Baroness Thatcher - Dead / RIP

[glasfryn]

I think the majority of heavyweight political commentators would disagree with you. It seems to be commonly accepted that she changed the collective national mindset.

made people greedy you mean
I cannot believe that she is still being discussed here most were not even around while she was in office and those that were around at that time will always have a polarized view.
she never done me any favours and I believe I have worked hard all my working life, yet then as now the people who dictate to us their policies have I doubt done a decent days work at any time.
she was a grocers daughter trouble was she forgot where she came from and some of the privalages that life bought her

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

I held off getting involved in all of this because I know that people have their political opinions and no arguing is gonna change that, so we end up going around and around getting nowhere. It was a mistake for me to get involved, I'll leave this discussion now (commonly known as a flounce )

Actually Icy Gull, you are right, I'd vowed not come on NSC for a few days or even post-Middlesboro, when Ashley Barnes will be getting the blame...... I wish I hadn't, as I'm irritated again.

Time to stop....

 

[Silk]

Re: The truly inspirational Baroness Thatcher - RIP

I held off getting involved in all of this because I know that people have their political opinions and no arguing is gonna change that, so we end up going around and around getting nowhere. It was a mistake for me to get involved, I'll leave this discussion now (commonly known as a flounce )

I presume that translates as "I haven't got an answer for that"?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Completely correct, although I would go for something else as an alternative, the idea of any "income tax" repulses me. Your income is compensation for your labor, and your labor is your property.

I'm scared now - I actually agree with you ! That said, I can't work out what that alternative could be.

 

[mikeyjh]

Successive governments have had 23 years to put it right but failed.

The driving forces behind the cultural changes were largely irreversible, (by any sane government), for instance you can't en-masse buy back all of the utilities or social housing that were sold off (on the cheap) leaving many people wealthy and greedy for more.... But many more with nothing and living in broken and divided communities - That's what she created and there's no simple solution to fix it.

 

[The Large One]

7. Gave all Union members a vote rather than the restricting it to the people running it. Even Kinnock recognised that was the way forward..

Thatcher didn't give any union members any kind of voting system.

John Smith persuaded the unions to introduce one member, one vote in place of the prevalent union bloc vote.

 

[Mr Bridger]

made people greedy you mean
I cannot believe that she is still being discussed here most were not even around while she was in office and those that were around at that time will always have a polarized view.
she never done me any favours and I believe I have worked hard all my working life, yet then as now the people who dictate to us their policies have I doubt done a decent days work at any time.
she was a grocers daughter trouble was she forgot where she came from and some of the privalages that life bought her

exactly what 'FAVOURS' would you be expecting by any government? something for nothing i'm thinking...

 

[Albumen]

Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette

The dictate that one 'not speak ill of the dead' is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures


Glenn Greenwald

guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 April 2013 15.41 BST


News of Margaret Thatcher's death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. British Labour MP Tom Watson decreed: "I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today." Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls "on the left" who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he "will continue to add to this list throughout the day". Former Tory MP Louise Mensch, with no apparent sense of irony, invoked precepts of propriety to announce: "Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her."

This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here.

But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.

Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless." Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. Here, for instance, was what the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez:

To the millions who detested him as a thug and charlatan, it will be occasion to bid, vocally or discreetly, good riddance."

Nobody, at least that I know of, objected to that observation on the ground that it was disrespectful to the ability of the Chavez family to mourn in peace. Any such objections would have been invalid. It was perfectly justified to note that, particularly as the Guardian also explained that "to the millions who revered him – a third of the country, according to some polls – a messiah has fallen, and their grief will be visceral." Chavez was indeed a divisive and controversial figure, and it would have been reckless to conceal that fact out of some misplaced deference to the grief of his family and supporters. He was a political and historical figure and the need to accurately portray his legacy and prevent misleading hagiography easily outweighed precepts of death etiquette that prevail when a private person dies.

Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.

 

[Silk]

Re: The truly inspirational Baroness Thatcher - RIP

exactly what 'FAVOURS' would you be expecting by any government? something for nothing i'm thinking...

On the other hand, if a government isn't there to serve and to help the people, what exactly is it there for?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The driving forces behind the cultural changes were largely irreversible, (by any sane government), for instance you can't en-masse buy back all of the utilities or social housing that were sold off (on the cheap) leaving many people wealthy and greedy for more.... But many more with nothing and living in broken and divided communities - That's what she created and there's no simple solution to fix it.

Housing Associations now build houses for social housing. Councils were finding increasingly expensive to maintain properties. I agree there should be a lot more social housing.

 

[Common as Mook]

A bit of myth busting around the miners' strike, written by someone alive at the time and living in Sheffield:

It's himself, Phelan: Myths and the miners strike

Key bit here which I never knew:

In 1955 only 9.2% of coal was power loaded, by 1969 this had risen to 92.2%. Jobs were lost in numbers that the Thatcher years never got close to. 346,000 miners left the industry between 1963 and 1968, in 1967 there were 12,900 forced redundancies. Under the prime minister during that period, Harold Wilson, one pit closed every week yet there are few people planning trips to his grave with their tap shoes.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Completely correct, although I would go for something else as an alternative, the idea of any "income tax" repulses me. Your income is compensation for your labor, and your labor is your property.

Logically that argument extends to all taxes. The truth is you live in a selfish fantasy land. Try expanding your reading beyond ultra libertarian US websites

 

[drew]

5. Gordon Brown deregulated the banks. Fair to say people were encouraged to aspire to better things, which did in its own way promote greed, in a number of cases.

Deregulation of financial sector started in the 80s probably partly fuelled by the desire to keep up with the deregulation going on in the states led by Reagan. The race to be the richest bank etc probably led more to the credit crunch than anything Brown did. Lets not forget that Tories are always for less regulation of markets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/09/big-bang-1986-city-deregulation-boom-bust

Completely correct, although I would go for something else as an alternative, the idea of any "income tax" repulses me. Your income is compensation for your labor, and your labor is your property.

So, no taxation then. How are you going to pay for things like the roads, street lighting, refuse collection etc etc. The list is endless but healthcare is probably the most relevant.

 

[dingodan]

On the other hand, if a government isn't there to serve and to help the people, what exactly is it there for?

It is there to protect your Liberty.

When we say government, what we more accurately mean is law. When we say law, what we more accurately mean is force.

"If every person has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right - it's reason for existing, it's lawfulness - is based on an individual right. And the common force which protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as substitute.

The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties..."

---

"Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the law should not also organize labor, education, and religion. Why should the law not be used for these purposes? Because it could not [do so] without destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force.

When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive, they defend equally the rights of all."

- Frederic Bastiat, The Law.


EDIT: Incidentally, I just discovered that Margaret Thatcher was once a judge for the Bastiat Prize

 

[dingodan]

Logically that argument extends to all taxes. The truth is you live in a selfish fantasy land. Try expanding your reading beyond ultra libertarian US websites

My opposition to my being taxed, is an opposition to your being taxed. And everyone being taxed. So it's hardly selfish. And your labor is not a legitimate target for taxation in my opinion. If a tax is placed on fuel, and the tax is used to pay for roads - no problem. Nobody is forced to used a motor vehicle, and if they do they contribute to the infrastructure which makes it possible.

When the government takes a portion of your income, it is taking something to which it has no natural or logical right. The implication when the state takes a portion of your income, before it gets to you, is that it owns you and your income, and it permits you to keep some of it. There is no legitimate basis for an income tax, none.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

made people greedy you mean
I cannot believe that she is still being discussed here most were not even around while she was in office and those that were around at that time will always have a polarized view.
she never done me any favours and I believe I have worked hard all my working life, yet then as now the people who dictate to us their policies have I doubt done a decent days work at any time.
she was a grocers daughter trouble was she forgot where she came from and some of the privalages that life bought her

Made people greedy among other things.

I realise I have three big things in common with the Blessed Margaret:

• I come from a methodist background
• I am the son (not daughter) of a Grocer.
• I studied at oxford.

I did not appear to share her views or values on anything, however.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Hmm, so the country is now full of people who cannot make their own judgements and decisions on how they run their lives and think because of Maggie. I don't buy that.

maybe "changed the collective national mindset" was a bit strong. But she certainly shifted the orthodoxy, or moved the goalposts, or made sure that things would not be the same again, because politicians coming afterwards, of whatever persuasion, were unwilling to go against what had now become accepted, rightly or wrongly.

 

[somerset]

Here is my take:

It's interesting to note that those politicians that are determined to do what they believe is right, rather than what is popular, end up being hated. Yet they also repeatedly win elections

Margaret Thatcher administered some desperately needed medicine to this country. Sure, she lost her way in the end but she was a conviction politician - she always did what she thought was right - a quality sadly lacking in the shower that ran this country into the ground for 13 yrs, and certainly lacking in the current lot too.

 

[HovaGirl]

ERM, no, she presided over a massive increase in unemployment.

Those who see employment as a right would take that attitude. The unions grew all-powerful in the seventies, and ended up pricing jobs out of the market. To pay for union demands and higher wages, the prices of the goods and commodities had to rise and that makes them uncompetitive so that it can be cheaper to buy those things from abroad. And that's what happened. The unions demanded too much. If the unions had backed down sooner, many of those jobs and industries might have been saved. (Strangely, I blamed Maggie for all that damage for years, but in reality, it was the unions who were at fault.)

 

[somerset]

Those who see employment as a right would take that attitude. The unions grew all-powerful in the seventies, and ended up pricing jobs out of the market. To pay for union demands and higher wages, the prices of the goods and commodities had to rise and that makes them uncompetitive so that it can be cheaper to buy those things from abroad. And that's what happened. The unions demanded too much. If the unions had backed down sooner, many of those jobs and industries might have been saved. (Strangely, I blamed Maggie for all that damage for years, but in reality, it was the unions who were at fault.)

.... and don't forget that the oft lauded miners strike, led by Scargill and Co, was illegal, there was no ballot. There had been 3 previous votes for a national miners strike, all defeated by the memberships,..... Scargill finally led his own personal crusade because he thought he could make a career out of the ashes of the Conservatives, just as the Unions did to the Heath government..... he was wrong.