[Politics] It isn't easy being Blue.
Dec. 15th, 2005 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyWhilst out on the town a few weeks ago, I got talking to a girl in a bar. After a while, for reasons I can't recall, the conversation came round to politics. Suddenly she stopped short and looked at me quizzically.
"You're right-wing, aren't you?"
"Yup", I replied.
"Well, I don't think we should let homeless people starve to death on the street", she said, smugly ensuring her moral superiority over me and my homeless-starving ways whilst necking the booze I'd just bought her like there was no tomorrow.
A friend of mine who shares my political opinions once told me they didn't really like going to social events with many of my friends, because they knew that they would be belittled and insulted for holding their political beliefs. They found it upsetting that they would be insulted by people they barely knew not even for their beliefs, but for what those people considered their beliefs to be without even taking the time to find out the reality of the situation. In other circumstances this sort of behaviour would be considered 'prejudice'. When you're dealing with a lot of people I run into, it's called 'informed debate'. Sometimes it's nice to open LJ and read the wise words of the mind-numbingly gorgeous![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vulgarcriminal, who is political voice of reason.
The irony of the intellectual intolerance of many people amuses me in a bleak sort of way; most of the people on my friends list consider themselves to be tolerant, understanding and non-judgemental; however this just highlights the basic dichotomy of many people's political views - they're tolerant of any kink, perversion, social attitudes and outre behaviour which they happen to agree with. Their tolerance doesn't extend so far as being polite to people who think that, oh, say, civil liberties have been undermined quite a lot by the current government or that spending thirty-seven billion quid which we don't have every year in a slowing economy might lead to trouble later.
raggedhalo recently made a post in which he compared prejudice against vegetarians to homophobia, and presented himself as being a persecuted minority. Personally I think it's a bit difficult to be a persecuted minority when you're a socialist vegetarian in a student union, but that's just me.
Re-reading his post, it's interesting to me just how much of his argument I can apply to my own point. After all, if he can compare prejudice against sexualities with his own political views, so can I - to object to that would be prejudiced, wouldn't it? Back in the 1980's, being gay would get you socially ostracised and sometimes insulted in public, whilst being Conservative would get you social acceptance and congratulations on your snappy dress sense. And now...?
There's a comparison to be made here, I think...
Of course, I think Joe's comparison is as nonsensical as mine. But it's funny nevertheless.
"You're right-wing, aren't you?"
"Yup", I replied.
"Well, I don't think we should let homeless people starve to death on the street", she said, smugly ensuring her moral superiority over me and my homeless-starving ways whilst necking the booze I'd just bought her like there was no tomorrow.
A friend of mine who shares my political opinions once told me they didn't really like going to social events with many of my friends, because they knew that they would be belittled and insulted for holding their political beliefs. They found it upsetting that they would be insulted by people they barely knew not even for their beliefs, but for what those people considered their beliefs to be without even taking the time to find out the reality of the situation. In other circumstances this sort of behaviour would be considered 'prejudice'. When you're dealing with a lot of people I run into, it's called 'informed debate'. Sometimes it's nice to open LJ and read the wise words of the mind-numbingly gorgeous
vulgarcriminal, who is political voice of reason.The irony of the intellectual intolerance of many people amuses me in a bleak sort of way; most of the people on my friends list consider themselves to be tolerant, understanding and non-judgemental; however this just highlights the basic dichotomy of many people's political views - they're tolerant of any kink, perversion, social attitudes and outre behaviour which they happen to agree with. Their tolerance doesn't extend so far as being polite to people who think that, oh, say, civil liberties have been undermined quite a lot by the current government or that spending thirty-seven billion quid which we don't have every year in a slowing economy might lead to trouble later.
raggedhalo recently made a post in which he compared prejudice against vegetarians to homophobia, and presented himself as being a persecuted minority. Personally I think it's a bit difficult to be a persecuted minority when you're a socialist vegetarian in a student union, but that's just me.Re-reading his post, it's interesting to me just how much of his argument I can apply to my own point. After all, if he can compare prejudice against sexualities with his own political views, so can I - to object to that would be prejudiced, wouldn't it? Back in the 1980's, being gay would get you socially ostracised and sometimes insulted in public, whilst being Conservative would get you social acceptance and congratulations on your snappy dress sense. And now...?
There's a comparison to be made here, I think...
Of course, I think Joe's comparison is as nonsensical as mine. But it's funny nevertheless.
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Re: A brief summary of my political views:
Date: 2005-12-15 12:56 pm (UTC)If you mean we're not having the hun (dot net) dropping doodlebugs in our back gardens, forcing us into the Anderson shelter to huddle around a small tub of bovril, then you're right.
If you mean we have a committed military presence and financial obligations in another country, then you might be a weeny bit on the wrong side.
I do twitter like a schoolgirl whenever I hear about Conservative Reform.
Bobby Peel would have spun in his grave.
As regards my viewpoints, I don't claim to have adhered to one political party, or even be consistent according to the weather or my bowel movements. But then, I'm not deciding the fate of the nation, so I don't have to be. If I had to choose one line, it'd be:
"From each according to what they get out of it, taking into consideration things like personal financial risk, and a percentage of their ability to pay," but you can't put that on a banner.
The trouble with Laissez-faire is the Watchdog factor. People are stupid. They need protecting from more intelligent people. Straw man incoming - what about the police? They serve a role to protect the public from those who seek to further their personal goals without regard for others, be that street mugging, or usury.
There's also a gripe about people whose houses have quadruples in value over the last ten years by virtue of nothing more than sitting on their arses then complaining because they're being asked to pay for the very factors that give them such equity, but that's more of a piecemeal matter.
I really would like to see Cameron bring an end to Punch and Judy politics, to treat being the leader of the Opposition as an end-goal, worthy in itself, to provide a rational counterbutt, but all the evidence is merely showing that he's trying to divorce Blair from his party, which is a damn shame.
However, I tend to think of these thrust and parry rants and counterrants as completely separate from my dealings with you as an individual. At my last job, the girl sat next to me was an active member of the Countryside Alliance, and we got on famously.