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Crime and Punishment
- Thread starter Harv
- Start date
Well I don't think there is anything racist about questioning the logic of giving aid to a country so as they can spend it on nuclear weapons, a space programme or a brand new jag for its despot leader.
The clue surely is in the name "aid".
Anyway moving on perhaps you might have a view on the execution of the maid in Saudi, unless that's racist to discuss as well because it would be critical to another bunch of people's who are not white.
The clue surely is in the name "aid".
Anyway moving on perhaps you might have a view on the execution of the maid in Saudi, unless that's racist to discuss as well because it would be critical to another bunch of people's who are not white.
Pluk - So let me get this straight, you ask to move on. I agree to move on and then you continue on the subject but have the audacity to say that I exacerbate heated discussions? Maybe that's true but at least I'm not a hypocrite.
Also, your language lesson wasn't needed. You don't have to go round calling people nigger or paki to suggest something that has strong racist undertones. Most of the poorest countries are not countriess largely populated by white people, and yet this country is. If you care only for public spending in the UK but show contempt for giving aid to countries largely populated by people of ethic backgrounds that is not white, it does come across to me as racist. Why would someone care about the people in a rich largely white country more than a poor african or asian country?
You may disagree with me but that does not give you license to make me out as some kind of troublemaker.
Also, your language lesson wasn't needed. You don't have to go round calling people nigger or paki to suggest something that has strong racist undertones. Most of the poorest countries are not countriess largely populated by white people, and yet this country is. If you care only for public spending in the UK but show contempt for giving aid to countries largely populated by people of ethic backgrounds that is not white, it does come across to me as racist. Why would someone care about the people in a rich largely white country more than a poor african or asian country?
You may disagree with me but that does not give you license to make me out as some kind of troublemaker.
Nick
TS Member
Firstly, the article is very flawed with it's argument. Very flawed. There are at least three very general claims, and the argument is written aggressively and, although it's obvious, is very much completely biased. Not one point suggesting a benefit to the local police officers, therefore, the argument does not even consider the opposite side, a horrible flaw. Not a very convincing article at all.
On the idea that it's racist, this is hard to believe. Just because it mentioned some other countries- some of which we have been involved in conflict with- does that mean that it is racist? I mean, MP, you could say that the countries have nuclear weapons, but frankly, what about the other countries with these weapons. I'm much more concerned about North Korea, to be frank, and even Russia and China.
Think about it this way, if one of those countries alone attacks our country with a nuclear weapon, they would be destroyed. However, if, for example, China and Russia united (pretty much impossible, I know, due to their conflict in the past) then the danger would be much stronger, as the problems from the Cold War would re-emmerge again, causing tension and a much greater threat of mass destruction.
The article does not state or infer this. The argument says that the UK's spending on the police force could increase as a result of reducing aid given to other countries (although, the argument is so poor, making his conclusion difficult to find). The last line states "while maintaining £446m aid payments to a country which can afford to run a nuclear arsenal" and while I strongly disagree with the point entirely, it does make the argument not be racist, under the terms that he's given a reason for the reduction of the aid by suggesting that the governments have the money to provide aid themselves.
Of course this is complete crap, but there is some truth in it- ie. the governments of the countries are possibly corrupt and, sometimes, very rich.
This argument, MP, also is flawed by the use of emotive language, and quite large exaggerations- due to your opinion, that I fully respect and admire- that suggest your argument is fairly weak, as you have to use such weak points.
So basically, the argument is crap, but not racist, and the points that it makes are either completely false and rubbish, or aren't backed up by appropriate evidence.
On the idea that it's racist, this is hard to believe. Just because it mentioned some other countries- some of which we have been involved in conflict with- does that mean that it is racist? I mean, MP, you could say that the countries have nuclear weapons, but frankly, what about the other countries with these weapons. I'm much more concerned about North Korea, to be frank, and even Russia and China.
Think about it this way, if one of those countries alone attacks our country with a nuclear weapon, they would be destroyed. However, if, for example, China and Russia united (pretty much impossible, I know, due to their conflict in the past) then the danger would be much stronger, as the problems from the Cold War would re-emmerge again, causing tension and a much greater threat of mass destruction.
Meat Pie said:
The article does not state or infer this. The argument says that the UK's spending on the police force could increase as a result of reducing aid given to other countries (although, the argument is so poor, making his conclusion difficult to find). The last line states "while maintaining £446m aid payments to a country which can afford to run a nuclear arsenal" and while I strongly disagree with the point entirely, it does make the argument not be racist, under the terms that he's given a reason for the reduction of the aid by suggesting that the governments have the money to provide aid themselves.
Of course this is complete crap, but there is some truth in it- ie. the governments of the countries are possibly corrupt and, sometimes, very rich.
This argument, MP, also is flawed by the use of emotive language, and quite large exaggerations- due to your opinion, that I fully respect and admire- that suggest your argument is fairly weak, as you have to use such weak points.
So basically, the argument is crap, but not racist, and the points that it makes are either completely false and rubbish, or aren't backed up by appropriate evidence.
Plastic Person
TS Member
Never mind the super prison, I can't get over the revelation that Meat Pie is only 19. 
BigT said:
I'm unaware of the level of corruption you are claiming happens, and I would like some proof, but let's take it as true for the sake of argument. Surely you change how you spend the money on ais by giving the countries food, resources or sending over workers to work on clean water plumbing, rather than say "naww well its corrupt so we'll let the poor suffer."
And finally I ask you to think why despots are there in the first place. Could it be something to do with the US and UK offering their support to the regime as it is beneficial for our trade? The very least we can do is give the poor some aid when our government supports their dictators because we economically gain from them.
And of course I condemn the awful acts of the saudi government and indeed any country that does not adhere to human rights.
Meat Pie said:
I don't think many people will disagree with giving aid to the poor of any country as long as it doesn't end up in the hands of the despots but you and I know it does, you don't need proof for that just eyes.
What we shouldn't do is just throw money at them though, we should be using our influence to put pressure on the leaders of these country's to share some of the wealth.
Nick
TS Member
Meat Pie said:
Agreed, we should support these countries as not only does it benefit them, but also us- in terms of trading etc.
The bold bit is incorrect, considering our country does not support the dictatorship, but allows it to carry on, and to not get involved. With the war against Taliban, we got involved, and it hasn't given us any good at all, with open opposition to it, as well as deaths and injuries within the army- in addition to a lot of money spent. Hey, hey, here we go, and linking it back to the original article. The guy who wrote it was probably barking up the wrong end of the tree, but you can see, that the basic idea of the argument was fairly valid.
Meat Pie said:
The idea of giving aid, as seen above, is something in which I strongly agree with. However, as I'm sure you and Big T would know, that although there is some money in the government, it is no where near sufficient to support their country in the way that we do. Although, as they say in Tesco, "every little helps".
Anyway, I'd just like to thank MP for his arguments, because it is excellent practice for my critical thinking- in terms of fault finding- and although your arguments usually have some flaws in them, your intelligence makes them fairly difficult to find- so making it good practice. Your arguments would be much better and harder to defeat and argue against if they were more convincing, by which I mean removing crucial flaws- such as generalisations, exaggerating things and using emotive language (all of which have been used in the last few posts)- but your intellect allows for your arguments to be relatively convincing regardless. Yeah, so thanks for helping me pass my AS Critical Thinking,
pluk
TS Member
Well I tried to take this to PM to avoid total derailment but Meat Pie asked me to leave him alone, so I must clear this up here as frankly I feel like I've been called racist by proxy and I'm not having that.
So mild patriotism is now racist? This is the insanely large leap you have made. I would like what is good for my country, mostly because I am living here and paying tax for it to be run for me and all of us, so that means I hate all the blacks? Never mind that in this country, where I would prefer my money to be spent, are many millions of people from every ethnic and religious background possible, and I would love money to be spent on them if they are in need of it. Never mind that I would be just as disgusted if all that money was being sent to Canada, where I am quite sure there are many people living in poverty, just as there are here, even though they were mostly white.
Yours is a poorly formed, misguided and unreasonable opinion, and I won't be tarred with that brush. Racism is a defined thing. That is not racist.
Meat Pie said:
So mild patriotism is now racist? This is the insanely large leap you have made. I would like what is good for my country, mostly because I am living here and paying tax for it to be run for me and all of us, so that means I hate all the blacks? Never mind that in this country, where I would prefer my money to be spent, are many millions of people from every ethnic and religious background possible, and I would love money to be spent on them if they are in need of it. Never mind that I would be just as disgusted if all that money was being sent to Canada, where I am quite sure there are many people living in poverty, just as there are here, even though they were mostly white.
Yours is a poorly formed, misguided and unreasonable opinion, and I won't be tarred with that brush. Racism is a defined thing. That is not racist.
Feel free to post it, I would do so but I'm on an awkward phone that makes it hard to copy and paste.
EDIT: I worked it out.
This was particularly nasty and spitefull which upset me greatly. I know I'm not the most well liked on the forum and I know that I am fairly controversial, but I still have feelings and I don't like being called a troublemaker when I only ever want to talk with people and I don't like being personally attacked so harshly. You may not have said it to be nasty Pluk but it was. It was bullyish behaviour.
Attack my views? Go for it. Attack me? I don't get that. It genuinely upsets me.
EDIT: I worked it out.
Pluk said:
This was particularly nasty and spitefull which upset me greatly. I know I'm not the most well liked on the forum and I know that I am fairly controversial, but I still have feelings and I don't like being called a troublemaker when I only ever want to talk with people and I don't like being personally attacked so harshly. You may not have said it to be nasty Pluk but it was. It was bullyish behaviour.
Attack my views? Go for it. Attack me? I don't get that. It genuinely upsets me.
Plastic Person
TS Member
I think the fact that pretty much every racist I've ever known has had the opinion of foreign aid being an unnecessary waste probably hasn't helped matters. Particular blame goes to once-popular public racist and suspected peadophile Jim Davidson, who would regularly bang on about it once upon a time.
Meat Pie's assessment is much too extreme. I'm pretty progressive and fairly media savvy and the recieved tabloid opinions of the majority of people I work with are of no interest to me, either in terms of practice or preach, but even a blandly unpatriotic left winger like me would fail to see questioning foreign aid to dicator led countries as anything approaching outright racist, especially given the current economy and climate of muggy fear.
Meat Pie's assessment is much too extreme. I'm pretty progressive and fairly media savvy and the recieved tabloid opinions of the majority of people I work with are of no interest to me, either in terms of practice or preach, but even a blandly unpatriotic left winger like me would fail to see questioning foreign aid to dicator led countries as anything approaching outright racist, especially given the current economy and climate of muggy fear.
Nick
TS Member
pluk said:
Please don't say that. That is much, much more unreasonable than anything MP has posted. He has a right to post his opinion, and you either accept that or don't publicise it. If you had PM'ed MP, that is the right thing to do, but to make it public after seeing that he did not want to pursue the argument is definitely wrong, and goes against the forum rules.
There's a difference between going against an argument, and going against the person writing the argument, and your last paragraph falls into the latter. This does not get anyone on your side with the argument, but instead makes people think you just can't handle heated discussion maturely.
And also, in regard to the racism calls, I believe that MP was only referring to the writer of the original article, with opponents changing/not reading carefully enough to see that this was the case.
Meat Pie said:
Well, this is not entirely true, but I know that any aggressive/hurtful comments are not on anyway. For the record, I like you MP. I think your opinions are yours alone, and you can say what the hell you want on a Internet forum (within reason).
People really need to calm down and realise, why the hell does it matter when someone else has a differing opinion to your own. People are different, and bringing emotion into your argument just makes it less believable and more childish. Attacking someone also makes you look childish, and doesn't address the point of the argument at all.
Please guys, learn that others are entitled to say what they want, and don't have to listen to what you say. They're probably not going to change their mind from a Internet forum.
I'm going to stick up for Pluk a bit here because I believe he posted a perfectly reasonable article on the state of the mismanagement of the police force, a subject as a police officer he knows a lot about.
I don't agree with how it blames cuts in the service and think it could of being written better but one thing it certainly isn't is racist in the slightest.
But as is the way because of the way politicians, the BBC and left wing news papers shout down any discussion with a tag line be it racism, homophobic, xenophobia, bigot or the classic climate change denier, then the people that read or listen to them also think that it is ok to throw these labels around without thinking about what they actually mean because they would rather discredit the person rather than the argument.
The last labour government were particularly good at it because of that prat Alaster Campbell and unfortunately it is a trait picked up by the more argumentative youth of today, which is unfortunate as most of them could make a valid counter argument without having to resort to such tactics.
These labels are used too often on here for my liking and are far more hurtful (and very damaging to someone's reputation) than what has been said in the last few pages.
I don't agree with how it blames cuts in the service and think it could of being written better but one thing it certainly isn't is racist in the slightest.
But as is the way because of the way politicians, the BBC and left wing news papers shout down any discussion with a tag line be it racism, homophobic, xenophobia, bigot or the classic climate change denier, then the people that read or listen to them also think that it is ok to throw these labels around without thinking about what they actually mean because they would rather discredit the person rather than the argument.
The last labour government were particularly good at it because of that prat Alaster Campbell and unfortunately it is a trait picked up by the more argumentative youth of today, which is unfortunate as most of them could make a valid counter argument without having to resort to such tactics.
These labels are used too often on here for my liking and are far more hurtful (and very damaging to someone's reputation) than what has been said in the last few pages.
