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Gary Lineker vs. BBC

Wouldn't you agree it's at best pretty funny, considering there are 2 other categories (Central/Eastern Europe and Middle East)/North Africa) that would appear more relevant, and at worst an attempt to manipulate perceptions?
It's an error, that is for sure. But it doesn't really carry much weight in the subtopic of UK not being as fascistic as some pfmers that live there think.
 
One problem as I see it is that while yes, it is being consciously used by right as a wedge issue and the vast majority of people are indifferent or actively supportive of trans rights, there is actually an organic part of society who are committed transphobes or at least lean that way. It’s a small minority but it’s *massively* over-represented in the media, government, professional organisations and so on.

Pretty much the point I was making. The whole thing is pretty much an especially shit season of The Apprentice where a red team and a blue team endlessly game a system built on tradition and archaic ritual in order to secure a very comfortable career for themselves. It has no more credibility or integrity than this. None of it has anything even remotely to do with national interest or our basic human rights and civil liberties. It is just the very worst people climbing the very worst greasy pole.

Trans people, refugees, the disabled and low paid are just differing balls batted about in the game of getting a certain type of person to a certain trough. The simple fact both teams are so happy with an electoral system actually designed to remove accountability from dissenting voices speaks volumes. The system is so distorted and democratically broken both teams even happily accept the concept of monarchy. Where we are is no surprise, but it should be noted the electorate statistically did not ask for any of this.
 
richardg
'UK has spent the last 15 years as a full democracy.'

Wrong.
The current Conservative Government got 38% of the votes from those who bothered to vote and has 100% of the power. That means that the 62% who voted for other parties have no representation in Government. Although no system of election is perfect one which gives a minority all the power and the majority none is a dictatorship however it is packaged. The UK is currently a 2 party state in the style of a democracy.

I agree that UK is not free enough. No country I have lived in has felt free enough. France feels less free than UK, though. I also recognise that UK may be seen as less open in coming reports. I also agree that the UK voting system is shit.
 
It's an error, that is for sure. But it doesn't really carry much weight in the subtopic of UK not being as fascistic as some pfmers that live there think.
It's one reason why I don't think it's good data. It tends to disqualify the whole thing, IMV.
 
Also wrong, at least the first part - the Conservatives polled nearly 44% of those who voted. Labour under Corbyn got 32%.

…and the scary thing is that 44% Johnson got equates to just 28% of the electorate. Less than a third of us actively wanted this shit. I’m not saying everyone would vote in a real democracy, but I bet a lot of those who stayed at home were disenfranchised by living in a ‘safe seat’ where they know voting against the status quo is genuinely a waste of their time.

PS Obviously Corbyn did rather better in 2017 holding the truly hopeless Theresa May to NOC. Still a loss against such a dreadful opponent, but at least I won £80 predicting it!
 
Well, what do you mean by "shut down"? If you're talking about people being called out on forums or at the Christmas dinner table for saying something that strikes others as whiffy, I don't know if I have much of an opinion on that. If you're talking about people being excluded from mainstream debate then I would say that it simply doesn't happen. As I say, TERFS are massively over-represented in the national press, in politics, in professional organisations. British public is wall-to-wall TERFS, they are in no way marginalised, they completely own the space. Sometimes this total dominance is challenged and it launches a hundred newspaper columns decrying the woke mob on Twitter but it's paranoid fantasy, the reassertion of dominance, cry bullying.

Terf is generally used as insulting shorthand to mean 'someone I won't listen to' (at best). Further down the scale is one you've mentioned in your post - 'they get moved on' (i.e sacked or run out of their jobs) because they have an opinion. I raised the issue in relation to your post as the way I see it the 'wedge' is being used by both sides to stifle decent conversation/debate and paint the other side as some kind of demented enemy, rather than listening to the often sensible and reasonable points made.
 
Terf is generally used as insulting shorthand to mean 'someone I won't listen to' (at best). Further down the scale is one you've mentioned in your post - 'they get moved on' (i.e sacked or run out of their jobs) because they have an opinion. I raised the issue in relation to your post as the way I see it the 'wedge' is being used by both sides to stifle decent conversation/debate and paint the other side as some kind of demented enemy, rather than listening to the often sensible and reasonable points made.
In the situation as I see it nobody would be "moved on" "because they have an opinion". Rather, a small and unrepresentative group who currently enjoy a near total monopoly of the media space are likely, at some stage, to be forced to make concessions to the people who actually produce and consume their products. What form that might take I don't know but that just seems like a very likely outcome of cultural organisations getting clogged up at the top with people who hold unpleasant views that are directly at odds with those of people who work for them and buy their stuff.
 
I don't want to divert the thread any further, but looking just at that first one: do you really view a freedom index produced by the Cato Institute (Koch Bros. etc.) as a good source for rating democracies?
Thanks for the links anyway. They're interesting, if only because of how differently each approaches the subject.
 
Like i said many times on pfm, on balance it is a better life here. But the authoritarianism I experience is higher than it is in the UK, and that brings the pleasure of being here down.
But as an immigrant (whites are ex-pats, blacks are immigrants?), where do you live? In a Paris or Marseilles banlieue? Or in a nice village?
I live in a village on the edge of Plymouth, and it is very nice here. The council estate in Manchester from where I moved, less so.
There was nice Al Jazeera piece a while back about black footballers' experiences in the two countries which highlighted the differences.
 
I don't want to divert the thread any further, but looking just at that first one: do you really view a freedom index produced by the Cato Institute (Koch Bros. etc.) as a good source for rating democracies?
Thanks for the links anyway. They're interesting, if only because of how differently each approaches the subject.
I'm really just knocking them off on Google top ranked search. I can keep going. But in fact it's possible to discredit all research. I used to work for TNS and Nielsen. I know how it goes.
 
Sorry, I'm behind the loop.

What am I to protest about?
R.6c914c665dc43f0a671a6f498ecac5c7
 
But as an immigrant (whites are ex-pats, blacks are immigrants?), where do you live? In a Paris or Marseilles banlieue? Or a in a nice village?
I live in a village on the edge of Plymouth, and it is very nice here. The council estate in Manchester from where I moved, less so.
There was nice Al Jazeera piece a while back about black footballers' experiences in the two countries which highlighted the differences.
Actually you are right. I always need to remind myself to stop comparing UK with France when I only know the places I have lived in. I can't really spread it that far. But I'm from Hull. And it is fairly tough. we were getting broken into once every couple of years. Couldn't get insurance due to flooding. Then I moved to Strasbourg, which probably compares to nothing at all in UK. Never been broken into and can get insurance! However, as i said in a post upthread, the thumbs up for France comes mainly from slightly better weather, slightly better food, a willingness to immerse myself in language and much cheaper holidays.
 
I'm really just knocking them off on Google top ranked search. I can keep going. But in fact it's possible to discredit all research. I used to work for TNS and Nielsen. I know how it goes.
As lecturers* have been known to say, Google is not research.
*Not mine, I left school at 16; apparently just before they expelled me. :D
 
the thumbs up for France comes mainly from slightly better weather, slightly better food, a willingness to immerse myself in language and much cheaper holidays.
Pfft. Italy's better, and it's not French! :p But they both shut for August, which is a bugger when you had plans and didn't realise that! :mad:
 
Pfft. Italy's better, and it's not French! :p But they both shut for August, which is a bugger when you had plans and didn't realise that! :mad:
i must say i like the prices! its the cheapest near holiday for us from strasbourg, we got pizza for 8 euros and bottles of table wine for 8 euros in la spezia restaurants!
 


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