Margaret Thatcher is dead

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Audley Strange
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Audley Strange » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:53 am

Yep. To me the whole "democracy" thing is a banquet for the Landed where we get to choose which butler brings us scraps from the table and the Landed point out that we only have ourselves to blame if we vote for a corrupt butler, it's not their fault we keep voting in the scumbags they've hired.
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by MrJonno » Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:02 am

Rum wrote:Most of anyone who has noticed knows that I lean pretty far to the left on most political matters, but what has got me over this last few days is the anger which people who were just kids - or not even born at the time - seem to feel for this woman.

There is actually a strong argument for the policies she put into place. They may have been radical, unpopular and destructive of certain old established industrially based communities, but Britain was reality in a right old pickle when she came into power. Unions all but ran the country and were effectively beyond the law in some cases. The large industries were making huge losses and being subsidised by everyone else's taxes and huge loans and the country was on its knees.

The country could have gone two ways - either further towards a socialism of sorts - into a revolutionary phase perhaps, or someone or some force could step in and say 'that's enough'. She did the latter and it is hard to see how the former could have happened in retrospect. There was really no middle way at the time.

In demolishing the loss making parts of the steel and coal industries she demolished communities which had grown on the back of those and it seems to me that it is this factor that causes much of the hatred.

My own family was from a coal mining village in South Wales and I remember the black soot and grime as well as hardship of the place when I was a kid. It is easy to be romantic about those communities but life was very hard. I for one don't mourn their loss.
Thatcher consensus government, ended the concept of single nation. She was obviously good for some people, giving away council houses was obviously good for their tenants but not so good for society as a whole and lead to the housing mess we now have (including the out of control housing benefit costs).

Since Thatcher its simple been a case of the only way to gain votes for one group is to hurt another, making others suffer is the big vote winner (even if it brings no benefit to yourself).

I'm one of Thatcher's children as well, to me some of my fellow citizens might as well be from North Korea. Thinking of English rural mostly conservative voters. I really couldn't give a shit about them. Their dreams are my nightmares, my dreams their nightmares
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:02 pm

Rum wrote:She was divisive and her policies ruined communities which had relied on loss making subsidised industries for decades. That model doesn't work any more it seems. She pressed the reset button.
What politician isn't divisive? Divisive just means that the other guys/gals disagree.

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:07 pm

Scrumple wrote:She closed the mines, despite large reserves, and flooding means the only way to get at the coal now is opencast mining which is environmentally destructive. She allowed houses to be built on floodplains. Deregulated the financial industry. She wasn't thinking things through. That said I don't hate her. Attack the ideas not the idiot. :tup:
Isn't that good? Those mines mined coal. Nasty fossil fuel, polluting the environment, carbon footprints and whatnot, wut wut and tut tut.

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:12 pm

Audley Strange wrote:The Good Lady is (as consequently am I) lucky enough to have been young enough not to recall with any clarity the mid 70's to Mid 80's and was a teenager until the mid 90's so has no real recollection of the political or social aspects to the revulsion towards Thatcher. Watching some thing about her last night she said to me that there was something odd about Thatch, that she didn't seem to be real, but almost like someone playing a character, a smug patronising and incredibly camp woman, but you could see through that by looking at her eyes which looked like the eyes of a creepy doll.

I think the truth is a bit more simple, she had no understanding at all that other people were actually real and was playing dolls house with an entire fucking country. She was only prime minister because she couldn't be an actual tyrant.

I wish she could die again, as an encore.
But, didn't the country wind up better in 1990 than it was in 1979? Or, was the UK even suckier in 1990 than in 1979? If that's true, you blokes must've been in a real sorry-ass state in 1990-91. Thankfully, everything was fixed under John Major. He likely set it all to rights. :tea:

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Rum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:14 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
Rum wrote:She was divisive and her policies ruined communities which had relied on loss making subsidised industries for decades. That model doesn't work any more it seems. She pressed the reset button.
What politician isn't divisive? Divisive just means that the other guys/gals disagree.
Many try not to be. The so called 'middle ground' is where politicians constantly say the 'battle will be won' here. It is one reason why politics here tend to be so bland these days. Margaret Thatcher believed strongly that there were enemies to be overcome and major battles to be fought and won if the country was to be in the image she had in mind. She fought and won most of those battles and changed the country quite radically for right or wrong. No Labour government has taken the step of reversing key parts of her legislation.

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Audley Strange » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:25 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote: But, didn't the country wind up better in 1990 than it was in 1979? Or, was the UK even suckier in 1990 than in 1979? If that's true, you blokes must've been in a real sorry-ass state in 1990-91. Thankfully, everything was fixed under John Major. He likely set it all to rights. :tea:
Well it depends on many great things, like what you mean by "better" for a start. We went from a being a broke insecurity state in the late 70's with a weak and ignorant government and we're a broke insecurity state with a weak and ignorant Government now. Things were not great under Major, we had another economic downturn from about 93 til the end of Conservative rule (IIRC) nor were "things" fantastic under Blair, my opinion of his actions which lead this country to be party to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq which in my eyes are far worse and far more damning than the worst of Thatcher's crimes, but he kept the bread and circuses flowing a lot better at home. Thatcher was mostly reviled because she in turn reviled, mostly. She wasn't a woman of the people or someone who was just being cruel to be kind in times of necessity. She and her allies were, like all who followed her were not those who wish to serve the public, but those who wish to rule them.

To what extent she was even necessary will have to remain hypothetical. Times change regardless of who's navigating a mob through them.
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by klr » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:30 pm

Rum wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Rum wrote:She was divisive and her policies ruined communities which had relied on loss making subsidised industries for decades. That model doesn't work any more it seems. She pressed the reset button.
What politician isn't divisive? Divisive just means that the other guys/gals disagree.
Many try not to be. The so called 'middle ground' is where politicians constantly say the 'battle will be won' here. It is one reason why politics here tend to be so bland these days. Margaret Thatcher believed strongly that there were enemies to be overcome and major battles to be fought and won if the country was to be in the image she had in mind. She fought and won most of those battles and changed the country quite radically for right or wrong. No Labour government has taken the step of reversing key parts of her legislation.
Right on. Whereas many politicians and parties tend to aim for the middle ground, she thought otherwise. Whether that was being brave and principled or divisive and extremist is of course down to one's own point of view.
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:46 pm

Audley Strange wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote: But, didn't the country wind up better in 1990 than it was in 1979? Or, was the UK even suckier in 1990 than in 1979? If that's true, you blokes must've been in a real sorry-ass state in 1990-91. Thankfully, everything was fixed under John Major. He likely set it all to rights. :tea:
Well it depends on many great things, like what you mean by "better" for a start.
I mean "better" in whatever sense you mean it.
Audley Strange wrote:We went from a being a broke insecurity state in the late 70's with a weak and ignorant government and we're a broke insecurity state with a weak and ignorant Government now.
So, she made the UK worse then, in her 11 1/2 years -- things were worse in 90-91, than in 78-78, then? In your view?
Audley Strange wrote: Things were not great under Major, we had another economic downturn from about 93 til the end of Conservative rule (IIRC) nor were "things" fantastic under Blair, my opinion of his actions which lead this country to be party to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq which in my eyes are far worse and far more damning than the worst of Thatcher's crimes, but he kept the bread and circuses flowing a lot better at home.
Afghanistan was a NATO action, and I've only heard the rare person say that it was wrong to be involved in the Afghan War. That action received the approval of nearly the entire world in 2001. Even Russia, who normally would block any activity by the US so close to its borders stepped back and was like, "o.k., boys, we get it..." I can't imagine why anyone would suggest that the Afghan action was not justified or even necessary.

However, my point wasn't that things were great under Major. My point is that if the awful things people are saying about Thatcher, which you echoed, are true, then she must have really stuck a fork in the already rather baked UK. Things sucked ass in 1979 in the UK, as Rum as pointed out too. So, if Thatcher was so horrible for the UK it stands to reason that things were worse when she left than when she got there. Were they? It seems to me that UK was doing better overall, by nearly every measure, after 11 1/2 years of Thatcher.

Audley Strange wrote: Thatcher was mostly reviled because she in turn reviled, mostly. She wasn't a woman of the people or someone who was just being cruel to be kind in times of necessity. She and her allies were, like all who followed her were not those who wish to serve the public, but those who wish to rule them.

To what extent she was even necessary will have to remain hypothetical. Times change regardless of who's navigating a mob through them.
How so? Can you expand on what leads you to believe that she reviled people and did not wish to serve the public?

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:48 pm

Rum wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Rum wrote:She was divisive and her policies ruined communities which had relied on loss making subsidised industries for decades. That model doesn't work any more it seems. She pressed the reset button.
What politician isn't divisive? Divisive just means that the other guys/gals disagree.
Many try not to be. The so called 'middle ground' is where politicians constantly say the 'battle will be won' here. It is one reason why politics here tend to be so bland these days. Margaret Thatcher believed strongly that there were enemies to be overcome and major battles to be fought and won if the country was to be in the image she had in mind. She fought and won most of those battles and changed the country quite radically for right or wrong. No Labour government has taken the step of reversing key parts of her legislation.
Generally, whether one thinks a politician is aiming for the middle ground or compromising sufficiently is directly related to one's opinion of that politician. The guy/gal on the other side is never compromising. One's own guy/gal invariably does.

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:51 pm

I think things were better if you were rich, and worse if you were poor.
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:55 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:I think things were better if you were rich, and worse if you were poor.
Do you have any hard numbers to support the notion that the poor in the UK were worse off in the early 90s than in the late 70s?

But, if the poor were worse off, are they still just as bad off, or have things gotten better, and if so, how did they get better for the poor from the early 90s to now? When did they start becoming better, and what actions were taken to make it better?

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:58 pm

Just give me a week to compose an essay in reply to your 13000 questions. In the meantime, I will say that unemployment went up from about 1 million to 3 million during Thatcher's reign. Not sure what it was at the end, though.
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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:03 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:Just give me a week to compose an essay in reply to your 13000 questions. In the meantime, I will say that unemployment went up from about 1 million to 3 million during Thatcher's reign. Not sure what it was at the end, though.
LOL -- 13,000 -- essentially, my question was whether you have any reason/evidence to support your claim. I seem to recall you mentioning not to long ago in another post that you have reason/evidence to support your claims.

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Re: Margaret Thatcher is dead

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:08 pm

Well I just gave you some, didn't I? Sheesh.
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