EXIT NEGOTIATIONS

[Pannonian]

Will you forgive me if I say this comes across as very Chicken Little?

If we want independent self government then we can damn well have it. :)

I'm assuming that, even if whole industries move out of the UK, citing supply chain problems, you'll still dismiss it as Chicken Little. NB. the Japanese ambassador has already warned that the Japanese car makers won't be looking kindly on trade barriers, ie. the above.

[Montmorency]

You know, it strikes me all of a sudden that Pannonian's whole screed about the economics of Brexit that past 2 years exemplifies the futility and perversity of conservatism as a philosophy.

An argument from conservatism will always fail against Brexiteers.

And no Pan, I'm not coming out in favor of Brexit. Think about what I'm saying here.

[Husar]

That's funny Monty, because most of the Brexiteers could be described as conservatives.

Also, Germans often seem to vote in favor of moving on without any changes, see 16 years of Merkel.

[Pannonian]

And with Furunculus's dismissal of business concerns as Chicken Little, the business representatives (ie. formal representatives, chambers of commerce or their equivalents) of the US, Canada, India and Japan have warned the UK government to attend to their concerns or face the exodus of their countries' business, amounting to 100 billion or so.

[Furunculus]

You know, it strikes me all of a sudden that Pannonian's whole screed about the economics of Brexit that past 2 years exemplifies the futility and perversity of conservatism as a philosophy.

An argument from conservatism will always fail against Brexiteers.

And no Pan, I'm not coming out in favor of Brexit. Think about what I'm saying here.

you'll have to expand on that. I see nothing perverse or futile in the following: "the role of Conservatism is not to oppose all change but to resist and balance the volatility of current political fads and ideology, and to defend a middle position that enshrines a slowly changing organic humane traditionalism."

That's funny Monty, because most of the Brexiteers could be described as conservatives.

Also, Germans often seem to vote in favor of moving on without any changes, see 16 years of Merkel.

Me? No. Nations thrive through change, I'm a liberal conservative (or a Conservative Liberal).
In reality, what I consider myself to be is a Classical Liberal, not a Conservative.

And with Furunculus's dismissal of business concerns as Chicken Little, the business representatives (ie. formal representatives, chambers of commerce or their equivalents) of the US, Canada, India and Japan have warned the UK government to attend to their concerns or face the exodus of their countries' business, amounting to 100 billion or so.

That's rich coming from someone whose political tradition sees business through the prism of an ugly force that must be contained, whose continued existance is justified only by the possibility that they can be bled to feed needs of society. In your quest to constrain business with (high) tax and (excessive) regulation by my calculation you've cost the economy 0.5% GDP growth, compound over the last twenty years.

[Husar]

Me? No. Nations thrive through change, I'm a liberal conservative (or a Conservative Liberal).
In reality, what I consider myself to be is a Classical Liberal, not a Conservative.

Wanting a return to classical times would make you a reactionary then.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/li...r_progressive/

[Montmorency]

<I don't want to take the time to write this in a less tendentious register>

Trying to defend the EU, or criticize leaving it, through a liberal economic lens is inherently conservative, because it relies only on the existence of the status quo and its superficial justifications for its strength. An argument literally that there is virtue in the very maintenance of the existing order will be relatively unconvincing to people who are dissatisfied with the existing order - most people by now. That's one hand.

Conservatism on paper has genuinely been a weak and largely-indefensible philosophy. Daddy Conservative of the United States William Buckley's maxim was "A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop", but that's clearly stupid and vacuous on its own terms, unless you transubstantiate "history" for the project of "modernity". In the end it's a flimsy camouflage for reifying an aristocratic social order; this, not any permutation of sober reflection or opposition to haste or 'caution', is what characterizes Conservative instinct. (The Dulles brothers were more honest than most in this regard.)

In other words, it's a kind of double-speak for reaction.

That's rich coming from someone whose political tradition sees business through the prism of an ugly force that must be contained, whose continued existance is justified only by the possibility that they can be bled to feed needs of society. In your quest to constrain business with (high) tax and (excessive) regulation by my calculation you've cost the economy 0.5% GDP growth, compound over the last twenty years.

There's the rub. A leftist defending an inadequate system with the token language of the Right is like a sheep discoursing to the wolf about what shepherds believe constitutes proper flock management. The wolf doesn't really care about such niceties, it just wants to eat the sheep. It's like making the case to Tory-supporting upper-manager that the NHS is a good idea because healthy citizens are productive citizens. Healthy citizens are good regardless of their economic capacity! You get what I'm saying?

Rather than providing an affirmative justification for the power of EU membership to accomplish new and great things, Pannonian focuses almost entirely on the jeopardy of Brexit for the British way of life. Appeal toward jeopardy is a typical conservative appeal. Ideologically-committed Brexiteers aren't fazed by economic indicators because that's never been the object of their attention. That's offering evidence in a debate they aren't having with you. Their ideals for Brexit involve reshaping the national, regional, and global order in a particular way. No one cares about Brexit's potential effects on exports as % of GDP one way or another, except bureaucrats, actuaries, and academics.

Time to stop talking about desiring a tomorrow that looks like today Pannonian, no one has that luxury anymore except billionaires. You can't out-conservative Conservatives.

[Furunculus]

That is a very reductive view, and seems of marginal relevance in labelling someone who has a particular value construct, whatever that might be.

Are you a reactionary in your attempt to wind. Back the evils of nineties/noughties neoliberalism?

[Montmorency]

That is a very reductive view, and seems of marginal relevance in labelling someone who has a particular value construct, whatever that might be.

Are you a reactionary in your attempt to wind. Back the evils of nineties/noughties neoliberalism?

Maybe if I wanted to return to a mid-century ideal - but I don't.

The bottom line with my post above is that 'Brexit will be painful' is an irrelevant argument to most supporters of Brexit, whether they be casually dissatisfied, scapegoating, single-issue, or ideologically-motivated. I further argued that this is the case because policy jeopardy is basically a conservative concept, and conservative concepts are for why other people can't or shouldn't do things.

[Furunculus]

Conservatism on paper has genuinely been a weak and largely-indefensible philosophy. Daddy Conservative of the United States William Buckley's maxim was "A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop", but that's clearly stupid and vacuous on its own terms, unless you transubstantiate "history" for the project of "modernity". In the end it's a flimsy camouflage for reifying an aristocratic social order; this, not any permutation of sober reflection or opposition to haste or 'caution', is what characterizes Conservative instinct. (The Dulles brothers were more honest than most in this regard.)

In other words, it's a kind of double-speak for reaction.

I do agree with you on two counts:
The ineffectual result of trying to co-opt these Rguments from the left, if only because lack of familiarity causes one to make assumption s on the terms of the debate. Mistakes that might not be made from the familiarity of home ground.
That your critiques is valid caricature for how conservatism is often practiced, but that bears little relevance to the philosophy as espoused by hogg. It is as useful as me castigating pannonian for being a communist.

[Montmorency]

I do agree with you on two counts:
The ineffectual result of trying to co-opt these Rguments from the left, if only because lack of familiarity causes one to make assumption s on the terms of the debate. Mistakes that might not be made from the familiarity of home ground.
That your critiques is valid caricature for how conservatism is often practiced, but that bears little relevance to the philosophy as espoused by hogg. It is as useful as me castigating pannonian for being a communist.

Roger Scruton published yet another book on this just now. But he opposes individualistic 'market liberalism' IIRC.

"the role of Conservatism is not to oppose all change but to resist and balance the volatility of current political fads and ideology, and to defend a middle position that enshrines a slowly changing organic humane traditionalism."

The question is, is this abstraction bent towards productive or appreciable results? Is it more salutary or meaningful than a principle of "Be best" or "Everything is always awesome"?

[Furunculus]

Roger Scruton published yet another book on this just now. But he opposes individualistic 'market liberalism' IIRC.

The question is, is this abstraction bent towards productive or appreciable results? Is it more salutary or meaningful than a principle of "Be best" or "Everything is always awesome"?

And there are many strands within (British) conservative tradition, he may not like one of them. But you haven't evidenced the claim that; "Conservatism on paper has genuinely been a weak and largely-indefensible philosophy."

What benchmarks are you going to measure Conservatism against? And will you hold other political philosophies to the same standard? Social Democracy, just one more more failed five-year-plan away from tyranny and the gulags!

[Fragony]

Losing the Cayman islands would absolutily be a pain for them

[Pannonian]

And there are many strands within (British) conservative tradition, he may not like one of them. But you haven't evidenced the claim that; "Conservatism on paper has genuinely been a weak and largely-indefensible philosophy."

What benchmarks are you going to measure Conservatism against? And will you hold other political philosophies to the same standard? Social Democracy, just one more more failed five-year-plan away from tyranny and the gulags!

Britain has been on a strand of social democracy since the democratic reforms of the second half of C19, and the social reforms of the early C20. Look up Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill for examples of the second lot. And social reform has been a thing even before them; see Charles Dickens, and even The Conservative (he who renamed the party), Benjamin Disraeli, who coined the term One Nation Conservative (as opposed to the Two Nations of Rich and Poor). While the Reformist Liberals like Asquith et al, not to mention the later Labour party, talked about state obligations, Disraeli talked about social obligations. But both talked about obligations. And this is where they differ from neo-Thatcherites, who feel no obligations whatsoever. Thatcher herself would probably be horrified by her ostensible followers, especially wrt what they're doing about Europe.

[Furunculus]

a fine and noble history, did you miss the absurdist point i was making?

[Pannonian]

a fine and noble history, did you miss the absurdist point i was making?

Comparing social democracy with Communism? And my point is that Communism is as alien to mainstream British political thought as your ultra free marketeerism is. You were arguing on the previous page that social democracy is somehow a European tradition and not British. You're trying to make the same argument again, except by pretending to some kind of wit by reductio ad absurdum.

And an American diplomat's analysis of Brexit.

[Montmorency]

And there are many strands within (British) conservative tradition, he may not like one of them. But you haven't evidenced the claim that; "Conservatism on paper has genuinely been a weak and largely-indefensible philosophy."

What benchmarks are you going to measure Conservatism against? And will you hold other political philosophies to the same standard? Social Democracy, just one more more failed five-year-plan away from tyranny and the gulags!

Of course I would maintain that most good things in this world have come from/under modern social democracy.

Anyway, think of it like this: in any given situation, what kind of principled prescription or guidance can the conservatism you outlined offer that isn't just, total discretion and whim? On paper, does conservatism preclude even communism?

As an example of philosophies with principles, take "progressivism". There are several ways to interpret it, but one is tautological and really almost impossible to contest regardless of what one thinks of the term itself, "progress".

There have been many aphorisms penned on the subject of knowledge and learning (in the humanistic sense). One such from A. E. Housman, a dude probably relatively well-known among you:

Other desires become the occasion of pain through dearth of the material to gratify them, but not the desire of knowledge: the sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our story-book. So long as the mind of man is what it is, it will continue to exult in advancing on the unknown throughout the infinite field of the universe; and the tree of knowledge will remain for ever, as it was in the beginning, a tree to be desired to make one wise.

What's the principle vis-a-vis "progress" then? Just as there's always something else to be learned or discovered, there's always something that needs doing. From there it can branch any number of ways. A eugenicist says we should pare down and mold the species into a vision of a master race. A posthumanist says we should acknowledge the death of Man, the death of God, and the death of Progress all together as a logical end-point - giving way to something new and alien. A socialist says the shuffle toward equality must be continually reaffirmed.

What does a logically-consistent conservative (at least one attempting to be so) say about that? That all possible ideas, or all ideas worth having and developing, were discovered in the Greco-Roman era and/or codified into the Bible. Extreme, parochial, laughable? Sure. But "palaeo"-conservatism has long been one of the most coherent and influential strands.

[Fragony]

What's in a word, people who like to call themselve progressive will defend a certain backward ultra-orthodox religion whenever they can, and don't understand it doesn't makes them progressive. If they didn't do that I would be one of them.

[Beskar]

What's in a word, people who like to call themselve progressive will defend a certain backward ultra-orthodox religion whenever they can, and don't understand it doesn't makes them progressive. If they didn't do that I would be one of them.

The left-wing types you are describing are more in opposition to certain practices by certain western countries as they are not becoming of a nation of reported higher-moral standing than defend certain backward practices. Some individuals end up being involved with the wrong individuals due to the mistaken view of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as they are both opposing an action for two very different reasons. The left-wing type may feel sympathy for someone with more extreme views as their homes were just bombed in actions they deem illegal and brutal by the actions of the reported higher moral-standing country but it turns out that person who got bombed isn't exactly the most moral-standing themselves and express hatred to that other country and its people.

Those types who are actively involved typically involve the more extreme narratives than "progressive" as well.

[Fragony]

The left-wing types you are describing are more in opposition to certain practices by certain western countries as they are not becoming of a nation of reported higher-moral standing than defend certain backward practices.

Do you honostly think that? I don't even know where to start. I won't dislike someone for thinking differently about things, but I absolutily dispise hypocrites, for people who don't even understand that they are hypocrites I have zero respect. I am a leftie at heart really, I am a total sucker for human rights no matter what kind of human somenone is, feel a bit alone

[Montmorency]

The left-wing types you are describing are more in opposition to certain practices by certain western countries as they are not becoming of a nation of reported higher-moral standing than defend certain backward practices.

Do you honostly think that? I don't even know where to start. I won't dislike someone for thinking differently about things, but I absolutily dispise hypocrites, for people who don't even understand that they are hypocrites I have zero respect. I am a leftie at heart really, I am a total sucker for human rights no matter what kind of human somenone is, feel a bit alone

What if the "Stepford Wives" or any of your other designees accommodate both concerns: Evangelize left and liberal ideas (to Muslim immigrants and to everyone) and defend them as people (and not as 'goat herders fresh off the wrong side of the mountain') from the hypocrisies and depredations of the 'homegrown' far-right?

[Fragony]

What if the "Stepford Wives" or any of your other designees accommodate both concerns: Evangelize left and liberal ideas (to Muslim immigrants and to everyone) and defend them as people (and not as 'goat herders fresh off the wrong side of the mountain') from the hypocrisies and depredations of the 'homegrown' far-right?

What do you assume I think, and why do you, political correctness is nothing more than social brain-damage

[Beskar]

Do you honostly think that? I don't even know where to start. I won't dislike someone for thinking differently about things, but I absolutily dispise hypocrites, for people who don't even understand that they are hypocrites I have zero respect. I am a leftie at heart really, I am a total sucker for human rights no matter what kind of human somenone is, feel a bit alone

Given my exposure to people, including those you are most likely referencing then yes I do. I know lefties who despise Israel for example for the treatment of Palestinians. They see Israel as the aggressor and that they should know better, especially with allies such as the USA. As such, they protest the ill-treatment of Palestinians.
Palestinians are typically Muslim and don't share many values with lefties (such as acceptance of homosexuality, etc), you describe these as "backwards ultra-orthodox". Because you now see Lefties denouncing the actions of Israel, you see these people 'protecting' the Palestinians and their "backwards ultra-orthodox" values.
Now you equate the left with defending Islam, rather than the left defending the ill-treatment of fellow humans (regardless of faith).

[rory_20_uk]

The terms "left" and "right" are so general that they cease to be helpful. At least one more axis - if not more - should be used.

[Fragony]

Given my exposure to people, including those you are most likely referencing then yes I do. I know lefties who despise Israel for example for the treatment of Palestinians. They see Israel as the aggressor and that they should know better, especially with allies such as the USA. As such, they protest the ill-treatment of Palestinians.
Palestinians are typically Muslim and don't share many values with lefties (such as acceptance of homosexuality, etc), you describe these as "backwards ultra-orthodox". Because you now see Lefties denouncing the actions of Israel, you see these people 'protecting' the Palestinians and their "backwards ultra-orthodox" values.
Now you equate the left with defending Islam, rather than the left defending the ill-treatment of fellow humans (regardless of faith).

Kindly allow me, what makes the Palestinians so special, aren't people just a bit uncomortable with them being abolutily hopeless, there is nothing they won't screw up, a few ten years ago they massacred eachother, I guess you didn't hear of that a friend of mine can tell you what he saw. yeah I know people from there. But why really, Israel is doing pretty well why the fixation, what I personally think is that people hate how it managed to be succesfull and everything there is done to help the Palestinians is never anything more than a excercise in futility. That conflicts with how some people think about equality of cultures and I think that is where the fixatiion comes from. I might be wrong about that, but I could also be absolutily right about some having an identity-problem, simply being wrong with Israel as an ideoligical proxy-war.

Isn't the real question why it's brought up

[Pannonian]

The terms "left" and "right" are so general that they cease to be helpful. At least one more axis - if not more - should be used.

What do you think of the BMA's statement on Brexit?

[rory_20_uk]

What do you think of the BMA's statement on Brexit?

Permanent residence for EU doctors and medical researchers currently in the UK - sounds great - we keep the cream. I like it.

A flexible immigration system which supports UK health and medical research - sure, more the merrier. Highly qualified talent is wanted in almost any amounts.

Mutual recognition of professional qualifications and measures which protect patient safety - what the hell does that mean? Perhaps we could have some tests that they can, y'know, speak fluent English at a level required to practice medicine? Or do we have more that can't communicate "coma" and instead use "asleep"? I'm fed up with BMEs whining that more get referred to the GMC and this has to be racism without any attempt to review the data and even bother to see what they were referred for. Perhaps it is but the worst doctors I've ever worked with were all from abroad since their training is different. And in most cases I mean worse. And their english is worse than the natives. And it pisses me off when this ends up killing people.

Ongoing access to EU research programmes and research funding - and here the self interest of the BMA shows itself. Why not ask for access to the funding in the USA / Japan / China whilst we're at it?

Consideration of the unique impact Brexit may have on Northern Ireland’s health service - Northern Ireland needs to get on its Big Boy pants - and ideally reunite with Ireland. Goodbye. Good riddance. Does this statement mean that further subsidies are required, or that no sane doctor would work over in that hole?

[Furunculus]

Comparing social democracy with Communism?

No, i was pointing out the opposite, that it would be absurd to do so.
Just as it would be absurd to consign the whole of conservative thought and achievement to the bin labelled "reactionary".

[Montmorency]

What do you assume I think, and why do you, political correctness is nothing more than social brain-damage

I don't understand what you're trying to convey.

Kindly allow me, what makes the Palestinians so special, aren't people just a bit uncomortable with them being abolutily hopeless, there is nothing they won't screw up, a few ten years ago they massacred eachother, I guess you didn't hear of that a friend of mine can tell you what he saw. yeah I know people from there. But why really, Israel is doing pretty well why the fixation, what I personally think is that people hate how it managed to be succesfull and everything there is done to help the Palestinians is never anything more than a excercise in futility. That conflicts with how some people think about equality of cultures and I think that is where the fixatiion comes from. I might be wrong about that, but I could also be absolutily right about some having an identity-problem, simply being wrong with Israel as an ideoligical proxy-war.

Isn't the real question why it's brought up

Maybe they don't hold such a uniquely negative view of Palestinians?

What you see as fixation is to some extent selection bias. People may be involved in or care about multiple causes, but in a moment inevitably you only perceive them in that moment of engaging with Palestinian rights.

[Fragony]

How much do they care then and most of all why. Palestinian authorities aren't exactly very secretive about what they want.