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There is a stunning amount of intolerant comments in this thread about a position that adopts a sharing caring love in with Europe as being the correct answer
How about sharing & caring for your relative/friend/neighbour first? Life's challenge is not to love those who love you but more, to love those who you don't like...
You can’t educate nor argue with them, they’re just ingrained in their own self importance.
Pot, kettle, black.
But why should you despise someone who has a different opinion?
Because all opinions are not equal. It's not like "tolerating" your mate supporting City when you're a United fan.
If someone is of the opinion that "all the ****s should **** off back where they came from" or "all the faggots should die of AIDS," are these opinions that should be respected and we should simply just agree to disagree?
Why do the left believe everyone should think the same?
They don't. Next question?
OP,
I’m getting to the point of struggling to remain civil with acquaintances/colleagues and the odd friend, because the politics of today is revealing the worst in people.
Are you saying that your colleagues, who are as qualified as you are at doing their jobs probably same rank/level whatever, are illogical? 😆
I am surrounded by remainers at work which is opposite to your case but I never discuss politics with them.
If someone is of the opinion that “all the ****s should **** off back where they came from” or “all the faggots should die of AIDS,” are these opinions that should be respected and we should simply just agree to disagree?
How often do you actually meet people with views like that ? I kow hundreds of people and even if some thought that they'd never exprese those opinions publicly. Your just using extreme examples to try and illustrate your point. The topic is friendship and politics, I can't belive anyone on here would be friends in the first place with someone who though "all faggots should die of aids" How about someone who voted leave because the believed rightly or wrongly their kids couldn't get into the local primary because it was over subscribed due to imigrants from the EU ? Are they scum as well.
Are you saying that your colleagues, who are as qualified as you are at doing their jobs probably same rank/level whatever, are illogical?
Yes....”They could gang up on the UK and pass a law we didn’t vote for”
“I don’t want people I haven’t elected making my laws”
“Can you give any examples of an EU law being enforced that our MEPs didn’t vote for?”
......silence.....
“What will you do if people in Scotland and Cornwall enforce a law on you in Yorksire”
....silence....
This is from someone whose job involves risk management.....
why listen to the same old narrow minded arguments.
You can’t educate nor argue with them, they’re just ingrained in their own self importance.
Art.
Because all opinions are not equal. It’s not like “tolerating” your mate supporting City when you’re a United fan.
If someone is of the opinion that “all the ****s should **** off back where they came from” or “all the faggots should die of AIDS,” are these opinions that should be respected and we should simply just agree to disagree?
They are not comparable examples. As you well know.
Wanting to leave a trading bloc does not equate to holding those kind of extreme views.
But as you ask- no, I wouldn’t disassociate myself with someone who said those things. It would knock the shine off for sure but it wouldn’t necessarily undermine all the other good things about them.
I certainly wouldn’t tie personal anger management issues and feelings of despair in to the fact that some old codger who I share a beer with in the pub is stuck in the 1950’s.
In fact, I’d enjoy robustly challenging them on their unacceptable views and trying to make them a better human being. That’s what a functioning society should be capable of doing.
They don’t. Next question?
They do consistently on a huge range of topics. It’s not enough for them to hold a view point and rigorously defend it in good humour. No- they have to vilify their opponents and stamp their feet to try and make everyone think and act like them.
I guess when you rely on the herd for safety, nobody wants to stand next to the black sheep 😉
It’s also a bit of a Nazi trait- “ themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements.” Again leading to irony overdrive 🤣
I totally sympathise with the op. When you come to realise that family and friends who previously seemed pretty average are actually racists, xenophobes or just incredibly selfish it isn't really a case of sucking it up.
My dad is quite happy for us to crash out with no deal because he simply hates Europeans. No explanation is given. He simply couldn't wait to vote out and seems delighted at the possibility of the worst possible outcome. I do my best to stay off the subject but he seems to revel in the fact that his 2 children, one of whom is married to a "foreigner", voted to remain and loves to bring the subject up.
My inlaws, 2 of the best grandparents you could imagine, are froth at the mouth leavers, again with very little explanation as to why. I won't touch the subject with them now.
I've got friends who voted leave. I've never spoken with them about it. I just don't want to know their reasons.
Just by saying 'They' and meaning all of those people shows intolerance, just like all the racists and homophobes.
I'm as staunch a remainer as the next lefty snowflake.... but even I know that not all brexiteers are racist. If you think 'they' are you're letting the right wing wackos like Farage win!
It's very easy to de-friend people with whom you disagree on political matters. I think this is slightly dangerous, as you end up in your own little bubble where everyone agrees and nothing is challenged.
My business partner and I have opposite views on Brexit, but we respect each other's standpoint. I admit that this would be harder for me if his stance was based on xenophobia or suchlike, but it isn't.
JP
How often do you actually meet people with views like that ?
Not very often at all, not least because I disassociated myself from people like that decades ago. It absolutely does happen though, racism especially, and this nonsense has drawn them out of the woodwork and empowered them. I can give you a few examples if you think I'm making this up.
Your just using extreme examples to try and illustrate your point.
Correct. Did it work, or am I still in the "intolerant" camp?
How about someone who voted leave because the believed rightly or wrongly their kids couldn’t get into the local primary because it was over subscribed due to imigrants from the EU ? Are they scum as well.
If they believed it "rightly or wrongly" and steadfastly refuse to revise their opinion when it's later demonstrated that it was, in fact, "wrongly," then they're probably heading in that direction. I wouldn't go as far as to say "scum," though that's your choice of words not mine.
I left the country.
So did I. Funnily enough, this self important, 'why can't the world be more like us' attitude isn't peculiar to the English xenophobes. It's just that the English xenophobes tend to bring up things like WW2 and 'was colonialism really such a bad thing?' so it's more obvious.
Most other countries have a significant minority (and sometimes a majority) of the population who are just aching to kick out all the foreigners and go back to living in some decades old rose tinted fantasy.
Wanting to leave a trading bloc does not equate to holding those kind of extreme views.
"Wanting to leave a trading block" isn't really cited as a reason all that often, is it.
Anyway, that wasn't the point. Rather, a few posters were saying we shouldn't fall out with people because of their opinions and it's "intolerant" if you do, I was just trying to poke a hole in that notion.
But as you ask- no, I wouldn’t disassociate myself with someone who said those things. It would knock the shine off for sure but it wouldn’t necessarily undermine all the other good things about them.
Then that would be a convenient example of a perfectly fine "opinion" for us to agree to differ on. Because if one of my friends came out with something as abhorrent as that to my face then I'd never speak to them again.
steadfastly refuse to revise their opinion when it’s later demonstrated that it was, in fact, “wrongly,” then they’re probably heading in that direction.
But if their friends it wouldn't matter, you just shrug your shoulders and agree to disagree. Thats how most people get through the day. Intense political discussions that lead to fractured relationships aren't all that common, in my experience anyway. It's probably on here that I experience the most strident of opinions, and that's largly due to the anonymity offered by the internet.
Then that would be a convenient example of a perfectly fine “opinion” for us to agree to differ on. Because if one of my friends came out with something as abhorrent as that to my face then I’d never speak to them again.
It sounds like you act with the same zeal in real life as you do when closing threads on this forum. I guess at least you're consistent.
JP
You either learn to live with people who have different political views than you or you do the other.
Just have a war. Like on here but bigger.
I've lost my two bike mates from my office - they've moved to another office - we can't bore people to death talking bikes and crashing/injuries. Fortunately, politics aren't discussed in work, everyone is sick of it. My mates don't discuss it either.
I don't have a problem with Brexiteers per se. I might have a problem with someone who voted Brexit to kick out the foreigners or some other racist reason, but I'm good friends with a Brexiteer who genuinely feels it will enable us to make more equitable trade deals with developing nations.
@Jp Nice one 🤣
It’s like many of these faux controversial TV progs where someone spends a day or a week with a ‘trump supporter’ or a ‘fox hunter’ or a ‘ghastly rich tory’. I bet they seem terribly risqué at the production meeting amongst a likeminded bunch of freshly graduated urban woke-warriors.
Turns out after one awkward conversation, the rest of the stay passes in dull non-controversy where they eat together, laugh together, cry together, bond and form a ‘surprising’ relationship.
Turns out in real life, people are much greater than the sum of their Twitter bio’s!
But if their friends it wouldn’t matter, you just shrug your shoulders and agree to disagree. Thats how most people get through the day.
Except, someone clinging to racist / ignorant views despite clear evidence to the contrary probably has many other character "qualities" which would mean that if not exactly "falling out" with them per se would probably mean that I wouldn't be overly inclined to spend much time with them.
I have no shortage of friends, I don't need to put up with that sort of nonsense. So I don't. Life's too short.
It sounds like you act with the same zeal in real life as you do when closing threads on this forum. I guess at least you’re consistent.
Classy.
I spent years of my life putting up with people who were variously toxic just because they were "friends." My life has been improved no end by me cutting them out of it.
I don't have this problem as everyone I work with or socialise with voted remain.
This is not traditional left or right politics I'd much rather spend time with a moderate Tory than a delusional Corbynista. In fact I'm married to one and her political views have never been an issue between us.
The reason why Brexit is so divisive compared to normal politics is that there is an assumption by remainers that many of those that voted leave are xenophobes, racist, little Englanders who don't care about the damage that leaving the EU is doing and will do to our economy. I'm sure that this isn't true as there are definitely other reasons why some people voted leave but there's a bit guilt by association.
You can share the same views as Bill Cash, Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove, Arran Banks, Morrissey, Toby Young, Katie Hopkins, Tim Matin, Julia Hartley-Brewer, the whole of the BNP and Britain First and my racist great Uncle John or you could decide that maybe I support the other side
I'm going back to my bubble of well-educated colleagues and echo-chamber Remainer friends.
there is an assumption by remainers that many of those that voted leave are xenophobes, racist, little Englanders who don’t care about the damage that leaving the EU is doing and will do to our economy.
But many of them demonstrably are.
The important thing though is to remember that, equally, many of them are not.
that there is an assumption by remainers that many of those that voted leave are xenophobes, racist, little Englanders who don’t care about the damage that leaving the EU is doing and will do to our economy
No, my assumption is that they are pigshit thick morons. With one exception.....
The only valid reason for voting Brexit is a last ditch protest vote against the ever increasing Londonisation of the country and the prevailing view amongst the powers that be that anything north or west of Reading is basically just there to collect drinking water for the capital. People who have very little and voted Brexit in the full knowledge that even that little will soon be taken away from them after Brexit. They voted Brexit as a last ditch attempt to get the SE government to take notice and give a shit about them. they know they will be ****ed by Brexit, but they are ****ed anyway.... What do they have to lose...
That, I can understand. Any other "reason" for voting Brexit is utter bollox.
Apart from hedge fund managers and others who stand to gain by ****ing over their fellow countrymen.
Guess who's just had a bottle of wine..
TBH, I spent a year in apartheid era South Africa as a teenager. I won’t claim to be a paragon of political correctness but I’ve a minority of acquaintances who seem to think that it’s okay to mock non-whites and who conflate FOM with terrorists who apparently want to blow things up.
Actually, I privately refer to them as “c***s” mainly because they are.
I guess then it comes down to proxy reasons why someone would passionately want to exit the world’s largest trading bloc. It’s funny, you can never get a fact checked explanation for it. I wonder why?
Accusations of racism and xenophobia are thrown at Leavers too easily, I agree.
Harder to argue against the charges of ignorance (often wilful), susceptibility to propaganda and general bloody-mindedness though.
I’m good friends with a Brexiteer who genuinely feels it will enable us to make more equitable trade deals with developing nations.
This comes under susceptibility to propaganda, I assume.
who genuinely feels it will enable us to make more equitable trade deals with developing nations.
That’s fine as long as it’s backed up by some data/analysis. I.e. what industries will suffer from a more distant EU relationship and which ones will benefit from trading with ehich markets they were unable to before? By how much? Is there a net benefit not just economically but over all the other things we get by being part of the EU thst we will now have to pay to do ourselves?
Part of my frustration is that just “feeling/believing” isn’t good enough for something that affects the country’s short and long term future significantly.
an assumption by remainers that many of those that voted leave are xenophobes, racist, little Englanders who don’t care about the damage that leaving the EU is doing and will do to our economy.
In my experience this is a proven assumption in SOME cases.
Me “Is there anything that would persuade you that Brexit isn’t worth it?”
“I don’t want foreigners voting on my laws bloke”: “Not really”.
Then you have all the “We didn’t vote for a deal, get out now people, on local as well as national social media”. The book (Factfulness) I’m reading now however warns me against assuming that this is representative without more data.
warns me against assuming that this is representative without more data.
I've long held that with any demographic it's the shouty minority which give the rest a bad name. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that the vast majority of brown people with beards aren't Islamic terrorists.
I’ve long held that with any demographic it’s the shouty minority which give the rest a bad name. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that the vast majority of brown people with beards aren’t Islamic terrorists.
Yet the reporting of isolated examples still leads people to believe that the EU (which is “them”, not “us”) make all our laws, constrain us from trading with the rest of the world and flood us with immigrant criminals who get a council house, benefits and free healthcare the day they arrive, prioritised over British people.
And in isolation, it's easy to understand how people might think that if their only source of news is the Daily Express. What grinds my gears is when presented with the truth, backed up with easily verifiable evidence, people double-down rather than going "oh, I didn't realise."
Like, there are many many things I'm ignorant of. I've made statements on this very forum over the years without stopping to check properly, been corrected by more knowledgeable people, then kicked myself and gone, "sorry, every day's a school day, I should've researched better before posting."
I think many of the shouty leave people on the Internet simply want to believe it.
I’m pretty sure, for instance, that the vast majority of brown people with beards aren’t Islamic terrorists.
Well I'm absolutely certain that Mr Farooq (Muslim, big beard) the consultant surgeon who looked after Mrs Egf during a bowel cancer 'episode' Isn't a terrorist otherwise he'd have popped her off shirley?
Anyway, this is just turning into another Brexit/EU, are you in or out thread.
Sort it out mods FFS.
It’s the dawning realisation that the general population are, on the whole, deeply unpleasant people.
It's all about openness. A lot of us on here, no matter whether we are right or left wing are more open to new experiences than the general population. Most of my friends are what I would call mercenary and adventurous, we don't have much loyalty to anyone or anything and we tend to view morality as relative. I have for example, an innate ability to fit in and connect to people no matter what country I am in, I am completely confident that if I was given a few grand and told to start a new life in Japan, I could - however because of this, I am biased and expect others to be like myself.
The vast majority of the population are not as adventurous or as open and are morally authoritarian. In a different era we would have been sailors or naval officers depending on our class, with women in various ports and the rest of the population would have never have been to the next town let alone abroad.
They aren't like us and they never will be, it's best just to ignore them and get on with forging a new world, time won't stop for them.
How about sharing & caring for your relative/friend/neighbour first? Life’s challenge is not to love those who love you but more, to love those who you don’t like…
Is this some sort of variation on "charity starts at home"? Why the **** do I owe anything to a relative or neighbor> over people I connect with?
Anyway, this is just turning into another Brexit/EU, are you in or out thread.
Sort it out mods FFS.
Fair comment. I'll stop now, <mod> back on topic please people. </mod>
Brexiteers are some of the most unpleasant people living.
You can’t educate nor argue with them, they’re just ingrained in their own self importance.
Any other “reason” for voting Brexit is utter bollox.
life is too short to spend it in the company of arseholes.
Tell them their stupid
Well I don’t think I’d lose sleep if I lost you lot as friends so jog on IMHO. 🙄
I've got friends and family on both sides of the fence, and it's made not one bit of difference to our relationships. Maybe it's the fact that my career NEEDS me to ask questions, try and understand thinking and rationale and then use the classic "pace pace lead" to create change in attitude, so I'm used to not trying to tell someone they are "wrong" but rather, understand the motivations, fears (it's usually fear that drives all behaviours) etc that make them feel how they do. I definitely don't see all the Leave voters as bigots, racists or idiots - and even if I did, I'd not say it as that's never going to sway hearts and minds.
As for misinformation - watch The Great Hack to understand how these exceptional marketing campaigns understand the desires, fears, behaviours and more that drive a demographic - and how the campaigners know how to manipulate that to unbelievably effective levels. I work with data led marketing and recently saw the Cambridge Analytica pitch deck - it's frankly terrifying, and explains how these modern methods of hight advanced propaganda work. I genuinely urge every single remain voter to watch The Great Hack if they haven't already - it'll change your view of Brexit voters and Trump voters when you realise they are not the bigots it's easy to pigeonhole them as, but an audience who have been massively manipulated.
I envy you and Brexit, we have HK and China, at least you get a chance to discuss it freely and to vote on it.
Good point stewartc.
We need to appreciate what we have
But surely giving it up for no good reason is the last thing we should do.
Is this some sort of variation on “charity starts at home”? Why the **** do I owe anything to a relative or neighbor> over people I connect with?
You seem to be implying an aggressive stance to those who don’t conform to your view? Even if (by social norms) you should have a close relationship with them?
Are you sure your ‘connectors’ are as aligned with you as you think? Will they stand with you in the storms of life more than your family?
You have to understand where your friends come from and why they are shaped that way.
I don't begrudge friends strong opinions as much as strangers for obvious reasons.
I find talking politics with Brexit people difficult not because of different opinions when it is a point of opinion. The problem arises where key arguments push forward by the leave campaign are stated then you present evidence to prove those arguments wrong then the counter argument comes "well that's my opinion". It is no longer a point of opinion I have just presented evidence to the opposite, it's now a lie and evidence to the contrary. This is the frustration it's like arguing with a child with cake on their face, an empty plate of cake who keep claiming they didn't eat the cake, it is treating me like an idiot to try and present an argument in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Difference in opinion is fine. Blindly ignoring evidence is not.
The problem arises where key arguments push forward by the leave campaign are stated then you present evidence to prove those arguments wrong then the counter argument comes “well that’s my opinion”.
Exactly this! Had the same conversation with my Mrs (a nurse) this morning.
She says “They’ve got their opinions and you’ve got yours”
“It’s not to do with opinions, it’s to do with ignoring facts and just saying my opinion is different”
“Well people interpret facts in different ways”
“Which is different from choosing to ignore facts. How about if their “opinion” was anti-vaxxer?”
She kind of got my point then, I think....
Theres a lot of "your refusal to tolerate my (or others) intolerance makes you intolerant" on this thread.
There are subjects you can have different opinions on and still respect other peoples opinions.
There are subjects where other peoples opinions make no sense to you at all, but recognise that theres room for other people see things differently.
There are subjects that should lead to people being social pariahs.
Its just a matter of where you draw the lines.
With regard to the "line drawing", opinions vary, but its worth listening to what Obama said recently about call out culture in the U.S. - https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1189555651531476994
And bearing that in mind; I've followed @RemainerNow and @Femi_Sorry for a while now on the twidder and seen them convince more people through respectful discussion than any amount of shouting.