New facebook group.

[Lozart]

Well we have disagreements but we don't generallly need moderation to prevent dickheadery, so i should hope so....

Although i'm now wondering if you are using "hate" to mean disagreement, as is the new stylee? I wonder what we ought to say when we actually do hate somebody these days? Ah... I remember, hate is a very strong emotion, after shame, then guilt, the strongest probably, which comes about as a result of behaviour so inimical to our peace that we cannot imagine forgiving... not much of that around these days, for all the Tory press bleating.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if I wouldn't like things to go back to how they were in the late 80's early 90's just to see a little passion in people's eyes. Then I remember that if the Tories have their way, that is what will happen. I can't possibly want that then, even if I thought it might be a good thing. You know why? Because the 1st time around taught me to hate...

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Maybe it's my age (43) or maybe it's where I grew up (Surrey) but I remember the 80's and 90's under Thatcher in a far better light. Money your pockets, Sigue Sigue Sputnick in the charts and finally - tight jeans instead of corduroy flares. Of course, being a teenager and utterly uninterested in politics beyond seeing angry miners getting twatted with riot batons and wondering when the IRA would try and blow up the local shopping centre again (I grew up bang smack in the middle of Sandhurst and Aldershot) or if some nutter would escape from Broadmoor (just up the road) again might have something to do with it. Booze at less than £2 a pint probably helped.

 

[Ian_Gere]

That time in a nutshell: the Tories were in power.

They attempted to implement policies based on an economic theory called "monetarism".

Monetarism is the doctrine that nothing has worth except a cash value determined purely by what buyers will pay for it.

Alongside this goes the belief that a free market to determine this worth will fix all problems.

The "problem" which the Tories wanted fixed most was the tendency of British people to stick together, especially when times are tough, because this prevents a free market from valuing a person whose skills are very common as nil.

The reason they want a no/low/obsolete skilled worker's value to be effectively nothing is because the threat of unemployment is then so much worse, which has the tendency to hold wages down, increasing profitability.

The means they chose to apply a free market to "the problem" was to under-invest in the NHS and Local Govt services, hold benefit rate increases at less than inflation, and break the agreement which had meant that wage settlements for Nurses, Fire Brigade, and Police were tied together so they could pay the police more individually, even though they would invest less, in comparison to inflation and population than previously. The theory being that if you make things tough enough, dog-eat-dog will take over.

The reason for paying police more is that the free market says their skillset is more important than saving people or looking after them, which is obvious because cutting services and freezing benefits which the poorest rely upon will increase crime.

Crime did increase, but way more than the Tories had planned for. Something which came completely out of the blue for them however was that the tendency of Brits to stick together when times are hard did not go away, it simply changed.

We all know that certain crimes are considered ok by the majority of us: if you get caught then it's tough titty, but if you get away with it, more power to your elbow... like padding insurance claims, helping yourself to stationary from work, etc. - things which, if not victimless, don't actually fuck anybody up. What happened in the late 80's to early 90's is that the acceptability of crime increased massively and so did complicity - people who would have previously considered themselves entirely law abiding citizens began to allow things they could have reported to the police to slide - sort of like charity.

It wasn't long before charity became cooperation and then cooperation took a percentage, for some people, so things like buying stolen goods became much more widely acceptable, ripping off satellite tv, small scale drug dealing, etc.

Now they're back in power, having seen what happened last time, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do to keep a lid on the surge of crime this time.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Maybe it's my age (43) or maybe it's where I grew up (Surrey) but I remember the 80's and 90's under Thatcher in a far better light. Money your pockets, Sigue Sigue Sputnick in the charts and finally - tight jeans instead of corduroy flares. Of course, being a teenager and utterly uninterested in politics beyond seeing angry miners getting twatted with riot batons and wondering when the IRA would try and blow up the local shopping centre again (I grew up bang smack in the middle of Sandhurst and Aldershot) or if some nutter would escape from Broadmoor (just up the road) again might have something to do with it. Booze at less than £2 a pint probably helped.

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It was very different up north and even down south in the west. But yeah, cheap booze, and don't forget the massive surge in the availability of other drugs...

The PIRA threat is interesting to remember - determined people who did blow up the government of the day, had assassinated a member of the royal family and plenty of high ranking security personnel - there is absolutely no doubt that they had the means and the will to commit acts of terrorism in mainland UK - yet somehow that threat did not require anywhere near as many armed police as we have lurking around these days to deter a far less successful enemy.

 

[Lozart]

It was very different up north and even down south in the west. But yeah, cheap booze, and don't forget the massive surge in the availability of other drugs...

The PIRA threat is interesting to remember - determined people who did blow up the government of the day, had assassinated a member of the royal family and plenty of high ranking security personnel - there is absolutely no doubt that they had the means and the will to commit acts of terrorism in mainland UK - yet somehow that threat did not require anywhere near as many armed police as we have lurking around these days to deter a far less successful enemy.

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We didn't need armed police because we still had a big enough army to do the same job. Plus we weren't stationed all over the place trying to sort out the US's problems!

Plus I think the media then were more "on our side" rather than just trying to stir up outrage as they do now. The vast majority of the Provos efforts to blow shit up were aimed at military personnel on the ground in NI and of course the Garda. Plus some very public campaigns on the mainland. It seemed somehow less insidious than the current threats of Islamic terrorism, more targeted at the establishment than at the populace in general.

 

[Ian_Gere]

You never used to see whole platoons of armed soldiers at airports, just hanging around waiting to shoot anybody that looked suspicious though. I'm 45 btw, so we are contemporaries. I grew up in Blackpool, so I was aware of the degree of security applied to party conferences. Nothing like what we have these days!

What I'm saying is that I find our current 'threat level' analysis and/or the response to it to be excessive. Especially since armed police/security services hanging about projected targets will never actually prevent a committed terrorist from blowing the place up, or an armed group shooting the place up.

TBH I'd feel safer without them too. I'd much rather know that the SAS had squadrons dotted about the country ready to gear up and go at short notice - trained soldiers who are brave enough to front up to any potential threat without a twitchy trigger finger, but who will quickly and accurately shoot dead anyone identified by calm, patient, military, intelligence as a genuine threat. Not coppers getting their sweeny on...

 

[Lozart]

coppers getting their sweeny on...

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Genuine LOL at that!

I agree with a lot of what you've said there. It just seems to me at least that the lack of (if you'll excuse the Clancy-ism) a "clear and present danger" coupled with the increase in armed crime means that the domestic armed response has fallen on the Police service to manage rather than tie up the armed forces. Plus I'm sure even SO19 has a slightly more softly softly approach than the 22 reg boys! Not sure I'd want them rocking up every time some pisshead waves a chair leg at the Old Bill!

 

[Ian_Gere]

Yeah, that's kind of my point - some pillock waving a chair leg needs a good clip round the ear, not an armed response. I think there's a bit of a sea change in recruitment and expectations of the job in policing. When I was at an age to receive careers advice I knew that joining the police force would be a dangerous job in which I would more than probably be involved in violent encounters with people bigger and/or better armed than me, with nothing but my training and the perp's fear of the consequences of hurting me badly (as represented by the uniform) between me and a good shoeing.

The reason why British Police used to have that understanding and the esprit de corps which went with it, as I understand it at least, is that we in Britain believe that policing is an ongoing agreement between the community at large and our lawmakers to try to maintain the peace not, like in some countries, an attempt to force the community to abide by whatever interpretation of the law local police commanders support...

It's not a job I would do, unless there was nobody else willing to, because I do not believe sufficiently in the aims of our community at large to put my body/life on the line to further them. That said, I do believe in the concept of community so, as I say, if there was nobody else willing to try to keep a peace, then yeah. Not that I disapprove of body armour, spring loaded batons, pepper spray, or tasers, anything which reduces personal risk for individual officers is good, but only so long as their gear does not give them such an advantage in a fight that they can successfully force a community to toe a line which it would rather not.

It seems to me that the emphasis is switching/has switched to the individual officer's safety: like a bloke with a chair leg could theoretically kill someone with it, so rather than risk a couple of coppers to arrest him, shoot him. It's the US way. It shouldn't be our way.

 

[Reptile Smile]

That time in a nutshell: the Tories were in power.

They attempted to implement policies based on an economic theory called "monetarism".

Monetarism is the doctrine that nothing has worth except a cash value determined purely by what buyers will pay for it.

Alongside this goes the belief that a free market to determine this worth will fix all problems.

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In fairness, that's not quite what monetarism is, or at least it's only half the story. You have (as I know you full well know, Ian!) classical economics theory [do nothing and every economy will home in on perfect equilibrium of supply and demand, notwithstanding a few expansions and contractions on the way], Keynesian economics [believing that the classical theory is rubbish, as demonstrated by the Great Depression, and that what will tickle it along is demand-side fiddling - build a lot of roads, etc, meaning that you create jobs, and the whole thing gets going - spending your way out of a recession, as it were], and Friedman's Monetarism [Classical theory is right - economies gravitate towards equilibrium, but what prevents it is buggering about with the demand-side].

So monetarism criticises the approach of 'fiddling' the economy, but also believes that removing the barriers to equilibrium (mainly, removing the fiddling) produces long-term stability. So you remove false wage rises, remove the false power of trade unions, remove the falsifying nature of benefits, get people into work not by creating jobs, but by relocating them and improving careers advice, etc, etc.

And of course, the big question is which one is right and no one ever agrees.

As someone who is profoundly left wing, and a dabbler in economics and finance, I'm bothered by the idea that I believe there is probably on balance quite a lot of evidence to suggest that Monetarism works, in that it achieves its primary aim of economic stability. It's just that social justice is not the price I'm prepared to pay for that, and I would rather have boom and bust (which is effectively what left-wing fiscal policy can only produce) and social justice, than a stable economy for all and a society of the haves and have-nots...

 

[Baz JJ]

I don't go on the other general Airsoft forums.

One is totally dominated by its admins and they are quite rude if they don't like the subject of your post.

I got shouted down for reporting a problem I had with one retailer.

Here the thread was allowed to continue until its natural conclusion, unmolested.

This is the only forum I haven't had a bunch of dicks giving random hate lol

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[Ian_Gere]

Well, Reptile Smile, for sure I couldn't be arsed with the full economic definition of Monetarism, but what I said covers it as far as the development of Tory policy goes - they are entirely convinced that a truly free market is a panacea which when applied to absolutely everything will miraculously fix anything. I profoundly disagree, not just with the whole social justice aspect, but with the economics also. Yeah, it will produce stability, but that stability has a number of names with which people are more familiar - feudalism for eg, monopoly, fascism...

It is only the artificial constructs of law tinkering with it which allow a market to exist in any meaningful way at all, because in truth economics cannot be separated from politics in the real world and wealth provides power; power seeks to maintain power; maintaining power eliminates competition; without competition there is no benefit to consumers from the operation of any form of market, in fact, compared to a market without competition, or with a de facto cartel, the average person would be better off under a command economy controlled by committee, because it is at least possible for their opinion to influence the decisions of said committee!

 

[Oshia]

I do recall a lot of childish replies to criticism made on another forum that I frequent.
But it has to be said, you don't look a day over 16, I'm sorry if you are, I'm 31 and people say I look 8 years younger.. but I like those people.