rental properties, is too important to be overruled by owner’s and landlords’ desires for profit, no?

Prove that is true.

Also, define “affordable” while you are at it.

Essentially, whose “interest” does your society defend? Those who have invested the most in your economy for the longest time or those who’ve just entered it?

 

because it may be that a smaller percentage of the latter can participate but who will argue the remaining cases? Essentially no one. Even when the progressives win elections, they only deliver to a minority of their supporters.

Anonymous wrote:

Even when the progressives win elections, they only deliver to a minority of their supporters.

I think good policies can reduce homelessness. It’s pretty low here, although it has been rising. But I think you can’t completely get rid of it, most of the homeless people here have mental health problems or drug problems.

 

You could make some simple rules, for instance specifying the big rental corporations can’t charge more than say 40 % of the minimum income on a certain percentage of the homes they offer.

However, that seems a result of government policy rather than market forces.
Essentially it’s the best “Brexit” argument. It took government action to open markets to undercutting foreign forces when interests would be served to excluding external interests.

 

 

Anonymous wrote:

Also, define “affordable” while you are at it.

There are well established definitions – we can use this local department’s take as a starting point:

Measures relating to housing affordability

Housing affordability can be expressed as the ratio of housing costs to gross household income (ABS 2017).

Housing costs are defined as the sum of rent payments, rate payments (water and general), and housing–related mortgage payments (ABS 2019).

Housing stress is typically described as lower-income households (lowest 40% of household income distribution) that spend more than 30% of gross income on housing costs (ABS 2019).

Anonymous wrote:

Essentially, whose “interest” does your society defend?

The most needy and vulnerable, I would hope.

Anonymous wrote:

Even when the progressives win elections, they only deliver to a minority of their supporters.

Oh, I’d disagree with that.

Anonymous wrote:

The societal benefit of affordable housing, including rental properties, is too important to be overruled by owner’s and landlords’ desires for profit, no? Prove that is true. Also, define “affordable” while you are at it. Essentially, whose “interest” does your society defend? Those who have invested the most in your economy for the longest time or those who’ve just entered it?   because it may be that a smaller percentage of the latter can participate but who will argue the remaining cases? Essentially no one. Even when the progressives win elections, they only deliver to a minority of their supporters.

Johnny this is a rubbish post.

Clearly un-Australian !

Anonymous wrote:

Essentially it’s the best “Brexit” argument. It took government action to open markets to undercutting foreign forces when interests would be served to excluding external interests.

There’s a huge amount of hot air in the UK around trade deals at the moment. “After Brexit, we will get [better/worse] trade deals with the rest of the world.”

What is a trade deal? It is essentially the government trampling all over market forces. Our government will do a deal with France to say, “Please legislate a fair price for our cheese in your country so our cheese makers don’t go bankrupt.” (France falls off the negotiation table laughing, but ignore that for a moment.)

This is completely anti-market-forces. If our cheese makers could make cheese that French people wanted, the market would sort out a price by itself and it would be traded. There should be no need for the two governments to make a “deal”. It should just work.

And yet every government — every pair of governments — in the world spends millions of hours writing thousands of pages to define precisely how they will allow each specific market for goods and commodities to operate between them. Pages that over-rule what market forces should cause to happen naturally.

The world is not run by market forces. It’s run by government protectionism.

 

This is touching on a very entrenched debate which is regulation vs the free market.

I swing pretty hard towards regulation but if you go too far that way you end up … as China and Russia.

 

It’s not the same as left v right, but often characterised as such.

 

Regulation is essentially the government saying “We think our people are evil.”

“We think that if we don’t mandate a certain level of safety at work, corporations will save costs at the expense of a few fingers in the meat grinder.”

But a few fingers in the meat grinder should be dealt with by market forces. “Do you want your burger at the cost of some poor schmuck’s fingers? No? Then buy Bob’s Ethical Burgers, we spend that bit more on safer equipment but you’ll feel better for buying from us!” Market forces will obviously drive FingerBurger.com out of business as people flock to the ethical alternative.

But people are evil so they will buy from FingerBurger.com because that saves them a few pennies, and why should they care about the workers?

So, basically, market forces can’t be left alone to work because people are evil.

David, weirdly I don’t agree with the sentiment.  I say weirdly because were not often at odds.

I think you’re oversimplifying very complicated matters.

DavidM wrote:

Regulation is essentially the government saying “We think our people are evil.”

“We think that if we don’t mandate a certain level of safety at work, corporations will save costs at the expense of a few fingers in the meat grinder.”

But a few fingers in the meat grinder should be dealt with by market forces. “Do you want your burger at the cost of some poor schmuck’s fingers? No? Then buy Bob’s Ethical Burgers, we spend that bit more on safer equipment but you’ll feel better for buying from us!” Market forces will obviously drive FingerBurger.com out of business as people flock to the ethical alternative.

But people are evil so they will buy from FingerBurger.com because that saves them a few pennies, and why should they care about the workers?

So, basically, market forces can’t be left alone to work because people are evil.

Kill all people. Problem solved.

 

(Not seriously, of course)

Anonymous wrote:

Kill all people.

And serve them in burgers

More seriously, I don’t think anyone believes there should be no regulations. A fast food company that endangers its employees in this way should be penalized and/or closed.

 

 

DavidM wrote:

Regulation is essentially the government saying “We think our people are evil.” “We think that if we don’t mandate a certain level of safety at work, corporations will save costs at the expense of a few fingers in the meat grinder.” But a few fingers in the meat grinder should be dealt with by market forces. “Do you want your burger at the cost of some poor schmuck’s fingers? No? Then buy Bob’s Ethical Burgers, we spend that bit more on safer equipment but you’ll feel better for buying from us!” Market forces will obviously drive FingerBurger.com out of business as people flock to the ethical alternative. But people are evil so they will buy from FingerBurger.com because that saves them a few pennies, and why should they care about the workers? So, basically, market forces can’t be left alone to work because people are evil.

Or more accurately, people want a quick win and they’re not fussy about where it comes from – who won’t be tempted, successfully, to nab a bargain on Amazon today or tomorrow, even knowing all the dodgy stuff they do on employee treatment? Loads.

As to the burgers, if the seller has an excellent grinder, you’re never going to know what’s in the burger.

Ben wrote:

Or more accurately, people want a quick win and they’re not fussy about where it comes from – who won’t be tempted, successfully, to nab a bargain on Amazon today or tomorrow, even knowing all the dodgy stuff they do on employee treatment? Loads.

Can’t we define this as “evil”?

You don’t have to actively be doing stuff. Knowingly turning your back when you know the stuff is going on makes you complicit. (I’m pretty sure there’s an exact famous quote that says this better, but the wording escapes me at the moment. Or maybe it’s just something Captain America said once.)

 

Well, depends, how innocent are you, really?  Is everything you’ve ever bought an example of perfect ethical production practices or did you buy that cheap item because it was just so cheap and screw everything else?

I’m loathe to be that judgemental on this because it’s rarely quite that simple, buy a cheap bit of clothing today, donate to a food bank a bit later.  That and too many politicians, like our current PM, have profited from a simplistic, judgemental outlook that rarely leads anywhere good.

Constructive criticism that encourages people to change positively on their own decision is an art, it’s perfectly possible to do but it’s up the national ‘it’s all a bit shit, isn’t it?’ culture.  I think it is a fair charge that there is a destructive negativity to society and politics.  For instance, low productivity keeps being brought up as something to be improved but what will it take to improve it? What are the cultures of low productive companies? What is the senior leadership doing in those companies?

It’s years old but in this respect the Gerry Robinson documentary on the NHS was great viewing.  It showed up what changes could be done at the local level, but they then get blocked at the regional / national level because trust isn’t seen as something to be encouraged.

Changing the subject, I found this amusing:

1) No, the first female MP elected to Parliament was the Irish socialist Constance Markievicz.

2) Nancy Astor was an antisemite and a fanatical anti-Catholic bigot. https://t.co/WDwrSAZGrH

— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) November 28, 2019

Jones is right. As a member of Sinn Fein Markievicz didn’t take her seat, but she was still elected to Parliament before Nancy Astor.

In this instance I’m going to put it down to historical ignorance rather than deliberate lying on Hancock’s part. But with a Tory cabinet minister, how can you ever be sure which it is these days?

DavidM wrote:

Changing the subject, I found this amusing:

1) No, the first female MP elected to Parliament was the Irish socialist Constance Markievicz.

2) Nancy Astor was an antisemite and a fanatical anti-Catholic bigot. https://t.co/WDwrSAZGrH

— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) November 28, 2019

Jones is right. As a member of Sinn Fein Markievicz didn’t take her seat, but she was still elected to Parliament before Nancy Astor.

In this instance I’m going to put it down to historical ignorance rather than deliberate lying on Hancock’s part. But with a Tory cabinet minister, how can you ever be sure which it is these days?

The Tories do seem to have severe cognitive issues surrounding Ireland.

DavidM wrote:

Can’t we define this as “evil”?

Not necessarily. The action is not clearly only negative or positive, but has elements of both. Using fossil fuels has positive and negative benefits, but on the whole the lives of a lot of people have been made possible by it. Nitrate fertilizers have allowed the world to feed its people using maybe a third of the land mass that would have been needed with natural fertilizer, and it’s made primarily from methane – natural gas – that produces more greenhouse gases in its production. The greenhouse effect in global warming is producing obvious negative and dangerous effects, but it’s also made the planet greener.

However, the point of concentrating on incentives rather than morality in regulation has some strong proven cases. One of the most famous “textbook” cases of humane results from market action involves Britain and Australia. After the American revolution, England needed to send its criminal convicts somewhere else and the Australian penal colonies were the obvious solution. However, it soon became public that sending convicts to Australia was a practical death sentence as many of them never survived the journey. Many proposals appealing to the moral conscience of sea captains were tried but proved unsuccessful.

Instead, an economist studied the issue. The shippers were paid in English ports for every convict that boarded their ships. Therefore, before the voyage, they had already obtained all the money they were going to get for the criminal cargo. It would be a waste to feed them food that they could sell once they reached the Australian ports.

So, the solution was simple. Rather than paying them in England for every convict who boarded, the Crown would only pay them in Australia for every one who walked off the ship. Therefore, the shippers now had a strong incentive to keep all their convict passengers alive and healthy.

In America, especially in California, the government has spent fortunes on homelessness without really having any effect on the problem. However, the programs that do show regular success are the “pay for success” programs rather than the non-profit. A pay for success program attracts private investors to donate funds for the program. As long as the program meets its goals, then the investors will see a return on the money they put in – or at least break even.

Currently, companies are using flawed software applications for hiring and work management. If a bias exists in the workplace, it will be baked into the software so if you’re industry is dominated by men, then the software will continue to maintain that dominance imbalance because it is part of the software’s data standard. Also, some software is able to set work hours so that no employee – at Starbucks – for example will ever work enough hours per week to trigger automatic benefits required by law. This will essentially force your employees into a state of wage slavery as the irregular work schedule will never allow them to save money, go to school or look for another job.

Obviously, this emerging software sector needs regulation, but governments are often behind when it comes to new technology. So, the solution to these problems will likely emerge from the software developers themselves but only as long as there is enough vocal will in the society to force a change. That’s the important political element here. People need to add their voices to revealing the problems so that the government will have the will needed to pressure the industries to find solutions. But it rarely works out well to depend on government to find and enact any specific solution and impose it on the businesses, employees and investors through legislation that will likely prove obstructive and inflexible in the long run.

Regarding “ethical consumerism” there is a weird transference of guilt or karma that comes with buying the “good things”. We want to have the choice to buy ethically produced meat for instance but we don’t actually know if it’s really kosher. But because we don’t know it we can feel we are innocent and the bad karma points to be had go to the producer or the person overseeing it. Causing us to sleep soundly in the knowledge we did good. In the case where there is a law proscribing certain ethical treatment of animals or responsible farming or clean energy etc bad karma is transferred to the authorities, who in their goodness suffer it for us.

 

But mostly we don’t even have the money to consume ethically. Being good is expensive. So we’re all sinners meaning we lack the moral standing to hold others responsible, which makes it safe to continue acting badly.

Anonymous wrote:

But because we don’t know it we can feel we are innocent and the bad karma points to be had go to the producer or the person overseeing it.

We’re seeing that in France now with the farmer protests. It’s similar to lumping soldiers in with the war machine. At the same time, war depends on the willingness of people to go overseas to a place they likely may have never even heard of before, interfere with a culture they don’t understand and kill people they’ve never met. If no one was willing to do that, war would not be possible, but how do you instill that into a culture?

It reminds me of the apocryphal story about some fictional tribe in Africa. During WW2 a British soldier was negotiating with the chief of an African tribe and informing him of the World War. The chief asked how many people had been killed in the most recent battle and the officer told him that almost 30,000 men had died. The chief was impressed and said the British must be very rich. The officer did not understand why he’d say that so the chief explained that when tribes in his region went to war, after a battle, each side had to pay the other for each man they had killed irrespective if they had won or lost. The most men who died in any battle in the chief’s memory had been 12 and it was so expensive that it was a long time before there was another war.

In FOG OF WAR, Robert McNamara told the account of his time planning the bombing raids of Japan and the millions of people that they had killed in those raids essentially totally burning many Japanese cities. More people died in a single night in firebombings of several cities than the combined casualties of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Because they knew their raids were essentially designed to maximize civilian casualties, McNamara’s superior officer knew that the United States would only accept an unconditional surrender. Any other outcome would leave them open to charges of war crimes and responsible for the damage inflicted during the war.

Anonymous wrote:

If no one was willing to do that, war would not be possible, but how do you instill that into a culture?

Does education in the military include the ethics of warfare?

 

I think there are definitely situations where it is good to have a powerful military ready to go and kill a lot of people, although those aren’t many. We get into these weird double binds all the time. I read an article once about the mass psychology the Japanese population was brainwashed with after the war where they were taught pacifism was good while also having to accept the military occupation by the US was good. I reckon something similar must have happened in Germany.

Boris Johnson Won’t Say How Many Children He Has After Being Criticised Over His Comments About Single Mothers

A single mother asked: “Why are you happy to criticise people like me, when you refuse to discuss your family?”
Boris Johnson has refused to reveal how many children he has fathered after a woman confronted him over his previous comments about single mothers and the children of single parents.

Johnson’s 1995 column for the Spectator magazine about single mothers and working class men has become an issue on the election campaign after it re-emerged in the last few days.

In the column, Johnson criticised what he called the “appalling proliferation of single mothers”, while describing the children of single mothers as “ill-raised, ignorant aggressive and illegitimate”.

He has never talked openly about his own children, or past marriages, and the Conservative party leader’s Wikipedia page notoriously shows him having “five or six” children.
On Friday morning, Johnson was confronted by a single mother who had called into his LBC radio interview. The woman named “Ruth” said she had raised two successful children as a single mother and “didn’t appreciate” the past comments.,

Ruth then asked: “Why are you happy to criticise people like me, when you refuse to discuss your family?”

Johnson claimed the “25-year-old quotations” were “distortions” and had been taken out of context. When LBC host Nick Ferrari asked point blank about how many children he had, Johnson repeatedly refused to reveal any more about his own parenting.
“I love my children very much but they are not standing at this election,” Johnson replied. “I’m not therefore going to comment on them.”

Ferrari went on to ask whether the prime minister was “fully involved in their lives”, but elicited a similar evasive response about how his children were not something he’d discuss.

This infuriates me. I don’t want to care how many kids he has. I think his serial philandering and adultery shows him to have a poor moral character, but that’s entirely up to everyone else to agree or disagree how they see fit. The specifics of how many kids he has and with who doesn’t really matter and it’s not like I want them all paraded in front of the media. But by refusing to even give a number, he makes it matter. How is anyone supposed to trust someone who can’t even be upfront about something as simple as how many children he has (let alone someone with a past history of lying)? Is it because he doesn’t know? Is it because admitting it would be a legal liability?

Anonymous wrote:

Does education in the military include the ethics of warfare?

Definitely. Right now, we’re seeing a conflict between the military’s established ethics and the whims of the “Commander in Chief” in several trials in the US. The absurdity is that the Secretary of the Navy was forced out because of an ornament on a uniform. It’s childishly embarrassing.

 

Anonymous wrote:

I read an article once about the mass psychology the Japanese population was brainwashed with after the war where they were taught pacifism was good while also having to accept the military occupation by the US was good.

A lot of that was due to the fact that both nations were fairly homogeneous and had already undergone severely traumatic psychological condition before, during and to the end of the war. There are the famous cases of Japanese guerrilla fighters in various South Pacific islands that did not surrender and continued fighting and killing random people until they could finally be convinced Japan had surrendered. Zen Buddhist training was applied to Japanese soldiers so they could detach from the violence of their actions, and in Germany, Himmler used Eastern Philosophy and texts like the Bhagavad Gita to train his SS units. Hitler was even angry with his methods at times telling Himmler that he did not want to start a new religion of Hitlerism.

This sort of mass social engineering is certainly effective on homogeneous countries especially before mass electronic communication. However, the United States has always been a serious mess of very different groups and individuals with a relatively very weak government. On one side, public action needed to get anything done takes massive effort and compromises, but on the other, it’s harder to instill any sort of single, strongly totalitarian political power over the people. That’s increasingly true of the world as communication, information, dysinformation and misinformation become more widely and easily spread.

Anonymous wrote:

This sort of mass social engineering is certainly effective on homogeneous countries especially before mass electronic communication.

That’s interesting, I would have assumed the internet made propaganda stronger. Not in the beginning, in the 90s it seemed the web was a force for diversification, and developing independent voices, nowadays I think the herds just gobble up what gets likes on facebook.

Anonymous wrote:

That’s interesting, I would have assumed the internet made propaganda stronger. Not in the beginning, in the 90s it seemed the web was a force for diversification, and developing independent voices, nowadays I think the herds just gobble up what gets likes on facebook.

I think it is inoculating people against it. When things were limited and centralized with newspapers, television and radio, people put more stock into it. Now, it gets shrugged off for good and bad.

That’s true, people are probably less susceptible to propaganda by the established media like The Washington Post or CNN. However I think many messages are passed on more stealthily. I think Disney is a more effective indoctrination tool.

 

Due to the web most people are connected to this circus 24/7, constantly receiving messages that can be deceptive. We had  the “Russian troll” thing with the election but Russia has been blamed of this for longer. I think the US does the same though, probably a lot more stealthy. It’s ironic this coming from the New York Times.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo

 

 

 

 

There has been some talk in Berlin – where Die Linke party is pretty strong – about expropriation (or compulsory purchase seems to be the UK term) as a solution to the housing crisis in cities. It’s a radical notion for sure, but when it comes to cities like Berlin, but much more so London or Paris, where prices have been driven up so heavily not only by too many people living in those cities but also by speculators buying up living space or non-residents owning them… it does seem like a step that’d make sense at some point.

Compulsory purchase can be done here, but only when all other options have been demonstrably exhausted.

Same here, I think. It’s never gonna happen anyway, but it was nice to see it as part of the discussion for a bit.

Is “No Malarkey” the official slogan for the Biden campaign? Is he trying to be grampa Simpson?

 

The Telegraph is much fallen from what it was but it did have this cartoon today:

 

Meanwhile, this vid is going viral:

America: “Only guns are the answer”

Great Britain: “Pass me the Narwhal tusk and fire extinguisher.” #LondonBridgeAttack #LondonBridge pic.twitter.com/jjSCxGqhmK

— J A D E ♡ (@JadeStamate) November 30, 2019

Well to be fair he wasn’t dead until someone fired a gun.

Yeah, by Police – come on, tell me you don’t miss the point that some Americans have decided to make with this? It’s an easy one.

Old story, but I like it.

I grew up with the saying “better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.” However, in reality, I’ve never needed a gun, but there have been many times in my life where it was good that I didn’t have one.

Eventually, we may have a more reasonable position on firearms in society, but right not it would be impossible to really do anything without further breaking our constitution more than it already has been. America is predicated on the fact that the primary threat to civil rights is government power. Until the 14th amendment, the Bill of Rights solely restricted the government’s ability to interfere with a citizen’s rights. Then the 14th amendment made it a crime for anyone to interfere with your individual rights… to be enforced by the government… the primary threat to individual rights…

At heart, like with abortion, we’re just going to have to depend on society to work it out. There will be no executive, legislative or judicial solution to the problem.

Am I correct in thinking regular London cops didn’t carry guns in the past?

The regular beat cops still don’t. There are armed response units that come in when there’s a major incident and at certain risk areas (like airports and Westminster) they will carry guns.

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Anonymous wrote:

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Only if we, ironically, only use irregular time scales.

garjones wrote:

The regular beat cops still don’t. There are armed response units that come in when there’s a major incident and at certain risk areas (like airports and Westminster) they will carry guns.

I can respect that. Cops here usually carry guns, but there’s seldom any need for it when they’re just on routine patrol.

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Only if we, ironically, only use irregular time scales.

Sold! You are lead singer.

Gareth on drums. I will play the triangle.

Anonymous wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Only if we, ironically, only use irregular time scales.

Sold! You are lead singer.

Gareth on drums. I will play the triangle.

Are you really sure you’re up to that?

Anonymous wrote:

Am I correct in thinking regular London cops didn’t carry guns in the past?

The only police force in the UK and Ireland that goes armed by default is the PSNI. And it’s unsettling as hell when you see them while you’re used to unarmed cops.

No, you’re right, maybe Arjan should play the triangle

I’ll play the bass triangle.

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Only if we, ironically, only use irregular time scales.

Sold! You are lead singer.

Gareth on drums. I will play the triangle.

Are you really sure you’re up to that?

I’ll be the manager.

Todd wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Regular Beat Cop is a great band name.

Let’s start a band named Regular Beat Cop!

Only if we, ironically, only use irregular time scales.

Sold! You are lead singer.

Gareth on drums. I will play the triangle.

Are you really sure you’re up to that?

I’ll be the manager.

I’ll be Spotify so I can reap the rewards of your work forever without paying you anything.

I’ll be the listener so I can switch the radio off when you come on.

Anonymous wrote:

I can respect that. Cops here usually carry guns, but there’s seldom any need for it when they’re just on routine patrol.

Contrary to what you see on TV and in the cinema, there are plenty of American police officers who have never fired their weapon in the line of duty. According to a Pew Research study in 2016, only 27% of officers have ever fired their service weapon on the job.

Here is an idea that has been kicking around my head for a wee while, ever since I bought my brother-in-law a drone for his birthday.

It must be possible to have a taser carrying drone. Such a device could easily sit in a box above key security cameras in places like shopping malls and airports etc.

When suspected trouble is spotted, the drone could be instantly launched and be close to the action in seconds. The onboard camera can confirm for the operator if this is a serious event, e.g. someone trying to stab people or shoot them. If they are then the taser could be fired, hopefully leading to immobilisation of the perpetrator long enough to be apprehended.

Such a system might not only minimise the harm done by a perpetrator by getting there in seconds but also greatly reduce the risk of harm to those who have to apprehend him/her.

It wouldn’t cost that much either. Probably would require legislation though.

It wouldn’t do much good in the case of a suicide bomber or a vehicle weapon but a lot of these random nutter type events in schools, malls etc seem to be lone individuals on foot with knives or guns.

Five minutes later, that drone has somehow dropped a bomb on a nearby wedding.

Whatever should we call this protective drone cover?

Hmm,  I know, how about Skynet?

Ben wrote:

Whatever should we call this protective drone cover?

Hmm,  I know, how about Skynet?

Skynet’s already a thing in the UK

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_%28satellite%29?wprov=sfla1

This talk with Max Blumenthal gives a good overview of the insanity of the Western approach to Syria.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POduL2SH1iM

There’s a courier company called Skynet here. I have a little apocalyptic chuckle to myself as their vans drive past.

Most drones are still remotely controlled most of the time, only defaulting to onboard decision making when they lose the signal from their remote pilots.

William Gibson uses drones as an example of what reality vs scifi really looks like. To him, drone and pilot constitute a cyborg organism. The fact that no hardware is implanted in the human is irrelevant, as the human is flying their mechanical body (the drone) based on instinct honed by training.

The drive to make drones truly autonomous has more to do with control from above and beyond the actual operator.

Kamala Harris is dropping out.
https://apple.news/ApNZjiEeNTJKejWtra0euDw

Hustings update: All prepared to go tonight, only to find out that two of the four candidates weren’t going The Lib Dem and Labour candidate were going, the Green was sending a substitute and my local Tory MP had ignored the existence of the event entirely. So it didn’t really seem worth bothering with, especially as it was cold, dark and my friend was stuck in work so I’d have to go on my own.

garjones wrote:

There’s a courier company called Skynet here. I have a little apocalyptic chuckle to myself as their vans drive past.

Yeah, I used to use them in a job I had years ago. It’s not a bad name for a courier, Terminator has just ruined it for them.

Martin Smith wrote:

Hustings update: All prepared to go tonight, only to find out that two of the four candidates weren’t going The Lib Dem and Labour candidate were going, the Green was sending a substitute and my local Tory MP had ignored the existence of the event entirely. So it didn’t really seem worth bothering with, especially as it was cold, dark and my friend was stuck in work so I’d have to go on my own.

The Tories have been having a great time at various hustings.  In Lewes they sent a local councillor because the candidate couldn’t be arsed going. This councillor read out a prepared statement, said she wasn’t familiar enough with the issues to ask questiond and then left the stage while the next person was speaking, to jeers from the crowd.  She proceeded to leave the building by a door that lead to a yard with bins and a locked gate, and rather than face the embarrassment of walking back in, she tried to climb out on the bins.

A Tory actively deciding to advance into a dumpster full of shit because they had committed to that course of action, rather than have the guts and common sense to turn back and take a painless way out but have to feel a bit embarrassed about it?

There’s some kind of metaphor there straining to get out.

Todd wrote:

Kamala Harris is dropping out.
https://apple.news/ApNZjiEeNTJKejWtra0euDw

Fuckpenus, she was my favourite candidate.

I hope this is because she’s been offered VP and not because her campaign was poorly managed.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

She proceeded to leave the building by a door that lead to a yard with bins and a locked gate, and rather than face the embarrassment of walking back in, she tried to climb out on the bins.

Tried suggests she failed, right?

Even so, I’ve got this feeling this election will see the coronation of Darth Bozza.  If he gets denied that I’ll be pleasantly surprised – about the only way I see that happening is a hung parliament.

Anonymous wrote:

Todd wrote:

Kamala Harris is dropping out.
https://apple.news/ApNZjiEeNTJKejWtra0euDw

Fuckpenus, she was my favourite candidate.

I hope this is because she’s been offered VP and not because her campaign was poorly managed.

It can be two things!

If I had to bet, I would put money on Buttigieg or Bloomberg. Biden seems to have lost most of his linguistic capacity, although that might not mean Americans won’t vote for him.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-A4VrEUyyI

Bloomberg wasn’t my favorite Mayor of NYC, but I’d vote for him over Trump.

JRCarter wrote:

Bloomberg wasn’t my favorite Mayor of NYC, but I’d vote for him over Trump.

Not exactly a glowing endorsement!

Malarkey.

23-Skidoo!

24-40 Or Bust!

Remember the Maine!

“I knew George Washington. George Washington was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no George Washington!”

 

Trump greater than Lincoln? Republicans polled said yes in a party Lincoln wouldn’t recognize.

I get tired of hearing the GOP saying, “We’re the party of Lincoln”. No, you’re not! You haven’t been that party since the Dixiecrats crossed over!

JRCarter wrote:

Bloomberg wasn’t my favorite Mayor of NYC, but I’d vote for him over Trump.

Ironically, my once-favorite NYC mayor is now Trump’s scumbag personal scumbag attorney scumbag.

Ben wrote:

If he gets denied that I’ll be pleasantly surprised – about the only way I see that happening is a hung parliament.

Definitely, Labour winning a majority has never been on the cards but if the Tories don’t get a majority they don’t really have anyone but the DUP to turn to and they may not return as many MPs this time as NI has a lot of parties stepping aside in races, centred around Brexit.

I think polling is more difficult than ever this election because of the winter date which has no precedent in recent years. It could affect the elderly vote if the weather is bitterly cold in a way we don’t get in April to June.  The late surge in voter registrations could change things depending how many turn out. There are some very localised campaigns to unseat certain Tories which may or may not get traction. There’ll be more tactical voting than usual.

I think you may see a lot of contradictory swings, where Tories, Labour and Lib Dems make big gains in one seat and do nothing in the next one. It’s looking best for Johnson now and that’s the most likely outcome but listening to the political pundits they seem less sure of predicting this election than any I have known, every discussion is full of caveats like the ones I’ve posed.

 

Anonymous wrote:

If I had to bet, I would put money on Buttigieg or Bloomberg. Biden seems to have lost most of his linguistic capacity, although that might not mean Americans won’t vote for him.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-A4VrEUyyI

Biden’s polling isn’t dipping though.  Ady Barkin gave a good interview on Pod Saves America about how it’s frustrating that Biden clearly doesn’t have the wherewithall to compete in debates and his mental accuity is declining but his polls aren’t dipping.  He suggests that’s a bad sign.

I would like it to be Buttigieg but he’s seen as inexperienced, also, he’s gay and the hard truth there is that you lose some of the Christian swing voters. They don’t necessarily see race, but they do see sexuality.  Warren has a better chance then Sanders (and, frankly, I think there’s every possibility that she will be the candidate) but Bloomberg has the money obviously.  He was a Republican mayor though, and I think that will work against him.

Buttigieg v Trump would make for a very interesting year though.

njerry wrote:

JRCarter wrote:

Bloomberg wasn’t my favorite Mayor of NYC, but I’d vote for him over Trump.

Ironically, my once-favorite NYC mayor is now Trump’s scumbag personal scumbag attorney scumbag.

Did you live in NYC when he was mayor because he was a scumbag then too.

Just posting this because it’s what I wanna hear played for Trump after the election:

Bloomberg’s ads state “he will beat Trump” and then, “He will raise taxes on the wealthy” with a  picture of Trump Tower, using Trump as an example of “the wealthy”. Following the first quote, it’s low hanging fruit for Trump’s campaign and another Democrat could use that against Bloomberg.

It’s not necessarily hypocrisy though if he’s willing to tax himself. Both are rich but Trump is known for a lack of transparency with his taxes and some evasion in the old returns that were seen.

garjones wrote:

Tories don’t get a majority they don’t really have anyone but the DUP to turn to

I’m sure they’re right behind Johnson negotiating a border right down the Irish Sea.

He might have a better chance of getting Sinn Fein to support him

The could disagree with that but still give him ‘supply and confidence’ on the rest of his agenda.

Oh, don’t worry, the Lib Dems will enter a coalition with the Tories again.

Despite the cliche of people shifting rightwards with age the stark difference in this graph is not how British politics has ever been before, in the 1980s the Conservative held leads in 18-24. Now they are 50 points behind. Even if they do win in a week or so there’s a bit of a demographic timebomb there of their own making with targeting all their policies at the older group while cutting services wholesale for the young.

I also wonder how the media shift plays into this. I was watching a clip of a group of 50/60 somethings on C4 News yesterday and they were clearly repeating attack lines I’ve seen on the front pages of the the Mail/Express/Sun. From 1979 onwards every single general election has been won by the party the Sun has backed. With circulation falling that influence is ebbing away.

 

What I find interesting is to consider whether those 18-year-olds will stay left wing as they get older, in which case the right wing is effectively dead forever, or whether they will drift right as they get older.

Consider also that none of them have ever lived under a left-wing government as an adult (heck, I’ve never lived under a proper left-wing government as an adult), so they are basically voting for what they think it ought to be like rather than what it actually will be like. Idealism doesn’t always survive contact with the real world.

DavidM wrote:

What I find interesting is to consider whether those 18-year-olds will stay left wing as they get older, in which case the right wing is effectively dead forever, or whether they will drift right as they get older.

Consider also that none of them have ever lived under a left-wing government as an adult (heck, I’ve never lived under a proper left-wing government as an adult), so they are basically voting for what they think it ought to be like rather than what it actually will be like. Idealism doesn’t always survive contact with the real world.

It’s not that people shift rightward as they age, but more that the Overton Window shifts slightly leftward on social issues, and it becomes more acceptable to vote for the more right-wing economic policies that are more appealing to property owners, especially now that the party proposing them no longer thinks that black people are subhuman/women shouldn’t vote/gay people shouldn’t marry.

You misunderstood me. To mention that part of his platform immediately after saying he’s the only one who can defeat Trump , using an image of Trump Tower as an example of the wealthy, make that part of his platform seemed aimed at Trump  specifically, but not in Trump’s role as POTUS, but as he was before 2015. I keep saying it, but public perception of Trump before he announced his candidacy, while still negative, was a different kind of negative. While I can’t fault Democrats for using it sometimes, it needs to be used carefully. This seems reckless.

DavidM wrote:

What I find interesting is to consider whether those 18-year-olds will stay left wing as they get older, in which case the right wing is effectively dead forever, or whether they will drift right as they get older.

I’d suspect probably a bit of both but anecdotally I’ve not found that many people radically change view and if they do it takes a long time. I also think the circumstances where that happens may have changed. I’m 46 and I went to college for free and bought a small flat when I was 28 on a pretty modest wage at the time. That’s now out of reach and I don’t really see any policies from the Tories to change that. Even if they’ve eased on austerity it’s in the NHS (which the young use least), police, care for the elderly etc.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

now that the party proposing them no longer thinks that black people are subhuman/women shouldn’t vote/gay people shouldn’t marry.

Proof of how good the Tory propaganda machine is. Here is the reality:

A significant number of ministers in Boris Johnson’s new government have been either hostile to or ambivalent about abortion and gay rights, according to their voting records.
The new prime minister has hailed his “cabinet for modern Britain”, but five of them opposed the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales during a final House of Commons vote in 2013.
They included the culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, who has since said she would vote in favour of gay marriage if she was given the chance again, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, and the home secretary, Priti Patel.
The fifth minister to vote against marriage equality is the new education secretary, Gavin Williamson. A sixth cabinet minister, the Welsh secretary, Alun Cairns, opposed the marriage (same sex couples) bill on its second reading but was absent for the final vote.
Sixteen of the 22 MPs in the cabinet were absent earlier this month when the House of Commons voted to allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.
Johnson himself was absent for the vote and for another on the same night to liberalise access to abortion rights in Northern Ireland. Fifteen of the cabinet were absent from the latter vote while the new foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, voted against.
Just two were present in the House of Commons chamber in March 2017 to vote in favour of a bill that decriminalised abortion for the first time by repealing a law that dated back to Victorian times. It was opposed by Wallace, while 18 MPs who are now in the cabinet were absent.

 

(Apologies if this is a double post, it looks like my original vanished.)

Anonymous wrote:

This seems reckless.

Really? The man currently in the office of POTUS insults his political enemies, spreads unfounded conspiracy theories, and lies on a routine basis, and you think a photo of Trump Tower is reckless?

DavidM wrote:

A significant number of ministers in Boris Johnson’s new government have been either hostile to or ambivalent about abortion and gay rights, according to their voting records.

This is one of the reasons I wanted to go to my local hustings if my MP was going to be there, as he’s consistently voted against same-sex marriage and abortion rights (he even introduced a private members bill in 05 that tried to recriminalise abortion with mandatory life sentences for patients and doctors). He also on record in Hansards as calling gay marriage “deeply offensive”. Given he’s an adulterer and divorcee (he cheated on his wife/secretary several times, last with a woman he left her for and hired to also work in his office alongside his ex-wife, before later marrying) I was going to ask which of his marriages same-sex marriage was desecrating.

Actually, I probably would have wussed out. But I had a less pointed question about protecting abortion rights in any potential post-Brexit US trade deal, given the US government frequently undermines and restricts access to safe abortions all across the world with its Global Gag rule.

DavidM wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

now that the party proposing them no longer thinks that black people are subhuman/women shouldn’t vote/gay people shouldn’t marry.

Proof of how good the Tory propaganda machine is. Here is the reality:

A significant number of ministers in Boris Johnson’s new government have been either hostile to or ambivalent about abortion and gay rights, according to their voting records.
The new prime minister has hailed his “cabinet for modern Britain”, but five of them opposed the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales during a final House of Commons vote in 2013.
They included the culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, who has since said she would vote in favour of gay marriage if she was given the chance again, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, and the home secretary, Priti Patel.
The fifth minister to vote against marriage equality is the new education secretary, Gavin Williamson. A sixth cabinet minister, the Welsh secretary, Alun Cairns, opposed the marriage (same sex couples) bill on its second reading but was absent for the final vote.
Sixteen of the 22 MPs in the cabinet were absent earlier this month when the House of Commons voted to allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.
Johnson himself was absent for the vote and for another on the same night to liberalise access to abortion rights in Northern Ireland. Fifteen of the cabinet were absent from the latter vote while the new foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, voted against.
Just two were present in the House of Commons chamber in March 2017 to vote in favour of a bill that decriminalised abortion for the first time by repealing a law that dated back to Victorian times. It was opposed by Wallace, while 18 MPs who are now in the cabinet were absent.

 

(Apologies if this is a double post, it looks like my original vanished.)

This is a conflation of a few issues, but it boils down to the Conservatives being a spectrum of a party on account of them representing most of the right-wing in the UK, and many of them have views further-right than the party’s stated policies.  It’s worth recalling that the conservatives introduced marriage equality.

Recall as well that Johnson’s cabinet contains a lot of people who were disgraced for not sufficiently toeing the party line under May, so there are a number of controversial personalities in there to boot.

Sen. Cory Booker announces 1st federal bill to ban natural hair discrimination

CA Senate today approved 37-0 my bill to end discrimination against Black workers and students who choose to wear their natural CROWN. #thecrownact #crowncoalition #SB188 https://t.co/Lu4aladdI7

— Senator Holly J. Mitchell (@SenHJMitchell) April 22, 2019

Hair discrimination is a thing? Seriously?

I guess the point is that bigots who are not allowed to ban you based on skin colour can ban you on your hair style due to to a legal loophole?

What I’m struggling to understand is why it needs separate legislation and isn’t already covered by existing discrimination laws. Did lawmakers get too specific when they wrote the racial discrimination laws, and subsequent interpreters have been too zealous in enforcing the letter rather than the spirit?

 

Because hairstyle is protected and can technically be had by any race. The US military didn’t allow natural black hair until 2 years ago.