The question goes to the core of the search for truth.
And asks if we want a politics based on hope, and not fear.
And empathy, and not aggression.
And of mutual respect instead of mistrust.
In essence, it is asking do we care for the other person, whoever they might be, or not?
It is the question of our times.
Do we want ethical politics, or not?
How about a politics not determined by the Senior Lecturer as a start?
Or to be less facile, how about free market liberalism? That one where people get to live and work by their own ethical standards, limiting only third party harm, the one where empathy is shown not demanded, respect earned not insisted upon?
‘And of mutual respect instead of mistrust.’
Politics of assimilation. Resistance is futile.
I think ‘Hair’ said it best:
‘How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend
I need a friend’
Ritchie needs a friend. Losing his job is getting to him.
Usual lefty cockrot from the potato. Hope not fear, love not hate, peace not war ….. drivel.
Do i want an ethical government – no, i want a government that sticks up for me and my interests, not some preening sjw putting the interests of every other country first. If that means fucking over johnny foreigner, then i’m happy with that.
In essence, it is asking do we care for the other person, whoever they might be, or not? – not if the person is not a uk citizen and double that if they are a member of a death cult that wants me dead.
Given that politics now is dominated by Brexit, Trump and Russia, I fail to see how these bizarre dichotomies have any relevance whatsoever. A Russian policy based on hope and empathy and respect would result in what precisely?
And asks if we want a politics based on hope, and not fear.
And empathy, and not aggression.
And of mutual respect instead of mistrust.
He can give up blogging, that will be a huge leap forward. No mire aggression, no more ad hominem responses to reasonable questions, no more banning people who disagree with him.
Candidly, hope not hate.
Do we want ethical politics, or not?
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here and not assume “ethical politics” isn’t just “Guardianista extremism or else”. What would “ethical politics” be like?
‘What would “ethical politics” be like?’
The Right surrendering to the Left. “Compromise,” they call it.
Ethics is another area that the LHTD does not understand. Ethical depends on what ethical system one embraces. A Rawlsian view or a Nozickian view are very different. A libertarian ethicist might find tax evasion ethical.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=841526
A sociopath like Murphy talking about empathy? Heh. He couldn’t even go to Dachau without making it about him.
I’m OK with widespread politeness, which can be a form of empathy.
Jezza might still qualify as Ritchie’s idea of an ethical politician.
If Labour would fund him, that is.
@ Rob
Ethical politics is where the guys heard the Sermon on the Mount *and listened*. Anything else is just posturing.
[Dalai Lama seems to have listened: the Sermon on the Mount probably appears scattered in chunks in Buddhist writings and/or has another name in Tibet]
@ ken
Definitely – my ethics include telling the truth – Murphy’s do not
@ John 77
I recommend for a fun read Lamb by Christopher Moore, the comic story of young Jesus and a friend travelling around learning spiritualism from other cultures before heading back to start his ministry having pinched bits along the way
Isn’t it easy to spout out how ethical and righteous you are. Even when your entire oeuvre reveals you be be a vicious and delusional narcissist. And yes Tim Newman, his trip to Dachau was perhaps his single most self-revealing moment.
It’s catching on though. Jeremy Corbyn proclaims – and believes! – he is a militant opponent of “racism in all its forms”. Problem is, he isn’t. He hangs out with hjose whose militant support of one particular form of racism cannot be questioned.
@ironman – also sadiq khan’s article in todays grauniad – Antisemitism endangers us all. We can’t afford to be complacent
this from a man who prior to being elected mayor described himself as agnostic but since being elected flaunts being a muslim at every opportunity. Anyone who belongs to the most antisemitic jew hatred group in the world is a total hypocrite just like our dear potato who’d be planning reeducation camps for anyone who disagreed with him if he had a sniff of power. for all his bluster and pontificating he has never even run for a parish council – so much for his belief in community .The reason being of course that his unpleasantness would be subject to public opprobrium and ridicule.
@Tim N Ah yes – you remind me of my near Haiku, posted here a while ago:
Somehow
On visiting Dachau
All that I see
Reminds me of me.
“ And asks if we want a politics based on hope, and not fear.”
How about a politics where British politicians put the interests of the British, and not foreigners, first?
theres a nice article in the speccie by paul dacre about the guardian – https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/the-curious-omission-from-alan-rusbridgers-book/
these quote about rushbridger and the guardian could be written about the potato by changing a few words.
But its real message – and how insidiously it drips through the pages – is that virtually every national newspaper in Britain is scurrilous, corrupt and amoral with one iridescent exception. Yes, you’ve guessed it: the Guardian.
So how sad that the defining tone of this tome is sanctimony and self-justification. Unedifyingly, it manages to combine rather cloying self-glorification and moral superiority with an almost visceral contempt of and disdain for the rest of the press.
A somewhat chilling lack of self-awareness fuses with a hyper-sensitivity to the flaws of others.
I hate the guardian – vile smug full of cunts
we want a politics based on hope, and not fear
Another volte face from Snippa then. He’s spent much of the last year telling us to be afraid of not being an EU member state, claiming without evidence that it will be a disaster, in contradiction to Cambridge Econometrics which he directs who tell us we’ll keep getting richer, just more slowly than before.
By Friday it will be back to fear for the tuber, recommending that we stock up on cash, water and pasta.
@ bongo – the original volte face was when the eu bunged him some dosh. Prior to that he had described the eu as dictatorial. If Vote Leave or Aaron Banks had bunged him some dosh he’d be cheering brexit from the rooftops.
john 77,
You’re referring to “blessed are the cheese-makers”?
‘Do we want ethical politics, or not?’
Not: ‘we’ don’t want politics at all.
Politics = the Mafia with self-awarded immunity from prosecution.
@ wat dabney
I wasn’t but the cheese-makers are pretty meek compared to French farmers …