Miriam Cates/National Conservatives conference

[AdamRyan]

Miriam Cates was due to speak at the NatCon conference in Brussels tomorrow, on the topic of "Save The Children!"
The conference has been shut down because the Mayor will not tolerate the far right.

Here is a tweet to GB news discussing why the conference was shut down:

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1780239986861744280?s=19&t=hHgjMANzaGdj92-GTys1ig

I'm putting this here because I know a lot of GC feminists support Cates - I don't, and this stuff is why. She is awful.

Is "Splitting hairs" the term you are using for being factually correct and able to differentiate?

No, I wouldn't. Child abuse would be force feeding or not feeding at all.
Chips are just potatoes....no great harm in them...even if not ideal as a regular meal. Lots of small children are fussy eaters and can get fixated on eating only one type of thing all the time. And if that is what the parents chooses to eat themselves, no doubt they will offer it to their child too.

I'm guessing someone once tutted at @JessS1990 for feeding a toddler chips? So therefore no one should ever care about or intervene in a any way with other people's kids. And I definitely shouldn't have stopped a toddler from rolling into a busy road a couple of years back.

Honestly, this tired line of 'You're all right wing bigots really, you're just pretending to be frustrated (wannabe / ex-)Labour voters' is pathetic.

Is it really only 'permitted' to disagree with absolutely everything Tory MPs say, even if they occasionally say things which are sensible / correct? That's a fucking bonkers way of living life.

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Sorry but this is playground level analysis. Taking a look at a twitter post doesn't convert into helping a political party. As for arguing that "if you agree with one or two things she says, it is likely you'll agree with others" 😂

How doesn't it help the Tories? Do you understand algorithms? The amount of work the goes into the programming and coding behind the scenes is staggering. Everything is linked.

And, yes, of course if you agree on one issue, you are likely to agree on others. This is how politics, and political parties, work. You don't have to agree on everything - that would be rare - but in general, you would find you're in harmony.

@NoWordForFluffy

Is it really only 'permitted' to disagree with absolutely everything Tory MPs say, even if they occasionally say things which are sensible / correct? That's a fucking bonkers way of living life.

No, I don't think in black and white like that. I certainly didn't say anything like the above.

Yet if we agree with 1 or 2 things, we likely agree more / all other things? That shows poor reasoning skills at best on your part.

And, yes, of course if you agree on one issue, you are likely to agree on others. This is how politics, and political parties, work. You don't have to agree on everything - that would be rare - but in general, you would find you're in harmony.

Life is not that simple. I can agree with some things that many, many, people think, across all political and religious arenas. That's just how life goes. That does not equate to 'harmony' or support.

And as for not reading TwiX posts of people you're 'not allowed' to agree with, well, that's bonkers. How are you able to ensure you're seeing all sides of an argument if you're limiting your reading to 'approved' posters only?

@NoWordForFluffy

Yet if we agree with 1 or 2 things, we likely agree more / all other things? That shows poor reasoning skills at best on your part.

Not at all. There is a deep tendency for tribalism RN in politics, and the GC aren't exempt from this.

Thanks for the patronising, though.

@NoWordForFluffy

And as for not reading TwiX posts of people you're 'not allowed' to agree with, well, that's bonkers. How are you able to ensure you're seeing all sides of an argument if you're limiting your reading to 'approved' posters only?

I didn't say you couldn't read them, nor that you're not allowed to agree with them. Why change my words? That's annoying.

Read a spectrum. That balances out the algorithm somewhat.

This is the same level as “you said biology is not a spectrum, so you are a right wing bigot”.

No it isn't.
Biological sex is a scientific fact that applies across life forks, regardless of what humans think about it (or even if we are here to think about it). Pointing out science isn't bigotry.

Perspectives on whether or not something is racist or anti Islam is an entirely human preoccupation. Splitting hairs about how "that doesn't mean Muslim" regarding a talk at a right wing anti immigration, pro "European culture" conference is not the same at all.

Fascist far right rhetoric is dangerous and I'm not going to be shamed into shutting up about that just because Miriam Cates also venerates mothers. It's all a bit "kinder, kirche, kuche" for me.

Read a spectrum. That balances out the algorithm somewhat.

Well, yes. That's what people here are advocating for.

But you said earlier that we shouldn't read the bad Tories' posts because it 'boosts their algorithm'.

So do you agree with us that we should read all sides of a debate or that we shouldn't read any posts written by people who you don't like?

like 37% of people in this country, I am no religion and my kids are fine. As are most peoples. Also a strange thing to say at a conference where there was a session about "Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, Is Europe Really Aware of the Endogenous Islamist Threat?" Almost like she means one particular kind of faith but didn't want to explicitly say that because she knew it would go down badly.

I'm completely lost now - what speech are you referring to and have you got a link?
Or are you just complaining about the title of the session?

Do you know who Florence Bergeaud-Blackler is?

Do you really think free speech is right wing or do you only want to censor if you don't like it?

As others have pointed out Islamism is a political project that kills and oppresses Muslims.

I linked Cates speech upthread. And the point I was making is she used "people who...raise their children in a faith community are statistically more likely to raise flourishing children "
At a conference where they are also talking about the threat from other "endogenous" faith based communities.

She clearly doesn't believe all faiths are equal; if she did she wouldn't be at this conference.

I don't want to know anything about someone giving a speech at that conference with that title. I can predict without looking that she talks fear mongering tosh.

I'll have a look now though and if it turns out she's a reasonable academic who just happened to decide this was a good conference to play her message back I'll come back and apologise.

BTW, once again, my post isn't about "shutting down free speech". It's about the tendency for some GC women to fangirl Cates without apparently knowing what she stands for. It is very similar to the KJK and Badenoch behaviour also.

OK. So basically the French version of Ayan Hirsi-Ali but with less far fetched stories.

No thanks. Not convinced.

@OldCrone

Read a spectrum. That balances out the algorithm somewhat.

Well, yes. That's what people here are advocating for.
But you said earlier that we shouldn't read the bad Tories' posts because it 'boosts their algorithm'.
So do you agree with us that we should read all sides of a debate or that we shouldn't read any posts written by people who you don't like?

Why are you changing my words completely? I said reading their posts boosts their algorithms. Not that you "shouldn't read the bad Tories' posts".

You even copied and pasted my response to PP - which was "read a spectrum". So my answer to your question is right there.

When certain terms become over-used......

So you do read Tories' TwiX posts, even though that means you inadvertently help them? Which means it's OK to read Ms Cates' TwiX posts?

Reminder of what you said: 'The trouble is if you are visiting her X timełine (or similar) youʼre boosting her algorithm and ałtering your own algorithm. Ergo, you are helping the Tories. It makes no difference if you don't directly vote for her.'

😂😂

Politically it's so lazy to only toe one party line, read certain newspapers, follow certain politicians.

Whatever happened to critical thinking, when did we bury it, in which decade.

It's tempting to think people are intellectually challenged, which okay is true in some cases, BUT what's everyone else's excuse?

Like many women on here I try to avoid threads started to lecture women and pretend that we're all "fangirling" other women - but occasionally get sucked in in exasperation.

These threads seem to showcase a variety of misogynistic attitudes where some posters openly display a dislike or prejudice against certain women because of their political beliefs. Very like the attitudes certain men display on Twitter. It's always surprising to see them on a feminist board

It's always surprising to see them on a feminist board.

Indeed, @MrsOvertonsWindow. It's interesting to observe the types of threads they start / post on as well. Some surprising omissions given alleged concerns raised where they do post.

That is so tedious.

Politics is best when not engaged with on twitter. Tribalistic posturing whereby one can never agree with anything, on principle, that anyone of a different tribe is saying is the politics of the herd.