Anyone else GC and left wing in their politics?

Speaking of cultural stuff, every time I find myself fuming at the latest bit of Guardian idiocy I quickly find something "conservative" to remind me of why I turned by back on right wing politics as a teenager. Take this article from The Critic:

https://thecritic.co.uk/attack-of-the-hydies/

Note that the issue raised - that many young journalists aren't conservative these days, and conservatives are now raising questions about partiality that lefties used to raise about the old journalistic establishment - is quickly co-opted into:

• young women are invading conservative news spaces (gasp, horror)
• they are all blithering woke idiots
• journalists need to write stories that confirm what older right wing men already believe, or else they must be stupid young Woke women

... circular thinking didn't start with the genderists, and getting rid of genderism sadly doesn't mean just swallowing right wing activists' worldview either.

The only real way forward is centrism, but activists absolutely hate the idea that they'd have to depend on their arguments to win people over instead of just pressing their tribal buttons.

Sometimes the Daily Mail is the only newspaper which has reported a particular story.

It was the only place I could find an interview with Cheryle Kempton, the female prisoner assaulted by Karen White in prison.

And for a while it was the only place I could find any reporting of Sarah Summers' dispute with the Survivors' Network.

The Daily Mail articles used here obviously are mostly on trans stuff.

A lot of the time you can probably find the same story in different sources. So maybe everyone is lying, I don't know.

Actually sometimes I do do that if I've got time and am interested enough - see if I can find the story elsewhere.

If such Daily Mail articles were really filled with lies on a regular basis, well this is a public forum, with people around from different perspectives. If the quality of journalism is that bad, it will just get smashed to bits in the comments

Sadly I don't think your faith in the critical skepticism of forumites is justified. The number of times I've opened a provocative thread based on a link to an article, when there's already loads of replies reiterating the OP's opinion in the most fulminating righteous outrage - only to find that the authors of those replies have clearly not bothered to even open the link, as the most cursory glance shows that it doesn't actually anything like what has been claimed.

For most humans, emotive attachment to a pre-existing opinion is far stronger and more important than critical analysis.

Are you high?

To me it looks like a whole range of voices for decades, from evangelical Christians in the 1980’s to conservatives like Peter Hitchens in the 2000’s were telling society not to order this particular meal for our dinner because we wouldn’t like it.

But feminists, leftists and the rest of kids at the restaurant table all knew better. They knew that they really would like the octopus and that they would definitely eat it.

The waiter has brought what they ordered and now they are whinging that they don’t like it after all. And they don’t even want to send the whole meal back either, they just want to take the chips off and send the octopus back and get something else when the only options are eat what you ordered or order a different meal entirely.

@MadderthanMorris

I don't read Daily Mail articles. If I open a thread because the title looks interesting and the OP has a link to the Mail and then a point stemming from that, I close the thread and don't take part.

I've known people who worked for them. Much of it is LITERALLY lies. That which isn't is so deeply about manipulation towards political agendas that they're not being open about, that I just can't be bothered.

The Daily Mail articles used here obviously are mostly on trans stuff.

A lot of the time you can probably find the same story in different sources. So maybe everyone is lying, I don't know.

No one is going to claim that they are perfect of course.

If such Daily Mail articles were really filled with lies on a regular basis, well this is a public forum, with people around from different perspectives. If the quality of journalism is that bad, it will just get smashed to bits in the comments.

You are free to not read whatever you like of course.

Yes, I'd consider myself a leftie, but I'm a bit disappointed with the arguments and commitments of many of my fellow lefties. With gender and with a number of other things too. There's an older generation of feminists who're saying important things but who are getting purged from public life and academia. Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix et al. Surely I shouldn't have to visit the Daily Mail; website to read Julie Bindel? I despair!

Letting kids use social media and online gaming is going to be another where we look back and think, wow, this is like letting kids smoke back in the day.

Oh and early baby formula and bottle feeding. That's another favourite of mine.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions is a phrase that I think of a lot with regards to trans rights.

It's harming EVERYONE. Trans people most of all.

And it will eventually come out.

Even if it's decades down the line in the same way as cigarettes. Ultra processed foods looks like it will go the same way too.

And we will wake up and wonder what the hell humans were doing to their bodies in the same way as opium or arsenic or lead.

'easing legal recognition of trans people'
If that's the Labour Party's own phrasing then it's quite clever. If you were new(ish) to the issue, you'd just think, 'Of course trans people exist and should have recognition - how on earth can I vote against that?'

One to watch.

Thanks for that link to the Thatcher interview. I was particularly interested in her thoughts on education, which seem compassionate, well-informed and sensible.
I (like many my age) deplored Thatcher and her government, but I trained as a teacher in the early nineties, just as the National Curriculum came in. It seemed timely to me that such a thing was only just being introduced, there having been such inconsistent curriculum provision across the country for so long. The first iteration of the NC was very unwieldy and prescriptive, but it morphed into something far better.

I don’t recall it being in a Labour manifesto. It was sneaked through in 2004 under cover of the invasion of Iraq.

Mary is hated by many feminists, both second and third wave. She's not fourth wave, that's some horror of women fighting for the right of men acting as women to get womb transplants and then demand abortions?

I'm sure I've heard of this. And mark my words, women will fight for these "women's" rights.

Not so much fourth wave as crashing wave.

Not American, I'm just a politics hound and read and watch a lot. Catholicism is absolutely a force over there...but then again, so is polyamory lol (fastest growing social movement).

In the UK, very little evidence amongst the indigenous population. Other than the massive adherence of new immigrants, who've brought their faith with them.

If Tories lose next year, my guess is the party relaunches with a Faith Family Flag makeover, dedicated to low immigration, measures to boost family growth, and a small state. And some religious facets, even if small r.

If me, as a died in the wool/take no prisoners New Atheist/libertarian, is giving spiritual pursuits a new look, completely as a result of this dead end that liberalism has taken, then anything's possible, lol.

For me, it's not just TRA madness, it's also the amoral drift into euthanasia beyond its initial justification, sex work is work, the total lack of judgment on porn, the scourge of surrogacy.

Liberalism is providing no answers, because it precludes all judgement and leadership.

My 30something self from the mid-90s would not recognise my late 50s self today saying these things. Then again, no way was TWAW and urgent threats to free speech a thing back then.

@RealityFan Are you in the USA? I know very little about the USA and don’t understand American politics or culture. Sadly I see no signs of Christianity making a come back in my country, and the culture seemed to noise dive off of a cliff as soon as the last remaining bits of Christian influence evaporated.

Part of the rise of Catholicism is about immigration.

But it is interesting to me that some of the Catholic parishes really growing in the US (don't know if it is true in the UK) are ones that use the Latin Mass, and typically are more religiously conservative (not always the same as culturally conservative much less politically conservative though there is some overlap.) Part of this is due to what happened during the pandemic, but it seems that in general, people are not looking for wishy-washy religion.

You want to check the rise and rise of Catholicism in the US. It's absolutely growing. Peter Thiel is massively instrumental here.

I may be a lone voice here, but I think there's a real chance Christianity makes the unlikeliest of comebacks. If it does, I hope Dawkins is alive to see it, lol.

Was it in a Labour manifesto?

Does anyone know

I’ve googled but can’t seem to find it

I don't know enough about Thatcher or politics of that era to judge further, but I have to say that particular quote has been phenomenally misrepresented.

I found it really interesting to read that full interview and the context around that quote. Relevant section:

'If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty.'

https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689

Even the Tories in Scotland are suggesting a vote for Labour to oust the SNP -

news.sky.com/story/douglas-ross-row-erupts-as-scottish-tory-leader-suggests-people-should-vote-labour-to-oust-snp-12853285

He was forced to recant but the recent results of the R&H by-election suggests that it is happening.