To think my Dad has been radicalised?

[Februaryrat]

My Dad was a teacher back in the day. A Guardian-reading, mostly apolitical teacher.

He has a (hate to use the word) redneck friend in the USA whom he Skypes regularly, and whom I believe has radicalised my Dad. Over the last three years, my Dad now believes:

• Climate change is a hoax (obsessive hatred of windfarms)
• Hilary Clinton is a murderer
• Brexit is the way forward because some of "them" (mostly Romanians when pushed) are committing 70% of offences around here (they aren't) and the press isn't allowed to report on nationality of offenders (they are)
• The NHS is being brought to its knees by health toursits
• Trump is a businessman who is likely to give the USA exactly what it needs, and will be re-elected to great acclaim at the next election.
• The Mexican wall is a good idea
• Why don't more Muslims condemn terrorist attacks?

I am a hard-left feminist, who is finding it harder and harder to have conversations with him that don't end in mud-slinging.

His "source" of news is often what I would consider to be conspiracy websites. I am willing to accept sources of news from anything I consider reputable - and would consider any mainstream media including (spit) the Daily Mail, but the websites he comes up with seem to me to be run by nutters spouting nonsense.

As a previous teacher in a subject where critical thinking and reading was key, it astonishes me that he isn't able to see past the bullshit - but perhaps he thinks the same about me in my left-wing bubble.

Anyone else's parents been radicalised? Any hope, or do we just have to stick to conversations about the weather now? Shit, we can't even do that because of climate change.

Once again, I did not say that everyone who disagrees with me is thick, racist or a bigot. I do not believe most Tory voters are, even though I may disagree with many of the policies.

I stated that someone I knew had significantly changed their viewpoint and relies on facts which are easily proven falsehoods.

This is not a matter of simple differences of opinion.

my favourite fact of the day for deprogramming the brainwashed is
What proportion of the UK population is Muslim? Answer: 5%

Just 5% of the total UK population are Muslim, yet make up 15% of the prisoners in our jails, according to Home Office statistics.

OPs DDad may be referring to this.

Benadry:
Your statistic implies that Muslims are three times as likely to be criminals than members of other religions or rational people.

Again, the facts are never quite what they seem and we need a balanced approach.

Climate change is not a hoax - the climate is changing. The causes are not 100% black and white though and there are many disputed figures. Personally I believe that we are seriously damaging the earth but others disagree about the extent, the timescale, how much of it would happen naturally anyway.

HC is not a murderer - as far as I know. Certainly she has not been accused or found guilty of murder. It seems she was a rape apologist though - or maybe not. Opinions differ.

70% of crimes are not committed by Romanians but I doubt OP's dad had done a survey. What he meant was it seemed to him that a lot, the majority of crimes were committed by Romanians. And he wouldn't be talking about fraud, bank robbery, insider trading. he'd be talking about the sort of crime that he hears about - theft, pick-pocketting, mugging, car crime - and actually it is likely that those sort of crimes are more likely to be committed by poorer immigrants than middle class locals.

So yes, his comment was clearly wrong but he is not presenting an academic thesis he is expressing a view. dismissing him as racist and losing is marbles totally fails to address any real perceptions or concerns he might have.

By the way - before I get jumped on I am not saying anything is fact. I am saying "fact" is not as absolute as we like to think.

The pervasiveness of the media is most evident in when you ask readers of The Sun, Star, Express and Mail what they think the percentage of fraudulent benefit claims are and they think it's between 30 and 40pc. It's actually 0.7pc...

I think that just proves that the media pushing a narrative absolutely does have an effect on the people who read it.

Talk of the "regressive left" is ironic, seeing as the majority of the posts on this thread are from right wingers trying to shout down the OP, compare her to Stalin and make out that she wants to report her DF for 'thought crime'.

Muppets.

Again, the facts are never quite what they seem

Yes they are. Quite a lot of the time!

Some people think climate change is a conspiracy, or not caused by humans, of not that bad. Some people also think the moon landing was faked, Elvis still lives among us, and the fossil record is evidence of Noah's flood. They genuinely think that, and they are genuinely wrong.

'm pretty sure that well over 70% of the crime in Romania is committed by Romanians

Fact check and More or Less completely ripped the quote by Farage and UKIP about the "Romanian crime wave".

It's so easy to mislead with data. Headline data often falls apart when you go beyond that.

Unfortunately - too many people and too many papers etc publish a headline soundbite without the details. And people lap it up because they WANT to believe it and it suits their narrative - so why question it?

I give you the Express headline...

But do you know how they carried out this 'survey'

0.7% are caught and punished. The likely fraudulent benefits claimants is going to be higher as is the likely number of tax evaders. All those cash in hand babysitting jobs, fudging of accounts, not declaring the £3k you inherited from aunty Babs - or that whatever...

The point is we don't really know so we guess according to our experience. And yes the media puts a spin on it - all ways. According to some papers all racism is white on black/Asian or English on East European - and never anything else and yet logically we know this cannot be true. According to others all crime is committed by X race or all Y rac are lazy - and yet that cannot be true either.

Does it have to be about left or right? What about critical thinking, analysis of actual facts, evidence and listening different opinions.

Once you have an opinion, you find facts to support it - I think it must be very hard not to have an opinion and to look at all the facts and then come to a conclusion just based on those facts.

But it is really important - if you have 100 experts in the room and 99 say this is their opinion and 1 has another opinion - you'd probably go with the majority opinion IF you had no knowledge of a subject. But that then goes to how you find opinions - and whether experts are truly experts...

R4 had a fascinating documentary about this - The Human Zoo -

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036tbly/episodes/player

Discussion on 'how we think and make decisions'

That and More or Less should be compulsory listening.

What about critical thinking, analysis of actual facts, evidence and listening different opinions

Critical thinking is so important - and right now, it is fascinating - and incredibly worrying - to think we have a President who dismisses the media as fake news. Except Fox.

Some people think climate change is a conspiracy, or not caused by humans, or not that bad - the point is - all these things are subjective.

Climate changes were happening to an extreme degree for billions of years before humans even existed so there is no doubt that other factors cause it. That is also a fact. (Just not the only fact)

If you want to go black and white we get nowhere. The uncertainty and the discussions and the experiments are all about the degree of change, the relative impact of individual factors, , how much damage humans are doing, how fast it is happening, how we can stop it, what the consequences might be.

That's the point. never take facts at face value. Easy when you believe them to be rubbish. Not so easy when they support your view and you believe them to be true.

Absolutely FarAwayHills critical thinking. So very important and suffering now due to virtue signalling and ganging up .

Anyway - time for dinner I think.

The Express

www.express.co.uk/news/world/764433/They-grabbed-me-everywhere-More-than-900-migrants-carried-out-Germany-NYE-sex-attacks

But it didn't happen. I think

"The editor of Bild has apologised for the report last Tuesday which said allegations of sexual assaults emerged from pub owners and revellers located in the central business district of the German banking capital.

Police have now told press: "The interrogations of the witnesses, guests and staff have created considerable doubt about the portrayal of events.

"A person allegedly affected by the actions was not in the city at all when the crime occurred."

The story was reported in Bild last Tuesday and also covered by the Central European News agency."

But the Express printed it last week - because it suited their agenda.

BadKnee

Actually, the 0.7% includes the official government of estimation of ones they haven't caught doing it. The actual caught figure is about 0.4%.

So very important and suffering now due to virtue signalling and ganging up

Virtue signalling? Don't you need to add SJW as well

Some people think climate change is a conspiracy, or not caused by humans, or not that bad - the point is - all these things are subjective.

No. No, they're not subjective. Scientific consensus is really, really clear that current, rapid climate change a) exists, b) is caused by human activity, and c) is bad news. This isn't subjective, this is reality. The OP's father wasn't saying "well yes I agree that climate change is real and worrying and concerning, but I disagree with you about the relative risk of CO2 vs. methane" - he thinks it's all a made-up conspiracy. That's just not true.

Sometimes, facts are actual facts, reality is actual reality, and people believe lies and bullshit.

Wonders if the OPs father is Donald Trump?

Scientific consensus is really, really clear that current, rapid climate change a) exists, b) is caused by human activity, and c) is bad news

My super smart uncle believed climate change was a conspiracy until I asked him which powerful shady group he thought was benefiting from the conspiracy.....a group powerful enough to take down the oil industry.

Nobody wants climate change to be real.....

53rd,

I think bad knee made a good point but "subjective" wasn't the right word.

Oh dear. OP sorry about your difficulties with your father. You'll have to do a 'we've discussed this before, we'll have to agree to disagree' sort of thing.
For those who say 'he's entitled to his views' - he is. But he's not entitled to his own facts.
One thing that really pisses me off it's when people say 'ah but the left are just as bad, no, worse, in the name-calling'. I just read a bit of a post shared by a FB friend and read the comments (not her post, but the original post). It was about people in the US showing solidarity with Muslims. Pure hatred, death threats, bigotry, generalisations and outright lies. From the right.
Yes, some on the left can be just as bigoted and call names, make generalisations and so on. But I've rarely read or heard anything as extreme, as violent, as sexist, as bigoted from anyone calling themselves left-wing as the things I've read, or heard, from people on Britain First posts, or in random interviews with people in newspapers etc.
FWIW I agree it's not good to be 'rabid' about something. I would prefer 'passionate'.
I do have to ROFLMFAO at the idea that feminism has won, though.

Interestingly, I've just seen a FB post where quite a few posters declare MN to be a hotbed of DM readers, and a nasty bunch of bullies, and vile.
This particular post show that a wide range of opinions are permitted here and that's good. As long as they are opinions and not fake 'facts'!

As long as they are opinions and not fake 'facts

Or astroturfers.
Or Professional nudgers
Or Disrupters...