UK General Election 2017

[Idaho]

The deeply held conviction to do anything to[ do his utmost to protect the lives of his people is an essential part of leadership, if he cant even lie about his unwillingness to retaliate the protection of mutually assured destruction goes out the window.

MAD only makes sense to idiots. Anyone with a flicker of sense can see that if one of the four other counties capable of launching a nuclear attack did so, then no one's smoking corpse will gain satisfaction from creating a giant crater on some other corner of the planet.

[Greyblades]

That's how MAD works!

[Idaho]

I'm pretty sure the last manifesto supported being part of the EU. While the last Labour conference voted in favour of Trfdent. Unless you're taking on Corbyn's idea of sending the submarines out without missiles. That was a genius idea from him, keeping the union jobs whilst keeping him in with the CND crowd he's spent his career courting.

I'll ask again. Where in the manifesto is there a commitment to nuclear assault?

[Greyblades]

MAD only makes sense to idiots. Anyone with a flicker of sense can see that if one of the four other counties capable of launching a nuclear attack did so, then no one's smoking corpse will gain satisfaction from creating a giant crater on some other corner of the planet.

The very idea of MAD is that the other man is likely to fire back out of spite, making the benefits of an attack moot. That very uncertainty of success is what stops them firing first.

A leader that shows a blatant and unmistakeable unwillingness to retaliate puts a massive "feel free to kill me" sign on his nation's back.

[Idaho]

The deeply held conviction to do anything to[ do his utmost to protect the lives of his people is an essential part of leadership, if he cant even lie about his unwillingness to retaliate the protection of mutually assured destruction goes out the window.

Yes a leader should do their utmost. That means organising things so the country functions, people have enough food, a place to live, and something to do. Children are educated and disease is minimised. There is social cohesion and law and order, but also privacy and liberty.

All that is very hard to do. Most people in the world would sign up to them. But it's made a lot harder when so much money/lives/potential is pissed away to appease armchair generals (not to mention the real ones). Put the nasty toys down human, and go and read a book.

[Idaho]

The very idea of MAD is that the other man is likely to fire back out of spite, making the benefits of an attack moot. That very uncertainty of success is what stops them firing first.

The "other man" in this example is apt. That one leader or collective in charged decided to attack. Not the people of shanghai, Chicago or Marseilles. Why obliterate them? It's absurd. That's like something a toddler would do. Grow up.

[Pannonian]

Yes a leader should do their utmost. That means organising things so the country functions, people have enough food, a place to live, and something to do. Children are educated and disease is minimised. There is social cohesion and law and order, but also privacy and liberty.

All that is very hard to do. Most people in the world would sign up to them. But it's made a lot harder when so much money/lives/potential is pissed away to appease armchair generals (not to mention the real ones). Put the nasty toys down human, and go and read a book.

Does Corbyn have any record of doing any of the above? Compared with, say, Yvette Cooper or Andy Burnham?

[Pannonian]

Labour Says It Does Back Trident After Jeremy Corbyn Suggests It Could Be Scrapped

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Corbyn – a lifelong campaigner against nuclear weapons - claimed the party was having a “discussion” about whether renewing Trident should be in Labour’s election manifesto.

Within hours, Labour’s press office issued a statement saying the party still supported renewing the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent – a decision made at Labour conference in 2015 when Corbyn was leader.

But Corbyn suggested the decision had not yet been taken, and when asked by Marr this morning if a commitment to Trident would be in Labour’s manifesto, he said: “We haven’t completed work on the manifesto yet, as you’d expect. We’re less than 100 hours into this election campaign.

He added: “We’re having that discussion within the Labour party and we will produce our manifesto early in May.”

Within hours, a spokesperson for Labour tried to be much more definitive said: “The decision to renew Trident has been taken and Labour supports that.

“We also want Britain to do much more to pursue a proactive, multilateral disarmament strategy.”

[Pannonian]

MAD only makes sense to idiots. Anyone with a flicker of sense can see that if one of the four other counties capable of launching a nuclear attack did so, then no one's smoking corpse will gain satisfaction from creating a giant crater on some other corner of the planet.

Ukraine, North Korea. One of them is immune from invasion. Guess why.

[Pannonian]

BTW, it's the closing stages of the campaign. Why isn't Corbyn taking a holiday? After all, that's what he did at an equivalent stage of the EU referendum campaign.

[Idaho]

You are a middle of the road small c conservative northerner about to go through the kind of political menopause that InsaneApache went through. You'll go one nation tory first, then off the chart. It is an odd condition that Northern men sometimes get. You'll get obsessed with your vanishing culture and foreigners. It's like a kind of primal forest ape response.

Give it another 10 years and you'll be like these people on question time the other night :

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/skwaw...wins-ge17/amp/

[Idaho]

Does Corbyn have any record of doing any of the above? Compared with, say, Yvette Cooper or Andy Burnham?

Of course be doesn't. He's a politician. They are rarely good administrators, even though they spend their lives trying to become them.

[Pannonian]

Of course be doesn't. He's a politician. They are rarely good administrators, even though they spend their lives trying to become them.

Cooper has Sure Start to her name. One of the current shadow cabinet ministers attributes Sure Start to helping her cope with early motherhood and putting her on her road to what she's become. What has Corbyn ever done that's comparable?

You are a middle of the road small c conservative northerner about to go through the kind of political menopause that InsaneApache went through. You'll go one nation tory first, then off the chart. It is an odd condition that Northern men sometimes get. You'll get obsessed with your vanishing culture and foreigners. It's like a kind of primal forest ape response.

Give it another 10 years and you'll be like these people on question time the other night :

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/skwaw...wins-ge17/amp/

From what I've seen, I'm fairly closely aligned with old Labour. That's proper old Labour, going back to its early governments and aspirational roots, not Tony Benn's Labour. You should read up on Nye Bevan's views on nuclear disarmament.

[Greyblades]

The "other man" in this example is apt. That one leader or collective in charged decided to attack. Not the people of shanghai, Chicago or Marseilles. Why obliterate them? It's absurd. That's like something a toddler would do. Grow up.

This other man has just condemned you and everyone you care about to die in nuclear fire on those people's behalf and you think it is the act of a toddler to retaliate?

What the hell is your malfunction?

[Pannonian]

I knew this morning that I was going to make a speech that would offend, and even hurt, many of my friends. I know that you are deeply convinced that the action you suggest is the most effective way of influencing international affairs. I am deeply convinced that you are wrong. It is therefore not a question of who is in favour of the hydrogen bomb, but a question of what is the most effective way of getting the damn thing destroyed. It is the most difficult of all problems facing mankind. But if you carry this resolution and follow out all its implications — and do not run away from it — you will send a British Foreign Secretary, whoever he may be, naked into the conference chamber. ... And you call that statesmanship? I call it an emotional spasm.

Aneurin Bevan on unilateral nuclear disarmament.

[Husar]

This other man has just condemned you and everyone you care about to die in nuclear fire

This is hilarious!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The entire planet is doomed to die in nuclear fire....in a bit.

[Idaho]

This other man has just condemned you and everyone you care about to die in nuclear fire on those people's behalf and you think it is the act of a toddler to retaliate?

What the hell is your malfunction?

You can kill a man with a single weapon. Why murder a few million innocent people at the same time?

[Pannonian]

The entire planet is doomed to die in nuclear fire....in a bit.

We'll have found fusion power by then. Or fusion power will have found us.

[Pannonian]

You can kill a man with a single weapon. Why murder a few million innocent people at the same time?

See above. And Nye Bevan has done far more for this country than Corbyn ever has.

[Idaho]

Aneurin Bevan on unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Post ww2 was a different world. I don't agree his comments are germane now.

[Idaho]

See above. And Nye Bevan has done far more for this country than Corbyn ever has.

Argument from authority. Rhetorical fallacy.

[Montmorency]

Post ww2 was a different world. I don't agree his comments are germane now.

The modern Chinese arsenal puts paid to contemporary hopes of disarmament. Any attempts to revive US-Russian bilateral efforts are trivialized by its existence.

I agree that MAD is outdated: nowadays, a single offensive nuclear discharge could be expected to provoke no more than proportionate retaliation, while also potentially achieving all conventional military and political objectives in the act.

Argument from authority. Rhetorical fallacy.

What did he argue from authority?

[Pannonian]

The modern Chinese arsenal puts paid to contemporary hopes of disarmament. Any attempts to revive US-Russian bilateral efforts are trivialized by its existence.

I agree that MAD is outdated: nowadays, a single offensive nuclear discharge could be expected to provoke no more than proportionate retaliation, while also potentially achieving all conventional military and political objectives in the act.

What did he argue from authority?

He got on his high horse about how he's properly representative of the left and how I'm on the slide towards the far right, then I posted a quote from one of the icons of the Labour party that argued the opposite of his position. He's previous also used the same dismissal (argument from authority) to dismiss accounts from former shadow cabinet ministers of Corbyn's incompetence. It's his method of dismissing any and all evidence that might make his beloved leader look bad.

Expert opinions on Corbyn's leadership
Lilian Greenwood, former shadow cabinet minister
Thangam Debbonaire, former shadow cabinet minister
Richard Murphy, Corbyn's former chief economics adviser
David Blanchflower, member of Labour's Economic Advisory Committee
Angela Smith, Labour's leader in the House of Lords

I haven't posted the last one yet, so here's an excerpt.

This is called argument from authority. Usually a favourite rhetorical fallacy of American gun nuts and anti abortionists.

Remember kids, when teachers mark you down for being wrong, refute them with "This is called argument from authority. Usually a favourite rhetorical fallacy of American gun nuts and anti abortionists."

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Why should we have Nuclear Weapons?

Because otherwise we will be sheltering under America's Nuclear Shield, which means we really will be an American vassal - unless you prefer being a French vassal.

We will also be subservient to Israel, Pakistan, India, France, China and Russia in all military matters, as well as the US.

Nuclear weapons are things we have, not things we use. This is why their maintenance has traditionally been separate from the defence budget, they are weapons of diplomacy - not war.

It is, in fact, possible that within out lifetimes these weapons will be made obsolete by anti-missile shields, and then we can consider getting rid of them - not before.

[Idaho]

The modern Chinese arsenal puts paid to contemporary hopes of disarmament. Any attempts to revive US-Russian bilateral efforts are trivialized by its existence.

I agree that MAD is outdated: nowadays, a single offensive nuclear discharge could be expected to provoke no more than proportionate retaliation, while also potentially achieving all conventional military and political objectives in the act.



What did he argue from authority?

He stated that Nye Bevan was against unilateral disarmament, therefore it's wrong.

[Brenus]

unless you prefer being a French vassal.

Well, you were once, can't say it would be a completely new and unknown situation...

[Montmorency]

He stated that Nye Bevan was against unilateral disarmament, therefore it's wrong.

Or, he's presenting a statement from a politician which he agrees with - Jeremy Corbyn being another leading politician, and so in a position of authority, though one with whom Pannonian disagrees.

You'd be closer to something if you could get Pannonian to say that this fellow's case is worth more than Corbyn's on the basis of Corbyn being a lesser politician.

[Pannonian]

Or, he's presenting a statement from a politician which he agrees with - Jeremy Corbyn being another leading politician, and so in a position of authority, though one with whom Pannonian disagrees.

You'd be closer to something if you could get Pannonian to say that this fellow's case is worth more than Corbyn's on the basis of Corbyn being a lesser politician.

I'll happily say that and more. I'm principally concerned with domestic matters, how to make Britain better. I like those politicians like Bevan and Cooper who have substantially contributed to this (and Cooper, significant though her contribution is, isn't a patch on Bevan). They have rather more of my ear than someone like Corbyn who has done nothing except go on protest marches and rallies throughout his life.

What has Corbyn ever done to make Britain a better place, compared with someone like Cooper? What does his CV consist of, that we should attach any kind of weight to his views, especially where they clash with the mainstream?

[LittleGrizzly]

TBH I think we have too many excitable red blooded males in the country for Trident to be scrapped anytime soon, as shown by the entertaining questions completely removed from reality on QT about responding to an Iranian or N. Korean attack....