Douglas Murray letting rip about Starbucks is an absolute joy

THAT was awesome, thank you.

Sone of the comments people have made about their reading choices, the surprise they feel about agreeing with certain people

...made me think it’s time to play this one again.

Thanks for that link nauticant (especially if it means I can ask the family for Cos vouchers again!)

I’m now happily reading stuff sites like Quillette and Spiked. Their podcasts are very good too. The Quillette one in December with Dr James Cantor was fascinating.

There are some great articles on UnHerd as well.

I recently discovered Douglas Murray's stuff. He is so that little boy who shouted, "The King is in the altogether!"

To save committing yourself to a present you're uncertain of Floisme, why don't you get the story straight from the horse's mouth?

That was a terrific rant against Mermaids and Starbucks - I agree with every word he said!

On this: It makes me uncomfortable because when it comes to trans issues my views are seemingly at odds with most people around me.

They're probably not - or not necessarily anyway - a lot of people (partic women on the left) are scared to speak out, because look what happens to them: www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced Women have lost their jobs over speaking out.

And lots of people on the left are speaking out - WPUK is a group of left wing Labour Trade Unionists - despite what twitter would have you believe. They are not a far right hate group. Most of them are (were?) Labour members.

Feeling that you're "misaligned" with your political tribe because you see how ludicrous and damaging transgender ideology/queer theory is, I think, a tactic propagated by certain TRAs to make it look like the only people fighting against GRA amendments/self ID/medicalising children etc are far right wingers. It's simply not true. I'm a left-winger too - not that I'd vote Labour right now, but that's down to their latest anti-women antics - I haven't suddenly become some alt-righter!

Sweden is a template for the madness. www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/22/ssweden-teenage-transgender-row-dysphoria-diagnoses-soar

Which is interesting. In Britain, the woke left is a political movement which is pro-censorship, anti-Jew, thinks women should stay in their place, and that the main purpose of the police should be to enforce the right way of thinking. Add in a relaxed attitude to big business, providing they support the right ideological causes, and a weakness for charismatic leadership. It’s all starting to look a bit like a particular political movement from the mid twentieth century...

I’m really grateful to the commentators from the left who are pointing this out. There are very few of them. Paul Embery, Matthew Goodwin, Andrew Doyle, Brendan O’Neill. That’s about it (there are numerous women writers and academics coming to the same conclusion via a slightly different route, of course). The other sensible voices are conservative (albeit mostly small C) like Douglas Murray (James Kirkup is a good example).

One of the more frustrating conundrums is that commentators on the left are having to pitch articles to titles that are not their natural homes, due to the infestation of wokeism. This the. entrenches the idea that even people on the centre/soft left are dismissed as Tories because they’ve been published in the Times or the Telegraph.

I’m now happily reading stuff sites like Quillette and Spiked because the Guardian and the Independent are so obviously not presenting the whole picture, yet a relatively short while ago I was in a ‘oh, I shan’t bother following that link, it’s a right wing rag’ rut caused by laziness and the smugness of feeling good about myself for being one of the good, lefty guys.

The fact that some of the shittier tabloids cover stories about violence against women that the civilised press ignores has also been a massive eye opener.

I no longer automatically apologise for sharing a link to the Daily Mail, instead I expect everyone to read every article on every source with an enquiring reasoned mind, and I’m ready to discuss the topics further with anyone from any angle, as long as they come in good faith.

I cannot tolerate anymore ‘If you disagree with me on this, delete me’ nonsense, but the only way to fight that attitude is to be open and willing to engage with disagreement, and not automatically link disagreement with disapproval and dislike. They aren’t the same thing.

I think the worry about not agreeing with “everything” (or rather strongly disagreeing with them in another area, eg women’s rights) isn’t so much about a puritanical need for thought control but more along the lines of “if can be so wrong about that thing, maybe he’s wrong about this”.

Then I thought, if he us wrong about this what other blind spots does he have?

See this is exactly how I'm feeling about the left. And I look at the Guardian and wonder what other claptrap I've been swallowing these last 40-odd years. Now that's what I call uncomfortable! But I think discomfort can be a good thing. It wakes you up.

I can't /won't comment on Murray as I haven't read him. But I may ask my family to buy me his books for my birthday - their faces would be a treat

His comments about multinationals using Pride as an ostentatious way to get cheap marketing done so that the public forget about the other things they've done - such as not paying their taxes, causing a financial crash, bad behavious by employees etc is bang on the money.

Which is interesting. In Britain, the woke left is a political movement which is pro-censorship, anti-Jew, thinks women should stay in their place, and that the main purpose of the police should be to enforce the right way of thinking. Add in a relaxed attitude to big business, providing they support the right ideological causes, and a weakness for charismatic leadership. It’s all starting to look a bit like a particular political movement from the mid twentieth century...

The thing is, I don't expect Murray to be on our side on most feminist issue, or to discuss the impact TRA demands are having on everyone else with the kind of people who're already willing to listen to radical feminists. I expect him to discuss the issues publicly, which then makes it easier for others to do so, and I hope that he will reach people who weren't already listening to us.

This isn't like when you invite someone to join a political party that's specifically focused on women's issues and they then undermine that by working to restrict what women can say and ask for from within (Harrison/Hayton do this). Murray isn't working with us, he's doing his own thing and sometimes that is beneficial to us. We need people all across the political spectrum speaking out about this because that's how the issue will get onto the agenda of the widest possible range of people, which is what we need to stop the runaway train.

Sex work positive

The discussion of feminism in 'Madness' is frustrating but no more frustrating than arsehole women talking about sex positive crap, slut walks and chanting TWAW.

The fact that men can more easily achieve the joys of fatherhood without the same lifetime financial penalty isn't even mentioned even though it's the whole bloody point. We just need to be more grateful for the superior chance nature gave us to be poorer and more economically vulnerable through the joys of childrearing apparently.

I don't think he's missing the point so much as disagreeing about the nature of the assessment. I think he's taking a position that the fact that our reproductive role tends to lead to different economic roles is inevitable, given that reproduction is part of the economy in the truest sense of the word.

Douglas Murray is a very conservative writer as are the majority of writers at The Spectator, The Telegraph and The Mail. Nevertheless, they are the only organs willing to take on the trans madness infecting the liberal media and left journalists.

Why that particular comparison not? (I know it's Murray's not yours.) I would rather be a richer, economically independent woman with a good relationship with my kids than a poorer, dependent woman with a good relationship with my kids. That's a comparison I prefer. Particularly given the divorce rate. It's not either/or.

I don't want anyone letting men off the hook of having to accommodate women's desire for economic parity on grounds of a 'natural order of things' argument. Having money and control of it is a massive deal for women otherwise we are simply at the mercy of men's goodwill, which can work out very badly sometimes, loving children or no.

The joys of motherhood narrative also ignores the fact that many women find it anything but! It can be stressful, boring, exhausting and thankless with horrific hours and major physical sequelae. (No guarantee of a good relationship with them in adulthood either, no matter what you sacrificed for them.) I know so many women who have ended up on antidepressants after having children! I don't think they were simply failing to be grateful enough.

My ex has both a good relationship with our kids AND a better income than me, because I paid the child penalty (not 'penalty').

Sorry for derail OP.

Although this doesn't explain why the police also do this

Because in a resource (money) constrained age, the ways in which the Police can gain public support is similarly constrained. Dealing effectively with more crimes just isn't going to happen (unless it's things like non-crime hate incidents). It is simply an inexpensive way of creating a positive glow around their image/brand.

Yes, it was great, really interesting- I was expecting more terfs though.

The fact that men can more easily achieve the joys of fatherhood without the same lifetime financial penalty isn't even mentioned even though it's the whole bloody point. We just need to be more grateful for the superior chance nature gave us to be poorer and more economically vulnerable through the joys of childrearing apparently.

But if you had to choose: which would you rather be, a poor woman with a close and loving relationship with her children or a rich man who rarely sees his kids?

There is a kind of ultra-capitalistic way of looking at the world which says that what counts most of all is money, and as the man has more money he is the better off person in this scenario. I think Murray's point is that you can look at the trade off in other ways that are not just to do with how much cash each person has.

vaginafetishist it was great, wasn’t it?

TheRealMcKenna I was there too!

I went to hear Andrew Doyle (and Titania) interviewed at a Triggernometry event on Sunday. He spoke about the fact that he has many friends and allies on the ‘social conservative’ end of the political spectrum but that some of his left-leaning contemporaries in the arts/comedy world won’t even publicly dare ‘like’ or retweet his or Titania’s tweets for fear that it would be career suicide. It was all a bit depressing really (although very funny).

I thought The Strange Death of Europe was an incredibly brave book.

I agree.

His views on women/parenthood do carry very strong hints of Jordan Peterson, which is not really that surprising.

We are in a period of political realigning and I think that’s because of the failures of governments to deal with the real economic fallout from the 2008 financial crisis in any way that helped ordinary people and not financiers.

I can’t give data for the UK, but in the US, ALL of the economic recovery after 2008 accrued to the top 5%. The remaining 95% never recovered.

Here’s an interesting article that talks about how Wokesterism works in service of the professional-managerial class to keep solidarity from forming amongst those not of that class, and describes how western economies are becoming “plutonomies”: economies in which all growth accrues to the top 20% or so and everyone else works precariously in service jobs to service those people.

The article mentions both Doyle and Murray, left and right, and their touring and speaking together, as an example of that shifting in political polarity.

I’m an old school radfem who’s been involved in left political organising for decades, but I’m constantly surprised now at how many times I agree with articles in “The American Conservative” and disagree vehemently with what passes for leftist ideas which aren’t really left but are steeped in identity politics, neoliberalism, and in the US “responsibility to protect” foreign policy which is a screen for imperialist military adventurism.

www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/lets-crush-the-woke-plutonomy-an-interview-review-of-the-populists-guide-to-2020-a-new-right-and-new-left-are-rising-by-krystal-ball-and-saagar-enjeti.html