Hobbycraft employee badge - no terfs, no Tories

[ItsCoolForCats]

Another example of why bringing your whole self to work is a terrible idea.

Hobbycraft seems to be busy trying to mitigate the fallout, presumably because they know which demographic spends the most money there.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5359520/dundee-hobbycraft-trans-row/

1. Being gender critical isn't being fascist.
2. Voting Tory also isn't fascist.
3. Excluding people from public services because of their political beliefs is a hallmark of fascism and other forms of authoritarianism. This includes shops open to the public.

I sew and I would stop going there. Local suppliers exist.

You're also missing the point, which is that wearing political statements at work is a bad idea.

I don't even wear a poppy at work, because sectarianism still exists where I currently live. Even though all my colleagues know that I'm from a non-sectarian part of the UK, a poppy would still automatically be perceived as taking a side, the side with the orange sashes and bowler hats...

I always find it surprising that some people can live in such a bubble that they are not aware of things like:

The quite large number of gay and lesbian Tories
How many "persons of colour" are Tories or generally conservative.
How many people involved, professionally, in jobs that deal with helping the disenfranchised, are Tory.
How many people working with refugees are Tories.
How many volunteers who run soup kitchens, women's shelters, and other social supports are Tories.
How many people involved with helping prisoners are Tories.
How much conservative people give to charities, compared to other groups in the population.

Because there is no way they can be meeting normal people in the population who do all these things and not clue in that "Tories are people who believe in being selfish and doing evil, and hate gays, black people, and women" does not compute.

Christ almighty.....

@Swiftasthewind Get back to us when racist Labour drags itself out of the dark ages and not only has a woman, but a woman of colour as leader. Until then, you have no grounds for calling tories racist, since they're the only party to have women leaders and people of colour as leaders. All Labour has is stale pale white male leaders. Explain that?

A quick look at the history of the UK and other countries would tell you why we need secret ballots. They prevent voter intimidation, bribery, and retaliation. Elections cannot be free nor fair if ballots are public.

In a world in which people are shamed into voting "the right way" in a public ballot, they are compelled to lie. This is beyond unethical.

When considering a law or policy, you should consider how it could be used against you by your opponents if and when they get into power. I see leftists failing to do this far more than rightists, possibly because leftists cannot conceive that the people they call "bigots" wouldn't vote for them and that hence the left might lose an election. In a world without secret ballots and in which there is one employer in town, the employer can hold employees' jobs to ransom to obtain a preferred election result. This would work against leftist voters, as employers tend to be capitalist and lean to the right. Be careful what you wish for.

leftists cannot conceive that the people they call "bigots" wouldn't vote for them

Bigotgate should have been the last time that anyone on the left was patronising to anyone because the causal relationship between that and the Tories winning the election was so clear. The turnout even increased, as if the electorate collectively said "I'm not staying at home to be patronised, I'm going to vote these arrogant twats out".

And yet here we are...

All Labour has is stale pale white male leaders.

The trade unions may no longer block vote in Labour leadership elections, but many TUs are still affiliated with the Labour Party and their members get to vote for the leader if they pay the political levy on top of their subs. You usually have to opt out of the political levy, so that's a lot of TU members who can vote. The members of the big TUs associated with male-dominated industries (e.g. rail, heavy industry, technical jobs, firefighting) are a lot more sexist and a lot less anti-racist than the unions they are in want you to believe.

How much conservative people give to charities, compared to other groups in the population.

This genuinely reflects differing worldviews as well as differing amounts of surplus cash to donate.

Leftist view

• https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1996/1990s/no-1097-january-1996/where-charity-begins-why-it-should-end/
• https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/black-flag-sydney-socialism-is-not-charity-why-we-re-against-mutual-aid

Rightist critique of leftist view

• https://www.econlib.org/charity-isnt-an-option-with-socialism/

I used to side with the leftists: after all, if the Govt funded things properly, we wouldn't need charities, right? Then I saw how the Scottish Govt attached strings to funding Rape Crisis such that Scotswomen couldn't get female-only group sessions until Joanne Rowling stepped in to fund Beira's Place, and I realised that giving the Govt a monopoly on deciding who is worthy of help and support is a really bad idea.

“why should people’s voting records be private? People should not be able to vote for parties like Reform and be able to work in roles that require interacting and assisting immigrants and asylum seekers, which you absolutely can because nobody has any real idea who votes for who. That system is not fit for purpose in today’s society.”

This cannot be real, surely?

Who are the fascists again?

Didn’t I read that men influencing the women in their family was a discussion point for the US election? As a discussion on domestic abuse.

And yet, someone who believes this also identifies as compassionate, and all those other ‘good’ labels that we have seen have lately been changed to mean the opposite if their establish original meaning.

Though apparently, everyone should have who they voted for stamped on their forehead as a point of pride or shame. What a world!

How about all those in customer facing roles just remain professional at all times?

And maybe having represented the Austrian Green Party Faika El-Nagashi should now be categorised as being one of those who are now needing to be shamed as she would be called a TERF.

I mean, isn’t that how it goes? If you are someone who prioritises the needs of female people and sex based rights, you are not left wing, or it seems artistic.

So, the UK Communist Party, and a former Austrian Green Party politician, let’s not forget the Labour Party MPs in the UK …. Seems to be some inconsistency to some of the left wing rhetoric.

Yes, I would agree there are some real differernces of viewpoint around the best way to help people, and also state control.

What's not differernt is seeing the need for people to be helped. And putting your money where your mouth is, or pitching in personally.

And that was really my point, that the differernces between left and right wing thinking aren't about being nice, kind, helpful, etc, they are about differernces in views about how to accomplish these things, what the necessary conditions are to have a functioning society (conservatives seem, imo, to see economic prosperity as foundational to some extent,) how best to help people, what people need to thrive, even.

And there is actually a lot of overlap. Look at health care - in the UK, most conservatives are suggesting something closer to a European model. That is not far out, most people on the left in the UK are happy to move to France or Germany and use their health system.

@TempestTost agree - and the other thing is, overheated rhetoric and trying to divine someone's bad motives often gets in the way of listening to what they are saying.

If I say "the benefits system is full of perverse incentives and isn't very good at getting help to those who need it most", I'm not saying I don't believe in the existence of a social safety net.

Mind blown, again.
That way lie both Fascism and communism.

If you cant see that, perhaps some extensive reading is in order. Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands' might be a good place to start.

Or to the left of Comrade Stalin...

The political stuff from that poster would be wild enough, but the sex tourism stuff is just the icing on the cake.

Is that on another thread? Don't think I've seen it.

This whole thread is pretty wild:
Page 8 | To want a South American husband | Mumsnet

Bloody hell.
No objectification going on there, no sireee...

Thank you, interesting and insightful post.

In addition, some charities are largely government funded – the state outsourcing its support services. What strings it attaches to the funding is a political issue that it can get disastrously wrong; as can private philanthropists.

Authoritarianism looks the same everywhere.

No! No! Leftist authoritarian is for all our own good. It is to be labelled “good”.

Objectifying people based on their race is just another type of colonial mindset. Romanticising the noble savage is also pretty outdated, I've not seen that type of view expressed in many years.

All of this type of behaviour - the authoritarianism, self justification fallacy, objectification and patronising of others - stems from unexamined privilege.