There goes my faith in the rationality of British people
Offline You know all those posts I've made about how British people seem to be more rational than Americans. Ignore them. The results have come in for the European Parliamentary elections and it would appear the BNP (British National Party) - a far right group of racist thugs have gained one of the six seats available in the Yorkshire/Humberside regional constituency and have scored upwards of 8% in other regions, nearly enough under the scewed European Electoral System (which gives more power to extremist parties than even PR would) to win an MEP. In Yorkshire they received nearly 10% of the vote. I'm sick of people not caring about politics, particularly in people my age. It has become "cool" not to care about it. These people are as bad as the idiots who actually voted for the facist thugs to have an MEP. I'm well aware that things are bleak in Britain right now, people are losing their jobs and the mainstream parties appear to care more about themselves than ordinary people, but people just don't seem to realise that the BNP are a thousand times worse than any of the centre parties (even the Tories!!).
It has come to something when so many people are voting for a party that would get rid of the democratic process, deport all non-whites (including most of the England football team and most of the health system), even those more than 3 generations British and force us to live in a country not unlike to 1930s Germany.
Sure the electoral system for EU elections is fucked up when it takes less than 1/10 of the vote to win 1/6 of the seats, but why are such foul people even getting nearly 1/10 of the vote in the first place?
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I lost my faith in the rationality of all humanity long ago.
Britain has a growing problem with conservative evangelism nowadays. I can't tell you when I read it, I know it was in the local newspaper in my town in California and it was some months ago. All I remember is the article said that evangelism was on the upswing there and American evagelicals have been doing some of it. No sources were cited by the newspaper here so I don't know how accurate it is. It sounds about right for our fundies to be sticking their noses into another country's business, spreading their message of hatred and bigotry.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
A quick search in wikipedia 71% of Brits say religion isn't important in their life and 38% believe in God.
As to whether the American fundies infiltrated it, I don't know.
Yup. I was gonna say something about the thread seems really familiar to me.
Guess I wasn't dreaming.
My understanding of the situation is that this is mostly being driven by an urge to see British banking interests losing political hold and getting 'justice' at the hands of an anarchistic government. I agree that the anger of voters is somewhat misguided and foolhardy here, but I have to say:
Maybe those fuckers at the banks shouldn't have been taunting rightfully incensed protesters by waving notes at them from the upper floors of their buildings? Maybe the British police shouldn't have been so obviously biased towards protecting the interest of the bankers?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I can't say I've come across much of this, although I have seen more preachers in the street. Sadly, people become more irrational in times of hardship. The BNP are not an evangelist party, they profess to have Christian values (although they obviously find 'love thy neighbour' quite difficult).
More news came in just after I made my original post. The BNP won another MEP, this time their leader Nick Griffin who stood in my native North-West. However, the results have actually shown they didn't gain any more votes than the last European elections in 2004, it is a victory for apathy as much as it is for facism. Turnout was below 45% and sadly their voters turned out in force when middle ground voters just couldn't be arsed. But also more generally there's been a shift to the right. The centre-left and the left have done really badly this time round. As well as turning to the far-right people are also turning to the centre-right neo-liberals who got us into this bloody mess in the first place.
I agree with you Kevin (for once), it's down to greedy bankers being supported by a useless government that people are turning to these facist retards. But it's certainly not the rational choice. The facists direct their anger on ordinary, hard-working people who just happen to not be white or British. Immigrants and their descendants have made this country a great place to live in, we have new art, music, literature, food (which is fantastic given that English food is boring), and other new elements in our culture. They tend to be more ambitious than Brits too. A large proportion of our health service is run by the children and grandchildren of immigrants. The English national football team is made up mostly of people the BNP would kick out given the chance. Even David Beckham, who is revered by most football fans as an English hero, is seen as a foreigner by the BNP because of his Jewish roots.
Atheist Books
The BNP have only done well due to the PR system. If we had first past the post like we do for mational elections no one would have bothered wasting a vote on them.
To be honest thats the problem with PR it allows small minor parties easy access to the political power. Thats great if you like revolution in your political process me I prefer slow consensus based politics that evolves only slowly.
As for the British public we are every bit as bigoted as the American public however there is no real religious element in it (our right wing conservatives are usually about as negtive about religion as everyone else) and its generally tamed by geography which forces consensus politics
I'm not sure how much of an "invasion" it really is. What I can tell you is that, in the Greater Glasgow area of Scotland, there certainly seems to be an increasing number of American pastors working in the local kirks and protestant ministeries. We also had groups coming over from that Florida revival thing last year. In fact one of the girls in my work is married to an American evengelical (not a preacher but it's his belief).
All this is anecdotal though so I'm not sure how the real statistics reflect it.
I'm never sure with the statistics on British religion. This country seems to occupy a very grey area in that we're a largely secular nation that believes in good "British Values", "British Decency", "British Morals" and many other things which are largely masks for and mirrors of the good "Christian Values" that Americans love so much. For a country that lists as 71% "no-religious" a lot of our politics and worries are played on a seemingly religious stage. We still have religious leaders as Lords in a non-elected chmaber of our government because it's tradition after all!
It just seems to me that Britain reflects it's own target "Middle England" market. Desperate to appear educated and rich, and do and say all the right things, but it just can't let go of old habits. Anyone meeting Britain for the first time can tell he still goes to chuch even if he does profess intellectual atheism.
And now I'm just ranting in my own little world...
M
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
Actually the European electoral system we were voting in wasn't PR. If it was PR the BNP wouldn't have been elected either in Yorkshire or the North West. I'm actually a proponent of PR generally. This system actually gave the BNP a greater share of the spoils than their share of the vote.
Allow me to eleaborate.
In each constituency there are several counts of the vote, one per seat available. In the North West this number is 8, in Yorkshire the number is 6. The first count is simple, the party with the most votes wins a seat. However from the on in, it gets a little bit silly, each round the party who won the last round has their votes divided by the number of seats they already have plus one. So the party that won the first round will have its votes divided by 2 in the next round. As a result of this it only takes on average about 8% of the vote to win 12.5% of the seats available.
Here's a theoretical example I worked out when trying to get to grips of the electoral system a few weeks ago to help me decide the best way to place a tactical anti-BNP vote.
Results (%):
Labour: 20
Conservative: 30
Liberal Democrat: 18
UKIP: 12
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 1
Labour: 20
Conservative: 30 (1 seat)
Liberal Democrat: 18
UKIP: 12
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 2
Labour: 20 (1 seat)
Conservative: 15 (1 seat)
Liberal Democrat: 18
UKIP: 12
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 3
Labour: 10 (1 seat)
Conservative: 15 (1 seat)
Liberal Democrat: 19 (1 seat)
UKIP: 12
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 4
Labour: 10 (1 seat)
Conservative: 15 (2 seats)
Liberal Democrat: 9.5 (1 seat)
UKIP: 12
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 5
Labour: 10 (1 seat)
Conservative: 5 (2 seats)
Liberal Democrat: 9.5 (1 seat)
UKIP: 12 (1 seat)
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 4
ROUND 6:
Labour: 10 (2 seats)
Conservative: 5 (2 seats)
Liberal Democrat: 9.5 (1 seat)
UKIP: 6 (1 seat)
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 3
ROUND 7:
Labour: 3.33 (2 seats)
Conservative: 5 (2 seats)
Liberal Democrat: 9.5 (2 seats)
UKIP: 6 (1 seat)
Green: 9
BNP: 7
Other: 3
ROUND 8:
Labour: 3.33 (2 seats)
Conservative: 5 (2 seats)
Liberal Democrat: 3.15.... (2 seats)
UKIP: 6 (1 seat)
Green: 9 (1 seat)
BNP: 7
Other: 3
My simulation turned out better than the actual election did. But I hope this demonstrates the ridiculousness of the system for you. A PR system wouldn't have got the BNP elected. I agree with a PR system in theory because FPP gives an unfair advantage to small parties. This system however gives an unfair advantage to small parties, which can be very dangerous.
Atheist Books
PR versus FPP is really a case of what you want as a voter.
Strong government where 40% of the population gets the party it wants elected FPP ir PR where no one gets the party they want in power but you get coalition where the government is decided behind close doors.
I actually quite like the 2 party system, you have broad churches of 2 parties which if they get too broad they basically split and one part of the split destroys the other. The really interesting politics in inside parties as opposed to between them
Well, as you later pointed out, it's not really that British people are 'turning to' the radical anarchist governments (I don't know them well, but on a face examination, I wouldn't call the BNP 'Fascist'; they look more like racist anti-establishmentalists who favor some sort of bizarre pseudo-feudalist regime). It looks like they just couldn't give two shits anymore (I mean, cripes, even the Pirate party seated someone in your parliament, I believe?)
The average person sees that the government appears to never listen to them and deals cards to the upper class from the bottom of the deck, so when the polling stations open they just say to themselves, "Eh, what's the point anyway? We can't win," and they just stay at home or at work rather than participate in the democracy. It agree it's not a very good choice to make, but I don't think it's terribly irrational (the apathetic person is somewhat correct, afterall; they can't win. They can only lose less).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Thanks, that jogged my memory (think I'm starting to get a little senile) somewhat. I do remember now that the article mentioned American fundies going to Britain to help your fundies ramp it up in an effort to convert more Brits and increase the population of brainless twits. If I remember correctly they also were invading other countries in the EU for the same purpose. I live in a largely fundaMENTAList town and of course they love the idea of more zombie lovers throughout the world. Dominionists goals are to convert everyone in the world or (unsaid, of course) eliminate those who won't.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
Rightwing extremists like the BNP have been getting elected all over europe for years now. It was only a matter of time before you brits got your share of facist scum.
Like you said, it's mostly the "I don't care" crowd who are voting for these people.
I wouldn't get too worried, though. All sorts of weirdos got elected in europe last week. I personally rather liked that scandinavian "Pirate" party.
The biggest worry from the election is probably the future of the union.
While England and Wales have clearly moved to the right Scotland has moved further to the left. There is no way Scotland will put up with 10 years of conservatism if they get in something I suspect both the SNP and the Conservative party wants.
I'm with you on this one. I'm a proud Scot but I don't see any good reason to break up the union. It works and, to my mind, when we're moving toward a world of integrated markets and currency I don't see the benefit of breaking away and looking isolationist.
The problem I have with the SNP is that 80% of their voting block are people that want an independant Scotland but don't know why. Most of them will relate some story of battles long gone (1314 anyone?) or mention the abuse of Scotland by certain governments (the Poll Tax) but none of them related to genuine economic or political reasons. Most people seem to want an independent Scotland just because... well, just cos really. I could never ally myself with a group of people that unfocused.
The Tories would definitely like to see the back of us. They've never been the most popular party in the north and I think few tears would be shed if we left, especially as it'd take a chunk of the Labour vote away.
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
There is a definite and genuine problem with English - Scottish relations. The concept of society is stronger in Scotland (left wing view) or Scotland is basically poorer than England (right wing view) and this really isnt likely to change in the near future. Combined with the fact that the UK as a whole really isnt big on nationalism keeping the union together isnt going to be easy. Basically if Scotland wants to go independent there isnt going to be any real English/union movement that would want to stop them
Increased federalism (strong local government only a limited number of issues decided at a central level) does seem to be the way forward and seems to work to reasonably well in the US. I still don't really understand what Texas and New York have in common that is so great that it keeps completely different cultures in the same country but it seems to work
You'd think Canada would be the greatest example of a federation that somehow manages to stay together. And not for lack of trying to break it up. There are no less than three provinces that would high tail it if given the chance. I don't think strong federalism or nationalism has anything to do with the fact that the country hasn't broken up. Perhaps it has something to do with the difficultly of getting it done legally?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Alberta, Quebec and... ?
Newfoundland, maybe?
I'm not as abreast of maritime politics as I should be.
I think a big part of it is the, 'Aw, c'mon...' routine that the federal government tends to use. God knows why it works, but it does.
"Aw, c'mon. Don't break-up the party. Here, I'll introduce you to that pretty thing over in the corner."
"...*Sigh*. Okay, okay. I'll sta for a little while longer. But if I get canned tomorrow, I swear, I'll be so pissed at you..."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Why is when people wish to succeed a government/country, they THINK, they'll take the land that they reside on?
Whats this? all the Franco's wanna leave Canada and start their own country? Sure, no problem.... but where do they intend to start one? o_O?
In Quebec you say? Not bloody likely!
Cattle-fuckers wanna split and join Amurica? sure... but your leavin that thar oil behind ya'll and wut not.
... Truth is, no one WANTS Quebec... and the only reason Alberta has it so good, is BECAUSE they're in Canada, second they join the US, they'll be bled dry
And... well... no Maritimer is sober enough to spell "country" let alone pronounce it >.>
Yay rant!
What Would Kharn Do?