How Have You Changed Politically In The Past 10 Years?

[Onyx2]

I was really keen on the LibDems getting a shot in power. Then they did.

[Loki]

I was really keen on the LibDems getting a shot in power. Then they did.

 

The whole point of everything they did was so they'd get a shot at voting reform. Surely a public, increasingly disenfranchised by the system, and embracing the concept of consensus, coalition politics for the first time, would vote to really shake things up and allow smaller parties like the Greens to start to exert influence?

 

But no.

 

So the Lib Dems are now trying to perform European style coalition politics in a system completely not designed for them. For what it's worth, I think they've done a lot to mitigate what would otherwise have been a hugely ideological and destructive Tory government. What they did wrong though, in the early days, was not make their internal opposition visible enough. It's much more obvious now where the Lib Dems have had influence. But we the public, and the media, aren't used to analysing stuff like that, we like nice simple ideological positions.

 

PITCOS had it spot on. The real problem lies with the great British public, who aren't motivated enough to enact change as when it comes to putting their X in the box, they usually vote for whatever benefits their own personal interests that month.

[Endorphin]

I have changed in that I've just become more cynical and apolitical. I avoid any proper news these days, it only ever makes you angry or depressed. Would much rather close my ears to it all and concentrate on sport, music, film etc instead of wasting my time worrying about politicians who will always be liars, corrupt, short sighted, plain imbecilic or simply ineffective.

 

I've come to realise you can't change much with the world really, especially with politics, so you might as well concentrate on changing yourself.

[Endorphin]

When I was doing my Politics A-Level they taught us that people tend to become more right wing as they get older,

 

A lot of this is just personal interest though. People usually gain wealth and status as they age, and are more likely to vote for a party who looks after those things.

 

I have an relative who was really political active in hid youth, believing helping the poor and vulnerable, creating opportunities for the disadvantaged, looking after the planet etc. He would always vote for the Green Party of for liberal left wing parties. These days he is 45, and has recently retired and sold his businesses for a large sum. Now the fucker votes Conservative, trying to justify their horrible policies. Why? Because they help wealthy people, a bracket that now includes him.

 

So much for idealism.

[King Coconut]

Are you genuinely saying that all members of the Conservative party are unreasonable people with no access to fair information and actual facts?

 

Not at all. You said you could demonstrate how his post was incorrect but didn't.

Well I sort of did. And you sort of agreed.

[Dead Mike]

You demonstrated nothing, you asked me a question & I replied.

[The King Of Swing]

Recent news that MP's are getting a massive pay increase has finished me off politically.

[CavemanLynn]

The older I get and the more I see and experience, the more I find myself thinking people really can't be trusted to look after themselves and not be shits to each other, and therefore we should all be thrown under the yoke of a totalitarian dictatorship. As long as it's mine.

[King Coconut]

You demonstrated nothing, you asked me a question & I replied.

If the existence of an entire political party which contradicts Vice's statement doesn't demonstrate its fallaciousness, I don't know what will, and that's always an issue with political discussion. People believe what they believe and everything else is bollocks.

 

On a personal level, I'm also an exception to Vice's rule. My parents had no interest in politics on religious grounds, so I was essentially given carte blanche on that front. No preconceptions or prejudices whatsoever. As an unreasonable, ill-informed teenager I was borderline Marxist but the more I learned, the more I veered to the center and eventually, mildly to the right. When I say 'the more I learned' I actually mean the more I was exposed to 'adequate and fair information and actual facts', which also demonstrates my point.

[Loki]

Recent news that MP's are getting a massive pay increase has finished me off politically.

 

See, that's what I mean about simplistic views in the media and generally.

 

The story here is actually this: Parliament set up an independent body to look into MPs pay and make recommendations. One of the things they were tasked with was cleaning up the whole mess around expenses etc. One of the reasons MPs took so much liberties with their expenses was that it was a way of topping up their pay.

 

Now, you or I might think that

[Onyx2]

I was really keen on the LibDems getting a shot in power. Then they did.

 

The whole point of everything they did was so they'd get a shot at voting reform.

 

The voting system not being reformed is still bitterly disappointing. Unfortunately the Conservative funded No campaign overwhelmed the vote. It'll be decades before we get another chance like that.

 

I think they've done a lot to mitigate what would otherwise have been a hugely ideological and destructive Tory government.

 

Yes you're right and as you go on to say they haven't shouted loud enough about these victories. The party still has some of the best politicians though in Vince Cable, Simon Hughes and others but Clegg has proven ineffective and untrustworthy.

 

Voting nationally for people that actually think about these things is pointless now. It's a clich

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I now genuinely despair about the country that we are becoming politically. Things like this no longer suprise me

 

Stop reading the Daily Mail and learn something

 

My vote will never count I live in a constituency where the previous MP had his moat cleaned at our expense, and to punish the Tories the voters gave his succesor a larger majority.

 

I am now a member of 38 Degrees and UK Uncut and have been on protests for both.

[gary v1]

Public perception being wrong is a big thing. Someone told me recently that there were more people in Scotland claiming benefits than are working. I thought this wasn't surprising given the state pension, child benefit, tax credits as well as JSA and so on but turns out they meant just the out of work benefits. I said I thought this would be bollocks and having subsequently checked it turns out there's less than 500k on 'workless' benefits and 2.5m in employment.

 

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statisti...endWorklessness

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/pol...0000-x.20832473

 

I'll have to remember to tell said person they were talking bollocks. They were using this as a reason not to vote for independence. It's certainly sad that the media (daily mail) give the picture that everyone's on benefits/an immigrant/violent criminal and that people will then believe ridiculous stats because of this without checking them.

[Vice]

You demonstrated nothing, you asked me a question & I replied.

If the existence of an entire political party which contradicts Vice's statement doesn't demonstrate its fallaciousness, I don't know what will, and that's always an issue with political discussion. People believe what they believe and everything else is bollocks.

 

The Tories aren't a reasonable party. Wanting to chip away at human rights, and their trickle-down economics, wider class warfare and widespread homophobia are not reasonable, sensible, informed stances, based on facts. It's just a really sinister 'fuck everyone else' agenda. And the people who vote Tory and who aren't filthy rich and powerful obviously aren't acting on fair information, actual facts and rationality, because they're voting against their own interests. It takes misinformation and propaganda to pull that off.

 

Look at anything from torture, drone strikes, illegal wars, gay marriage, tax, the drug war, regulation, human rights, civil liberties, religion, race and reproductive rights. Once you approach these issues with compassion, fair information and facts and you're a sensible person, you'll end up on the left.

 

It takes propaganda and/or narrow-mindedness to be in favour of illegal wars, extrajudicial killings, indefinite detention without trial, showering the rich with money, privatisation of health, erosion of human rights, under-regulating the oil, gas, banking and food industries, homophobia, xenophobia, continuing the drug war as practiced, denial of evolution and climate change, redefining rape, opposing abortion entirely, favouring one particular religion, racially discriminatory laws (see how appalling the US's mainstream conservatives, are on the last few), and more. Lay the spectrum out in front of you. And without going into the utter extremes of either side, tell me which side better represents fair, sensible, well-informed opinion. Tell me how homophobia is more sensible than gay rights, torture and Gitmo than the rule of law, trickle-down economics than closing loopholes and raising the top rate of tax, deregulation than environmental protection, religiosity than secularism. They just aren't.

 

The really shameful thing is that politics has shifted to the right, so the right is especially ghastly, and the left doesn't get much real representation.

[King Coconut]

I didn't say they were a reasonable party and I certainly didn't say that everyone who votes for them is reasonable. I was just trying to point out that believing that anyone who doesn't share your political view is unreasonable and ill-informed is, ironically, unreasonable and ill-informed.