When you marginalize people by treating them as lesser valued humans or for being non-millennials, call them uneducated (in many cases blue collar workers with a trade education that pays more than white collar university degrees), unfairly label people with socially unacceptable words, glorify political correctness… well sooner or later, the ones on the receiving end/ the silent majority, have their democratic say.
You have to try to understand why the average working class person dislikes the EU and why those reasons will never affect the Primrose Hill crowd. If you peel back the layers of the easy examples of xenophobia and racism in the UK, you'll find very scared, angry people. People who have jobs, who can put food on the table, who feel that politicians represent them, don't tend to lash out with vitriol and hatred.
This is the same phenomenon occurring in the USA with Donald Trump. The ordinary citizen is fed up with governance in their country and does not feel that the government represents them or addresses their needs.
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When you marginalize people by treating them as lesser valued humans or for being non-millennials, call them uneducated (in many cases blue collar workers with a trade education that pays more than white collar university degrees), unfairly label people with socially unacceptable words, glorify political correctness… well sooner or later, the ones on the receiving end/ the silent majority, have their democratic say.
You have to try to understand why the average working class person dislikes the EU and why those reasons will never affect the Primrose Hill crowd. If you peel back the layers of the easy examples of xenophobia and racism in the UK, you'll find very scared, angry people. People who have jobs, who can put food on the table, who feel that politicians represent them, don't tend to lash out with vitriol and hatred.
This is the same phenomenon occurring in the USA with Donald Trump. The ordinary citizen is fed up with governance in their country and does not feel that the government represents them or addresses their needs.
Why do we have to handle the ignorant with kid gloves when they make ignorant statements or hold ignorant beliefs? Isn't that just another form of political correctness?
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We don't unless it's a democracy and they have the majority of the voters
Really it should just be another reminder to young people to go out and vote. Don't want to get screwed over by the older generation then you have to actually fight for it.
Why do we have to handle the ignorant with kid gloves when they make ignorant statements or hold ignorant beliefs? Isn't that just another form of political correctness?
Not sure why you assume that it's just ignorance. Seems like part of the problem.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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I think the main failure here isn't the undercurrent of nativism or xenophobia. I think a lot of it is poor critical thinking skills. One of the reasons people voted to leave was they believed the economic lies of the leave campaign that they could still participate in the free market as save 300 million pounds per year.
Trumps entire campaign has been blatantly untrue.
How do we educate the public to stop treating politics and news as sports teams to be cheered for. How we get the media to focus on dry fact checking and limit editorialization. People who are voting are not uniformed they are misinformed.
Why do we have to handle the ignorant with kid gloves when they make ignorant statements or hold ignorant beliefs? Isn't that just another form of political correctness?
Because then they will tune you out, and your chance to change hearts and minds disappears, and then you have to deal with people who are mad at you. How hard is it to realize that pissing people off my getting mad at them isn't particularly constructive?
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I think the main failure here isn't the undercurrent of nativism or xenophobia. I think a lot of it is poor critical thinking skills. One of the reasons people voted to leave was they believed the economic lies of the leave campaign that they could still participate in the free market as save 300 million pounds per year.
Trumps entire campaign has been blatantly untrue.
How do we educate the public to stop treating politics and news as sports teams to be cheered for. How we get the media to focus on dry fact checking and limit editorialization. People who are voting are not uniformed they are misinformed.
This needs to change somehow
Media conglomerates bear the brunt of this responsibility. As much as this is about immigration and the working class, this is also a result of Rupert Murdoch's UK media dominance.
You simply cannot have an informed democracy without an informed electorate and the anti-capitalists that have presided over media deregulation in Western society since the 70s are directly to blame for our post-factual political climate.
Last edited by Flash Walken; 06-29-2016 at 07:54 PM.
Why do we have to handle the ignorant with kid gloves when they make ignorant statements or hold ignorant beliefs? Isn't that just another form of political correctness?
Because they have voting rights just like you do.
And you can't call people ignorant and uneducated and expect to have a rational conversation with them. In fact, that kind of attitude has the exact opposite result from what you hope for.
People who have differing opinions are not necessarily ignorant. They just are exposed to different results of governance than you have been.
When political policy takes away their jobs or what they perceive to be safety where they live, well they react to that differently than you do.
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And you can't call people ignorant and uneducated and expect to have a rational conversation with them. In fact, that kind of attitude has the exact opposite result from what you hope for.
People who have differing opinions are not necessarily ignorant. They just are exposed to different results of governance than you have been.
When political policy takes away their jobs or what they perceive to be safety where they live, well they react to that differently than you do.
At least in the US, however, those same people who feel disillusioned by government are the types who vote on single issues--guns, pro-life, anti-LGBT, anti-immigration--and in the process they ignore that the politicians who they vote for because of those issues are politicians who are going to bring in policies that work against their own best interests.
I know unionized teachers in PA who vote Republican based on the 2nd amendment, despite the fact that the GOP has been trying to destroy unions for decades. These are people who are on Medicare voting for Republicans, while the GOP is trying to privatize and cut Medicare.
Fox News has these people in such a tizzy over undocumented immigrants stealing our jobs (because I'm sure these people wanted to wash dishes in a restaurant for below minimum wage, or pick fruit for a few dollars a day, etc), worried about Muslims (even though "responsible gun owners" are responsible for hundreds of deaths daily), worried about their Religious Freedom because they now can't fire someone because they're married to someone of the same sex, etc. They ignore the bigger picture because they don't want their guns taken away, or to see two men kissing, etc.
Political correctness can go too far, but there's absolutely no reason not to call a spade a spade when thousands of people in my country are trying to restrict the rights of others.
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A fellow expat on the 'Canadians in the U.K.' FB page got told, "to go back to America" outside a supermarket couple of days ago. When he turned around he got punched in the face.
It really does feel toxic at times here. Most people are embarrassed by what is going on. I don't believe the referendum has created more racists but it has emboldened those that are with the misplaced belief that their abhorrent views have been validated by the general population.
At least in the US, however, those same people who feel disillusioned by government are the types who vote on single issues--guns, pro-life, anti-LGBT, anti-immigration--and in the process they ignore that the politicians who they vote for because of those issues are politicians who are going to bring in policies that work against their own best interests.
I know unionized teachers in PA who vote Republican based on the 2nd amendment, despite the fact that the GOP has been trying to destroy unions for decades. These are people who are on Medicare voting for Republicans, while the GOP is trying to privatize and cut Medicare.
Fox News has these people in such a tizzy over undocumented immigrants stealing our jobs (because I'm sure these people wanted to wash dishes in a restaurant for below minimum wage, or pick fruit for a few dollars a day, etc), worried about Muslims (even though "responsible gun owners" are responsible for hundreds of deaths daily), worried about their Religious Freedom because they now can't fire someone because they're married to someone of the same sex, etc. They ignore the bigger picture because they don't want their guns taken away, or to see two men kissing, etc.
Political correctness can go too far, but there's absolutely no reason not to call a spade a spade when thousands of people in my country are trying to restrict the rights of others.
Well Fox news is to the right wing as CNN is to the left wing. Both rile up their supporters...almost like a cult.
And there in lies another problem. With the demise of many newspapers has come the demise of good journalism. Newspapers can no longer afford to hire journalists who are good investigative reporters and who write good reports that gives info about both sides of a problem.
And don't even tell me that the info most people gather on the internet or through social media equates to the type of info you can get from a news source like BBC...it just ain't so.
Boris Johnson is out for the PM race. This hasn't gone as he had expected.
Evidently Johnson didn't actually want to leave the EU, but wanted to take Cameron down, so opposed him anyway. Then accidentally got what he claimed he wanted.
Well Fox news is to the right wing as CNN is to the left wing. Both rile up their supporters...almost like a cult.
And there in lies another problem. With the demise of many newspapers has come the demise of good journalism. Newspapers can no longer afford to hire journalists who are good investigative reporters and who write good reports that gives info about both sides of a problem.
And don't even tell me that the info most people gather on the internet or through social media equates to the type of info you can get from a news source like BBC...it just ain't so.
Disagree. Fox News is to the right as The Daily Show is to the left. It is an entertainment channel with an edict to twist and attack. At least The Daily Show is honest about the fact that they're a comedy show. There is no full network equivalent to Fox News on the left. CNN may be left leaning in its coverage but it isn't on the same galaxy of dishonesty as Fox News is.
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A fellow expat on the 'Canadians in the U.K.' FB page got told, "to go back to America" outside a supermarket couple of days ago. When he turned around he got punched in the face.
It really does feel toxic at times here. Most people are embarrassed by what is going on. I don't believe the referendum has created more racists but it has emboldened those that are with the misplaced belief that their abhorrent views have been validated by the general population.
That's not new though. My brother moved to the UK in the early 1990s and he is now a UK citizen. The first time i visited him(in Barnet by the way) he had a full-on south England accent, he explained that he was getting pegged as American all the time and it was causing him great difficulties in his work life(film/theatre). They have always hated yanks in the UK.
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