Please Sir - I want some more.

[patman post]

Needless to say I completely disagree. I have always believed that no-one should be looked down on unless it is to lift them up. That is why I am a Conservative. I believe in giving opportunity to rise but Labour only downgrades to drive everyone down to the lowest common denominator. I believe that those unable should have every help possible and that those of us who can should help to the best of our ability. What I find disturbing is that those in Labour who feel themselves need help turn around to the guy worse off and feel it is someone else's job rather than theirs.

That's also why I have been a Conservative supporter from my late teenage. Before that I was probably influenced by my parents and other elders who were/are more Left in their views — though I don't remember any of them being virulently political.

I think my conversion came about when I became aware of the discussion about equal pay for men and women on the same grades in teaching. I remember a union rep suggesting male teachers deserved higher salary because they were likely to get married and have a family to support, whereas a female was likely to leave and stay home to raise children when she married.

That's when I realised "Reactionary" was an adjective that could used to describe the Left as often as the Right.

Since then I've noticed how "progressive" politics often means raiding the earnings, savings, and possessions of the top levels to make the gap from the bottom strata appear less wide.

My support is for the main Tory ideal of striving to provide equal opportunity for all — even nurturing those who may need assistance to get those opportunities — but I do not support full-blown Socialism's destruction of independence of the individual and replacing it with state imposition of its one version of what's best on the masses...

[T00ts]

But when it comes to governments giving taxpayers' money, what in practice tends to happen is that people are taxed according to their ability to pay, and some of those monies are then used to help those in most need.

It is the good society where those who can afford to contribute do so, so that those most in need of help get it.

Your distaste for that actually envisages a dystopia - which you mistake for a utopia - in which the least well off suffer much higher levels of poverty and destitution so that the better off can pay a bit less in tax. Greed and selfishness writ large, disguised as an ideology.

Needless to say I completely disagree. I have always believed that no-one should be looked down on unless it is to lift them up. That is why I am a Conservative. I believe in giving opportunity to rise but Labour only downgrades to drive everyone down to the lowest common denominator. I believe that those unable should have every help possible and that those of us who can should help to the best of our ability. What I find disturbing is that those in Labour who feel themselves need help turn around to the guy worse off and feel it is someone else's job rather than theirs.

[srb7677]

I am beginning to lose patience with the constant demands that the Government gives more. The Government as we all know doesn't have any more money without taxing us greater and greater amounts. Yet in the same breath there are constant complaints about those who are termed rich.

But when it comes to governments giving taxpayers' money, what in practice tends to happen is that people are taxed according to their ability to pay, and some of those monies are then used to help those in most need.

It is the good society where those who can afford to contribute do so, so that those most in need of help get it.

Your distaste for that actually envisages a dystopia - which you mistake for a utopia - in which the least well off suffer much higher levels of poverty and destitution so that the better off can pay a bit less in tax. Greed and selfishness writ large, disguised as an ideology.

[T00ts]

Long silences work the best on me.
3 years is the record.

You poor thing! They say silence is golden! 

[Baff]

Well the good Lord knew well enough just what it would take to keep the male in line! 

Long silences work the best on me.
3 years is the record. 

[T00ts]

"How is it that you have always got time to go to the pub or the bookie's, but when I want something done.......?"

I have said it before and I will say it again, damn good idea women and the good Lord knew what he was about when he invented them, but they do go on

Well the good Lord knew well enough just what it would take to keep the male in line!  

[Borchester]

You sound like Mrs Dawg

"How is it that you have always got time to go to the pub or the bookie's, but when I want something done.......?"

I have said it before and I will say it again, damn good idea women and the good Lord knew what he was about when he invented them, but they do go on

[DeppityDawg]

It is always nice to see DD and he is wrong.

You sound like Mrs Dawg 

[Borchester]

Thank goodness not everyone is work shy!   It may be that AI will take many or all jobs, time will tell, but I doubt it will bring mankind to a happy Utopia.

People are as happy as they want to be. In the first few centuries AD, Christian mystics would go off to desert regions and torture themselves in no end of imaginative ways, convinced that it would bring them closer to God. I am sure that they were tickled pink.

As I know I have said before, I have seen men come out of the engine room crying. No because they were hurt, but because they were so bloody tired. How that is a good thing I don't know, but I am sure that someone will soon tell me.

About three quarters of what we do is makie work and the other quarter could be easily trimmed

[T00ts]

I've said dozens of times in the past, that it isn't Putin or China that you should worry about, its the extremist liberals in our own western governments that will destroy our society. Whether you consider that killing us with kindness or naivety, it makes little difference. In order to get elected, political parties of the right or left increasingly refuse to face the realities, and instead roll over and bribe/buy their electorates with ever more permissive and destructive policies. That these policies cost billions or even trillions and are completely unsustainable is ignored. The only goal is to get elected again. In the end, if people like Justin Trudeau had their way, even getting elected will be done away with.

And there is your problem. It hasn't changed over the centuries, it just evolves. Greed and power. I know I might sound like the forums resident conspiracy theorist here, but the global elitists at the WEF coming up with slogans like "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" sounds about as dystopian as it gets. They just haven't added the bit about having opinions that they don't approve of just yet, but its coming

I've had to cogitate on this post a while and I am really sad that you are probably right more than wrong. Power and greed have been the major motivations throughout millennia  and I can see no way to correct it except... and that's where my faith comes into play. 

[T00ts]

It is always nice to see DD and he is wrong.

The problem is that Deppity is a born NCO. An idle soldier is an unhappy soldier and left to himself he would get us to to put an APC on our shoulders and run round the parade ground with it. Or paint the grass green. Or anything rather than sit about doing nothing. Unfortunately, we are entering an age of leisure and doing nothing is something we will have to get used too. There is absolutely no reason why we should all run around like blue bummed flies, except that we feel uncomfortable if we don't.

I hope that you will excuse me. I would like to stay and chat, but I have to put up three sheets of 2.4 m x 1.2 m plasterboard in Madam's workshop. It will be, as I have explained to Herself, a long cack handed job but (as I have no intention of actually telling her) is something I am rather looking forwars to doing.

Thank goodness not everyone is work shy!   It may be that AI will take many or all jobs, time will tell, but I doubt it will bring mankind to a happy Utopia.

[Borchester]

Nice to see you DD and a very valid comment.

It is always nice to see DD and he is wrong.

The problem is that Deppity is a born NCO. An idle soldier is an unhappy soldier and left to himself he would get us to to put an APC on our shoulders and run round the parade ground with it. Or paint the grass green. Or anything rather than sit about doing nothing. Unfortunately, we are entering an age of leisure and doing nothing is something we will have to get used too. There is absolutely no reason why we should all run around like blue bummed flies, except that we feel uncomfortable if we don't.

I hope that you will excuse me. I would like to stay and chat, but I have to put up three sheets of 2.4 m x 1.2 m plasterboard in Madam's workshop. It will be, as I have explained to Herself, a long cack handed job but (as I have no intention of actually telling her) is something I am rather looking forwars to doing.

[DeppityDawg]

Nice to see you DD and a very valid comment. I seem to remember how appalled you were when the lockdown happened. For me of course becoming housebound was pretty essential  to life and in the early days when no-one really knew what to do I guess those in charge thought they were doing their best. Now of course it seems the whole world is on some crazy ride that doesn't yet seem to have an end.

I guess for me to make sense of it is rather pointless but I enjoy the challenge, but from where I sit there is no obvious leader that looks capable of taking the country forward or even able to reach a standstill point. The worry being that the void leaves room for a real nut to jump in.

Every man is worthy of his hire and cheap labour is a thing of the past. We need to grasp that concept and understand that any profit is better than none or worse. The constant cry for increased growth will eventually implode society altogether.

I've said dozens of times in the past, that it isn't Putin or China that you should worry about, its the extremist liberals in our own western governments that will destroy our society. Whether you consider that killing us with kindness or naivety, it makes little difference. In order to get elected, political parties of the right or left increasingly refuse to face the realities, and instead roll over and bribe/buy their electorates with ever more permissive and destructive policies. That these policies cost billions or even trillions and are completely unsustainable is ignored. The only goal is to get elected again. In the end, if people like Justin Trudeau had their way, even getting elected will be done away with.

And there is your problem. It hasn't changed over the centuries, it just evolves. Greed and power. I know I might sound like the forums resident conspiracy theorist here, but the global elitists at the WEF coming up with slogans like "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" sounds about as dystopian as it gets. They just haven't added the bit about having opinions that they don't approve of just yet, but its coming

[cromwell]

Completely close down whole national economies for months on end, so that the supply chain grinds to a halt from which it can't easily be restarted, while at the same time imprisoning whole populations in their homes and allowing what stockpiles exist to run down to dangerous levels. Do this multiple times, in a "rinse and repeat" fashion, so that shortages of everything become a virtual certainty

Also at the same time, reduce interest rates to virtually zero while dishing out Stimulus cheques and "furlough", also known as "free money", while bailing out business, many of which don't actually exist. Throw in a few "mates rates" deals for the supply of PPE and other "essentials" worth billions of taxpayers money - AKA debt.

Allow oil prices to increase to over $100 a barrel, then simmer the whole lot over a modest heat for 18 months to 2 years. Once inflation starts to accelerate, look the other way and do nothing for months on end. Add an invasion of Ukraine, an 8 fold increase in energy prices, and a badly advised visit to Taiwan by a clueless pensioner posing as a serious politician.

What could possibly go wrong?

Sorry Toots. You're wasting your time trying to make sense of it all. We now live in a "clowns car" world of global politics, where "green" governments close nuclear power stations whilst at the same time having close to zero reserves of natural gas, and the western media is more concerned with "pronouns" and misgendering, than in reporting farmers protests at the lunacy of trying to reduce fertiliser usage in the west at the same time that T72 tanks are ploughing up what remains of the wheat crop on the Steppes?

I've lived on this world for 60 years and I've seen a sh*t load of crazy things. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to the spectacles created by the utter imbeciles currently running the planet

Hello and good to see you back.

[Sheepy]

Nice to see you DD and a very valid comment. I seem to remember how appalled you were when the lockdown happened. For me of course becoming housebound was pretty essential  to life and in the early days when no-one really knew what to do I guess those in charge thought they were doing their best. Now of course it seems the whole world is on some crazy ride that doesn't yet seem to have an end.

I guess for me to make sense of it is rather pointless but I enjoy the challenge, but from where I sit there is no obvious leader that looks capable of taking the country forward or even able to reach a standstill point. The worry being that the void leaves room for a real nut to jump in.

Every man is worthy of his hire and cheap labour is a thing of the past. We need to grasp that concept and understand that any profit is better than none or worse. The constant cry for increased growth will eventually implode society altogether.

Well, that's torn it Toots apparently one of your lot has said there will be mass of people not paying energy bills this winter, who would have thunk it? You cannot take what people don't have, surprise, surprise.