E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

I don't think that I am saying that at all.

In the first example if I defend the religion it is to point out that Islamic extremism is not the same as Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity is not what you and I would understand to be Christianity. But I do indeed tend to point out that Islamic extremism gives their violence a perceived legitimacy.

In this case I am also not saying that the ideal caused the violence. In fact I stated before that at the bottom of it, I think Mair was sublimating his feelings of personal inadequacy into aggression towards a woman he was sexually attracted to but perceived as superior and unavailable (one of many, no doubt; she was probably just his fixation of the month). Her politics being diametrically opposed to his just gave his hostile feelings a sense of legitimacy.

But as I also just said, he then had to overcome perceived societal restraints (society tends to disapprove of killing people) and the tone of unbridled hostility in the referendum lowered that perceived restraint for him. It made his violent feelings towards her seem more socially acceptable. So off he went.

And Brexiteers can now protest all they want that Cox' murder was not political and that it is despicable to cast it in that context, but this is an outcome of the game that they were playing. Vote Leave has been quite happy to let a racist like Farage paint his extremist views on their behalf, to whip up the electorate in a xenophobic hysteria. And this is the result.

 

If articulate ability was a requirement for being allowed to speak then most people wouldn't be allowed to express themselves.

He can't control why, where, or what they are fleeing from, point is mass immigration is a problem and he's among the few raising the issue and it's not to everybody's liking. Having said that, far from all are fleeing from warzones many are fleeing from a mediocre existence created by their own culture.

What would you consider to not be racist but valid arguments against mass immigration?

 

Terkaderbs!

 

Well given your stance on that murder, you no doubt consider this to be also mental health with little to do with politics.

In this case it is of course proper to see who he had links with and if there is any wider threat, but "loner" seems to be an accurate description so far.

 

...with the leader of the left trying to do the bare minimum for the Remain campaign which he doesn't seem to really believe in.

 

Oh come now Nexxo. We both know a similar sort of analysis can be made of any half-witted numb-nut that commits such an atrocity up and to the events and scenarios that allows them to rationalise the violence. Be that gang violence, terrorism or political extremism. But if we abstract the analysis to "the dude is nuts" we are left with a political and philosophical ideal being misinterpreted by a crazy idiot who went and committed an act of violence. Whatever it is that Farage and the like want, it is not the murder of a white female British politician, regardless of her politics. Murdering left wing politicians is not the same as Farage et al's political views, it is a complete distortion of them.

You are holding a double standard: Right wing politicians speak out and a nutter commits some extremist right wing violence. It is the fault of the politician, their whipping up of the electorate into a xenophobic hysteria has results in this violence. Religious leaders preach their fire and brimstone and a nutter commits some violence. It is not the fault of the religious leader/holy text it is the nutter using religion as a medium for violence. Violence that would have manifested in some other form were they not involved with the religion.

If you want to analyse something, perhaps you should consider how being emotionally attached to ideals and events interferes with rational thinking. Losing objectivity doesn't just happen to nutters. Cognitive dissonance much?

 

That's the crux isn't it. I noticed how people/media were preparing to look first to see if he has any health issues as if saying something else must be the reason why. And if the person is a Muslim, it's a different story, pitchforks out faster than the speed of light without looking into his/her background, whether that person has mental health issues or not.

 

Tell that to the guy who killed her, when asked his name he said "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain." If that's not hatred stirred up by the referendum debate then what else is it?

 

Conversely you get a situation where one person's name calling, making threats or punching people in the face has the same validity as another person's reasoned argument.

He can control whether or not he uses carefully-photoshopped-to-look-coloured refugees on Croatia's border --who have nothing to do with EU immigration-- as a cheap trick to strike irrational fear into the electorate, or whether he keeps the debate rational and focused on the issue of EU immigration. He can control whether he talks about immigrants will molest our women or about how there will be violence if the electorate doesn't get its way.

I would look at the number of EU immigrants actually coming into the UK, and then:
- consider if they make a net contribution to the economy
- consider if they take away jobs from the locals, or depress wages
- consider if they integrate well in the community
- consider if they contribute to housing shortage, school placement shortages or overburdening of the NHS.

Stuff like that. Rationally, looking at the objective data. Now ask yourself why that is not in fact happening, although these are the issues the electorate has said they are concerned about.

Let's break this down.
- Would you agree that there has been a carefully constructed narrative to play on people's fears on both sides?
- Would you agree that Vote Leave and UKIP's main strategy has been to instil fear of further immigration?
- Would you agree that UKIP has been deliberately conflating the issue of EU immigration with refugees and terrorism?
- Would you agree that the tone of the referendum campaign has been hostile and paranoid? With suggestions of mass invasion, terrorism, sexual assault and violence in the street?
- Wouldn't you agree that this tone has been a deliberate strategy to engender such feelings in the electorate?
- Wouldn't you agree that Farage then planted a seed of an idea of how the electorate might express those feelings in violence, and gave it an implicit condonation?

What Farage and the likes wanted was for people to feel scared, suspicious and hostile to the idea of more EU immigration and vote Leave. Farage in particular was secretly hoping that there might be some native-vs-immigrant violence so that he could shake his head sadly on TV and say that this is what you get when communities get overrun by immigrants: they start tearing themselves apart. Unfortunately some nutter took it to the extreme: the hostility and paranoia incited turned into native-vs-native mediapathic Remain MP murder, and that turns out to be a lot harder to spin politically for the Brexiteers.

You keep putting words in my mouth. I condemn the firebrand extremist preacher as much for inciting violence as the nutter for executing it. I think that I have made that abundantly clear in the past.

Are we doing irony again?

Exactly.

 

Indeed he can't, just like no one can, but that begs the question of why he's blaming the problems that arise from immigration on them?

If he can't control the why, where, or what they are fleeing from then shouldn't he be addressing the problems, as he sees them, that arise from something he has no control over, what Mr Farage is doing is the equivalent of blaming the wind for blowing his house down instead of building stronger houses.

 

Is there any indication that relgion motivated Mair?

 

There is a strong indication that political ideology motivated Mair (psychologically speaking, it's a modulating factor).

 

On a sidenote, I found this to be a good quick summary of how it's the Tory government which causes most of the problems in the UK, and not Brussels: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ry-cuts-cause-britains-troubles-eu-referendum

 

Yup, that is why Cameron's campaign has been so lacklustre. He can't very well say: "Ah, but it's not immigration that caused the problem; it's us!".

Of course Jeremy Corbyn could have been making that point, but he isn't. He turns out to be another disappointment: heart in the right place but no leadership potential.

 

Its every government since the 60s that's caused it not just the Tories. To some extent the collapse of empire and bankruptcy in the 40s also. We are now stuck in an economy where ever increasing growth is expected and supported by ever increasing consumerism and personal debt.

The real issue I have now is there's no credible opposition coming from labour or anywhere else. The SNP also concern me and while there's a threat of a coalition between them and labour I'm stuck voting for fringe parties.

 

He's been making that point in a roundabout way, it's just the media is more interested in the blue-on-blue attacks, three days ago he said...

In his maiden speech about why he decided to support Remain he said...

So it's not like he's been silent on the issue, it just doesn't get much media coverage.

 

Here's a good article I read in the JD Weatherspoon's publication this afternoon whilst enjoying a pint:
https://manage.jdwetherspoon.com//~/media/files/pdf-documents/wetherspoon-news/eu-referendum-articles.pdf

Also, The one of the highest standards of living economies in the world has decided to overwhelmingly withdraw its application to join the EU instead, relying on it's trade deals:

http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/aktuelle-themen/nach-26-jahren-schweiz-zieht-eu-beitrittsgesuch-zurueck-ld.89101

Translated:

EDIT: only “a few lunatics” now want to be involved with the bloc, that mad me laugh

 

Ah yes, good old British Wetherspoons, which employs 3500 EU immigrant staff.

Come back when Switzerland decides to bail from the EFTA (which is where its trade deals come from, donchaknow). Except that after two years of thinking about it (to escape free movement), it still hasn't done so.

 

you dfo know how long ANYTHING takes there don't you? pretty much everything goes to a referendum as well ; the F5 fighter jets which are life limited were due to be replaced the SAAB gripen? went to referendum and voila . they are not buying them.....

 

Yup, I do. Switzerland held a referendum on free movement in 2014. The electorate voted against. The government took this to the EU. The EU said: "Fine, but that would end your membership of EFTA". Switzerland decided to think about it some more. It's still thinking. Not going ahead with it, just taking a while to get the bureaucracy sorted; it's still thinking about it. Because it knows that leaving EFTA is actually a bad deal.

Another few fun facts:
- Switzerland has no passporting rights to the EU for its predominantly financial service based economy. It runs offices out of London to access the EU market (if Britain Brexits, where do you think those offices will move? Switzerland is natively fluent in both German and French).
- Switzerland does not have a ‘deal’ with the EU; it has around 120 bilateral agreements which took many years to put together. I guess the UK would not be triggering article 50 anytime soon.
- Switzerland's bilateral trade deal with China is a very unbalanced agreement that involved the Swiss opening their market to Chinese goods pretty much immediately and the Chinese only opening their market to Swiss products gradually, phased over many years. Let's see if a UK outside of the EU can do any better.