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E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Discussion in 'Serious' started by TheBlackSwordsMan, 22 Feb 2016.

  1. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    I don't think anyone said (all) leave voters are racists. But saying they didn't reflect on the implications of their vote or ignored said implications is fair, if you ask me.

    Might just be my tired mind forgetting things, sitting on a train to a customer workshop at 4:45 in the morning, but I'm pretty sure nobody ever said leave voters were burning crosses in their front yard. At least not in this thread.
     
  2. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    I am painting Leave voters with a broad brush, and perhaps some of them unfairly so, but at the end of the day the main motivation for that horrorshow of a campaign was racism.

    It wasn't covered as much by the British news outlets, because there'd be complaints from all the leave voters who didn't consider themselves racist (but..), but over in the EU that wasn't an uncommon discussion point.

    It doesn't help that the Leave campaign was fronted by either morons or bigots. Or both, I suppose, depending on how you slice that cake.

    Regardless - Your anecdotal experience that Not Everyone is a Piece of ****tm is no more or less valid than my anecdotal experience that a lot of leave voters are kind of pieces of ****.

    Perhaps, dating an EU national, I had a different view of the lead-up and execution of one of the dumbest ideas in politics in recent history.

    Perhaps having her, and my, life uprooted has tainted my opinion.

    Perhaps every leave voter I spoke to saying "Oh well we don't mean the working ones" like EU nationals are only valuable if they can labour away for the British economy when I asked if my partner should be ousted along with all the others has tainted my opinion.

    Perhaps the windrush scandal made the 'promises' of the government on the status of EU nationals in the UK made me rather bitter and sceptical of their ability to do anything.

    Perhaps my time dealing with people who hated someone for the country of their birth, even though at one point our countries were allies in one of the biggest displays of human shittiness, even though they were hard workers, has tainted my view of the kind of person who would proudly vote leave.

    Perhaps having Nigel Farage being a vocal supporter without saying 'actually, you racist ****, **** off' hasn't endeared me to the Vote Leave campaign's claims that they aren't racist through and through.

    Perhaps people voting leave proudly and parroting ridiculous lies by the racist campaign because they don't care to see how racist it is because it aligns with their world view already has made me somewhat bitter.

    Perhaps the life-long exposure to racism in some form or other, despite the fact that British culture is basically complaining about the weather and general pessimism without the inclusion of other cultures, has tainted my opinion.

    I don't know enough about the Northern/Southern Ireland situation to have an opinion beyond '**** those terrorist IRA pricks', which is admittedly ill informed and not very helpful in discussion.
     
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  3. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Reductio ad extremis: I never said that all Leavers are racist. I am saying that they aligned with a racist campaign, so (correspondent inference being a thing) their victory and their motivations will inevitably be tainted by the hue of racism. They'll have to own that one; it's not my problem.

    I do think that they showed and continue to show, a callous disregard for how the Brexit campaign and their vote in support of that side would be experienced by EU immigrants. Your feeling rather bothered by how I perceive Leavers leaves me, frankly, somewhat bemused because Leavers don't seem too bothered by how EU immigrants feel about how they have been portrayed during the Brexit campaign (not to mention decades of tabloid headlines). If you want me to say that of course I understand that Leavers are by and large ordinary, reasonable people who voted Leave for their own legitimate, rational concerns, then sorry, I don't particularly feel the need to oblige. They didn't care about my opinions and feelings before; why should they care now? I don't go around calling Leavers racist. I remain civil in my public interactions with everybody. I do not ask and do not care about whether my patients are Leavers or Remainers; I leave that **** at home and I care for them all the same. While I continue living here I will continue to behave with integrity, respect and professionalism towards everybody, no matter who they are, and I expect to be treated the same in turn; mostly that has worked out.

    The Brexiteers continue to promote a rhetoric in which Leavers are the victims: first of an oppressive dictatorial (but at the same time ineffectual and pointless) EU, then of a "Brexit betrayal" by "Remoaner sabouteurs", now again by a EU that has the temerity to actually treat them as the third-country citizens they voted to become, and victims of Remainers who (shock, horror) accuse them of racism because they voted in support of the racists running a racist campaign. But they are not the victims here; they won. They got what they voted for. The victims are the EU immigrants who who spent the last 4 years in uncertainty about their future status and rights, and are having to deal with the Settled Status process overseen by a Home Office that made "hostile environment" an official policy; and the Remainers whose plans of working, living and/or retiring in the EU have been soundly scuppered. I think the Brexiteers' ongoing victim narrative is doing the image of Leavers more harm than what EU immigrants like me may think of them.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jun 2021
  4. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    Terrorist campaigns were waged by both sides so, in the event of a reunification referendum, no matter who wins...

    ...everyone would be tainted by the hue of terrorism, whether or not they supported or opposed it - Which is why the Guilt by Affiliation argument sounds so ridiculous to me. It is prejudicial and antithetical to an axiom a wise man once wrote on these forums - "The cost of being the Good Guy is that you have to be the Good Guy." So perhaps what we need right now are the words of a wise woman:

    “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.”
    ― Maya Angelou
     
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  5. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I'm not saying that it's right, I'm saying that's how it will tend to be perceived. And that is a problem for Leavers, but it's their problem, that they'll have to own as a consequence of their vote, and address if it bothers them. Their vote has caused enough problems of my own to deal with.

    A wise man also once said: "Your wise words will inevitably come back one day to haunt you." :p
    I'm not bitter (now); I've realigned my relationship with this country according to how it has chosen to realign its relationship with me. I'm not treating it as if it was my own anymore; I just work here. It's not a problem. I get paid well for it, and when I retire I have lots of nice places where I can go live instead. No hard feelings.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jun 2021
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  6. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    To be clear, and perhaps excessively personal, my concern here is mainly for your sake, not theirs. The mass of people don't care about the opinion one person holds of them; I don't think you'll go out there and commit the war crime of hurting someone's feelings. Rather, I feel bad for your emotional turbulence and negativity on the subject. Holding myopic and sweeping negative views of other people is an actively toxic thing. It reduces your quality of life. This is part of how microaggressions cumulatively cause psychological harm to extreme minorities (both ideological and demographic) - constant awareness that you are set against the bulk of people is a miserable thing and difficult to live under. This experience is common to ethnic minorities, religious extremists, conspiracy theorists, political extremists and so on (none of which I'm comparing you to btw, just illustrating the universality and commonality of the problem). What all these people have in common is feeling miserable, cornered, defensive and bitter.

    If such an awareness is accurate, then yes, misery and bitterness is warranted, and the only long-term solution is to move somewhere where you'll be surrounded by more sympathetic and like-minded people - which is what all besieged minority people tend to do. My real worry is that you may be wrong about this - that your feelings of being betrayed, unappreciated, ganged up on and exorcised are inaccurate. The mere state of believing that huge swathes of the British population want you gone, don't value your contributions, don't consider you an equal, and don't respect your rights is a worldview that will actively make your life worse, even if you leave and end up somewhere better. The fact of Britain's scorn for and betrayal of you will continue to make you miserable; after 3 decades here, it can't not.

    At the risk of being mushy, the real reason I'm like a dog with a bone with this subject is that I like you, and respect you tremendously, and if there's a chance that your perception of this is wrong, making you more miserable and bitter than it need do, I want to try and offer an alternative, less negative perspective, which I think my experiences have well armed me to do.

    I don't feel that I know you quite as well, Lirathael, but the sentiment is the same - I don't want your selectively awful experiences with some of the British population, coupled with a reductive interpretation of the Leave vote, to lead you to an inaccurately negative view of the whole British population that makes you unhappy.

    Post script: I didn't see Vipers' last note above until after writing this but jinx on that - bitterness and negativity are poisonous, and if they're based on inaccurate or incomplete impressions, it's a friendly effort (not a hostile or contrary one) to challenge them.

    Edit - oh, apologies, this is kind of out of date. I had an old browser tab open and it didn't show me your latest post in which you say you're not bitter. Sentiment stands, though, it's a shame if you're writing off the British people based on inaccurate inferences.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jun 2021
  7. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    For what it's worth I'm sorry the vote went the way it did. I'm a hardcore remainer, as you know. I just don't think it's healthy - having grown up during the troubles - to broadly ascribe traits to people based on scant information about them. There's a good chance we'll both be living in the EU again within a decade. Not that I'll have to move anywhere. I mean, who would want to live in the French Riviera anyway? :grr:
     
  8. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    That is kind, but as a clinical psychologist I am trained to be aware of my feelings and manage them, and look after my emotional wellbeing, so don't worry about that. Besides I have a lot of other things on my mind. During 2020 I really haven't had much time to think about Brexit --COVID has been a full-time occupation. Also, unlike many minorities I am not in an underdog position: I am in a shortage occupation, I earn very well, and I am about to retire on a rather good pension with my EU citizenship rights intact. I'm aware that I'm really rather fortunate in that regard. I've done my tasks of grieving: I've acknowledged Brexit, I've processed my feels about it, I'm letting it go and I am re-investing my energy in a new future in France (which I am well aware has its own issues).

    No, I'm good, actually. It was good while it lasted, and now it's time to move on.

    Again, that is very nice of you, but I am really OK. Remember I married a Brit. :p I feel sorry for the Remainers, who seem really upset, and justly so as they have lost more than I have.
     
  9. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    The French Riviera is overrated. Too many rich people with poor taste. :p I'm thinking more Limousin or Poitou-Charente.
     
  10. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    Gonna be interesting seeing whether there's a glut of EU-Brit marriages and emigration in the next few years.
     
  11. BA_13

    BA_13 Minimodder

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    Don't know why you'd want to come here, I mean look what I woke up to today.

     
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  12. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    *Whimpers quietly"

    We've been looking at a video blog of an artist who moved to Fresselines. The countryside in Limousin is so beautiful. Can't wait.
     
  13. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Funnily enough my mother was pressuring me to pursue the bureaucratic process to obtain French citizenship, which I am entitled to by default and need only ask for (read: wade through several months of tedious paperwork for). Pre-Brexit it didn't seem very important, but I'm beginning to see what an asset it would be.
     
  14. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    [​IMG]
     
  15. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Ah, that "oven-ready deal" we could just "pop in the microwave," at a time when "we hold all the cards" turns out to be a lemon at the moment of our "greatest weakness." Who'da thunk it? It's almost like the politicians were... lying?
     
  16. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    The UK had to accept a bad deal to avoid no deal? I thought that 'no deal' was better than a 'bad deal'?
     
  17. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    Ah, see, I see where you went wrong here.

    The secret ingredient is being a dick.

    It's tricky, because if you have any concept of ethics, responsibility or morality, it just doesn't work. Gotta be a soulless husk of a piece of **** to do it.
     
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  18. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    That applied only when they voted against the deal under Mrs Hostile Environment, when they voted for it under Mr Penis that ceased to apply but they didn't bother updating the messaging on it because they didn't actually bother reading it so they didn't know it was in fact the same pig just with a 2nd layer of lipstick being used as lube, except it hadn't actually ceased to apply under Mr Penis because Mr Figpucker hadn't actually returned the pig yet so they didn't know it was still the same deal as the one they had sent down the river three times.
     
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  19. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    [​IMG]
     
  20. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Meanwhile, in the Daily Heil universe:


    And in the real universe:
     

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