UK Politics Thread VII: Wake me DUP inside [can't wake UUP]

[Ifreann]

The Beast from the East has finally bitten. Lost a roof tile and my front guttering.

We must make a retaliatory strike against the Russians immediately.

[Questers]

maybe you're just not sufficiently souspilled

The chief difference in opinion is that you think all people are bad and want them to stay away from you whereas I think all people are bad and want them to do what I say.

The minutiae of what people think about policies is not important. We can talk all day about whether we should ban circumcision, allow smoking in pubs, invade Iraq etc, the real difference between independent-thinking people (i.e. people whose views are not drawn from partisan media and partisan peers) is world perspective. You can not change another person's world perspective for them, so authoritarianism is a superior system to liberalism in determing perspectives, but inferior in managing institutions and administrations.

ask a question and i shall answer

With the above in mind the only question I need to ask is where (as specific as possible) you would like to live in the world & why. You can present several competing options if its very hard to decide. Assume fluency in any language you want.

[Fartsniffage]

The Beast from the East has finally bitten. Lost a roof tile and my front guttering.

We must make a retaliatory strike against the Russians immediately.

Was watching a documentary about the VC earlier and apparently we're down to only enough metal to make about 80 more medals so we need to nick some more guns off them anyway.

[Neu Leonstein]

PM May gave a speech. This was the outcome of the big cabinet get-together where they were finally going to work out a Brexit position. You can read the whole thing here.

But in short:

• EU still says that Brexit generates unavoidable frictions re trade and borders, and UK government still says that it doesn't have to as long as you can do the right kind of FTA + customs arrangement deal.
• Specifically, the government maintains the position that given that UK rules, regulations and standards currently meet the EU's, there's no reason to impose checks. Instead one can keep everything basically as it is, and only in specific sectors where the UK decides to do something else would those frictions emerge with time. That's what the EU calls cherry picking and has ruled out, but the UK maintains would be consistent with other FTAs and would just reflect the current close integration.
• The main problem with all of this is that the UK hasn't produced a proposal for its view with the sort of detail that would be needed to turn it into a legal treaty arrangement. Even if they produced the whole thing tomorrow, a year would be an insanely short amount of time to finalise it, given that more conventional FTAs can take a decade and wouldn't be anywhere near as detailed. Maybe the UK is right that because it is so closely integrated already, it would be easy to get it done. But we will never know because they never produced a specific proposal to talk about. This comes back to my point about the current UK leadership just not understanding how the EU works... they seem to think that what's needed is a political agreement, some sort of handshake, and then they let the boffins work out the details after the politicians have all gone to eat canapes at the reception. But the EU is its boffins, and there's no one in the whole body who has the kind of power to agree on something without seeing the specific legal text black on white. Varoufakis made the same mistake, and look where that got Greece.
• It wasn't all bad though. The proposal to keep the UK as 'associate members' of EU regulatory agencies might have some merit, and it seems to me like something that can at least be investigated in detail. Would involve continued UK payments for upkeep and ECJ jurisdiction in the relevant sectors though.
• On Wednesday Hammond will give a speech containing details of what they intend to do about financial services, which should be interesting. May presented the gist of it, which is that both sides agree that each other's regulations achieve the same goals (while not being required to be the same in the details) and thus let each other's institutions operate in their markets. Hard to say how this will go down with EU regulators and politicians, we'll have to wait until we see the reactions to Hammond's speech, I think.
• Finally, back to the huge disappointment: on Ireland, there's nothing new. Still technical/technological solutions not spelled out in any greater detail. I think the EU has zeroed in on this being the single most important and most difficult problem created by Brexit - they can deal with everything else, but losing the Good Friday Agreement would risk political violence in one of its member states, and avoiding it has been given huge priority. One would really hope that Davis' Brexit department will pump out some very detailed proposals on these 'customs arrangement' proposals sooner rather than later.

[Salandriagado]

i don't think anyone mentioned that

but i am now quite amused by the venn diagram in my head of "people who think it's PC gone mad to not want kids to be made to sing hymns" and "people who would get super mad if kids were forced to sign nasheeds"

Britain is already a theocracy because centrism is a religion. We are forced to practice it in school, work, and public life.

Just because HMS is gone doesn't mean you need to take up the "posting utterly stupid hyperbole in the UK Politics Thread" mantle.

[Ifreann]

We must make a retaliatory strike against the Russians immediately.

Was watching a documentary about the VC earlier and apparently we're down to only enough metal to make about 80 more medals so we need to nick some more guns off them anyway.

And with all their snow over here, there's no need to fear General Winter.

[Hydesland]

Explore this a bit more - wouldn't taking your children to Church count as this? Or all kinds of other religious upbringing practices that we tolerate?

If the kids object to it: yes, absolutely.

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

[Taihei Tengoku]

Britain is already a theocracy because centrism is a religion. We are forced to practice it in school, work, and public life.

Just because HMS is gone doesn't mean you need to take up the "posting utterly stupid hyperbole in the UK Politics Thread" mantle.

he is completely right

even the Anglican/Episcopalian Church is basically a denomination created for whatever the "centrists" want at the time. I'm not sure whether the CoE actually harbored terrorists like American Episcopalians did tho

[Ostroeuropa]

If the kids object to it: yes, absolutely.

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

Honestly?
Depends on the sect.
If it's a bunch of homophobic or sexist bullshit, yeah, prosecute them for child abuse. Forcing your kid to sit there and listen to a bunch of bollocks about how they're sick or inferior when they don't want to be there is abusive. It's subjecting them to an hour long rant that would be clearly seen as abusive in any other context, and secular principles should lead us to conclude that merely saying "Muh jesus/mohammed" shouldn't impact our evaluation of behavior. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Would it be similarly abusive for a sincerely homophobic or sexist child to be forced into unitarian services?

[Ostroeuropa]

Would it be similarly abusive for a sincerely homophobic or sexist child to be forced into unitarian services?

I don't think so, no, but it'd depend on the manner of the sermon. If they're calling the kid tainted by evil or some shit then yeah maybe.

[Souseiseki]

Would it be similarly abusive for a sincerely homophobic or sexist child to be forced into unitarian services?

oh shit now we're going really deep into the philosophy rabbit hole

(response to earlier post forthcoming)

[Hydesland]

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

Honestly?
Depends on the sect.
If it's a bunch of homophobic or sexist bullshit, yeah, prosecute them for child abuse. Forcing your kid to sit there and listen to a bunch of bollocks about how they're sick or inferior when they don't want to be there is abusive. It's subjecting them to an hour long rant that would be clearly seen as abusive in any other context, and secular principles should lead us to conclude that merely saying "Muh jesus/mohammed" shouldn't impact our evaluation of behavior. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

Right, but now the principle is changing again, from "don't force your religion on people" to "don't force bigoted beliefs on people". My point is - "don't force your religion on people" is not a principle, I argue, that can be practically made universally applicable to parents bringing up their children.

[Imperializt Russia]

That was a pretty awful and horrifying article. I really hope that cancer doesn't cross the Atlantic. You covered the whole well but missed that bit at the end where it said they should consider decisions made by Islamic Sharia tribunals in family courts.

Said "Islamic sharia tribunals" are just Islamic family 'courts' which have no legal power.

If a mormon or Jewish family 'court' existed in the UK which tried to mediate marriages and other family matters in accordance with religious principles, it would probably be treated the same in an actual court of law.

[Imperializt Russia]

Would it be similarly abusive for a sincerely homophobic or sexist child to be forced into unitarian services?

No more so than denazification could be considered "abuse of the German school-age population circa 1946".

[Jackania yugo]

so...is the immigration from the middle east and north Africa actually a bad thing, or that just something the right wing on the internet says?

[Ostroeuropa]

Honestly?
Depends on the sect.
If it's a bunch of homophobic or sexist bullshit, yeah, prosecute them for child abuse. Forcing your kid to sit there and listen to a bunch of bollocks about how they're sick or inferior when they don't want to be there is abusive. It's subjecting them to an hour long rant that would be clearly seen as abusive in any other context, and secular principles should lead us to conclude that merely saying "Muh jesus/mohammed" shouldn't impact our evaluation of behavior. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

Right, but now the principle is changing again, from "don't force your religion on people" to "don't force bigoted beliefs on people". My point is - "don't force your religion on people" is not a principle, I argue, that can be practically made universally applicable to parents bringing up their children.

I'd also agree with that. There is no need to make laws specific to religion, that also violates secular principles. Outlawing a behavior should be entirely blind to religion. If you want to ban forcing kids to attend church, you have to phrase it in such a way that it gets to the root of the matter and outlines the specific practice you're objecting to, and i'm not sure that can be done without severe overreach.

"You can't force kids to attend speeches, seminars."
...
Ehhhhh?

[Imperializt Russia]

Was watching a documentary about the VC earlier and apparently we're down to only enough metal to make about 80 more medals so we need to nick some more guns off them anyway.

And with all their snow over here, there's no need to fear General Winter.

Lieutenant-Commander Allweather Radarguidance III has already plotted to assassinate General Winter within the opening salvoes of the conflict.

[Salandriagado]

If the kids object to it: yes, absolutely.

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

Depending on what you mean by "don't want to go", yes.

[Imperializt Russia]

so...is the immigration from the middle east and north Africa actually a bad thing, or that just something the right wing on the internet says?

Compared to other European countries, the UK takes in nearly none of it anyway. Of the 1.5 million that entered Germany during the refugee crisis we graciously offered to accept and settle... 20,000 Syrians.

"Mass immigration" and "refugee immigration abuse" are, I argue, enormously conflated by the right wing, whether intentionally or not in order to dogwhistle against existing settled ethnicities from prior decades, such as the longstanding Pakistani, West Indian and other communities, and played a significant part of the Leave rhetoric during the EU referendum. "Mass immigration" arose predominantly from the EU with EU member-state individuals entering the UK on permanent or semi-permanent bases and the argument that by ending EU freedom of movement then immigration would be reduced because apparently this matters, even though the EU migrants were not the areas of migration predominantly complained about, that being those from the middle east and Africa.

[Ostroeuropa]

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

Depending on what you mean by "don't want to go", yes.

Can you phrase your objection in a way that doesn't single out religion, but specifically outlines the behavior you object to and want to stop?

Like;
"No religious rants on homophobia." (Unacceptable, unsecular) -> "No rants on homophobia." (Secular.)

Just like "Religion" isn't an excuse for bad behavior (or shouldn't be) "It's not religious tho" shouldn't be an excuse either. The behavior is either wrong, or it isn't.

[Hydesland]

Would you prosecute parents who bring their children to Church even if they don't want to go?

Depending on what you mean by "don't want to go", yes.

Don't worry about the "don't want to go" part - put it this way, the young children get no choice in the matter, the parents take them to Church/Sunday school and other religious practices and there is nothing they can do about it - that's force.

[Ostroeuropa]

That was a pretty awful and horrifying article. I really hope that cancer doesn't cross the Atlantic. You covered the whole well but missed that bit at the end where it said they should consider decisions made by Islamic Sharia tribunals in family courts.

Said "Islamic sharia tribunals" are just Islamic family 'courts' which have no legal power.

If a mormon or Jewish family 'court' existed in the UK which tried to mediate marriages and other family matters in accordance with religious principles, it would probably be treated the same in an actual court of law.

Right, but that's the horrifying part. It's advocating they be allowed to influence family courts.
Btw, Jewish "courts" do exist.

[Mujahidah]

Btw, Jewish "courts" do exist.

Yes. Third-party religious arbitration is available in much of the Western World. This is not tantamount to the government setting up religious law.

[Imperializt Russia]

Said "Islamic sharia tribunals" are just Islamic family 'courts' which have no legal power.

If a mormon or Jewish family 'court' existed in the UK which tried to mediate marriages and other family matters in accordance with religious principles, it would probably be treated the same in an actual court of law.

Right, but that's the horrifying part. It's advocating they be allowed to influence family courts.
Btw, Jewish "courts" do exist.

"Influence". It is taken into consideration.

As a presumably Islamic couple, you attempted to arbitrate through an Islamic counsellor. Clearly, one of you disagreed with the outcome, so you want to take it through the courts. The court will have in evidence that you attended, and possibly accepted the arbitration from this counsel, and you will then argue why you are seeking state intervention here.

Just like with most other things you will do before seeking legal action on an unsettled matter. Aside from "Islamic courts" scarequotes, it's no worse, and no more ridiculous than "man allowed to stay because he has a cat".