In thinking that Left = Good and Right = Bad has gone too far?

[WilmaFlintstone1]

A few things have made me pause in the last few days and I realised I have become increasingly irritated by the Left vs Right discourse,

Take the recent spat between Lee Anderson and Jack Monroe. Now neither of them covered themselves in glory but I don’t think demonising him because he is Tory and praising Jack because she is a Lefty is right. They both have deep flaws and neither is getting it right.

The Margaret Thatcher statue is another thing. Why are people pelting it with eggs? Firstly in a country where there are food shortages it’s immoral to be doing this. Secondly I am not getting the wholesale glee with which certain commentators are reporting it. The very woke lot being all “hey, people are selling eggs by the statue” to wholesale amusement. I just keep thinking “FFS get over yourselves.”

Now I hated Margaret Thatcher BUT she was the first female PM which was in itself a massive step forwards. I am not about to go pelting her statue with eggs, yes I’d rather the investment has been put into local services in that community but pelting a statue with eggs won’t change that.

Its become as though some people will pass any behaviour because it’s Lefties sticking it to the Right.

For removal of all speculation I’d probably consider myself a Lefty and they tend to get my vote…for what that’s worth in my heavily Blue area

isn’t it possible that there are deep flaws both sides?

@WilmaFlintstone1

100 million % agree. And I am sick to death of the whole 'if you're not left wing you're an evil bigot' rhetoric. There's some of it on mumsnet, though thankfully the wokies seem to be outnumbered on here these days. The worst place for it on the internet is Twitter. It's a cesspit of wokies and very-far lefties, who have toxic, far-left opinions that no-one I know in real life actually has.

I know half a dozen 22-28 year olds who are uber woke on Twitter, who constantly bash JK Rowling, vilify the Royal family, wish death on Tory MPs, and call anyone who voted for Brexit a racist bigoted cunt. Even though half their relatives - including their parents voted for Brexit.

Yet in real life, these young 20-somethings are nothing like this, and have actually slipped out a few comments that they would slaughter people online for saying. (Eg, unfavourable comments about Asians, Travellers, and transgender people.)

Some people on Twitter call people boomers and Karens and bigots and racist cunts etc, for doing/saying very little (sometimes nothing) wrong, and yet these same people preach the 'be kind' wankery. The 'far left' wokie types are some of the most bigoted, unpleasant people I have ever encountered in my life. They will never admit to being wrong, and will never listen to ANYONE'S opinion but their own. They shout down anyone who says anything that doesn't fit their far left narrative, with 'racist cunt' and 'Daily Mail Reader alert' type comments.

The Daily Mail reader comment is quite common on here on some threads, and IMO, when someone utters that, they have lost the argument. Because it's a pathetic, lazy, tedious, predictable insult, that someone comes out with when they have nothing else to say (and when they're losing the argument.)

All the defacing of the statues of white people, and people that they don't like is pathetic. It doesn't change anything that happened. It's a part of history. You can't re-write history. It's always the same types too. Over privileged, white, middle class, trust-fund oiks, (whose parents are very likely Tories.) They're the same irksome types who are gluing themselves to the roads, blockading petrol tankers, and stopping ordinary folk from living their everyday lives, and letting down tyres on big 4 wheel drive cars, etc etc.

And whenever something like this comes up, and you mention the intolerant 'far-left' wokies, you ALWAYS get someone saying 'I never see any of that on mumsnet, OR twitter.' Makes me laugh every time I read it. Yeah right SURE you never see it on mumsnet or twitter. If you don't see this hideous far-left, wokie bigotry and hate on here, that's because you are part of it.

I am. I have been since I was growing up in Newcastle as the child of a council worker. A great many if my friends were then too, and still are.

We saw some of the worst of the left- wing councils, including the efforts to ensure that us working class knew our place, and didn’t dare think of getting above ourselves. There were myriad examples of this. One that stuck with me was when my activist chemistry teacher told me not to apply to Oxford as it wasn’t for “people like you.”

She had studied at Imperial, her daughter was off to Durham, but people “like me” had to know our place.

Rise with your class, not above it was one of the phrases.

@SamReiver, I'm a working-class kid, too. Now a senior corporate executive.

No, it's not Thatcher that made "us". It's us making it against all odds because who is going to buy into the capitalist fairy tale if the likes of us don't exist to keep people believing in the system?

Thatcher was vile!

(Thatcher was also, as mentioned in the OP, our first ever female PM, also just the daughter of a shop keeper, also someone who made it against all odds, and for that I respect her personally. It must have been an uphill battle. On policy, though, she was still vile!)

The bit of this idea that stands out for me is that there seem to be people on the left who don’t even accept that it’s the parents responsibility do look after their children.

I absolutely believe that the state should step in and ensure no child goes hungry or cold if the parents are failing to take care of this themselves, but I cannot get on board with the idea that the responsibility falls on the state before it falls on the parents.

The obligation on parents to move heaven and Earth to look after their children before asking the state used to be baked-in to working class communities, and people were rightly shamed and shunned if they spent money at the pub or the bingo ahead of ensuring that their children were properly looked after. I’ve argued with people in recent years who’ll say that latents “deserve” a drink out, or a smoke, and that it’s wrong to say that they should forego these luxuries rather than turn to benefits to feed their own children.

Which policies do you feel were “vile” then?

Extreme right wing government 😂😂😂😂

We have an incompetent government. The idea of extreme right wingers overseeing furlough for a start.

@Sausageandeggs bang on

@pointythings you realise our government is centre right compared to America, much of Europe? Sound like someone has swallowed some lefty bollocks.

For me, Thatcher's unsatisfactory policies included:

• Falklands
• 1988 housing act
• removal of traveller sites
• poll tax
• removal of mooring rights

All of the above have a theme. Essentially to do with either deprivation of property/rights or state penalties for being in possession of property/rights that Thatcher didn't want people to have.

It was quite a punitive government really.

Others:

• qualified removal of right to silence
• criminalisation of secondary picketing

Again sort of edging on punitive, definitely restricting civil liberties. Not in line with previous conservative governments.

@Fluval I'm not sure why criticisms of lockdowns became right wing. It seemed to be entwined with pro economy and profits and uncaring of people's lives. In reality, it was the lower paid workers that were disadvantaged. I also don't know why criticisms of mandates and passports became a right wing stance as well. The left seemed to want to punish anti vaxxers too. It's very confusing to me as I thought the left always fought repression and inequalities in the past.

It depends on what you define as 'centre right'. I'd see Macron's En Marche as centre right - and the Tories are well to the right of that. They're also to the right of the Dutch VVD, though not as bad as the Forum for Democratie. They aren't quite as bad as Fidesz, but that margin is pretty narrow. And they're well to the right of Germany's CDU. They're currently limiting the right to protest, deporting asylum seekers to an unsafe third country and they're breaking international law.

I wouldn't say they are that far to the right of the US Democrats and compared to the current Republican party they are a model of socialism. There are parties in all European countries which are to the right of the current Tories - but most are not in government. Oh, and I've forgotten Poland, whose current ruling party is easily as bad as Fidesz. But if you think the Tories are centrists, your Overton window is well out of whack.

Falklands?

Is it fair to assume then that you support the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

If not, why the double standards?

You might feel that when somebody comments that a poster comes across as a ‘Daily Mail reader’ then they have lost the argument. I’d feel similar about anybody who uses the term ‘wokie’ as a slur.

The word ‘woke’ has been very successfully weaponized by the right wing press. The strategy seemed to be: highlight some examples of ‘wokeness gone mad’, in order to establish that all ‘woke’ politics is nonsense, so that any anti-racist views can be dismissed out of hand as being ‘woke’ (and thus ridiculous).

I’m to the left but I recognize that, particularly online, people can be particularly aggressive and militant. There’s an eagerness to insult and denigrate people who may have slightly different views, even if those views aren’t coming from a place of hate/intolerance.

In your post, you come across as the mirror image of those you are condemning, throwing around insults, drawing culture-war battle lines and making wild generalizations about anyone who might disagree with you on an issue.

But it's been like this for years. Clearly a majority of voters voted Tory, same with Brexit, but don't boast about it on forums like this as they get shouted down as bigots, racists, gammons or whatever. İt's apparently ok to shout about stuff if you're a Labour/Remain supporter though, as that's seen as more woke, more antiestablishment, and are obviously much more vocal about it.

I'd list Section 28 among Thatcher's vile policies too. One of the worst.

How is being ‘more woke’ wrong?

@SamReiver, personally speaking: which ones do I NOT find vile, but:

Above all, it'll have to be her choice to prioritise inflation control over keeping unemployment in check whilst also cutting the social safety net at every opportunity.

This shit brought our communities to their knees! And breaking the unions - while I can appreciate how it would have fitted in with her overall approach - took people's sense of dignity and self-worth along with their livelihoods.

Yes, I said I was a working-class kid, too! But I was lucky, because at the very least both of my parents fell within the "actually working" as in "not on the dole" category.

I remember being about ten and my grandmother (our free of charge child minder) pretty unceremoniously feeding some two or so families worth of neighbour's kids, too, because their parents were, literally, struggling to feed them.

What on earth is not vile about letting kids go hungry?

(Also: supply-side economics is still one of the stupidest concepts out there. Yes, I've since gone on to obtain a degree in something that covered the theory. No, it still doesn't make much more sense ...)

ginghamstarfish Tory voters need to develop a thicker skin then, because the current Tory party - and I include the 2019 Tories in that - are corrupt, callous, unethical, uncaring and undemocratic. If you support that in the way you vote, that says a lot about the kind of person you are. You can bleat 'but Corbyn' until you're blue in the face and I never had a lot of time for Corbyn, but if you wilfully vote for the current Tories then you are condoning everything they do. Moreover you're voting for stupidity and incompetence to run your country.

It was parents letting children go hungry.

This idea that it’s the state who should be responsible for feeding your children isn’t one I can get on board with.

Sounds like you might be a bit Right- leaning, OP 😬

😂

Regarding children going hungry - yes there are some rubbish parents who don't prioritise this but there are also working parents who struggle after paying bills and childcare. We should ask why salaries are so low and the cost of housing so high.

Oh yeah clause 28 and deranged economic policies too.

Lots to criticise really.

Re the Falklands, they're not in Ukraine last time I looked. The fuckup there was ignoring advice from her own military about Argentina's likely actions to the point that it became a war rather than a diplomatic exercise.

@SamReiver the narrative of the feckless unemployed person who wastes their money on alcohol and cigarettes at the expense of their children is a right wing trope as old as time. It's been very nicely weaponised by the current Tories - well done, you fell for it.

Fact is, Thatcher's reforms meant an end to affordable rented housing and some of the highest housing costs in Europe as a proportion of income. Then there were several decades where there was no minimum wage - remind me, who abolished that?

Of course it is a parent's responsibility to feed their children, but I know too many people - most working! - who do not smoke, drink, go out etc. and still need food banks. So stop it with that crap, please.

Yeah, and, so THIS is why I am, always have been, forever will be a fucking leftie:

The odd psychopaths aside: NO it is not, has never been, will never be parents who let kids go hungry!

Parents risk their lives, sacrifice their happiness, fight tooth, claw and nail, to preserve their young.

It's not even a choice or "human" nature as such - this is what millions of years of evolution have primed us to do. And by "us" I mean "humans, domestic cats, and sloths alike!".

It's primal instinct!

So much for the question in the OP: right wingers lend themselves to the "bad" image because they come out with shit such as "parents let their kids starve".

And I say this as - see previous posts - a lefty who critically engages with my own side.

Also, @pointythings, thanks for not getting as riled up and phrasing this more eloquently than me.

Salaries really aren’t that low. A couple each on minimum wage and working 40 hours per week are on £38,000 per year.