How would you feel if your 16 year old DS wanted to become a 'young conservative'

[BigSandyBalls2015]

That is all!
Opinions please.

Anyway - I feel like whatever we say, people are going to post OMG can't believe you'd hate on your kid for being a Tory, etc etc.

I wish people would recognize there is some distance between being a 'right wing fascist' who.... um.... dislikes the right wing (?), and one's own personal feelings about the political path one's child chooses to take. Nuance, ffs!

Most of MN would feel pressured to start dismantling the shrine in the corner of the living room to Corbyn where they worship every evening.

I would be quite meh about the whole thing tbh. 16 year old opinions change. In my youth I was a Labour voter.

So haven't rtft but...

Outwardly I would support them for having an interest in politics, having the strength to go against the flow, having an interest in changing things.

Behind the facade I would wonder where I had gone so wrong.

It will become more common once Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum have been in power for a couple of years I should imagine.

It's all a bit Alice Through The Looking Glass and words meaning whatever you want them to mean, isn't it?

1930s Germany always springs to mind here. When the main parties tried to silence the margins voices for years. Eventually Hitler weeded his way in and managed to give the margins their own voices. He ended up with a majority vote and lead Germany into war. I am not a fan of silencing others political opinions, nor do I care who people vote for.

Are most people's teenagers not politically engaged then?

" I am not a fan of silencing others political opinions"

Neither am I. Not sure why that's relevant to this thread.......

My dd17 said she was not sure who she would vote for yet. She was called a 'posh racist bitch' by someone in HER CLASSROOM without the teacher saying anything in her defence.

So any kid of social media age would need a massive pair of balls to admit to voting anything other than the corbynista party line.

WorldWide 'As for those who are commenting on Nazi jokes, what a load of rubbish. I have dozens and dozens of conservative friends and no-one would dream of making such comments, what's that all about? Biased and incorrect.....'

With that comment, I can tell that you're not massively interested in politics generally, or with Conservative politics in particular.

That's OK - we're all busy and we have to make choices. For myself, I think politics is too important not to think about all the time! But I'm not a complete arse, and I realise that other people have things that are way more important.

I'm referring to something that has been HUGE in Conservative circles. The story was broken by Guido - and on-line right-winger and Conservative gossip-merchant. It's not some leftie smear-thing. It's real, and Guido broke the story because he's a bit of a shit-stirrer because there needs to be a big discussion about youth membership within the Conservative Party.

The whole issue of Party membership is really interesting if you're into politics whether you are Left, Right, Middle, Outside ...

After I was posting on this thread, I found this article linked to on another thread. It's a pretty good place to start if you want info about the issues around declining CP membership. Personally, I don't think it goes quite far enough in analysing the implications of this - but it is a start.

I think if you look at jacky's post, you can see that, in theory, the Conservatives shouldn't have problems recruiting but if you look at the article, you can see why they do. Put the two together, and you can see what the problems are in the failure to do so (the party becomes unrepresentative; people vote for a party that is not what it traditionally is).

yes, it is like Nazi Germany, isn't it Martha? Those poor marginals, the Conservative Party, are being utterly silenced by some mothers who honestly admit they'd be disappointed if their children joined the Tories... and who knows where it will end?

Jesus, and some of you thought that putting porn on a par with joining the YCs was an unreasonable and problematic comparison!

BertrandRussell it is very relevent to rhis thread. People are basically trying to steer their childrens political opinions in an insidious way. They may not outwardly tell them who to support but the constant belittling and making out all tories are evil has an effect.

I'd assume it was some weird manifestation of extreme teenage rebellion
and wish we'd chosen to live in a less conservative, homogenous area when DCs were growing up

So any kid of social media age would need a massive pair of balls to admit to voting anything other than the corbynista party line

Hmm, not my experience. My kids have both argued with Tories at school, and during the election there were big facebook posts from young people on both sides.

Yes seek the concept is exactly the same. Hence why Trump is now president. People eventually have enough of being called names and other people trying to shout them down all the time.

I'd be/am concerned (DS2 has political leanings that way. He doesn't get them from his parents though his favourite relatives are Tories.)

We have endless blumming political debates in our house. I'm not hard Left but I openly disapprove of the lack of empathy in the current Tory party and its adulation of the shareholder profits business and legal model. I believe this has to be done away with if we are going to get any healthy wealth distribution back into our economy.

DS2 rebels against these sorts of leftish values by being more right wing and it upsets me (privately) far more than it should, though as others have said, I'm very glad he's genuinely actively interested in politics.

"People are basically trying to steer their childrens political opinions in an insidious way."

Bollocks. Have you ever met a 16 year old?

And yes of course my children know my views. Why would they not? We talk. We discuss the news. We know a lot of people. How the hell could I be "steering" their views? Or do you think parents should never express a political opinion? Not tell their children how they vote and why?

So not wanting your kid to be a Tory is the start of Nazi Germany #2. Exactly the same. And also it made Trump president.

Righty right!

If Corbyn gets in, your children will realise that their future relies on getting a nice State controlled job working for the greater good. They will no longer be able to be entrepreneurs. Not sure what business graduates will do as business will be run under strict party lines. So I imagine when the reality kicks in and a more centrist right party appears, they will be voting for that instead.

LOL @ the new meme: 'If anyone says anything I don't like, I won't inform myself and come back and argue better - I'll vote Trump!!!'

When I was young, I used to maliciously draw on the walls if I had a tantrum. Great to see that people think of Trump as the political equivalent of that.

Personally, I think politics should be more seriously engaged with than that.

I'd think I hadnt explained how the NHS, Health and Safety, and social housing works well enough.

whatsthecomingoverthehill

So you feel that critical thinking is “bigoted wank”?

Do you not think that the ability to objectively analyse and evaluate issues in order to form a judgement is good thing?

Not sure why Trump got in, but yes, there is a danger of belittling people who then rebel with their own more extreme party, in a sense this is why Jeremy Corbyn's Labour has become so successful.

"So any kid of social media age would need a massive pair of balls to admit to voting anything other than the corbynista party line" even the girls?

But anyway, that is certainly not my children's experience. My ds has just moved from a school where he had a lot of right wing working class peers to one where he has a lot of middle class right wing peers.