The Reform Party and the UK’s lurch towards fascism

Yep. They probably should have cut it further. It had only been at 50% for a few years anyway.

A high tax rate does not always produce a high tax take.

Income taxes have been cut much more for low earners than for high earners.

Rich_cb wrote:

There have been some significant successes over the last 13 years. Minimum wage reform. Tax threshold reform. Pension reform. Huge expansion of renewable energy generation. Huge decreases in the UK's carbon footprint. They've also done a much better job of running health and education than their devolved equivalents in Wales. There's also the small matter of navigating both a global financial crisis and a global pandemic without any periods of large scale unemployment.

Don't hit them with facts...they don't like them at all on here

Jeremy Corbyn for PM wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

.

Don't hit them with facts...they don't like them at all on here

Facts... you wouldn't know facts if it stole your school dinner money from you. 

Rich_cb wrote:

That's a pretty decent definition of Nazism but who are you counting as a Nazi? Goebbels/Hitler etc are easy, they directly committed historically awful crimes. They are worthy of hatred. What about an average citizen who only joined the party in order to keep their job? It's not a straightforward question without an explicit definition of exactly who we're talking about. Those who directly committed crimes are the obvious ones to condemn but what of those who in some small way enabled those crimes? Those who joined communist parties may have had entirely good motives but did they, in some small way, act an enablers for the atrocities committed in the name of communism that continue to this day? On an entirely different scale, you might not like the policies of the Conservative party but is every voter to be held responsible for every action? Was every Corbyn supporter responsible for the worst examples of antisemitism that occurred under his leadership?

I'd consider people that agree with Nazi ideology to be Nazis. People who were coerced into going along with the Nazi party share some of the blame if they quietly went along with the policies, although I understand it takes bravery to stand up for what's right.

There's a saying - what do you get if you let two nazis into your house? A house with three nazis in it.

If people agreed with communist ideology, and then unwittingly took part in authoritarian regimes, then they too share some guilt for their part, though the communist ideology isn't the problem, but the nature of the regime.

There's obviously a problem with single party states as they tend towards authoritarianism and corruption and often most people have no say in what's going on (and that's assuming that they even know about it). However, in a system with more than one party, you must take some responsibility for which party you vote for. I can understand someone being hookwinked by others, but at some point it should be obvious that you're propping up the baddies and you must change your allegiance.

I don't believe that Corbyn supporters had much knowledge about Labour's antisemitism, and they deserve some blame if they knowingly supported and encouraged antisemitism. I've long thought that the Labour party isn't fit for purpose (e.g. Blair should be tried for war crimes).

Has there ever been a communist regime that didn't lead to large scale state sanctioned human rights abuses?

I'm not aware of any.

That suggests that the ideology may be part of the problem.

No political party is perfect, any vote for any party is always going to be a compromise. You've got to accept that some policies won't be to your liking and choose the party that's closest to your ideals.

I have no regrets about voting Conservative as I'm sure the alternative, in the shape of Corbyn, would have been far worse.

Corbyn's antisemitism was very well known, I seriously doubt many people who took an interest in politics were unaware of it.

Rich_cb wrote:

Has there ever been a communist regime that didn't lead to large scale state sanctioned human rights abuses? I'm not aware of any. That suggests that the ideology may be part of the problem.

I think the abuses and problems with communist states are well documented.  However aside from complaints about definition ("those were not true communist regimes, they're merely autocracies which have usurped a power vacuum...") they're a fairly new feature e.g. newer than democracies.  Comparing to things in the past is problematic I know but the Greeks did give us the word!

It may be easier for a communist state to "go bad" but unfortunately democracies also do.  They also have not been shown to be much less lethal - even to their own citizens.

I'm reminded of Primo Levi's quote about Nazi and Soviet camps being a "lugubrious comparison between two models of hell".

For most of us in e.g. the UK now we experience historically very mild levels of oppression from the state (e.g. they merely steal a little of our money via taxation and occasionally lock us up).  So it's easy to overlook that our own states continue to do bad things to some (and have done terrible things in recent memory).

If you lived somewhere - for example - the US took a strategic interest in or dislike to (under Republicans or Democrats both) then ... good luck.

I'm not aware of any 20th century democracies that committed Communist level atrocities against their own citizens?

You're right, of course, that democracies have still engaged in awful behaviour oth at home and abroad but that's not a fundamental feature of a democracy, plenty of democracies don't.

All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.

Rich_cb wrote:

All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.

So have all far right/fascist states, do you have any point apart from whataboutery?

Rendel Harris wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.

So have all far right/fascist states, do you have any point apart from whataboutery?

No. 'e don't. Wot a surprise.

How about Cuba, though? A one party state but often found by various independent and disinterested observers to have, for example, the best health service in the world, despite the economic punishments arranged for the Cubans by the USA and other kleptocracies frustrated in their previous efforts to exploit the bejasus out of that nearby isle.

Gaw, even I have been successfully whatabouted!

************

Perhaps Rich is actually rich, perhaps from renting or shareholding?  If so, one can understand his liking for the Toryspiv, who are great supporters of all kinds of exploitation of other humans for vast profits. There are all kinds of satanic mills these days!

But perhaps not. Perhaps Rich is just another bog-standard member of the hoi-polloi like the rest of us. This makes his fannery of Toryspiv less easy to grasp but .... he may suffer from that seemingly installed-at-birth Bwitish meme from our greater memeplex of the Bwitish class system.

Toryspiv - just a better class of people. ( See the pinstripe suit, pearls & twinset and certificate of empathy-removal from one public skool or another). And they are so successful, innit! Lookit their wads of bung, rent & bribe.

That Communism is not a benign ideology.

Rich_cb wrote:

That Communism is not a benign ideology.

What specific part of the ideology do you have issues with?

Whilst modern communism is relatively new (i.e. Marxism), the principles have been put into practise in many religious institutions such as monasteries for a long time. Certainly, prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were organised around collective ownership and they didn't have parasitic landlords demanding rent for imaginary possessed land.

The issue I have is that, at a state level, it appears impossible to implement the ideology without committing atrocities. Removing large amounts of personal property without resorting to significant violence seems impossible.

The advantage of prehistory is that we don't really have strong evidence of how things were actually organised, so we can project whatever we want onto that era.

Inter tribal warfare is a thread that runs through human history so the idea that it wasn't a feature in pre-history seems a bit far fetched.

Rich_cb wrote:

The issue I have is that, at a state level, it appears impossible to implement the ideology without committing atrocities. Removing large amounts of personal property without resorting to significant violence seems impossible. The advantage of prehistory is that we don't really have strong evidence of how things were actually organised, so we can project whatever we want onto that era. Inter tribal warfare is a thread that runs through human history so the idea that it wasn't a feature in pre-history seems a bit far fetched.

How convenient - just ignore all the atrocities that are committed by far-right states and only see a problem with communism. Honestly, I'm bored with your whataboutism and continual justification and simping for the evil Tories, who delight in ensuring that only their mates benefit.

You do realise that Capitalism is about to render huge swathes of our planet uninhabitable, right? As long as your Tory mates are making money, then I expect you're okay with that, like you're okay with them exploring for more oil to dig out of the ground.

FFS.

It's not a binary choice between far right and communism is it.

We have to compare communism as a system to liberal democracy as a system.

Communism as a system results in atrocities. Anyone who promotes or defends communism as an alternative to democracy must account for that.

I've yet to see you do that.

Communism has a far worse environmental track record than capitalism does. I dread to think what state the environment would be in had communism won the cold war.

I believe that if we have to use fossil fuels we should choose the least harmful versions.

We are nowhere near ready to run our society without fossil fuels so the least bad option is fossil fuels with the lowest carbon footprint.

You want to continue using fossil fuels with carbon footprints 2-3 times higher than available alternatives and then portray my position as environmentally damaging. It's laughable.

Rich_cb wrote:

That Communism is not a benign ideology.

It is not, or has not been from those who have claimed to practice it at least (we can argue until the cows come home as to whether they were actually communists). However nor is fascism. The trouble is that you appear to believe that the atrocities of the very far left in terms of dictatorial communism invalidate any left wing movement, even moderate socialism, whereas apparently the atrocities of the far right in terms of dictatorial fascism don't invalidate the moderate right at all. More than a whiff of hypocrisy about that.

No. You've just made that up.

Rich_cb wrote:

No. You've just made that up.

What, exactly?

Rendel Harris wrote:

The trouble is that you appear to believe that the atrocities of the very far left in terms of dictatorial communism invalidate any left wing movement, even moderate socialism

I don't think I've ever said that.

I'm sure with your -photographic memory- you can tell me exactly which of my posts you based that erroneous conclusion on?

Rendel Harris wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.

So have all far right/fascist states, do you have any point apart from whataboutery?

I think he's trying to link communism and authoritarianism together. There's certainly issues with trying to centralise control of resources and it's a non-trivial problem - money is a very effective way to allocate resources. However, there's major intrinsic problems with Capitalism - without strict governmental controls, you allow unrestricted growth of the robber-barons and their power increases exponentially at the expense of the people that actually do and create things. This is the modern curse of the billionaires that hoard wealth seemingly just to ensure that other people suffer. It's inherent in Capitalism that the divide between the rich and poor will always get wider and unfortunately, wars are inevitable due to the amount of money involved and the profits that a small minority will make from people's suffering.

Rich_cb wrote:

I'm not aware of any 20th century democracies that committed Communist level atrocities against their own citizens?

You're right, of course, that democracies have still engaged in awful behaviour oth at home and abroad but that's not a fundamental feature of a democracy, plenty of democracies don't.

All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.

Not wanting whataboutery - and I'm quite happy to remain under the devil I know - but I'm not sure a *lack* of violence is a fundamental feature of democracy either!

I'd certainly agree that there are no shortage of explicit bloodthirsty (or showing indifference of interest in human suffering) quotes available from the likes of Lenin and Mao.

I don't see anything particular to stop any state getting heavy-handed when it feels insecure, or if you're in the way of some powerful functionary. Just stop paying tax, or try to secede!

We may just debate definitions again but to your first point - the Nazis emerged from democracy and democratically won the largest number of seats in the Parliament (before seizing power, not being democrats...). They notably killed a large chunk of their own population. Perhaps it might be fair to say that democracies are maybe not as stable as we might hope? (Rwanda being another notable example here - the killing happened after it had reverted to a dictatorship though)?

South Africa - democracy (but only if you were white).

The UK - orders of magnitude below a Soviet Union but large scale human rights abuses? Absolutely, just less locally or less directly. Hence why we're now compensating eg. people now no longer "ours" in Kenya. (Perhaps we'll be doing similar in Iraq / Afghanistan in the future? )

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-22800194

Democracies are not, by any stretch, perfect but they're better than every alternative.

Genuine liberal democracies with full suffrage are a relatively recent phenomenon but they have a good track record on human rights relative to the alternatives.

The danger of democracy being overthrown is ever present. Trump being the most infamous recent example in, probably, the world's most robust democracy.

The UK with its unwritten constitution and convoluted conventions is, on paper at least, quite vulnerable. The post referendum shenanigans, on both sides, exposed many people to that fragility for the first time.

Trump was a useful reminder not just that any democracy is fragile. That showed there aren't hard and fast lines between "freer, liberal" places and the other types. Just a continuum of better or worse features. Of course once you get far enough it probably looks like a qualitative difference!

Ultimately Trump also showed that the system did work there to maintain itself. Unfortunately illiberal places and regimes can also be stable!

Corbyn was never personally accused of, or found guilty of, antisemitism. If he had been, he would surely have been expelled from the Labour Party a long time ago. He did not break any party rules which is why it was not possible to expel him from the party until v recently (when he declared he would stand against the Labour candidate for Islington). He did say that the EHRC report overstated the problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party. As the EHRC acknowledged, it is not antisemitic to question the extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Get your facts right first. 

Corbyn was not an antisemite of course.

He just happened to do lots of things in exactly the same way an antisemite would have.

He also, coincidentally I'm sure, oversaw a terrifying increase in antisemitism within the Labour party whilst he was leader.

Which is also exactly what we would have expected to happen if he was, himself, an antisemite.

Which he obviously isn't.

Um - isn't it a question of degree and what you do with that?  The degree to which people follow human traits (or encourage them in others) - and what that leads to - is quite important!  (No shortage of historical examples).

You're quite right, it's not specifically party political - and some of these posts are neatly self-contradicting.

However I think it's fair to ask at any given point are there any groups especially indulging in this - or encouraging it in others as a means to an end?

I think all of society is guilty of it to some degree.

In my opinion, those on the left seem to be the most blind to their own hatred but I'm sure I'm biased.

Rich_cb wrote:

I think all of society is guilty of it to some degree. In my opinion, those on the left seem to be the most blind to their own hatred but I'm sure I'm biased.

Nice - but I guess as framed this question is inherently tempting this kind of answer.  Hence my note about degree.  However that is also probably a doomed avenue because "who judges?" and it's relative ("your team do it far more than my team").

So back to "what action this leads to".

They hanged the kulaks* (well - deported and/or shot, it seems).  Other minorities / out-groups also clearly have it worse *in general* (normally with notable exceptions).

At a much more trivial level I have had some abuse and things thrown at me when cycling.  Of course perhaps it wasn't the bike, could have been random agression or maybe my taste in clothing (not normally "cycling" gear) is triggering for some?

* There is something to your note about a "constructed group" - because e.g. changing your race is not normally an option.  However that argument only goes so far; normally the definition is made by the majority / oppressor anyway and is often effectively arbitrary.  And once you've been labelled ("I know you - you're from a purple family") it may be very difficult to remove the label.

Rich_cb wrote:

I think all of society is guilty of it to some degree. In my opinion, those on the left seem to be the most blind to their own hatred but I'm sure I'm biased.

No, you're wrong Rich_cb, those on the left are all loving and hatred is an unknown concept to them. Apparently. 

Are organised crime gangs or people traffickers an outgroup?
So if I hate them, I'm somehow wrong.

Seems you can just say 'oh you are making them an outgroup' no matter what this group do, say or endorse. There's no line to cross.

Hirsute wrote:

Are organised crime gangs or people traffickers an outgroup? So if I hate them, I'm somehow wrong. Seems you can just say 'oh you are making them an outgroup' no matter what this group do, say or endorse. There's no line to cross.

Exactly - Rich_cb is trying to act like Tories are the victims here. It's a common right-wing ploy to go on the defensive and accuse others of doing what they themselves are doing.

It's like in the U.S. where right wing politicians accuse transgendered people of abusing children, though the vast majority of child abuse is carried out by non-transgendered people in positions of power (e.g. police, clergy, coaches etc).