(no subject)

[chess]

First, a practical thing: does anyone know much about chiropody in Cambridge? I appear to have ingrowing toenails which keep being ingrowing again after I attack them viciously with toenail-cutting implements, and I'd like to find someone competent to work out what's gone wrong, but I don't really know how to go about this without it costing lots of money.

Second, http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ is a very good website, and reminds me why I am distinctly puzzled how otherwise perfectly nice people can vote Tory, given their vast preference for the 'hanging/flogging' and 'free market' end of the scale. The free market is not very nice (it promotes inequality which makes people resentful, it means some people starve whilst others live in luxury, it is *not very nice*) and punishing criminals rather than trying to rehabilitate them is also not very nice. I probably have more cogent arguements why each is a bad idea, but fundamentally I object to them because they are Not Very Nice.

Thirdly, it's springtime and sunny, but everything still feels and tastes like dust and ashes to me. I just walked out of church this morning and went home because I felt I was harming the important things that were going on there (lots of prayer for the summer mission and some people going out to do primary healthcare stuff in rural India) just by being there. I'm not really sure what's wrong; I just have that big cloak of cobwebs back.

Comments

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I think I know those feelings well. Ingrown toenails are treated on the NHS. However, they're really annoying, and the only thing to really do is let them grow out, which can take several months and is very painful to boot. Get corn pads or something to take the pressure off, and keep the area clean and free from infection. Drink lots of water, eat lots of fruit and veg to help the immune system, and wear open-toe sandals if you can. The toe may look ugly, but keeping it cool like that really helped.

I suffered from them for 10 years or more. I had half a toe-nail removed in my early teens, but it's all well now.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

If the toenails are infected, then surgery is essential. Get it done straight away rather than waiting. The pain will affect every part of your being if you don't. I speak from my own 1980 experience.

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

I had one clear up without surgery, and it's in far better shape than the one that did have surgery. The surgery meant I had to be off school and couldn't do games for some time. Growing out took longer once I figured out how to do it, but ultimately healed far better.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

I also find it hard to understand people who vote for the Tories; the best explanation I can think of is that the typical Tory voter is someone who has always been adequately rewarded for the amount of work they've done and therefore buys into the "each according to his merits" thing, because they've never experienced what it's like to spend a whole lifetime working for a pittance and then retiring on a niggardly state pension. Perhaps also, Tory voters are guided by a fear of seeing their hard-earned cash taken away to be given to the "undeserving" poor - incidentally, I think it's a special feature of the right wing that they believe there is a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, and that politicians are the people best qualified to decide who is who among the poor. But none of this completely explains Toryism to me.

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

I should say that I voted Conservative last time round, but I'm not a party member; the question of for whom I shall vote is still an open one.

Yes, I understand that it's not fair for someone to spend a lifetime working for a pittance and then retire on a small state pension. But neither is it at all productive to pay people such unemployment benefits that it is more profitable to spend one's time working the benefit system than to work - and then to make such a thing socially acceptable! Such an attitude is at least as enforcing of the distinction between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' than any right-wing pseudo-apartheid. It's not just the fact that Tories dislike having their money taken from them and given to those more deserving of it. It's also that the complexity of the regulations to prove whether one is deserving of it or not deters many actually deserving people from claiming benefit! Would it not be easier to charge less tax on pensions, say, than to give pensioners a tax credit? And while we're on the subject of pensioners, I have never been given a good justification of the taxing of pension funds that has left black holes in the retirement provision of millions of people and seriously damaged companies that provide pensions.

At the same time, there is a perception (true or false) among the British public that the law has much greater provision for protecting the rights of criminals and punishing the minor misdemeanors of law-abiding folk than for actually punishing crime. There are endless stories about how careful the police need to be, how much paperwork needs filling in for each reported crime (let alone an actual arrest), and so on. This leads on to the question of waste in public services.

There is such regulation in the public sector that people have to be employed to spend all their time doing nothing but ensuring that these targets are met - not on the regulatory end, but at the point of provision. Specifically in healthcare, promises to add additional money in return for increased 'results' will result in much of that money being taken up in tracking whether or not those results are occuring. In schools, the linking of funding and prestige to test results has led predictably to children being schooled precisely in how to pass the tests rather than in any particular knowledge. And it's not as if the tests result in useful qualifications; does nobody understand what a rising pass rate on a standardised test means?

Toryism is about decentralisation and middle-class values, about decreases in central control and about simplification of the whole system; it is about improvements in efficiency and attempts to have a competently run country rather than a country that concentrates on appearing as if it is competently run. Tories believe that the country is tired of the concentration on style over substance that has dogged this Government.

I'm not sure how much of the above rhetoric I believe, to be honest. It's full of simplifications and I know there are counterexamples (but I can actually back most of that up; it's not just trolling). But the above would be some of my basic arguments, if not for voting Tory, then at least for voting 'Not Labour'.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

Since you're not sure how much you believe, it's probably best I don't get too bogged down in a big argument with you :) but rest assured you don't come across as at all trollish. There are certainly many reasons for not voting Labour; my main reason for avoiding Labour is because of the way they've failed to deliver on their promises in the field of education, scrapping free university education (thereby putting "rich" middle-class kids at the mercy of parents when it comes to university choice) and introducing endless SATS.

But neither is it at all productive to pay people such unemployment benefits that it is more profitable to spend one's time working the benefit system than to work - and then to make such a thing socially acceptable!
It sounds as if you +do+ adhere to this part of the Tory ethos (though I may be wrong!), and I agree that, if it was really the case that working the system was generally easier than working full stop, then they might have a point. But myself and several members of my family have run the gauntlet of the dole office when claiming JSA and sickness benefit, and have found the whole process quite nightmarish! I would much rather spend my life working at a respected, decently-paid job than navigating that bureaucratic midden.

"It's also that the complexity of the regulations to prove whether one is deserving of it or not deters many actually deserving people from claiming benefit"
This sentence confuses me, as it sounds as if it might contradict the presvious statement I quoted - is it easier to draw the dole than to work, or not, in your opinion? Personally, I think that the best way to encourage the scroungers among us to get back to work is to bring in a minimum wage that isn't laughable, and pay "unskilled" and manual workers a lot better (not to mention nurses!); sadly neither the Tories nor Labour have done anywhere near enough in this department.

I'll have to take your word for it about decentralization, as I've not heard any Tories mention that lately.What do you mean exactly by "middle-class values" though?

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

If your vote is in Peterborough, vote Conservative; it's a vaguely-marginal (4% swing would take it) Labour-held from Conservative seat in which voting against Labour is the correct route for a Libertarian of any stripe.

If your vote is in Cambridge, it really wouldn't matter who you vote for, Anne Campbell will almost certainly be returned barring disasters for Labour (such a swing replicated nationwide would produce a Conservative majority).

[mr-ricarno.livejournal.com]

Hey,

What do you mean when you say you felt that you were 'harming' what was going on? I think I have an idea, but I just wanted to check...

[chess]

There was so much good in the room, and I only had selfish concerns and felt very negative and unhappy and generally wasn't in any state to really consider the things that were being said, let alone put my whole heart into praying for them. So I decided to leave, rather than to distract God from the important things which were going on with my unimportant problems.

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the party political broadcast above... ^^;

The idea of conservatism is that it's the philosophy of choosing the 'least bad' alternative. Punishing criminals is Not Very Nice, but concentrating upon rehabilitation has a distinctly dodgy record as a deterrent - which is, after all, why crimes are punished at all. There's a middle ground.

The free market is Not Very Nice, which is why we have taxes - at their basic level, they are the government enforcing you giving to charities that help the poor. But the alternative to a free market, well, that is Even Worse. Again, there's a middle ground. The parties argue over where that middle ground is.

The site... I found many of its questions rather oversimplified. I guess that may be a symptom of my generic view that The World Is More Complicated Than That.

I guess that the conservative philosophy that I subscribe to could be stated as "It would be nice if People were nice. They aren't."

[naath.livejournal.com]

If people were nice we wouldn't need a system. Employers would pay a fair wage and charitable institutions would take care of the poor and needy - the Libertarians appear to believe that we are nice... I disagree. If we were nice then communists would split everything up so everyone had enough and people with enough would be happy...

We aren't nice. We need regulating. But the torries are wrong about what regulating we need...

Or rather the Tories are racist, homophobic,sexist pieces of shit (the ones in charge are anyway) and I'm not voting for anyone who thinks I'm a second class citizen. Which is a totally different issue to how much tax we ought to pay and what it needs to be spent on and since everyone is going to raise taxes and spend it on health care, education and invading the middle east I'd rather vote according to who has the most agreeable social policies.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

We aren't nice. We need regulating.

Then we will necessarily be regulated by the non-nice. Doesn't sound much fun.

[leisaie.livejournal.com]

Like all Americans I know nothing of politics outside of my own country, so which candidate ought I to favour in this election?

And it has been a very cobwebby week. I wish it would just STOP that.

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Blair. If the Democrats had Blair and the Tories had Kerry, both parties would have somebody they could support with a straight face.

[leisaie.livejournal.com]

I thought Tories were conservative, though? Kerry's a liberal, albeit a poor one. Or perhaps my dichotomy of liberal and conservative is too Americanised.

[lockymclean.livejournal.com]

People vote Conservative for all sorts of reasons. I used to be much further to the right on the political survey 2005 map because I was raised in an environment where I "had to struggle against the odds to get where I was and no damned fool was going to get what I had despite being a lazy arse" - so I even had a big problem with privately educated students when I first arrived at Cambridge, as I had an overpowering perception that they had had it all handed to them on a plate and it wasn't fair that I had to graft for seven years to get good A-levels. Similarly regarding criminals - "my family lived on a tight budget and I was bullied at school but I didn't turn to crime as a way out."

University and church moderated my views substantially, partly because I now understand the complexities of each situation. This makes me quite pragmatic in practice. However, I still have some slightly-right-of-centre leanings, for example I am massively in favour of rehabilitation, and I even cried when I read a Big Issue article reporting on a successful pilot scheme for restorative justice which told how a victim of a violent crime forgave her attacker and he met her to say how sorry he was. Nevertheless, I know that rehab doesn't always work, and when it doesn't you have to resort to the next best alternative, which is to make the punishment fit the crime. Even God punishes those who don't repent/accept Jesus.

Economically I think private sector is usually best at running the show at a low level, and the only problem is the prats who ruin it for the rest by being incompetent at a high level and being paid a fortune for it. I would be far happier if employment law were relaxed so that idiot managing directors of large companies and utilities could be dismissed more easily. Heh, who'd have thought that woolly worker protectionism would help the fat cats?!

I am well aware that state benefits are an absolute pittance, but I know as well that you have to be careful about how you tax people if you want to make minimum incomes a bit more comfortable. If you're too mean to the people who have moveable assets (who tend to be wealthier) then they will just take them somewhere else. And then we're all screwed.

To be honest I think that what we need are much more personal solutions. Too many people think that the solution to poverty is just to throw money at it. What they don't realise is that first you have to plug up all the holes which perpetuate poverty like debt, gambling, drink, drugs and low self-esteem. Otherwise you're just throwing good money after bad because people will spend more to accommodate their increased income. Yes, it doesn't apply to everyone but it applies to the people who need help most and I know this because I have seen them walk through the door of the Citizens Advice Bureau week after week. The solution isn't easy but if it can be found then it'd be much more effective. A kind of socio-emotional rehabilitation, if you like.

What do you think of them apples?

[atreic.livejournal.com]

However, I still have some slightly-right-of-centre leanings, for example I am massively in favour of rehabilitation,

This is confusing me. Rehabilitation (as opposed to punishment or deterrent) is IMO a very left-of-centre policy. It definitly seems to be no part of the tories plans if they win this election. Was that a typo, or do you really think rehabilitation is a right wing idea?

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

Well, it was Micheal Howard's second favourite word when he was Home Secretary.

[lockymclean.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I thought that it might come out wrong because the sentence was too long for the structure to work properly. The important bit is:

"I still have some slightly-right-of-centre leanings, for example I am massively in favour of rehabilitation ... Nevertheless, I know that rehab doesn't always work, and when it doesn't you have to resort to the next best alternative, which is to make the punishment fit the crime."

Punishment has it's place, so does the free market economy

[passage.livejournal.com]

To what extent does capitalism mean something different from the free market? Capitalism does suck, it is nonetheless, to my knowledge, the most sucessful economic system yet discovered for handling humans. Now personally I think this is because humans suck, but when you're writing an economic policy you gotta just accept that. I think the economic policy has to deal with people as they are, not as they should be.

(As it happens on said quiz I score very centrey for economics, in principle I'm very in favour of nationalised industries, just as soon as I can find a government I trust with running such industries. Nonetheless I'm not planning on throwing the free market out the window.)

On the matter of criminals and punishement I recommend reading Lewis' "The Problem of Pain". I used to be of a 'rehabilition/disuasion' kind of a view, but in a few lines on a digression Lewis demolished that view very throughly by demonstrating that justice isn't justice until we bring retribution into the matter.

(Although said quiz lumps this together with internationally type stuff, and seeing as I'm quite positive about people from other countries coming and doing jobs that think ought to be done, but we're struggling to find people to do them, I get scored as rather lefty on that axis.)

Curiously women are apparently more right wing on "Keep those nasty foriegners away and burning at the stake is appropriate for some crimes" than men, but less on the "Money belongs to the rich" than the men. (Given my positions this could be explained by women being more centreist 'having an opinion would be like, hard and stuff'.)

It's very annoying, I keep trying to authoritarian in my views, but all these quizzes come out labeling me liberal. I think the problem may be that I don't trust the public, so I want an authoritarian government to hold them in check, but I don't trust the government ;-).

Right, this comment has got quite long enough.

Re: Punishment has it's place, so does the free market economy

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

... demonstrating that justice isn't justice until we bring retribution into the matter.

How does he do this? The best explanation I've heard to date went along the lines of "If you've been hurt, you want to hurt back. Obviously this is how it should be." Now, admittedly this was in the chronological bible course, and he hadn't got to the New Testament yet, but I still feel it's Just Plain Wrong.

Re: Punishment has it's place, so does the free market economy

[passage.livejournal.com]

Rather than attempt and mangle it I'll wait and check back in my room where I think I have Josh's copy of the Problem of Pain.

The Problem of Pain, C.S.Lewis, Page 75

[passage.livejournal.com]

On a sterner level the same idea appears as "retributive punishment", or "giving a man what he deserves". Some enlightened people would like to banish all conceptions of retribution or desert from their theory of punishment and place its value wholly in the deterrence of others or the reform of the criminal himself. They do not see that by so doing they render all punishment unjust. What can be more immoral than to inflict suffering on me for the sake of deterring others if I do not deserve it? Wand if I do deserve it, you are admitting the claims of "retribution". And what can be more outrageous than to carch me and submit me to a disagreeable process of moral improvement without my consent, unless (once more) I deserve it?

(Italics his)

These are the few lines that demolished the issue for me, they are part of a larger argument in which Lewis claims that while revenge is wrong (see the sermon on the mount), it does have down in its roots a right idea wrongly applied, that the evil man should have the truth revealed to him, that his evil should be to him as it is to everyone else.

Here we come to a complex debate: there are things which I state must do which an individual must not do. It would be wrong for the state not to lock up murderers, but if I were to comit a murder you are not to chain me to your radiator and keep me there for 40 years, you call the police.

And as usual this comment has got long enough, so I'll stop.

The Problem of Pain is presently languishing in my room and would be happy to be lent out to you, it is unsurprisingly largely about pain and suffering and how to make intellectual sense of such things in a world created by a good God, but you it has a certain amount on punishement, and it's not a very long book, you'd be welcome to borrow it if you like.

Neil

But I don't even speak French!

[passage.livejournal.com]

Incidently from my results I found the following quite amusing "Based on the answers you've given us, we judge that of the well-known parties, BNP voters have views most like yours. But... not very many people intend to vote for that party, so this might be wildly off."

I would like to emphasise that this was in the economy category, not the international category, where I am so anti-BNP, not least because I think they'd have to deport me to France if they were going to be consistent about their policies (in fact I'm not too sure if anyone would be left in the country, which could be the solution to polution in Britian that the green party is looking for. Who knew it, the BNP: the green party with practical solutions).

Of course the BNP aren't noted for being consistent, but inconsistency erks me immensely, and I do try to think the best of people, and it's my firm belief that the BNP's best would be deporting me.

[elektron.livejournal.com]

but fundamentally I object to them because they are Not Very Nice.

You know, that's at least as valid as most of the political arguments out there =P