To think MN is suddenly full of hard right extremists?

[Manumission]

I can't believe what I'm reading today.

Some of the comments of the bacon/mosque attack sentencing thread and also on the Jack Monroe/ sanction petition thread are just breathtakingly nasty. Other threads too.

What's happened? They aren't all new names. Some are. Is it an influx altering the mood here? Or does it reflect the national shift?

The absurdity of their posts provide me with endless amusement

Agree Rorty, it's all getting a bit farcical really.

The absurdity of their posts provide me with endless amusement

^ This with bells on. The problem is they believe their own hype and set the agenda in so many parts of society (the tail wagging the dog).

Some utterly ridiculous generalisations on both sides of the fence in this discussion. How about accepting that there are all gradations of political opinion, and that putting all lefties or righties into one pot just makes the person who does it look rather silly?

why do the left seem to think that their views are the only valid ones?

^^ this indeed.

It is probably the same lefties that voted for Tony Blair that are now complaining about the fact that not everyone agrees with them....:)

Madhair-There was a time not too long ago when MN felt a safe place for disabled people affected by austerity and wanting to discuss this but now it really doesn't (cf Jack Monroe thread). But anyone wanting to discuss it from a rightwing view point was shot down and called ignorant - so there was NO discussion.

Also, posters declined to sign as they don't want to promote the JM's bandwagon, not that they disagreed with what she was saying. Most ringwingers do want to support people in times of need and hardship.

The Brexit discussions were a good example: Many leavers (and maybe some remainers too) were declaring strong opinions then being completely unwilling to justify, provide evidence, answer questions or engage at all. Instead, they called the people asking them 'bullies'.

I gave up discussing Brexit, not with a claim of bullying but because, as a pp said, any attempt to actually have a debate turned into a slanging match. Far from refusing to answer questions, I answered as many as I could - but in the end other people's reactions were things like "my giddy aunt" (I am not making this up) so there was no point trying to have a dialogue.

A lot of the Brexit threads are full of people saying they "cannot understand" how "anyone with a brain" and so on. This isn't the mark of a person trying to understand - just someone professing that anyone who doesn't hold their opinion (which they always refer to as "the facts") is stupid, racist, bigoted etc.

That was certainly what I said about JM, Comforting These days my first thought is, rightly or wrongly, what personal bandwagon/money spinner is she angling for now?

Brexit threads got tiresome very quickly. Head meets brick wall for all concerned, I would imagine!

I've watched MN undertake the same shift to the right as is in evidence in almost all uk-centric internet forums. However, it certainly isn't hard right - that's just the perspective from those on the left wing who have gone so long without their views being challenged.

Politically I'm literally the psychotic socialist out of most right-wing nightmares, but even I've derived a certain quiet amusement from the overturning of complacency and hubris of the moderate left. Watching the arrogant triumphalism of papers like the Guardian during the Tony Blair years left a bad taste in my mouth - the deliberate dismissal of any alternative viewpoints bespoke an inexcusable intellectual error, a profound irrationality and unwillingness to build compromise and cooperation - which should be the hallmarks of the left!

Then in the coalition years, as desperation began to sink in, left wing dismissal became demonisation, which only increased radicalism of perspectives on both sides. Frankly, if the left wing hadn't been such sour winners when they were in the ascendant, the pendulum wouldn't have swung so hard in the other direction.

Mumsnet is all about debate and the last thing we want to do is shut down a thread. However we've had reports that this is a TAAT. Could we make sure this remains a general discussion, and not a TAAT? Otherwise we'll have to delete it.
Thanks very much all.

Really, Toni?

It's more a thread about many threads... the varying attitudes found on them.

It is a thread about us us MNers and our attitudes.

We can only discuss them within a known frame of reference... and all we have in known common are threads here.

Please don't close it down, it is far too interesting a discussion for that!

I think I sit pretty centre and agree with some left wings views and some right wing ones too, whilst disagreeing with both sides on many things.

What I have noticed is (and not just on mumsnet) that if you're not liberal these days then you're immediately right wing, racist, sectarian, bigoted etc which I don't think is the case all the time.

MephistophelesApprentice Fri 04-Nov-16 16:46:57

Fabulous post.

Couldnt agree more

Yes, I agree absolutely Mephistopheles
Like with most things in my life, I'm very boringly somewhere down the middle with my views on politics but I've felt more and more alienated from 'left' ideals in recent years. It's infested with shouting people down, intolerance (ironically) and a 'my way or the highway' attitude.

The right are not being bullied, they are the bullies. You only have to look at the benefit cuts to disabled people to see thats a fact.
you only have to look at what happened on the streets after Brexit.
Left wing people argue with the right, and dislike their attitudes and the way they treat others.
Its not bullying. you are not being silenced with violence. You are not being told to go back where you came from.

The public discourse of this country is becoming openly vile and that is led largely by the right wing press. Say what you like about the Guardian, and I could say plenty, it is not the publication condemning "openly gay" (the horror!) judges as "enemies of the people" for doing their job. It's truly revolting. And no one in power has condemned it. So a general shift in tone is bound to show up here as well as all sorts of other places.

I certainly don't think the Left are squeaky clean (see pp :)) - but definitely what we are seeing is a resurgent of the Right - and a very nasty resurgence it is.

The abuse thrown at Gary Linekar, Lily Allen, the judges, the woman who brought the Brexit case, the woman on QT...It find it quite frightening especially when we remember Jo Cox's murder only a few months back.

i am sorry but explain to me why we shouldnt slag off Lily Allen because of Jo Cox? I do not see your point?

Really, do you not?

The right-wing press have been chasing down people who dare show sympathy with refugees or are anti-brexit. 'Enemies of the State'. Perhaps you didn't notice?

Jo Cox - who famously worked FOR refugees - was murdered by a right-wing sympathiser who shouted 'Death to Traiters'.

Are you able to see my point now?

Slag off Lily Allen all you like: but yeah, if you are part of a campaign to villify and silence her because of her sympathy for refugees, then maybe its time you took a long hard look at yourself.

" if you are part of a campaign to villify and silence her because of her sympathy for refugees, then maybe its time you took a long hard look at yourself. "

no I am not thank you. I am the child and ex wife of immigrants. I just think she is a silly self aggrandising cow. is that OK or would you like to tell me not to have an opinion like lefties do?

No, I'm not overly fond of her myself.

However, I can see what the media have been doing to her - and it stinks.

Also Birdie, your second comment does make you sound more reasonable but your first reply to me was dreadfully patronsing. Are you able to see that?

It was intentional. Im sorry but I couldn't see how, in this context, anyone could fail to see a link.

Apologies.

its fine....

I think that MN mainly reflects the champagne socialist type of Islington left winger. The sort who lives in a big house with a Polish nanny and Romanian cleaner, and is terrified that Brexit will make the wages of the nanny and cleaner go up. I have a first in Economics from a high-ranking university, but I've still been accused of being uneducated because I voted to leave. On the other side, MN can actually be right wing in some cases, as most people on here seem to believe that men with good careers need a woman at home, so a wife who divorces should get maintenance until the year dot because she "enabled" her husband to work. This doesn't reflect what I see around me, where people need to work just to get by.

Sorry ToniMN.

They were just offered as examples. It really was the prevailing in mood in general I was interested in.