Voters

[Droppersneck]

People are entitled to their human rights so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others.

Now I know why you are such an angry conservative. You are from the UK.

 

[Vurtual]

Thank you englandgz. I love talking about politics, but basic human interaction is much more important (or the real politics if you like) - i have several close friends with opposing politics - we will talk about politics, but know each other's views and respect them enough not to push it too far one way or the other - it's better to be friends than to be right and alone.

 

[BigG]

Thank you englandgz. I love talking about politics, but basic human interaction is much more important (or the real politics if you like) - i have several close friends with opposing politics - we will talk about politics, but know each other's views and respect them enough not to push it too far one way or the other - it's better to be friends than to be right and alone.

You are a gentleman

 

[rickolasnice]

At least someone does Dan...I was starting to think I was on my own here!

I also fully agree with you

 

[rickolasnice]

I will be spoiling my ballot paper. Voting encourages them. I give no one authority to rule over me. see, if everyone either spoilt their papers or didn't turn up at all they would have no power really. How much can we have a say in? the media will only tell us what the politicians want to be told. Consultations are not really consultations, much of the time minds have already been made up. So many acts and legislation just goes thru without a whisper. For example, academy schools. The teaching unions had managed to establish teachers pay and conditions that schools in local authority control had to adhere to, academies come along and don't have to adhere to these things. I keep my eyes and ears open and don't remember being consulted on whether I wanted schools to go from la control to academies.

Labour/ conservative two sides of the same coin. all my life I wanted a labour government. Then we got one and they did bad stuff. all false opposition and the politicians are just puppets. Is it the civil servants or the shadow people that run things.

Sorry, but I see democracy as an illusion of choice and having a say.

Yeah but.. that's not going to work.

That is exactly why the conservatives are in power.. Not voting only puts power into the hands of those that do.

I agree.. Labour and conservative have been two sides of the same coin.. but I really don't think that's the case any more.. Milliband has a lot of socialist ideals, I'd much rather him PM than Cameron.. then again.. there aren't many people I wouldn't rather be PM than Cameron and his bunch of snob cunts. If you're not happy with the way the country is run then attempt to do something about it, no matter how futile you think it is.

Democracy in this country, for the most part, has been (is) an illusion. We've been an oligarchy for a long time now.. Murdoch has had his grubby little fingers wrapped around the puppet strings.. whatever PM he finds most agreeable will be bigged up in his papers and the ignorant sheep will lap up whatever Mr Daily Mail says..

Over 50% of people don't vote.. what if they did? What if we gave Liberal Democrats a chance or even The Green Party? I don't know they won't ultimately end up bending over for the corporations pushing their dodgy *forgotten the word for them* through the houses of parliament.. but they might.

Anyway people can argue politics from behind a computer screen all day long but I've seen abused children first hand and treated them and the people who do such things to a child deserve no mercy. Yes if they happened to injure themselves I would still treat them in the same way as I would treat everyone else but once they enter the judicial system they should be treated as harshly as the law allows if not far harsher (I wouldn't actually go as far as doing medical experiments on them - I think Dan may have been saying that slightly tongue in cheek) but the death penalty for those who do unspeakable things to children...........yes

Jimmy Saville deserved to be treated like a lab rat.. as do many more like him.

I have great respect for someone who is attracted to children but do nothing about it and even more so for those that seek help.. but once you harm a child in such a way - you don't deserve to live.

As for my vote..

As it stands I want the Greens to win, Liberal democrats would be my second.. but I'd so much prefer to get conservative out that I'm probably going to vote labour.. I've got a good feeling about Ed Milliband.. I really do think he actually cares about people.

 

[Vurtual]

I just can't see the socialism in new labour - they will carry on with the neoliberalism, albeit with a slightly higher ratio of borrowing. The tory spending cuts that have already happened up to now were in fact the exact plan that alaistar darling was going to do (ie cut half the deficit). Labour will continue with the cuts, and with the emperors-new-clothes acceptance of austerity as a fact of life (austerity does NOT need to happen, in fact many economists say it's causing the current economic sluggishness).

Labour's joining the neoliberal darkside is long in our past - it accelerated under kinnock (and john smith was an integral part of it, whatever the mythology about him says) - labour were fucked after dithcing militant and the sdp and they had no economic policy - they basically decided to do whatever the city of london told them was a good idea (they went round hobnobbing the bankers - the 'prawn cocktail offensive' (mo mowlam was a big part)) - the result was going wholeheartedly for europe/ERM, which is what the bankers wanted; but also from this relationship, all the subsequent alleigance to neoliberal policies naturally grew. (also, a good indicator is Ed balls worked for goldman sachs before joining labour).

Given all this, the first past the post system, and media capture of most people's thinking capacity, there is no serious way to vote against neoliberalism or austerity, hence why i'm not bothered by my vote. I'm not thinking that my non-vote carries any power or anything (that would be a subset of the main voting illusion), i'm thinking my vote (and my non-vote) carries no power except to slightly change the degree we are fucked by.

However, i may well vote (as i said for my plaid mp); and in the situation of the election, i'd try and make a judgement whether this time there might be a point to my vote - a good reason may well be to keep tories or ukip out - if i thought my vote could do that (it won't in my constituency) i might well make the vote for that; but i've been here before and don't particularly want to get fooled into something like another iraq war (though i didn't vote for blair in 97 as i'd seen through him already (not hard) - i think i voted LCA - a 'wasted' vote). Either way this tactical voting is not democracy but gaming the system.

(added to that, i had the masochistic idea before the last election that a victory for ther tories would actualy be better for the left as it would shake them up - and it has a bit (student demos/occupations/anonymous/brand/scotland); maybe that's the case this time too (though i can't bring myself to wish for more tory government either))

...

(on capital punishment, i just think there's a principle involved: life should not be taken deliberately. I take that as a core principle that makes us 'civilised'. It means we have to make a bit of effort to feed and house in jails some horrible people, but that's (literally) a small price to pay imo to have a state that doesn't have the power of life over anyone. Plus, as punishment, i just think it's weak - they get to die which is an easy way out for them - they don't get to see any long term effects of what they do, whether on themselves (their lack of freedom if nothing else) or on other people (even if the psychopathic may not notice this). And i just think it isn't a lesson that we should teach our children - we teach children to rise above things, two wrongs don't make a right, and to be the better person - i think we should just live up to that.

 

[Erikmen]

I wonder how many reasons NOT to vote on her..

 

[Vurtual]

That poster is some compelling reasons to vote for labour (if ukip don't like them...). I think most ukip voters come from the tories (doesn't stop ed milliband trying to sound like white van man though). Ukip are a joke of a party imo - the establishment anti-establishment vote; the revolutionary-reactionary vote (or it really is just about immigration). (just my opinion - no offense like (i'm talking about the party not necessarily the voters (especially not any EADDers (peace love and crimbo ))

 

[Erikmen]

Well, if you say so..

 

[pinkpapaver]

politics and religion eh? what is that ukip advert meant to say? Vote labour and the world will be wood chipped over ?

Very strange bunch and very well funded and publicised are the ukip. UKIP while we pick yer pockets.

 

[felix]

Labour set for a bloodbath in Scotland in general election, poll says

heh. :D

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

No I won't be voting, I don't believe in our current political system.

 

[Chemical Samile]

Why not? Under such a régime, Britain would end up becoming a Centre of Excellence in non-animal testing techniques. Techniques which won't even get a chance at becoming mainstream, unless and until someone is prepared to bite the bullet and ban animal testing.

A bit late with this, but, the problem with that is that for many areas of science it is very unlikely that non-animal equivalents will ever be comparable to animal research. I think that CNS disorders, for example, will ever only be able to be fully studied in a living animal. It's currently far too complex to predict every interaction for computational models. Same with neurons in cell cultures - as I'm sure you know, a neuron in isolation is not the same as a neuron in a complex network. To accurately know what a manipulation (genetic, environments, pharmacological, etc.) is doing to the brain you'd need to analyse the intact system. Sure, these alternative approaches are useful, but in my opinion they'll never (or at least for several decades) be able to replace every aspect of animal research for neuroscience. Even if research focused solely on developing these approaches, I don't see how they would improve to a level where they'd be better than animal research anytime soon.

The UK has one of the highest standards of ethics going for animal testing. If they UK ever banned animal research all that would happen is it would be relocated to other countries. I'd have thought that banning animal testing (and I mean actual medical research - cosmetic research is quite rightly banned in the UK) would be a disaster for UK science and innovation.

I would probably have voted green, but I'd need to check out their policies on this first, thanks for heads up Waterfall :D

 

[Vurtual]

A flavour of what's at the heart of ukip, posted by johnlilburne in MediaLens message board:

"City Financier and prominent UKIP supporter Jon Moulton sacked 2,727 of his staff on Christmas Day after deciding to put City Link into administration.

Moulton didn�t even bother to tell his employees � most of them found out via the press that they will be receiving no more pay after the 31st of December.

But no-one should be surprised by Moulton�s Scrooge-like, heartless behaviour.

Moulton is a former Conservative Party donor, who decided to transfer his allegiance to UKIP after criticising Tory chancellor George Osborne for not cutting hard enough and for being too soft on austerity.

And you can expect much more of this kind of fat city cat behaviour across the country should UKIP ever manage to get its hands on the reins of power (God help us).


http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/...-moulton-sacks-2727-of-his-staff-on-xmas-day/ "

/as for the greens' policy on animal testing (i don't know what it is), i'd say the overarching economic policies dwarf that sort of thing in importance - if we don't agree with the greens' specific policies, we can join the party and democratically change them (like used to happen in labour)

 

[felix]

I honestly can't see the point of voting for the Greens in a FPTP system. What would that ever achieve in a Westminster election? (Serious question, from someone who agrees with many of their policies.)

We only managed to get two Green MSPs with our PR system...

 

[Dark Side]

englandgz: Fair enough, but it's much too facile for you to just think that people like me hold left wing opinions only because we haven't had certain real experiences that you have had (if only politics was that simple) - i won't try and talk about my experience of such things here on the internet for obvious reasons, but my views come as much from that experience as you say yours do.

I just think death penalties are wrong for the same reason i think murder is wrong.

Death isnt a punishment, life is far more a punishment than death.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Too right, I'd absolutely rather get death than a full life sentence.

 

[BigG]

Death isnt a punishment, life is far more a punishment than death.

I think that's a very individualistic thing.

I'd hazard a guess though that if you asked most people convicted or a major crime whether they would rather spend the rest of their days behind bars or "be taken from this place and hung by the neck until you are dead" (as they used to say).

I'd wager most would prefer the life sentence. In fact I'd wager that an incredibly high percentage of them would prefer the jail term...

So if you really want to punish then would it not make sense to give the pedophiles, child rapists and child murderers the sentence they LEAST want...i.e. death

 

[Vurtual]

When you're dead you have no possibility of suffering - when you're alive, there's a fair chance that you learn to appreciate the wrong you've done; or at the least that you live with the consequences (jail time, ostracism etc)

Having a death penalty means you have to build your society and morality around a contradiction: the state/law says taking life is wrong, but then takes life. It leads to a built-in distrust of authority; like how the unjust drug laws make people not respect the law generally. It also gives people the idea that taking life is ok in itself given certain circumstances (which a murderer may well adopt as part of some internal self justicatory 'morality'). And 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind' as ghandi said.

How is the death penalty working out for american society do you think? (some of the world's highest capital punishment rates and murder rates)

 

[curious_24]

The great thing about civilized society is that we don't have to lower ourselves to their level. I don't feel any crime warrants the death penalty, apart from, perhaps, extreme acts of terrorism.