To think that being Tory doesn't make you thick?

[RainbowSheep]

Ok, my family are all very liberal (I mean my parents, aunts & uncles, who incidently have all had lots of money & opportunities throughout their lives). Their parents (who were poor working class) were more conservative as are me and my brother, who are both pretty poor. We recently had a family get together where I was told by my uncle (university lecturer) that Tories were unitelligent and I was beginning to sound like an idiot for having conservative views... I don't think I am particularly right wing.

So instead of being funded by council tax the govt is giving money to it from... which tax instead?

If you look it up, that is what is says LD (shrugs)

This kind of reminds me of the BNP thread where daftpunk was trying to argue that liberals are the real fascists.

PLDE - it was to ensure that CT didn't go up for vulnerable people that it was done.

It's your local council (labour, LibDem, Tory) who decides about the bins and bin collection, this is just a subsidy so that they can't justify putting up CT for it. FWIW, people get very exercised about their bin collection!

PR - look it up where?

Exactly Pointy. It seems that some people only want their tax money to go on services that they use. A very, very sad state for our country.

Dictionary?

I think you're confusing liberal and libertarian ideas lemon

'I think Labour made some shit descisions, I think the Tories are making far worse ones with far reaching consequences for vunerable people.'

I agree - this is the key issue for me. Under labour (although they were far from perfect) things were so much more civilised. Now, suddenly the terminally ill and disabled are seen as fair game to be called scroungers.

Kate - which one? Only the online one I looked at had left-wing down as liberal (that's wrong - although it has been 'Social liberalism' etc, etc) also had Left-Wing down as meaning 'radical' or 'favouring extensive reform' and it doesn't mean either of those things.

Of the people here hotly repudiating any connection between the left and the BNP, which of you has read the BNP's 2010 manifesto?

It's interesting. Not because it makes me want to vote for them, but because it gives an insight into the wish-list of a section of the traditionally Labour-voting white working class that has been thoroughly abandoned by Labour and has increasingly turned to extreme parties as a result.

Some BNP policy highlights:

? Opening new grammar schools to provide rigorous education to the brightest regardless of income
? Subsidies to students of science and engineering
? End the ?expectation of failure? among working-class schoolchildren
? Open new dedicated SEN schools
? Renationalise the railways
? Build new council homes
? Ban intensive and cruel livestock farming
? Promote sustainable/organic agriculture
? Encourage the forming of agricultural producers? collectives
? Call a moratorium on building of new out-of-town shopping malls
? Raise the speed limit to 90mph
? Crack down on corporate tax evasion
? Raise the individual tax-free allowance to £12,500
? Raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million

From these examples, and from reading more widely in the manifesto, I'd say a fair number of the BNP's policies sit just as comfortably with a left-wing viewpoint as with, say, the Labour Party's 2010 manifesto would.

As regards the Nazis, they were indeed National Socialists, drawing their ideology from a mixture of nationalism and socialist ideas. Their early rhetoric was strongly anti-capitalist, anti big business and hostile to the bourgeoisie.

I don't think the point is as simple as 'lefties are fascists'. It's more that trying to have a political discussion as though 'left' and 'right' are like Spurs and Arsenal, with nice clear dividing lines between the teams, makes no sense whatsoever when you look at it historically (or at all).

In terms of left-wing, libertarian and right-wing it's more of a Venn diagram.

Typically, self-identified libertarians are more 'left wing' on social issues (sexual minorities, marriage etc) but 'right wing' on economic issues (small state, minimal interference) as the core belief is about minimal intervention in individual autonomy.

Libertarians muddy the water. They're like agnostics on an atheism thread. They don't fit in anywhere

I did read the BNP manifesto, but I've obviously read something quite different from you! The policies that I noticed (that you've conveniently missed out) talked about 'removal of politically correct 'shackles that prevent the police from doing their jobs properly (we all know what that means), a return to capital punishment and corporal punishment and racist criteria for deciding upon who gets social housing.

You'd find that in Labour's manifesto, I'm very sure hmm

BIWI - Why shouldn't people be grateful that we have a system that means many many people get far more out of the system than they contribute because a few people contribute a huge amount.

The majority of people pay tax. Taxes go to pay for services that we all need/may need. The more you earn, the more tax you pay. At what point should we all start being grateful? What really made me froth about the original statement was the patronising assertion that those who were recipients of benefits paid for by tax should be grateful to those who earned more. We all benefit from what we all pay. It is the mark of a civilised society that monies raised through tax are used to pay for services that we all benefit from. It is not just about the welfare state. Harry's post was written as if those who are lowly in the system should be grateful specifically to her and her ilk.

DH and I between us earn a six figure income. We are bloody lucky. (Although we have both worked hard to reach the positions we are in, I might add). But I would gladly pay more tax if it was to ensure that those in our society who are the 'have nots' were guaranteed a better way of life - or if it would stop the cuts that the present government is planning. After all, who knows - it may be us tomorrow that needs help from the state. Nothing to stop either of us losing our job/livelihood. Nothing to stop either of us being struck down by some disabling illness. Neither of those scenarios is the preserve of the poor.

There are people who should be supported no matter what and who shouldn't be grateful i.e the sick, disabled and carers. Everyone else should be bloody grateful for what they get. We should be grateful that if we choose to have kids they will receive a free education, but it's not really free is it because it is being paid for by taxation which some people contribute a lot more of than others,

I would suggest that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who isn't grateful, if they are asked, about the things that the state provides for us. And yes, people should be supported by the state.

And once again, we all pay for it. Not just the right-wing, Tory-voting, highly paid amongst us.

I'm looking at it now - they also want to abolish the human rights act and anti-discrimination laws. The BNP is authoritarian and bigoted. The policies you've mentioned don't give the bigger picture of what they are really about and how they view other people and how they would treat them. I think that's the key issue.

What does removing politically correct "shackles" that prevent the police from doing their jobs properly mean please?

Might it be ensuring the punishment fits the crime or perhaps meaning the most competent person for the job is appointed or even the law has to be applied equally and fairly to all?

Rule should be applied equally to all in my opinion - especially when people have been in the UK for two/three generations and have been given many many opportunities on an equal footing with others.

Hitler was anti capitalist as was Mussolini, who started off as a socialist.
Mussolini believed in the 'Third Way' between communism and capitalism. This is a quote by Hitler

""We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Thatcher was neo-liberal and the fascists and left wingers are all against that type of system.

married - what it means as I see it is that criminals should have no human rights and it's perfectly ok for them to be knocked about by the police.

Who cares what Hitler said? He was either evil or insane. Dear god...

perception - I don't dispute the fact that there are some unpleasant ideas in that manifesto alongside the ones I quoted. I chose the ones I did to illustrate the fact that there's a fair amount of quite socialist stuff mixed in with the anti-immigration, nationalist rhetoric.

This, in turn, was to help illustrate the point that looking politics as though it can be neatly polarised into two definable camps doesn't really hold water when you look at it either historically (Nazis, the Soviet Union) or in the present day (BNP, China).

He was also a National Socialist.

What does it matter how long someone has been in the UK when it comes to how the law is applied?

Yes but claig, come on you cannot reasonably argue that Hitler's beliefs in any way resemble those of people with liberal ideals today. And that's what this thread is about isn't it?

Hitler may have called himself anything - doesn't mean it was true.

DeckTheHalls seems quite reasonable to me to say that some of the BNP policies (e.g. build new council homes, renationalise the railways) would be traditionally associated with the left wing. I don't think that's any insult to the left wing at all - in fact, I think it's an example of how the BNP can be very good at listening to the genuine worries of communities and presenting themselves as the party with the solution. If it wasn't for the party's less attractive policies (ahem), I can see my working-class immigrant granddad voting for them with enthusiasm, based on policies like the ones that DeckTheHalls and MarriedInHolly have cited.

On another note, I read an interesting article in the Economist a few months back that argued (IIRC) that the poor get their benefits from the state in the form of money, and so it was extremely noticeable and quantifiable, whereas the rich get their benefits in the form of railways, motorways, education, hospitals, police, etc etc etc - far less noticeable at the point of delivery, and so encouraging wealthy people to feel that they genuinely aren't receiving much benefit from their taxes.

It doesn't matterho w the law is applied but I think it matters insofar as how the law is observed. fwiw, three quarters of my family arrived inthe UK as refugees and never have felt the need to do anything unlawful in the last 150, 100 and 60 ish years respectively. From Ireland, Russia and Germany.

That's the thing about how propaganda can be used. The Nazis managed to convince many people who might otherwise have led uneventful lives that it was for the greater good of society to commit dreadful crimes against humanity.