A tolerant country?

[cromwell]

When the subject of immigration is bandied around, politicians will always praise "the British tradition of tolerance".
But are we tolerant, really?

Today Farage was egged by some beardy bloke in Nottingham. Yesterday UKIP supporters in Swansea were surrounded, jostled and shouted down by more beardy older men and student types.

When in Glasgow recently Farage was harassed by Scottish students.

Tolerant? Being surrounded by people screaming in your face, their faces contorted by hatred, utterly determined that you won't be allowed to speak? This is British tolerance?

Is it hell.

Years ago it was quite OK to be intolerant of immigrants. Now it is socially acceptable to be intolerant of people who don't like immigrants.

Just shifting the focus of intolerence from person A to person B does nothing; overall we are just as intolerant as ever, we are just intolerant of a different set of people.

[Workingman]

It is rather strange how intolerant of others the preachers of tolerance become when there self-proclaimed "right thinking" is disagreed with.

And aren't they free with their venomous slurs when it comes to shouting down a debate? Cowards!

[Suff]

Back in the 60's Mrs S was ranting to her father about the "racists" in the UK. Needless to say she was ALL for Black Rights and affirmative action.

Her father said "You're the most racist person I've ever met".

She was floored, then asked "What do you mean, I'm not racist, I'm standing up against the racists".

Her father said.

"You're Anti White"...

Nothing has changed, it's just become worse.

[Aggers]

I'm not racist. I have nothing against non-whites.

It's just that I don't think they belong here. What's wrong with that?

What annoys me is that politicians sanction foreigners settling in this country, but never have
the decency to ask the people who they are supposed to represent if this is their wish.

Who's country is it?

[Dippytrout]

Evening all

Hope you don't mind me wading in on this discussion as have lived in Turkey for over 13 years and my views are based on information provided by news reports/visitors.

İs the UK a tolerant country? YES is the answer, probably one of the top countries in the world - so long as you are not actually British!

Successive woolly minded liberal governments have eroded all that is British from everyday society.

No National flags, school assemblies, carol services, nativity plays, no Salvation Army allowed to sing and collect money (worked with homeless people for many years and know the value of their work), plus no doubt many other examples İ am unaware of, because any of the above may affect the sensibilities of someone or other - oh for goodness sake grow a spine..

Which ever Muppet came up with the open border policy for Europe should be sent to work in a salt mine - how can it possibly work, of course, eastern Europeans will move to the west to earn decent wages, but are you going to more to Poland, Romania etc to work for 2 and 6. No of course not!

Which all leads to racial tensions, And as for UK governments attitude towards other minorities, well word actually fail me!

Ok so İ live in Turkey, not known for its journalistic/human rights at times, but a democracy all the same, yes predominately Muslim population, but Christians, Catholics and all other peoples, black, white etc accepted - but NOT catered to specifically.

İf your children go to Turkish school, they have to a) learn Turkish, b) sing Turkish National Anthem morning/evening c) learn Turkish culture, history and have pride in the country especially concerning Attaturk.

Problems with that from my point of view - NONE - İ have also lived in other countries and have always taken it as read, that İ am the interloper and MUST accommodate myself to the country and not the other way round!

BTW my husband, who is a Turkish (sometimes practicing Muslim) thinks the EU is run by a demented bunch of idiots who need to get a life and concentrate on the real issues of the day.

So, sorry people may have got a bit carried away with all this - but really drives me insane that a once great country, and it was - has been reduced to what it is today!

The answer - way beyond by intelligence level..............................

Take care

DT

[pederito1]

That`s it in a nutshell Dipps. It is an utter nonsense trying to run the EU in the way it is. Just a mill stone round the neck of this poor country.

[Workingman]

Well said, DT.

I have lived and worked in many places and have seen both sides of the 'tolerance' coin.

There is one side of that coin where the UK is one of the most tolerant places on earth. When it comes to in-comers and their needs we provide them with more than enough resources for them to integrate.....

Yet when they do not integrate, and many do not, those of us who complain are met with the intolerance of some of our own, the "right-thinking" brigade, and the in-comers themselves. We are the ones "branded" as bigots, racists, xenophobes.

Ah well.....

[Suff]

I was watching a particularly poorly acted B style DVD last night where the "American ex Marine", was going on about how the US would become the "world power", again, that it deserved and always had been.

Erm, hang on a sec. Before WW2, the US was a world "nobody". A country which had preferred isolationism and had done virtually nothing on the world stage. That country, which was a "World Superpower" and "Always Had Been", was the UK. Not the US. If we count more than 100 years as "always had been" and "former glory".

When we were a superpower, we abolished slavery. OK so we commercialised slavery before that to the point where it was obvious to everyone, who's bank balance didn't depend on it, that slavery was a bad thing. Then we led the abolition of it. Our "social conscience".

The UK has been a leader in the world, in power, war, imperialism and now in pathetic roll over and bear our belly to the world (just like a dog in submission); in some kind of hope that the rest of the world will "respect" our submission and reward us for it.

Wake up time. Coffee time. The rest of the world is struggling to WIN (Even in the EU where we are encouraged to "participate", as the way forward). Any way they can. If we're so stupid as to stop competing, to give in and give up our national pride and our national influence in the world, then hell mend us.

This kind of idiocy cannot end well. There is still a majority of people in the UK who don't believe this PC BS. That will, eventually, vote to stop this insanity from running amok any more. The problem, today, is that they are still consumed with their own petty political divides and not looking at the bigger UK picture. The reality is that whoever we vote in, virtually nothing will change for 90% of the UK population. But ONLY with voting in certain pressure groups will our relationship with the rest of the world and, more importantly, the rest of the world IN the UK, change. Today that is not understood.

Eventually that will change but not before so many changes have happened to remove their rights of free speech and expression, that it will require almost revolution levels of change to turn it around. Just look at the BNP. The last election there was a distinct policy of arrest and imprisonment to block successful BNP candidates from office. All you need is a sentence of more than 9 months and your are blocked from Parliament. Forever.

That is a deliberate restriction of free speech. It is now being wheeled out against the UKIP as they pose a "threat" to the current state of affairs. OK Cameron won't use it the way that Blair did, but his underlings will have no such compunction....

[JoM]

No National flags, school assemblies, carol services, nativity plays, no Salvation Army allowed to sing and collect money (worked with homeless people for many years and know the value of their work), plus no doubt many other examples İ am unaware of, because any of the above may affect the sensibilities of someone or other - oh for goodness sake grow a spine..

I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate. I live in the Midlands, both of my boys are at a bog standard non-denominational secondary school and have a weekly assembly, pupils in the first two years of the school attend a carol service at the local church every Christmas. My neighbour proudly showed me photos of her young son in his nativity play last year and I know there was always one at the primary school that my boys went to. In our town centre the Salvation Army sell their magazine and collect money every Friday without fail and their band play on occasions (they were in Tesco's foyer just before Christmas). Oh, and I posted last week about how the English flag is flown on a large flagpole on top of a hill in the village where I live.

[Kaz]

We see the Sally Army in town regularly, particularly at Christmas We also see a fair amount of flags around here too, especially now the World Cup is looming