• 10 Posts
  • 178 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • You have missed the point completely. UK isn’t good but even given how bad you think it is, doesn’t tolerate the slurs mentioned (the whole point of the post). I speak about it because I live here and I’m shocked people even debating that these words are fine.

    What miraculous country are you from that is so free from racism?

    In a nutshell, I’ve said these words not cool here and your contribution is effectively “your racist country is so bad. Don’t talk”. Not the most helpful contribution ever. Who hurt you?


  • UK did some dark shit in the past. No debate.

    Brexit is a whole different topic. Norway isn’t part of the EU, does that mean they are racist? You can hopefully see how weak that point was. Part of the debate was about sovereignty and economic decline. Whether valid, your implication that because 17m voted for that, they are all racist, is wholly wrong, shallow and child like black and white thinking. Some are, yes. I do know folks from right or left year voted for it who don’t have a racist bone in their body. You have to be able to handle nuanced debates though.

    You’ve completely changed the topic from slurs and what isn’t acceptable to a whole piece on racism and I think every country can do an awful lot more to improve, UK included. The point was, slurs in there that some are finding acceptable in other countries isn’t here. You’d get banned from football games for them or fired from jobs.

    If you just want to go down the “UK all bad!” You can carry on the whatabouttery/kitchen sinking on your own to make yourself feel better to protect your country and feed that nationalist indignation you got going on. If you want to go back to discussing slurs and acceptability, happy to welcome you back to the debate.




  • Here in the uk , the P word is probably the most offensive word you could use against a person of Indian descent. Up there with the n word. removed (f word) is also probably the most offensive slur you can use in reference to gay people. It’s correct that they banned them.

    Guessing you’re from America where being offensive is cool. Historically people used to justify the n word based on the origins rather than the highly offensive connotations.

    UK ain’t woke, just has some acceptance that people from different backgrounds have some value rather than pandering to grumpy white folk who care about nothing but themselves and how inconvenient it is to possibly consider other words.




  • Some Fillipino’s I’ve talked to have commented that drug problems in their area disappeared but used to be pretty horrible.

    I’m not one to defend crimes against human’s, but one cannot discount the level of criminality and the impact it was already having on people’s lives. Whether the tactics were fair or decent is one thing, but another is, did it work? Did it solve a serious problem the country was grappling with? You only have to look at Mexico to realise that if you don’t deal with these things, the level of murder and suffering often skyrockets.








  • In what sense are you using AES? Are you referring to the soviet republic and unironically?

    My initial vibes here is this place is mostly soviet supporting communists pretending to be socialists. Anything other than glowing praise of communism is showered in down votes. That’s cool and all, but it feels a bit too echo chamber for my liking.

    I always assumed the goal was to bring people with you, rather than go after any unpure view. Maybe arguing with libs online too long has clouded the goal of furthering class consciousness.



  • This is assuming you need a national political party. In the UK we have a population of 70m, and MPs represent seats of 60k. District councils could represent around 100k people, and county ones could cover 500k. If you localise power so that all decision making for an area sits with the councils running areas of 100k, then you don’t need a nationwide party, a local party could gain a foothold and run an area. If that party is setup, so representatives can easily be voted out or replaced. For example open selection and you have to campaign to represent your local party again every term then the power sits with the members of that local party rather than a national party.

    Ultimately, a system can exist for this, but it doesn’t mean that a system does exist or runs effectively in the world at present. Getting that system set up and running is a whole separate problem.

    You did cover this, and the thing you suggest about expertise and continuity and problems that can be solved. Term length (and how many seats change each term can solve the latter), while expertise would likely be a solution that can be taken up by think tanks, and there are good ones, and dreadful ones. Legislation on transparency of funding and ownership would be key with that. Secondly health groups, co-operatives can form, that can be paid by councils for their expertise, which can build credibility and hire specialists.

    I’m not saying any of this is easy, or would be without contest, but it is very possible, and while if you centre power in the hands of the few, you create elites, if you distribute that power, you can solve the problem around wealth and corruption. A system can be set up that adapts to the demands of the skills that are needed, whether that is technical skills, or knowledge based skills etc.


  • It was a response to the point about an elite class. In communist systems, that is usually the political class, the ones that make the decisions. That needs to make the decisions and are essential to the system functioning. In a democratic system that is localised, those decision makers don’t have that much power as they have a small sphere of influence and are more administrators. Redistribution of wealth doesn’t mean there is no wealth. Wealth can still exist, be taxed significantly and redistributed.

    The point being, you misrepresented my point. Saying there is no elite “political” class, doesn’t mean there is no class.


  • It does matter, and I don’t accept with a socialist system, you have an elite class. With communism, maybe, but with democratic socialism, the goal is democracy first, because if you give powers to local people, to decentralise, and remove the disenfranchisement that people feel, you get the change for people to push for changes that help their circumstances. This was a view advocated by the late, great Tony Benn.

    First past the post puts too much power in the hands of a few “representatives” and the more you break it down, the more working people can campaign and win. It’s hard to campaign against centralisation as it requires a level of organisation, mobilisation, and cohesive view that is very hard to organise. Then you get corruption within that as pro-business interests influence and fund those that aim to divert the movement from the benefits of people. The Labour party in the UK could be an example of that. Currently, they’re pushing for deregulation, growth and tight controls on migration.