The Tories' Little Helpers Fall Apart

[B.C.G. JAG]

 

 

no you dont, you want to tax anyone you perceive to be rich to ease your envey.

 

 

What a ridiculous assertion to make. No, I want everyone to pay their fair share. That's you, me, George Osborne, all the Labour tax dodgers you can find, everyone.

[jaggybunnet]

I spent some six months in the former Yugoslavia on a tour of duty and have seen exactly how "humanity" works so excuse me if I don't have any "faith" in it.

 

as have i, even know they are still at it which why i posted the above

[i@n]

Well that's exactly the point: I'm not a "Tory ****wit"

 

Thanks for agreeing.

At no point did I suggest you were a Tory or indeed, a Tory f***wit. I was disagreeing with your statement by pointing out that according to their manual, those are the required attributes. Coincidentally, there's no page two!!!

[jaggybunnet]

The romance is over!

 

it was never on, or was just a one night stand

[B.C.G. JAG]

 

 

I'm astonished that you don't have enough faith in humanity to look after itself.

 

 

On one hand you believe it's a person's duty to avoid tax and then you try and slight others for suggesting that not everyone has a generous personality. I've had this argument with you before and it bores/depresses me, but suffice to say, you're posts on here are one good reason why a lot of us don't have faith in everyone doing right by others.

[B.C.G. JAG]

it was never on, or was just a one night stand

Get it out of my head, get it out of my head, waaaaughhhh!

[jaggybunnet]

What a ridiculous assertion to make. No, I want everyone to pay their fair share. That's you, me, George Osborne, all the Labour tax dodgers you can find, everyone.

 

 

then why not say that insted of your anti tory rant every time this comes up, i cant hear any of them screaming to change the laws, and thats because its turkeys voting for xmas cough *lord presscot* cough the peoples rep, they are all corupted by the power and money they get, which is why i would stop all but a few claims and they would not get any extra for all the committies they are on.

[Woodstock Jag]

humanity is selfserving, greedy and power hungry, no one read any history, it will never change

 

I spent some six months in the former Yugoslavia on a tour of duty and have seen exactly how "humanity" works so excuse me if I don't have any "faith" in it.

 

In which case how can anyone trust a state, which is always full of a political elite, to spend people's hard-earned money wisely?

 

What a ridiculous assertion to make. No, I want everyone to pay their fair share. That's you, me, George Osborne, all the Labour tax dodgers you can find, everyone.

 

We've gone over this before, but "fair share" is necessarily subjective. I don't think it's "fair" that anyone is forced, on threat of incarceration, to pay for another person's healthcare.

 

It's one thing to say that the rich should contribute more. It's another to say that other people should be allowed to force them to contribute more.

 

At no point did I suggest you were a Tory or indeed, a Tory f***wit. I was disagreeing with your statement by pointing out that according to their manual, those are the required attributes. Coincidentally, there's no page two!!!

 

I didn't say "Tory". I said "be economically right wing".

 

Which was precisely my point. They are not the same thing.

[jaggybunnet]

On one hand you believe it's a person's duty to avoid tax and then you try and slight others for suggesting that not everyone has a generous personality. I've had this argument with you before and it bores/depresses me, but suffice to say, you're posts on here are one good reason why a lot of us don't have faith in everyone doing right by others.

 

 

human nature which is why we will still be killing each other in 100 years (if we havent wiped ourselves out by then)

[i@n]

 

 

 

I didn't say "Tory". I said "be economically right wing".

 

Which was precisely my point. They are not the same thing.

 

Tory / Right Wing

[Woodstock Jag]

Tory / Right Wing

 

Okay, now you've just entered the realms of a parallel universe. You're either incapable of grasping a very simple point or you're choosing not to.

[B.C.G. JAG]

then why not say that insted of your anti tory rant every time this comes up,

I did, and you still refused to sign the petition demanding that the chancellor close tax loop holes.

[jaggybunnet]

I did, and you still refused to sign the petition demanding that the chancellor close tax loop holes.

 

you dont realy and cant help youself with a wee dig when you try to, also i explained why i would not sign that petition as those that started the peteition are very anti tory and make that very clear

Edited December 13, 2010 by jaggybunnet

[i@n]

Okay, now you've just entered the realms of a parallel universe. You're either incapable of grasping a very simple point or you're choosing not to.

Okay, now you've just entered the realms of a parallel universe. You're either incapable of grasping a very simple point or you're choosing not to.

[honved]

No ifs, no buts, we don't want your Tory cuts

 

I like the UKuncut campaign.

[B.C.G. JAG]

you dont realy and cant help youself with a wee dig when you try to, also i explained why i would not sign that petition as those that started the peteition are very anti tory and make that very clear

As was explained at the time by a number of posters, 38 Degrees who organised the petition are not affiliated to any political party and, in their own words, judge all politicians by the same standards. This was made clear at the time.

[jaggybunnet]

As was explained at the time by a number of posters, 38 Degrees who organised the petition are not affiliated to any political party and, in their own words, judge all politicians by the same standards. This was made clear at the time.

 

 

they dont actualy and have attacked the tory polititions before

[jaggybunnet]

No ifs, no buts, we don't want your SNP cuts

 

I like the UKuncut campaign.

 

 

sorted that for you

[Fearchar]

This discussion is amazing - and appalling.

 

WJ, don't you realise that Manchester School Liberalism is supposed to have died - in the 19th century! Anyone got a stake?

 

Back in the mists of time, when Margaret Thatcher came into office and replaced (Keynesian) economics with wishful thinking, I took one of these "useful" degrees - in accountancy and economics. In real terms, a few years after I graduated I was earning more than I do now, when I have a wife and family to support. Despite that, if I'd been smart, I'd have stayed where I went soon after, in Germany. Society there is better planned to avoid the periodic economic crashes that Britain uses to keep the plebs quiet. (However, health provision there is positively Byzantine: a centralised national health service provided by the public purse is way more efficient.)

 

I have a son who started studying at university this year, and I would fight tooth and nail to ensure that he has the best possible education possible, both from institutions and from me. If it seemed that he'd be saddled with extreme debts as a result, my advice to him would be to move to another country after graduating. That's what heaping debt on students' shoulders does: it prompts the brain drain. As a national policy, this is suicidal, since we pay for the education of our most able youngsters and then give them a financial incentive to take their skills elsewhere. Certainly nothing new for Scotland, but very galling, all the same.

 

My son had a classmate at school who comes from a very modest background. I suspect that no-one in his family has worked for decades. However, that young person was head and shoulders above all others in academic work at school, and wants to become a teacher. He has now gone to university too. If that extremely able young person had to pay extra fees instead......well, you can all figure it out. Perhaps a life of crime would have its attractions, or a career as a bookie. That, I'm afraid, is the kind of future to which a very able young person from such a background would be condemned, in our society as it stands.

 

Fees for education? No, thank you - that kind of society is not civilised enough.

Edited December 13, 2010 by Fearchar

[Meister Jag]

Woodside Jag, hate to say it but you've got me stumped. Come the revolution I think the secret policemen are going to have a field day with you. A democratic sceptic who finds democracy to be contrary to liberty and thinks the system is unjust as it "allows tyranny of the majority". As you say "I am first and foremost an autarchist" or is that the anti-Christ? Yet you happily boast of voting Lib Dem and of (if I recall correctly) doing so for political or was it tactical reasons. But given your aversion of mainstream politics, I'm amazed you bothered to become involved in voting. I mean, in your world we can all govern ourselves.

 

As I see it, the rest of what you say - and I seriously don't wish to appear offensive, appears to be a mish mash of philosophical ideas that offer no answers to the serious points being debated. Others who contribute to this discussion do so from entrenched positions and at least fight their corner with some passion e.g. my good friend from Penicuik who is clearly two goose steps to the right of Enoch Powell.

 

I'll make this last offering and then back off as I know you'll be up all night challenging every word that I say. This happens to me in my day job and over the years I have learned to feel no pain...

 

Anyway and as has been highlighted by others, the State is letting its citizens down badly and, at this moment in time, social democracy isn't working. Most people don't want cuts and the Tories and their little helpers are in danger of totally screwing the country big time. So is there an alternative? Well (drum roll...), I think there is and scientific communism may be the answer. Look for the parallels to what we have just now and read on...

 

Scientific communism sees the state as the organisation of the ruling class, an instrument of oppression and violence, and it is on these grounds that it does not countenance a "state of the future". The vision is that in the future there would be no classes, there would be no class oppression, and thus no instrument of that oppression, no state of violence. The "classless state" - a notion that turns the heads of social democrats (although you claim to be something else)- is a contradiction in terms, a nonsense, and an abuse of language, and if this notion is the spiritual nourishment of the social democracy it is really no fault of the great revolutionaries Marx and Engels. I type this and I feel moist; I really do! We should all get a bit more M&E!

 

By definition, Communist society is, as such, a STATELESS society. If this is the case - and there is no doubt that it is - then what, in reality, does the distinction between autarchistic and marxist communists consist of? Does the distinction, as such, vanish at least when it comes to examining the problem of the society to come and the "ultimate goal" that is the emancipation of the people?

 

No, I think the distinction does exist; but it is to be found elsewhere; and can be defined as a distinction between how big business has been allowed to dominate the political scene and how the man's greed has been allowed to dominate all walks of life and how a dispossessed class is being created. But it doesn't have to be this way and at least the students are challenging what is being thrown at them. Like often lowly paid public sector workers, this is not their fault and none of this is of their doing. The 'deficit' is but a paper figure and the capitalist system could find other ways out of the mess that it has allowed their friends, the bankers and financiers, to create. Put it this way, if we decide to invade Iceland tomorrow, money would be found; so let's not kid ourselves; this is all about shrinking the public sector, nothing else.

 

As you'll be aware, communists like me believe not only that the society of the future must free itself of the exploitation of man, but also that it will have to ensure for man the greatest possible independence of the nature that surrounds him, that it will reduce to a minimum "the time spent of socially necessary labour", developing the social forces of production to a maximum and likewise the productivity itself of social labour. All of this is possible, but it will take the will of the people.

 

Think that's enough from me for one night and apologies if I've bored the ar** of everyone. You'd think I was in some way political; but in truth, I'm not. But this is a serious topic and at least the students are giving it a go... and I'm not condoning the use of violence. Time to kiss my bust of Lenin then bye byes.

[Woodstock Jag]

This discussion is amazing - and appalling.

 

WJ, don't you realise that Manchester School Liberalism is supposed to have died - in the 19th century! Anyone got a stake?

 

I'm more of an Austrian School market anarchist, actually, but ho hum.

 

Back in the mists of time, when Margaret Thatcher came into office and replaced (Keynesian) economics with wishful thinking

 

No, she picked the country up from failed Keynesian economics and tried to replace it with a free market and a property owning democracy. She only got part of the way there, but Britain is hugely better for it.

 

I have a son who started studying at university this year, and I would fight tooth and nail to ensure that he has the best possible education possible, both from institutions and from me. If it seemed that he'd be saddled with extreme debts as a result, my advice to him would be to move to another country after graduating. That's what heaping debt on students' shoulders does: it prompts the brain drain. As a national policy, this is suicidal, since we pay for the education of our most able youngsters and then give them a financial incentive to take their skills elsewhere. Certainly nothing new for Scotland, but very galling, all the same.

 

Which is why, to bring things back on topic, people need reminded that tuition fee debt is a debt in name only. It has NO effect on the availability of credit elsewhere and for all but the most affluent of graduates it's just a graduate tax for 30 years. You know. That thing that Labour are now arguing for.

 

Education costs money. Indeed as things stand in England the amount it costs to educate someone at a University is £12kpa more than the £3300 deferred contribution students are liable for. I believe that the beneficiaries and not the public at large should pick up that burden when they are most able. That's what the new system does. The brain drain claim is a scare story and stuff of nonsense. There should be no national borders and people should be allowed, actually no, make that encouraged, to move across the world to wherever they can reap the greatest financial reward for their talents. That doesn't mean that fees don't get paid back. The only sense in which tuition fees are a debt is in the respect that unlike a tax you still have to pay it back even if you're not in the jurisdiction.

 

My son had a classmate at school who comes from a very modest background. I suspect that no-one in his family has worked for decades. However, that young person was head and shoulders above all others in academic work at school, and wants to become a teacher. He has now gone to university too. If that extremely able young person had to pay extra fees instead......well, you can all figure it out. Perhaps a life of crime would have its attractions, or a career as a bookie. That, I'm afraid, is the kind of future to which a very able young person from such a background would be condemned, in our society as it stands.

 

The problem is NOT the fees. The problem is that the way the system works is not explained to young people properly. If that young person knew that they wouldn't be paying a penny in their probationary year, a mere £26 a month thereafter, rising to £87 after 7 years in the profession, by which time they'd be earning more than 1.5 times the national median wage, would they REALLY be put off following their dream? The general taxpayer will already have paid a colossal £75k or thereabouts on their University education alone. And let's not forget that the amount spent on their primary and secondary education comes to roughly the same figure. If you want a government to provide, you should expect to contribute.

 

I don't want a government to provide.

 

Fees for education? No, thank you - that kind of society is not civilised enough.

 

Bourgeois rubbish. Stealing money from successful people to throw at other people does not make a society civilised.

[Woodstock Jag]

Woodside Jag, hate to say it but you've got me stumped. Come the revolution I think the secret policemen are going to have a field day with you. A democratic sceptic who finds democracy to be contrary to liberty and thinks the system is unjust as it "allows tyranny of the majority". As you say "I am first and foremost an autarchist" or is that the anti-Christ? Yet you happily boast of voting Lib Dem and of (if I recall correctly) doing so for political or was it tactical reasons. But given your aversion of mainstream politics, I'm amazed you bothered to become involved in voting. I mean, in your world we can all govern ourselves.

 

We should be able to govern ourselves. Mainstream politics IS poorly representative of my views. I said as much. I believe, however, that the Lib Dems are the least authoritarian of the 3 parties, and most willing to get the state out of my life in the non-economic areas, and to an extent in the economic areas.

 

As I see it, the rest of what you say - and I seriously don't wish to appear offensive, appears to be a mish mash of philosophical ideas that offer no answers to the serious points being debated. Others who contribute to this discussion do so from entrenched positions and at least fight their corner with some passion e.g. my good friend from Penicuik who is clearly two goose steps to the right of Enoch Powell.

 

What are the serious points then? I've already explained in perfectly blunt terms that I believe, quite simply, that the student is the beneficiary of a University education so it is them who should pay for it. In full. How is that not fighting my corner?

 

I'll make this last offering and then back off as I know you'll be up all night challenging every word that I say. This happens to me in my day job and over the years I have learned to feel no pain...

 

Anyway and as has been highlighted by others, the State is letting its citizens down badly and, at this moment in time, social democracy isn't working. Most people don't want cuts and the Tories and their little helpers are in danger of totally screwing the country big time. So is there an alternative? Well (drum roll...), I think there is and scientific communism may be the answer. Look for the parallels to what we have just now and read on...

 

Of course the state is letting down the citizens. States can do nothing but fail and oppress. I want no state. I want no public spending. It is the state that creates the framework for the wealthy to seize power. Destroy the state and you destroy the power structures that hinder social mobility. Social mobility is something that should happen not because someone picks you up by metaphorical helicopter and places you on the top of Everest. You should walk there yourself.

 

Scientific communism sees the state as the organisation of the ruling class, an instrument of oppression and violence, and it is on these grounds that it does not countenance a "state of the future". The vision is that in the future there would be no classes, there would be no class oppression, and thus no instrument of that oppression, no state of violence. The "classless state" - a notion that turns the heads of social democrats (although you claim to be something else)- is a contradiction in terms, a nonsense, and an abuse of language, and if this notion is the spiritual nourishment of the social democracy it is really no fault of the great revolutionaries Marx and Engels. I type this and I feel moist; I really do! We should all get a bit more M&E!

 

There is no class system. Class distinctions are arbitrary and meaningless. There are individuals, who happen to be similar. I am not a social democrat (indeed I'm anything but it; social democracy is completely contrary to liberty and to individualism).

 

By definition, Communist society is, as such, a STATELESS society. If this is the case - and there is no doubt that it is - then what, in reality, does the distinction between autarchistic and marxist communists consist of? Does the distinction, as such, vanish at least when it comes to examining the problem of the society to come and the "ultimate goal" that is the emancipation of the people?

 

There is no ultimate goal for society. There is the ultimate goal for the individual. Communism is collectivist and thus always requires a central power to redistribute, which is why it is a state by another name. I believe in the free market where the innovative prosper and the lazy flounder. The truly free market is the ultimate Darwinism. It is the most at one with nature. It is liberty.

 

No, I think the distinction does exist; but it is to be found elsewhere; and can be defined as a distinction between how big business has been allowed to dominate the political scene and how the man's greed has been allowed to dominate all walks of life and how a dispossessed class is being created.

 

The free market anarchist does not defend big business. Indeed they believe it to be a product not of capitalism but of the state and vested interest. I believe in a non-political world of individuals pursuing their own interests.

 

But it doesn't have to be this way and at least the students are challenging what is being thrown at them. Like often lowly paid public sector workers, this is not their fault and none of this is of their doing.

 

Students should grow the **** up and take responsibility for themselves. There should be no "public sector" workers. I would have let the banks fail. It is the product of tax and spend ******s like Gordon Brown dominating the political agenda that Joe Bloggs taxpayer is now suffering because of bankers' actions. That is not the fault of capitalism, but of state trying to defy the natural market forces and making things worse. "End of boom and bust" indeed.

 

The 'deficit' is but a paper figure and the capitalist system could find other ways out of the mess that it has allowed their friends, the bankers and financiers, to create. Put it this way, if we decide to invade Iceland tomorrow, money would be found; so let's not kid ourselves; this is all about shrinking the public sector, nothing else.

 

It's not a paper figure. It is the actual physical amount of money that the government spends that it does not cover the cost of in taxes. The cuts that are happening now are far too small. They barely help us to stand still. "Eliminating the budget deficit in 5 years" as the Coalition target looks to do just stops us losing money as quickly. To say that it is a paper figure is like saying that Thistle losing £200k a year is a "paper figure". It's a malicious lie that so many have been duped to believe.

 

If government is to do anything then it should not borrow to do it. But they should be doing nothing, so all public sector cuts are a good thing.

 

As you'll be aware, communists like me believe not only that the society of the future must free itself of the exploitation of man, but also that it will have to ensure for man the greatest possible independence of the nature that surrounds him, that it will reduce to a minimum "the time spent of socially necessary labour", developing the social forces of production to a maximum and likewise the productivity itself of social labour. All of this is possible, but it will take the will of the people.

 

The society of the future "must" do whatever the **** it wants. It's not you to tell them what to do.

 

Man is only exploited because the power structures exist for it to happen. That is the result of states. States masquerade as fulfilling a grand purpose for society, when in fact it is an elaborate ruse to create a ruling elite and to cement their position.

 

There is no such thing as the will of the people. There are individuals. And that is all there is.

 

Think that's enough from me for one night and apologies if I've bored the ar** of everyone. You'd think I was in some way political; but in truth, I'm not. But this is a serious topic and at least the students are giving it a go... and I'm not condoning the use of violence. Time to kiss my bust of Lenin then bye byes.

 

I think I'll call it a day too.

[GrantB]

WJ, I really hope you are a one off.

 

Otherwise, I would advocate a cull of anyone under the age of 20. You really are one scary individual and need to get out more.

[hamiltonjag]

WJ, I really hope you are a one off.

 

Otherwise, I would advocate a cull of anyone under the age of 20. You really are one scary individual and need to get out more.

Terminally scary.

Can I help draw a line under this futility by simply suggesting that all t*ries are reptiles, All Lib Dems are spineless lapdogs. All Labourites are simply watered down Th*tcherites. All SNP'ers are just mindless oil-obsessed muppets. I won't even grace the BNP with an insult cos they're waaaay beneath contempt. Have I missed anyone?

 

Oh and I concur..... WJ please go out and try to get your Nat King fella. You gotta do something to sort yerself out bro.

 

Mon the Jags

[B.C.G. JAG]

they dont actualy and have attacked the tory polititions before

 

Have a look at their website and you'll see that they have plenty of petitions against the Labour leadership and plenty of others - in fact a quick look over their campaigns list suggests they have petitioned Labour more than the Tories (which would make sense). Yes they have 'attacked' the Tories before, but they have also attacked the other parties. The petition in question wasn't even Anti-Tory, it was just highlighting the hypocrisy of having a chancellor who dodges his own tax bill. How can we trust him to close loopholes when he exploits them himself? Show me the evidence that they are anti-tory if you can. I keep bringing this up JB because it grates me how intransient and entrenched your position is and I doubt this world will ever get any better while we the electorate put party loyalties before our own moral convictions. Supporting and cheerleading are different things, and you should be able to be a Conservative voter whilst remaining critical of individuals within it or policies.