Elections and politics

Total clarity of thought there Billy. 

I feel the same way - and aside from here in the U.K. the situation is even worse back home in Ireland 

Tbh if we did soil it it would still be the best thing on the ballot paper!

Thanks I agree with a lot of what you say too

I'm goung to start a "soil your ballot campaign"

Hear hear!

out_of_step said:

people should soil their ballot

This conjured a wonderful mental image for me 

Spoil not soil!

Although it might send more of a stronger message....

I think more people should soil their ballot. Some countries really are not democratic - we should make the most of the right that we have. And speaking as a woman,  people have died for that right. 

Edit - I do agree with some of what you say though 

One of them will get in either way whether I vote for them or not  but at least this way I havn't contributed to it. 
I do like the idea of writing none of the above on it though 

Switzerland has the best idea. They dont really have a Prime Minister, they have a panel of people from a mixture of the political parties who decide things by consensus and all of them take turns to be Prime Minister. That way decisions are actually made with thought and consideration and for the good of the country rather than knee jerk reactions that they hope will win them votes and headlines or score points over the opposition like it is here. 

In addition the Swiss have referundums over almost everything, giving the people the chance to decide what decisions are made for the country and therefore making the nation truly democratic. They even had a refurendum over whether to have a Covid lockdown. 

There are many reasons Id like to live in Switzerland, it is ordered and logical and calm for one, but this is another one 

And either of them are likely to get in if you don't vote. At least spoil your ballot!!

I dont vote anymore. All political parties will screw us over, just in different ways so why on earth would I actually walk down to a polling station and actually vote for people who are going to make my life worse and who don't care about me?

Autism friendly policies - Stop getting NT people to assess us for things like PIP and disability benefits. None of the assesors have any knowledge of or training in autism so are not qualified to make decisions on us. 

Have more training for employers so they know how to manage autistic people at work. We could be of so much use in the workplace but we are driven away by stupid systems and policies that we are not able to cope with. For instance, I once worked for a company that insisted on making autistic VOLUNTEERS go through performance reviews even if they were in tears and having panic attacks beforehand

For my money, Labour are worse than the Tories. At least the Tories are honest enough to admit they dont care about us. Labour are like a wolf in sheeps clothing, tricking us into thinking they care when actually they are as uncaring as the Tories. They are both truly awful though and the country is screwed under either of them 

TheCatWoman said:

It always amazes me that people damn MSM and yet think any old crazy spouting BS on You-Tube must be the fount of all wisdom.

100%

Yes and I briefly read the other day that AI cannot be stopped from interfering at this years' general election. In terms of deep fakes etc. So that's gonna be fun. Black Mirror eat your heart out.

I didn't understand the last third of your post I Sperg. I agree that for those of us old enough to remember a world with no social media or computers, probably have learned to be differently critical. I'm always wary when someone decides they're telling me the TRUTH, (it's always in capital letters) because even if they dont' know it, someone has usually lied to them and sapped any ability to think at all let along critically they ever had. It always amazes me that people damn MSM and yet think any old crazy spouting BS on You-Tube must be the fount of all wisdom.

TheCatWoman said:

Not getting all my political information from either you-tube or other social media seems to make me a target for conspiracy theorists too.

Funny. I do the same, and get called a conspiracy theorist for it! 

Particularly during Covid...

And when you are our age teh amount of time social media has been around comapred to how long we have lived, means that all of us got all our political views or actual knowledge from before the internet came about.

What has been different for me, is that since the internet, those of us who are capable of holding a few thoughts of our own, or (even worse) weilding the tool of "critical thinking", are no longer an isolated and powerless minority.

There's an WW2 Bomber Command saying that fits very aptly, particalarly nowadays: "If you are taking flak then you are over the target".

Those of us with non-standard / /utilitarian politics also live by teh mantra: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

I must admit I don't always win, but given that I can't argue my way out of a paper bag, and will not knowingly lie to win my point PLUS I'm usually fighting the best psychologially based propaganda that money can buy, yet even then simply knowing and being able to weild the truth can carry you through.

Here's two ladies who have achieved enough in life to be allowed to address governements telling a truth that everyone has been taught to deny.

T/W some people might find this particular truth very unpalatable, triggering even, (and it gets way worse if you really dig into it) but  it's actually a fair representation of what the majority have been allowing to happen because they chose to believe the liars (and the labels they try to attach to tellers of truith) and ignore reality.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2oKhAb1BxI

https://www.bitchute.com/video/WV9olpK31acS/

Now this particular small slice of what's really going on in "politics" is real "survival of the fittest" stuff, actually about physical survival, not just people saying hurtful things.

Being on the dodo side of this particular struggle for survival, I used to find it all frustrating and terribly worrying, and I still get tempted to hate on people or at least despise their apparent stupidity and ignorance. But what good does that do?

What annoys me more than other people, is my own inability to provide complete solutions! I've been working since 2001 (The peak of my concern) to whomp up a better way of doing "politics" here in the U.K. but I've come to the conclusiion that for me, working alone it's an impossible task.

People think that "conspiracy theory" is like a club that people join that cuts them off from reality, but it's worse than that for many people. It's more like your reality gets a lot bigger and harder to deal with, and you need to compare notes with people, to find a bit of common ground, test your thinking as it were, and they bite your effing heqad off!! Then if you actually win your point, and they have to face an ugly truth, some of them will never listen to anything you say again. They see you as "toxic" and best avoided.

Autists will recognise that mechanism when applied to them "socially" of course...

WO, I get that too, I rarely talk about it especially on online forums, I've had a fair bit of abuse for my political views and I wouldn't say I'm that radical, I'm just not of the politial right, people always assume, that because I'm not a Tory I must support Labour and I don't, I'm non-aligned. Not getting all my political information from either you-tube or other social media seems to make me a target for conspiracy theorists too.

I'm interested and quite politically active in private, but I don't talk to anyone about it not even in online forums or the like since it seems to always end in chaos and I feel like I have to restrict myself on my knowledge and information as to not come across too much especially since I deep dive into data/fact checking and digging stuff like that out upsets folk. Kinda similar to the usual self censorship I'd do when I'm deeper into something than everyone else so I don't stand out, pretending to be casually interested or nodding and agreeing when I have an info-dump sitting in my brain wanting to come out.

TheCatWoman said:

One of the arguements I was hearing last week was about Scotland, they do have devolved tax raising powers, but they cannot borrow, this means that they can't invest in infrastructure projects that will get their economy moving. They're being told to raise income tax to fund these things which is totally stupid and like saying to save thier pocket money to buy a big toy.

This is SNP propaganda. Some borrowing powers were devolved by the Scotland Act 2012 and extended by Scotland Act 2016, and the SNP have borrowed to the hilt using those powers ever since.

The SNP government's own official public figures, published on the Scottish Government website, also show that we get a larger share of UK spending than we should e.g. in 2022-23 we raised 8.6% of UK tax but received 9.2% of UK spending. But it's never enough for a party that's founded on hating the English and not much else.

Nobody told the SNP to raise income tax here. They did it for the same reason they do everything else: to make "Westminster" (ie the English) look bad. Even their own economists told them it would raise very little additional revenue but would inhibit the economy.