I know it's not fashionable anymore to see the world through the prism of class and critics, and you're clearly one of them, seem to spit their most poisonous venom at those that do.
I don't find that strange, you strike me as a classic liberal, a hybrid with bolted on new one worldism, but a liberal nonetheless, but this is only guess work of course, despite a fine political heritage liberals defy definition, they're a moving feast, they seem to hold whatever opinions they deem liberal at any one time, then you blink and they've changed. For most of the last century liberalism seemed to consist of not much more than being nice and not beastly and definitely not being Labour or Conservative.
Liberals in my experience always seem to have an aversion to anyone who thinks that people might have common cause, that life chances and the world we live in are very much dictated by circumstances beyond our control, paramount among them the circumstances of our birth.
Liberals refuse to acknowledge that power, who holds it and to what end and how that power is wielded under an economic system we all live under, but rarely shape, is the defining issue in society. This model directly impacts our ability to put a roof over our head and put food on the table and our role in this system is more important than race, gender or any other defining characteristic. And because you refuse to acknowledge that it makes your pronouncements meaningless That is not a put down, it is the sole reason why liberals and the left, who share so much in common never make common cause, and if you were looking for a reason why the right always wins that is it.
If history can be summed up at all it is a struggle for power....Tribes, regions, between countries and a more localised struggle between those that have power and those that don't within the nation state, unless you're a Marxist dreamer of course and believe in the global struggle of the working class or some right wing conspiracy theorist in to the illuminati or some racist Jewish conspiracy nonsense.
I believe the things I do not because I'm a left wing zealot, I'm a social democrat, no Marxist Nirvana for me, I accept that capitalism is the modus operandi, a great generator of wealth but one that hoards too much in the hands of the few. Everything around me tells me this is true, in my daily life and in the things that have been. The Brexit referendum was but a blip, where true zealots took the reins, lied through their teeth and steered this country very close to the cliff edge and in so doing jeopardised the interests of those that hold power, so now Davis, Johnson, Fox and the re-born convert May are back peddling to appease them. As for the little people, the 52%, the 48%, you, me, mcfc1632, we don't mean jack shit in this process.
You've done it again!
Your post essentially says:
I think you belong to this group
So here's the things I don't like about this group.
Which is all perfectly fine but in no way addresses me, my thought or my views. That's literally the definition of a strawman - you've built an argument against a familiar foe of yours in "liberals" then gone off on a point talking about what you don't like about them. Then had one sentence basically saying "you strike me as a liberal" like that all ties it up nicely in a bow.
One of the myriad of things that you, Len and MagicPole are doing here which is irritating is constantly building these strawmen. You're talking about badly and ill-defined groups as if there's a cohesive or consistent set of beliefs about them and it's nonsense. Worse than that, it's intellectual barbarism no different from the Daily Mail and their tirades on "immigrants" or "refugees" who seek to dehumanise opposition. My problem with you people, and it's not just you people to be fair but I target you guys because at least two of you should know better in this regard, is that entire swathes of your argument seek to simplify people into stereotype so you can argue against the stereotype rather than directly take on people's point. Like Len talking about "getting drunk, waiting for the Brexiteers to show up", it's fucking cringeworthy and makes me think that he's probably about 15.
To summate this, it's impossible to debate Brexit with you or the few listed. It's impossible to debate this because
you don't even acknowledge the validity of the other side's arguments and often you don't even recognise them as arguments at all. The Leave campaign has some good arguments for it; good, logical, predictive arguments based on best practices of Governmental ethics and economics. But you attempt to belittle the entire Leave campaign's argument because accepting it on equal footing and then arguing that your way is better is something you three seem incapable of doing. In my experience, people who can't debate on equal grounds usually can't do so because they understand that they'll lose.
Seems as you asked (or rather, you didn't), I'm not adverse to being called a classic liberal though the shoes don't fit. You've confused my middle ground position with my actual position, I'm a federal socialist who will settle for classic liberalism in today's world as a step forward. In fact I'm barely qualified as a liberal if the identity politics and racism as a power structure movements are what new wave liberalism looks like. First and foremost I'm a pragmatist who believes that while we should attempt to move our philosophical aims forward, we should never do so at the cost of democracy nor am I scared to acknowledge the hard right or the hard left and invite them to the speaking table. Politics is SUPPOSED to be a broad church, that's the entire point. If racists exist in society then racists should have a say proportional to that support. Again, I'm confident enough in the sensibilities of left wing messages to convince the people on even ground against the Jihadists and the racists and the Marxists and everybody else and if I fail to do so, I blame myself and wonder how I lost the ability to strike a chord rather than insulting tens of millions of people and calling them too stupid to understand my ethically superior point of view.
I don't view the world or history through the lens of various systems of power or oppression because I don't think the evidence backs this up or more accurately, an alternative view is better supported. The entirety of human history can be written as increasing systems of co-operation to achieve goals with power structures introduced and maintained then wiped out as the people decide to. But the effects of who was the King of England in 1300 had little to no effect on the average person in 1300, the concentration of great power structures has come since the industrial and technological revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is mainly a problem with how history is taught - so called "Great Man" history misses most of the human experience and the events are very often inconsequential to life. What they miss with these Kings and Queens and Sheriffs and Barons is that they existed right up until the people decided that they didn't want them to exist any more and then they didn't. Power structures are administratively useful which benefits everybody and as soon as the majority of the people decided that they were no longer as useful as they were they went away.
This isn't on a definitive timescale obviously and it doesn't cover all circumstances - colonialism for example doesn't fit into this because there was a technological advantage between the powerful and the powerless which tipped the balance. Technology can be used for fascism as easily as it can be used to destroy it which is why technological equality across the world is a hugely important goal, which a one world administrative system would actual solve but I'm moving into far territory again.
I was reading a book a few years back regarding how people's thoughts are shaped psychologically. There was an idea that I've gravitated towards (if you forgive the pun), that human thought and self-image is a bit like a Solar System. You have all of these different planets of ethics; some big and massive and full of hot air like Jupiter, some small and barren and cold like a comet, some full of life and wonderment like the Earth. But all of these orbit the unfailing central mechanism that is your Sun. The sole constant in your Solar System that never moves, never wavers and around every other opinion is shaped and orbits. My "Sun" is that people are rational and kind beings unless otherwise directed by internal or external forces. I don't look at babies and think that they're evil, I see a blank slate who is naturally co-operative and instinctively kind. I also think that most adults are rational, compassionate and want what is best for them, their families, their communities, their countries and their species in that order.
One of the things that I find distasteful here is that many of your views counteract that. You talk about "Brexiteers" like they're aliens or inferior to you. You (maybe not you directly now that I think about it but certainly one of those that I mentioned) talk about the democratic process like it's an inconvenience and people cannot be trusted to vote for the things that you want them to vote for so we should try to negate that somehow. That's fascistic as fuck and nobody ever seems to notice, especially as you're the main person that should be calling that out as a social democrat. When was the last time you pulled out people on "your side" about this stuff? You don't as a rule, and this is why I called you a zealot. I'm currently pissing people off in the Trump thread by calling out their bullshit, the nonsense in the media and trying to remain calm and rational rather than running off into drama and zealotry; people who are "on my side". I imagine we have very similar voting records and beliefs but I call out you even though you're "on my side" politically. Because my side is accuracy and rationality and that doesn't matter if you're Tommy Robinson or Al-Baghadi or Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May. As long as you're trying to do that you're on "my side".
Because picking opinions ahead of time based on locality to your current opinions is really a very bad way of forming them.
