Young Conservatives C/D

He's an alright bloke though, we just sometimes have rather heated discussions if politics or religion come up in the conversation.

i don't think my housemate is a card-carrier, but he does like his tories.

OTM.

A likely reason for him not to like YC's is because they're probably an organisation made up of posh southern toffs, and my friend's a straight talking northern type.

Does he wear barbour jackets?

My odious but also affable Conservative neighbour in university halls now works for the Torygraph - if he gets any more well-known I may blackmail him with tales of his upsettingly skimpy, smelly dressing gown. He did save me from an amorous third year once when I was too drunk to do it myself, though.

marvellous what a fresh-faced leader and nine years in the political wilderness can do. with cameron, born-to-rule hoorays, patrician elites and the politics of self-interest suddenly seem so much more palatable.

sod that dour old fiscally prudent scots git - come polling day i'll be backing Champagne Charlie and his brave band of underprivileged public servants all the way RAH RAH!!! - let the good times roll, chums in power what what!

ps dog, do your your duty to society and SHOP HIM

That's because the YCs aren't as posh.

Having said that, I knew I guy at uni who was a Nazi - Dave, or Nazi Dave as he was known by all. Apart from the rabidly unpleasant political views he was quite an unassuming mild-mannered chap. I almost felt sorry for him as much bigger Asian/Jewish/black students came to kick the crap out of him as word of his beliefs spread. Wonder where he is now?

moi? i never batted for either side atch. it's mid-evening and i've imbibed way too much alcohol now to be able engage in any sensible political debate beyond the knee-jerk and woefully partisan - ie. i'm perfectly suited to public office - vote john clarkson!

Things that are deemed polite, but I find a bit rude

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

A Young Conservatives fancy dress dance held in the mid 1950s. Photo by user

2nd from the right has the daemon eyes.

On another board, there's a caption thread for this picture. By far the best is:

"Ha ha ha! Now you have to eat the biscuit!"

That picture above was in all the newspapers today.

that was my initial reaction, i have to say. it's just that these days i'm not as quick to voice it.

i do worry terribly about the resurgence in tory fortunes. i mean, when i was a student it was the kind of thing that guaranteed you social ostracision by about 99% of your peers. now - horribly - it's becoming the de facto position of brainless student rebellion. and christ almighty, anyone who's fooled by cameron's "i'm a nice bloke" schtick shouldn't be allowed to vote because they obviously don't have the mental capacity. cameron himself might - just might - be a reasonable guy (although the fact remains: what's he doing being a tory?) but JUST LOOK AT THE REST OF THEM. jesus wept.

i mean, at least labour - not that i've voted for them since 1997, and not that i imagine i will again - pretend not to be total bastards. some of the time. most tories seem genuinely proud to be vile, and it'll be many generations before hand-wringing saps like cameron can change that.

On C4 last night Kirstie Allsopp's sister and various unnamed assistants were holding up an eel in West Dorset.

Is this evolution?

i can't really remember examples of that ever in the tabloids tho. snarky innuendo yes but never quite that blatant?

well it certainly seems to be popular with st00dents, it's tragic

i'd love it if the braying libertarian hordes all grew up and went to work for oxfam. sadly, i think it's unlikely. they'll probably just go off and buy and sell houses like every other fucker.

there was this guy who seemed to be at all the parties i went to for a while who every time he saw me would wander up and harrass me about reading 'the road to serfdom'

later he tried to persuade me to read 'anything by ayn rand' but thanks to ILE i knew i could decline without missing anything and had by all accounts avoided serious brain damage

xpost liberalism !=liberal, teh kids go with the US usage (ie much sneering)

Believe me, the charity sector is FULL of right wing thinking, what could be more right wing than charity?

is it a mass debate?

© 1942, old jokes home for the criminally inane.

uh anyway, don't feel so much that way now. it wouldn't do shit to get rid of fundamental class divide or get rid of wealth inequality or improve public services. so am now slightly baffled.

am still interested in marxism but people who seem to ally themselves to that (in academia for example) are all pooter-ish tories with no concept of the good society and whatnot. there is such a thing as left-wing libertarianism, of course, more honourable than big-state labourism or continental ultra-leftism.

http://bani.anime.net/o_rly.jpg

-- The sun sets on twelve tons of pickled onions. A dynasty is dying... (dadaismu...), October 27th, 2006.

YA RLY

the mega-rich are *so fucking rich* nowadays, and because of the property boom there are so many of the fuckers, that it'd take a 100% on £50k< to shift them.

and it really wouldn't get rid of the class divide, which is about ownership of political and economic power. high-tax labour governments are as elitist and centrist as tory governments.

and having worked in the nhs post-2002 i'm not mad optimistic about the effects of vast sums there either.

It might help if they actually paid any tax of course

What do you mean by "elitist" here? I know that's now the great hate term.

"Our country is on a handcart to hell and the Muslims and do gooders are pushing it!"

xpost speaking of health i've witnessed some libertarian types arguing that anorexics should be taxed like smokers for their self-inflicted condition

xpost

-- DG (rgreenfiel...), October 27th, 2006.

tar_same_brush.jpg

i've never heard e.g. a socialist propose something like i mentioned, libertarianism is utterly selfish so will tend towards such asshattery

Libertarianism, however, involves by definition total faith in an unrestricted free market economy

no it doesn't.

This is almost exclusively an American response, overlooking the undoubtedly libertarian tradition of European anarcho-syndicalism. It was, after all, the important French anarchist thinker Proudhon who declared that property is theft.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the likes of Emma Goldman were identified as libertarians long before the term was adopted by some economic rightwingers. And what about the libertarian collectives of the mid-late 1800s and 1960s?

Americans like Noam Chomsky can claim the label 'libertarian socialist' with the same validity that Milton Friedman can be considered a 'libertarian capitalist'.

The assumption that Social Darwinism delivers more social freedom is questionable. The welfare states of, for example, Sweden and The Netherlands, abolished capital punishment decades ago and are at the forefront of progressive legislation for women, gays and ethnic minorities - not to mention anti-censorship. Such established social democracies consistently score highest in the widely respected Freedom House annual survey on civil liberties. Their detailed checklist can be viewed at http://www.worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm . Such social developments would presumably be envied by genuine libertarians in socially conservative countries - even if their taxes are lower.

Interestingly, many economic libertarians express to us their support for or indifference towards capital punishment; yet the execution of certain citizens is a far stronger assertion of state power than taxation.

N.B. The death penalty is practised in all seriously authoritarian states. In Eastern Europe it was abolished with the fall of communism and adoption of democracy. The United States is the only western democracy where capital punishment is still practised.

From the political compass.

But weren't that Swedes sterilising "mentally defective" people for years too? And dare I mention Pim Fortuyn?

and i suppose that's how ideas about diffusing power down -- ie left-libertarianism -- would come in.

if that was a response to me i would say their thinking is i don't see why i should be taxed at all but if i must then taxes must comply with my concept of 'personal responsibility' so i don't see why i should pay for people who make bad choices

i'm sure this isn't totally unique to libertarians but they seem most vocal about it

Though minarchism in practice wouldn't be that difference from High Tory patronage of old.

That said it does not surprise me socio-economically, nor with the current education system.

*Still default declared politics being avowedly hardline socialist.

be thankful that you have the breed of conservative that you have (whatever their shortcomings are).

er, but they certainly supported it at the time (with some loud voices, such as ken clarke, speaking out against it). cameron, IIRC, did his usual trick of looking a bit goofy and not really committing himself.

i was going to say "surely people's memories aren't this short" but then the very fact there's a resurgence in tory fortunes at all suggests that yes, they are.