Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

For the sake of cleaning this up and moving on and back to it's initial purpose...

What was initially meant to be a pop at Sir Lord His Royal BootLicker Alan Sugar for displaying a fascisitc attitude to the press, one that has been mirrored by the electorate and in politics in general over the past few years, has turned into a debate about what facsism is and some tory boot licking.

Covid is fucked - the tories have made it worse and will continue to ruin this country. A lot of the electorate are willingliy partaking in this.

The ONS figures are horrible and i hope we can come up with some actual, political opposition to the tory's over the next year - something that his royal highness sir lord Keir Starmer Of The Bar is yet to have done once.

Please read the thread from the start and direct me to posts where I have defended the government.

Are there any people in this thread who haven't been critical of the Governments handling of Covid? The thread consensus is pretty unanimous it has been a shit show

Edit - I'm going to tune out

Firstly, sounds like you're being controversial but giving yourself a bojo style cop out by not officially being controversial

secondly
has a literal monarch
one of the bloodiest empires in history

Dan read whats being written pal. There is a clear distinction between something being fascist and something showing fascistic behaviour/tendencies...

As ever with the british political climate today - nuance is an impossible thing for people to grasp

And as Lebowski said, no wonder the fuckign tories dominate when you're all to scared to even critique them incase it's 'unhelpful' or hurts their feelings or whatever

I think part of the problem is that our understanding of democracy has been tested in the last couple of years. Arguably we do no longer live in a deliberative democracy, as conceived by Habermas or other political theorists. Voting cannot be seen as the primary source of legitimacy, if there’s no actual deliberation happening and people are subject to constant manipulation, to the extent that they do not even realise how psychometric insights are being used to make them vote in certain ways. This government has clearly latent fascistic tendencies in how it has been mobilising xenophobia and racism for political ends. But weirdly I don’t think they actually ‘mean’ any of it; they merely know it is what people want to hear and that it will keep them in power long enough to get very rich.

Has this been reso-

Just kidding.

@rakesmith

But did i not explicitly state that the tories/electorate are showing fascistic behaviour and that if it keeps up then we may very well end up with fascism...as oppose to just call them straight up fascists?

Also @rakesmith

Firstly, sounds like you're being controversial but giving yourself a bojo style cop out by not officially being controversial

Ummmmm....

Shall we just go with the dictum that the first to write 'pal' loses the argument?

Tell me which of the following statements you agree with (I think they are all true):
1). This Conservative government is not a fascist government.
2). We are very far from having a fascist government or society in this country.
3). This Conservative government are awful, have underfunded the NHS, and have contributed to a worse outcome over coronavirus in the UK.
4). Pointing out something is not fascist does not constitute a defense of that thing.
4). The description 'Fascist' should only be applied in the correct circumstances. Otherwise it would be rendered meaningless, which would be to the benefit of actual fascists.

There is a difference between

holding opinion, stating an opinion, but saying it anyway with the preface of 'if i was being controversial i would say this'

And

pointing out the difference between a word as noun and a word as adjective and the potential outcomes of both...

I bet Franco is having a giggle with Pinochet right now

Agreed

Shall we just go with the dictum that the first to write 'pal' loses the argument?

Tell me which of the following statements you agree with (I think they are all true):
1). This Conservative government is not a fascist government. - agree, although with the caveat that they are expressing/implying clearly fascisitc behaviour at times
2). We are very far from having a fascist government or society in this country. - agree in the sense that we're not there yet and maybe a way off, but perhaps wouldn't go so far as to say 'very far' given how things are going.
3). This Conservative government are awful, have underfunded the NHS, and have contributed to a worse outcome over coronavirus in the UK. - agree
4). Pointing out something is not fascist does not constitute a defense of that thing. - agree
4). The description 'Fascist' should only be applied in the correct circumstances. Otherwise it would be rendered meaningless, which would be to the benefit of actual fascists. - agree, as long as people are prepared to understand that fascism doesn't exist as a black and white entity and that there is a clear history of how fascism comes to be and it's not as simple as saying something is one day fascist and isn't the next.

See, who said you can't agree with people in a debate on the internet!

I think i can see Churchill and Henry VIII waiting at the bar to get all their round in too

Fair reply. I also agree we should always be vigilant, and there are trends in this country that are concerning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

What is your point? I provided evidence of what i felt were fascistic behaviour..people saying they weren't fascist didn't provide any anti-fascist behviour of the tories.

We have to understand that facsism isn't a con/illusion forced upon the masses by a few puppet string pullers. It is a social force, expressed through desire, that rises up and votes in its own fascist government. We must, as T-v has just said - be vigilient of any warning signs of such a societal movement - and definitely call out people as high profile as alan sugar advocating it. What's so wrong with that?

That you should put forward your arguments on the point as opposed to ask everyone else to prove that you're wrong. Especially as you don't seem to have any intention of defining the behaviour that you feel the government is exhibiting.

I'm not getting dragged into an internet argument on this, but if you want to have a debate, I'd advise going about it in a constructive manner. There have been enough spats diluting this thread as it is.

There have been enough spats

I strongly disagree

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/uk_coronavirus_google_apple_api/

More on the UK covid app, the UK wants to store the data in a central repo, other countries are tending towards more decentralized solutions.

Of course, not all of us have our phones on and with us all the time, so it is only part of the solution.

You forgot to add 'pal' at the end.

sigh....

For someone that doesn't want to get dragged into an internet argument it sure looks like you decided to drag yourself into an internet argument. One that looked like it had quite nicely wrapped itself up (a bit anyway) with a cordial agreement of sentiments between two of the loudest voices in that debate.

I guess i have tarnished this great and friendly thread that has, to date, only solely been about facts and figures and has had absolutely no personal opinion within it at any point in it's (As of now) 466 pages. And for that i greatly apologise and hope that we can work together to get this thread back on track!

STAY OFF THE INTERNET. SAVE YOUR PERSONAL OPINIONS. SAVE THE SANCTITY OF THIS FACTUAL THREAD.

I provided evidence of what i felt were fascistic behaviour

What 'evidence'? You've provided a link to a single rather naff tweet from an arslikhan Tory MP, pointed out that the UK has a monarch (true, but it's a constitutional monarchy with no political power) and pointed out that the UK used to have an empire (also true, but given that it was decades ago it's hardly evidence of 'fascistic behaviour' today).

STAY OFF THE INTERNET. SAVE YOUR PERSONAL OPINIONS. SAVE THE SANCTITY OF THIS FACTUAL THREAD.

No-one's trying to stop you from expressing your personal opinions. But if you express opinions on the internet, you can hardly bleat and whine when you get challenged on them, and you can hardly expect to do so without being asked to back up those opinions with facts to support them. Rather than resorting to passive-aggressive sarcasm.

What is this 'evidence' you're referring to?