BS: Left Hypocricy

Subject: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 05:37 AM

The admission from Dianne Abbott, that she had enrolled her child in a private school,at the cost of over £10000 peryear,is the "straw which broke the camels' back" as far as I am concerned.
Is there no end to the hypocricy of socialist politicians.
After the "New labour" scam,we have seen a steady stream of politicians, who refuse to live by their principles, while exhorting the masses to do so.
Miss abbotts amazing answer to questions on her behavior is that as her action is indefensible,and she does not try to defend it....She
deserves some sort of credit...Are we all mad to swallow this crap...As Mudcat contains a high proportion of "socialists" I would be interested to hear their comments or excuses...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:14 AM

I think Dianne Abbott will suffer for it come the next election. When she was talking on BBC2 about it, she seemed to have come to the settled conclusion that it was a price worth paying.

However, life IS complicated and few of us are completely free of hypocracy. I've always been a great supporter of the NHS and any treatment I've had has been through it. Last month, though, we paid for my wife to have an operation at a private clinic to have gallstones removed, because her friend had been waiting eighteen months to have hers treated under the NHS.   I don't think that it would have been a very moral position for me to insist she spends 18 months in pain 'as a matter of principle.' If anyone thinks that is hypocritical of me, I'll have to live with it. I would far rather it had been done under the NHS, but I wasn't prepared to pay that price.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:45 AM

Just one more thing on that front while I'm thinking about it. When I say 'we paid' I mean it - we don't have private insurance. One of the policies the Tories are proposing is that 60% of the cost of an NHS operation could be used to part-fund the private treatment. There are apparently only about 3% of private treatments that are paid directly that would benefit from this policy, and ours was one. It would have saved me several thousands of pounds - and I UTTERLY REJECT IT.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:56 AM

I wish people would stop referring to 'Socialists'in relation to the
current Members of Parliament.Please remember that Princess Tony dropped Socialism from the New Labour agenda in 1997.There are very few Socialist politicians left who admit to the label.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:05 AM

I have a great dislike for the Capitalist System and all the injustices that it perpetuates,and for years I naively thought that Socialism was way to a better life and world.
When I see the number of so called"left wingers" who desert their principles,(especially over education,which should be the corner stone of a fair society) It only proves the point, that there is no political answer as power corrupts.
How can all these people on Mudcat espouse socialism,knowing whats really going on....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:13 AM

Leadfingers...Would not the "true Socialists" turn out like Blair and co,given a little power?. In my experience almost always.
DMG's argument about the health service is powerful, but taken to its logical conclusion would mean that "were all tories" every man for himself......Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:25 AM

No more than the "New Republicans" will turn out the right-wing loonies, or even admit that's what they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:43 AM

"Hypocrisy" is everywhere, on the Left and on the Right.

Some years ago it came out that the Catholic Church was a major shareholder in the drug company that produced most of Italy's birth control pills! To me, THAT'S hyprocrisy!

I disagree, Ake. I went to private schools, from grade school through college. We had little money; I suspect that the local parish paid my way (and my siblings' ways) through grade school. I washed dishes and cleaned floors in high school to pay my tuition, in college I worked in the library, took out loans, and sold myself to the Army reserves (and had my college education interupted when the unit was activated for Vietnam). If someone, Socialist or rapid capitalist, wants their children to go to private schools AND the cost can be worked out, why shouldn't they?

I'm not a socialist, politically or otherwise. You might call me an individualist if you must label me anything at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: kendall
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:49 AM

Why do you condemn the whole party for the actions of a few? That broad brush approach is convenient, but it weakens your argument.
I have no use for Ted Kennedy, or Jesse Jackson, or the Clintons, but they are not the democrat party. I like John McCain and Bill Cohen, but they are not the republican party. Seems a bit silly to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 10:47 AM

Socialism is a set of principles and ideals. It is not a party or a person or any concrete thing. It is not necessarily a set of procedures. Neither is it completely at odds with capitalism. The only good reason to give up the ideal is in exchange for a better one.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: kendall
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 11:48 AM

Socialism takes into account the needs of ALL people, not just the rich who got that way by exploiting the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 12:13 PM

Kendall:

I guess that's true of some brands of socialism. But the dualism between "the rich who got that way by exploiting the poor" and "all the people" is kinda strained. An awful lot of people make incomes above the median -- about as many as don't. And in almost every case, the revenue is a result of voluntary transactions all up and down the line.

Where it starts to get rotten is when the forces of defense and the processes of law are used to enforce those transactions, thus corrupting the free-market mechanism in favor of one or another party. Once that starts, all bets are off. As now.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 12:29 PM

The old, old question: do you put your family or the larger common good first? This is not a question of concern for the right wing -- they have no interest in society -- nor much concern for the family, since their brand of capitalism is destroying the family faster than anything socialists ever thought of, but that is for another day. There is a difference between suffering yourself in order to promote the larger good, and making your children suffer (the classic example is the do-gooder with neglected children). Still, it does seem to me that someone who is spending 10,000 pounds a year on her child cannot be living in a poor district -- the public school must be pretty good where she is. How the child can suffer in a well-off British public school, unless they have become complete crap, is a mystery to me. I assume it is because New Labour is full of the intensely upwardly mobile, and the idea that their children might actually benefit from being in a pretty good ordinary high school rather than an intensely driven private school probably never occurs to them. The poor kid is probably doing French, and ballet lessons, and summer computer camp, and god knows what else.


yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: C-flat
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 12:45 PM

Dianne Abbott attempted to defend her decision on TV the other night by accusing the local education system of failing black children.
It may be true but it isn't what she was saying initially. In fact she claimed it was her sons' choice to go private. That's a LOT of pocket money!

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 12:57 PM

Peter ..I agree with much you say ,but I was really trying to get people to think beyond the "socialist " "capitalist" argument, as I think these terms no longer mean anything.
When a professed left wing socialist can do something completely at odds with her beliefs and treat it in such a cavalier way,it seems to me that these beliefs could have meant nothing to her to begin with.
Please excuse me if I dont express myself very well but I feel this subject is of great importance, as abuses are now becoming the norm.
    Ake..

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: GUEST,Gene Burton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 01:34 PM

Socialism is a means of economic organisation by which the economy, in its entirety, is publicly rather than privately owned. I'd have thought that the actions of a member of what is now pretty much a free-market capitalist party, is irrelevant to a discussion of the merits (or otherwise) of socialism.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 01:44 PM

I can't actually see why this is really any different from using the money to buy any other kind of advantage for her son, such as a more expensive house, which would typically be in an area where the state schools were a lot better provided for. (Which is what most of her cvritics in the media and politics have done.)

I agree that it is not fair that some children should have vastly less resources put into their education, or into their health care, or into their living conditions than others, that's true enough.

I wish there was an effective political movement which was determined to achieve a society where all children really did have an equal start in life.

But I can't see how that would have been brought any closer by Diane Abbott doing the politically convenient thing and "sticking to her principles" at the expense of what she judged were her son's best interests.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 01:51 PM

If people dont stick to their principles ,How do we know that they are Socialists?

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: alanabit
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:07 PM

"How the child can suffer in a well-off British public school, unless they have become complete crap, is a mystery to me."

Hi Peter, I thought that comment of yours was interesting for two reasons. Firstly, I am given to wonder whether British public schools ever were any good anyway. Secondly, it has long been my belief that children were sent to these schools because the parents did not wish to live with their own children.
My own first hand experience of the British public school system was near disastrous. By the age of fifteen I was pretty close to being mentally ill. It is not the same for everyone, I know. However, I like to be careful about the assumption that these institutions actually do any more good than a well run state school.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:08 PM

It is hard to know what constitutes principles that have effective political weight any more. I would tentatively suggest that there are people who lean more towards "liberty" and people who lean more towards "equality". Equalitarians would suggest that there are certain forms of "positive liberty", helping hands, that require some intervention; while libertarians are concerned about the stifling of personal initiative, and defend certain forms of "negative liberty" (freedom from interference) as more conducive to individual thriving than the assumptions of others as enshrined in governments and institutions. Except for extremists on both sides, these are negotiated on a daily basis in all democratic societies. An equalitarian principle (enunciated by John Rawls) would be that any inequalities in the society should be made on behalf of the least well off.
Both of these positions are influenced, poisoned, by the vast influence of the market, which is the template for many arguments about whether liberty or equality are best served by a neutral market, and whether we have anything like a neutral market. Libertarians tend to believe that any interference in the market is inefficient, and ultimately attacks the freedom implicit in the capacity to buy and sell as one wishes; and that a rising market tide will make the poor better off later, even if they are miserable today, so one should harden one's heart against the claims of those who are hungry today in a world of obvious inequality. Equalitarians think that this is sheer hypocrisy by the rich, and that the market is a flawed tool for social betterment, in part because it contains a model of human behaviour (infinite self-interest against all others) that is itself a menace.

I tend to go for the equalitarians myself, unless I spend a lot of time in their company, when I go the other way.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:14 PM

By public school, I meant the opposite of a private school (North American here).

I went to a very expensive private school, and it nearly killed me. Hogwarts with no magic, and no girls.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:20 PM

it is not fair that some children should have vastly less resources put into their education, or into their health care, or into their living conditions than others,

No it isn't fair, but there is no one in charge of making life fair, I am sorry to point out. If she had the funds, and chose to use them to put her son in what she saw as a better school, that what the hell business is it of anyone else's? Regardless of whether she was living up to expectations from the left or the right or the fore or the aft, she acted according to her best judgment and harmed no-one. Where's the beef? That she wasn't practicing pure Socialism? Surely someone has pointed out that pure socialism has never yet succeeded in use?

Here's the deal: people's inherent rights and freedoms may be equal, but you can bet your buns their levels of ability are not. When this is acknowledged it becomes magically incumbent on individuals to be as able as they possibly can, because it is only human ability that brings about decent survival for the individual and the family and the community. That's where all value comes from.

And it is only the able who can then exercise compassion in offering a hand to the less able, out of charity. Otherwise, there is no hand to offer!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:23 PM

Well, Inthinkmthe thing to aim for is to be a libertarian egalitarian. I think they are the opposite sides of the same coin. If a coin doesn't have both sides it's worthless.

...

"Public schools" - we're getting into the old confusion here. "Public Schools" this side of the Atlantic doesn't mean State Schools, it means an especially posh kind of Private School.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:33 PM

Amos...I cant agree....This woman was a self-styled "firebrand socialist member of parliament",influencing countless young people.
If she wanted to have the luxury of picking and choosing her principles, she should have picked another job....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:41 PM

"...there is no one in charge of making life fair"

And that is where I'd disagree. I believe it's all our job to work towards that, and to use whatever abilities and advantages we have to do that more effectively.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:48 PM

The problem here is, that we've nailed our colours to the Socialist mast,but just like capitalism, it contains an achilles heel....The fact that ,when it comes down to the wire,people always look after number 1.    Left wing MPs are a bigger threat to eventual equality than the conservatives ,as they give the impression that there is some realistic alternative.....Not in politics there isn't   Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:53 PM

McGrath:

By "no-one" I meant no external office or officer -- of course all justice stems from the individual heart, which is the only place it abides anyway.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:58 PM

It stems from the individual heart - but we also have a hand to play in what is done in our name, and that is every bit as important.

I don't actually think we disagree too much about these things, Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 03:32 PM

After I've nailed my colours to the mast, looked at my achilles heel, and gone down to the wire, I will unmix my metaphors.....

A civilized society tries to prevent things coming down to the wire, where self-preservation is the only goal. But even in concentration camps, people will sacrifice themselves for others. There are examples all around us of people refusing to be obsessed about "Number 1". Many people organize their lives quite happily around others -- children, lovers, parents, larger social goals -- without losing themselves or their self-respect. All this Number 1 nonsense is what I mean about the poison of libertarian markets. The opposite is also poison: the individual should be sacrificed for the good of everyone else. It is a balancing act. That is why it is complicated, and why many people loathe it.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 03:50 PM

Thanks for that Peter ..I well deserved it.
I know that there are a lot of good people around,its just that not many are in political life.I also think our society is becoming more selfish by the day ...Cheers Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: AliUK
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 04:02 PM

erm...my immediate reaction is " so what?". I thought this was all about democracy and the freedom of choice...Ake you´re being a bit reactionary aren´t you? I´ve always been a humanist ( for a few years I foolishly said I was socialist but then discovered it was another label for those that like to dress up half-baked dogma as a political agenda...a bit like the other socialism really..you know the National one) anyway, I thought that socialists were fighting for the right to choose. then I discovered that they were fighting for the right for you to choose what they wanted to offer you. Not for me really. i want good health/education/housing. cheap water and electricity for everyone. i also want tot live in a society that doesn´t villify you for your choices of where you want to send your children or have your gallstones removed. no I´m not left-wing. i can proudly say that I am Alistair-wing.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 04:02 PM

Selfishness is not actually an awareness of best practice for Number One. It tends to insulate, isolate, and polarize number 1 from all the other numbers.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 04:20 PM

Alasdair.
I agree with most of your message,but you tend to forget the millions who cant afford to buy the services you mention.The "two tier society" seems to me ,to make any sort of equality impossible.
    Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: kendall
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 05:10 PM

Capital is the result of labor. Therefor, labor is more important. (Abraham Lincoln)

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Mark Clark
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 05:14 PM

I tend to think hypocrisy is really the only thing that separates mankind from other species. It turns out that other species use tools, have loving families, communicate through language, etc., but, to my knowledge, mankind is the only species that depends on hypocrisy. Most of civilization and culture arises because of the dichotomy between the way we actually are and the way we might wish to be or the way we wish others would see us. Hypocrisy may be the very foundation of human nature.

The fundamental problem with any ’ism is that people mistakenly believe that the central tenets of  “the faith” completely and satisfactorily account for all aspects of socio-economic interaction. This happens with capitalism, socialism, communism, nazism, conservativism and a host of others. Solutions to obvious problems are only thought meritorius when they are in line with canonical ’ism thought.

Only when people begin to break out of these ’ism straightjackets will we begin to see real progress in social growth. As Peter T suggests, we really need to deal with all the dirty complexity of each problem to find adequate solutions and that complexity is never embodied in a single belief system.

A steadfast adherence to any simple model for human society is why we are so easily manipulated by those willing to use our belief systems to manipulate us and the game to their own advantage.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: harvey andrews
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 05:14 PM

I see very different attitudes here between Brit and US.
Generally speaking, being left wing in Britain means not believing that money should buy advantage in education or health. These two should be available to all, at the best quality, when needed, is the creed. Abbott put herself up for election and asked for people's votes as a member of a party whose members would generally agree with the above premise.
She got the votes and represents a very poor area of London. By becoming an MP she qualified for a high salary that now enables her to pay school fees of £10,000, a figure far beyond the reach of her constituents.
By sending her child outside the State school system she is betraying her voters and their beliefs and hopes. She should resign her job as an MP and finance her betrayal some other way.
Otherwise she is a hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:34 PM

If all the hypocrites in the House of Commons resigned, there wouldn't be many left. On either side - but perhaps more especially on the Labour benches, because to be a hypocrite you have to have had principles in the first place.

But I can't see any essential difference between buying a place in a posh school, and buying a house in a posh area where the State Schools are up to scratch, or buying in private tutors from a Public School to give your kids an extra hand, like Tony Blair does. It's the inequality based on money that is at the root of this, not the inequality based on how people use the money.

And no doubt if Dianne Abbott had sent her son to some not-to-good local school, everyone would be up in arms about how wicked it was for her to subordinate the best interests of her son to make a political point.

No, of course there shouldn't be any rotten schools. "Education, Education, Education" said Tony Blair. That was in 1996 wasn't it? And a few months later he was swept into Downing Street.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: AliUK
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:48 PM

ahhh...once again freedom of choice has been mistaken for selfishness...or maybe I just didn´t express myself clearly enough. As Mark said, until we are able to get away from "-ismitis" we shall never be in a position to do anything worthwhile. Also, Diane Abbot worked hard to get where she is today ( politics is not just a vocation but also a preofession) if she represents her costutuents to the best of her ability within a democratically elected Parliament then she can do what the hell she likes with her money. who knows what goes on in the halls of Westminster and what conversations and opinions are aired. We only get to see the public face of it. If the schools wheer Ms. Abbott live are not of a standard that she feels is good enough for her son then she has a duty as a parent and an individual to procure what is best, this doesn´t compromise her principles in any way if she continues to fight for her constituency!

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Gareth
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:49 PM

I have no intention of defending the indefensible - I speak as one who made a point of opting out of Company "Health Insurance Schemes" when I was employed by companies who offered one - And no I did not gain financialy by opting out.

What worries me is the non involvement of parents in thier childrens education - Where you have disinterest, and a "gang" culture, you are going to get failure.

And that don't bode well for the future.

Mind you - We do seem to be missing Fionn - That Guru of the left, jumping in to condemn Diane Abbott - Perhaps we could learn where his children were educated.

For myself - Well I've no children I know about, not even grazing the local hillside, or the Kent Marshes.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:54 PM

This conversation comes at an interesting time for me. In the United States the devide between public (state) and private schooling is very complicated, as there is unequal funding for state run schools in the same cities. In the poorest neighborhoods the schools which need the most aid, get the least. And, most of the over two million people we now have in the bigest prison population had to go to, well just guess which school. So school is the first culling out in the system which leads to opportunity or jail.
We Quakers did not use sugar or cotton during slave days. Our prison system is getting to look more and more like the slave system as it is privatized and even used for strike breaking. Here is the delema. We maintain private schools, some of which, many of which, are too expensive for Quakers to go to even with some financial aid. So, are we taking part in a similar unfairness similar to those who bought goods which supported American slavery.
I am happy to report that the New York Quarterly meeting is not sleeping on this question. The delema is that as long as American schools are segrigated into haves and can't ever gets, we can only be working towards justice, and not living justice. We provide a large number of scholarships, and yet we feel we must do more. We are holding workshops on making Quaker schools more Quaker, and egalitarinanism is a big coming part of that struggle.
No answer as yet.
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:12 PM

Diane Abbott? Why should I make excuses for a politician I never heard of before today? :-)

Hypocrisy has always been common on both sides of the political divide, and in the middle of it as well.

Experience has shown that any social theory can easily be corrupted by people willing to corrupt it, so no system is a panacea. One needs good, honest, and dedicated people running a system in order to make it work reasonably well...whether it's "left", "right", or somewhere in the middle.

The right is basically the philosophy of the rugged individual, while the left is the philosophy of collective responsibility. Either philosophy has its advantages and its pitfalls. The wisest philosophy unites the good points of both. Sounds like Diane Abbott, like so many others, has fallen for the temptations of high office.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: harvey andrews
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:16 PM

freedom of choice is no freedom if you cannot choose.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: harvey andrews
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:20 PM

"If the schools wheer Ms. Abbott live are not of a standard that she feels is good enough for her son then she has a duty as a parent and an individual to procure what is best",

For the school and its pupils and her son who should go there. She asked for the people's votes and she got them, then she abandoned them. Good officers lead from the front, so should politicians who profess principle in order to gain employment

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:39 PM

The much vaunted minimum wage in UK is £4.8op an hour,so assuming that a forty hour week is worked thats £9600 per annum.Ms Abbotts
school fees are reported at £10,ooo per annum.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:59 PM

I've never understood why it is that, given that there are always a lot of people competing to become MPs, MPs get so much. Market Forces should bring their wages down to a much more modest level. Say the national average wage, plus necessary expenses.

It's not as if they actually govern the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:46 PM

"Good officers lead from the front..."

No, not necessarily. Good officers, and good leaders in general, lead from where ever they can be most effective. Usually, that's behind, directing, moving, coaching, plugging up holes. If you're in front you can't see what problems are developing.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 08:52 PM

I think people should be selected to govern by lottery from an extensive pool of those who have:

1. indicated they are willing to serve in governmental capacity, and

2. meet the necessary age and educational/etc requirements to do so.

At one fell swoop you have eliminated party politics (an inherently corrupt and divisive system which lies and cheats its way into power by any means possible). You have also eliminated idiotic, dishonest political campaigns and the expenses associated therewith.

I suspect that the people who ended up with the job of governing under the lottery system would be FAR more constructive in their attitude toward each other and would actually do a considerably better job of governing than what is presently occuring!

And I am dead serious about that. Political parties are a VERY bad idea...whether there's one, two, or five or ten of them. They serve not the public, but themselves. They are a self-aggrandizing, self-perpetuating power structure resembling a "gang" (in the criminal sense of that word).

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: AliUK
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 10:18 PM

"freedom of choice is no freedom if you cannot choose."

I thought that was what I said. And I´m with LH when it comes to party poitics.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: GUEST,boab
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 01:25 AM

Iam not, and never have been a communist. Having said that, I encountered the communist dictum early in life-"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". I still haven't heard a logical argument which can convince me that this isn't a valid and humane statement which has its roots in decency. Those who try to negate the sentiment by pointing to the "needs' of ne-er-do-wells and slackers, have their objections confounded by the first six words. Sadly, as the majority have pointed out, humans are a fickle bunch, and will always in the end do what they perceive to be to their personal benefit, even if it adversely affects the lives of others. Hypocricy exists in politics as in all walks of life. As Rabbie Burns once said "Facts are cheils that winna ding"--in other words, we'll damn-well have to live with it. Ms Abbot's constituents have the right to vote; they should know what to do when the time comes.

Subject: RE: BS: Left Hypocricy
From: C-flat
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 02:59 AM

What makes Abbotts' actions unacceptable is the fact that she was outspoken in her attacks on both Tony Blair and Harriet Harman for their decisions to privately educate their children.
She made no attempt to defend her choice;

"It is inconsistent, to put it mildly, for someone who believes in a fairer and more egalitarian society to send their child to a fee-paying school.
"I had to choose between my reputation as a politician and my son."

I'm not against choice but Ms Abbott was elected because of what she said she stood for.