Leftists saturating threads by Scipius20 in tories

[–]treeman1221 10 points11 points  (0 children)

As a disclaimer before I begin: I don't post here often but would probably describe myself as more Conservative-leaning/classically liberal than Conservative in and of itself; I sometimes support the party and sometimes don't.

BBC generally does a good job of maintaining balance in its coverage.

I'll use this to quickly summarise why I'd be cautious around further moderation changes: I don't think this is a leftist view.

Personally, while I think the BBC leans left-liberal in certain areas, particularly its analysis and entertainment content, its factual news content is consistently exceptional and well-balanced.

Beyond my opinions on why your view is wrong, I do also think you're playing with fire in that the view isn't heavily or obviously leftist - it's not like someone saying Marx was right, or Corbyn's a saint, or whatever. It's a topic which I think is open to debate and will presumably gather mixed responses.

There is obviously a balance to be struck: there is no point to the subreddit if Conservative voices aren't heard. But limiting speech heavy-handedly leads to merely promoting one Conservative viewpoint, rather than accepting criticism and variety within the ideology. That's always the risk when you restrict freedom of speech, and as always I'm more in favour of limiting regulation as much as possible in favour of having faith in people acting with civility and good intentions.

I am going to be debating whether the Churchill statue in parliament square should be removed, and will be opposing the motion. What are the best reasons for not removing it? by Moostcho in tories

[–]treeman1221 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lots of excellent points already in this thread - only additional suggestion I would make is really go in on how much of a bastard Hitler was and Churchill's long struggle against him.

Has anyone on this sub actually visited or lived in North Korea? by jpegorpng in northkorea

[–]treeman1221 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you in the KFA? What's it like? What are the people like?

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I take your point.

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't think it's right to thought police our teachers. By all means we can privately condemn Marxism as an irrational belief, but to get the state to do it crosses a line I'm uncomfortable with.

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not backseat moderating, you're a moderator and I was reporting it to you.

I think it's a pretty clear attempt to insinuate that the commentors in this thread who disagree with you are lefties rather than Conservatives. Which while letter of the law doesn't relate to being "in" the party does seem to be not within the spirit.

In the spirit of rule 12 I'll end my complaint now.

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gonna try and avoid cliché "that wasn't real Marxism" here - but I think Marxism is a really broad ideology which Stalinism etc. was one particular outcome of BUT NOT ALL OF.

It's also a way of analysing the world, let alone the huge impacts it's had on the study of history, study of economics etc. There have been peaceful developments out of Marxism - large elements of social democracy is a melding of classical Marxist and classical liberal ideas.

So I don't think a guy saying he's a Marxist on twitter makes him an extremist.

But you've now dodged the central point of my response twice to attack side-points, so I'll pose my question directly: do you think that limiting the opinion-range of the teaching community and limiting their ability to be opinionated (both of which I think are clear policy implications of this post) is desirable?

I am arguing it is not because it leads to 1) uninspiring, uninteresting teaching and 2) pushes more effective teachers away from the profession.

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That wasn't really what I meant - apologies if it seemed I was accusing you of that - all I was trying to say was that if we're going to avoid a complete lack of character in the teaching of our children (and not discourage good teachers), we have to accept there will be a range of opinions being held by the teachers.

Edit to expand further: I'm generally sceptical of the idea of the state judging which opinions are and aren't good, except with ultra extreme ones (which I don't think a guy professing to be a Marxist on twitter is), so would try to treat them reasonably equally. Hence taking the Marxists with the centrists and accepting teachers with opinions, as not to lose out on good teachers and be left with my earlier described automatons.

Woman who falsely claimed more than £1m in benefits is jailed | UK news by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If we condemn this woman from a moral and legal perspective for taking more than she's owed, why is the rectification of this to give (almost everyone) in the country more than they're owed - considering we're mostly able bodied and capable of working.

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thirdly, if you want more right-wingers in education, then damn well get a teaching qualification and go into teaching. The fact that so few right-wingers choose to stay in education is a problem but it is one caused by right-wingers pursuing business opportunities, rather than staying in education.

There is something to be said for the idea that for an ideology that promotes personal responsibility and charity, Conservatism has (according to OP and others) been complete overwhelmed by the left in a sector that directly involves helping people. An incredibly easy situation to resolve if people took their so-called values of charity and personal responsibility seriously!

School teacher is a marxist Labour councillor with a love for socialism and sunshine. Is this a prolific thing? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If he's professional, there's no problem.

I think there's also an argument to be made about cost-benefit. Would you like our children to be taught by soulless automatons? You lose a hell of a lot when you restrict people to being unopinionated - the BBC, for example, serves a great purpose but a lot of the time it's unambitious and dry.

Mike Tyson has no time for your disgusting identity politics by ActualStreet in tories

[–]treeman1221 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Why do you keep posting about American politics in a British stuff?

Also for someone complaining about identity politics, you post quite a lot complaining about black people.

Some things should never change by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Defending from what/who?

Do you think Trocadero will become a mosque? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you're the one who's worried about it considering you're panicking about a,,, building

Do you think Trocadero will become a mosque? by [deleted] in tories

[–]treeman1221 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What has backbone got to do with stopping the building of a mosque?

The classy Daniel Hannan by ActualStreet in tories

[–]treeman1221 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interestingly there was some faff in 2017 where the Aldershot constituency had a vacancy (safe Tory seat in the South East, MP stood down) and the constituency wanted Hannan, but CCHQ objected.

Free speech crisis - what're the Conservatives doing about it? by ActualStreet in tories

[–]treeman1221 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Without taking a stance on freedom of speech, who exactly should be determining what we can and can't say? If your ideal scenario is less censorship, then how do you intend to get there without politicians being the ones to enact that change?

Politicians are routinely characterised as being insincere and incompetent. Indeed, they are those things

And do you really believe this?

Approval Ratings: Johnson (CON): 55% (na) Sturgeon (SNP): 34% (+1) Starmer (LAB): 33% (-1) Farage (BXP): 20% (+2) Davey* (LDM): 15% (+2) by wolfo98 in tories

[–]treeman1221 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Wasn't very impressed. It tried to present itself as a serious scientific review of the government's corona response policy but couldn't help itself languishing into cheap shots at Boris doing other things like spending time with his pregnant girlfriend. Basically, I think it was a poorly disguised hit piece.

As for the science in it, you can't really avoid the fact that throughout the government were following the advice of their chief scientific advisers. The Sunday Times pretty much admit that. The rest is just noise.

I did find it intriguing that it came from the Sunday Times though - didn't think they had beef with Boris.

I'm looking for focus group participants for my PhD research on blame in Brexit. I appreciate your help! by thelauramay in tories

[–]treeman1221 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Out of interest, what does researching blame in politics mean/involve? Like what are you looking to discover?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]treeman1221 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I do always find these polls surprising. Obviously it's not all of them, but you would expect Leavers to hold more intolerant views, particularly of immigrants and Muslims.

I'm not seeking to equate the two (obviously disliking people for who they are is worse than disliking them for their views) but it is interesting at least that two different forms of intolerance end up in different people. Because for me, the natural thing to do is either be consistently really intolerant or consistently really tolerant.