Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

What's more, I have very little choice in the matter. It's choosing between placing my faith in the hands of the vultures, jackals, mosquitoes, wolves and lions of the UK & European Union, or placing my faith in the hands of the vipers & rattlesnakes of the UK. I am pretty fucked no matter what, but I shall choose the one I can most capably deal with, or at the very least escape or outlive it.

That much I agree. I think at this point this whole thing is driving itself, no matter what any of the supposed actors want. I think there will be a cliffedge brexit in 2019, for better or worse. Best case scenario things are  chaotic for a while but then settle down (I´m kind of leaning on this one right now. I find it hard to believe that things will burst. Then again people probably didnt see the 29 crash coming either). Worst case scenario, don´t worry. I´ll prepare some beef jerky packages and I´ll ask TheDwarf1 to smuggle them to you.

Assuming he has electricity to run his PC, that is. But I´m guessing I could smuggle HIM a bike with a dynamo, and THEN he could come pick up the pickled pork, and bring it over to you in one of the electricity barges.

[Loud Whispers]

aw yiss hit me up with dat meat rations

[Rowanas]

LW posts an essay in his first post.  His second post is to be overjoyed at meat rations.

[Loud Whispers]

My interpretation of Yin and Yang is being inconsistently combined of two extremes

[Dorsidwarf]

I’m not gonna quote LW because then my post would be 99% his content, but I broadly agree, with the exception  that trying to cast 50% of the country as Fat-Cat banker elite in ivory towers is patently ridiculous and a cheap rhetorical tactic. Also he forgot the existence of the middle class entirely, but ultimately the point stands in that if you’re gonna do a multiple referendum it has to be fully defined in advance because otherwise you end up with a farcical “vote until you agree with us” situation, because the UK government are a bunch of untrustworthy bastards.

On the other hand, what is your proposed solution to the issue that 30% of MPs elected in general election disagreed with their constituents on the Brexit issue? Have the government fire all Remain MPs even though there’s been a snap election since the vote?

[Loud Whispers]

I’m not gonna quote LW because then my post would be 99% his content, but I broadly agree, with the exception  that trying to cast 50% of the country as Fat-Cat banker elite in ivory towers is patently ridiculous and a cheap rhetorical tactic.

I'm not being a dafty, the top of the profession groups I listed probably make up to 1-2% of the UK's population and it should be self-evident I'm not claiming the UK harbours bankers, brokers and barristers in the tens of millions. As far as I know, this is not the case :P I didn't spend all that time writing to be cheap, I should've thought it transparently clear that I was stressing the difference between which faction dominates positions of influence, lending an institutional strategic advantage in matters of democratic campaigning.

Also he forgot the existence of the middle class entirely, but ultimately the point stands in that if you’re gonna do a multiple referendum it has to be fully defined in advance because otherwise you end up with a farcical “vote until you agree with us” situation, because the UK government are a bunch of untrustworthy bastards.

Regarding the middle class, there has been no lapse in memory. The middle class in the UK is temporary, you're either newly affluent and destined to join the upper class, or you're technical middle class in the sense that you're poor and incapable of advancing socially, saving money or purchasing property; especially in regards to increasing one's income faster than inflation or interest rates. I suppose you might refer to the established middle class, but they're moving abroad or dying of old age. Multiple referendums as defined in advance does sound like a just and the only way to have multiple referendums, if such a thing be desirable. Otherwise it's a return to darker days - reminds me of when PMs would just call general elections when their administration presided over times of prosperity, whilst delaying in times of pandemonium.

On the other hand, what is your proposed solution to the issue that 30% of MPs elected in general election disagreed with their constituents on the Brexit issue? Have the government fire all Remain MPs even though there’s been a snap election since the vote?

What could we do? What could we do... I can think of only one thing that could be done immediately. That is to say, there's nothing much you could do right now without horrendously mauling the British parliamentary system to death, which for obvious reasons isn't an appealing option to one concerned with preserving continuities. That also rules out becoming the 51st state of the USA. Didn't stave off one star spangled flag only to raise another over home [A personal union between the House of Windsor and one of the American noble houses would be totally dank though]. Would perhaps reconsider if granted a lifetime supply of bourbon, chicken & freedom. So then that leaves the options of status quo, challenge of confidence, challenge for leadership. Status quo seems like it's going to fall apart just by letting Theresa May dig that hole deeper on her own. Challenge of confidence would likely split the Tory party for a thousand years of darkness, which may be desirable or disadvantageous depending on your viewpoint. Leadership challenge would put Boris Johnson in power, which I'm not sure would change much in the long run, especially since we've got like 7 months to finally Brex the hell out. Theresa May timed her policy change perfectly, as there's now very few options to feasibly replace her without likely handing Westminster to Corbyn in the span of a few weeks. Corbyn's foreign policy makes me clench my anus, so despite his appeal to me, I'd prefer this not happen except as last resort. Best case scenario, Theresa May reverses her policy reversal, and then we can replace her without making the UK asplode after Brexit is Brexitalised.

In the long run getting Boris into the PMs chair, getting JRM into cabinet, getting JRM into the PM's chair, promoting backbenchers into the cabinet, absorbing UKIP into the Conservatives - that'd be a start, but it wouldn't solve the intellectual bottleneck issue much, and you'd still be left with an intellectual clique in government and a rebellious intellectual clique in the backbenches. For that, it'd be a good start to seize the means of selection reform the Conservative party's MP shortlisting process, so instead of having potential candidates screened for their values, intellect and appearance by an old guard of the party who will naturally select for those they believe won't rock the boat, have the shitposting shortlisting be done by local associations drawing from their own local populations. Give it a few generations, you should start seeing a political party which entirely fields candidates who are from their constituency, not transplanted into it. Will they have the same opinions as their voters? I have no idea, but they'll have a good idea what problems and aspirations their constituents have, and they'll likely have an attachment to their constituents which goes beyond just winning votes & minds. Then it would be a matter of expanding the diversity of the civil service, whilst also promoting technical schools, apprenticeships or leadership schemes which allow young people to embark on career paths into specialized jobs or high ranking jobs without having to go to University, and when it comes to University, try to make sure that all of our world leaders don't all just come from two alma maters by promoting the usefulness of all our other Unis. All of that will have to come post-Brexit prolly

[Dorsidwarf]

Why on earth do you want The Mogg in power? Organising your dream team government based on how much of their multimillion dollar fortune they’ve donated to anti-eu causes seems short sighted seeing as he’s anti-gay, anti-feminism, associated with far right groups, and a member of Cornerstone who switched to the catholics because the Church of England was beginning to smell too liberal for His Toffness

[Rowanas]

I don't think he was pro-JRM in that little speech there. It sounded like he was proposing a -solution- to the exact question you asked, not a beautiful new world where everyone dances hand-in-hand while trickle-down economics ensure that the vast evil corporations provide decent jobs and meaningful wages to all, regardless of beliefs or circumstances.

EDIT: Jesus fucking christ, there is no hope. I try to be glass-half-full, but this glass is half full of getting raped to death by Satan himself.

[Loud Whispers]

Why on earth do you want The Mogg in power? Organising your dream team government based on how much of their multimillion dollar fortune they’ve donated to anti-eu causes seems short sighted seeing as he’s anti-gay, anti-feminism, associated with far right groups, and a member of Cornerstone who switched to the catholics because the Church of England was beginning to smell too liberal for His Toffness

Well Rowanas was pretty much on the ball that I was just answering your question, there are no other viable candidates for PM who aren't Remainers or of dubious affiliations like Bojo.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Start of a dream team would look something like that, I might finish one later. The only restrictions I put in place were that I could pick anyone for cabinet as long as they weren't fictional and they were from a British or Commonwealth nation, so no Secretary for Work & Pensions Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister Genghis Khan or Chancellor of the Exchequer Mansa Musa of Mali.

Regarding Jacob Rees-Mogg, he's not the first politician to be accused of being anti-this or that, once you observe firsthand the selective application of such labels you lose attachment to their power pretty quickly. Ditto for association with far-right groups, since it's too vague a reason, voting Leave for example was one such issue to fair with the far-right label despite it being supported by half the country. What happens is that as time goes on, if you continually abandon your principles in order to shift leftwards, what was once a central pillar of right-winginess becomes far-right and warrants further leftwards shift, with the end result being you are simply choosing between far-leftism now or tomorrow. Thus when discussing ideas and belief, to only express your notions in the language set by your opposition, they need only define the limits of your language in order to rob you of your ability to meaningfully disagree :(
Hence why I find it's important to be utterly indifferent to the taboo of controversial leaders like Farage, Corbyn or Mogg, since the world without them is just Camerons and Cleggs.
Regarding religion, I dare not presume to wield a man's faith against him. As a matter of fact, he was born & raised Catholic, the notion that he switched denomination for political affinity is a narrative concocted by the same atheists saying Mogg ought to be excommunicated for entirely political purposes. It reeks of "I don't believe in this but maybe if I use this against you I can get you to do what I want." At any rate I am considerably supportive of having our first Catholic Prime Minister since the Reformation, and all I'd expect of him is to separate his belief in Papal infallibility from his duties as one of Caesar's lot. Diversify yo cabinet yo
Regarding Cornerstone, I had never heard of them before until now. Looking them up, while I have my disagreements with their economic policy, wikipedia says their philosophical, cultural and aesthetic views are headed by Roger Scruton, who is a familiar face in the UK I already agree with in large. Here's a BBC documentary by Roger Scruton on aesthetics, on why beauty matters. It is useful too in illustrating how Cornerstone went from being received by leftist journalists as maintsream into far-right the moment the Conservative Conservative backbenchers started gaining real influence in the Conservative party. In short, the moment they become an actual political rival, is the moment they begin attracting all the labels which mark them for destruction with the full force of all the anti-groups, when just moments prior they were on daytime television with no protest.

But those are all double-negative reasons for why I'm not not supporting JRM, and not reasons why I'd support JRM for PM. My reservations are simple, he is a former Rothschild banker with economically libertarian tendencies which do alarm me. It is a fairly irreconcilable belief too. Such things as reducing the proportion of consumer income spent on necessities through free trade will increase the disposal income of the middle classes, but what would come of the English countryside? Would those farmers be able to compete with international imports from agricultural giants? Possibly, but there is a considerable likelihood of many of those farmers being put out of business. Presuming such unemployed farmers could be directed to other pursuits I believe this could be a success for the English ecosystem, especially given the dreadful destruction of our wildflower meadows - I find it regrettable that no politician in the UK is conscious of the plight of our bees. Yet I believe also, if we were to force so many of our farmers into unemployment, would we not be forcing the UK into a greater threat of future food insecurity? If so, it would warrant subsidies to keep these non-competitive farms afloat, and I haven't the slightest clue how much that would cost.
On the fundamental level, JRM's proposals to raise tax revenue with which to fund social welfare programs through economic growth delivered via a lowing of income and corporate taxes certainly sounds plausible, yet I fear it doesn't adequately address the issue of trying to operate a democracy under a system of extreme wealth inequality. It could theoretically deliver all the funding needed to operate expensive welfare and healthcare systems, yet I would be conflicted: For what good is it to pursue higher standards of living without addressing the growing power disparity between the immensely wealthy and the rest, that the former can dictate to the latter, provide what is illegal and retract what is legal at a whim? In short, do we strive for a society of citizenry where everyone is poorer but equal & meritocratic, or a society of citizenry where everyone is wealthier but there is a clear discrepancy in power between the new aristocracy, the officer class & and innumerable servant class? It seems all of our leaders are content to sleepwalk into an assured hierarchy, not based off of morality, strength, talent or industriousness, but simply of aggregations of imaginary capital.

There's also something to be said in the naivety of Jacob Rees-Mogg. He is entirely too trusting in the goodness and civility of all of his critics & opponents, and subsequently I wish he would look after his own personal safety considerably more.
Still, I don't intend to wait for King Arthur before I support any politician, or else there'd be no point in observing politics at all. Perfect candidates are once in a millennia types. The qualities which offset my reservations regarding Mogg are:

• Humility
• Patience
• Erudition

-Humility. There is something amusing in how the British people as a whole are immensely humble, to the extent that they sabotage their own prospects of advancing in life. In short, if you asked any Briton throughout the country if they were talented enough to be the Prime Minister, I would bet my money they would tell you no. This does not seem to apply particularly well to our leaders in media, politics, finance & administration, who believe immensely in their own superiority, often in spite of their own glaring limitations. Consequently you end up having British leaders losing situations which they should never have had a chance of losing - consider a recent example, Theresa May blowing a 20 point lead down the well by calling and fighting a political campaign with technical analysis instead of common sense. Jacob Rees-Mogg always self-depreciates, keeping him from this common pitfall of British leadership. There is nothing more to say about this simple quality, as it's the absence of it which is most glaring, while the presence of it is fairly inoffensive. Without humility, there is no way in hell this backbencher would ever have gotten so relevant - the notion that grassroots party polling favour a man who holds no cabinet post as a PM candidate is exceedingly rare in British politics.

-Patience. Jacob Rees-Mogg does not play the game of Milibands, Camerons or Bo Johnsons. He is the only Tory politician in the running for leadership I know of that finds bidding for leadership to be secondary to enacting fundamental change to the Tory party itself, finds rank entirely secondary to power. So for example, instead of seeking to become Prime Minister now with the same eagerness Bojo did from 2015-18, JRM would be entirely content if Theresa May remained in power and simply changed her policy. Rather than merely changing around the cabinet for a few years, JRM encouraged Conservatives to join the Conservative party and seek selection for MP contests. Bojo seems to desire Prime Ministerialship for its own sake, men like JRM seem to understand Prime Ministerialship as just another tool for affecting the world, with the effecting of the world being the fundamental purpose of political action. Put more generously, Bojo wishes to become PM to enact his agenda, JRM will enact his agenda to become PM.

-Erudition. JRM understands fully well how our government and society functions, and has a vision for how it ought to function based off of principles he actually believes in. I greatly desire more politicians who actually believe in things, and aren't just the hollow vessels of think tanks and lobbyists, while his knowledge of the British constitution makes me confident in his ability to actually get things done were he to hold institutional power. He further understands how to raise havoc in government, quell havoc, and understands that to seek Prime Ministerialship now would result in failure and break parliamentary convention.

On the entirely pragmatic level too, Jacob Rees-Mogg is the only confirmed sincere Leave supporter with significant backing within the Conservative party who is interested in becoming Prime Minister at some point in the future. Boris Johnson seems to be a calculative Leave supporter, but he is the only Leave-supporting cabinet minister left who could command any support within the Conservative party, so on that front there is also no other choice in whom to support. If Boris and Mogg do not take up power within the Conservative party, the reigns will fall to the likes of Hammond, and we will still be tangled in the EU one way or another come 2050.

[smjjames]

[A personal union between the House of Windsor and one of the American noble houses would be totally dank though]

Since we don't have noble titles, who would be considered a 'noble house' would depend on who you ask. There's the political dynasties (which would be the closest to the definition of noble), family owned megacorporations, since corporations are considered people, I guess you might include corporations, theres Hollywood....

[Loud Whispers]

Since we don't have noble titles, who would be considered a 'noble house' would depend on who you ask. There's the political dynasties (which would be the closest to the definition of noble), family owned megacorporations, since corporations are considered people, I guess you might include corporations, theres Hollywood....

Pick any of the above, however tradition demands that Anglo-Aristocracy & American-Money make marry, while a few families blur the lines between political, media & money dynasties are especially suitable (the Trump, Koch, Newhouse, Roosevelts for example), while some of the old money American houses like the Rockefellers are suitably old and influential to qualify as proper dynasties of a sort. Imo there is a neat third option of making the British Rothschilds and American Rothschilds intermarry and go full Charles II to solidify Anglo-American marriage ties. Marriage between a Royal and an actual Corporation itself would present unique challenges, for example could you produce an heir from a marriage between a Prince and Coca Cola? Would the subsequent heir be a corporation, and could it feasibly claim inheritance of the Crown until it was dissolved?

[smjjames]

I wasn't being serious about the corporation part. Was just a non-serious segue from megacorporations to the fact that corporations are legally considered 'people', as nonsensical as that is.

[Loud Whispers]

I wasn't being serious about the corporation part. Was just a non-serious segue from megacorporations to the fact that corporations are legally considered 'people', as nonsensical as that is.

Can two corporations marry? This is important stuff. You have opened my eyes to the truth

[smjjames]

Wouldn't that be a merger? Though that's more 'complete assimilation and subsumation of the other' than marriage.

[Loud Whispers]

Corporate Partnership?