tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post5061065460368531997..comments2024-03-29T07:14:55.029+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Ain't I a Lefty?Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-27842238875121691192015-03-20T15:31:42.687+00:002015-03-20T15:31:42.687+00:00I'd like you to explain to me why I experience...I'd like you to explain to me why I experience cognitive dissonance here - my "Left" values have never changed, yet it seems that those of the people around me have. <br /><br />I am a secular socialist who sees class/ power as basically what it is all about, equality for all and religion as the opium of the masses (which is not to say I am an atheist). <br /><br />I stick pretty consistently to these values I inculcated during the Eighties. Yet I am often dismissed as a right winger by people who in my opinion are right wingers themselves - or at east supporting the bourgeois agenda. <br /><br />I'm not trolling when I say I'd appreciate an explanation - "has the world changed, or have I?"Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-42104398727613421772015-03-18T17:22:10.791+00:002015-03-18T17:22:10.791+00:00“Surely though the point is not to carry on with d...“Surely though the point is not to carry on with doubts but to take the trouble to investigate the issues further. I know it's a rarity in politics generally, but I usually find it helpful to get to know a subject matter before pronouncing on it”<br /><br />The problem with this is that the accusation is the lefty perception of gender pay is based on inadequate data and inadequate assumptions, and inadequate models, so the lefties didn’t take the trouble to investigate the issue properly and other lefty’s leap onto gender pay issues, proclaim it as a fact, without bothering to question how the assumptions were arrived at.<br /><br />I see a trend among the left where they have stopped critically analysing things, stopped questioning and simply become ideologues.<br /><br />This is a shame because lefties could once upon a time be relied upon to at least, on occasions, care about the truth. Now the truth is a thing to be manipulated.<br /><br />I consider myself firmly on the left and have severe reservations about the gender pay issue and how it is constructed. I think the data is being made to fit the message and not the other way round. At best, it requires some serious investigation, so yes, someone needs to do that.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-49881190560976779402015-03-18T11:32:02.204+00:002015-03-18T11:32:02.204+00:00I'm surprised you bothered. The title of Lott&...I'm surprised you bothered. The title of Lott's article was enough to indicate that this was just the same tired old tripe that Nick Cohen has been pushing since it all went tits-up in Iraq.<br /><br />Sure enough, Lott then proceeds to hold up Cohen, Christopher Hitchens, David Aaronovich, Julie Burchill and Julie Bindel as victims "for daring to voice opinions of their own that do not fit the overarching narrative". It seems to have escaped his notice that these are (like him) powerful people with extensive media access.<br /><br />This is just standard Guardian crocodile tears: the grand traditions of the left have been undermined by gobby women, ethnics and anti-liberals who would deny free speech to me and my sensitive, thoughtful mates. <br /><br />Tim Lott is no more of the "left" than Vince Cable, and insisting that he'd abolish public schools (which just means removing their tax-breaks because anything else would be illiberal, right?) doesn't constitute a "concern for social justice" so much as the smug preening of a middle-class Londoner who managed to get his kid into "a mainstream church school that has a high level of discipline and work ethic" (<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/25/the-competitive-spirit-and-school-sports-days" rel="nofollow">link</a>).David Timoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.com