All anti-Conservatives always use the term 'Tories' for the Conservatives. It is used pejoratively. See here. It isn't really on to describe all members of the Conservatives as having 'Tory' tendencies. But there is a certain arrogance from the likes of Cameron and Osborne that drives everyone nuts. But is it 'Toryism'?
Now that is all very well, I am quite happy with all sorts of political insults - in fact I wholeheartedly approve of them - but where is the similar term to pejoratively describe the Labour Party. I mean (doffing my cap to Godwin's Law) could you justifiably call them 'Nazis'?
Clearly that isn't strictly true. If you've struggled though Mein Kampf you will know why.
What about Polpottists? The Khmer Rouge 'socialism'. (Which is more accurately their own horrible brand of Nazism).
How about 'Castroists'? Just doesn't cut it does it? No pith.
Maybe it just needs to be 'Marxist'. After all that's where Socialism comes from.
But that really doesn't quite work like 'Tory', as many lefties feel quite honoured to be called 'Marxists', despite the fact that Marxism has provided the justification for the murder of possibly a hundred of million of people. Whereas non-communist/socialists haven't really murdered anybody en masse. (Typing Mass Killings Under Capitalist Regimes into Google gets you more stuff on mass killings under socialism / communism, plus this, most of which are no such thing, the regimes quoted generally being totalitarian or authoritarian. It's a highly selective article.)
So come on, where is the equivalent for 'Tory' that could be applied to the Labour Party in the UK?
Declaring Myself. I think I am slightly conservative, with a small, very small 'c'. But I despise the Conservative Party. At least under its current leadership. I take 'Conservative' to mean not being cavalier with the tried and tested institutions handed down to our care. Like the Common Law say. And small government - although that isn't really borne out by recent history, is it?
Why Have You Told Us For Years That It Is, Then?
46 minutes ago
20 comments:
Twats springs immediately to mind... followed by, in no particular order
idiots
juveniles
loons
hypocrites
etc, etc, etc
but I guess c**nts probably captures it the most succinctly for me.
The Red Wing of the Home-Owner-Ist Party
I despair, conservatives (nobody cares if you say big C or small C guys) are really terrible at anything creative (I guess that's par for the course for any ideology which has "don't change!" as it's core concept)
Using anything "commie" "red" "marxist" etc doesn't work because;
1. as pointed out it's a badge of honour to many
2. it sounds trying to hard to be clever which never works with insults, can you imagine trying to make ochlocratists work instead of Kippers? Did you ever see some poor picked on kid try to come up with a complicated come back (probably based on star wars)? it falls on it's face
So I would suggest Blairites to be the best suggestion.
Ticks a lot of boxes;
1. pisses off the labour party et all
2. it's simple and rolls off the tongue
3. it turns blair's name/legacy into an insult which he'd probably hate himself
try it, call some mate or similar a "blairite fuck" and see what they do
SK. I made the big C little c difference on purpose. Most people (and certainly most lefties) are small 'c'. And that applies to most self professed 'creative' people I know. None of them are as open to change as I am. All massively more 'conservative' about stuff, especially their political opinions - just start on about LVT!!!
But Blairites is good. They'll then have to argue why they are not Blairites. Ho Ho Ho
All above, Or - lets work it in the opposite direction chaps? Socialism the idea and term exists before Marx. Just as Evolution as a term exists before Darwin. For myself, I think that Victorian socialism was a way of having the Christ of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, while being an atheist or agnostic: some of my heroes as a young man: ie, H G Wells, Bertrand Russell, George Orwell would fall into this camp (the Webbs or Bernard Shaw too). So it would be Christian Democrat in modern terms without the Christian bit!
Pushing it back: why did Marx hate Owen and this sort of Christian, ‘English Socialist’ more than the Tories? Because English socialism rested on this theological background; it was a moral, ‘utopian’ wish that could not come to fruition in the modern world (indeed, for Marx, not in the Feudal world either!). They (Owen et al,) were traitors, the vermin of the earth!
But this is not an entirely satisfactory definition: ‘Socialism’ in a modern democratic state still needs demarcating from Marxist Socialism/Communism. Which is easy as Marx and Engels provided such a discussion in the Manifesto (1848). They are called the ‘Transitional measures’. For a liberal Democrat or Liberal socialist most of the key transitional measures were happily achieved by Labour in 1945; there is nothing for a socialist/ democrat to do except defend these treasures (or so they think). In contrast, for the Marxist, as Engels points out, the transitional measures are ‘contradictory’ and would be swept away with capitalism. Indeed, he thought they may as well be left out of the later editions of the Manifesto. This remains the goal of the far left. So there you have it. Labour/ modern socialism, social democracy just means the achieved ‘transitional measures’ and no revolution as they are not contradictory and are the end in themselves.
But, folks, if any of you care to look, Is not Henry George’s political economy one of the last Transitional measures that needs still to be achieved in a Mixed Social Democracy? We know that Marx had three copies of, ‘Poverty and Progress’ at one time. Guess what? Marx does not dismiss George as ‘Utopian’. Marx is racist, George is a mere ‘Yankee’, but Marx’s substantive point is that George is just restating Ricardo. And that is the only complement Marx would give anyone. So the hard left would find George a distraction to the revolution and the hard right, to echo the above, can’t believe their luck that the demos still don’t get it.
Most political terminology is terrible because what it has become is so far from its roots.
I know what Nazi and Fascist mean, and no, they aren't small government, so why are they called 'far right' and a small government politician like John Redwood, far left? How much is the Labour Party about Labour? The original idea was about a party of labour vs capital, but that really only made sense when the labour market was much less flexible. It's really the party of the client state now. Margaret Thatcher was anything but Conservative. She was really a neoliberal.
I describe myself as a Friedmanite. There isn't much, if anything, where I disagree with Milton Friedman. Markets where you can, land taxes, social liberalism.
Back to the question, I think 'commies' works pretty well. Many of them are communists. They might declare themselves Marxists, as though communism was a perversion of Marx (it wasn't), or socialists, as if that isn't basically the same thing, but they are commies and hate being called so.
In terms of winding them up, "Blairites" must be the way forward.
I am not sure that the term "Tory" is considered pejorative. The Tories used to call themselves Tories, back in the C19th. If they hadn't changed their name to the Conservatives, but chosen some snappier name, then the term Tory would probably have fallen out of use like the term "Whig". Question for any political historians out there: before the advent of the Labour Party, did people refer to the Liberals as the "Whigs"?
Hippy. That's all.
The Marxist body-count is a bagatelle compared to the Islamic body-count 270 million and still rising.
PhysioC. I had forgotten that.
B. I think Whig = Classical Liberal, not Socialist, nor the current usage of 'Liberal' (esp. in the US). I think Whig were in favour of laissez-faire.
Serendipity strikes again:
http://capx.co/socialism-and-hunger-a-quick-reminder/
As a lefty , I find " lefty" perfectly adequate.
(There should be a snappy term for a neo-laissez faire believer who doesn't realise that the original laissez faire depended on land value tax, otherwise leaving the markets to themselves would just put up land prices capturing the profits from the all other markets.)
A "progressive" .
So convinced that they are right that they consider debate a waste of time and obstacle to progress and try to prevent it .
"As a lefty , I find " lefty" perfectly adequate."
The problem with "Lefty" is not al lefties are Labour supporters, in the way that all Tories are Conservative supporters (in fact, looking at the Blairites, not all Labour supporters are lefties). OTOH, you have pointed out another lacuna in British political terminology: you may be a lefty, but who is ever described as a "righty"? There is no general term to describe those whose political views are right-wing.
Striebs: Yes. 'Progressive' is a lefty Newspeak code word. In their mouths progressive has nothing whatsoever to do with progress generally. As in going forward, stuff getting better every day. Or progressive thinking; as in how do we get stuff better every day. Oh no. What it means to lefty's - those disciples of Fabian Gradualism - is progression towards the Socialist Nirvana, whether anyone else wants it or not. That Nirvana is, of course, a mirage.
Lola:
"Progressives" appear to be totally ideologically driven .
Facts and figures never seem to come into it .
If they were ever in charge of electricity and gas delivery or anything else critical it would become a disaster in short order .
Wouldn't want to have to be reliant on people like that .
They have however had huge influence over other areas of our lives and caused havoc socially as in the Nulabor Projects undermining of institutions including the family and society .
At the conception of The Labour Party , did the Trade Unionists make a mistake getting into bed with the elitest Fabian Socialists ?
Striebs. Your question. Yes. It was inevitable.
Having read all the comments I still c**nts sums 'em up.
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