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NUS national protest against the cuts 10.11.10 [London]

But that intimidation in the 80s didn't happen in a political vacuum did it. It was a reaction to assaults on the working class and organised labour by Thatcher et al; an attack that was supported and carried through on the back of the legislative changes to which you refer.
 
belboid said:
Scabs are thieves, it is perfectly sound to use all reasonable for ce to stop them.
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So you would not take issue if, say, Mr Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and his mates claimed that "Dole cheats are thieves, it is perfectly sound to use all reasonable force to stop them" (which would be exactly the same thing - force being used to enforce people fulfilling their responsibilities and not just taking advantage of their rights from a particular social contract).
 
detective-boy said:
So you would not take issue if, say, Mr Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and his mates claimed that "Dole cheats are thieves, it is perfectly sound to use all reasonable force to stop them" (which would be exactly the same thing - force being used to enforce people fulfilling their responsibilities and not just taking advantage of their rights from a particular social contract).
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force in which way? you seem to be talking about a situation in which mr disgusted and his mates report people to the authorities.
 
goebfwai said:
Clearly they should be means tested.
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I have to say that I have always believed that giving things to people that don't actually need them is basically fuckwitted. I don't get 2.5 seats in school even though I have no kids, just so I get may share. I don't get a free cataract operation just because I'm entitled to it. We all pay into the welfare state, according to ability to do so (though that could do with some evening out) and we should be entitled to draw on it according to need (though that means some would get more than their money's worth, some would get less - it's not called National Insurance for nothing - it covers you for the RISK of you falling in need and it only works if some (most even) put in more than they ever need to take out just like any insurance).

I appreciate that for "low-cost" benefits it is cheaper to make them universal as the cost / hassle of means testing is far more than it is worth ... but in this day and age can it really be so difficult for a computerised system to know our personal income, savings, etc. and to readily reconfigure joint income, savings, etc. as our relationships change so that everything could be means tested?
 
Fruitloop said:
But that intimidation in the 80s didn't happen in a political vacuum did it. It was a reaction to assaults on the working class and organised labour by Thatcher et al; an attack that was supported and carried through on the back of the legislative changes to which you refer.
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No, of course not. And there is much (most!) to condemn about what Thatcher did. But we have been talking about the use or threat of force against individuals, not the State.
 
Pickman's model said:
force in which way? you seem to be talking about a situation in which mr disgusted and his mates report people to the authorities.
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If you read my posts you will see that I suggest that any failure by a particular union member to fail to comply with a strike decision should be pursued as a matter of breach of contract, not by threatening to kick their head in.
 
detective-boy said:
No. Things are enforced by the threat of legal action between parties. Only the State/Courts have the ultimate power / right to use force on behalf of us all.
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in that case, when people vote to strike democratically, why don't the police use force on the side of the majority instead of using force to assist a minority of scabs and management?
 
detective-boy said:
I understand the point you are making ... but I am not sure at all that there are well understood and accepted "principles of worker's democracy" that obliges the individual to do anything. Even if they did, it would only be something which could be enforced as a type of contract. Nothing can be enforced by force or threats of force. (And I certainly don't agree that if those who wanted to strike are outvoted that they have to continue working - they are still perfectly entitled to make their own decision and, if they want, to withdraw their labour and no-one can force them to do otherwise by use or threat of force).
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#you're missing something very large here, and I think it's because a) you have no class politics, or so it seems, and b) your politics, such as I have beern able to discern, are unquestioningly pro-state, -establishment and -status quo.
There is nothing which can legally bind people to respect a picket line. There is nothing illegal about crossing that line. There is something hugely immoral, wrong, loathesome about scabbing, and something VERY morally right about doing everything possible to prevent it; it;'s about community, in the workplace or wherever, and it's about loyalty to that cmmunity, that class, and the fact that that class, and your workmates, and your community, have an absolute moral right to your solidarity in their hour of need. Every working class person in this country understands this, everyone who lives in an embattled w/c community understands that, everyone who has reluctantly gone on strike understands this, and knows this very clear moral point. And that is why feelings about scabs run so very high, and i for one say 'fuck the law - you owe it to your comrades'.
tbh, you're a copper (or were) and I feel that the inevitable consequences of that job, and the dialectiical implications of a class analysis of the police role, means you can't help b ut see things in narrow legalistic terms - you're just never gonna have that instinctive feel needed for class solidarity. In the final reckoning, the cops ARE the repression tool of the ruling class.
 
detective-boy said:
So you would not take issue if, say, Mr Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and his mates claimed that "Dole cheats are thieves, it is perfectly sound to use all reasonable force to stop them" (which would be exactly the same thing - force being used to enforce people fulfilling their responsibilities and not just taking advantage of their rights from a particular social contract).
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it is NOT the same thing, for the reasons in my last post; the one is about individual atomised mean-spiritedness that comes with affluence, the other is about standing by your own.
 
Streathamite said:
Every working class person in this country understands this, everyone who lives in an embattled w/c community understands that, everyone who has reluctantly gone on strike understands this, and knows this very clear moral point. And that is why feelings about scabs run so very high, and i for one say 'fuck the law - you owe it to your comrades'.
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Is that what you learned at public school?
 
detective-boy said:
I understand the point you are making ... but I am not sure at all that there are well understood and accepted "principles of worker's democracy" that obliges the individual to do anything. Even if they did, it would only be something which could be enforced as a type of contract. Nothing can be enforced by force or threats of force. (And I certainly don't agree that if those who wanted to strike are outvoted that they have to continue working - they are still perfectly entitled to make their own decision and, if they want, to withdraw their labour and no-one can force them to do otherwise by use or threat of force).
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if people don't feel compelled at all to stand by the end result of a democratic process they fully participated in, whilst expecting the other side to, had the result gone the other way - why bother having the democratic process in the first place?:confused:
 
detective-boy said:
You talk of "worker's democracy". It is a strange democracy that can only enforce it's decisions by physical means ... (And, in law, there is absolutely no basis for your claim that a strike decision can be enforced by physical action ... you can argue that is should be, and that the law should be changed, but, as things stand, there is simply no basis for it and the police have no option but to prevent it - they cannot unilaterally decide to make new law.
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How on earth do you think Parliament enforces decisions? By giving everyone fairy cakes with chocolate on the top?
 
detective-boy said:
So you would not take issue if, say, Mr Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and his mates claimed that "Dole cheats are thieves, it is perfectly sound to use all reasonable force to stop them" (which would be exactly the same thing - force being used to enforce people fulfilling their responsibilities and not just taking advantage of their rights from a particular social contract).
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abstracted arguments, always a winner
 
detective-boy said:
It wasn't a question - I was simply emphasising just how important I felt it was for us to invest in the young.

But, as usual, the usual suspects waded in, entirely misrepresenting what I had said and the context I had said it in. And everyone else that believed what they said I said rather than what I said I said. Go read my original post and you'll see exactly how I used it.
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I didn't misrepresent what you said. You chose your example to be a contentious one. No doubt deliberately.
 
detective-boy said:
No. Things are enforced by the threat of legal action between parties. Only the State/Courts have the ultimate power / right to use force on behalf of us all.
Click to expand...

Wow. you really are far, far, thicker than even I thought you were. Your understanding of law and contracts is even worse than your understanding of democracy. Typocal copper
 
belboid said:
Wow. you really are far, far, thicker than even I thought you were. Your understanding of law and contracts is even worse than your understanding of democracy. Typocal copper
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People often forget that the threat of force isn't always merely implicit. For all too may people it's the exact opposite.
 
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