so according to your logic, because the boy cries wolf, it means no wolf will ever come.
Sad!
Muslim immigration is one time the boy “crying wolf,” or in this case, person being against immigration of a certain group, is right.
Only sad to you, I do know that in the end there was a wolf, the lesson was not that the wolf was there but that the kid did lie to all the people in the town all those times before. And so it is with many of the current leaders that supported Brexit.
They also used lies to make bigotry grow. It does not take away the fact that there might be some that we should keep an eye for, but it does not take away the fact that most of the time the ones using bigotry did lie to the British people.
But what is true is that British voters didn’t consider it a top voting issue until recently. And so here we are.
If immigration should be unrestricted, then borders don’t really have much of a purpose.
But if we agree that immigration should be regulated in some way, then the national interest and the interest of the natives are very reasonable things to prioritize when deciding how to do it.
It is strange to me, knowing what many devout religious people think and read about homosexuality in the bible. There are liberal churches and conservative churches, but I am damn sure if we polled a thousand bible believers and a thousand atheists, you’d find more people hostile to gays in the bible believing group. Strange? I say it makes perfect sense.
Do I know if an individual devout christian is hostile to gays? No.
Do I have very good reason to believe an individual devout christian is more *likely *to be hostile to gays? Yes.
Should I use that increased likelihood to treat that individual differently before confirming we have some conflict? No.
Should I take that kind of increased likelihood into account when it comes to the importation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of such people into my country? Absolutely, because these are precisely the scales where group statistics matter most, this is not about individuals. This is about a move that can actually change the character of the host society for good or ill. This is exactly the kind of thing people who live in a host society ought to have some say in and concern over.
Again to bring in the Hated Israel, a country I am sure you all adore! Right of return. This is a demand for many Palestinians who pretend to care about two states as opposed to one state. Workable? Well, if Palestinians were like Kurds in their attitudes towards jews, maybe. IF they were like indians, maybe. But poll Palestinians, what are the statistical group attitudes towards jews? Now imagine allowing so many into the host nation that the Jewish population becomes a minority. What happens to those jews now? Sunshine and lollipops? Happy times? You don’t care? Crash and burn imperialist scum?
The point is that these things matter a great deal, the effects could be harmless, positive, or devastating.
Excellent post, Salvor.
Let’s recap, shall we?
[QUOTE=magellan01]
And I still can’t see how you seem to KNOW the motivations of the people who want to break with the EU. Why is it ugly racism and not the more palatable explanation that octopus offered?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Stanislaus]
If there’s something in there that suggests to you that I a) “KNOW” the motivations of people who want to break with the EU and b) “KNOW” that they’re racist, could you pull it out and quote it please? It will help me improve my communication skills if I can identify where the lack of clarity is.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=magellan01]
You needn’t look ant further than at your thread title.
[/QUOTE]
And to refresh your memory, here it is: “A vote for Brexit shouldn’t be a vote for bigotry, but it is.” (emphasis mine)
You asked what words you wrote gave me the impression that you were doing as I claimed. I quoted you mack your own words that clearly support what I accused of of doing. And now you want to blame me for you YOU wrote. :rolleyes:
Hey, heres an idea: How about you take responsibility for your own words? Or perhaps don’t ask questions when you might be unhappy with the answer.
Oh Gods. If you honestly interpret the words “A vote for Brexit shouldn’t be a vote for bigotry” as “Everyone voting for Brexit is racist” then conversation is going to be a struggle. If you ignore any clarification I offer so you can pretend I mean something I don’t, conversation is stymied. If you tell me you don’t feel the need to read the words I write, the conversation is over.
Claim victory and quit the field. And may the road rise to meet you.
On one hand we have your proclamations of moral reality. On the other we have political reality which has borders and armies to protect those borders and to keep the other out.
Ha! So you’re defense is to defend that “I never said EVERYONE was racist”. Well, chum, I never said you said EVERYONE was racist. Really, you could look it up. So nice Strawman you’ve created there.
Like I suggested, how about you start taking responsibility for what you write. And while you’re at it, dispense with the straw and offering defenses for argumements never made.
:whiny voice: “I never said EVERYONE.”
:rolleyes:
I don’t think you’re following your own argument here, still less mine.
Are you now saying that you interpret “A vote for Brexit shouldn’t be a vote for bigotry, but it is” as “I know for a fact that some unspecified proportion of votes for Brexit are a vote for bigotry and some aren’t?”. Because - although even a cursory reading of the OP would show that wasn’t remotely what I meant* - that is an interpretation I am quite happy to stand behind.
Hint: These are all explicitly - in fact, proudly - bigoted groups. So if you’re accusing me of thinking that some Brexit voters were bigots then - given that these bigots voted Brexit - you are, by some weird co-incidence, exactly right. Congratulations.
*I know you’ve got no intention of engaging with the OP, or any other posts I’ve made which might help clarify for you what I actually meant, so I mention this only in passing.
Here, for anyone else who’s interested, is why I did say a vote for Brexit would be taken as a vote for bigotry, despite the intentions of the voter:
I’m not cynical enough, because what I didn’t include in that was a rise in racial street harassment and violence. Whereas in fact:
[li]“This evening my daughter left work in Birmingham and saw group of lads corner a Muslim girl shouting “Get out, we voted leave”.”[/li][li]“In the aftermath of #Brexit, neighbours we’ve never spoken to before confront us with, “Do you even speak English?””[/li][li]“Last night a Sikh radiographer colleague of mine was told by a patient “shouldn’t you be on a plane back to Pakistan? we voted you out”[/li][/ul]”
[/quote]
That’s just some of the quotes - do click the link for the pictures and videos documenting this. Or follow #PostRefRacism on Twitter for live, up to the minute updates.
As a result of Brexit, bigots feel empowered in their bigotry. As if they thought that 52% of the country agreed with them. 52% don’t, of course. But the bigots think that. They believe that a vote for Brexit was a vote for their bigotry, and they’re acting in accordance with that belief.
Who knows what was on the mind of all the Brexit supporters? Some are already admitting they had no idea what they were voting for. Certainly some of the pro-Brexit campaigning was racist/xenophobic.
But, looking at the posting history of pro-Brexit Dopers, I’d have to say the bigotry factor can’t be ignored.
Oh, I’m fine with my argument. You’re the one having trouble. Trying to claim that what you wrote doesn’t mean what the words say.
No. There is no doubt that “some unspecified proportion of votes fr Brexit are a vote for for bigotry”. And, yes, some aren’t
My argument, which really shouldn’t be difficult to understand, as I quoted the part of your post that I found problematic, is that the summation of your whole post—found in the headline you created—assumes that that unspecified proportion of votes for Brexit that are IN FACT a vote for bigotry is so dominant (60%, 75%, 90%?) that your headline is a fair summation of the facts. It’s not. It’s only a fair summation IF you (as you seem happy to do) ascribe motivations to millions of people. On THAT I call bullshit.
You seem to have a hard time understanding words that are written and prefer to provide your own. Then you seem to get some perverse pleasure in assigning fault to others when 1) they take it at face value that you mean what you write, and 2) you substitute things they said for actual things they said.
Hint for YOU: That’s not the way it works.
More bullshit. Of course one can see that I actually did engage by asking you a question. Just because you didn’t like my question—and the answer, which is the headline of your post is true only in your own mind where you magically know the motivations of a solid majority of people that voted.
A vote for or against anything without any accompanying context is going to be interpreted by partisans of one view or another as “meaning” one thing or another. This is out of the control of the voter and inevitable. The best voters can do is understand this and weigh the potential consequences of their votes.
If you do this and vote accordingly, then you really shouldn’t give a damn about how someone else is going to characterize it.
BBC reporter racially abused today and there have been other incidents since the vote.
A collection of front pages from a couple of newspapers that fed the anti-migrant attitude.
I agree with that. The OP is showing his biases. Of course there are people who had racist reasons for voting for Brexit. But even with them, I’d bet the vast majority of them had other reasons as well. For some maybe it was 90 %, for others maybe 10%
And I’d say that there were also voted against Brexit for racist reasons, too. Those who want to put an end to a White majority as much as they can.
Is it your opinion that all concerns about migrants coming in in large numbers is racist? Or even racial?
No, I agree with the assessments others have put forward here. There was clearly a racist edge to the Leave campaign, though, and its repercussions are starting to be felt. Police have said hate crime reports had risen by more than 50 per cent between Thursday and Sunday compared with the same period four weeks ago.
Harriet Harman, former acting leader of the Labour Party, said: "“The leaders of the Brexit campaign have engendered an atmosphere where some people believe it is open season now for racism and xenophobia.”