Amelia Connolly of the Scottish Greens remanded on CSA charges

Out of interest, what AI chatbot was used, and what prompt was given it?,

Yes, this is really important.

Older people, when they hear schools want to teach "critical thinking" are imagining things like logical fallacies and argumentation, maybe some epistemology, debate clubs, some (non-partisan) historical content, statistics.

Younger teachers are not thinking that at all, they mean teaching an explicit, partisan set of ideological positions.

And it's the latterthat schools are doing now. Not the former.

Yes, and even counselling and psychotherapy - with people being encouraged to identify their 'oppressor' and cut them out, rather than being enabled to develop emotional resillience.

From the Courier article, it's interesting that Connolly can be both

... a fierce critic of the Westminster government, advocating for Scottish Independence and re-entry into the European Union.
and
... appeared not to understand what charges were being admitted.

The former seems to suggest that he is able to carry an argument, the latter cognitive impairment.

Basically everything became about 'activism'

My favorite, 'activist-journalism'

AI overview:

"Critical social justice (CSJ) is an ideological framework viewing society as deeply stratified by systemic power, privilege, and oppression based on identity groups like race, gender, and sexuality. Rooted in critical theory, it aims to dismantle these structures through activism, focusing on equity rather than equality of opportunity.

Core Tenets and Characteristics

Structural Focus: It emphasizes that oppression is embedded in societal systems, not just individual prejudice.

Identity Politics: Society is viewed through the lens of marginalized versus privileged groups (e.g., oppressor vs. oppressed).

Knowledge as Power: CSJ argues that marginalized groups possess "special knowledge" regarding their oppression, which should not be challenged.

Action-Oriented: It promotes active engagement in challenging existing societal structures to achieve social change.

Distinction from Liberalism: Unlike traditional liberalism which emphasizes individualism and shared humanity, CSJ focuses on group identity.

Common Issues and Critiques

Cancel Culture/Self-Censorship: Critics argue that CSJ can create an environment that encourages self-censorship, with, for example, students and professionals fearing penalties for challenging its tenets.

Ideological Polarization: Some argue it divides people into strict groups, potentially hindering open discourse.

Scientific Validity: It is sometimes criticized for being pseudoscientific or failing to align with empirical evidence, favoring lived experience over traditional objective analysis.

Impact on Education: Debates often focus on whether CSJ-related concepts are appropriate for school curricula and if they encourage ideological indoctrination.

CSJ differs from mainstream social justice by moving beyond the idea of equality (treating everyone the same) towards equity (redistributing resources and power) to reach specific outcomes"

Basically everything became about 'activism'......and every profession and body was subjected to it. No longer about being taught the basic principles of liberalism and how to think about things critically. In fact the very word 'critical' was hijacked and applied to each form of activism. 'Critical Social Justice', 'Critical Race Theory' etc.

There are a couple of new episodes of 'Storyville', on BBC I player, which document how this kind of 'social justice' and 'identity' focus came to dominate, and terrorise, university campuses in the U.S.

It is a hard watch because it is so emotionally fraught - yet very instructive on the time-line of its origins, its theoretical under-pinnings, and on the various disputes and legal actions taken by 'accused' professors and lecturers at various educational establishments over the years.

This individual comes across as genuinly distrurbed and delusional if one reads her own website and one does a minimal amount of searching on SM and a search engine to see what others who have come across her think of her behaviour and manner. I won

Yes it's nuts.

The concept of inclusion has a lot to answer for.

Something I've noticed is that when I was at school, we were taught a kind of framework of human rights. The basics were things like right to life, to free association, movement, etc. And to political protest and belief and expression. Other goods exist but are built on top of that framework.

The students my kids age get none of this. The first principles they seem to be taught are diversity (of things like race, gender, sexuality,) inclusion, kindness, safety. Those are the first principles in their world, and they are unmitigated goods.

Repulsive individual, https://www.amelia.scot/
In the pic with the dogs, a definite resemblance to Evadne Hinge. Are they related.

I agree, it is all becoming a bit "Fifty shades of Aimee Challenor".

I don't understand how people think that just leaving them to it is "kind".

^^ Applies to every gender affirming practice and person.

A mystery I’ll take to my grave is wondering how did so many apparently intelligent people come to believe that encouraging young people to take life changing medication or unnecessary violent surgeries or letting men into female spaces is kind. Just how?

He certainly identifies as a victim, that’s for sure. Imagine listing those qualities to excuse your behaviour in one area, while considering yourself qualified in another.

And what kind of assessment diagnoses you with a mental age of 12? Is he stuck in that annoying teenage boy phase where they know everything already and can’t be told?

The training available, and the requirement to do it, is pretty thorough. Individuals can be inadequate, and the nature of churches means there are lots of small groups supervising themselves- churches with 7 members have different situations than those of 200.
I’m not familiar with the next layer up, the diocese, but can see how the National church does in the papers. Infuriating.

“I am obviously 22 and a lesbian.”

Totally apart from the danger to te public: There really seem to be a lot of people who should be under some level of supervision who are being really fucked over. Some people are more vulnerable to making massive and socially damaging errors of judgement, and I don't understand how people think that just leaving them to it is "kind".

This is worrying:

"This is a statement by Amelia regarding Charlie's awful behaviour. I put off releasing a statement for a very long time because I understand that he is in a difficult living situation and I didn't want to add any additional stress to that. However, as he has chosen to spend all of his free time creating false information about me, contacting people regarding me, etc. and generally just trying to ruin my life, I felt that it has now become necessary."

There follows a long and rambling account. It's not in the slightest professional, from a "Chief Executive Officr" [sic], and reads like a teenager's diary. It doesn't look as if Amelia has any idea how to conduct himself in the workplace.

www.moderley.com/misc/charlie

The CofE safeguarding training I've done is pretty good. Actual safeguarding within a parish or diocese is as good as the safeguarding officers because it partly depends on their judgement, but the procedures I've seen are vastly improved over ten or twenty years ago. The biggest vulnerability in most organisations is complacency and that is something everyone needs to guard against.

Not "innocent", just "presumed innocent" in law. He may or may not be innocent in reality.
I had this discussion with some ardent SNP supporters. They said that as Peter Murrell hasn't been found guilty in court [yet], we have a legal duty to believe that he is innocent. Yeah right.