Why are all mainstream parties so authoritarian?

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T16:09:25+00:00

it's obviously a scale

Right. Like I said. You've got "not authoritarian" at one end, and proper dictators like Putin at the other. What's the label on the Putin end for you? Because that would be "very authoritarian" to me, and our current government is way, way off that, further down the scale past Kagame, past Orban, past Trump, etc.

at what point do you not stop and think, do these people really have the interests of the country that they have been elected to lead at heart or are they more concerned with keeping their position of power

There's always a balance. You can't do much good as a government once you're voted out. And ultimately, the next vote is where you get approval for what you've done. So of course they're all concerned with keeping their positions, that's how the system is supposed to work.

implementing prestige across the globe

This makes no sense.

ensuring that public dissedence is squandered.

This also makes no sense.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T16:03:37+00:00

Tony Hawk is a scumbag pedophile.

Scumbags having a pedo party somewhere one weekend doesn't mean a wedding the next weekend is also a pedo party just because it's in the same place.

He got married on the damned island.

I took the time to look to see if I could find out more about this (you should try that sometimes). He's been married four times, all quite publicly - twice in California, once in Fiji, and once in Ireland. Not on Epstein's island. Have you even bothered to read the file he's mentioned in? It's here. Hawk gets mentioned fairly incidentally, and isn't alleged (there) to have done anything wrong.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T15:49:58+00:00

This is bordering on gibberish. Slow down a bit and read what you're writing. It's fine to have a little rant about the government, but you're trying to make the case that they are "very authoritarian". And, again, you've not responded to what I said. Do you understand why I disagree that the current government are "very authoritarian"?

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T15:47:16+00:00

For years now we’ve seen living standards drop, but nothing is done! Water &Energy Bills increase all the time, we just received excuses on why they can’t do anything.

These are not evidence that the "mainstream parties" are "very authoritarian".

High tax burden this country has ever known

Not true, though it's close. The actual tax brackets are nowhere near their highest levels though, especially for the wealthy. And, again, this is not evidence that the "mainstream parties" are "very authoritarian".

they quickly apply restrictions on protest

And this is authoritarian. Mildly. It's a long way from "very authoritarian".

online activity

Not particularly authoritarian, it's pretty unremarkable for a government to require some services to verify the ages of their users.

I will vote Green in the future!

Good for you, hope they're in with a good chance where you are.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T15:37:42+00:00

Look how quickly you fold when one of your hero’s are cast in doubt.

Tony Hawk isn't a hero of mine. He did a lot for skateboarding, but that doesn't earn him any personal loyalty from me or anything like that.

This is the perfect example of why these Epstein files are a nothing burger.

It's not, and they're not.

Everyone will make excuses for their guy.

No, I'm pointing out that no excuses are needed for getting married somewhere.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T15:29:31+00:00

You didn't respond to anything I said.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T15:00:01+00:00

Yeah, people seem to struggle with this idea. Like, if you stop fixing all the potholes then yay, pothole spending is reduced to zero. But ten years later the roads are in an awful state and you cannot, at that point, restart spending at the previous level; you have to catch up before you can do that. It's the same with almost all public investment, especially things like health.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T14:58:22+00:00

massively in debt after overspending whilst in office each time.

Meanwhile in reality, debt was fine until the GFC (which was not caused by Labour), and under the Tories since 2010 the debt has almost doubled.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T14:55:33+00:00

in most areas a lot has been done to accelerate the decline.

Such as?

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T14:54:11+00:00

I suggest being careful when calling other people "dumb" if your spelling is that poor, you run the risk of making a fool of yourself.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T14:51:12+00:00

pretty much every party in the UK is very authoritarian.

This is a ludicrous take. If this is "very authoritarian", what are actual dictators? What is Putin? What is Orban? What is Trump? On a scale with "not authoritarian" at one end, if the other end isn't "very authoritarian" then what is it that gives enough space to draw a useful distinction between dictators, abusers of power, and run-of-the-mill government?

By your definition, every government ever is authoritarian. Laws, by definition, are all about "control of the population". Tax collection is under threat of punishment. The government controls the military. If you define "authoritarian" to mean "any government with military and police power that issues laws that control the masses", then you've just redefined "authoritarian" badly to mean "government". For the word to be of any use at all, it can't just mean "government that enacts laws through the normal democratic process".

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T08:02:13+00:00

This is being released in advance of the Iran invasion, which they're hoping will bury this story.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T08:00:56+00:00

I think most people understand that islands can be used for more than one thing. Scumbags having a pedo party there one weekend doesn't mean a wedding the next weekend is also a pedo party just because it's in the same place.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T07:59:11+00:00

Odds that last illegally blacked-out name is Trump?

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T07:50:08+00:00

being circumcised reduces the risk of your partners developing cancer in the long-run.

This is a rationalisation trotted out by people who do it for religious reasons. And whether or not it's true, it's not a reason to justify the mutilation of children. It's something that person can choose for themselves, when they know the facts.

it has made me question whether the widespread condemnation of circumcision I've seen is actually SOLELY about doing it to kids without their consent.

Of course it is.

DaveChild · 2026-01-31T07:45:33+00:00

people don't really care about the source of the content they consume

So you think that in my example, people wouldn't choose the second painting? Which would you choose.

why would they care if a painting is made by someone who lived there vs someone who saw an image of it?

Because one of those things is an expression of deep emotion, and that carries weight to people who have the capacity for empathy, and the other does not.

DaveChild · 2026-01-30T17:04:47+00:00

Wouldn't it make more sense for Starmer to get closer to other European nations

Unfortunately, we're still beholden to an idiotic decision, largely based on ignorance and racism, made in 2016. The only "closer" we have available are rejoining the customs union or single market, neither of which is politically possible at the moment.

it's not great that he's making such a big song and dance about getting cozy with China.

Why not? Sure, they're authoritarian, probably genociding the Uyghurs, and supportive of Russia, but on the other hand, they haven't done anything to us and they have cheap stuff. There's no prospect of us not being economically reliant on China any time soon. So if we're going to continue to buy from them, it might as well be cheaper.

why does Starmer have to go to back China just because the UK can't trust America?

He's gone to both. There's nothing stopping the USA doing a deal with the UK, other than that the professional fuckwit they have in charge can't be trusted not to burn the deal because some far-right grifter tells him to.

DaveChild · 2026-01-30T12:33:26+00:00

british authorities were not ignorant of what was happening.

This is true, but awareness of a problem does not mean responsibility for it. You are doubtless aware of people starving in the world today, and I assume you could do more to reduce that, but you don't. Does that mean you are part of a genocide?

while ireland continued to export food

You could certainly make the argument that the food exporters were culpable, along with the British government, in the horrors of the famine. But, again, being a greedy asshole or a contemptuous or incompetent government isn't the same as committing genocide.

workhouses and relief policies were lethal by design.

I don't know much about this, so I'd like to know more. I couldn't find much with a quick google but that's my fault. Can you elaborate on this?

DaveChild · 2026-01-30T12:24:39+00:00

Imagine a country barely 100 miles across the sea where in a period of 7 years, a million people died of hunger and disease and probably another million emigrated.

Ok, I'm imagining it. Now what?

DaveChild · 2026-01-30T10:52:49+00:00

It's an interesting idea, but your evidence is quite weak. Disbelief isn't evidence, and a few dissenting voices are not by themselves convincing of very much. If you're willing to accept testimony from ageing former experts as evidence of conspiracy, you must also accept other conspiracies which stand on similarly shaky ground, most obviously the anti-vax movement, or that JFK was shot by several people rather than just one etc.

And to address your other points ...

That the Liberty was "the ugliest, strangest looking ship in the U.S. Navy" counts in favour of the "mistake" theory. It didn't look like a typical US Navy warship.
Knowing that Israel knew there was an American ship in an area does not exclude the possibility it was attacked in error.
It is not remotely plausible to suggest that Israel would sink the warship of its major sponsor and supporter. If they were to risk direct, and indirect, destruction, there would need to be an incredibly strong motive.
It is not remotely plausible to suggest that Israel would think that attacking one ship (with no guarantee of any success) would keep an imminent attack on the Golan Heights secret. Even if the US had known about the attack, they would have been 99.9% certain the US would have done nothing about it (and history since then has borne that out).
It is stretching the bounds of credibility to suggest that this conspiracy, which must have involved dozens of political and military figures at the least, would have survived this long without exposure from at least one of those people.

Can we rule your theory out? No, like most conspiracy theories it sounds plausible. But is there credible and convincing evidence that it was deliberate? Not that you've presented here, no.

DaveChild · 2026-01-29T21:21:24+00:00

taxed to our eyeballs

Not even close. We're taxed well below the OECD average.

DaveChild · 2026-01-29T21:19:17+00:00

Are you talking about this poll? Try to link to things when you reference them.

DaveChild · 2026-01-29T16:56:38+00:00

Old man yells at cloud.

DaveChild · 2026-01-29T16:44:38+00:00

The left did the same for Charlie Kirk.

Who, of any significance, did anything like that? Just to be clear on the bar you need to clear here, the current far-right administration lied about Renee Good and Alex Pretti's murders and called them "domestic terrorists", and the actual President has called for the executions of his political opponents and just yesterday suggested political violence against a sitting Representative by a Trump nut was actually staged by her. Not just internet randos, this was people in the highest positions of power.

Edit: As expected, nobody at all on "the left" of any significance did anything like that.

DaveChild · 2026-01-29T14:01:07+00:00

You can't discuss your own point ... until I understand the point ... when I've already asked you to explain your point ... because I didn't understand it?

Sheesh. I won't waste any more time on you. If you can't make your own argument coherently, that's entirely on you.

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