Interesting Links for 28-06-2018

[andrewducker]

In defence of freedom of movement

(tags: immigration uk )

Replace "Crazy" With The Adjective You Actually Mean

(tags: mentalhealth language )

Talking to Google’s human-like phone AI

(tags: google voice ai )

When political parties become pyramid schemes

(tags: politics OhForFucksSake )

Philosophy Comedy Club, with Karl Marx

(tags: comic KarlMarx )

Hannah Gadsby's 'Nanette' Is a Radical, Transformative Work of Comedy

(tags: comedy lgbt )

The turbine-powered optical isolator - a spinning glass ball which rejects light from one direction

(tags: light physics )

Microsoft’s facial recognition service now less bad for nonwhites and women

(tags: faces race gender ai )

Migraines more common in men with higher levels of oestrogen

(tags: estrogen migraine men )

Resistbot helping US citizens contact their representatives

(tags: usa politics ViaDrCross )

How to design a constitution

(tags: constitution politics )

Comments

[lilysea]

Hannah Gadsby's 'Nanette' Is a Radical, Transformative Work of Comedy

I saw this live, it's an AMAZING show (and well worth seeing live if you get the chance!)

[calimac]

"When political parties ..." is actually a good argument for sticking to political principles, and it's true there've been problems here. But hah hah, the quotation from the Labour Party constitution claiming that its only purpose is to maintain itself is malignantly tendentious. Go down to Clause IV (ever heard of Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution? No?), which is called "Aims and values," and you'll find the reasons for being that you're looking for. Make snide remarks, if you like, about it being buried down there instead of up in the preamble where the Lib Dems put it, but don't pretend it doesn't exist. I'm not a Labour supporter, but what a smear.

[theandrewhickey]

It's not a "smear" at all. Labour's constitution states that its *purpose* is to exist. The Lib Dem constitution states that its *purpose* is to do things.

Now the Labour constitution *does*, also, state that it will do things -- sort of -- but even there, Clause IV is very, very low on anything other than vague meaninglessness, and is completely devoid of detail. The Lib Dem statement of values in the preamble of the constitution is well over twice the length of Clause IV, and is *much* less wooly and vague.

But fundamentally, the Lib Dem constitution says "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity", therefore [stuff]. The Labour constitution says "This organisation shall be known as ‘The Labour
Party’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘the party’). Its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party", therefore [stuff].

If I'd wanted to "smear" Labour, or been "malignant" I wouldn't have linked the constitution itself in the post so people could check.

[calimac]

This is the sort of bullpucky that makes me disgusted with politicians.

The constitution is quite clear: The purpose of the organisation is to maintain the Labour Party. But the purpose of the Labour Party is to do the things described in Clause 4. The last sentence specifically says this is the basis on which they appeal for votes.

You could have said at the beginning that you thought the aims were woolier. You could have said at the beginning that they put their organisation first and their aims second, where LD is the other way around. (Not that it seems to make any difference to the actual running of the parties: that indeed was the point of your post.)

But instead, you wrote a malignant smear. Yes, you linked to the actual constitution. Thus enabling me easily to confirm that it's a malignant smear. That makes you incompetent at malignant smearing. Which, given your opinion of Lib Dem organising, makes you a perfect candidate for them.

[theandrewhickey]

I'm not a politician.
And it says it's *the basis on which they appeal for votes*, not *the reason for their existence*.
At *no* point in the document does it say "the purpose of the Labour Party is to do the things described in Clause 4", in those words or any other. It says it will do them, but it does not say that that is the Labour Party's purpose. It says, as you say yourself, that that is what they will do *in order to get votes*, which in turn is in order to maintain a Parliamentary Labour Party.

You seem to have a problem with the idea that two people can read the same document and interpret it differently. This is bad enough with the Labour Party constitution, which you read very differently from the way I do -- reading what seems to me to be plain and simple language to mean things that it simply doesn't state.

But it's far, far worse when you insist that you know better than I do what I intended by words I wrote, and what my motives are. You don't. The belief you seem to hold that there is no such thing as an honest difference of opinion, and that there is no point in trying to understand what anyone else has to say if you can just replace it with your own invented idea of their motivations does, however, make *you* perfectly suited to the Labour Party.

(I won't be replying further, just make up a reply out of your own head to whatever you say in reply to whatever it is you think I've said here, since that's what you'll do anyway).

[calimac]

Well, stalking off and ensuring you got the last word, at least in your own head, is a further reason to avoid the Lib Dems, if that's typical of their behavior. And to think I used to admire that party ...

Your idea of "reading a document differently" consists of telling untruths about what it says, i.e. pretending that it omits a statement of aims when it's just not in the preamble. You could easily have made the same rhetorical point without telling untruths. Then I wouldn't be disputing it, at least not in this manner.

Talking about "knowing better than I do what I intended," you seem to think I said you intended a malignant smear. I don't know if you did or not; I said you performed one, whether you intended it or not. So you see, you're doing what you falsely accused me of doing.

In reading the two constitutions, you're putting ridiculous weight on some extremely minute questions of phrasing. It's not the secret mirror into the party's soul that you're trying to maintain: your whole complaint about the Lib Dems is evidence that it isn't.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, I think the best thing is him railing again you for 'insist[ing] that you know better than I do what I intended by words I wrote, and what my motives are'…

… when that is exactly what he is doing to whoever wrote the Labour party constitution!

The Liberal Democrats are quite easy to sum up in one word, and that word is 'supercilious'.

[(Anonymous)]

(the second-best thing is appearing to claim* that platitudes like 'balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community' are somehow neither 'woolly' nor 'vague')

* note not making any statements about intent

[calimac]

It's a pity, because I think the main argument he's trying to make is a good and valid one and he expresses it well, that he should so reflexively and clumsily defend one minor rhetorical point that he screwed up. If he's an example of the problem he's criticizing the Lib Dems for, that's really sad.

[(Anonymous)]

Even funnier, the start of the actual constitution of the Lib Dems (ie, not the preamble, the actual constitutional bit) is:

1.1 The name of the Party shall be the Liberal Democrats. It may be additionally known in Welsh as Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol. It is referred to in this Constitution as “the Party”.

1.2 The objectives of the Party shall be:
(a) to be the successor to the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party
(“the Former Parties”);
(b) to seek to achieve the objects set forth in the Preamble to this Constitution; and
(c) in order to achieve such objects, to secure the election of Liberal Democrats as Members of Parliament, UK Members of the European Parliament and members of local and other elected public authorities


… which actually looks… familiar to those who have seen the Labour party constitution, doesn't it?

those 'values', of course, being the ones set out in the famous Clause IV… which is an actual part of the legally-binding constitution, not a non-binding fluffy preamble. So actually if anybody's going to win this 'whose constitution is more principled' war, I think it's got to be the party that puts its values in the actual legal document rather than relegating them to a preamble, hasn't it?)

(Unless you go, 'Ah ha! But look at point (b) which says they want to achieve the objects in the preamble! Labour has nothing like that does, it!'

Indeed. In order to find a mention of 'values' in the Labour constitution you have to go all the way to… point 3, the first one after the ones which were quote din that essay:

3. The Party shall bring together members and
supporters who share its values to develop
policies, make communities stronger through
collective action and support, and promote the
election of Labour Party representatives at all
levels of the democratic process.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, that's weird. The last paragraph seems to have been teleported to earlier than it should have been. But I'm sure you can all figure it out.