If it wasn't for UKIP........

[johnnytodd]

post an ending to the above sentence, here's mine.

If it wasn't for UKIP Labour might be 14% closer to the tories.

lolzzzzzz

 

[Dirk]

If it wasn't for UKIP........

johnny wouldn't have lost his marbles and opened the same thread twice (and wouldn't end all his threads with LOLZ.

http://onefootballforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/if-it-wasnt-for-ukip.13981/

(maybe a responsible mod can delete the 2nd. One of it is enough )

edit: Thanks for deleting the 2nd.

 

[Renegade]

 

[Vanni]

If it wasn't for UKIP, the average Joe on the street's IQ would be higher. Much higher.

 

[Abertawe]

If it wasn't for UKIP the disgruntled Tories & BNP adorers wouldn't have their veil.

 

[Stevencc]

I'm pretty sure they don't approve of veils...

 

[Captain Scumbag]

If it wasn't for UKIP, I wouldn't have wasted about a billion hours of my life arguing about politics on TFF/1FF.

But in a UKIP-less world there wouldn't have been an EU referendum.

Swings and roundabouts.

 

[smat]

If it wasn't for UKIP, I wouldn't have wasted about a billion hours of my life arguing about politics on TFF/1FF.

But in a UKIP-less world there wouldn't have been an EU referendum.

Swings and roundabouts.

And Jo Cox might still be alive!

 

[Jockney]

If it wasn't for UKIP, we might not have got to witness the repeated ego-meltdown of Robert Kilroy-Silk.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

And Jo Cox might still be alive!

And you wouldn't have just trivialised a woman's murder with predictable facetiousness in a cheap attempt to garner likes on an internet forum!

 

[Jockney]

And you wouldn't have just trivialised a woman's murder with predictable facetiousness in a cheap attempt to garner likes on an internet forum!

I thought that was the whole point of the internet, tbh.

 

[Bilo]

And you wouldn't have just trivialised a woman's murder with predictable facetiousness in a cheap attempt to garner likes on an internet forum!

It's not uncommon at all for a politically radical person to consider outside condonement incredibly important. A sense of context can be quite central in creating a mindset that eventually rationalizes political violence (John Ausonios, standout example).

So smat's statement isn't even especially controversial. He said "might" and that's pretty accurate.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

^
He was being a flippant arse, which TBF is his time-honoured shtick. If I had a genuine problem with it, he and I would have fallen out over a decade ago. I think you're taking this far more seriously than we are.

 

[johnnytodd]

It's not uncommon at all for a politically radical person to consider outside condonement incredibly important. A sense of context can be quite central in creating a mindset that eventually rationalizes political violence (John Ausonios, standout example).

So smat's statement isn't even especially controversial. He said "might" and that's pretty accurate.

Thought you weren't interested in UKIP

LOLZ

 

[ZianfrancoGoal]

^
He was being a flippant arse, which TBF is his time-honoured shtick. If I had a genuine problem with it, he and I would have fallen out over a decade ago. I think you're taking this far more seriously than we are.

it's not as bad as the time he did away with capitalisation and punctuation is it

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

And you wouldn't have just trivialised a woman's murder with predictable facetiousness in a cheap attempt to garner likes on an internet forum!

Predictable facetiousness is Smat's porn name.

 

[IanH]

It's not uncommon at all for a politically radical person to consider outside condonement incredibly important. A sense of context can be quite central in creating a mindset that eventually rationalizes political violence (John Ausonios, standout example).

So smat's statement isn't even especially controversial. He said "might" and that's pretty accurate.

^
He was being a flippant arse, which TBF is his time-honoured shtick. If I had a genuine problem with it, he and I would have fallen out over a decade ago. I think you're taking this far more seriously than we are.

And also making my brain hurt. Like wtf Bilo, did someone get you an adverb dictionary for christmas or something? Your English is impeccable, but you're starting to overdo it.

Smat and I were in a taxi once and fell out. Well, he fell out, I managed to grab hold of that little thing you can hang your suit on. Anyway, the fall out of it all was that we fell out. Haven't spoken to him since.

 

[mnb089mnb]

If it wasn't for UKIP...

I'd have been married a long time ago, where did you come from where did you go where did you come from UKIPio?

 

[IanH]

If it weren't for UKIP I'd be completely able to leisurely watch Roland Garros without constantly being reminded of an overtly racist politically-inept party incessantly appearing on my slightly undersized tv screen every time that a highly-paid tennista would casually swing his incredibly light racquet and marginally mishit his shot, resulting in the undoubtedly severely underpaid cameraman hastily readjusting his carefully planned angle subtely (read blatently) to show us an overly zoomed in shot of the frankly vulgar sponsor of the entirely worldwidely acclaimed tennistically themed tournament.

Or maybe that was BNP.

 

[Bilo]

^
He was being a flippant arse, which TBF is his time-honoured shtick. If I had a genuine problem with it, he and I would have fallen out over a decade ago. I think you're taking this far more seriously than we are.

And also making my brain hurt. Like wtf Bilo, did someone get you an adverb dictionary for christmas or something? Your English is impeccable, but you're starting to overdo it.

Smat and I were in a taxi once and fell out. Well, he fell out, I managed to grab hold of that little thing you can hang your suit on. Anyway, the fall out of it all was that we fell out. Haven't spoken to him since.

I genuinely don't see either of your points.

I just thought what smat said was perfectly reasonable, and I defended it. I mostly discuss politics to find the flaws in my own arguments. It's sporadical if anything, in this case I interpreted it as smat saying something and Captain Scumbag, whom I've had (from my perspective) very rewarding political discussions with in the past, gave him undeserved stick.

Nobody gave me an adverb dictionary for christmas, but I do regularly miss sarcasm/inside jokes on this forum far more often than I do in any situations where I'm not dependent on the second language of mine. I guess terminology is more advanced in this part of the forum than in the premier league forum, but that comes with the territory.

TL;DR: I missed the joke sorry guys smat is still right.

 

[Abertawe]

I genuinely don't see either of your points.

I just thought what smat said was perfectly reasonable, and I defended it. I mostly discuss politics to find the flaws in my own arguments. It's sporadical if anything, in this case I interpreted it as smat saying something and Captain Scumbag, whom I've had (from my perspective) very rewarding political discussions with in the past, gave him undeserved stick.

Nobody gave me an adverb dictionary for christmas, but I do regularly miss sarcasm/inside jokes on this forum far more often than I do in any situations where I'm not dependent on the second language of mine. I guess terminology is more advanced in this part of the forum than in the premier league forum, but that comes with the territory.

TL;DR: I missed the joke sorry guys smat is still right.

smat wasn't right. He made a smarmy joke at the expense of someone who was brutally murdered by some c*** who can only be mentally diseased. Even taking into account that stupid poster to cast blame on UKIP is pathetic but sadly something that is all too predictable from pretentious liberal idiot like smat.

 

[Bilo]

smat wasn't right. He made a smarmy joke at the expense of someone who was brutally murdered by some c*** who can only be mentally diseased. Even taking into account that stupid poster to cast blame on UKIP is pathetic but sadly something that is all too predictable from pretentious liberal idiot like smat.

I want to reply to this but I'm too fucking tired man it's one hour later here than in Wales. Just: smat said "might" and that's why he's right, political radicals tend to depend on a context (a feeling of a cause greater than themselves) and UKIP and the rhetoric it stems from "might" very well be a part of the context this man's absurd ideas were dependable on. (John Ausonius. google!!111 He's not the only example but he's a perfect one showing context, rhetoric and indirect condonement's relation to radical individuals turning to violence).

Fucking hell remind me tomorrow goodnight now all the best keep on keeping on.

 

[sl1k]

 

[smat]

Hi guys. I do actually believe Jo Cox would still be alive if it weren't for the EU referendum, the legitimisation of racism by mainstream politicians in a sop to the populist right, and by extension UKIP. Ask Alty, we had an argument about it in another thread. All the best.

 

[Alty]

Hi guys. I do actually believe Jo Cox would still be alive if it weren't for the EU referendum, the legitimisation of racism by mainstream politicians in a sop to the populist right, and by extension UKIP. Ask Alty, we had an argument about it in another thread. All the best.

It's true. He does. And we did.

Never quite got to the bottom of how a bloke whose interest in racist politics began 20 years before UKIP became popular was the party's fault. Seems more likely that the fact his newly elected local MP was a big advocate for bringing refugees from Africa and Asia to the UK is what pushed him over the edge.

But there you go.

 

[smat]

Thanks for vouching.

 

[Bilo]

Seems more likely that the fact his newly elected local MP was a big advocate for bringing refugees from Africa and Asia to the UK is what pushed him over the edge.

Are you familiar with the term "victim blaming"? It's considered extremely, well, not nice.

Anyway, your logic is easily flipped. For those 20 years there were lots of MP's advocating bringing refugees to the UK, so if that's all it took then it'd have happened much earlier.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

^
Yes to the second point, but in a similar vein one could point out that approximately 45 million people were eligible to vote in the EU referendum, and approximately 44,999,999 of them managed to endure the wretched thing without brutally murdering their MP. In a strictly statistical sense, Thomas Mair must be considered an anomaly. I know it’s insensitive to say so when a lady has lost her life in one of the worst ways imaginable, but that doesn’t make the point any less true.

Very little is known about Mair, but the basic sketch is of an unhappy loner whose politics are way to the right of anything ever advocated by UKIP. There is little ambiguity here: politically he’s a far right white supremacist. His bookshelves were full of Nazi and Neo-Nazi literature. He associated and corresponded with various white supremacist groups on both sides of the Atlantic. His correspondence suggests a quite severe form of racist paranoia – the standard pish about whites being existentially doomed and white ‘traitors’ aiding and abetting. There is also evidence (e.g. him researching past assassinations and purchasing manuals on bomb making) indicating that he’d been considering violence for a while, long before the European Union Referendum Act (2015) received Royal Assent.

Did the EU referendum debate tip him over the edge? I dunno; and, in a strictly epistemological sense, no one else does either. The same applies for pretty much any other hypothesis, such as Alty’s suggestion that Cox’s own politics contributed in some way, which is why all "X drove him over the edge" talk is misguided. However, I think it should be noted in passing that suggesting something as a possible causal factor (i.e. something that has relevance in the chain of cause and effect) does not necessary imply blame or culpability. One can identify Cox’s politics as a possible cause while simultaneously holding Mair entirely to blame.

For me the important point is this: if reading one of Jo Cox’s tweets or espying one of Nigel Farage’s campaign posters ‘triggered‘ Mair (only Mair, mind) into committing murder, there must have been pre-existing contributory problems/factors, i.e. things particular to his circumstances that partly explain his actions. A mere 30 seconds is all I needed to compile a list of counterfactual scenarios in which Jo Cox might still be still alive. Perhaps her murder wouldn’t have happened if Thomas Mair’s parents had done a better job. Or if his grandmother (with whom he lived) hadn’t died in the mid-1990s. Or if he’d had friends. Or if he’d met a good woman circa 1994. Or if he’d been in secure, well-paid employment. Or if there had been better mental health services in his community. And so on.

The point is, if someone is serious about understanding why Jo Cox was murdered – i.e. if they are principally guided by pursuit of truth – then there’s a whole multitude of possible causal factors, political and non-political, to consider. To focus solely on the fact of there being a EU referendum (and UKIP’s role regarding that) is incredibly reductive.

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

*vein

 

[Bilo]

^
Yes to the second point, but in a similar vain one could point out that approximately 45 million people were eligible to vote in the EU referendum, and approximately 44,999,999 of them managed to endure the wretched thing without brutally murdering their MP. In a strictly statistic sense, Thomas Mair must be considered an anomaly. I know it’s insensitive to say so when a lady has lost her life in one of the worst ways imaginable, but that doesn’t make the point any less true.

Very little is known about Mair, but the basic sketch is of an unhappy loner whose politics are way to the right of anything ever advocated by UKIP. There is little ambiguity here: politically he’s a far right white supremacist. His bookshelves were full of Nazi and Neo-Nazi literature. He associated and corresponded with various white supremacist groups on both sides of the Atlantic. His correspondence suggests a quite severe form of racist paranoia – the standard pish about whites being existentially doomed and white ‘traitors’ aiding and abetting. There is also evidence (e.g. him researching past assassinations and purchasing manuals on bomb making) indicating that he’d been considering violence for a while, long before the European Union Referendum Act (2015) received Royal Assent.

Did the EU referendum debate tip him over the edge? I dunno; and, in a strictly epistemological sense, no one else does either. The same applies for any other single-cause hypothesis, such as Alty’s suggestion that Cox’s own politics may be have contributed in some way, which is why all "X drove him over the edge" talk is misguided. However, I think it should be noted in passing that suggesting something as a possible causal factor (i.e. something that has relevance in a cause-and-effect sense) does not necessary imply blame or culpability. One can identify Cox’s politics as a possible cause while simultaneously holding Mair entirely to blame.

For me the important point is this: if reading one of Jo Cox’s tweets or espying one of Nigel Farage’s campaign posters ‘triggered‘ Mair (only Mair, mind) into committing murder, there must have been pre-existing contributory problems/factors, i.e. things particular to his circumstances that partly explain his actions. A mere 30 seconds is all I needed to compile a list of counterfactual scenarios in which Jo Cox might still be still alive. Perhaps her murder wouldn’t have happened if Thomas Mair’s parents had done a better job. Or if his grandmother (with whom he lived) hadn’t died in the mid-1990s. Or if he’d had friends. Or if he’d met a good woman circa 1994. Or if he’d been in secure, well-paid employment. Or if there had been better mental health services in his community. And so on.

The point is, if someone is serious about understanding why Jo Cox was murdered – i.e. if they are principally guided by pursuit of truth – then there’s a whole multitude of possible causal factors, political and non-political, to consider. To focus solely on the fact of there being a EU referendum (and UKIP’s role regarding that) is incredibly reductive.

Good post, I agree with most of it. However, regarding "One can identify Cox’s politics as a possible cause while simultaneously holding Mair entirely to blame"; thats somewhat missing the point. Victim blaming as a theory is only regarding the first part of that sentence, the second part is completely irrelevant (I disagree with it though, but it's beside the point). Instead of recommending a book to seem smart, this will explain well enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming. Victim blaming has much more to do with choice of words and choice of which factors pointed out. Like you said, we're talking at the very least a dozen of casual factors here and Alty chose to speak only about Cox's politics. It's slam dunk victim blaming. But anyway, you don't seem to be condoning it.

However, smat's statement didn't in any way imply there weren't other casual factors. However, by definition, removing one casual factor changes the outcome. And as I have said earlier, a wide sense of condonement and context can certainly be a casual factor even though he was way further to the right than UKIP. For example, the feeling of people agreeing that immigration is dangerous and amplifying the feeling that "something needs to be done". Also, right wing populists tend to use very vague language on purpose to appeal to the extreme right groups without outright condoning them; le Pen is a fantastic example, Trump slightly less so but good enough if you don't follow french politics.

So the bottom line, for me, is that the statement "without Ukip Cox might still be alive" is accurate. The statement "without Ukip Cox would be alive" isn't accurate. Again, the statement doesn't exclude other casual factors; merely saying that UKIP might have been. And while we know little about Mair, we know a lot about similar acts of terrorism. He'd be an exception if he doesn't care about his actions being condoned by more than just a few people, a kind of "they agree with me, they just won't say it".

Edit: I just realized smat jumped another fifteen steps in a fucked direction in #24, didn't pay enough attention. I don't agree with that. I'm still on his first post.