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Bigotry

(25 posts) (15 voices)

Started 4 years ago by deceangli
Latest reply from Oxbridge

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deceangli

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I've been astounded at the level of anti-Leave bile I've seen and heard - on Facebook, on the BBC - genuinely amazed.

I 'get it' - Farage and his cronies are on the Dark Side - but that doesn't equate to half the nation's voters being racists or xenophobes. Indeed, the xenophobic and prejudiced stuff I'm hearing is all from Remainers, telling me how stupid the Leavers are.

Get a grip, folks. 'Two wrongs' and all that. It's perfectly possible for a decent, kind, intelligent person to vote Leave.

(Having said that - I'd love to see a voting map with newspaper distribution figures overlaid onto it. For example, Liverpool shuns the Sun, and voted Remain. Just saying).

Posted 4 years ago #
Ironduke

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I particularly enjoy messages such as

'So it was the old and the thick who dropped us in it. Well done, you prejudiced and intolerant bastards'

The irony as people scale their sanctimonious pedestals, label, blame and scathingly dismiss whole sections of the community For their 'blinkered views' is hysterical.

It's preaching equality and respect for all....all who agree with me. And we should listen to everybody's point of view...unless I decide they are not worth listening to. And we should welcome everybody, hear everyone's concerns...except those whose concerns I decide are not valid.

Posted 4 years ago #
deceangli

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Precisely - bit of a double standard at work.

The condemnation of 'old' people as being selfish because they'll be dead soon, so won't have to live with the consequences, is also a little unpleasant. In some cultures I'm told that old people are respected for wisdom and experience. In our culture we venerate youth. Perhaps both extremes are iffy, but when older citizens vote a particular way, maybe a smarter response than insults would be a question or two - to understand their reasoning.

Posted 4 years ago #
S J Roe

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A lot of this is about perspective. From my perspective as a Welsh person I think it is very stupid to vote for a system that is going to end up with the (eve n more) right wingers screwing Wales even more.

Calling somebody thick because they lack formal qualifications is wrong, or whast their job is wrong, calling them thick when they lack the basic sense to see that the new lot are going to screw us even more is justified.

I am not and never have been an elitist snob, but if a person living in Wales has voted out I do, and this is being kind, think they've been stupid to vote out- don't care what their qualifications are.

Posted 4 years ago #
deceangli

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SJ - you just made my point. You're assuming that people are thick because they see the world differently to you. Maybe some of them are awesomely bright - you just can't make that judgment call on the basis of a single referendum vote.

If there was an IQ and general knowledge test before we could vote, maybe you'd have a point . . .

Posted 4 years ago #
S J Roe

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OK maybe. Maybe they're really otherwise intelligent people who've made a really stupid decision.

They may not be thick in all ways, but in this they arebeing dumb.

Posted 4 years ago #
beau-jolly

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There are two people I know and respect who but who voted out. One is a vicar and the other is a female blacksmith.
The vicar is also a PhD astrophysicist and was a captain in the Paratroopers.
The Blacksmith is transgender and as a man was a private in the Paratroopers.
Both had moving arguments. Both were concerned about what could happen if culturally different countries were forced to come together as one (see Tito). Both were concerned that the goggle eyed looney could be replaced with something far more malevolent. (See Le Penn.) Both had witnessed piles of rotting corpses.
I voted to remain but my one crumb of hope is that both Geoff and Steff were right and there was a good longer term reason to leave.

Posted 4 years ago #
Al OPecia

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Just off to see my Mum and Dad (born in the 1920's). I hope they let me watch the football.

Posted 4 years ago #
Al OPecia

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I've been astounded at the level of anti-Leave bile I've seen and heard

Is any of it as dramatic as "Death to traitors - Put Britain First!"?

Posted 4 years ago #
deceangli

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Is any of it as dramatic as "Death to traitors - Put Britain First!"?

Nope - I missed that one.

I think the reason I'm so astounded is that I'm seeing people I know - nice people - turn bilious and unpleasant online. There's a genuine sense that anybody who voted Leave must be a knuckle-dragger. This isn't nutter politicians, it's neighbours and friends.

I voted Leave. It was a close call. I'd rather the cretin Cameron hadn't backed us into such a dumb corner. I don't read the Daily Mail, wear a string vest or watch old episodes of 'Love Thy Neighbour'.

If it was possible to rewind a few steps and start again, but with a proper negotiation, I'd be all for it.

Posted 4 years ago #
101010

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I spoke to my Dad about this a few weeks ago. He said he was voting out because black people were taking over things, they'd even got one as the mayor of London, they had all the money and the the EU somehow made this better for them.

Now, I appreciate that some people thought all the issues through and came to a decision that, though I disagree with, I can respect after a fashion. However, from the other side it does rather annoy me when people start talking about 'respecting people's legitimate concerns' when a good deal of it boils down to fiction of an extremely unpleasant order.

I agree with dec that assumptions shouldn't be made about people's reasoning, but when they're wrong it's cowardly not to tell them so. By the way, I told my Dad he was a racist, at which he gave a nasty laugh and said 'I always have been'.

Posted 4 years ago #
deceangli

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assumptions shouldn't be made about people's reasoning, but when they're wrong it's cowardly not to tell them so

Agree - but who knows the motivations of millions of voters? In the case of your Dad, maybe you can have a good go at it, but the rest of (half of) the country?

Posted 4 years ago #
Not Amused

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There has also been a lot of vitriol from people who voted out. See Jim Al Khalili's Twitter feed yesterday for example. Most of those examples I have seen seem to have equated leaving the EU with a new found ability to send lots of non Europeans 'home'.

But yes, both sides have overreacted to some degree.

Posted 4 years ago #
101010

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I'm taking a centre ground, 'on the other hand' position, dec. Think of me as the third Scouser.

Posted 4 years ago #
godly1966

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I like the comment "'So it was the old and the thick who dropped us in it." This implies I am young and clever so I completely agree.

Posted 4 years ago #
Dun Dunkin

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the naive believed the lies are now depressed and gone to sulk

given the level of debate on here that usually ended with name calling im not surprised the same people are stuck in that idiom. they all think they going to 'miss something' but are nebulous about what that is. These are people who cant even name their mep.

Posted 4 years ago #
Adrian Bamforth

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I keep hearing the argument that 'not all leavers are racist but all racists voted leave'. I'm completely baffled. It may be a bland, if uncorroborated statistical likelyhood, but I have absolutely no idea what point it is trying to make when directed at a someone considering the Leave option other than:

1: Try thinking less independently.

2. Perhaps you are actually a racist.

Posted 4 years ago #
Spartacus

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Old people voted to leave = they are selfish because they won't have to live with the consequences as long as younger people.

How about if leaving actually works out better in the long run? They will have to live through the short term turmoil, but won't be around to enjoy so much of the long term benefits.

So maybe an old person voting to leave is actually doing something selfless, not selfish.

Posted 4 years ago #
Adrian Bamforth

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The Referendum is like the Diana effect, when everyone projected their own grieving or concerns onto a largely inappropriate canvas, here, for some, their fear of the non-indigenous, their fear of fascism, their awkwardness around unfamiliar cultures, their political/tribal loyalties, their particular stream of patriotism. Undoubtedly, some players inside and outside the campaigns played on this effect. Both ways.

But here's the thing: I don't remember anyone in the Remain campaign saying, of even implying: "Look, leaving the EU would be a racist thing to do."

Posted 4 years ago #
101010

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The Referendum is like the Diana effect, when everyone projected their own grieving or concerns onto a largely inappropriate canvas, here, for some, their fear of the non-indigenous, their fear of fascism, their awkwardness around their political/tribal loyalties, their particular stream of patriotism. Undoubtedly, some players inside and outside the campaigns played on this effect. Both ways.

I don't think this is uncommon in UK politics. It reminds me of the last election where Labour refused to define themselves, so everyone defined them as what they most hated about Labour (profligate, Blairite, 'Ed Miliband looks like a twat', etc) and voted Tory.

Posted 4 years ago #
Gary Baldy

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Good point well made deceangli. Immediately assuming voting leave is synonymous to not wanting foreigners in the country is ignorant and, as you say, bigoted. The clincher has been immigration - places like Boston with high numbers of Eastern European people (source), and Doncaster with much anti-immigration sentiments voted strongly to leave - but if you re-ran the referendum with immigration removed entirely from the equation, I'm sure many would have still voted leave.

Posted 4 years ago #
deceangli

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Hi Gary - if our masters showed some nous and negotiated a stay-in deal without the free movement requirements, I suspect this would all settle down. It isn't as if we're all in awe of our homegrown politicians right now, so the much-trumpeted stuff about being 'ruled' from Brussels probably isn't significant

Posted 4 years ago #
Rootin Tootin

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Regarding the age demographics - how do they know? I put "aged 21" on my ballot, when in fact I am 42. Suckers.

Posted 4 years ago #
Titus

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the much-trumpeted stuff about being 'ruled' from Brussels probably isn't significant

Disagree. I don't give a stuff about immigration but I care like Hell about being ruled from Brussels.

Posted 4 years ago #
Oxbridge

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Maybe so, but immigration was unquestionably what swung it. Wherever that became the high profile issue, the polls swung back to Leave.

And why, of all the people and bodies that exercise any form of power in Britain, are you exclusively vexed about 'Brussels'? Because the EC is unelected. SFW? So are most people who have power. And it is subject to far more scrutiny by the European Parliament - which we voted for if we can be arsed to do so once every five years - than our whipped-in, party-governed Parliament does over the national government. Furthermore, if you really don't like foreigners exercising power in Britain, why not focus on the richest, most sinister and most powerful of them all: R. Murdoch esq. He has been ruling us by proxy for a generation.

'Brussels' is shorthand for 'I hate foreigners' as surely as 'Westminster' is for 'I hate the English' in the mouths of the SNP. I have more respect for the openly bigoted than the mealy-mouthed users of this baloney.

Posted 4 years ago #

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