Hitchens dragged down the entire panel (some of which are already very low) with this drivel. Many of the others have directly or indirectly pointed out (correctly) that whatever successes or failures Blair/Brown delivered, have not been the result of the Left but a continuation of Thatcherite bile that is the real cause of most of our problems – and the correlation is crystal clear! A cursory glance at the continent and then the USA can tell you that much! But no, it’s all about the “family.”
You imply that the successes of Blair\Brown are also due to what you -ignorantly- call "Thatcherite bile".
And you should think more carefully about what you mock before seeking its erasure.
An incalculably large store of social capital rests on the "family" and every time it takes a blow you can be sure that a rise in entropy soon follows.
Oh, and the trends towards our present moral bankruptcy began long before the bogey era of Thatcherism.
@kzearo I do imply that the successes of Blair\Brown are due to being to the Right as much as the failures (which outweigh.) You seem to think this is unintentional. But I definitely feel that it’s bile and should be undone.
And the trend towards our “moral bankruptcy” did indeed begin before Thatcherism. It’s always been with us and it’s played for scares– like what this evolution denying fool bangs on about.
The only thing I disagree with is the implication that my grammar is poor.
uses these grievances as a cop-out & distort morality. So what have we got....More lawyers, more copensation pay outs & a frightend majority that are to scared to speak there minds for fear accusation. With out honest debate we can not move forward... New Labour in short have been a disarster! The sad thing is we are going to have five more years of this shit because the Tories are fucking pathetic.
Peter Hitchins for PM.Well we can dream!We are still free to do that.
New Labour the current ruling liberal elite are traitorous in there efforts to nation bust! They have enginered through the rise of political correctness the sense that the mojority are an oppressive jackboot that crushes the minority underfoot. We have been conditioned in self flagellation with sadistic implementation!
We must feel guilt about what our ancestors have done & we must apologize continually for this.
This victim culture has fueld a chip on shoulder mentality where everyone with..
peter is too good for the 'orwell' prize. as he says orwell would turn over in his grave. labour has hijacked orwellian theology, they are a disgrace, they've ruined the country, yet somehow the people want this! well of course they're supposed to receive the benefits of a fantastical society that will come into being with voting labour....the west is a mess. better it should fail and start over
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No one on the left seeks to destroy "The Family". That is the biggest and most ludicrous lie of the right. They always say that and it takes away from other valid points they might make on other issues. It loses them so much credibility.
PH is right - marriage has been destroyed and that's been engineered by Labour. He's also right that the queer agenda has gone way beyond tolerance and that promotion of bent lifestyle over the family is another Labour idea. And he's right that IVF for single women and lesbians also undermined the family. So there's no doubt about it the destruction of the married family is all down to Labour and its twisted and perverse social engineering. Not to mention Harperson's general attacks on men.
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Isn't Peter Hitchens the reactionary nutcase who likes to blame the audience for his shortcomings when he loses a debate? The man's a fervent cry baby who can't accept that many women don't want to spend 24 hours in the kitchen.
He's not a nutcase, he just comes from a very different perspective from the liberal consensus, but he's quite serious. And quite wrong in my opinion. :) But read him seriously.
Peter Hitchens - one of the few journalists with any genuine insight into British society. Its a shame he writes for the Mail; I dont agree on his views on abortion, etc. But I think there is a great deal of truth in what he talks about. The cancer of the British society began with Thatcherism - and its glorification needs to be ended.
I have come to share Peter Hitchens's views on abortion, while I find his continued sponsorship of capital punishment revolting.
That said, he is broadly correct about the problems of society: of family breakdown, criminality, educational/cultural despoliation and the folly of mass immigration/multiculturalism.
" ... their response is a blank refusal to listen and a characterisation of the critic as pathologically deformed"
Haha very funny. Also very true.
I find it hard to believe that anyone - including those panelists - could truthfully disagree with Peter's analysis of the Modern Left. A very incisive speech.
no you're not: I am beginning to think that selection is the only way. I'm not instinctively for it (of course - I want everyone to be intelligent) but what we have at present does not work. Boris is convincing in this: selection helps intelligent poor children escape sink schools from sink areas.
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How the hell can this man who gets to go here, there and everywhere, travel around the world really understand normal people who don't do that? How can he have time to understand them? Plus his gob looks like the end of a hosepipe, where the hell do his teeth go with him talks?
It's not about what he looks like it's about what he's saying, and what he's saying is true. Personally I don't care how he came to these conclusion, but the accuracy of those conclusions is enough for me.
from the Guardian"Kosovo was a stalking horse for Iraq, as the doctrine of humanitarian intervention morphed into George Bush's doctrine of "pre-emptive war". As then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan rightly argued, this opened the door to the proliferation of unilateral, lawless use of force."
The Iraq invasion was justified by the same use of fraudulent evidence as was displayed in Kosovo."
Well, you could argue that the shameful legacy of not intervening in the Holocaust morphed into the humanitarian intervention in the former Yugoslavia. After all, Elie Weisel was one of the loudest voices for intervention. I doubt Clinton et al thought at the time "lets intervene so a future president will abuse this." Even judges can't foresee every possible use of the precedence of their rulings.
Like conservatives such as Pat Buchananand Peter Hitchens,I agree we should have stayed out of World War 2! Stalin would have destroyed Hitler anyway,Britain only got involved coz of pride,and coz we made the mistake of fighting Germany in the First World War,which we should never have entered. WW2 ended Britain's status as a world power,and devastated our country.The Kosovo war was the one of the first left-wing neocon wars,following the leftist doctrine of "humanitirian intervention"
I think you're inventing philosophies here. How much of Britain's empire came through the back door of 'humanitarian intervention'? Caring about your fellow human beings isn't a 'left-wing' trait, its a human trait. And since technology has given us both the means to kill greater numbers and to graphically show that killing to the world, human heartstrings get tugged and people get angry. Nothing makes me angrier than hearing about helpless people getting abused, be they German Jews or kids.
historywillabsolve, its actually Chris Hitchens who is a douchebag, a pro-Iraq War, pro-Bush, alcoholic trendy liberal douchebag,who holds every fashionable,stupid left-wing opinion going, including hatred of religion.
yes, the right-wing Peter Hitchens OPPOSES the Iraq War, as do many other hard-right-wingers, from Pat Buchanan, to Peter Oborne, you are clueless about what conservatism is, if you think support for the Iraq War,makes you right-wing, true conservatives,like Peter Hitchens, believe in fighting war,only for national defence,not interfering in other country's afairs.
lots of trendy liberals support the Iraq War. David Aoronovitch, Nick Cohen, Johann Hari, of the Independent, Nick Cohen, of the Observer etc etc. And lots of conservatives oppose the Iraq War, from Pat Buchanan, and Peter Oborne, and, of course, Peter Hitchens.
Those 'liberals' you named a) are British (perhaps that the difference between USA and UK) and b) now identify as neo-conservative because they feel the Left is weak on Islamo-Fascist terrorists.
No,those liberals are lifelong leftists,they agree with the "neocons",because the neocons are not true conservatives,as all intelligent leftists know.Read the history of neocons like Pearle,Wolfowitz etc,they're all ex-Demcrats,and founders of the neocon movement, such as Bill Kristol,were all ex-Marxists,who support mass immigration,and an interventionist foreign policy.That is why Bush has presided over HUGE public spending, uncontrolled immigration etc are they conservative policies?
And, as anyone who has ever spent 5 minutes talking to anyone on the Left knows, the neo-cons are absolutely reviled by the Left, in particular for their interventionist policies. The PNAC doctrine was being derided by the Left before the invasion even happened. It was a Republican congress and Republican president that started this war, not neo-con, ex-Marxists, but real, life-long conservatives. You can't just dump that on the Left because now its failed.
Wrong! It was the neocon leftists.particularly Chris Hitchens friend Wolfowitz, who started this war. Read the accounts, Bush is not a President, he's a puppet, but his circle of neocon Marxist pro-immigration, pro-multiculturalism, globalist, advisers pushed him to war. Even Chris Hitch says all the hard-right wingers(including Kissinger) OPPOSED the war, but the neocons pushed for it.
And two more points about the neocon wars. You say all leftists despise the neocons for their interventionist policies? No they fucking dont. The neocon liberal interventionist wars, because they are left-wing, actually begun under CLINTON, not Bush, and leftists mostly SUPPORTED the Kosovo, Somalia, wars etc , they were left-wing wars, started by either current or ex-Democrats.
The PNAC doctrine, the famous document which lays out the neocon agenda, said that the country needed an enemy to replace the USSR so that the military industrial complex could continue to receive their corporate welfare and the US could remain the world's superpower. If you want to make up stories and blame that on the left, feel free. Otherwise, understand that nearly the entire left in my country has something in common with you and we can help each other.
eirefrance, many of the Left-wingers who opposed THIS interventionist neocon war, SUPPORTED other interventionist neocon wars, like the Kosovo invasion,so they are hypocrites.I'm not making up stories,you an find out how the neocon leftists hijacked the Republicans,in the 80's,if you read Ron Paul and other's accounts of it.The big lie that Reagan was a right-winger,what did Reagan ever do for education, or marriage?He also launched unprovoked wars,which is contrary to conservative pricniples.
From Wikipedia: Neo-conservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the REJECTION (my caps) of the social liberalism, moral relativism, and New Left counterculture of the 1960s. It influenced the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, representing a realignment in American politics, and the DEFECTION (me, again) of some liberals to the right side of the political spectrum; hence the term, which refers to being 'new' conservatives.
No, read about the war betwen paleocons and neocons, read Ron paul's very interesting article on the Marxist history of the neocon movement,they call themsleves the New Cons, but they are not real right-wingers,if you look at their policies,and beliefs.
Of course, paleocons and neocons disagree, on issues besides the war. That still doesn't associate neocons with the Left. They joined with paleocons, plenty of whom were happy to have them at first. Maybe now, they are rueing their decision, but it wasn't as if the Left had anything to do with their association. At least not the grassroots Left, like the people I know.
eirefrance you obviously didnt even read the Wikipedia entry on neocons which you referenced.If you had you would have read that the "forerunners of the neocon movement were often liberals or socialists" and only disagreed with the Left on capitalism,how historia Michael Lind found the "ideology of the neocon movement has left-liberal origins", and founder Irving Kristol cited leftists as his inspiration
No, what assosciates neocons with the Left, is that ALL the founders of the neocon movement were left-wingers, and socialists!! Irving Kristol cited a load of leftists as his inspiration for the movement,
I agree on the globalist point, but you're ignoring the fact that such traditional conservatives as Cheney, Rumsfeld and McCain supported the war. When I say that you're dumping the war on the left, you're making it seem as if the neocons joined up with the left and pushed the war on the right, which is completely false. I can't speak for the UK, but in the US the only ones protesting the war in 2003 were leftists like me. EVERYONE on the right called us traitors for doing that at the time.
eirefrance, no they didnt!I have named for you AMERICAN hard right-wingers who utterly opposed the war at the time!!
Type Pat Buchanan into Youtube, and see what he and Kissinger and others thought of the war,when it was about to be launched. American Conservative is one of the most right-wing mags in America,and utterly opposes both wars,while supporting true conservatives like Ron Paul.
I don't deny that some hard-line conservatives opposed the war, but they were a tiny voice in a right-wing tide that controlled Congress during that era. Again, I can tell you personally that the ones insulting my love for my country as I was protesting the war in 2002 weren't on the Left. Maybe I should have worded that sentence differently: EVERYONE calling me a traitor in 2003 was from the Right. Maybe some on the Right didn't feel that way, but they sure didn't stand with me.
And, one more thing. Who is "dumping the Iraq War on the Left now it failed?". The hard-right-wingers, from Kissinger, to Pat Buchanan, who opposed the Iraq War, from Kissinger to Pat Buchanan, from Peter Hitchens, to Peter Oborne,opposed the war BEFORE it was launched, not afterwards, when it was convenient! It is the ignorant leftist interventionists, who love the idea of bringing "democracy" to Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq etc who have created this hell
You can disagree with the neocons and paleocons who started this war, but sticking it on the Left is a fucked up lie only someone with zero point zero integrity can make. Congratulations on winning the worthless award.
eirefrance Clinton's neocon Kosovo/Somalia, wars etc were all started by the Left, and the Afghan and Iraq wars are a progression from that liberal interventionism, the Republican Party HAD to vote with their leaders policy, the point is the Republican Party no longer represent true conservatives! I didnt put the war on the whole Left, I said the neocon movement is a branch of leftism, and it is responsible for these wars!
because Eirefrance, their origins are all liberal, as the Wikipedia entry says "many of the founders were socialists or liberals", if you look at the history of the movement, its ideas, and how they clash with traditionalist paleocons, you will see they are a liberal movement
They also clash with the liberal movement, one that has been traditionally very anti-war. The reason neocons left their liberal brethren behind is that the liberals were too soft on crime and war. Wars, or shows of military power, were specifically the issue on which they clashed with the Left.
if the neocons clashed with their Leftist allies on the issue of interventionist war, then how is it that they were so influential in Bill Clinton's wars?The neocons were behind ALL Clinton's Kosovo/Somalia wars,Richard Pearle etc voted for Kosovo War, these were liberal neocon interventions in countries that posed no threat to the US,just like the Iraq war.these wars were also justified by Clinton as"spreading democracy" and removing evil dictators, sound familiar...?
And Clinton was famous for becoming a centrist. He moved the Democratic party to the Right and many on the Left have been anti-Democratic Party since then. Notice the rise of candidates such as Nader and McKinney. You mentioned WW2. Well, since Vietnam, the Left has been traditionally anti-war. One of the reasons centrists like Clinton take pro-war positions is that they are (very effectively) attacked by the Right as 'soft on defense'.
Clinton was incredibly leftist on social issues,refusing even to veto the disgusting practice of partial-birth abortion,you cant blame Republicans for Clinton's wars, the Republicans OPPOSED Kosovo,I can get you the quotes!It was the neocons who backed Clinton's wars,while Tom DeLay,Pat Buchanan, and the right-wing candidates opposed it, thats because the neocons were leftists,while the right-wingers knew Kosovo,like Iraq, was an unjust interference in a country that posed no threat to the US!!
Of course the Republicans opposed the Kosovo invasion. It was run by a president they already hated, so anything he did was going be wrong whether it was wrong or not. Its not as if Republicans are against invading small countries, as I pointed out. Therefore, your point is not that the Right is anti-war, but rather anti-some wars. What you're left with is the principle of the individual not the philosophy, which has been my point all along.
Eirefrance youre wrong,because some neocon Republicans backed the Kosovo war,and still do! it was the true conservatives who opposed it! You cant say it was just because they were in Opposition,coz those same Republicans,like Pat Buchanan, have also attacked many Republican wars! the Right is traditionally anti-war,because of its philosophy..conservatism emphasises national defence, and ONLY fighting war when national defence is under threat! the neocon leftist wars do not fit that criteria
But I'm not wrong at all. That is what I said, its not the philosophy, its the individual. Where do the people on the Left who protested the many invasions we have mentioned fall in your scale? That is what I have been saying all along. War has nothing to do with the Left or the Right. Claiming the Left created these wars because some small % of the Right agrees with you is entirely dishonest. They aren't 'true' conservatives and neo-cons aren't secret Leftists. Everyone is an individual.
eirefrance it isnt a %" of the Right who agree with me! the Republican Party wholly opposed WW2, and have been the anti-war party for decades, until they were hijacked by neocons, and neocons are leftists, as their beliefs on immigration,public spending, big-Government prove! no true conservative would support the Patriot Act,which INCREASES the power of the state, conservatism advocates a small state, hence conservatives believe the state should take very little money from people in tax!
Not moving FAR ENOUGH to the Right has nothing to do with not moving to the Right at all. Especially on economic issues, he definitely moved to the Right.
How did he move to the Right? He still ran a huge taxpayer-funded welfare state for US arms companies,maintained protectionist policies,entirely opposed to conservative principles of free trade, massive immigration, and huge centralised state agencies like the education Department etc, which true conservatives like Ron Paul, and Pat Buchanan want dismantled!
Welfare reform is about the only successful thing he did,but on every other issue he was totally liberal,from taxes,to immigration,abortion,and marriage, to education. The US remains run by very centralised,socialist-style, big-state organisations,which are contrary to the conservative principles of the Founding Fathers,who drew up the US Constitution,precisely because they believed in SMALL-government,like all conservatives! You guys should have elected Ron Paul! now you will end up with Obama!
To say the Founding Fathers of my country believed in the principles of small government is to entirely misunderstand their position. They were replacing monarchy, the only govt they knew, with a new system of govt. They were concerned with limiting the power of the govt in the lives of individuals, but the size was never relevant. I might add that, in our conversation, you have not shown that you support limiting govt intervention in the lives of citizens.
thats what limiting the power of government in the lives of individuals means! You have entirely misunderstood my views,and conservatism, if you didnt know I believe in limiting government intervention in private life! Thats why I support low taxes, limiting the power of the state to take peoples earnings by force!I oppose socialism,which takes away liberty,and a welfare state,which makes people less responsible..if we are not responsible we cannot be free!
the state shouldn't "regulate" who lives together,private life is up to individuals,the point is the state should not give priveleges to any kind of relationship,it should recognise a moral hierarchy.Supporting marriage,is key to supporting small government,if people have kids within marriage,they can raise them,and pay for them,without needing state interference,single-mother benefit,state childcare,and state carers replacing fathers! if people live morally they can be free from the state!
If people lived morally, the state would never have come into existence. Anyway, I suppose thats the difference between you and I. To me, freedom is ethically superior (I prefer ethical to moral, it seems less subjective and arbitrary) and the traditional family unit is not surviving the pressures of globalization and abused, unchecked employers. Thus, allowing more people to become families would seem to help the long term survival of families.
You have it all the wrong way round.If people cannot raise their own kids,and live according to a common set of values,they cant be free in the first place! Because the more morality,and consequently the family unit, breaks down,the more the state has to intervene!and the stronger the state grows. That means more state social workers,carers, benefits,etc replacing absent fathers! Marriage is the best protection of private life,and liberty
In nearly all of those cases, he simply maintained the status quo or made smaller reductions. He was able to balance the budget primarily because he made defense cuts to the taxpayer funded welfare state for arms companies, since the Cold War was over. Every Republican president in my lifetime has not been able to do that, though admittedly because there have been external reasons.
Defence cuts? Clinton only supported the brutal dictator Suharto, so he could give a load of Democrat-donating arms companies, big contracts for Indonesian weapons, in "military aid", spent on supporting the genocide in East Timor! Clinton kept the things conservatives like Ron Paul, would change, the IRS, Income Tax, and centralised departments,like the Education Department that debase the Founding Fathers concept of freedom from the state!
Regardless of how you spin or word it, the first balanced in 30 years (and only since) came under Clinton. So he didn't get rid of the necessary public utilities that the Founding Fathers never even heard of, much less object to? Fiscal responsibility is about balancing the budget, not getting rid of things.
The Founding Fathers didn't "object to" the huge centralised state agencies,like the the Education Department,as they didnt exist then.the point is,their principles oppose such things! Because the Founding Fathers believed in liberty from the state, that was the whole point of the Constitution,based on the 1688 English Bill Of Rights, it specifically limits the power,and reach of the state,(which socialists always try to increase)and is a protection against power becoming centralised.
In 1688, the State was the Monarchy (remember Louis XIV's famous line: "L'etat, c'est moi"), so they were limiting the power of the monarch. I agree, the state, like every power structure, must be limited in its power. Thats why I oppose such things as the Patriot Act, banning guns & identity cards maintained by a private corporation. Ensuring children get a decent education (home-schooling is an entirely legal alternative) is hardly tyrannical.
and, one more thing, the liberal movement is tradtionally anti-war? I dont think so..it's the Republicans, partocularly the America First Movement who advocated staying OUT of WW2, and Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War, and Republicans like Pat Buchanan attacked the Kosovo war saying"what are we doing bombing and attacking this
tiny country that has never attacked the United States to rip away from them a province that does not
it was actually Kennedy who was the first to attack Vietnam in 1958,and launch the Korea War,and check out the Democrats horrific war record, including Carter's support for the brutal El Salvador regime!Clintons Kosovo war,BACKED by the neocons,but OPPOSED by all the Republican Presidential candidates,was the forerunner to the Iraq war,as the Guardian article I referenced below explains!Republicans ended the Vietnam War, and wanted US to stay out of WW2!!
Democrats have no monopoly on support for/by brutal dictatorships. Thatcher and Reagan both sided with anti-democratic repressive regimes only because those regimes brutally suppressed communism. As if being tortured by a psuedo-capitalist is better than being tortured by a communism.
ah, but Reagan actually defied conservative principles of war, and was attacked by republicans like his advisor Buchanan because of it! Reagan attacked countries that were no threat to the US,like Nicaragua, just as the Democrats had!
Or, Democrats attacked countries that were no threat to the US just like Reagan did, and were attacked by true Leftists like Chomsky and Nader or Mrs. Mahon, MP for Halifax of your lovely nation. Its all in how you word phrases.
I just listened to the clip of Peter Hitchens attacking David Milliband about the war on terror. I noticed you had a comment there to, so you must have listened to it. Its amazing how everything Hitchens said could just have come, verbatim, out of the mouth of most leftists in my country. I myself have said just what he did many times. You should realize that, if you're honestly opposed to the things he says, there are millions on the Left you could join with.
I agree Eirefrance I am happy to join with you,in opposing this fake "war on terror"! Peter Hitchens is one of the most right-wing journalists in Britain, but I guess British right-wingers are more clear-thinking than slavish, Republican-supporting US conservative journalists,who cant see that the Republican Party they love has been hijacked by liberal ex-Democrats. Noam Chomsky recently said the Republicans have been betraying true conservative principles,even before Reagan!
Well, I'm glad to hear that. I can see we disagree on some things, but I prioritize my political beliefs. #1 on that list is my country and the rights, freedoms, checks and balances that must exist for the free citizen to remain a free citizen.
Peter Hitchens is the only one on the panel talking sense,and telling the truth. Why is the media world so unrepresntative of real people these days.Look at this panel-apart from PH every one of them is a left-winger!
You're making an assumption that someone who disagrees with you is unrepresentative of real people (whatever that even means. Does hunting make someone more 'real' than supporting equal housing markets?) and that they agreed with someone on the Left automatically.
eirefrance i was making no assumptions, on what most people think, that I cannot back with facts. All polls,from the Guardian's ICM Poll, to the Gallup, and YouGouv surveys, show the vast majority of people want reduced immigration, tax cuts, and much more severe punishment of criminals,all right-wing views! Yet most people in the media,and on this panel are a pack of dinner-party leftists.
Except I'm a leftist, and although I'm not very familiar with British politics, I know that the media in the US don't speak for me. I often hear that these media dinner-party leftists speak for me, but I never actually hear it. Just because they don't agree with you doesn't mean they agree with me.
eirefrance, surely you,as a liberal, would agree that most of your US media, like most of the media here, are generally pro-multiculturalism, pro-radical feminism, pro-abortion, anti-marriage, anti-Christianity, pro-political correctness, and so-called "equality"and generally supportive of the cultural revolution. I cant see how you think CNN, for instance, is not liberally biased.
Well, I don't watch much cable news, but no, I can't say that I've ever seen evidence that the media promotes those agendas. Maybe its because you imagine that the left is that simple that you imagine the media agree with me. Surely you, as a conservative, agree with Hitler's position. He was, after all, anti-immigrant, pro-nationalist, strong on defense, pro-family, anti-communist, pro-status quo and generally beleived that the existing govt was weak and corrupt.
eirefrance I cant have a rational discussion with you if you are going to hurl disgusting,childish insults, such as suggesting I am a Hitler sympathiser because I am a conservative. Did i suggest you were a communist Stalin-supporter because you are a leftist? Grow up a little and we can have a sensible discussion.
Oh, you fucking idiot!!! Please, can't you read. I so fucking sick of holding everyone's hand because they're so sure they're right they can't even see what other people are asking. I know you aren't a Hitler sympathizer, I just pointed out how flawed your simplistic argument was that I agreed with a news media that only cares about ratings, not politics, by turning the argument against you. Sheesh!!!!
Eirefrance calm down you twerp.The Hitler parallel was unnecessary, irrelevant, and absurd, I merely said, that cable news in the US, and the BBC here, take a liberal line on cultural issues, did I ever say YOU personally agreed with everything they say? Dont be so stupid.
The Hitler parallel wasn't absurd. The things I mentioned are issues that conservatives traditionally support and things that Hitler believed. Yet, I would never assume that any paleo-con supported him. The newsmedia is a business run by educated, urbane, wealthy, worldly people. This may give the impression that they are, for instance, pro-multicultural, but its not universal. Lou Dobbs, for instance, a major US based broadcaster speaks loudly and forcefully against illegal immigration.
Yea,I could mention a list of things the Left traditionaly support,from egalitarianism, to enforced equality, state interference in private life,free speech codes, a classless society, hatred of marriage and religion,and many other things Stalin believed.You are corect the media are run by wealthy,detached people,who can afford to sneer at their own culture,and "stuffy" values, which protect society from chaos.
And liberals don't necessarily support those who sneer at their own culture. Some do, just as some conservatives are racist jingoists. I think marriage is important enough that I believe homosexuals should have equal access to it. Certainly, having two parents is important in the raising of children. That is why I support higher minimum wages, so families can afford to work fewer hours and spend more time with each other in the 'natural' way the human species needs.
No, marriage between man and woman is important enough that it needs a unique place in the hierarchy of society, above any other relationship because the purpose of marriage,is a stable,loving home for children,and children,as all social studies show, need mothers and fathers, which gay marriage cant provide. marriage involves unique sacrifice, for your partner AND your potential children,and can thus only survive if it is uniquely valued and rewarded above anything else
I agree parents (particularly mums)should raise their kids,but the solution is NOT to raise the minimum wage,this would lead to job losses,and reduce OVERALL wages,as money for higher minimum wage,has to come from somewhere else,so it would be lower-income earners who would sufer wage cuts,as the fat-cat bosses wouldnt cut their own wages to pay for it!The solution to help families,is to cut income tax,as Ron Paul says,enablin parents not to have to work to pay such huge taxes
In my country, free speech is most often attacked by religious groups. Those on the Left will often exercise their free speech by protesting someone, but that isn't the same as legal censorship. The closest parallel is hate speech, which is only ever used if it can be said to incite someone to violence. This kind of law could just as easily be used on a black man, a muslim or an eco/animal-rights activist, and has been.
when i emtnioned free speech codes, I was not only referring to national legislation, but rather the baleful influence of political correctness on the speech codes in,for example,college campuses, where Professors have been sacked,speakers prevented from speaking,and students taken off student radio/newspapers, for expressing the "wrong" view on feminism, abortion or gay marriage, this is a disgusting left-wing attack on free thought
Political correctness is nothing more a code of politeness. Consider the very controversial Race/IQ studies. Research has continued on this topic since the Bell Curve came out and those findings aren't suppressed. Perhaps thats because the findings are published like this: "black people are stupid and deserve to die". What would you expect to happen if you called a co-worker a fat, disgusting slob who should die? Being polite about other issues is no different.
eirefrance political correctness can induce piliteness, and disguise itself as politeness, but it is nothing of the sort, if you want to see it in action, look at what happened to Larry Summers, the liberal President of Harvard, sacked for daring to ask for research into whether men and women think differently, which the evidence actually proves!this was a disgusting stifling of a necessary academic debate, at a supposedly academic American institution!
You got that entire story screwed up. Larry Summers RESIGNED MORE THAN A YEAR after making an offhand statement. Steven Pinker, who defended Summers' statement as intellectually sound, faced no censure as a reuslt of defense. Summers' resignation followed a vote of no-confidence by the faculty. Though the faculty may have been swayed by their PC feelings, they are free to vote as they wish.
Wrong,eirefrance Larry Summers was forced out by the faculty in a secret decision,even though the majority of students and Professors backed him,and he's been replaced as President by a feminist woman,just to emphasise the point, that no-one dare criticise any tenet of feminism in Harvard! The Faculty's logic that he had "lost the support" of the Uni, was nonsense, as most Professors did not vote to get rid of him, and he had done nothing wrong!!
At the University where I got my degree, there is a specific code that says noone's expression of political beliefs can be suppressed. That means a student can wear a swastika if he or she wants, and noone can do anything about it. I saw it put in practice, too. A girl wearing a Zionist t-shirt was denied service at a lunch counter by a radical Leftist. The result was that the store the radical Leftist worked in was almost shut down.
political correctness poses as morality, or politeness, thats the Trojan Horse that fools most people, and allows it to worm its way into major institutions, but it is in reality a highly intolerant system of beliefs, which leads to huge prejudice. one example is the way a woman was recently arrested, and interrogated in Britain,for suggesting gay adoption is wrong, as children need mothers and fathers, and a Professor was fired for daring to criticise mass immigration..
I can't find the cases your referring to, but would you be equally offended by a professor fired from Mormon BYU for suggesting that gay marriage should be legal or a tenured theologian be fired from a Seminary for arguing that women should be ordained?
yes,I am offended by the cases you mentioned, though a seminary is different from a University,as seminaries require adherence to a set of beliefs which Universities do not! But Larry Summers did not even argue that women were different from men,even though research confirms this,he merely called for more research into it! and thats enough to get forced out of Harvard? what kind of an academic institution gets rid of someone who calls for academic research?
I haven't defended Summers' resignation. I simply point out that to attack it as an example of political correctness is dishonest. People overreacted because he offended their sensibilities long before he ever made the remark (Cornel West, ROTC, getting wealthy off globalization at the expense of the poor & the World Bank report on exporting polluting companies to poor countries), but he was not forced from his job. Like any leader who has lost the confidence of his flock, he stepped down.
it is not dishonest to say Summers treatment is an example of PC,everybody agreed it was! The whole point is he did NOT lose the confidence of the University,that was the excuse the Faculty used,but other Professors admitted he was being forced out because he had dared to express a politically-incorect view!Harvard feminists demanded he apologise, as if one shoud apologise for asking an academic question,at a University!it has happened many times in America,one Prof sacked for being pro-life!
He had a strained relationship with his faculty before that happened, for the reasons I gave. They did not like him, and this comment perhaps provided the final nail to his coffin. Did the faculty display an intolerant side in this issue? On the surface, it would appear so. Still, to call thsi PC is to misunderstand the situation and political correctness.
to call this PC is to be accurate!Harvard's run by liberals,Summers was generally popular,and a liberal himself,but when he asked for research into the sexes,he came under a hailstorm of abuse from feminists who forced him to apologise,AND pledge cash for PC campaigns to"fund" women in science,which is basically affirmative action,and even that wasnt enough!they then replaced him with Harvard's first female President to prove a point!never again will a Professor challenge PC doctrine at Harvard!
I recently had an argument with a lesbian who was defending sexual violence against men on the grounds that men would then better understand what women feel. In your book, I suppose the PC thing would have been to agree. Instead, I called her out and said that was bullshit. I'm still a liberal and in full support of gay rights, but I can think for myself and disagree with my fellow pinkos.
well I am glad you can think independently but PC certainly makes it harder for people to do so,because it attaches mroality to personal opinions, so someone's goodness is now judged on the "correctness" of their personal views, and it demands painful conformism, to left-wing ideals by smearing opponents views, for example what do you mean by gay rights? has it occured to you that to assume something is a human "right" is to assume anyone with a different view is not only wrong,but immoral?
Of course, I would assume someone who defends slavery is wrong. I think denying homosexuals ANYTHING heterosexuals receive, on the basis of their homosexuality along, is wrong. Thus, you are free to hold that opinion, but I do consider it worng. I would say it is unethical, as opposed to immoral, but thats a small difference.
its a false equivalence with slavery.you say "denying homosexuals anything heterosexuals receive is wrong",thats where you are wrong!Homosexuals are different to heterosexuals so denying them some rights,is justified,eg gay parents differ from heterosexual parents in that they cannot provide a child with a mother/father which heterosexuals can!so gay couples should NOT have the same "right" to adopt children,as heterosexuals have, as this takes away the childs "right" to a mother and father!
Single parentss cannot provide a mother/father relationship. We do not deny them the right to raise their children. Anyway, I'm not equivicating anti-gay bias with slavery, I'm stating that there are certainly some human 'rights' that it is wrong to deny anyone. The right to personal freedom is the prime right, especially if it hurts noone. The right to marry falls so clearly on the side of hurting noone that I can understand no argument against it.
the right to marry removes priveleges,and uniqueness from heterosexual marriage, which should be at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy, distributing the priveleges of marriage, to single mums, unmarried heterosexuals, and homosexuals means they cease to be unique priveleges, and marriage ceases to be unique! crucially the point of marriage is the raising of children with two parents,therefore the inevitable progression from gay marriage is gay adoption,which is wrong, I explain why below..
The moral superiority of heterosexual marriage is open to interpretation, but thats beside the point. Homosexuals are physically capable of bearing children, that is, they have the same sperm & egg as everyone else. Thus, unless you are advocating the forced sterilization of anyone who is homosexual, you really have no point. You demand that heterosexual marriage be the only consideration in adoption would work better if there were not children not be adopted at all who would love a family.
The moral superirority of heterosexual marriage is NOT "open to interpreation",it is the only lifelong union dedicated to the raising of the children! Oh, you idiot, the point is not homosexuals cant physically have children,rather they dont want to, because they arent attracted to the opposite sex!! I said where theres a choice,children should be given a mum and dad,hence lesbian IVF is a disgrace! there wouldnt be so many adopted kids,if people werent having so much sex outisde marriage!
Why is lesbian IVF a disgrace? Is straight woman IVF a disgrace? Anyway, people have always had sex outside of marriage, even when doing so meant far greater consequences for those involved. Crying about human nature is pointless. Trying to find the economic solution that best answers the problem isn't. BTW, teen pregnancy has risen since Bush decided to press the abstinence only agenda. I guess the question should be, are you interested in posturing or effectiveness.
Why is lesbian IVF a disgrace? Because it involves deliberately conceiving a child without a father. Straight-woman IVF at least means the child will be born to a Mum and Dad.Where there is a choice, a child should always be given the benefit of a mother and father.Bush CANT press an "abstinence-only agenda" in a country that still has abortion-on-demand,and mass contraception for kids,supporting a trashy culture of value-free sex! Answer continued below..
Straight woman IVF does not necessarily mean a child will be born to a mother & father. Sperm banks do exist and they have business. When I am talking about a abstinence only agenda, I'm talking about education, not law. In the past decade, federal funding has been tied to teaching abstinence as the only form of safe sex. In that time, teenage sex has not dropped and teen pregancy has risen. You may oppose it, but effect is effect.
Eirefrance,even marriage doesnt "necessarily mean the child will have a Mum and Dad", because one parent might die! But the point is lesbian IVF means a child certainly WONT have a mother and father! And it should not be legal to conceive a child,without any possibility of a father! Sociologists/child psychologists are all agreed children need fathers, and the loss of male role-models from the home,has been disastrous for young boys,and for young girls adult relationships with men!
Has it been? I don't know, but what I can find simply says that children raised by gay couples do not stick as rigidly to gender roles. Is that harmful? Whatever biological differences there are between the genders will naturally manifest itself, so why force artificial roles on people who don't want them? Anecdotally, I know of selfish dickheads from two parent families and hard working good people from single parent homes.
do you need me to direct you to the social studies showing children raised without fathers dont do as well as those raised with mums and dads?There's unanimous consensus among experts on the child's need for a father and mother,it has nothing to do with "artificial roles"its because the sexes ARE diferent,and mum/dads each provide children with something the other cannot,eg a father teaches a boy how to be a man,and girls need loving fathers to have stable adult relationships with men
As I said, "Whatever biological differences there are between the sexes will naturally manifest itself." There is no biology behind wearing a dress, using powertools or driving a car. Those are artificial. Forcing women and men into artificial roles will only encourage malcontents to resist those roles.
the point is a child needs role-models of both genders,(preferably loving parents)to fulfil different needs.A mother acts as a female role-model to the young girl, while the father is a male role-model to the young boy,showing him how to be a man.and the young girl needs a stable,loving father figure,to enable her to build trusting relationships with men in adulthood.studies show fatherelss girls are more likely to fall pregnant as teens!
I understand that. I mentioned my adoptive father, and I'm sure I'm better off as a person because of it. But I can attest to that fact that poverty is destructive to children. Although I took my parents work ethic to heart and worked hard to get out of poverty, I saw the effect on those around me, including those with two parents. Drug abuse, crime and fucked up views of sexualities.
It seems that you are talking about studies on children of single parents, which is not the same as having two parents of the same gender. Would you agree that having two mothers is better than having one mother? As I've already said, the ideal mother-father relationship will not happen all the time.
By the way, have you ever read Steven Leavitt's Freakonomics? There is a chapter in there on the drop in crime in the US in the 1990s. His analysis shows that abortion is most likely the cause of that (fewer young men growing up in poverty/broken homes). I understand that a pro-life position is a moral absolute and I'm not going to argue you on that point, but its worth noting when you're talking about social cohesion.
Part Two..People have always had sex outside marriage,but less people did,when the moral culture opposed it.Human nature can be bettered,by aspiring to higher values, rather than aiming for the gutter,by undermining mariage.Since mass contraception,and abortion-on-demand,teen pregnancy has risen in Western nations,coz contraception/abortion strips sex of significance,severing the link between sex and procreation,thus reducing what was once a unique expression of love,to a mere act of recreation!
You're putting on rosy glasses and ignoring back alley abortions and Magdalene houses. The world you are describing meant that a woman impregnated by rape had her life ruined while the rapist got off after a few years in prison.
I dont propose a return to the worst of the past,rather bringing back some of what we lost.Some things are worse now than they were then Eg more children grow up in broken homes today, since the collapse of sexual morality, than did then..Back-alley abortions did happen,but there were better ways of helping single mothers raise children, than changing the whole moral culture, and undermining marriage itself, which has only led to more single mothers/fatherless children, and more abortions!
Just as increasing knowledge and freedom about sex meant some abused it, decreasing knowledge and restrictions on it will allow some to abuse those who don't meet the standard. Conservative muslim society has strict controls on sexual relations, and that allows men the freedom to commit horrible sexual abuse against women (such as female circumcision). When restrictions are put in place, someone must enforce them, and that person is given great power to abuse those restrictions.
But I dont propose the Moslem model,the Western model of morality,is based on SELF-restraint,arising from universally-held common values,NOT imposed by the law,as it is in Moslem countries!We havent increased knowledge about sex,we've just got rid of necessary restrictions,based on ancient wisdom! Children grow up best,when they come from a stable,two-parent family,and our society encourages people to be selfish, rather than altruistic,leaving more children growing up without families!
You're talking about legislating morality, that is making it against the law for homosexuals to marry and adopt children. Self-restraint is fine, but your entire argument here has been government imposed restraint.
No gay adoption/lesbian IVF being against the law has nothing to do with "legislating morality", rather with protecting the rights of children. The law should recognise an innocent childs rights,(which is why abortion-on-demand should not be legal either). And one of the fundamental rights adoption agencies/IVF clinics should legislate for, is the child's right to a father and mother.This wouldnt just stop gays adopting/conceiving, but would also,quite rightly, stop single mothers having IVF!
Have you heard of Manhunt, a website where gay men can meet for casual sex? I doubt it, but apparently as much as 30% of the men on it are married to woman (not including those with girlfriends). Heterosexual marriage has not been a source of honesty or promise keeping for them.
But marriage has never prevented infidelity, no-one ever said it did! Human nature is such,that we are always bound to be weak and selfish. The point is, marriage is the best insitution ever created, for enshrining love,encouraging selfessness,and giving children a home with the security of a permanent family..This doesnt mean some marriages wont fail, or that some arent unfaithful, but statistics prove,far less married parents break up, than unmarried parents!
If, as you're implying, marriage limits imfidelity and homosexuals can inherently not produce children, what is your objection to gay marriage? Homosexuals aren't going to become straight because they're denied marriage rights. By allowing them to marry, you should decrease infidelity and promiscuousness, right? And since they can't produce children, they are no danger to the social fabric. And maybe allowing gays to marry will keep those 30% of men from forming sham marriages for show.
Because giving homosexuals the same priveleges as are accorded to child-rearing lifelong unions devalues the idea of lifelong union for the conception,and raising of sucessful children! that was the whole point of marriage in the first place,gays can comitt to each other,but dont need the same status, and unique priveleges, as their "unions" are not about raising kids,or staying together "till death do us part",hence studies show gay relationships are much less stable than straight ones!
Again, its a stretch to say that marriage has traditionally been about children, but I'll go with that argument. What you are talking about is legislating a relationship so that heterosexual couples who can and will have children can marry and noone else. Noone is proposing a law that would make it illegal to refuse to marry gays, rather allowing those who would anyway. Your logic means anyone who cannot or does not want to have children should not be allowed to marry.
Not to mention that you are proposing that parents meet a variety of suitability requirements to raise children, otherwise you're just picking on homosexuals because of your personal feelings. And, how hypocritical is it to deny homosexuals the right to commit to each other, than say "oh, they don't commit to each other"?
Of course the moral superiority of heterosexual marriage is open to interpretation. Heterosexual married couples are not immune to abusing their children. You're replacing normative with superior. Just because something isn't normative doesn't make it inferior. After all, your stance on the war is non-normative for someone on the Right. ;)
My stance on the war is very normative for someone on the Right in my country.I didnt say gay people abuse children any more than heterosexuals..I never said any group of people were morally superior to any other group.Rather,it is marriage, the insitution, that has "moral superiority" over any other type of relationship,because it alone provides a framework in which children can be conceived in lifelong union,and in which adults must make and keep, promises to each other,and their kids.
That is pretty contrived. Bigamy and polygamy are unions capable of producing children and non-married, non-hetero couples are as capable of keeping promises to each other as anyone else. My point about the child abuse is that it is not the institution but the individuals that make something 'morally superior'.
No the insitution has moral supeririority to any other relationship frameowkr, because it demands more self-sacrifice to promise to spend the rest of your life faithfully with someone, than simply to sleep around, or live together, without making any commitment! Bigamy etc do not require the same comitment or sacrifice, since they are ways of indulging the desire for infidelity, within a fake framework of commitment, only lifelong union with ONE parnter, gives a child stability, and security!
Bigamy and Polygamy are unions that can produce children, while homosexual couples are capable of keeping promises to each other. By not allowing gays to marry, you're telling them not to make that commitment then blaming them for not making that commitment.
Bigmay/polygamy do not require the same self-sacrifice,for one person,or love that marriage does,and are disatrously unstable,as humans arent designed to share partners,with others,so jealousy always ensues! Gays can comitt to each other,the point is their relationship shouldnt have the same status, as lifelong heterosexual union,as they arent going to conceive,or raise kids together,so they dont realy need to be bound together for life!There is much more promiscuity among them for this reason
I would bet money you can't back up your claim about self-sacrifice with anything other your own preconceived notions. A homosexual couple seeking to raise a child is subject to the same child abuse & neglect laws as anyone else, so they know they are going to sacrifice for their children just like you.
Studies show gay relationships dont last as long,as heterosexual relationships,and are more promiscuous.I'm surprised you didnt know gay relationships have been found to be far less stable than heterosexual relations. Law has nothing to do with self-sacrifice,my point was heterosexual sex was tied to self-sacrifice,as it led to procreation,hence the old moral rules, of abstinence until marriage! gays have never needed this moral restraint,which encourages sacrifice,as gay sex doesnt create life!
I never said I didn't know that, I just said that its hypocritical to deny homosexuals the right to promise commitment than call them out for lacking that commitment. Perhaps if homosexuals were given the right to that commitment, they would be more likely to commit? Its worth a thought, at least.
Bygamy/polygamy dont require the same self-sacrifice for a simple reason, because they do not involve lifelong devotion to the person you love,but instead allow you to keep multiple sexual partners,like married "swingers". the whole point of marriage is maintaining fidelity to the one person you love, and raising children in a stable home,not a sexually-promiscuous abode where the children have to cope with having different mothers and fathers,and have no conept of stable family life
Homosexual monogamy is not a way of indulging a desire for infidelity. Considering that homosexuals are unlikely to change their desires, why not reinforce fidelity within the community?
If I may provide an example. My mother was not married to my father and I was an accident. My father left her as soon as he discovered that. She remarried a man she met on a hippie commune a year later and he adopted me. I proudly have his last name and he has always treated me as his son and I love him and consider him my father in every way. I was born out of wedlock but a good man came along and gave me a father, not because I was his child but because he is a good man.
Hitchens dragged down the entire panel (some of which are already very low) with this drivel. Many of the others have directly or indirectly pointed out (correctly) that whatever successes or failures Blair/Brown delivered, have not been the result of the Left but a continuation of Thatcherite bile that is the real cause of most of our problems – and the correlation is crystal clear! A cursory glance at the continent and then the USA can tell you that much! But no, it’s all about the “family.”
darkfox85 4 months ago
@darkfox85
Pay more attention to your grammar, sir.
You imply that the successes of Blair\Brown are also due to what you -ignorantly- call "Thatcherite bile".
And you should think more carefully about what you mock before seeking its erasure.
An incalculably large store of social capital rests on the "family" and every time it takes a blow you can be sure that a rise in entropy soon follows.
Oh, and the trends towards our present moral bankruptcy began long before the bogey era of Thatcherism.
kzearo 3 weeks ago
@kzearo I do imply that the successes of Blair\Brown are due to being to the Right as much as the failures (which outweigh.) You seem to think this is unintentional. But I definitely feel that it’s bile and should be undone.
And the trend towards our “moral bankruptcy” did indeed begin before Thatcherism. It’s always been with us and it’s played for scares– like what this evolution denying fool bangs on about.
The only thing I disagree with is the implication that my grammar is poor.
darkfox85 3 weeks ago
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Peter Hitchens is such a dork
yington 1 year ago
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Hey Peter, your brother is great, unlike god!
jaimeanna1412 1 year ago
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@jaimeanna1412
OH ENNAANANNA,
REPENT.
RENOUNCE SATAN AND YOUR WORM.
WORSHIP THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
yington 1 year ago
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Britain today: Labour's lax morality has helped standards crash through the floor. Just look around you.
But people are truly waking up, not with just a little help from the Web.
Click my username or paste title into bar: THINGS CAN ONLY GET LABOUR - WHY THE 'PC' QUISLINGS WILL LOSE THE NEXT ELECTION (SPEECH)
TheDustpile 1 year ago
uses these grievances as a cop-out & distort morality. So what have we got....More lawyers, more copensation pay outs & a frightend majority that are to scared to speak there minds for fear accusation. With out honest debate we can not move forward... New Labour in short have been a disarster! The sad thing is we are going to have five more years of this shit because the Tories are fucking pathetic.
Peter Hitchins for PM.Well we can dream!We are still free to do that.
spurscab 1 year ago
New Labour the current ruling liberal elite are traitorous in there efforts to nation bust! They have enginered through the rise of political correctness the sense that the mojority are an oppressive jackboot that crushes the minority underfoot. We have been conditioned in self flagellation with sadistic implementation!
We must feel guilt about what our ancestors have done & we must apologize continually for this.
This victim culture has fueld a chip on shoulder mentality where everyone with..
spurscab 1 year ago
peter is too good for the 'orwell' prize. as he says orwell would turn over in his grave. labour has hijacked orwellian theology, they are a disgrace, they've ruined the country, yet somehow the people want this! well of course they're supposed to receive the benefits of a fantastical society that will come into being with voting labour....the west is a mess. better it should fail and start over
drusillalaughs 1 year ago
Left-wing "thinking": racist! racist! racist! homosexuality mmm... racist! racist! racist! homosexuality mmm...racist! far-right! extremist! hate! let's make more laws for gays...racists!
Commenter227 2 years ago 3
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No one on the left seeks to destroy "The Family". That is the biggest and most ludicrous lie of the right. They always say that and it takes away from other valid points they might make on other issues. It loses them so much credibility.
boblab5 2 years ago
PH is right - marriage has been destroyed and that's been engineered by Labour. He's also right that the queer agenda has gone way beyond tolerance and that promotion of bent lifestyle over the family is another Labour idea. And he's right that IVF for single women and lesbians also undermined the family. So there's no doubt about it the destruction of the married family is all down to Labour and its twisted and perverse social engineering. Not to mention Harperson's general attacks on men.
worcesterwombat 2 years ago 12
It's not that they "seek" to destroy, but it is very much destroyed, inadvertently, by their marshaling of specific ideas.
HecklerBoy7 2 years ago
No, they do seek to destroy. It's always dumb Conservatives who don't grasp that.
Commenter227 2 years ago
I enjoy Christopher much more than I enjoy Peter.
tylerjamesstephens 2 years ago
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Nick Cohen owned this prick.
MarxBakuninMe 2 years ago
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Isn't Peter Hitchens the reactionary nutcase who likes to blame the audience for his shortcomings when he loses a debate? The man's a fervent cry baby who can't accept that many women don't want to spend 24 hours in the kitchen.
LHMcalindon 2 years ago
He's not a nutcase, he just comes from a very different perspective from the liberal consensus, but he's quite serious. And quite wrong in my opinion. :) But read him seriously.
kat1989 2 years ago 3
And I read Chistopher H - though I disagree most often with him. Though not on the war on terror.
But both brothers are serious men. I just happen to agree with Peter.
News4usall 2 years ago
You probably didn't understand most of what he was saying in that clip.
kzearo 2 years ago
I'd love to speak with a posh upper-middle class English accent like Pete does here.
69Bluntsmoka420 2 years ago 6
Peter Hitchens - one of the few journalists with any genuine insight into British society. Its a shame he writes for the Mail; I dont agree on his views on abortion, etc. But I think there is a great deal of truth in what he talks about. The cancer of the British society began with Thatcherism - and its glorification needs to be ended.
haasxaar 3 years ago 6
I have come to share Peter Hitchens's views on abortion, while I find his continued sponsorship of capital punishment revolting.
That said, he is broadly correct about the problems of society: of family breakdown, criminality, educational/cultural despoliation and the folly of mass immigration/multiculturalism.
JekyllBoote 2 years ago 2
" ... their response is a blank refusal to listen and a characterisation of the critic as pathologically deformed"
Haha very funny. Also very true.
I find it hard to believe that anyone - including those panelists - could truthfully disagree with Peter's analysis of the Modern Left. A very incisive speech.
kzearo 3 years ago 5
Am I the only person who thinks social mobility would increase if they brought back the tripartite system in schools?
baresolid 3 years ago 2
no you're not: I am beginning to think that selection is the only way. I'm not instinctively for it (of course - I want everyone to be intelligent) but what we have at present does not work. Boris is convincing in this: selection helps intelligent poor children escape sink schools from sink areas.
liv04r 2 years ago 3
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How the hell can this man who gets to go here, there and everywhere, travel around the world really understand normal people who don't do that? How can he have time to understand them? Plus his gob looks like the end of a hosepipe, where the hell do his teeth go with him talks?
ChrisGS1982 3 years ago
It's not about what he looks like it's about what he's saying, and what he's saying is true. Personally I don't care how he came to these conclusion, but the accuracy of those conclusions is enough for me.
Zen0xious 3 years ago 12
well done pete they were choking on their canapey's there
PETEEAT 3 years ago
from the Guardian"Kosovo was a stalking horse for Iraq, as the doctrine of humanitarian intervention morphed into George Bush's doctrine of "pre-emptive war". As then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan rightly argued, this opened the door to the proliferation of unilateral, lawless use of force."
The Iraq invasion was justified by the same use of fraudulent evidence as was displayed in Kosovo."
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Well, you could argue that the shameful legacy of not intervening in the Holocaust morphed into the humanitarian intervention in the former Yugoslavia. After all, Elie Weisel was one of the loudest voices for intervention. I doubt Clinton et al thought at the time "lets intervene so a future president will abuse this." Even judges can't foresee every possible use of the precedence of their rulings.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Like conservatives such as Pat Buchananand Peter Hitchens,I agree we should have stayed out of World War 2! Stalin would have destroyed Hitler anyway,Britain only got involved coz of pride,and coz we made the mistake of fighting Germany in the First World War,which we should never have entered. WW2 ended Britain's status as a world power,and devastated our country.The Kosovo war was the one of the first left-wing neocon wars,following the leftist doctrine of "humanitirian intervention"
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I think you're inventing philosophies here. How much of Britain's empire came through the back door of 'humanitarian intervention'? Caring about your fellow human beings isn't a 'left-wing' trait, its a human trait. And since technology has given us both the means to kill greater numbers and to graphically show that killing to the world, human heartstrings get tugged and people get angry. Nothing makes me angrier than hearing about helpless people getting abused, be they German Jews or kids.
eirefrance 3 years ago
i like Christopher Hitchens but his brother is a douchebag
historywillabsolve 3 years ago
historywillabsolve, its actually Chris Hitchens who is a douchebag, a pro-Iraq War, pro-Bush, alcoholic trendy liberal douchebag,who holds every fashionable,stupid left-wing opinion going, including hatred of religion.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Including such liberal, left-wing ideals as support for the Iraq War and denunciation on Barack Obama.
eirefrance 3 years ago
yes, the right-wing Peter Hitchens OPPOSES the Iraq War, as do many other hard-right-wingers, from Pat Buchanan, to Peter Oborne, you are clueless about what conservatism is, if you think support for the Iraq War,makes you right-wing, true conservatives,like Peter Hitchens, believe in fighting war,only for national defence,not interfering in other country's afairs.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Wait, you can't have it both ways. You called Hitchens a trendy liberal and an Iraq War supporter. What other trendy liberals support the Iraq War?
eirefrance 3 years ago 2
lots of trendy liberals support the Iraq War. David Aoronovitch, Nick Cohen, Johann Hari, of the Independent, Nick Cohen, of the Observer etc etc. And lots of conservatives oppose the Iraq War, from Pat Buchanan, and Peter Oborne, and, of course, Peter Hitchens.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Those 'liberals' you named a) are British (perhaps that the difference between USA and UK) and b) now identify as neo-conservative because they feel the Left is weak on Islamo-Fascist terrorists.
eirefrance 3 years ago
No,those liberals are lifelong leftists,they agree with the "neocons",because the neocons are not true conservatives,as all intelligent leftists know.Read the history of neocons like Pearle,Wolfowitz etc,they're all ex-Demcrats,and founders of the neocon movement, such as Bill Kristol,were all ex-Marxists,who support mass immigration,and an interventionist foreign policy.That is why Bush has presided over HUGE public spending, uncontrolled immigration etc are they conservative policies?
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
And, as anyone who has ever spent 5 minutes talking to anyone on the Left knows, the neo-cons are absolutely reviled by the Left, in particular for their interventionist policies. The PNAC doctrine was being derided by the Left before the invasion even happened. It was a Republican congress and Republican president that started this war, not neo-con, ex-Marxists, but real, life-long conservatives. You can't just dump that on the Left because now its failed.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Wrong! It was the neocon leftists.particularly Chris Hitchens friend Wolfowitz, who started this war. Read the accounts, Bush is not a President, he's a puppet, but his circle of neocon Marxist pro-immigration, pro-multiculturalism, globalist, advisers pushed him to war. Even Chris Hitch says all the hard-right wingers(including Kissinger) OPPOSED the war, but the neocons pushed for it.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
And two more points about the neocon wars. You say all leftists despise the neocons for their interventionist policies? No they fucking dont. The neocon liberal interventionist wars, because they are left-wing, actually begun under CLINTON, not Bush, and leftists mostly SUPPORTED the Kosovo, Somalia, wars etc , they were left-wing wars, started by either current or ex-Democrats.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
The PNAC doctrine, the famous document which lays out the neocon agenda, said that the country needed an enemy to replace the USSR so that the military industrial complex could continue to receive their corporate welfare and the US could remain the world's superpower. If you want to make up stories and blame that on the left, feel free. Otherwise, understand that nearly the entire left in my country has something in common with you and we can help each other.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance, many of the Left-wingers who opposed THIS interventionist neocon war, SUPPORTED other interventionist neocon wars, like the Kosovo invasion,so they are hypocrites.I'm not making up stories,you an find out how the neocon leftists hijacked the Republicans,in the 80's,if you read Ron Paul and other's accounts of it.The big lie that Reagan was a right-winger,what did Reagan ever do for education, or marriage?He also launched unprovoked wars,which is contrary to conservative pricniples.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
From Wikipedia: Neo-conservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the REJECTION (my caps) of the social liberalism, moral relativism, and New Left counterculture of the 1960s. It influenced the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, representing a realignment in American politics, and the DEFECTION (me, again) of some liberals to the right side of the political spectrum; hence the term, which refers to being 'new' conservatives.
eirefrance 3 years ago
No, read about the war betwen paleocons and neocons, read Ron paul's very interesting article on the Marxist history of the neocon movement,they call themsleves the New Cons, but they are not real right-wingers,if you look at their policies,and beliefs.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Of course, paleocons and neocons disagree, on issues besides the war. That still doesn't associate neocons with the Left. They joined with paleocons, plenty of whom were happy to have them at first. Maybe now, they are rueing their decision, but it wasn't as if the Left had anything to do with their association. At least not the grassroots Left, like the people I know.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance you obviously didnt even read the Wikipedia entry on neocons which you referenced.If you had you would have read that the "forerunners of the neocon movement were often liberals or socialists" and only disagreed with the Left on capitalism,how historia Michael Lind found the "ideology of the neocon movement has left-liberal origins", and founder Irving Kristol cited leftists as his inspiration
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
No, what assosciates neocons with the Left, is that ALL the founders of the neocon movement were left-wingers, and socialists!! Irving Kristol cited a load of leftists as his inspiration for the movement,
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I agree on the globalist point, but you're ignoring the fact that such traditional conservatives as Cheney, Rumsfeld and McCain supported the war. When I say that you're dumping the war on the left, you're making it seem as if the neocons joined up with the left and pushed the war on the right, which is completely false. I can't speak for the UK, but in the US the only ones protesting the war in 2003 were leftists like me. EVERYONE on the right called us traitors for doing that at the time.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance, no they didnt!I have named for you AMERICAN hard right-wingers who utterly opposed the war at the time!!
Type Pat Buchanan into Youtube, and see what he and Kissinger and others thought of the war,when it was about to be launched. American Conservative is one of the most right-wing mags in America,and utterly opposes both wars,while supporting true conservatives like Ron Paul.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I don't deny that some hard-line conservatives opposed the war, but they were a tiny voice in a right-wing tide that controlled Congress during that era. Again, I can tell you personally that the ones insulting my love for my country as I was protesting the war in 2002 weren't on the Left. Maybe I should have worded that sentence differently: EVERYONE calling me a traitor in 2003 was from the Right. Maybe some on the Right didn't feel that way, but they sure didn't stand with me.
eirefrance 3 years ago
And, one more thing. Who is "dumping the Iraq War on the Left now it failed?". The hard-right-wingers, from Kissinger, to Pat Buchanan, who opposed the Iraq War, from Kissinger to Pat Buchanan, from Peter Hitchens, to Peter Oborne,opposed the war BEFORE it was launched, not afterwards, when it was convenient! It is the ignorant leftist interventionists, who love the idea of bringing "democracy" to Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq etc who have created this hell
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I forgotten about this.
Iraq War vote in House: Republican 215 yay, 6 nay
Democrat 81 yay, 125 nay
In Senate: Republican 48 yay, 1 nay
Democrat 29 yay, 21 nay
You can disagree with the neocons and paleocons who started this war, but sticking it on the Left is a fucked up lie only someone with zero point zero integrity can make. Congratulations on winning the worthless award.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance Clinton's neocon Kosovo/Somalia, wars etc were all started by the Left, and the Afghan and Iraq wars are a progression from that liberal interventionism, the Republican Party HAD to vote with their leaders policy, the point is the Republican Party no longer represent true conservatives! I didnt put the war on the whole Left, I said the neocon movement is a branch of leftism, and it is responsible for these wars!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
How is it any different for you to reject neocons as false conservatives than for me to reject them as false liberals?
eirefrance 3 years ago
because Eirefrance, their origins are all liberal, as the Wikipedia entry says "many of the founders were socialists or liberals", if you look at the history of the movement, its ideas, and how they clash with traditionalist paleocons, you will see they are a liberal movement
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
They also clash with the liberal movement, one that has been traditionally very anti-war. The reason neocons left their liberal brethren behind is that the liberals were too soft on crime and war. Wars, or shows of military power, were specifically the issue on which they clashed with the Left.
eirefrance 3 years ago
if the neocons clashed with their Leftist allies on the issue of interventionist war, then how is it that they were so influential in Bill Clinton's wars?The neocons were behind ALL Clinton's Kosovo/Somalia wars,Richard Pearle etc voted for Kosovo War, these were liberal neocon interventions in countries that posed no threat to the US,just like the Iraq war.these wars were also justified by Clinton as"spreading democracy" and removing evil dictators, sound familiar...?
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
And Clinton was famous for becoming a centrist. He moved the Democratic party to the Right and many on the Left have been anti-Democratic Party since then. Notice the rise of candidates such as Nader and McKinney. You mentioned WW2. Well, since Vietnam, the Left has been traditionally anti-war. One of the reasons centrists like Clinton take pro-war positions is that they are (very effectively) attacked by the Right as 'soft on defense'.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Clinton was incredibly leftist on social issues,refusing even to veto the disgusting practice of partial-birth abortion,you cant blame Republicans for Clinton's wars, the Republicans OPPOSED Kosovo,I can get you the quotes!It was the neocons who backed Clinton's wars,while Tom DeLay,Pat Buchanan, and the right-wing candidates opposed it, thats because the neocons were leftists,while the right-wingers knew Kosovo,like Iraq, was an unjust interference in a country that posed no threat to the US!!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Of course the Republicans opposed the Kosovo invasion. It was run by a president they already hated, so anything he did was going be wrong whether it was wrong or not. Its not as if Republicans are against invading small countries, as I pointed out. Therefore, your point is not that the Right is anti-war, but rather anti-some wars. What you're left with is the principle of the individual not the philosophy, which has been my point all along.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Eirefrance youre wrong,because some neocon Republicans backed the Kosovo war,and still do! it was the true conservatives who opposed it! You cant say it was just because they were in Opposition,coz those same Republicans,like Pat Buchanan, have also attacked many Republican wars! the Right is traditionally anti-war,because of its philosophy..conservatism emphasises national defence, and ONLY fighting war when national defence is under threat! the neocon leftist wars do not fit that criteria
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
But I'm not wrong at all. That is what I said, its not the philosophy, its the individual. Where do the people on the Left who protested the many invasions we have mentioned fall in your scale? That is what I have been saying all along. War has nothing to do with the Left or the Right. Claiming the Left created these wars because some small % of the Right agrees with you is entirely dishonest. They aren't 'true' conservatives and neo-cons aren't secret Leftists. Everyone is an individual.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance it isnt a %" of the Right who agree with me! the Republican Party wholly opposed WW2, and have been the anti-war party for decades, until they were hijacked by neocons, and neocons are leftists, as their beliefs on immigration,public spending, big-Government prove! no true conservative would support the Patriot Act,which INCREASES the power of the state, conservatism advocates a small state, hence conservatives believe the state should take very little money from people in tax!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Not moving FAR ENOUGH to the Right has nothing to do with not moving to the Right at all. Especially on economic issues, he definitely moved to the Right.
eirefrance 3 years ago
How did he move to the Right? He still ran a huge taxpayer-funded welfare state for US arms companies,maintained protectionist policies,entirely opposed to conservative principles of free trade, massive immigration, and huge centralised state agencies like the education Department etc, which true conservatives like Ron Paul, and Pat Buchanan want dismantled!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Are you not aware that welfare reform and the only balanced budget in my lifetime happened under Clinton?
eirefrance 3 years ago
Welfare reform is about the only successful thing he did,but on every other issue he was totally liberal,from taxes,to immigration,abortion,and marriage, to education. The US remains run by very centralised,socialist-style, big-state organisations,which are contrary to the conservative principles of the Founding Fathers,who drew up the US Constitution,precisely because they believed in SMALL-government,like all conservatives! You guys should have elected Ron Paul! now you will end up with Obama!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
To say the Founding Fathers of my country believed in the principles of small government is to entirely misunderstand their position. They were replacing monarchy, the only govt they knew, with a new system of govt. They were concerned with limiting the power of the govt in the lives of individuals, but the size was never relevant. I might add that, in our conversation, you have not shown that you support limiting govt intervention in the lives of citizens.
eirefrance 3 years ago
thats what limiting the power of government in the lives of individuals means! You have entirely misunderstood my views,and conservatism, if you didnt know I believe in limiting government intervention in private life! Thats why I support low taxes, limiting the power of the state to take peoples earnings by force!I oppose socialism,which takes away liberty,and a welfare state,which makes people less responsible..if we are not responsible we cannot be free!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
What can't limiting the power of the govt to regulate who gets married and who gets adopted be included in there?
eirefrance 3 years ago
the state shouldn't "regulate" who lives together,private life is up to individuals,the point is the state should not give priveleges to any kind of relationship,it should recognise a moral hierarchy.Supporting marriage,is key to supporting small government,if people have kids within marriage,they can raise them,and pay for them,without needing state interference,single-mother benefit,state childcare,and state carers replacing fathers! if people live morally they can be free from the state!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
If people lived morally, the state would never have come into existence. Anyway, I suppose thats the difference between you and I. To me, freedom is ethically superior (I prefer ethical to moral, it seems less subjective and arbitrary) and the traditional family unit is not surviving the pressures of globalization and abused, unchecked employers. Thus, allowing more people to become families would seem to help the long term survival of families.
eirefrance 3 years ago
You have it all the wrong way round.If people cannot raise their own kids,and live according to a common set of values,they cant be free in the first place! Because the more morality,and consequently the family unit, breaks down,the more the state has to intervene!and the stronger the state grows. That means more state social workers,carers, benefits,etc replacing absent fathers! Marriage is the best protection of private life,and liberty
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
In nearly all of those cases, he simply maintained the status quo or made smaller reductions. He was able to balance the budget primarily because he made defense cuts to the taxpayer funded welfare state for arms companies, since the Cold War was over. Every Republican president in my lifetime has not been able to do that, though admittedly because there have been external reasons.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Defence cuts? Clinton only supported the brutal dictator Suharto, so he could give a load of Democrat-donating arms companies, big contracts for Indonesian weapons, in "military aid", spent on supporting the genocide in East Timor! Clinton kept the things conservatives like Ron Paul, would change, the IRS, Income Tax, and centralised departments,like the Education Department that debase the Founding Fathers concept of freedom from the state!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Regardless of how you spin or word it, the first balanced in 30 years (and only since) came under Clinton. So he didn't get rid of the necessary public utilities that the Founding Fathers never even heard of, much less object to? Fiscal responsibility is about balancing the budget, not getting rid of things.
eirefrance 3 years ago
The Founding Fathers didn't "object to" the huge centralised state agencies,like the the Education Department,as they didnt exist then.the point is,their principles oppose such things! Because the Founding Fathers believed in liberty from the state, that was the whole point of the Constitution,based on the 1688 English Bill Of Rights, it specifically limits the power,and reach of the state,(which socialists always try to increase)and is a protection against power becoming centralised.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
In 1688, the State was the Monarchy (remember Louis XIV's famous line: "L'etat, c'est moi"), so they were limiting the power of the monarch. I agree, the state, like every power structure, must be limited in its power. Thats why I oppose such things as the Patriot Act, banning guns & identity cards maintained by a private corporation. Ensuring children get a decent education (home-schooling is an entirely legal alternative) is hardly tyrannical.
eirefrance 3 years ago
and, one more thing, the liberal movement is tradtionally anti-war? I dont think so..it's the Republicans, partocularly the America First Movement who advocated staying OUT of WW2, and Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War, and Republicans like Pat Buchanan attacked the Kosovo war saying"what are we doing bombing and attacking this
tiny country that has never attacked the United States to rip away from them a province that does not
belong to us?"
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Nixon: Vietnam & Cambodia
Reagan: Grenada, Nicaragua & Lebanon
George H.W. Bush: Panama & Gulf War
George W. Bush: Afghanistan & Iraq
Certainly, Republicans have been no better on not invading small countries.
eirefrance 3 years ago
it was actually Kennedy who was the first to attack Vietnam in 1958,and launch the Korea War,and check out the Democrats horrific war record, including Carter's support for the brutal El Salvador regime!Clintons Kosovo war,BACKED by the neocons,but OPPOSED by all the Republican Presidential candidates,was the forerunner to the Iraq war,as the Guardian article I referenced below explains!Republicans ended the Vietnam War, and wanted US to stay out of WW2!!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Democrats have no monopoly on support for/by brutal dictatorships. Thatcher and Reagan both sided with anti-democratic repressive regimes only because those regimes brutally suppressed communism. As if being tortured by a psuedo-capitalist is better than being tortured by a communism.
eirefrance 3 years ago
ah, but Reagan actually defied conservative principles of war, and was attacked by republicans like his advisor Buchanan because of it! Reagan attacked countries that were no threat to the US,like Nicaragua, just as the Democrats had!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Or, Democrats attacked countries that were no threat to the US just like Reagan did, and were attacked by true Leftists like Chomsky and Nader or Mrs. Mahon, MP for Halifax of your lovely nation. Its all in how you word phrases.
eirefrance 3 years ago
I just listened to the clip of Peter Hitchens attacking David Milliband about the war on terror. I noticed you had a comment there to, so you must have listened to it. Its amazing how everything Hitchens said could just have come, verbatim, out of the mouth of most leftists in my country. I myself have said just what he did many times. You should realize that, if you're honestly opposed to the things he says, there are millions on the Left you could join with.
eirefrance 3 years ago
I agree Eirefrance I am happy to join with you,in opposing this fake "war on terror"! Peter Hitchens is one of the most right-wing journalists in Britain, but I guess British right-wingers are more clear-thinking than slavish, Republican-supporting US conservative journalists,who cant see that the Republican Party they love has been hijacked by liberal ex-Democrats. Noam Chomsky recently said the Republicans have been betraying true conservative principles,even before Reagan!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Well, I'm glad to hear that. I can see we disagree on some things, but I prioritize my political beliefs. #1 on that list is my country and the rights, freedoms, checks and balances that must exist for the free citizen to remain a free citizen.
eirefrance 3 years ago
None of that in any way discounts what I said earlier. I've never said Democrats/Liberals were blameless, only that the Right deserves equal blame.
eirefrance 3 years ago
I like Peter Hitchens but why isn't he wearing a tie?
williamhudson1 3 years ago
Peter Hitchens is the only one on the panel talking sense,and telling the truth. Why is the media world so unrepresntative of real people these days.Look at this panel-apart from PH every one of them is a left-winger!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago 4
You're making an assumption that someone who disagrees with you is unrepresentative of real people (whatever that even means. Does hunting make someone more 'real' than supporting equal housing markets?) and that they agreed with someone on the Left automatically.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance i was making no assumptions, on what most people think, that I cannot back with facts. All polls,from the Guardian's ICM Poll, to the Gallup, and YouGouv surveys, show the vast majority of people want reduced immigration, tax cuts, and much more severe punishment of criminals,all right-wing views! Yet most people in the media,and on this panel are a pack of dinner-party leftists.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Except I'm a leftist, and although I'm not very familiar with British politics, I know that the media in the US don't speak for me. I often hear that these media dinner-party leftists speak for me, but I never actually hear it. Just because they don't agree with you doesn't mean they agree with me.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance, surely you,as a liberal, would agree that most of your US media, like most of the media here, are generally pro-multiculturalism, pro-radical feminism, pro-abortion, anti-marriage, anti-Christianity, pro-political correctness, and so-called "equality"and generally supportive of the cultural revolution. I cant see how you think CNN, for instance, is not liberally biased.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Well, I don't watch much cable news, but no, I can't say that I've ever seen evidence that the media promotes those agendas. Maybe its because you imagine that the left is that simple that you imagine the media agree with me. Surely you, as a conservative, agree with Hitler's position. He was, after all, anti-immigrant, pro-nationalist, strong on defense, pro-family, anti-communist, pro-status quo and generally beleived that the existing govt was weak and corrupt.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance I cant have a rational discussion with you if you are going to hurl disgusting,childish insults, such as suggesting I am a Hitler sympathiser because I am a conservative. Did i suggest you were a communist Stalin-supporter because you are a leftist? Grow up a little and we can have a sensible discussion.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Oh, you fucking idiot!!! Please, can't you read. I so fucking sick of holding everyone's hand because they're so sure they're right they can't even see what other people are asking. I know you aren't a Hitler sympathizer, I just pointed out how flawed your simplistic argument was that I agreed with a news media that only cares about ratings, not politics, by turning the argument against you. Sheesh!!!!
eirefrance 3 years ago
Eirefrance calm down you twerp.The Hitler parallel was unnecessary, irrelevant, and absurd, I merely said, that cable news in the US, and the BBC here, take a liberal line on cultural issues, did I ever say YOU personally agreed with everything they say? Dont be so stupid.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
The Hitler parallel wasn't absurd. The things I mentioned are issues that conservatives traditionally support and things that Hitler believed. Yet, I would never assume that any paleo-con supported him. The newsmedia is a business run by educated, urbane, wealthy, worldly people. This may give the impression that they are, for instance, pro-multicultural, but its not universal. Lou Dobbs, for instance, a major US based broadcaster speaks loudly and forcefully against illegal immigration.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Yea,I could mention a list of things the Left traditionaly support,from egalitarianism, to enforced equality, state interference in private life,free speech codes, a classless society, hatred of marriage and religion,and many other things Stalin believed.You are corect the media are run by wealthy,detached people,who can afford to sneer at their own culture,and "stuffy" values, which protect society from chaos.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
And liberals don't necessarily support those who sneer at their own culture. Some do, just as some conservatives are racist jingoists. I think marriage is important enough that I believe homosexuals should have equal access to it. Certainly, having two parents is important in the raising of children. That is why I support higher minimum wages, so families can afford to work fewer hours and spend more time with each other in the 'natural' way the human species needs.
eirefrance 3 years ago
No, marriage between man and woman is important enough that it needs a unique place in the hierarchy of society, above any other relationship because the purpose of marriage,is a stable,loving home for children,and children,as all social studies show, need mothers and fathers, which gay marriage cant provide. marriage involves unique sacrifice, for your partner AND your potential children,and can thus only survive if it is uniquely valued and rewarded above anything else
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I agree parents (particularly mums)should raise their kids,but the solution is NOT to raise the minimum wage,this would lead to job losses,and reduce OVERALL wages,as money for higher minimum wage,has to come from somewhere else,so it would be lower-income earners who would sufer wage cuts,as the fat-cat bosses wouldnt cut their own wages to pay for it!The solution to help families,is to cut income tax,as Ron Paul says,enablin parents not to have to work to pay such huge taxes
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
In my country, free speech is most often attacked by religious groups. Those on the Left will often exercise their free speech by protesting someone, but that isn't the same as legal censorship. The closest parallel is hate speech, which is only ever used if it can be said to incite someone to violence. This kind of law could just as easily be used on a black man, a muslim or an eco/animal-rights activist, and has been.
eirefrance 3 years ago
when i emtnioned free speech codes, I was not only referring to national legislation, but rather the baleful influence of political correctness on the speech codes in,for example,college campuses, where Professors have been sacked,speakers prevented from speaking,and students taken off student radio/newspapers, for expressing the "wrong" view on feminism, abortion or gay marriage, this is a disgusting left-wing attack on free thought
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Political correctness is nothing more a code of politeness. Consider the very controversial Race/IQ studies. Research has continued on this topic since the Bell Curve came out and those findings aren't suppressed. Perhaps thats because the findings are published like this: "black people are stupid and deserve to die". What would you expect to happen if you called a co-worker a fat, disgusting slob who should die? Being polite about other issues is no different.
eirefrance 3 years ago
eirefrance political correctness can induce piliteness, and disguise itself as politeness, but it is nothing of the sort, if you want to see it in action, look at what happened to Larry Summers, the liberal President of Harvard, sacked for daring to ask for research into whether men and women think differently, which the evidence actually proves!this was a disgusting stifling of a necessary academic debate, at a supposedly academic American institution!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
You got that entire story screwed up. Larry Summers RESIGNED MORE THAN A YEAR after making an offhand statement. Steven Pinker, who defended Summers' statement as intellectually sound, faced no censure as a reuslt of defense. Summers' resignation followed a vote of no-confidence by the faculty. Though the faculty may have been swayed by their PC feelings, they are free to vote as they wish.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Wrong,eirefrance Larry Summers was forced out by the faculty in a secret decision,even though the majority of students and Professors backed him,and he's been replaced as President by a feminist woman,just to emphasise the point, that no-one dare criticise any tenet of feminism in Harvard! The Faculty's logic that he had "lost the support" of the Uni, was nonsense, as most Professors did not vote to get rid of him, and he had done nothing wrong!!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
At the University where I got my degree, there is a specific code that says noone's expression of political beliefs can be suppressed. That means a student can wear a swastika if he or she wants, and noone can do anything about it. I saw it put in practice, too. A girl wearing a Zionist t-shirt was denied service at a lunch counter by a radical Leftist. The result was that the store the radical Leftist worked in was almost shut down.
eirefrance 3 years ago
political correctness poses as morality, or politeness, thats the Trojan Horse that fools most people, and allows it to worm its way into major institutions, but it is in reality a highly intolerant system of beliefs, which leads to huge prejudice. one example is the way a woman was recently arrested, and interrogated in Britain,for suggesting gay adoption is wrong, as children need mothers and fathers, and a Professor was fired for daring to criticise mass immigration..
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I can't find the cases your referring to, but would you be equally offended by a professor fired from Mormon BYU for suggesting that gay marriage should be legal or a tenured theologian be fired from a Seminary for arguing that women should be ordained?
eirefrance 3 years ago
yes,I am offended by the cases you mentioned, though a seminary is different from a University,as seminaries require adherence to a set of beliefs which Universities do not! But Larry Summers did not even argue that women were different from men,even though research confirms this,he merely called for more research into it! and thats enough to get forced out of Harvard? what kind of an academic institution gets rid of someone who calls for academic research?
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I haven't defended Summers' resignation. I simply point out that to attack it as an example of political correctness is dishonest. People overreacted because he offended their sensibilities long before he ever made the remark (Cornel West, ROTC, getting wealthy off globalization at the expense of the poor & the World Bank report on exporting polluting companies to poor countries), but he was not forced from his job. Like any leader who has lost the confidence of his flock, he stepped down.
eirefrance 3 years ago
it is not dishonest to say Summers treatment is an example of PC,everybody agreed it was! The whole point is he did NOT lose the confidence of the University,that was the excuse the Faculty used,but other Professors admitted he was being forced out because he had dared to express a politically-incorect view!Harvard feminists demanded he apologise, as if one shoud apologise for asking an academic question,at a University!it has happened many times in America,one Prof sacked for being pro-life!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
He had a strained relationship with his faculty before that happened, for the reasons I gave. They did not like him, and this comment perhaps provided the final nail to his coffin. Did the faculty display an intolerant side in this issue? On the surface, it would appear so. Still, to call thsi PC is to misunderstand the situation and political correctness.
eirefrance 3 years ago
to call this PC is to be accurate!Harvard's run by liberals,Summers was generally popular,and a liberal himself,but when he asked for research into the sexes,he came under a hailstorm of abuse from feminists who forced him to apologise,AND pledge cash for PC campaigns to"fund" women in science,which is basically affirmative action,and even that wasnt enough!they then replaced him with Harvard's first female President to prove a point!never again will a Professor challenge PC doctrine at Harvard!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I recently had an argument with a lesbian who was defending sexual violence against men on the grounds that men would then better understand what women feel. In your book, I suppose the PC thing would have been to agree. Instead, I called her out and said that was bullshit. I'm still a liberal and in full support of gay rights, but I can think for myself and disagree with my fellow pinkos.
eirefrance 3 years ago
well I am glad you can think independently but PC certainly makes it harder for people to do so,because it attaches mroality to personal opinions, so someone's goodness is now judged on the "correctness" of their personal views, and it demands painful conformism, to left-wing ideals by smearing opponents views, for example what do you mean by gay rights? has it occured to you that to assume something is a human "right" is to assume anyone with a different view is not only wrong,but immoral?
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Of course, I would assume someone who defends slavery is wrong. I think denying homosexuals ANYTHING heterosexuals receive, on the basis of their homosexuality along, is wrong. Thus, you are free to hold that opinion, but I do consider it worng. I would say it is unethical, as opposed to immoral, but thats a small difference.
eirefrance 3 years ago
its a false equivalence with slavery.you say "denying homosexuals anything heterosexuals receive is wrong",thats where you are wrong!Homosexuals are different to heterosexuals so denying them some rights,is justified,eg gay parents differ from heterosexual parents in that they cannot provide a child with a mother/father which heterosexuals can!so gay couples should NOT have the same "right" to adopt children,as heterosexuals have, as this takes away the childs "right" to a mother and father!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Single parentss cannot provide a mother/father relationship. We do not deny them the right to raise their children. Anyway, I'm not equivicating anti-gay bias with slavery, I'm stating that there are certainly some human 'rights' that it is wrong to deny anyone. The right to personal freedom is the prime right, especially if it hurts noone. The right to marry falls so clearly on the side of hurting noone that I can understand no argument against it.
eirefrance 3 years ago
the right to marry removes priveleges,and uniqueness from heterosexual marriage, which should be at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy, distributing the priveleges of marriage, to single mums, unmarried heterosexuals, and homosexuals means they cease to be unique priveleges, and marriage ceases to be unique! crucially the point of marriage is the raising of children with two parents,therefore the inevitable progression from gay marriage is gay adoption,which is wrong, I explain why below..
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
The moral superiority of heterosexual marriage is open to interpretation, but thats beside the point. Homosexuals are physically capable of bearing children, that is, they have the same sperm & egg as everyone else. Thus, unless you are advocating the forced sterilization of anyone who is homosexual, you really have no point. You demand that heterosexual marriage be the only consideration in adoption would work better if there were not children not be adopted at all who would love a family.
eirefrance 3 years ago
The moral superirority of heterosexual marriage is NOT "open to interpreation",it is the only lifelong union dedicated to the raising of the children! Oh, you idiot, the point is not homosexuals cant physically have children,rather they dont want to, because they arent attracted to the opposite sex!! I said where theres a choice,children should be given a mum and dad,hence lesbian IVF is a disgrace! there wouldnt be so many adopted kids,if people werent having so much sex outisde marriage!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Why is lesbian IVF a disgrace? Is straight woman IVF a disgrace? Anyway, people have always had sex outside of marriage, even when doing so meant far greater consequences for those involved. Crying about human nature is pointless. Trying to find the economic solution that best answers the problem isn't. BTW, teen pregnancy has risen since Bush decided to press the abstinence only agenda. I guess the question should be, are you interested in posturing or effectiveness.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Why is lesbian IVF a disgrace? Because it involves deliberately conceiving a child without a father. Straight-woman IVF at least means the child will be born to a Mum and Dad.Where there is a choice, a child should always be given the benefit of a mother and father.Bush CANT press an "abstinence-only agenda" in a country that still has abortion-on-demand,and mass contraception for kids,supporting a trashy culture of value-free sex! Answer continued below..
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Straight woman IVF does not necessarily mean a child will be born to a mother & father. Sperm banks do exist and they have business. When I am talking about a abstinence only agenda, I'm talking about education, not law. In the past decade, federal funding has been tied to teaching abstinence as the only form of safe sex. In that time, teenage sex has not dropped and teen pregancy has risen. You may oppose it, but effect is effect.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Eirefrance,even marriage doesnt "necessarily mean the child will have a Mum and Dad", because one parent might die! But the point is lesbian IVF means a child certainly WONT have a mother and father! And it should not be legal to conceive a child,without any possibility of a father! Sociologists/child psychologists are all agreed children need fathers, and the loss of male role-models from the home,has been disastrous for young boys,and for young girls adult relationships with men!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Has it been? I don't know, but what I can find simply says that children raised by gay couples do not stick as rigidly to gender roles. Is that harmful? Whatever biological differences there are between the genders will naturally manifest itself, so why force artificial roles on people who don't want them? Anecdotally, I know of selfish dickheads from two parent families and hard working good people from single parent homes.
eirefrance 3 years ago
do you need me to direct you to the social studies showing children raised without fathers dont do as well as those raised with mums and dads?There's unanimous consensus among experts on the child's need for a father and mother,it has nothing to do with "artificial roles"its because the sexes ARE diferent,and mum/dads each provide children with something the other cannot,eg a father teaches a boy how to be a man,and girls need loving fathers to have stable adult relationships with men
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
As I said, "Whatever biological differences there are between the sexes will naturally manifest itself." There is no biology behind wearing a dress, using powertools or driving a car. Those are artificial. Forcing women and men into artificial roles will only encourage malcontents to resist those roles.
eirefrance 3 years ago
the point is a child needs role-models of both genders,(preferably loving parents)to fulfil different needs.A mother acts as a female role-model to the young girl, while the father is a male role-model to the young boy,showing him how to be a man.and the young girl needs a stable,loving father figure,to enable her to build trusting relationships with men in adulthood.studies show fatherelss girls are more likely to fall pregnant as teens!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I understand that. I mentioned my adoptive father, and I'm sure I'm better off as a person because of it. But I can attest to that fact that poverty is destructive to children. Although I took my parents work ethic to heart and worked hard to get out of poverty, I saw the effect on those around me, including those with two parents. Drug abuse, crime and fucked up views of sexualities.
eirefrance 3 years ago
It seems that you are talking about studies on children of single parents, which is not the same as having two parents of the same gender. Would you agree that having two mothers is better than having one mother? As I've already said, the ideal mother-father relationship will not happen all the time.
eirefrance 3 years ago
By the way, have you ever read Steven Leavitt's Freakonomics? There is a chapter in there on the drop in crime in the US in the 1990s. His analysis shows that abortion is most likely the cause of that (fewer young men growing up in poverty/broken homes). I understand that a pro-life position is a moral absolute and I'm not going to argue you on that point, but its worth noting when you're talking about social cohesion.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Part Two..People have always had sex outside marriage,but less people did,when the moral culture opposed it.Human nature can be bettered,by aspiring to higher values, rather than aiming for the gutter,by undermining mariage.Since mass contraception,and abortion-on-demand,teen pregnancy has risen in Western nations,coz contraception/abortion strips sex of significance,severing the link between sex and procreation,thus reducing what was once a unique expression of love,to a mere act of recreation!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
You're putting on rosy glasses and ignoring back alley abortions and Magdalene houses. The world you are describing meant that a woman impregnated by rape had her life ruined while the rapist got off after a few years in prison.
eirefrance 3 years ago
I dont propose a return to the worst of the past,rather bringing back some of what we lost.Some things are worse now than they were then Eg more children grow up in broken homes today, since the collapse of sexual morality, than did then..Back-alley abortions did happen,but there were better ways of helping single mothers raise children, than changing the whole moral culture, and undermining marriage itself, which has only led to more single mothers/fatherless children, and more abortions!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Just as increasing knowledge and freedom about sex meant some abused it, decreasing knowledge and restrictions on it will allow some to abuse those who don't meet the standard. Conservative muslim society has strict controls on sexual relations, and that allows men the freedom to commit horrible sexual abuse against women (such as female circumcision). When restrictions are put in place, someone must enforce them, and that person is given great power to abuse those restrictions.
eirefrance 3 years ago
But I dont propose the Moslem model,the Western model of morality,is based on SELF-restraint,arising from universally-held common values,NOT imposed by the law,as it is in Moslem countries!We havent increased knowledge about sex,we've just got rid of necessary restrictions,based on ancient wisdom! Children grow up best,when they come from a stable,two-parent family,and our society encourages people to be selfish, rather than altruistic,leaving more children growing up without families!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
You're talking about legislating morality, that is making it against the law for homosexuals to marry and adopt children. Self-restraint is fine, but your entire argument here has been government imposed restraint.
eirefrance 3 years ago
No gay adoption/lesbian IVF being against the law has nothing to do with "legislating morality", rather with protecting the rights of children. The law should recognise an innocent childs rights,(which is why abortion-on-demand should not be legal either). And one of the fundamental rights adoption agencies/IVF clinics should legislate for, is the child's right to a father and mother.This wouldnt just stop gays adopting/conceiving, but would also,quite rightly, stop single mothers having IVF!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Have you heard of Manhunt, a website where gay men can meet for casual sex? I doubt it, but apparently as much as 30% of the men on it are married to woman (not including those with girlfriends). Heterosexual marriage has not been a source of honesty or promise keeping for them.
eirefrance 3 years ago
But marriage has never prevented infidelity, no-one ever said it did! Human nature is such,that we are always bound to be weak and selfish. The point is, marriage is the best insitution ever created, for enshrining love,encouraging selfessness,and giving children a home with the security of a permanent family..This doesnt mean some marriages wont fail, or that some arent unfaithful, but statistics prove,far less married parents break up, than unmarried parents!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
If, as you're implying, marriage limits imfidelity and homosexuals can inherently not produce children, what is your objection to gay marriage? Homosexuals aren't going to become straight because they're denied marriage rights. By allowing them to marry, you should decrease infidelity and promiscuousness, right? And since they can't produce children, they are no danger to the social fabric. And maybe allowing gays to marry will keep those 30% of men from forming sham marriages for show.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Because giving homosexuals the same priveleges as are accorded to child-rearing lifelong unions devalues the idea of lifelong union for the conception,and raising of sucessful children! that was the whole point of marriage in the first place,gays can comitt to each other,but dont need the same status, and unique priveleges, as their "unions" are not about raising kids,or staying together "till death do us part",hence studies show gay relationships are much less stable than straight ones!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Again, its a stretch to say that marriage has traditionally been about children, but I'll go with that argument. What you are talking about is legislating a relationship so that heterosexual couples who can and will have children can marry and noone else. Noone is proposing a law that would make it illegal to refuse to marry gays, rather allowing those who would anyway. Your logic means anyone who cannot or does not want to have children should not be allowed to marry.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Not to mention that you are proposing that parents meet a variety of suitability requirements to raise children, otherwise you're just picking on homosexuals because of your personal feelings. And, how hypocritical is it to deny homosexuals the right to commit to each other, than say "oh, they don't commit to each other"?
eirefrance 3 years ago
Of course the moral superiority of heterosexual marriage is open to interpretation. Heterosexual married couples are not immune to abusing their children. You're replacing normative with superior. Just because something isn't normative doesn't make it inferior. After all, your stance on the war is non-normative for someone on the Right. ;)
eirefrance 3 years ago
My stance on the war is very normative for someone on the Right in my country.I didnt say gay people abuse children any more than heterosexuals..I never said any group of people were morally superior to any other group.Rather,it is marriage, the insitution, that has "moral superiority" over any other type of relationship,because it alone provides a framework in which children can be conceived in lifelong union,and in which adults must make and keep, promises to each other,and their kids.
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
That is pretty contrived. Bigamy and polygamy are unions capable of producing children and non-married, non-hetero couples are as capable of keeping promises to each other as anyone else. My point about the child abuse is that it is not the institution but the individuals that make something 'morally superior'.
eirefrance 3 years ago
No the insitution has moral supeririority to any other relationship frameowkr, because it demands more self-sacrifice to promise to spend the rest of your life faithfully with someone, than simply to sleep around, or live together, without making any commitment! Bigamy etc do not require the same comitment or sacrifice, since they are ways of indulging the desire for infidelity, within a fake framework of commitment, only lifelong union with ONE parnter, gives a child stability, and security!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Bigamy and Polygamy are unions that can produce children, while homosexual couples are capable of keeping promises to each other. By not allowing gays to marry, you're telling them not to make that commitment then blaming them for not making that commitment.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Bigmay/polygamy do not require the same self-sacrifice,for one person,or love that marriage does,and are disatrously unstable,as humans arent designed to share partners,with others,so jealousy always ensues! Gays can comitt to each other,the point is their relationship shouldnt have the same status, as lifelong heterosexual union,as they arent going to conceive,or raise kids together,so they dont realy need to be bound together for life!There is much more promiscuity among them for this reason
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I would bet money you can't back up your claim about self-sacrifice with anything other your own preconceived notions. A homosexual couple seeking to raise a child is subject to the same child abuse & neglect laws as anyone else, so they know they are going to sacrifice for their children just like you.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Studies show gay relationships dont last as long,as heterosexual relationships,and are more promiscuous.I'm surprised you didnt know gay relationships have been found to be far less stable than heterosexual relations. Law has nothing to do with self-sacrifice,my point was heterosexual sex was tied to self-sacrifice,as it led to procreation,hence the old moral rules, of abstinence until marriage! gays have never needed this moral restraint,which encourages sacrifice,as gay sex doesnt create life!
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
I never said I didn't know that, I just said that its hypocritical to deny homosexuals the right to promise commitment than call them out for lacking that commitment. Perhaps if homosexuals were given the right to that commitment, they would be more likely to commit? Its worth a thought, at least.
eirefrance 3 years ago
Bygamy/polygamy dont require the same self-sacrifice for a simple reason, because they do not involve lifelong devotion to the person you love,but instead allow you to keep multiple sexual partners,like married "swingers". the whole point of marriage is maintaining fidelity to the one person you love, and raising children in a stable home,not a sexually-promiscuous abode where the children have to cope with having different mothers and fathers,and have no conept of stable family life
relarerfhjk 3 years ago
Homosexual monogamy is not a way of indulging a desire for infidelity. Considering that homosexuals are unlikely to change their desires, why not reinforce fidelity within the community?
eirefrance 3 years ago
If I may provide an example. My mother was not married to my father and I was an accident. My father left her as soon as he discovered that. She remarried a man she met on a hippie commune a year later and he adopted me. I proudly have his last name and he has always treated me as his son and I love him and consider him my father in every way. I was born out of wedlock but a good man came along and gave me a father, not because I was his child but because he is a good man.
eirefrance 3 years ago
I did not say biology was essential to a married family. Thats why I said I support married couples adopting children! It is possible for a lovi