Tuesday 19 July 2011

Yah! Boo! Sucks!

Jesus, watching any kind of political debate on Twitter really makes me want to commit violence. I'm not even sure what program is on, oh, apparently it was Newsnight. But just compare these tweets:

Nick Boles terrific on reminding Harriet high horse Harman of Brown's links with News Intl -- Tim Montgomerie, Tory
vs.
The really ought not let Nick Boles speak for them in public. easily knocking down his angry rants. -- PeterL_77, Labourite

Really? Is that the standard of political discourse among educated, grown up people who are really interested in politics? "My guy is saying it best! Your woman is an idiot!*" "No, my woman is saying it best! Your guy is an idiot!**"

Can none of you understand that your partisan, uncritical, blind loyalty to your party is what gifts lobby fodder scum decades at the trough? It is why politicians get away with things that their party is ostensibly totally opposed to.

"My party, right or wrong" is the validation of every bad idea, every cruel policy, every innocent killed abroad, that politicians want. It is the thing that destroys the very limited value of democracy.

The next time any politician does something wrong, ask yourself: "What is more important: my principles or my party?" And if you can't honestly say that it's your principles, then you need to know that one of the gravest, most insidious heaps of rotten decay in the body politic looks at you in the mirror each day.

*Technically, this is actually true.

**Technically, this is also true.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

See, twitter IS haiku for morons

Anonymous said...

der's nottin wrong wid govermint by twitta

Anonymous said...

Sadly, it's human nature- get over it. It's exactly the same as football team-ism, or even which soaps you watch. People want to belong, and once they do they will perform all sorts of mental acrobatics to justify it to themselves.

The only solution is to destroy the entire structure... which necessarily will be against the "will of the people" and therefore undemocratic. It will also be authoritarian in that it would involve "editing the choices" of people at large. This is the paradox we have chosen.

Glad to see you back at the helm, by the way;-)

Zoroaster said...

a quick read of Political Parties -- published in 1911 but still as relevant as ever -- will reveal that this kind of partisanship has been the case since the development of mass politics, and probably always will be as long as it exists.

bollixed said...

Sheep led by more sheep.

sixtypoundsaweekcleaner said...

Sigh...I'm going to bed.

Can't remember my moniker said...

Steady! You are asking for a return of political philosophy. There are probably only a few thousand people who are capable of thinking in such terms in the whole country.