to think you can have an opinion on Maragret Thatcher regardless of when you were born?

[NewStartInSpring]

Sorry I know people are sick of MT threads. However this one isn't about whether you are happy/sad she died or whether she did have good/bad policies etc.

I have seen quite a few people say that your opinion (regardless of what it is) isn't valid if you were not born during the time MT was Prime Minister.

Aibu to think this is ridiculous?

Surely if you believe that then the majority of us wouldn't be able to express an opinion on Hitler for example.

[TheRealFellatio]

Not totally ridiculous, no. It really depends how well informed and politically aware the person in question is, or whether they are just parroting little soundbites they've heard about from their parents or have read on the internet, without ever having stopped to analyse the whole picture. I do think lots of people talk all kinds of shit about all kinds of things that they have very little knowledge of at all, and when probed a bit you realise how one dimensional their knowledge is.

In the case of MT I thought Grace Dent's article the other day was an excellent answer to your question.

I certainly think it's ludicrous for anyone who wasn't even born when she was in power to feel the need to rejoice or riot or protest in the event of her death.

[PariahHairy]

I would say YANBU, I
was born in 1981, obviously I dislike a lot of policies from the Thatcher era. However, it's very difficult to sort the truth from the propaganda tbh.

[Toadinthehole]

YANBU to have a decently-informed opinion on anything.

YABVU to carry on as if she drowned your kittens. I'm not at all impressed by twentysomethings dancing around singing about witches being dead etc. They're just doing it because they think it's cool. I doubt many of them have the first clue about what happened in the 80s and why. I also doubt that many of them think that politics is about anything more than empty gestures and twittering. They should go off and do something real like help in a soup kitchen if they don't like what she did.

[rainbowslollipops]

I wasnt born when she was PM I don't think. I can't have an opinion on her because I don't know what she did for the country and politics aren't my strong point. However I'm glad a female was PM for a change. That's about all I can say

[Sirzy]

You can have an opinion but unless you lived through something then that opinion is based on heresay rather than actually having lived through something so it's not always going to be a well informed opinion.

I saw someone post on Facebook that they were pleased she was dead but then when asked why they were unable to give a view on it!

[Numberlock]

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The biggest problem seems to be people taking her time in power out of context with no comprehension of what life in Britain was like in the 70s.

I really hope she is granted a peaceful funeral on Wednesday.

[Slurpling]

I'm sure serving up pity soup is the ultimate anti-Thatcher statement...

She stood for everything I hate- greed, selfishness, and the relentless prioritization of business over people. I couldn't give two shits about partying, toasting, or protesting. She deregulated the sodding banks and paved the way to the sorry state the country is in at the moment.

In addition she was a figurehead for hateful politics and apart from anything else, introduced Section 28, something which is often conveniently forgotten by more modern, 'liberal' Tories.
I don't remember her as PM and I still have a right to my opinion on it considering it blighted my teenage life!

FYI my job is as 'real' as it gets, twentysomething or no.

[DwellsUndertheSink]

under Godwins law, as soon as Hitler or the Nazis are mentioned, the argument is lost....!

I think there is a lot of left wing propaganda being spewed about Thatcher, probably so that they can capitalise on it in the next election - because lets face it, they haven't got a scooby doo on policies themselves, so lets deflect from the real issues huh by denigrating and old lady and policies she made 20 years ago.

I think if you are well read and have heard both sides of the argument, you are entitled to have an opinion. If you are a mindless sheep accepting everything that is poured down your gullible throat, without taking time to analyse and critically question, then you still have the right to an opinion, and I have the right to consider you an ignorant plonker.

To the outside world (from where I sat in the 80s) some Brits do make themselves look like bloody ignorant idiots. This is the era of the internet, where all information is freely and widely available, where critical arguments and counter arguments are there to be read at the click of a button. There's a lot of spin is being touted as fact, theres a lot of "whip them into a frenzy" going on.....wonder who could be behind that?

[honeytea]

I am a 20 something, I was taken on anti Thatcher marches as a child. I think that as a child of a single mother I felt some of her policies more than an adult alive at that time.

[ArtyFartyQueen]

Of course.... Just like we can have an opinion on Hitler etc....

[mummybare]

YANBU. People who were alive before and during Thatcher's premiership are just as capable of being biased and ill-informed.

And dancing on someone's grave is only marginally more crass coming from a 20-year-old than a 50-year-old.

[AnaisB]

yanbu - of course you can have an opinion about a leader without living through their time in power. i would also say that living through theher time in office does not make you immune to propaganda or stop you from relying on soundbites.

[AnaisB]

x post with mummy

[coralanne]

TheRealFellatio

I was going to reply but you have said it for me

As my DB says. "You only have a right to an opinion after you have well and truely researched your topic"

[coralanne]

Well said Numberlock

[ParadiseChick]

Yanbu and it just makes some people feel better by dismissing someone's opinion based on their age. When it suits.

Did anyone see question time and the barely out their teens Tory boy wannabes saying how great she was. Works all ways.

[Moominsarehippos]

God knows what our kids will do when Cameron or Blair kicks the bucket (many years from now).

There's too much 'bandwagon jumping any excuse for a riot' types at the moment. If asked, they either have no idea what they are protesting for/about or trot out well work phrases. I love a good debate but when one side is rather ignorant of the facts and of global events/economy at the time, its frustrating.

I don't like her but she did give the old boys in the City a boot up the arse. There's been far worse before and after.

[JakeBullet]

YANBU...however, that "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" stunt is ridiculous (and I realise many people from the Thatcher era have bought it too). All the cash going to a private company. Maggie would have loved it. Am I the only one in Britain who sees the irony in that?

Everyone can have an opinion if it's grounded in fact. I am more left wing than anything else but don't feel the neex to spread misinformation and lies about MT's reign as PM. She did some good things and she did some bad things...all PMs make mistakes.

[Dawndonna]

YANBU. I wasn't born when Oliver Cromwell was alive. I have a well researched opinion on him though and have often been known to say that Charles I was a bit daft!

[Moominsarehippos]

'Well researched opinion' that's the phrase! Maybe its more a comment on the education system and the modern six-second attention span generation.

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

YANBU I am interested in politics and history and have opinions on lots of prime ministers from before I was born. I was actually born as Thatcher came into

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

Power. So I did live through it the first time but was too young to have fully informed options especially of the early years. My views on Thatcher are influenced more probably from what I've subsequently than what I knew at the time.

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

Subsequently read that should be.

[ParadiseChick]

The impact of her 'wrong' decisions are still resonating today, that doesn't stop when someone leaves office.

[Toadinthehole]

Come to think of it, is there anyone who thinks people born after Thatcher left office shouldn't have an opinion on her?

I can't think of any.

While I think that ignoramuses who think tweeting, facebooking and having a party with placards is "being political" should be prepared to be ignored, that's as far as I'm prepared to go.