Why hasn't this been mentioned more?

[redemwaru08.livejournal.com]

I don't know how many brits are on here or simply how many of you follow uk politics but we are currently in danger of electing a ,quite frankly ,mad conservative party.
One thing in particular that has outraged me is the very strong and very frequent homophobic outbursts by this party

http://news.uk.msn.com/politics/general-election-2010/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=153189118
the most recent incident

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8602371.stm
And another

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Stephen-Fry-And-Labour-Supporters-Call-On-David-Cameron-To-Stand-Up-For-Gay-Rights-In-Europe/Article/200910115400452
And another which was addressed in open letter form by the wonderful stephen fry and others as you can see

But its not just this, the tories are associated press-wise with the daily mail.
A paper which frequently makes very homophobic outbursts, what worries me is what was mentioned in the first article that proves the following point;
The conservatives have always been very homophobic.
To be honest it worries me that should we elect them not only will the unions and education system face trouble (as they always do under the tories) but i am seriously concerned about how this homophobia will manifest itself should we elect them.
This isn't the only part of their plan that concerns me.
Another that does is how they plan to treat education they want to cut 6 billion from education while allowing parents to set up schools, translation : you want your kid to get a good education, you pay for it.
This party is quite honestly , crazy, and yet they are at 33% in the polls.
It worries me genuinely that in this election the British people will shoot themselves in the foot and elect a nuts tory party fronted by a man that can only be described as a prick, a prick related to the queen with no sense of reality. I feel like this country is about to elect its very own sequel to George Bush, only worse.
Opinions?
Oh and i do apologise for my poor typing, an accident as a child affected my brain somewhat with regards to punctuation and the like, but without the nhs (another thing set for 'reform' under the tories) i'd be dead so it could be worse.

Comments

[rainynights.livejournal.com]

It is funny to see how conservatives are not just hated in the US =)

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

There is a lot about your post I don't understand. So bare with me while I list my question please try not to get offended.

1) Philip Lardner, on his website, said homosexuality is not 'normal'. Is this a false statement? Is normalcy the goal of homosexuals? Is being called no normal a pejorative to you? Normal is defined as being approximately average or within certain limits in or conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal .

The most liberal data suggests that 10% of the population si gay (it's probably closer to 8% though). That would suggestion that being game is in fact a deviant, in the most clinical sense of the word, behavior.

Roughly 10% of the world is left handed. Those people would not be considered 'normal' either.

2) The bed and breakfast story. I don't know the laws in the UK about discrimination but the article suggests that the couple with the business in their home were in the wrong. I find that immoral. How can the government dictate who I let in my home? Why should the government have the right to tell me I can't pick whom I want to do business with? What extend does the UK protect private property? It's one thing to protect against discrimination in regards to public buildings and places government institutions but another to control the actions of private citizens. I'm a person of color who lives near many rual hick areas and have experienced a lot of discrimination, my personal policy is to take my business elsewhere.

3) The schooling issue. How much fraud/waste/duplication goes on in your schools? My state save a great deal of money by condensing school districts. I don't think it was 33% of the budget but it was very significant. Are these cuts being made to things that need to be reduced? Spending does not always equal better.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) Except nobody's proposing concentration camps for Southpaws or supporting keeping Southpaws second-class citizens with arguments distinct only in word use and target from those used to justify Jim Crow.

2) By this standard you should be opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as that was an instance of transparent government intervention into the rights of private businesses, to say, ban blacks from sitting at counters or wherever they wished to on buses.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

1) Southpaws are more dangerous than homosexuals. Proven to suffer from dangerous mental illness.
a) I am not aware of anyone proposing concentration camps for homosexuals.
b) Calling someone 'not normal' is not a crime. Or evidence of homophobia.

2) busing is a public service not a private enterprise. That caveat is important to me.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) You mean you've missed that whole business in Uganda? Or when Mike Huckabee wanted to build concentration camps for gays because gays and lesbians, all of them, were potential AIDS carriers so it's time to build reservations for them?

2) The diners and so on that went through the sit-ins very much were. Were the people whose sit-ins forced the government to outlaw discrimination of that sort in restaurants good or bad?

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

1) yes I completely did! Just another reason to thank the God that Huckabee worships that he didn't become President. I've never liked him. I will have to Google this later.

2) Yes, I think it's bad to force a restuarant, or any other business to service people it does not want to service. I believe Capitalism would quickly solve the problem of such racist business practices. Those restrain their market to only certain types of people will have a smaller customer base and therefor a smaller bottom line.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

2) Which is why the free market made banning customers who in some area the majority of the population completely inviable in the period from the 1890s to the 1960s. If it was going to work, why didn't it? Capitalism didn't seem to bother the guys in the Jim Crow South any.....

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

1) Southpaws are more dangerous than homosexuals. Proven to suffer from dangerous mental illness.

I'll gladly take a Left hooker on any fitting job that invloves drilling in strange corners up high ;)

Calling someone 'not normal' is not a crime. Or evidence of homophobia.


"Not normal" could also be used to describe the affluent members of todays society, It's my bet that he's just trying to "Push buttons" now that we are all well aware (I hope) that many animal species show signs of homosexuality when they become overpopulated. (Remember when they all suggested it wasn't "Natural"?)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Are you seriously trying to suggest that there's no moral aspect to the use of the term "normal" in this instance?

This is why American philosophy sucks balls.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

In reference to behavior, strictly speaking the word normal means conforming to a standard. And a "standard" means a socially acceptable (i.e. morally positive) mode of behaviour.

This is compared with the broader definition of the word normal, which simply means not typically or uncommon, and doesn't include a moral value judgement.

So saying that homosexuality is "not normal", is to express very specifically that it is a behaviour which is unacceptable by society, because it is not a morally positive mode of behaviour. In other words, it is immoral, destructive and harmful.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Normal is defined as being approximately average or within certain limits in or conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal

I hope you realise that Phillip Lardner is not referring to statistical normalcy (as per the left-handers) but rather a moral norm.

How can the government dictate who I let in my home?

It's not just your home if you're turning it in a public, commercial, venture.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because we all know that Labor has not recently proven 1) willing to follow the leader into an Illegal War of Aggression, 2) produced a string of two really, really bad and incompetent PMs, and 3) that the UK is absolutely lacking Orwellian overtones *without* the Tories. I worry about my country, but at least we don't take the totalitarian ideas as far as you guys do (or didn't until Gov. Brewer of Arizona fucked it up).

If Labor had had actually intelligent, strong, competent leadership this would not be a problem. Instead you guys are so feckless that if the Tories will it will be more because people vote against Labor than for the Tories.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Competency is as one sees it: and Brown is certainly a mixed bag.

Brown has been far from incompetent when it comes to the economic crisis, however: appealing, cute, or nice he ain't.

He has made mistakes (though one wonders at the level of madness we'd be in if the Tories had been in power), and is functionally unelectable, and the press (the majority of which is as right-wing as the rich proprietors thereof would hope for) dislikes him intensely.

I'd say he was competent as an economic leader, but stunningly unfit to be an elected politician. With luck he'll be put out to pasture and will land some technical role in some supra-Governmental organisation, where he can put his dour Scots persona to better use bullying underlings, then apologising for hurting their feelings.

But the Tories, when it comes to the odd notion of competence, seem....[Searches for euphemism]....over-simplistic; lacking nuance; and despite the facade of a big idea, dangerously naive. (Please forgive the seeming tautology.)

And this may be prejudice of the most blinkered kind, I simply cannot see the Lib-Dems forming a government.

It took James Murdoch quite a time to persuade ol' Roops to back Cameron: Gordon gave James an early Christmas Present. I doubt anything can now stop the Tories from romping home with a reasonable majority. This disaster could yet get bigger: watch this space....

What Eric Blair didn't account for in 1984 was the mule-headed cynicism of most Brits. Given half a chance, we'd pull down our trousers at the CCTV cameras. Normally takes the right amount of alcohol, but nevertheless....given our love of drinking, at any given time there'd be a million arses winking at Big Brother: just for his edification, you understand.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that if Margaret Thatcher ends up the more effective leader of a government than an entire string of Labor PMs, that says more about Labor than it does about Thatcher......

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And to a demonstrable extent Maggie's effective leadership is what has driven us to this place. But that must be wrong, else the moral would be that we're better off with incompetence: which I don't believe. However I do believe it is possible to be effective and wrong....or have I inadvertently Godwinned myself there?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Wich I suppose opens the question of "What are your priorities?"

Is it better to have an effective government that you oppose, or an incompetant one that you agree with?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Depends on how much you actually oppose the efficient government, and how incompetent the alternative: these things are relative, after all.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

True

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Is it better to have an effective government that you oppose, or an incompetant one that you agree with?

It matters not, I'm sick and poor, there's not a government out there that'd benefit me, though I struggled to believe Browns negativity in tonights "Debate" before I realised it was on and turned it off, I wonderred which party he was working for with the attitude he had!

[redemwaru08.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to drum up labour support (i do that elsewhere, i try to remain unbiased in places like this).
I'm simply wondering why the media hasn't mentioned this blatant homophobia much yet it then goes on to rant about an instance in which Gordon Brown called a woman bigoted for going off on one about 'too many immigrants in this country'?
And i wouldnt use iraq against labour if i were you , that war was a republican decision backed by a cowardly Tony Blair.
If you so sincerely believe that the tories would have done things differently then why dont you look at the history between the conservatives and republicans, those parties are aligned and working together even out of politics (major family and bush family being exhibit a).
So with that discussion out of the way you tell me what they would do differently, and for that matter what all this 'waste' spending actually is?
because the way i see it if they were cutting waste why would they need to say all that stuff about 'parents running the own schools' a statement being made now so that once they get elected and the school budget evaporates into nothing (nothing being tax cuts for the wealthy etc) they can say 'its not our problem'.
The party are dirty rats if we are being honest and im not ready to see britan sent back to the 80's i dont care if people vote lib dem or labour i'd just be very disappointed if they can't see through David Cameron, have you watched the debates? Tell me one question he answered, just one? no?
Thought not.
Labour have been outrageous in these past few years, the under funded wars and such but what would be different under the tories?
and for those who belive tories are so very intelligent and compotent i have 2 words for you..
Boris Johnson