AIBU for thinking hating people for their political leanings is perfectly normal?

[VelvetChairGirl]

I have been reading a brexit thread on here and lots of brexit voters in it seem horrified that they are hated and families have stopped talking to each other, and cut each other off over it.

but its politics nothing affects us more then politics, we have people who cut off others for believing in conspiracy theories and things. Brexit is the biggest shake up in this country in my life time, its taken away our freedom of movement for work and education, needlessly introduced a tonne of red tape, made our rights and standards extremely vulnerable to being destroyed (tories dont like food standards and workers rights this is well documented and they are in charge right now), reduced our standing in the world and will very likely lead us to being the poor man of Europe again, not to mention the fact its cut off vital EU funding to science research, regeneration and education projects up and down the county.

it affects everyone, of course people are perfectly entitled to hate those who voted to hurt them financially, prospects wise etc as much as they would hate someone who physically stole from them, theres very little difference is there?

@1mumm

There are some indigenous people who hate the political folks responsible for their literal and cultural genocide. I won't judge them for the way they feel. Typical of some posters here to say those indigenous peoples are lesser humans for hating the white supremacists who decimated their populations, languages, traditions, and who still occupy their land and pollute their water. Easy to pass judgement from comfort.

So long as they are hating the actual people who committed genocide against them. But if they are hating people born decades or hundreds of years later that only share the same skin colour or religion or nationality as the people that did genocide, then that is wrong and I do judge.

Disagree - yes
Hate - no

That's a powerful word which is used too lightly.

@Flapjak

Its funny how in aome quarters its acceptable to hate tory voters but not vice versa. Am stating this a would be labour voter if only they didnt hate womens rights or even if they knew what a woman was in a real and legal terms

Labour has changed so much since corbyn I couldnt even vote for them in the locals and mayoral I voted for count binface.

The conservatives today are not even the ones from years ago they are extreme right wingers from the leave campaign even ken clark got kicked out by them. the goal posts are moving political parties dont stay in one place the cons have moved far right and labour have become centrist and are still sliding right under starmer, very dangerous times.

"At the last election, the tories were the only party who knew what a woman was & as a sexual abuse survivor, this is extremely important to me so I held my nose & voted for them. Does that mean I agree with everything they stand for though? No. We’re all voting for who we think is the best of a bad bunch & we all have our lines in the sand & our personal hills to die on, for me it’s sex based rights but for the poster you quoted it’s welfare which inevitably means we’ll be voting for different parties. I’m certainly not going to hate them for voting differently to me and I don’t even disagree with them. If there was a party who upheld sex based rights AND protected / increased welfare then believe me, I would have voted for them."

I agree @DiscoLightsOnAFridayNight.

The reality is unless you are a party supporter rather than voting on policies there will always be policies of the party you voted for you disagree with. We all choose that party that has the policies that are important to us, and you are right that doesn't then mean you agree with all policies of the party.

Were you a Corbyn supporter op?

It’s difficult as Labour have lost me too as I find it too negative, too filled with contempt for the public. And a bit too close to some views re hate in this thread.

I find it very frustrating that as a centrist that Labour still fails to deliver as it did in 90s

I think landslides in other direction show I’m one of many too.

I feel a real sense of complacency on this thread, like how could political views ever really harm anyone, you should just engage with anyone who thinks differently

Agree. Imagine being a gay person in Bolsanaro's Brazil or a Hungarian woman, where Orban wants them all at home barefoot and pregnant. I'm sure there are lots of Hungarian men in agreement with women's rights being stripped back and Brazilian people in agreement with Bolsanaro that being gay is an abomination and many of these people probably wonder why they can't still be friends and just agree to differ.

Also re Brexit I voted remain and couldn’t have been more of a remainer back then. But I still need some direction from a party not just dislike

Going on about how something is bad rarely motivates people. Why Remain lead with 'this is why leaving the EU is bad, here are the nice things we'll lose if we leave' (many of which weren't universally accessibly anyway) rather than connecting with people and having conversations on how they would, within EU laws, make the problems people solvable by other means is beyond me. "This is what we can do to make the EU work for you" or just something.

Like last year, many were discussing how the government was listening to behavioural experts on what people would do if... - what behavioural experts was Cameron listening to during the Remain campaign? Leave seemed to have found some, but I think Remain left the social sciences off the fields in which they got expert opinion to talk to people.

1mumm I agree that I wouldn't judge someone for feeling as they do; however, when it comes to indigenous communities - most activists I know are pretty vocal that all political parties and powers fuck it up. I know the US issues better in this regard, but it's pretty widely known that whoever we vote for is going to have lied to us and will treat us like shite when they can and it benefits a corporation. Biden has already broken promises to indigenous nations and few are surprised, though it can be annoying to have people who keep clinging to him and harping on about him as the 'the good guy'. He's not the messiah, he's a politician.

I think for many there is a difference for fighting against and having strong feelings, including hate, about abuses of power in the systems in our lives compared to hating individuals who voted, especially these days when it's widely discussed how many people vote are more against something rather than for or are voting with their identity rather than values (the we're X so we vote Y issue). It's a well known political point to "vote for you want to be fighting against" because we inevitably will.

I don't "hate" anyone, but I'm sure as hell not going to sit here and say that it doesn't matter. People who voted for Brexit or Donald Trump or the Conservative party in the UK are some combination of hateful, selfish, and seriously unintelligent- either harmlessly so, because it's the lack of intelligence that is the problem, or dangerously so, because they're leading with "hateful". In any case I am not going to break bread with them any more than I would break bread with someone I knew to be racist or homophobic. The SINGLE exception to this rule is my elderly auntie, who helped me when i was younger, so I'll ensure she's safe and warm in her old age while tuning out her "political opinions".

the cons have moved far right

In defence of balance, I would actually say the current tory party are the most left wing socialist tories we have had for generations. In terms of the last year and a half, they have pumped billions into the economy and supported more individuals and industries than at any time since the second world war.

Oh, and I don't hate anyone for their political beliefs. I have a wide group of friends of all political persuasions, cultures, brexiteers and not, Europeans and not, with quite a lot of crossover. We have excellent dinner parties and good debate, but no-one hates anyone for their considered democratic opinions.

I'm going with YABU. Hating people for perfectly legitimate democratic choices in the UK is odd, ignorant and shows the impact of a deficient education in my view. Which is a shame.

Social media has a lot to answer for as people are able now to only see and hear things they agree with and then are completely taken a lack by real world events such as an 80 seat Conservative majority.

And how the left thinks that telling the electorate they're stupid and wrong results in a winning strategy is unclear to me.

I'm a centrist voter btw and have voted for all political parties in the past.

YABU. Most ordinary people vote for what they genuinely believe is best for the country. They aren't out to get you or make things worse. They have weighed up all the factors, thought long and hard about them and made a decision. Some of them will reach a different conclusion to you. That doesn't mean they should hate you, or deserve your hatred.

The world is full of places where hatred (religious, cultural, political etc), have led to extreme despotic regimes when brute force becomes its expression. Tolerance, free speech and open-mindedness are vital. You can disagree very strongly with people without 'hating' them.

I think brexit is pretty damn extreme its ripping up the way of life I grew up with, everythig I know and returning us to the dark days my mother talked about of poor man of Europe, bin strikes, deprivation, empty shelves, power cuts, she was very pro EU said this country was a absolute dump until we joined but people are blind.

I've skipped to the end to reply to this, so hopefully my replay isn't redundant.

I think you've inherited a very strange view of political history from you mother. All those bad things did happen, then went away. The conventional version of history is that they were caused by the left, though trade unions more than the Labour Party. They went away because Margaret Thatcher was elected and destroyed trade union power. (And this wasn't something she did incidentally after she was elected, she was elected specifically to sort out these issues. Google the "Labour isn't working" poster her election campaign used.)

None of these problems were caused by being outside of the EEC, none were solved by being inside. Indeed, nothing changed in that regard between the mid -to-late 1970's when the problems were at their height, and the 1980's when Thatcher was in power. We were "in" at both times.

I have literally never before your post head anyone attribute those problems to not being in EEC. If you (or anyone reading this) seriously believe that's true, I'd appreciate some links to documents explaining how joing EEC in 1973 solve the problems that were at their peak in the late 70's.

The current Tory party are not "conservative" - they are fascist kleptocrats who will stoop to any low, any lie, to line their own pockets.

The people who vote for them (and who voted for brexit)- unless they are obscenely wealthy - are mind-numbingly stupid, self-sabotaging cretins who would rather burn the whole house country down around themselves than allow anyone else happiness, comfort, or stability.

I am basically so far left as to fall off the map, but I have a grudging respect for politically Conservative people with honest convictions. Sadly, they don't exist anymore- there is no way you could hold honestly conservative beliefs and not be diametrically opposed to the current party that calls itself conservative.

What classes as far-right these days? Because all I ever hear is people being called far-right because they don't agree with everything Labour says.

Far-right, nazi, fascist, bigot, etc used to actually mean something. Now it just seems to mean someone who disagrees with you.

There's the risk that the words become meaningless. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're already there.

I have completely different political views to my parents but I love them and vice versa. There are obviously lots of pros and cons to staying in or leaving the eu so why hate anyone for their views on it? Anyone who votes for a more left wing government hurts me financially but I don’t hate them for it. I understand why they are doing it. I do get irritated by some of the hypocrisy but I never feel hatred. I actually really like the fact that people think differently. It makes life so much more interesting.

@MarshaBradyo

Were you a Corbyn supporter op?

It’s difficult as Labour have lost me too as I find it too negative, too filled with contempt for the public. And a bit too close to some views re hate in this thread.

I find it very frustrating that as a centrist that Labour still fails to deliver as it did in 90s

I think landslides in other direction show I’m one of many too.

yes he was a proper socialist, they all seem to have been kicked out the party now I am convinced starmer is a trojan horse paid by the right wing to destroy the party theres no other logical explanation for how anyone can destroy a party so much.

I dont like centrists I must say, its a cop out stop sitting on the fence, politically its absolutely meaningless, starmer says he is centrist while heavily leaning right.

@ShrillSiren

What classes as far-right these days? Because all I ever hear is people being called far-right because they don't agree with everything Labour says.

Far-right, nazi, fascist, bigot, etc used to actually mean something. Now it just seems to mean someone who disagrees with you.

There's the risk that the words become meaningless. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're already there.

IMHO there is centrist which is meaningless fence sitting, left and right and then the far left and far right and if you go so far right and left enough they end up meeting up at the same place.

i.e its a circle.

It's absolutely fucking pathetic to hate people based on their political leanings.

@RiotAtTheRodeo

I feel a real sense of complacency on this thread, like how could political views ever really harm anyone, you should just engage with anyone who thinks differently

Agree. Imagine being a gay person in Bolsanaro's Brazil or a Hungarian woman, where Orban wants them all at home barefoot and pregnant. I'm sure there are lots of Hungarian men in agreement with women's rights being stripped back and Brazilian people in agreement with Bolsanaro that being gay is an abomination and many of these people probably wonder why they can't still be friends and just agree to differ.

Exactly

Or to take an example from the UK, people might say you shouldn't despise someone just because they're anti-immigration, because that's a valid political opinion

But tell that to someone who's been deported because of Windrush, or a UK citizen who cannot live in their own country because they don't earn enough to get their spouse a visa, or the many people who have been wrongly refused housing and employment because of 'hostile environment' policies.

I'm not going to engage with someone who thinks it's okay if I'm deported or exiled or discriminated against.

I dont like centrists I must say, its a cop out stop sitting on the fence, politically its absolutely meaningless

No I disagree. But I think there’s a gap in education particularly around economics and what far right and state spending mean. My education probably informs my views a lot.

Btw many people aren’t far to the right or left it’s why Blair got such a big landslide and Cons did against Corbyn.

If a party wants to win it’s got to recognise how to do it

@YouJustDoYou

It's absolutely fucking pathetic to hate people based on their political leanings.

It depends on what those leanings are.

Most of the "proper socialists" in the Labour party were euro-sceptics. In fact it was only old lectures by Tony Benn that were my kernel of doubt as I voted remain.