UKH

"Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'... 1/8 

You wait for the next and the next. must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing - each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. 2/8 

You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' 3/8 

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. 4/8 

The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. 5/8 

But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. 6/8 

Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. 7/8 

You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father could never have imagined."
From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1933-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) 8/8 

From https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1185016612488765440.html

Thanks for that. It provoked me to try and find the whole piece it's taken from, and this section is available online here:

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

It's worth reading in full. Especially for the Dislikers...

Couldn't agree more. Very powerful and very apposite.

That’s the whole basis of life and evolution. Without first taking a small step, you never make the journey. 
 

The problem is there’s an element who resist all change, however small, they’re fearful. They never leave the house and never reach the top of the mountains. 
 

It’s all about vision and balance. 

It seems to me that it has ever been thus - the wilful resistance to learn, as that would mean conscious change, and it would appear that many people are afraid of that. 

I think you may have missed the point. 

I'm pretty sure the OP isn't talking of this element; rather of the majority, or at least substantial majority, who recognise the value of change but fail to act when they perceive particular changes to be negative.

Part of that vision is recognising where the direction of flow is heading, and the balance is providing opposition to small negative things before they collectively amount to big, negative things and have slipped through unopposed.

He's/it's talking about the imperceptible changes which can happen within a society, so that a group becomes less accepted and feels that.

Edit: Incidentally, recorded hate crimes against minorities went up after Boris Johnson spoke of 'the surrender bill' in the House Of Commons. I wouldn't (quite) have expected that, for people to be triggered in such a way. It's sobering.

Opposition to change is bad. 
 

Recognising when things have to change and being in control of that change is good. 

In a similar vein I read this recently - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Defying-Hitler-Memoir-Sebastian-Haffner/dp/1842126.... It's a memoir of someone growing up in Germany during the WW1 and pre-WW2 years. It makes for sobering reading to see how easy it is for a nation to be carried along into fascism and how warning signs were ignored and fears dismissed as alarmism.

Crap. Opposition to bad change is good.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand”

That’s certainly very topical!

I oppose anyone who wants to strip me of rights I currently enjoy, and do not think that is a bad thing.

The op hasn’t expanded on why he has posted about pre war Germany. It’s a bit of an odd subject to post about on a Friday afternoon. I assumed he was making a wider statement. 
 

No one else seems to have posted anything about Germany at all since. I’m a bit lost. 
 

Change happens, it’s inevitable. I thought we helped change the Germans to a democratic country at the end of the war. Simply opposing things mean they pop up in other places, you need to provide an alternative better solution for the people demanding change. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brexit-hate-crime-surrender-bil...

For the disliker.

No, he's convinced me!

I'm now pro Climate Change - how silly to oppose it!

If you can't see some worrying similarities between how the nazis came to power in the early 1930's and the way some prominent political leaders are behaving now I suggest you read up on that period.

It doesn't mean it's going to happen again but we should be aware how a seemingly democratic civilised society can turn into something very dark in a pretty short period if democracy isn't actively protected.

All references to Germany had, presumably deliberately, been left out of the extract I copied and linked to. Only the reference remained. This is because the whole point of the piece was to point out how easy it is for such major and damaging change to happen incrementally, without providing enough of a single crisis point to spark major objections, even though a great many people object to the overall outcome.

If you thought it was purely about pre-war Germany and saw no obvious wider message then perhaps you might consider why you so easily could dismiss it as being something that happened somewhere else and at some other time, and therefore of no great relevance to the here and now.

It seems most other people guessed that it was about the current climate in the UK (and wider) and you didn't do, which is fair enough. Forums can be odd places when most people catch the drift of something where it's gone unspoken in an explicit sense, and one hasn't caught the meaning.

The ignorance one sees everyday in GB (even in the media) about history is absolutely shocking. Our history after c. 1688 should be a compulsory. Plus classes on the British Constitution.

Then we wouldn't have a lot of this crap. If any.

I recall being shocked by tony Blair saying he didn’t know or care about history. I thought, how can you be an effective pm without that? And he showed us how he couldn’t. 

Whilst the basic sentiment is a good one, it is obviously politically skewed due to the “MAGA” reference in the link. The exact same could be said for the slow creep of a post-modern Marxism that is engulfing Western academia and has spread to other aspects of Western society. Unfortunately, extremist have risen on all sides due to the polarisation in the populace.

Divide and conquer?

As an aside, after reading the replies above, I find it amusing that there are so many closet conservatives lurking in UKC.

We're bringing back bear baiting and witch burning. These are changes that we are making. We're also making being DancingOnRock illegal.

Don't oppose it. Opposition to change is bad. 

So something that was published in 1955 is obviously politically skewed because the poster of the extract used a MAGA hashtag? What a weird interpretation! The poster may be biased In seeking to make some wider point but the quote is independent of that. If there’s a bias in the quote it’s against authoritarianism and fascism.

I also deliberately quoted the text without any references or opinion (except to quote the source) with the explicit intention of focusing attention on the content of the quote, its meaning and relevance. If people then choose to go looking for ways to discredit the message by seeking to discredit the messenger it says a lot about their willingness to be objective.

You've got to be joking about 'post-modern Marxism'. I don't see much evidence of it in the UK (Momentum doesn't seem to have much to do with it - more like some peculiar, rather commendable but sadly anachronistic form of socialism going back about 70 years, i.e. nothing to do with 'post-modernism'.) Perhaps in a few universities, but I suspect mostly happening, if at all, in Cambridge MA. In UK, the biggest threat I see at the moment is from the extreme right, with the ERG, Boris, etc etc etc.

PS. I.e. Let's concentrate on the real threat at the moment: the sudden extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK. It seems quite hard to believe that this can really be happening in our own gentle, rather moderate, country ... that has been through so much, with the experience of two hugely devastating world wars. It's as if this new disease/virus of parochial yobbism is numbing the collective braincells and eradicating all knowledge of history.

Much as I admire you and think you talk total sense 99% of the time, let’s just take a moment to pause and think about that whole “gentle, moderate” country thing again. We didn’t rule an empire by being gentle and moderate - we just exported our nastiness and inflicted it elsewhere. Or consider the experience of women and minorities even in recent years... 

and inflicted that nastiness on all but the ruling, landowning and merchant classes at home

When we talk about our great democracy let's remember that there were men and women that I knew personally who did not get the vote until 1918 even though they might have fought on or come home as invalids from WWII battlefields

And how exactly has this "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK" manifested itself?

I'm sure Hitler would have agreed with you.

Well, this is a very difficult and complex subject. While we certainly committed some appalling atrocities (e.g. the Amritsar massacre in India, and were highly repressive in the Orange Free State, inc. concentration camps), in many parts of the Empire our rule was benign and co-operative. Nigeria being one example. The D.O.'s (District Officers) and the Chiefs (Emirs) and their N.A.'s (Native Authorities) worked closely together - in fact, got rather bogged down in the concept of 'indirect rule' - so that we left on surprisingly good terms in 1960. 

In Boris's government: doing all he can to bypass and subvert parliamentary democracy. Many, even in his own party don't trust him. Thus we have the extraordinary development today of Letwin's amendment. Letwin of all people!!

While I'd recognise Boris as a likely sociopath, I'd have a hard time identifying him as a Neo-fascist, apart from not exhibiting any of the ideals of fascism, he just doesn't seem dedicated to any ideals beyond furthering himself.

If you mean that the Conservative party as a whole is Neo-fascist then I'm afraid that you've well and truly jumped the shark. I just can't see the likes of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart as potential stormtroopers of the new dawn.

So when you say "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK", what you actually mean is "unfortunately the Conservatives are still in government". And even there, its with an increasingly fragile majority.

If Brexit happens it will have been a coup of the right wing of the Conservative party and the even nastier Faragists. I fear that they will then win a good majority in a GE with Johnson as their cuddly but utterly unprincipled and downright dangerous puppet. We could be heading in a scary direction.

And I totally agree with you, but if you've already started characterising the disappearance of the BNP, the  irrelevance of Britain First, the implosion of ukip and the continued weakening of the Conservatives as the "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK", then where do you go if real fascists ever raise their heads? 

So what you’re saying is that the British propped up hereditary rulers (the Rees-Moggs of their societies), whilst the highly educated led independent movements - and this was benign? 

No, sorry, I don't characterise it as that. But what I do see with Brexit is a frightening mainstream move in a worrying direction of which the country should be very wary.

One of the 'ideals' that BJ doesn't seem at all dedicated to is the truth, truth being the first victim of any fascist regime. Neither does he seem very dedicated to democracy, as evidenced by his attempt to shut down parliament - another characteristically fascist tactic. Of course the likes of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart aren't fascists, because they opposed the very acts of this government that do smack of fascism. Rory Stewart, along with 20 other conservative MP's, were expelled from the party for their opposition, and that in itself has the whiff of fascism about it.

A political party with fascist tendencies first tries to gain power through lies and misinformation, then tries to eliminate its dissenters, then begins to dismantle the institutions of democracy so that there can be no further threat to its power. The Johnson government has displayed all of these tendencies, largely under the influence of Dominic Cummings.

The people of this country should be extremely concerned by these developments, but unfortunately they seem to be heavily influenced by right-wing rags like the Sun and the Mail. Instead of blaming parliament for frustrating Brexit, people should be fully supportive of the parliamentary scrutiny that mitigates the government's worst excesses.

None of which I take any issue with. But for the 4th iteration now, nothing that has occurred in this country can be accurately described as an "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK". I've already characterised Boris as a self-serving sociopath, does that indicate any complacency on my part?

I can't think of any life or death, or even vaguely perilous situation that I've been involved in, that would have been improved by employing a healthy dose of melodramatic language.

Neo-fascism is indeed too strong for mainstream politics still, thankfully. However something not much milder has become influential - undermining the judiciary, unlawfully proroguing Parliament, the language of the Banks, Farage etc, and the purging of political parties of all but the extremes willing to unflinching support strongmen leaders. 

I agree about the language point - bit unfortunately its present on all sides not just the baddies.

As Billy Hague famously said " where I come from we call a spade a spade, not Satan's flaming shovel" if we could all recall his wide words our national fabric would be much enriched

Since when has Corbyn been a strongman leader?

The Overton window has shifted so far leftwards that most of you think the Tories are the beginnings of the 4th Reich. They are in fact less right wing than the Tories of the eighties. They are what was once known as centrists. Even Trumps policies are no further right than Bill Clinton’s were.

Yet as soon as anyone suggests the left are a problem (Momentum, Antifa, Hope Note Hate, SPLC, ADL) some of you lose your shit. It is not the slow creep to the right that is the problem. The BNP and EDL are a minuscule minority with numbers in the low thousands at best. The left controls virtually all of the academia teaching future generations, a large part of the media (Grauniad, BBC, C4, CNN, MSNBC et al) and identity politics is running rife through our society. I see a concerted effort to tear down the fabric of the most successful civilisation in history, which is now often categorised as a oppressive white patriarchy. And it’s not Boris, Jacob, Nigel or even Donald who is doing it.

I'm sure you are right, dear. 

With a reply like that you prove the point contained within the OP.

Jo Cox a British MP was murdered by a fascist a couple of years ago and National Action were planning on murdering more, 10,000 were recently at a Tommeh protest last year the biggest far right rally since the 1970s and 40,000 right wing football idiots were Marching against Muslims. Hate crimes against minorities have gone up constantly and tons of death threats are normal for Labour MPs and other anti-brexit people. A man recently started smashing the windows in whilst of a Labour MPs surgery as workers cowered in a backroom. 

Two black soldiers forced out of the uk army by racism and spoke of it being normal to see nazi swastika flags on the walls of their barracks. Then we have other soldiers filmed shooting live bullets at a picture of the Labour leader. 

Ukips membership has risen from 18,000 to 26,000, Tommeh had 400,000 followers on twitter. That's a lot of people. 

Can you show me the proof of that please? I mean the head of BBC news was a good friend of Gideon Osborne and CNN are basically US government TV as is MSNBC when it comes to politics and none of that is on the left. The Guardian is Liberal as is C4. 

Like what? Or are you decrying that in favour of class politics? 

How is that fabric being tore down and what is that fabric? 

To the OP - Germans not noticing what the Nazis were doing is a fallacy I'm afraid as it was as clear as day from the very start filling Dachau death camp in 1933. Then the racist Nuremberg laws in 1935.Or kristalnacht in 1938.

Nope. I spotted the subtext which why I replied as I did. 
 

Timmd is the person who seems to think it’s about Nazis. 
 

I’ll continue to argue that things need to change in this country. Purely opposing this change will get no one anywhere. It hasn’t in three years. It will just further tear the country apart due to people’s fear and opposition of all change. 
 

Be the change and own it. That is how you change things for the good. I repeat all opposition to change is a bad thing. 

There's no suggestion in the OP quote that there weren't plenty of people who could see what was going on at the time. The message, to me it seemed clear at least, was that despite being aware of the harmful changes taking place around them, many people weren't doing anything about it because the changes were incremental, such that there never came a spark point to ignite major objection.

I think that what the original piece doesn't really identify is the way that the Nazis moved quite quickly and ruthlessly to suppress dissent - banning other parties, trade unions, introducing special courts, controlling the media and so on. So  the incremental failure to notice actually happened quite early on. In fact Hitler had most of the potential channels for dissent suppressed within seven or eight months of gaining power. The failure to notice and act was arguably before he came to power, when centrist parties didn't recognise the nature of the beast and formed a coalition with Hitler but failed to rein him in. 

The murderer of Jo Cox was first and foremost a complete nutter. Police described him as a friendless 52 year old, who'd never held down a job and never had a girlfriend.

National action. That'd be the group that at it's peak boasted between 60-80 members and was banned two years ago.

I can't find any reference to far right rallies with anything like these numbers. I did find reference to a 'free Tommy' rally in September that attracted 300-400 demonstrators. They were outnumbered 2 to 1 by protestors at a counter-demo.

All disgusting, but Farage was seemingly (and amusingly) being assaulted almost weekly prior to the EU elections and also is the regular target of death threats. Threats to Labour Party members opposing Corbyn and/or anti-semitism are also rife. It seems that the more polarised our country's politics become, the more emboldened become the dickheads.

Three decades ago I spent a fair bit of time in British army barracks, from Catterick to Paderborn, and I never saw a single nazi flag. Cant imagine things have changed that much and I certainly can't imagine that the racism has got worse since the 80's

Hardly evidence of Neo-fascist tendencies, I could well see several Labour MP's lining up for a crack.

No Ukip's membership has fallen from 45,000 to 26,000

That's a lot of imaginary people, he was banned from Twitter 18 months ago and in any case, a sizeable portion of those followers were very much anti-tommy. I know this cos his tweets were always getting quoted in the Guardian and on antifa websites.

Sorry, I remain completely unconvinced that we're seeing an "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK"

I'll repeat, you're full of crap.

Sorry does that exclude someone from being fascist? He shouted out Britain First! whilst stabbing her and was a campaigner for far right group of the same name. NA planned more murders of Labour MPs and yes were small in number but were emboldened enough to plan murdering politicians. 

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2018/06/09/big-numbers-violence-free-tommy-r...

And hate crimes for minorities have shot up continuously in fact they have doubled in England and Wales in the Last 5 years - 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/15/hate-crimes-double-england-...

As I said ukips membership has recently rose from 18,000 to 26,500. 

We are talking about a rise in the far right and you say you didn't see any swastika flags whilst in the army 30 years ago so don't see why it would be any different.So the two black guys forced out the army by racism were lying about swastika flags ?because you didn't see any 30 years ago. Come on I know you are famous for just writing down anything but that is not an argument. And you seriously think some Labour MPs would be on a firing range shooting at their leader, the leader of the opposition? And most of Tommeh's 400,000 twitter followers were antifa eh? Grasping at straws is what that's called innit. 😛

Tommeh had 1 million followers on Facebook and YouTube where, since starting his channel in December 2016 he has racked up nearly 24.5 million views with over 15,190,000 of those coming last year alone. He saw significant growth in 2018, starting with 61,000 he added over 208,000 new subscribers to his channel.

You mean you disagree? History backs me up. Change is inevitable I’m afraid. It always is, you can’t stop things from changing.

The thread title is “when you realise the tide has been coming in”

Have you heard the story of King Canute? He demonstrated that even a powerful king cannot halt the tide. And suggested only a fool would try to. Even to the point of sitting on his throne in the sea to show his subjects.

A tide of lies and divisiveness you mean? 

So in your view opposing climate change is a bad thing? 

Yes. Lots of divisiveness from both sides. 
 

All very sad. 
 

Image you have a democratic vote and one side decides they’re not going to listen to the outcome. Rather than working together to come to an arrangement that works for everyone they’re going to do anything they can to stop it. 
 

That would be a terrible way to behave normally. I’m not sure how you could explain it rationally to future generations. 

This is part of the current problem, only Tories were negotiating.
It should have been across ALL parties.

Opposing it? Yes. You can’t oppose it, it’s happening. What are you going to do. Stand on a glacier and tell it to stop melting?

You recognise it’s happening, there’s nothing you can do to stop it in its tracks so you make up a plan, a way to mitigate and reduce its effects. 
 

Glueing yourself to a train and shout about it, or get a job in research and come up with a solution. What’s going to be the best approach? 

I’m unsure of the exact history but did the parties offer? 

That nonsense and ridiculous. There is a huge amount that can be done and much which already has to oppose it. Your general point that change is inevitable is correct. Going from that to arguing all change is good and shouldn't be opposed is absurd. 

It's not that I disagree with you, it isn't a question of opinion, you're just wrong. Some change is good, some is bad, some change is inevitable and some can be prevented. I have heard of Canute, and I accept that we can't control tides, but to go from that to your view that exterminating Jews is an inevitable change like tides is, in my opinion, wrong (actually it's really, really, stupid). Why do you think that the change the Nazis wanted to bring about was/is inevitable?

I agree. Who has said all change is good?

What are you on about? 

You said "Opposition to change is bad". It was stupid to say it, and it's stupid to try and defend it.

Change is inevitable. Trying to oppose the inevitable is a waste of time and effort. 
 

The example of climate change is a prime example. Use your efforts to create solutions. 

Course it doesn't exclude him being a fascist. I would have thought being a nutter was a prerequisite. He's still not good evidence for an "extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK". Jo Cox was murdered over 3 years ago, her death was preceded by zero far right inspired political assassinations and we've seen no more since. The event was a horrible anomaly, much like the perpetrator.

In contrast, Germany in the inter-war years saw hundreds of right wing murders of politicians and government officials. Comparing the two countries in this regard only highlights how hugely different the relative situations actually are.

The article you've linked to offers no interpretation of who is committing these offences, it certainly doesn't mention fascists or Neo-fascists. 76% of these hate crimes were racist in nature and most of the racists I've met couldn't even spell neo-fascist. The article also offers no insight into why we're seeing this increase. Personally, I'd have thought Brexit has stirred up all sorts of unnecessary crap highlighting difference between nations, but according to the Home Office...

The Home Office said the increase in hate crime over the past five years is thought to have been driven by improvements in recording by police and a growing awareness of hate crime.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50054915

Whatever. Your example still doesn't evidence a rising tide of Neo-fascism.

OK, so in your previous example a rise over the last 5 years is a good time frame, but I can't highlight that the last 4 years has seen UKIP membership dropping from 45,000 to 26,000?

The awful experiences of two men doesn't evidence a rise in British Neo-fascism. 8 British squaddies shooting at the image of a man widely regarded within the army as an IRA sympathiser, doesn't evidence a rise in British Neo-fascism. 400,000 twitter followers of a gobby racist doesn't evidence a rise in British Neo-fascism. Not least because only 30% of tweets supporting the dick originate in the UK.

An analysis conducted for the Guardian by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that more than 40% of the tweets came from the US, 30% from the UK and other significant volumes from Canada, the Netherlands and nine other countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/07/tommy-robinson-global-suppo...

Again, those numbers look a lot less impressive when you realise they're global numbers. Unfortunately Tommy has a massive profile on the continent and especially in the states. Totting up worldwide figures and offering them up as evidence of a huge increase in Neo-fascism in the UK just doesn't wash.

That's a ridiculous statement. The position of today's Overton window would be considered hard right by Thatcher. Today we have privatised schools, parts of the NHS, and outsourcing of local government services to the private sector. Most of our essential infrastructure has been privatised (and sold to foreign governments like China which would have been considered treasonous in Thatchers day). Deregulation is seen as a virtuous goal rather than the stripping back of our protections. Corporation tax and the top rate of income tax are at historic low levels while wages and the welfare state have been slashed and local government has been destroyed in pursuit of the small state. The continuation of this right wing ideologically driven destruction of our economy, society, and democracy is considered the moderate position by today's "centrists".

Don’t confuse right wing with those economic policies. Theres only a connection between the people who support the two. They’re not the same thing. 

If Labour decided that actually having some special schools privately funded would be a good thing, would that make them right wing? Dianne Abbot and quite a few other MPs send their kids to private schools. I assume they’re right wing? 
 

The Beginnings

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
 When the English began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.

Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.

It was not suddenly bred,
 It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.

Rudyard Kipling

Donald is the man who withheld aid to Ukraine unless or until they gave him dirt on political rivals within his own country, Donald's treatment of Ukraine undermines the democratic and political fabric of the US.  He's essentially doing what you describe. 

You had one job: pick a couple of moderate conservative MPs who are actually still in the Conservative party rather than those it recently expelled for the crime of opposing its excesses. Neither will stand again for the Conservatives.

jk

In my opinion both sides have shifted apart. 
 

The division in this country is unsettling, not least because of the lack of any reasoning, it’s all being driven by emotion and the internet doesn’t help heal the divide. 

Ken Clarke has had the whip withdrawn, not been expelled from the party. He’s technically an independent but still a member of the Conservative party. 

The division that you find unsettling is actually merely change. Change is, apparently, inevitable and opposition to that change is a bad thing. 

Do you think that somehow rebuts the point I was making?

Neither of them are actually Conservative MPs because the Conservative party leader wouldn't tolerate their opposition. Neither can or will run for parliament again as Conservatives.

jk

Indeed. Not really sure how you’d even begin to oppose it. In fact quite the opposite if you’re trying to bring people together. Certainly you wouldn’t start off by opposing them. Would you? 

Well. It was simply an observation. Has he actually stated that? What if Boris was to go and the next PM invites him back? 
 

You’ve made quite a definitive statement there with not a lot to back it up. 

I’ll have to dig out my ‘complete verse’ - good poem but rather in Kipling’s general mode of English exceptionalism don’t you think? 
 

I do think there is rather a lot of catastrophizing about the current state of the nation.

Some change is good, some change is bad, some change is inevitable, but not all change is inevitable. That you fail to understand is unsurprising.

Ken's still a member of the Conservative party, Rory resigned 2 weeks ago. When picking examples to refute the claim that there's been a "sudden extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK" I didn't realise Gordon meant since a week last Tuesday. Sorry about that.

Edit: Oh, and while pedantry is all the rage, neither were expelled.

While it'd be a mistake to take our current PM entirely at his word that is the current situation; neither of the examples picked to illustrate the Conservative party's inherent reasonableness are, since they opposed Johnson and were sacked for it, actually Conservative MPs nor eligible to run for office as Conservatives.

jk

If NA were not exposed there would have been more murders by fascists of Labour MPs and it is telling that when an admittedly fascist person murders a British MP you say it was not because he was a fascist but because he was a nutter. It admirable that you defend an obvious lost soul but why defend the fascist ideology that drove him to murder a woman in cold blood? See this link-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/stories-44798649

Agreed but one thing they both have in common is both came after a collapse of capitalism where there was a rise in socialist currents in exposing the capitalists who created the collapse and how they have all the power. Then after the crash you see the capitalist class who own everything demonise immigrants, the poor and minorities in the media they own or bring to power parties who will to hide their economic crimes and continue unhindered as before. If you spread hate against minorities continously in the media then many ordinary people will begin to believe it then you have a ground swell of it that becomes normal. As always he who owns the power succeeds and you get a rise in the far right created by the media and their constant attacks on the poor, minorities, immigrants and socialists as those to blame and not the billionaire capitalist class. 

And why did we get brexit? You are correct as not all racists are fascists but it is the same tendency to hate those who are perceived as different/less than from you and want them kicked out the country or for it to be fine to violently abuse and persecute. 

Good link thanks but you don't state from your own link that - " these figures are still likely to only represent the tip of the iceberg " 

And

However, it added that there had been "short-term genuine rises in hate crime" following certain events such as the 2016 EU referendum and "part of the increase over the last year may reflect a real rise in hate crimes recorded by the police". + the home office are hardly going to say the figures are down to a worryingly massive rise in far right crimes when they can play it down and sweep it under the carpet. 

It shows that hate crime and violent assaults of minorities have doubled in England and Wales in the last 5 years. 

It went from 45 to 18 and now up to 29,000 as many left ukip when Farage did but now he has a new party that has 115,000 paying registered supporters. 

It shows a courage to openly drive black people from the army and openly show nazi flags in an army barracks for all to see. It shows how emboldened far right soldiers are happy to upload a video of them shooting at a leader of the opposition of the uk parliament which is unheard of in recent history. 

That's a good point you make but its still 120,000 British people. I'm sure you will admit that's a lot of people. 

The thread is about a series of small, individually tolerable steps on the road to something intolerable. Apparently to oppose the idea that this is happening you picked examples of reasonable Conservative MPs, alas the two you chose are not actually sitting as Conservatives nor eligible to stand for the party in the future after they were sacked for opposing their own out of control government.

Baffling really, you had nearly three hundred examples to cherry-pick from to make the case for complacency yet somehow you picked near perfect counter examples.

jk

Again. I don’t think anyone is saying all change is inevitable. Just that change is inevitable. Nothing stays the same. Ever. 

What happened with the French Revolution? 
 

You’re always going to end up with leaders. Look at all the failed communist societies. 

They are ideologically right wing economic policy choices, no doubt about that. However I do concede that in the context of this thread being about the dangers of fascism my post was a little out of context. I just felt I couldn't ignore the outright reversal of truth that was being claimed there.

Well that's my point, the Overton window has moved so far towards acceptance of ideological right wing dogma that a lot of Labour MP's are right wing in outlook.

Defending him? If someone on here described you as a nutter and a horrible anomaly, would you get a nice warm glow cos someone was defending you?

That whole paragraph is simply irrelevant. There's no equivalency between the UK and weimar Germany.

We got Brexit for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. The rise of British Neo-fascism isn't one of them.

Still nowt to do with Neo-fascism.

Yeah, if you're insane you can immediately conclude this is down to a "sudden extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK". Alternately, you'd see that UKIP membership peaked just before the referendum, fell off a cliff after the leave result and then started picking up membership after loads of people started getting upset cos we didn't leave. There's a simpler explanation for this than Neo-nazis under the bed....the vast majority of UKIP and Farage supporters just want out of the EU, they aren't out buying brown shirts while humming 'tomorrow belongs to me'.

If a handful of idiots posted a picture on Facebook with a Nazi flag, one had used racial slurs and somebody else had drawn a Hitler moustache and swastika on a photo of one of the soldiers. All unforgivably vile, but the fact that it was major news underlines how unusual this stuff is. 

Would you be happy taking an isolated news story about a small number of soldiers in any other country's armed forces and taking that as evidence about the entire nation's politics?

It shows how emboldened far right soldiers are happy to upload a video of them shooting at a leader of the opposition of the uk parliament which is unheard of in recent history. 

Jeremy's been shot at? Surely it would have been on the news?

That's a lot of people exhibiting anti-muslim sentiments. It's not evidence of Neo-fascists and given the numerous terrorist attacks, and rape gang scandals of the last decade, it's entirely unsurprising that  there are loads of idiots venting on social media.

I picked them as examples of Conservative party members, I didn't mention MPs. They sprung to mind as they're fairly reasonable as Torys go and have been in the news a lot.

Not that baffling really. I probably couldn't name more than ten tory MPs whose broad political affiliations I'm aware of, let alone 300 and I'm sorry, but apart from MPs, I couldn't confidently name a single Tory Party member.

Edit: also worth pointing out that as I've said repeatedly, my only issue on this thread has been the use of the phrase "sudden extraordinary upsurge of neo-Fascism in the UK". My feeling is that we've seen enough inflammatory language in recent political discourse. Piling on the hyperbole just isn't helpful.

But the quote in the OP is about the Nazis. The subtext is the parallel between what happened in 1930's Germany, in terms of tolerance of small increments of bad change, and what is happening now in Britain. So the premiss of the subtext is that the political change occurring in Britain now, undramatic as it may seem to some, is the sort of bad change that ought to worry us.

Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that people who oppose what the Johnson government is trying to do are simply afraid of, and opposed to, all change. Well that is utter nonsense. What they are opposed to, and quite possibly afraid of, is a very particular kind of change, which they see as very bad indeed. Similarly, there were many people in 1930's Germany - particularly Jewish people, of course - who were very afraid of the political changes that were occurring under the Nazis. As far as they were concerned, these were extremely bad changes. And as history shows, a large part of the rest of the world came to the same conclusion, and opposed those changes.

So there is no reason why the particular political changes occurring now in this country should not be opposed by those who passionately believe that these changes are bad. 

No. That’s what I said. There was a sub-text. It wasn’t just about Nazis. 
 

If you really believe that Boris Johnson is a Nazi and the next step for the UK is ethnic cleansing while whole sections of society sit back and watch, then you really don’t have much faith in the population of the UK. 
 

I think there’s a little bit too much hysteria going on. You have to wonder who is whipping all this division up and to what ends. 
 

Traditionally, as posted above, it’s the left wingers creating division and revolution. Don’t trust any of them. 

Then it's good that you have good old trustworthy Boris to rely on. No fear of him trying to flog you a reconditioned Brexit WA and passing it off as new! 

Very few people gave a toss about Europe five or so years ago. Now we have a divided country on Leave/Remain lines. Wonder who could have caused that?

Not sure what Boris has to do with not trusting the extreme left. What do you mean?

Some of it would be left wingers who saw it as a chance to have a good old pop at Dave.

Yes because if someone is deemed medically unfit mentally after committing a crime then it is seen as not entirely their fault as they couldn't help it where as the decision to be a fascist is. 

Is that it? That paragraph is factually correct and applies to both situations, obviously the times and circumstances of those situations are completely different. 

Brexit was the result of a collapse of capitalism then the economy and the subsequent demonisation by the capitalist class of immigrants who they blamed for this rather than themselves or their system. Just like the capitalists brought Hitler to power after the collapse of capitalism and blamed everything on Bolshevik Jews as un-German and un-Ayran who don't belong in Europe. 

The doubling of hate crimes in England and Wales in the last 5 years is a part of the same pattern. 

So you saying anyone who doesn't go with what you think is "insane", I think you have your head in the sand with fingers in ears going la la la.

The result of continually demonising immigrants by the British billionaire gutter press barons has resulted in the majority of people believing them and then they decide to put it into law and that is brexit. A far right concoction of deceit and division made law by a majority of people played by them into believing their lies and blaming the wrong people. 

So it doesn't matter if ukips membership peaked before they got their far right brexit dream or not or swelled again after Tommeh joined the fact is those people are there and the damage is done and British politics has now shifted to a place where we have a leader who says blacks have watermelon smiles and are picaninnies and death threats are normal after a pro-immigrant MP is murdered by a fascist and more were planned. And far right British soldiers are emboldened enough to put up a video of them shooting at a target that is another pro-immigrant MP/opposition leader. Do you not see a difference in this country? Or is it still head in the sand? 

I'm not saying they are Nazis but this whole anti-EU narrative is driven by immigration, making people scared of immigrants, blaming immigrants for an economic situation that had nothing to do with them. Its the same tactic used for over 100 years by the capitalist class and it works time and again, if its not Irish, its Jamaican or Polish or Jewish. And what do we get? Fear, sweeping xenophobia, division, hate crimes, persecution and far right laws. 

Which is the point I'm making. 

I'm looking at the whole picture not one isolated incident but that incident highlights how it is deemed acceptable now by some far right in the army to show them shooting at a target of another pro-immigrant MP after one was murdered. 

I'll give you that one,although it is still a part of the far right shift that has been taking place to demonise people who are foreign/different and interestingly highlighted a glaring contradiction in their pro-brexit anti-Muslim position since ironically brexit would be stopping more white Christian Europeans coming here and have kids. 

Jo Cox was not murdered by a "nutter", and attempts to describe Thomas Mair as such are abhorrent.

There was no evidence of mental illness, and overwhelming evidence of deliberate and carefully-planned intent, as Mr Justice Wilkie's sentencing remarks make absolutely clear:

"It is clear from your internet and other researches that your inspiration is not love of country or your fellow citizens, it is an admiration for Nazism, and similar anti-democratic white supremacist creeds where democracy and political persuasion are supplanted by violence towards and intimidation of opponents and those who, in whatever ways, are thought to be different and, for that reason, open to persecution. [...] I have to consider schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. There is no doubt that this murder was done for the purpose of advancing a political, racial and ideological cause namely that of violent white supremacism and exclusive nationalism most associated with Nazism and its modern forms. That is one of the indices of an offence of exceptionally high seriousness for which the appropriate starting point is a whole life term."

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/sentencing-remarks-r-v-...

There have been at least 38 prosecutions for far-right terrorism since Mair's sentencing in 2016. In the preceding 15 years, there were 19.

Nutter: If you refer to someone as a nutter, you mean that they are mad or that their behaviour is very strange (Collins English Dictionary)

Nutter: someone who is crazy, silly, or strange (Cambridge English dictionary)

A friendless 52 year old who'd never had a job, never had a girlfriend and had never left his childhood home, which he'd filled will Nazi memorabilia and far right literature. He chose as his target somebody that had led a completely blameless life, whose murder couldn't fail to provoke mass revulsion for the cause he sought to further. 

I think Mair fit the dictionary definition of nutter in multiple categories. Perhaps you have some other definition in mind?

From Wiki: Mair had mental health problems,

From the BBC: His brother Scott, 50, told reporters on Thursday that his brother had a "history of mental illness" but that "he has had help".

From the Guardian: Mair himself claimed to be in need of treatment for mental health problems. In 2010, while volunteering at a country park near his home, he suggested to an interviewer from the Huddersfield Examiner that he had previously received such treatment. “Many people who suffer from mental illness are socially isolated and disconnected from society,” he said.

From the independent: “Bearing in mind the name he has just given,” said Emma Arbuthnot, deputy chief magistrate of Westminster, as she entrusted the self-styled “Death To Traitors, Freedom to Britain” to Belmarsh, “he ought to be seen by a psychiatrist.”

Plenty of evidence of mental illness then. 

Having issues with mental illness does not preclude an offender from being found fit to stand trial.

People aren't saying history is repeating exactly, that Johnson or Farage is Hitler 2.0, just that under the right (wrong) conditions, conditions arguably prevailing again at the moment big changes in social norms can happen very fast and largely unopposed by the people and institutions we would expect to provide robust safeguards. 

The idea that the British population is fundamentally different to the German or any other that has fallen under the spell then boot of lunatics is exceptionalist nonsense. 

Jk

Yes, I know you said there was a subtext, but it wasn't clear what you thought that subtext was, other than Brexit as such. Your comment that all opposition to change is bad would, on the face of it, appear to apply as much to the rise of the Nazis as to Boris Johnson's efforts to "get Brexit done". If you don't mean that then you should make that explicit.

Nowhere have I said I believe BJ is a Nazi, but I do believe that many of the actions of his government are characteristic of fascism, which should serve as a warning. Since the Brexit vote perhaps I have lost a little faith in the population of England, but I blame the toxic influence of the right-wing press rather than the population itself.

I seem to remember it all began with Nigel Farage and his hysterical rantings and lies about the EU.

Not the slightest hint of hysteria in that, is there?

The agitation for Brexit was almost entirely from the Tory anti-Europe fanatics, the Tory press and UKIP. There was very little in the way of active left-wing agitation to leave the EU, and what there was had minimal influence. 

But all the same, it’s kinda easy to imagine that if Johnson/Farage/Rees-Mogg had found themselves in 1930’s Germany they’d be the ones writing the lists for the death squads, while being measured up for their new Hugo Boss uniform, rather than plotting how to stop the rise of National Socialism...  

I wish you the self-possession to accept that people can be both "nutters" and "fascists" without the need to pick sides.

Course it doesn't exclude him being a fascist. I would have thought being a nutter was a prerequisite. 

That was me, on this thread, two days ago.

You may have a point; though the sentence of life imprisonment rather than a hospital order suggests the court disagreed and held that any mental health issues were incidental to Mair’s offending.

and even if you did, please could you take more care in how you make it

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/news/inappropriate-language-adds-mental-hea...

Just because there was no organised left wing agitation doesn’t mean people weren’t voting against Cameron off the back of Austerity. 

I have noticed a trend in the news to describe detaining potential terrorists "under the mental health act". 

Maybe it has always been that way, but it seemed new to me.

It certainly seems more prevalent. Like 'stabbed in a targeted attack', the implication being if you're not a teenage gang member you shouldn't be too worried.

Some terrorist acts have been carried out by people with severe mental illness and assessment of their mental state was held to be important in determining criminal responsibility eg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leytonstone_tube_station_attack

though in this case the sentence was again to prison not hospital, so the mental health diagnosis was not held to have been directly responsible for the offence.

can you give me any other examples of where the MHA was used initially?

I would imagine that the decision on what basis to charge someone with wouldn’t be down to the random policeman who turns up at the scene but more down to influence from the patient’s family and doctor. 

The most recent one I can think of was the Manchester stabbings in the shopping center. It was reported as a possible terrorism offence and I think he was held under the mental health act.

As I said before though, this is just my own observation, and I can't really back it up...I was mentioning it to see if anyone else had noticed the same, or that I had got it wrong.

Depends. If the police had grounds to suspect the person had a mental disorder they can use Section 136 of the MHA to detain the person in order that an examination by two specialist doctors could take place. This would Normally be within 24 hours.

alternatively if arrested and remanded in custody, and then a mental disorder was suspected, a court can authorise transfer to a secure hospital for a period of some weeks to conduct a full assessment of mental health 

it’s not clear to me which of these applied in the cases above

There is a recognised problem of vulnerable people with mental health problems being targeted by extremists. May go some way to explaining it, but like you only have anecdotal evidence 

Voting against someone is hardly "whipping all this division up".

The tide may not be coming in yet, but there are plenty of people stupid enough to encourage it...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7591983/Tory-MPs-push-law-threaten...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/diplomats-accuse-no-10-putting-20660...

'The price of freedom...' etc...

It'd be easy enough to dismiss this as nonsense if it weren't coming from the ruling faction of the ruling party. As is it's chilling. Also somewhat ironic given the ERG's constant brexit wrecking efforts under May!

jk

Not to mention Daniel Kawczynski's efforts to get the Polish government to veto any extension. 

The people who voted against Cameron are not the people whipping up the division are they? It’s the entrenched remainers who are doing their best to stop any progress and in the process allowing more division to evolve. 
 

Don't be daft. Nobody wants to stop progress, where we are now is shit. Us 'entrenched remainers' mostly want to see the country make an informed democratic choice between deliverable and defined alternatives. Most of the ongoing parliamentary shenanigans is about maintaining ambiguity in order to hold together a coalition of supporters for an idea none of them could agree on were it actually defined.

Define it. Seek consent. Move on.

jk

Division is merely change. All opposition to change is a bad thing. Therefore opposing division is a bad thing. Be the change and embrace the division.

The deliverable and defined alternatives are not going to be defined for 10 years. And the longer this initial process goes on, the longer it will be before the real negotiations start and are completed. You ain’t seen nothing yet. 
 

It took Canada 9 years to negotiate all their trade deals. At least we are negotiating from a position that the trade we are doing already meets all the EU regulations. 

Nope. You still don’t understand it do you? 
 

Simply opposing change is a bad thing. It’s a waste of time unless you propose an alternative. How are you going to oppose division? 

They could be. It's a very deliberate choice to maintain ambiguity, brexit isn't one thing, its support crumbles the moment it's defined.

Yes but the whole fu*king point of brexit is that we apparently don't want to have to comply. By the time we come to sign anything in the mid-30s we will be not only deeply economically distressed and therefore vulnerable but no longer closely aligned either. Or we will be closely bound in which case what was the point all this pain and uncertainty?.

jk

I certainly don't. You're not explaining yourself very well assuming you have your own thinking straight.

The most obvious alternative to a change one opposes is to simply not change that thing.

One opposes division by seeking common ground on which compromise can be made and by addressing the root causes of that division.

jk

There’s the key word right there. Compromise.

Yes. What does brexit compromise look like?

jk

There isn't really anything to understand, you're spouting rubbish.

See, rubbish. The alternative is to not have the change. Some changes are inevitable, but not all changes are inevitable. 

You still won't understand this.

I'm sure you know this but this discussion won't get anywhere without looking at types of change - planned or emergent, episodic or continuous etc. - and contexts. Big generalisations are hopeless here. 

I know that. Statements like "all opposition to change is a bad thing" suggest that some people don't. 

One day you will be enlightened. Stay in your little world shut away from change until then if it makes you feel safe. 

There's a man drowning in a river, having jumped in without fully considering where he was heading or how to get there. Some are shouting to him to use what's left of his strength to make it back to the shore he jumped from. Others urge him to continue to try to make it to the other side, despite it being rumoured to be somewhat unhospitable.

A compromise position would be to try to swim directly upriver.

One day you might come to realise you've been typing drivel. Until then the Dunning-Kruger effect afflicts you.

It would really help if you were clear about what kinds of change you are talking about. All change is not good. Climate change? Habitat destruction? Species extinction? Do you really think that it's a bad idea not to oppose these things, or try and change them? I'm sure you could add many more things like this yourself, both natural and man-made.

I have read some nonsense in the course of this debate from both sides, but that is pretty close to taking the biscuit.  I was under the impression that you are scientifically trained from previous discussions.  It appears that I was wrong.

Could you consult your crystal ball that says we will be deeply economically distressed by the 2030s and let me know who wins the European Cup that year please.  I just had a look in a crystal ball in the local toy shop, and it reported that the UK will invent a viable fusion reaction in 2026.  There seems to be a disagreement.

You were, I'm not.

What I can see with or without my crystal ball is at least one clear and apparently now unblockable route to a very hard brexit with the significant probability that degenerates within 18 months to no-deal. Even the better of those two options is forecast to cause us very significant economic harm, the worse on a par with the 2008 crash from which we have barely recovered a decade on. Being self inflicted that will be constitutionally and socially corrosive jeopardising our well being, security and our domestic union. Under those circumstances there is no guarantee at all we'll even have the governmental resources and stability necessary to effectively pursue new trade arrangements.

I'm afraid I don't know the first thing about football.

We already have a viable fusion reactor in JET. It was an EU (EC) project and while it has had a stay of execution it still looks to be threatened by brexit.

jk

Which part? The part that I don’t actually appreciate how clever I am, or the part where I’m arguing with someone who thinks they’re clever than they are?

Nobody has said all change is good, only that opposition to change is bad. 
 

Someone is putting words into my mouth.
 

Maybe posters should think about that statement and what it means before dismissing what I’m saying or claiming that they’re more intelligent than they are. They don’t appear to be. 

If the guy wants to cross the river and has simply been misguided and jumped in, it would be better to work with him and build a bridge that helps everyone. Standing on the bank and screaming you’ll drown doesn’t help anyone. 

Am I missing some bit of context from earlier in the thread or are you specifically saying, "opposition to change is bad" and mean it in all contexts? If I were to seek to change your status from alive to dead, I'm struggling to see you not accepting any opposition to that status change as good.

He doesn't want to cross the river per se, only to jump off the bank. That's what he said anyway. Now he's struggling to find a landing spot on the other side that isn't fraught with hardship and danger.

Now he's identified a possible landing spot but it looks awful. We could start building a bridge to help him get there but that will take much longer than 3 days.

We're proposing to throw him a lifevest so he has plenty of time to look into landing options, but then to offer to help pull him back onto the shore if it turns out that none of them are as promising as he'd been led to believe. His choice.

You made a statement early on in this thread that missed the point of the OP completely. This was pointed out to you a couple of times but you appear to have not taken heed. Since then, it appears some of those naughty people have been ever do slightly taking the pee out of you.

Although we could erect a bridge at immense time and cost to allow access to a barren and worthless island, wouldn't it be better to stop him jumping in the river in the first place?

Once he's jumped in, going in after him and drowning yourself in the process is incredibly stupid.

What does brexit compromise (your bridge) look like?

jk

Nobody put any words into your mouth. - 'opposition to change is bad' has the implication that all change is good.

No. The OP was using a subtext that I deliberately ignored. That should be obvious if you read the following posts. 

No it doesn’t. 
 

My dog is black. All dogs are black? 

It’s the opposition that’s bad, not the change. 

Nobody knows. Because nobody has actually asked or sat down and talked about it. 3 years of each side making assumptions about the other and telling each other they’re lying, and when they don’t get their way calling each other names. 
 

Pathetic way to behave. No one gets anything done apart from creating more division. 

That’s not what has happened is it. 
That’s your fear of what’s going to happen. Your fear of change. You can’t actually see what’s on the other side of the river, and you can’t see any landing spots. In fact you don’t want to see the other side and you have no interest in creating safe landing spots. All you can see is some raging river that you don’t want to cross or step into. 

I'm asking what you think it is.

I can't see one that exists anymore. There were options but one by one they've been deliberately eroded by radicalising brexit voters, making brexit about identity not tangible deliverables of popular benefit.

jk

You're going to have to actually explain rather than simply re-stating the idea that opposing any and all change is bad because as is it sounds idiotic.

Let's explore an example to help me understand where you're coming from: I propose adding broken glass to all food. Would your opposition to that be 'bad' and if so, why?

jk

Au contraire, I think the analogy is quite accurate up to this point. But much of the rest of your post is actually quite accurate. You're right that we can't see what's on the other side but, as stated, there are very good reasons to believe it's fairly inhospitable compared to our side of the river. And you're right again that I have no interest in creating a safe landing spot for precisely the same reason. The raging river that I don't want to cross or step into offers no attraction that would merit the risk of either drowning or being marooned on a relatively inhospitable bank.

It isn't the fear of change or fear of the unknown that's stopping be from diving in; it's a well justified expectation that I'd regret it if I were to do so. Show me a land where there's more milk and honey than we have already, convince me it's a credible goal, and I'd be only too happy to swim to it.

The dog example is irrelevant. You can't separate opposition and change in this sentence. That would mean you think opposition itself is bad, which seems ridiculous.

What colour is the glass?

More importantly has the glass been washed in chlorine?

Perhaps you should think a bit more about your own statement and what it means?

People aren't so much putting words in your mouth as responding to the logical implications of your assertions, which you seem unable to see for yourself. People cannot know what you mean independently of the sentences that you type.

Any competent user of the English language will take "all opposition to change is bad" to mean, formally, "all opposition to all change is bad". If someone says "swans are black", competent users of the language will take that to be a generalisation about swans - that all swans are black - and they would be right to regard that as a false statement (because some swans are white).

Now if by "all opposition to change is bad" you don't mean "all opposition to all change is bad", then, given that this is what competent users of the language will take you to mean, you need to amend your formulation such that its quantification indicates what you do mean. For example, you could say "all opposition to some change is bad", or better, "all opposition to certain types of change is bad".

But because you refuse to amend your assertion, people naturally assume you are applying universal quantification to the domain of change as well as to that of opposition. When, in the light of this, people also assume that you believe all change is good, they're actually being charitable to you, since they don't really think you are so weirdly callous as to believe that it is wrong to oppose even a bad change that is avoidable. But because you have now made it clear that you at least haven't said that all change is good, it appears that you at least might believe it is wrong to oppose change even if the change at issue is both avoidable and catastrophic. What kind of person would believe such a thing?

Of course different people have different opinions about what sort of changes are good or bad. From some of your other comments on this thread, I'm sure you would regard a socialist revolution as a very bad change? But according to your dictum that "all opposition to change is bad" (as it would ordinarily be understood), it would be wrong for you or anyone else oppose a socialist revolution.

My suspicion, based on the sum of your comments and responses on this thread, is that what you really believe is that no one should oppose Boris Johnson's efforts to implement his Brexit deal, and that everyone should oppose a socialist revolution. But if that is the case, why not just say so, instead of hiding your true beliefs behind all that ambiguous, misleading obscurantist nonsense dressed up as some kind of superior enlightenment? And if that is not the case, then you should at least make some effort to explain what you do mean (assuming you yourself know what you mean), instead of continually repeating the same empty assertions.

Thanks. Fair points but it is still people making assumptions to something I haven’t implied or written.

It is the opposition that is bad. Irrespective of whether the change is all encompassing or good, or bad. Change will happen, it’s inevitable and whether it is good or bad is always dependent on the individual’s point of view. 
 

In a situation where some people think the change is good and some think it’s bad, opposition is even worse, it’s pointless and a waste of time and always bad. 
 

Hence it is the opposition that is bad, the type of change, amount of change, and circumstances are completely irrelevant. 

Someone displaying your level of fatalism really shouldn't be rock climbing.

To use jkarran's example from above (that you've ignored), he's proposing adding broken glass to all food, i think we can agree that's a change and most of us would probably think it a bad change. So please explain how opposing the change of adding broken glass to food is bad.

Things do always change but we can often choose what those things are and how they change. The idea that opposing all change is bad seems utterly nonsensical.

Say I were to try to push you off a pavement into the path of traffic would it be bad to oppose that change or is it just inevitable?

I really don't understand whether you've boxed yourself into a really really stupid corner here or you're trying to make some point nobody else agrees with about fatalism.

After a bump on the head at the xmas party the PM has a radical new plan, everyone in Britain is to be subject to strict sharia law as of Jan 1st 2020...

All opposition to change is bad, right.

jk

Hard right and hard severe is a not impossible combination.

Indeed. You can affect how those things change. 
Why do you think Sharia Law is a bad thing? It works well for billions of people. 

Yes. And I’ll continue to ignore it. It’s a facile point. Thanks. 

I've no idea what you're saying yes to, it makes as little sense as the rest of your verbiage. But you're welcome anyway.

Thanks for explaining. Looking through all your posts as well as this one, it appears that your position is as follows (correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Opposition to all and any change - i.e. change as such, irrespective of its nature or value - is bad.

2. Change is inevitable.

3. Not all change is inevitable.

4. Not all change is good.

I'm going to do my best to make sense of your overall position.

Firstly, 2 and 3 seem to be contradictory, but I think the contradiction is only apparent, provided 2 is understood as meaning that it is inevitable that everything changes in some way through the passage of time. Since time is defined as the dimension of change, the fact that time passes implies that change occurs (if no change occurred, no time would pass). But the fact that everything inevitably changes in some way or ways does not imply that all the ways in which it is possible for things to change are inevitable. So 2 and 3 are not contradictory. 

4 is clearly true, so 2, 3 and 4 are not problematic in themselves or in combination with each other. So far so good! The problems are with 1, both in itself and in combination with 3 and 4 (but not with 2).

You rightly point out that trying to oppose the inevitable is a waste of time and effort, and given that change is inevitable, it would appear that opposing change is a waste of time and effort. But not all the ways in which it is possible for things to change are inevitable (otherwise 2 & 3 would be contradictory). As human beings we have the ability both to change some things in certain ways, that otherwise would not change in the same way, and to prevent the same sort of changes. Some changes that we make we can even reverse if we so choose (I can decide to hang a picture on my wall, then decide I don't like it and take it down again). So even though it is true that trying to oppose the inevitable is a waste of time and effort, it is not the case that opposing all change is a waste of time and effort since, as 3 rightly states, not all change is inevitable.

So this leaves us with the problematic question of why, as you state in 1, all opposition to change is bad. If the reason that the opposition to change is bad is that it is a waste of time and effort because change is inevitable, then that reason is removed by 3 (not all change is inevitable). Whenever a change is not inevitable there is no reason (that you provide) why opposing it is bad. As you state in 4, not all change is good. So if a bad change is happening and it is reversible, why would it be bad to reverse it?

Not always the case. It might be worth delaying the inevitable if to do so buys some time which allows more options to open up. If your ship is going down and rescue is two hours away better to man those pumps and try and stay afloat as long as you can.

This is my favourite post this year.

How change is brought about is important especially for those involved and at the point of change.

it is perfectly reasonable to oppose how change is brought about if you are going to be hurt by agents of change , That doesn’t mean you fundamentally oppose change.

Or make them a nutter. 

Lighten up Timmd. It’s a minority that have never had mental health issues of one sort or another, and I’m definitely in the majority.

I am lightened up, I just thought it was worth 'giving the internet a gentle reminder'. If you've had mental health issues, like myself, it's a sentiment you'd probably agree with. I wasn't having a pop, text doesn't convey tone of voice.

What do you think of the '1 in 4' statistic which mental health charities like Mind refer to?

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems...

The above being asked in a neutral tone....

You got two truly revolting Dislikes there. HTF do some people's minds work?

It's probably closer to a guess than a fact. If you took the American Psychological Association's varied definitions of mental health disorders, you could probably up that stat from 1 in 4, to 9 in 10.