Sunday 2 November 2014

A Response to an Opponent of Gay Marriage


I recently had a short exchange of views with someone on the subject of gay marriage. It started with the news of Nicky Morgan saying she would now vote for gay marriage making it onto my Facebook wall. Being the comedic genius (?!!) that I am, I could not resist a little quip.

Someone decided to post what I, and many others will, consider to be a bigoted comment on this. Rather than letting it go, I bit. Not my best ever argument if I am going to be honest, but a fairly polite response considering how I feel about the views he posted. I was simply trying to encourage a bit of critical thought on the matter. My friend posted, below my comment, what I consider to be a better response.


The idea that marriage is only about having children is, for me, misleading. As my friend said, “Marriage is about love and commitment”. However, if a couple who want children cannot conceive, surrogates and adoption are perfectly valid ways of having children. From the two adopted children and parents I know, the love they share is every bit as valid as my love for my son. To somehow lessen that connection is to misunderstand what it is to be human and to be a parent.

This evening I received the following personal message from the man who posted the comment:


His first assertion, after the unnecessary jibe, is that every child needs a mum and dad. I would say that many children benefit from having two parents. However, I have not seen any evidence that the sexuality of those parents has any bearing on that. I know a gay couple, and their 9 year old son is one of the most well adjusted young men I have ever met. If there had been any lingering doubt in my mind about the idea of gay parents, it would have been wiped out by this incredible speech by a young man called Zach Wahls: (Incidentally I know plenty of single parents who have done a better job parenting than many couples, but that is not the argument I was having here)

The sad thing is one thing he says is true, but his target is wrong. I agree that the school playground can be a tough place. The fact that child suicide amongst LGBT children is so high proves this. The impassioned speech by Joel Burns on the subject reduced me to tears when I heard it, but my thought wasn’t that gay parents should not have children in case they get bullied, it was that we should stop the bullying of gay children or children with gay parents. For me, creating an acceptance of the love that gay people share is only a stepping stone in that process. In our society, marriage is the ultimate expression of love and commitment that a couple can make. To deny gay people the right to marry, is to deny the love they share is equal to that of heterosexual couples. 

Anyway, there is much I haven’t said. There is a politician from New Zealand called Maurice Williamson, who gave a much better speech on the subject of gay marriage than I ever could.

Thursday 30 October 2014

Testing and Education


Some time ago, the following article appeared on my Facebook wall posted by an old school friend. This article riled me, not because of the right wing jibes against the left wingers contained within it, I have found that jibes like this are almost always used to distract from a lack of critical content. There were a few aspects I found disappointing, primarily the complete absence of reference to facts. One of my key frustrations with articles of this kind is that they are taken seriously despite being written by people with little or no involvement in our educational system. Friends I like have taken this article seriously because it is written in a seemingly respected paper.



From a purely logical point of view, this article has a glaringly obvious straw man fallacy. Just because someone believes that testing seven-year-olds is wrong, does not mean that seven-year-olds should not be educated. I appreciate there is an intended element of humour, but it is as ill-placed as it is ill-informed. Ironically, the reason I do not believe in testing seven-year-olds is because of a belief I have that ongoing testing damages our educational system. This belief is based on my own experience of education and from talking to teachers and university lecturers.

Don’t get me wrong, spelling tests, maths tests and other educational tests can be a great way of learning. I learned my times-tables by doing multiplication tests on a regular basis. A-levels and GCSE’s are a way of proving attainment levels to prove students are able to go onto the next level of education. However, I have seen no evidence in any study that proves that testing seven-year-olds improves educational attainment. Nor have I been able to find any evidence that not testing seven-year-olds damages educational attainment.

My objection with ongoing compulsory national testing is that it forces schools into a situation where teaching is almost solely focused on how to pass tests. I would contend that schools have a wider remit than just producing generations of children who can pass tests. For me, schools are also there to create enthusiasm for learning as well as to teach children life skills including the ability to think for themselves. At no point in my working life has the ability to successfully take a test made me a better employee. In many sectors including science and technology I would argue that the ability to think creatively is of a higher value than the ability to take tests successfully.

I share the belief that poor teachers need to be identified. I had a shocking French teacher and as a result I and the majority of classmates who had the same teacher cannot speak a word of French. I still remember the day that I got 2.5 out of 75 on a grammar test and this wasn’t the lowest mark from the children who had been in her class. However, I do not believe that ongoing compulsory national testing is the only way of checking for defective teaching. Indeed this teacher continued for many years regardless of the test results coming from her students.

I am not an expert on education so I recognise that there may be mistakes in what I have written. Regardless of this, I have several questions/points I believe any educational policy should take into account.
  • Educational policies should be critically examined by experts and driven by facts rather than examined through the lens of political ideology by those with no knowledge of educational systems.
  • One of my friends frustrations is that our educational system wants children to “get to a level and no more”. If the point of education is to ensure our children achieve the best they can, this should be the primary consideration of any educational system.
  • If my friends contention that the UK get “some of the worst educational results in the developed world is correct, which I do not believe is true, then any educational system improvements should be based on the most successful educational systems.
  • If testing is proven to hinder educational attainment, alternative methods for proving academic ability and checking teaching quality should be investigated.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

I nipped onto Twitter and came across this Tweet from BBC Sporf highlighting a section of the population of Brazil’s discontent with FIFA and the government spending money on preparing for the world cup rather than spending it feeding starving children.




I then scrolled down to the comments and what I found genuinely shocked me.



It wasn’t until I got 10 Tweets down that a sympathetic tweet appeared. The suggestion put forward in some of these tweets that people who struggle to afford to feed their children and who extremely unlikely to see any benefit from this world cup are ungrateful for suggesting that money should be spent elsewhere than on football is an absolute disgrace. I can only imagine that they hold a Daily Mail view of the world where every poor person is so at their own doing and is looking for a hand-out.

Friday 24 January 2014

Apathy and Politics

Young People in Politics

At a recent Labour Party meeting I was asked how we could engage more young people in politics. As the youngest person in the room at 35, I understood why they asked me! However, at 35 I would say it has been about 15 years since I genuinely thought of myself as young. Also, I grew up in a politically active environment which is not typical of most of the friends I grew up with. An interest in politics, for the majority of people I know outside of my council work, is limited to election time, voting and commenting on something that directly impacts them in a negative way. Right now, there are a number of issues which I see as a barrier to more people of all ages getting involved in politics and also a reason for an increase in apathy towards politics. Below are a few of the key ones, but definitely not the only ones.

The Debate

One of the great problems and frustrations I have encountered from people with regards to politics is the way in which political discourse is undertaken. It is difficult to have an honest debate about any issue where there are politically differing opinions. Both sides desperate to save face will only argue on their own point and not engage in any points that could make them look bad. This means that a piece of genuinely interesting political discourse is never interrogated in public with any integrity by politicians.

Channel 4’s Factcheck has shown that there are plenty of occasions when politicians simply lie. Tony Blair will always be remembered for WMD’s that never appeared and introducing student fees despite saying he had no plans to do so. David Cameron may well be remembered for his pre-election promises of, amongst others, no more top down reorganisation of the NHS, to protect NHS Spending, to protect Sure Start Centres and his cutting of the educational maintenance allowance despite saying he had no plans to do so.

An example of where the debate has fallen down so badly, for me, the student fees debate. The fees were increased from £3k a year to up to £9k a year. At the end of three years student education, a student would owe nearly £20k more as a result of these changes. However, when watching the debate, it was impossible for me to understand what was happening. Conservative politicians were all saying that students would pay less which simply does not seem possible. Why would anyone believe they will pay less when they will owe £20k more than before? With discussions like these, it is perhaps unsurprising people don’t believe politicians.

The Media


(examples of the poor standard of reporting around immigration. The article at the bottom was factually deficient and required a small print retraction)

One major guilty party in this is the media. The majority of the UK media is right wing, due to wealthy owners pushing their own political agendas. The exceptions are the Guardian and the Mirror which are left wing and the Independent which is probably just left of centre in UK politics. If we take a hot topic like immigration, all parties in UK politics are currently claiming they want to limit immigration and it would be political suicide to say otherwise. The right-wing papers have fuelled this debate by printing selective negative stories and in some cases inventing statistics and stories meaning people genuinely believe most immigrants are just here to receive benefits and not work. The hysterical and dishonest media approach means that any politician that claimed to be in favour of immigration for the following completely factual reasons would receive negative headlines on the subject without any attempt to investigate what they are actually saying.

Studies have proven that economically, immigration is good for this country. Immigrants tend to come over at working age and so are net imputers to the tax coffers. Also, studies have proven that they are more likely to work than the indigenous population. Finally, when we look at our NHS, it is staffed by a large number of immigrants from overseas including countries like India, South Africa and Kenya. Without immigrants our NHS would be in a poor state.

Party Politics

I am a Labour supporter, but I do not agree with everything my party does. Recently, Ed Milliband distancing himself from the unions, who have done so much for worker’s rights, has frustrated me. However, I have more in common with Labour supporting the NHS, State Education and the vulnerable than any other political party. My local MP Andy Reed damaged his political career, but gained the respect of many people including myself, when he resigned his cabinet position because of his objection to the Iraq war. Right now, the Liberal Democrats in government have sold out many of their principles to be part of a coalition government. However, whenever any MP speaks out against one of their party’s ideas, the opposition seizes upon it in an almost rabid way treating it as a weakness instead of treating it as an opportunity for a piece of genuine political discourse.

Party Politics frustrates those outside of politics and some inside politics. I remember when I was younger hearing Michael Portillo stating frustration with party politics as a reason for quitting parliament. Rousseau stated that the party political system prevented the British people from ever being free. Democracy is imperfect. Any future Utopian democratic system would have to find a way of eliminating or at least subduing party politics if it is to improve from what we have today.


References


Friday 3 January 2014

How to not be an idiot arguing with people on Twitter

Writing this guide feels something of a necessity due to the amount of people who have no idea how to have an argument on Twitter without resorting to what can be pretty poor behaviour. Rather than tell each person I see behaving in a poor way, I thought I would write this guide, in the form of a set of informal rules, to save myself some time and maybe help people out...

The Basics

Rule one: Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or offensive about someone’s beliefs.
Rule two: Don’t be threatening.
Rule three: Don’t resort to personal insults

The above items should not need telling to anyone. Unfortunately as we are all aware these are quite common on Twitter. Failing to adhere to these basic rules will ensure you get blocked and reported pretty quickly.


A charming individual trolling Twitter looking for attention.

Intermediate level

Rule four: Don’t include someone (@) in a rude tweet - ie don’t write “I think @spinnyoza ie a #¬!-head” if you feel you have to write something abusive about someone, just write “I think @ spinnyoza is a #¬!-head” so they are not included. However, unless you have a private account, Twitter is an open forum and your tweet could get spotted so don’t be surprised if that happens.


 USA Soccer Guy dealing with a rude Tweeter with class.

Rule five: Don’t correct someone’s grammar/spelling. There is only one situation when this is acceptable(ish) and that is when someone has broken one of the first seven rules. Bad grammar does not invalidate an argument or opinion (unless it changes the meaning of the sentence but please refer to rule seven).
Rule six: Don’t tell someone you’re no longer following them (unless they are a friend and you are explaining why so they aren’t offended). Telling people you’re un-following them just makes you look petty.
Rule seven: Do read other people’s tweets sympathetically. If you could read a tweet one of two ways and one way makes them look pretty unpleasant in your eyes, assume they are not being unpleasant or seek clarification. Twitter is a series of short statements and misunderstandings can occur quite easily.
Rule seven B: Don’t deliberately misread the meaning of what someone has said so you can get offended. I have seen a former Tory Politician do this a few times (and I don’t follow them on Twitter). It makes you look stupid and nasty.

Ie – here I could tweet saying that Louise is supporting violence against people who support different political parties to her. However, instead I need to recognise that this is her attempt at a joke.

Higher Level

Rule eight: Don’t make up “facts” or argue without evidence or reason. Pretty straight forward but this tends to happen in politics (and surprisingly arguments on global warming) quite a lot.


A request for facts followed up by a flagrantly untrue statement based on personal prejudice.

Rule nine: Don’t become part of a Twitter Mob. Someone has said or done something offensive or outrageous and you want to express your ire. Don’t grab the pitchfork and join in. So often I’ve seen these mobs misdirected or on a misunderstanding. Just don’t do it.

The Twitter mob finds the wrong Ian Watkins. Thankfully he has the sense of humour of a hero.

Rule ten: Be careful joining other people’s Twitter arguments. I try not to join other people’s arguments but I do support my Twitter friends if they need it. From both sides Twitter arguments can pretty quickly get out of hand. If you need to join in or feel you can add value to the argument, do so as politely as you can.

If in doubt, follow this diagram (via a follower of Wil Wheaton)