A Political Thread

[The Seeker]

 

[big ginger 8]

So looks like the Irish electorate wanted 'change' and that's what they're going to get.

 

[Leinster Fan]

Sinn Fein set to win the popular vote.

They've left 10 or so seats behind them by not running enough candaites though, if they'd run more they'd comfortably been the largest party.

 

[Groundhog]

It's a good time to be a populist! Not only that it's the easiest thing in the world! Reckon I might run myself on a platform of 20 grand houses and promising to hold non descript vulture funds accountable for non specific shady dealings.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I'm cautiously optimistic about how this will go. SF won't have enough seats to go full looper like their campaign suggested they would but also some form of change is needed.

We don't have the infrastructure or resources to go socialist in this country yet (possibly ever) but this is a kick up the centre rights hole and I think FG will react well while Martin will keep digging FF's grave.

 

[Leinster Fan]

Going to be tight but looks like Fianna Fail will just about end up with more seats than SF, 38 to 37. Would not make for a stable coalition, if that is the route they go down (which seems the most likely right now), not to mention that they'd need to bring the greens or someone in to have the numbers. Even if they do put a government together, it's easy to see it not lasting.

 

[Gavin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51449739

Native American burial sites in Arizona have been blown up by construction crews building the US-Mexico border wall, according to lawmakers and tribal leaders.

Authorities confirmed that "controlled blasting" has begun in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a Unesco recognised natural reserve

Bit mad.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

So a woman in France who said Islam was a religion of hatred after receiving homophobic comments from Muslims has now had to secretly have her school changed amid death threats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51446519

Isn't it about time people stopped pussy footing around this issue and accept there actually is a very real problem in a large segment of the Muslim population to resort to violence at any sniff of criticism of their religion? Criticising a religion is far less bad than making death threats and attempting to destroy someone life yet we are all on the side of self-censorship and saying we shouldn't criticise Islam rather than you should be free to criticise religion and having your religion criticised is not a legitimate reason to make death threats.

 

[The Seeker]

 

[ncurd]

So a woman in France who said Islam was a religion of hatred after receiving homophobic comments from Muslims has now had to secretly have her school changed amid death threats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51446519

Isn't it about time people stopped pussy footing around this issue and accept there actually is a very real problem in a large segment of the Muslim population to resort to violence at any sniff of criticism of their religion? Criticising a religion is far less bad than making death threats and attempting to destroy someone life yet we are all on the side of self-censorship and saying we shouldn't criticise Islam rather than you should be free to criticise religion and having your religion criticised is not a legitimate reason to make death threats.

Playing devils advocate for 5 seconds what happens when you criticise Brexit or anything people like the EDL stand for?

My point is merely this is not a problem with Islam per se plenty of decent Islam worshipping folks out there. It's a problem with groups who believe in strong authoritarianism of which many Muslims believe in and frankly anyone who believes in that stuff has to be told to be accepting of other viewpoints or told they have no place in modern society. Sadly a lot of people as evidenced by recent elections want authoritarianism just their particular brand which will only lead to more conflict.

 

[Gavin]

So a woman in France who said Islam was a religion of hatred after receiving homophobic comments from Muslims has now had to secretly have her school changed amid death threats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51446519

Isn't it about time people stopped pussy footing around this issue and accept there actually is a very real problem in a large segment of the Muslim population to resort to violence at any sniff of criticism of their religion? Criticising a religion is far less bad than making death threats and attempting to destroy someone life yet we are all on the side of self-censorship and saying we shouldn't criticise Islam rather than you should be free to criticise religion and having your religion criticised is not a legitimate reason to make death threats.

Reading the BBC article it says:

The controversy began on 18 January, after Mila did a live broadcast on her Instagram account. After speaking about her sexuality she was called a "dirty lesbian" by a Muslim commenter.

In response, Mila posted an attack on Islam. "I hate religion. The Koran is a religion of hate," she said, before using stronger words to attack Islam.

So perhaps, rightly or wrongly, she attributed the abuse to the person's religious beliefs and ethnicity, rather than them just being homophobic.

I also wonder what the form the death threats took.

On Twitter I often see people of the LGBTQ community get told that they are going to burn in hell for all eternity and that God will punish them and remove them from the earth. These comments are usually from 60+ year old white Christian people in Northern Ireland.

 

[Which Tyler]

It seems that every popular belief system has those at the extreme who leap straight to bigotry and violence as the first answer - whether it's a reglious belief or not (see nationalists, racial supremacy etc).
It's worth noting, that women always seem to get the shittier end of the stick with these things as well.
My bias would suggest that Islam has more of a problem with this than other reglious belief systems (though not more than some of the non-religious beliefs) - but that absolutely is fed by reporting bias, and I cannot know if it's true, or if so, to what extend Islam is inherently worse than others (bear in mind that Islam is currently "the enemy" and the religion currently engaging in a campaign of terrorism in Western Europe - meaning that there are elements within Islam deliberately trying to create a fear of Islam).

As for the comments "I hate religion. The Koran is a religion of hate" - I personally dislike all religions, but hatred only breeds further hatred. All religions are religions of hate. The Koran is a holy book, not a religion.

I'd also point that simply having an instagram can be enough to get death threats these days. Combine having an instagram, and spouting hatred and you're pretty close to guaranteed to receive death threats - especially if you factor in being female and being LGBT+



Away from this, I take it we're not really talking about the recent escalation of the Windrush scandal, because we're all pretty much in agreement and there's nothing much to add. AKA, we've become desensitised.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

So perhaps, rightly or wrongly, she attributed the abuse to the person's religious beliefs and ethnicity, rather than them just being homophobic.

I also wonder what the form the death threats took.

On Twitter I often see people of the LGBTQ community get told that they are going to burn in hell for all eternity and that God will punish them and remove them from the earth. These comments are usually from 60+ year old white Christian people in Northern Ireland.

Large chunk of people sending homophobic messages are from certain group, victim of comments says that group promotes hatred, victim gets death threats, all excuses made to look for how it is actually the victim at fault. Also people don't get moved to a different school anonymously because someone says they will burn in hell. Being kept out of school and then moved is done when there is deemed to be a credible threat to the individual. Let's change the story, Christian group attack girl with homophobic comments, she responds that Christianity is a hateful religion and the Bible promotes hate, she then gets death threats. Can you honestly see the same arguments being made to downplay the whole thing? When death threats are frequently coming from the same segment of society then we have to admit there is a problem within that segment, not make excuses. Hell even the political bodies in France spent more time saying how she shouldn't have made her comments about Islam than the original homophobic comments or the death threats.

I think Islam in the west needs to learn to accept criticism and yes even claims that it is evil and promotes evil. Then again I think all religions should be open to exactly the same comments and criticism as political beliefs.

 

[Brigantine]

Sinn Fein set to win the popular vote.

They've left 10 or so seats behind them by not running enough candaites though, if they'd run more they'd comfortably been the largest party.

I thought it was odd that they could win the vote with a bit of margin and still have less seats...

The worse ones are Dublin South-Central and Waterford. They had more votes spare on the 1st count than another candidate got elected from on the last count, don't even need to speculate about preferences. Just 303 and 935 votes short of a full 2nd quota.
That's already enough seats to make the difference between supporting a government and leading a government. In total I think it's somewhere between 4 and 8 seats they left behind, but the candidates that would have missed out instead are all independent/I4C/Green/PBP/Social Democrat/Labour - the major parties didn't benefit from this.

What's the logic behind not even standing candidates? It seems odd that this sort of thing is deciding who leads a country.

 

[big ginger 8]

I thought it was odd that they could win the vote with a bit of margin and still have less seats...

The worse ones are Dublin South-Central and Waterford. They had more votes spare on the 1st count than another candidate got elected from on the last count, don't even need to speculate about preferences. Just 303 and 935 votes short of a full 2nd quota.
That's already enough seats to make the difference between supporting a government and leading a government. In total I think it's somewhere between 4 and 8 seats they left behind, but the candidates that would have missed out instead are all independent/I4C/Green/PBP/Social Democrat/Labour - the major parties didn't benefit from this.

What's the logic behind not even standing candidates? It seems odd that this sort of thing is deciding who leads a country.

The surge in support for Sinn Fein was quite late in the day and they'd had poor Euro and local elections. There is also a feeling it seems in Sinn Fein that running too many more candidates would have exposed some people to the public eye who they don't want to.

Also they would have had to run an extra 38 candidates and get every single candidate in to be in government by themselves. They definitely left seats on the table and would have had more leverage for coalition arrangements but with a quarter of the vote they would always have to be looking for a coalition.

 

[Gavin]

Anyone see this question during PMQs from Corbyn?

James O'Brien made an excellent comment on it. He suggested that it was intended as a 'zinger' and would have been a year ago, but not anymore.

Pointing out that when Corbyn asked if there was one rule for a black lad and another for a white lad, some on the Tory benches shouted 'YES'.

 

[Leinster Fan]

I thought it was odd that they could win the vote with a bit of margin and still have less seats...

The worse ones are Dublin South-Central and Waterford. They had more votes spare on the 1st count than another candidate got elected from on the last count, don't even need to speculate about preferences. Just 303 and 935 votes short of a full 2nd quota.
That's already enough seats to make the difference between supporting a government and leading a government. In total I think it's somewhere between 4 and 8 seats they left behind, but the candidates that would have missed out instead are all independent/I4C/Green/PBP/Social Democrat/Labour - the major parties didn't benefit from this.

What's the logic behind not even standing candidates? It seems odd that this sort of thing is deciding who leads a country.

Sinn Fein actually came into this election in a pretty bad state, they lost a whole load of council seats and MEPs last May (elections which are generally a decent guide for general elections, opposition parties tend overperform if anything). They were expecting to lose seats if anything here and fielded candidates accordingly.

 

[Gavin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51491662

Sajid Javid has resigned as chancellor as Boris Johnson carries out a post-Brexit cabinet reshuffle.

Mr Javid rejected an order to fire his team of aides, saying "no self-respecting minister" could accept such a condition.

Power grab by Number 10

 

[Which Tyler]

Power grab by Number 10

Cummings has been gunning for Javid since his appointment - including sacking his staff without informing him

 

[Gavin]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-amsterdam-airport-schiphol-a9335281.html?amp

A Brexiteer who was forced to wait in an immigration queue at an EU airport in Amsterdam has complained that "this isn't the Brexit I voted for".

Colin Browning, who described himself as one of the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit, said he was forced to wait for nearly an hour at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol before his passport was checked.

"Absolutely disgusting service at Schiphol airport. 55 minutes we have been stood in the immigration queue. This isn't the Brexit I voted for," he wrote on Twitter.

Totally hilarious if true and from suggests it's legitimate