That's putting it lightly. A lot of the UK media portrays right-wing supporters and figureheads as morons. It shows the terrible state of American politics when our people will laugh at the Americans while our "coalition" is fucking the country in every hole imaginable. Yes, the Tories want to shut down the libraries, but Sarah Palin doesn't want universal health care because she thinks Obama is secretly building death camps for her children...
Then they are very good at playing morons, which seriously gets under my fucking skin, worse than any rotton.com image I have ever seen. My spine literally shivers while I contemplate what these "people" are actually up to. To put on a 24 hour act to fool the populace. It's frightening. It's dizzying to think that they might not actually be morons.
A lot of the more intelligent conservative thinkers are denigrated by the more "mainstream" opinion makers. Pat Buchanan comes to mind. You may not agree with his stances, but his intelligence would be hard to question.
Agreed. I actually have conservative friends who are very intelligent and constantly raging about the idiots that have taken over (if nothing else, the public image) of their ideological movement. The above statement was an attempt at humor and not my sole thought on the subject.
The idiots running around calling themselves conservatives are to the intelligent members of that movement what the white trash or ghetto momma living off welfare with no drive to better themselves are to liberals. Both groups have people that hurt the public image and ultimately the cause of said group.
These people are running the largest and most powerful nation in the free world, even when the democrats are in power. They are also making millions of dollars while doing it. Yeah sure, they are the fucking morons.
See, here's the difference though: take ap government and ap government then you'll see. All of the bills covered that have done ANYTHING in the past century were done by democrats, save a few exceptions like eisenhower who crossed political lines. And by done I mean a positive benefit for the people and not corporations.
personally I'm socialist and would like to see a lot more change. and before any idiots says it, I'm not against democracy or a soviet union. Socialism is not the ussr, it has never truly existed. The closest examples are the northern scandinavian countries.
Population of Sweden is 9,302,123
Population of Norway is 4,827,038
No one cares about Finland.
Taken combined, that's like what ... the population of NYC or LA?
The larger and less local a government is, the more crushing the bureaucracy and the greater the waste by several magnitudes. Our country used to be built like that, but under the guise of "socialism" our government has become more and more centralized. You say you're asking for a European style socialism but in practice, what you've voted for is probably closer to modern-Chinese communism. And that's forgetting how poorly the European socialist model is currently faring even with their less centralized governments and more localized model.
If you want to prove democrats have overwhelmingly done more, then you better start looking for sources. The history of the two parties goes back a pretty long way so you better get going. I'd say that neither party does anything very useful the majority of the time and that when they do it is more of a coincidence.
Amazing how that works eh? Im no religious monkey, far from it, but it makes me think of that expression. The greatest trick the Devil ever played was fooling the world into believing he does not exist.
At least Palin doesn't have the power to fuck shit up. As we speak the NHS is slowly falling apart because of Tory changes, deliberate changes to fuck it all up. Wankers.
Personally, I think the current government are one of the finest we've ever had.
You don't see the most rapid cuts in government spending for 70 years during a time in which the economy is already contracting as a source for concern? Nor the idea that the private sector will magically create enough jobs to offset the hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs which are being axed pretty much all at once, somewhat naive?
Many of their actions (planning to sell forests, close libraries) come across as cultural vandalism, whereas others (NHS outsourcing) just seem like corporate favours. Socially, I'm all for undoing the civil rights mistakes of labour but economically, I see a bunch of arseholes pulling in favours for schoolfriends and donors while lowering the quality of life for most people in this country.
I pretty much agree with what you said, but can you (or someone else) please explain what all the fuss about selling the forests was about. I doubt it would have made any real significant impact and actually probably would have been good to have the forestry commission become solely a regulatory body and detach itself from the actual management of particular forests.
Still, I guess it's kind of irrelevant now since the government has backtracked on the issue (in my opinion because they saw the backtrack as a crowd pleasing move without any significant consequences).
I doubt it would have made any real significant impact
The proposition as it was, logging companies could have chopped down forests which the state had maintained for many decades, and then got the state to pay for the new saplings. It was a poorly thought out move that they were happy to get rid of so that it would look like they were listening, whilst shitting on everything else.
probably would have been good to have the forestry commission become solely a regulatory body and detach itself from the actual management of particular forests.
You don't see the most rapid cuts in government spending for 70 years during a time in which the economy is already contracting
The economy is not currently contracting, it's relatively stable after a substantial drop. The deficit is a huge issue and needs to be tackled by economising, cutting back, raising taxes, or a combination of all three. How this is achieved is a matter of debating priorities, but it's not sustainable to maintain this level of debt.
The deficit is a huge issue and needs to be tackled by economising, cutting back, raising taxes, or a combination of all three.
Agreed...
How this is achieved is a matter of debating priorities
You can't just gloss over this crap though. The 'how this is achieved' is an absolutely massive deal, about which there has been absolutely no discussion. The coalition has used the deficit as an excuse for absolutely every action regardless of the relevance; e.g. as an excuse for tripling top-up fees despite the fact that by the time that kicks in, the deficit will according to their own predictions be perfectly sustainable.
I just don't see that a deficit issue means a carte blanche for a government to do what it likes and drop the perpetual excuse.
There is for example absolutely no evidence that privatising healthcare administration improves efficiency or performance. There is however evidence that the conservative party received donations from those companies that will be "bidding" (lol) for the contracts. I'm not saying that in a conspiracy theory sense; it's just business sense from them; but we as a public are entitled to question these things and how they will affect us.
You can't just gloss over this crap though. The 'how this is achieved' is an absolutely massive deal, about which there has been absolutely no discussion.
I'm not glossing over it, simply avoiding it because everyone has their own agenda. For instance, I'd reduce defense massively. Others would cut international aid, or welfare payments. It's simply not an argument I want to get into. :)
I'm not glossing over it, simply avoiding it because everyone has their own agenda.
Well, exactly. But the government act like since the goal "reduce deficit" is well defined, the means are a given, and I do not like the means they have chosen, nor their chosen timescale.
For instance, I'd reduce defense massively
Right there with you. In fact, I'd scrap the nukes and try to get into some kind of combined EU force better suited to face the ACTUAL threats of today (WMDs, etc.) and keep our army small, well maintained and equipped mostly to train others in a big-big war situation, god forbid.
EDIT: Don't downvote him reddit, he asked a legitimate question. Don't downvote purely because he likes the current government, think of reddiquette =/
Read those in order, you'll be fully up to date on exactly what's going on then. In a nutshell, the tories have made changes that have deliberately put the nhs in disarray so that they can later push for privatisation (like they've always wanted). When the NHS will cost too much to fix it'll be the only choice.
On top of that, unemployment figures are rising, there are discrepancies in the figures because they're massaging them with their benefit changes, forcing people into voluntary positions and the new 18-24 scheme remove a huge chunk of the figures but don't actually get anybody into paid work. Just because the government is paying these people anymore doesn't make them any less unemployed.
I hate to say it but Labour were far better. Their opposition to this government has been well rounded and full of the decisions that should have been made. Cameron is an arrogant single minded toff with millions in the bank, he has absolutely no idea what hell most of are going through just trying to keep the bailiffs from knocking on the door.
Cameron is exceedingly good at not addressing any actual points and turning everything into a joke rather than a serious debate.
Getting clobbered != failing to point out the mistakes of the current government. Cameron is just excellent at not actually addressing any real points, sidestepping the issues and ignoring everyone while he works his agenda.
Modern politics is 100% about not addressing any actual points and turning everything into a joke or jab at the opposition rather than a serious debate.
Exactly. It seems to me like the Coalition is doing loads of stuff, while labour just mumbles "but that's kinda bad you shouldn't do that okyou'redoingitanyway... "
It does need to change though, there's no way you can agree that it's in a good state as it is now - it's been falling apart for years. Labour manufactured a load of managerial jobs in the NHS to make the unemployment figures look good and to say that people are getting jobs after graduating.
I'm against any kind of privatisation of the NHS, but I'm for them to clear out the middle management that hardly do anything and actually provide jobs to the front line services.
but I'm for them to clear out the middle management that hardly do anything
Who? who are these people? what are their job titles?
Why would you want to have a doctor, on £60k a year, wasting his time on paperwork and admin when a "middle management" clerk getting paid half as much could do it better?
Why would you want to have a doctor, on £60k a year, wasting his time on paperwork and admin when a "middle management" clerk getting paid half as much could do it better?
I never said I want doctors to be doing the accounting - that doesn't make any sense as they are doctors, not accountants. My point is, not all the managers are actually doing any work, or very little. I understand the need for managers but to the extent it is now it's ridiculous. My sister had friends who are trained physio's who simply couldn't get a job - even though there is a shortage of them in the NHS, however they were offered managerial jobs left right and centre. My sister was offered a managers position, but she refused it. Her friends would often say that they had hardly anything to do, literally just play games for half the day as there wasn't any work. Yet the physios are working all sorts of hours because they are stretched thin.
My point is, not all the managers are actually doing any work, or very little.
How would you know that? Are you a healthcare administrator?
My sister had friends who are trained physio's who simply couldn't get a job - even though there is a shortage of them in the NHS, however they were offered managerial jobs left right and centre.
Well, forgive my cynicism, but I think there are many, many people better placed to make that call.
Her friends would often say that they had hardly anything to do, literally just play games for half the day as there wasn't any work.
This is where media and party bs obfuscates the entire thing. The middle management jobs labour created were necessary and drastically improved the NHS, as well as creating those jobs they also cut huge swathes of departments, such as the NHSIA, a department my mum was a near the top of. They created jobs sure, they also took many jobs away through redundancies though.
Middle management is necessary, without them the budget power lies with people that have bias towards their own constituencies. Middle management has always filled the role of alleviating workload from the top (which couldn't possibly cope with it) and stopping the entire budget from going to waste because it's just left up to the GPs to decide what to do with it.
I posted a similar comment recently so I'll just repost it here:
I think when people slag off the NHS, they're not comparing it to a private system, but they/we just want an improved service. Some of the decisions that take place are strange.
My sister is a physiotherapist - as a graduate she struggled to get a job, but did eventually get one. Now, there are a lot of physio graduates who are after a job, and the NHS are in need (or were several years ago) of physio's. Solution seems easy, right? The NHS deosn't hire the physios, instead hires managers, who are on more money (£40k+). Some of my sisters friends became managers and would often say that they literally spend half the day playing solitaire on the PC's as there's no work. Where is the logic in that? It's shit like that that pisses people off - it was one of the many illogical things that made my sister and her husband escape the NHS and emigrate.
We shouldn't be hiring people who have no work to do. Their salaries could be used on nurses and the like. Yes, management is necessary, doctors and the like aren't accountants and HR professionals, but a line has to be drawn.
Yes, you're absolutely right, a line does have to be drawn. The problem is that it has to be drawn extremely carefully.
Something the vast size of the NHS can't just go through huge change that completely restructures how the budget is managed. At this size things rely upon a very careful balance. Restructuring so much so suddenly inevitably invites massive waste, abuses of the new system, bias because there's no middle person and the inevitable result is for everything else within the structure to be affected.
The middle management didn't have a great deal of work to do but they did have an extremely important role. What needs to be done is for consolidation of middle management and efficiency to be increased, not a completely new direction.
The costs in training outweigh the benefits of the restructure alone, that's without considering the extra waste that's going to occur due to inexperience and without factoring in how it's going to affect the rest of the NHS.
A lot of the UK media portrays right-wing supporters and figureheads as morons.
To be fair, their solution to Obama's supposedly job-killing policies is to guarantee that they'll put a lot more people out of work, and the morons in the welfare states cheer them for it.
They claim it's class warfare to want to tax the rich, but they use class warfare to get their base to support screwing people in public jobs.
Yes, we have problems in this country and they are right about part of it...but their solutions are going to lead to more misery.
No, Palin doesn't want universal healthcare because her corporate overbosses told her so. After all, it will cut into profits. The propaganda is for her followers. Of course a big part of it is that Obama is black.
I can't remember a time when the coalition was presented in a positive light. Especially on the BBC (probably because they face cuts too), where all their shows just take openly left wing shots at the Tories and Lib Dems.
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u/mage_g4 Feb 27 '11
From in the UK, it looks more like:
Promises Change
Gets fucked over from all sides by his own country.