Margaret Thatcher statue unveiled in the Falklands

Discussion in 'Postwar' started by CL1, Jan 12, 2015.

  1. Drusus Nero

    Drusus Nero Banned

    So, lets get this right.

    I've got to show respect for a politician who left a mess behind her simply because other people do?

    I know I'm on a website thats moderated, but even that takes a little swallowing.

    Despite not living there, I'm still a passport holding citizen of the British Isles. So I have as much right to complain about Baroness Thatcher as any other.

    I'm a supporter of feminist ideals, (I am in a household composed of ALL females, including the dog.)

    Lady Thatcher set back the cause of women in British politics by decades. She destroyed the economy of North England, and by the time the conservatives got rid of her, her name was a byword for government that neither consulted their constituents, nor did they care whether this was right or wrong.
     
  2. Drusus Nero

    Drusus Nero Banned

    Just out of interest Miss, are you in the North of Ireland, or the Republic?

    Let me introduce myself formally. My name is christopher, (last name by request). I live in Darwin australia. I am de-facto married to a Kiwi sheila, a moari, and we have one daughter of four and a half years, plus one daughter from her previous marriage of 18 years, and one enourmous Bull Arab bitch who sheds mighty amounts of hair and will eat just about anything.

    My wife is a special education teacher, dealing with kids that have Autism and Feotal alchohol syndrome, (mainly). I was a meat worker, a slicer in a boning room, but after I became a father, I had to look after our daughter. I have recently remorphed into a security guard, and I deal mainly with Aboriginal people in shopping centers, or drunk itinerants. I like the purity of aborigines, and can get along with them very nicely.

    My hobbys are history, housework, and educating our daughters. I used to be a board wargamer, playing boxed titles from SPI and Avalon hill, but the demise of those companies means Ive sheltered in the computer, which I have less and less time for.

    As you can see, I'm the most harmless person on the planet, even if a little talkative.

    BTW...our 18 yr old will go into the Australian Army as a nurse sometime next year. Both my wife and I come from families with military backgrounds, me from my grandmothers generation in WW2, the wife had a brother and sister in the NZAF, and her father was the President of the New Zealand Malayan Veteran's association for many years.

    We are no strangers to military people, and will be proud to send our 18 yr old off to serve.

    Thats me, Maam. What about you, (answer optional)?
     
  3. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Yet another of your odd leaps of 'logic' I see. Nope, it's just the old issue of accepting that some will not be inclined to agree with all that you say, just as you don't with comments on here.

    Yep you can complain about her, but predicting that "Britain will never make the same mistake" is ambitious to say the least, particularly as you are on the other side of the world ... and seem to express your opinions via examples and analogies from old TV series.

    Aye, Thatcher was no radical feminist, but I really can't see how "set back the cause of women in British politics by decades". At least one admirable thing about her IMO was that she didn't define herself through her gender, but by her politics and by her convictions. It's quite ironic - and telling - to read someone purporting to support women's rights making a comment such as "she morphed into a man". Just which political characteristics do you deem to be solely masculine or feminine?
     
  4. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Chris


    Good old Maggie that's what I say
     
  5. Lotus7

    Lotus7 Well-Known Member

    A fitting tribute, politics aside
     
    CL1 likes this.
  6. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Your argument above moves in a circle and nibbles its own tail. On the one hand, you criticize the British government for leaving the islands unprotected. On the other, you criticize the government for sending a relief expedition. The logical corollary (deny it though you may) is that the Argentines should therefore have been left in possession of their ill-gotten gains--pending "negotiations" no doubt. In that case, you would no doubt today be criticizing Mrs. Thatcher for giving in. (Do you 'negotiate' with someone who steals your wallet?)

    I note that this time you have entirely ignored the question of the British citizens of the Falklands. Bear in mind that during this very period the Argentine government was busily murdering its own unfortunate subjects in secret. I doubt that they would have been any gentler to the Falkland Islanders. Previously, you had suggested a ‘transfer of populations' (as the euphemism is) to some other rocky islands. I admire your sang-froid in disposing so readily of your fellow citizens and shifting them about like sacks of cement. Don't you know that protection of its citizens from foreign conquest is one of the very first duties of every government? If the current bum in Djakarta (whoever that may be) demanded a chunk of Australia as a cumshaw for the Sake of Peace using the Dutch claim to Van Diemen's Land as a pretext, perhaps you could nominate Darwin. I doubt that your neighbors would thank you.

    Sarcasm is sometimes needed. You seem to be implying that the war was a Tory plot, though you have adduced no conclusive proof. I run into the same sort of conspiratorial arguments about Franklin Roosevelt and the Pearl Harbor attack. Those arguments are derived from the same root as yours in this case, namely political hatred. One hallmark of this attitude is the inability to believe that a political opponent may nonetheless be acting from honest and decent motives. Another is the refusal to admit that even an opponent may be right on occasion. I am no admirer of Richard Nixon, but as a historian I know that he did some good things and as a human being I know that he sometimes acted from good motives even when he was wrong. But when one hates someone for political reasons then everything that person does is considered to be not merely wrong, but also malicious and selfish. I see this in your comments. You cannot resist making personal attacks on Mrs. Thatcher which are not relevant to the discussion. Because you cannot separate facts from personality you are also separating the people here into those who agree with you and “The Margaret Thatcher Admiration Society.” That is black/white thinking, intellectual tribalism. These attitudes lend themselves readily to conspiracy theory. After years of encountering them in various guises I regard sarcasm as an appropriate response to political hatreds and conspiracy theories because those who hold these beliefs are seldom swayed by reason or evidence. If that sort of thinking is your cup of tea, then perhaps you would really be better off over at Stormfront. They have vats of it over there.
     
    Owen, Slipdigit, dbf and 1 other person like this.
  7. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    This is my favorite quote by Christos Drusus Nero in this thread.

    I am left to assume that a vote for a female requires one to be stupid.
     
    TTH likes this.
  8. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    THH

    HEAR - HEAR

    Cheers
     
    TTH likes this.
  9. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Just to add some balance

    So completely has her legacy shaped modern Britain, so fully have she and her ideas been woven into its fabric, that it can be hard to appreciate the depth of our debt to this most extraordinary of individuals. For she was not one of those politicians who had the good fortune to go with the grain of her times. She was a leader who wrenched this nation from the path of demoralisation, diminishment and decline so decisively, so self-evidently successfully, that her victory seems, in hindsight, to be almost an inevitability.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9979341/Margaret-Thatcher-The-woman-who-made-Britain-great-again.html
     
    canuck likes this.
  10. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    So, the British military involvement was nothing to do with PROTECTING the Falkland islanders - they were an inconvenience who could be dispensed with if they happened to "get in the way"?

    "Get in the way" of what? There were no Argentine troops in or near the house, nor was there an Argentine emplacement in the vicinity.

    The fact remains that the three women were the only islanders to be killed in the war. The Argentine attitude towards the islanders was sometimes overbearing and abusive, but the Argentine troops killed no islanders.
     
  11. Drusus Nero

    Drusus Nero Banned

    Maggie was not a woman....she was a man in disguise.

    Look, ol Hickory. If Ive given you a favourite quote, then I must have made an impact, negative or not. This is from the same person that justifies gun control on the basis that you would "run to the hills" rather than give up your guns.

    Slip, you have no monopoly on good sense. And as an American, even less right to comment on Maggie thatcher than I have.

    Maggies supporters were the ones that held on to their jobs. The rest of Britain couldn't wait to see the back of her.

    No, the Falklands wasnt a Tory plot, never said that. But, it was most certainly not given the negotiated settlement that it deserved. The inhabitants were an excuse to act in a military manner. Could Argentina have been bought off? Could they have suffered SANCTIONS? None of this was tried, in the rush to send a task force and shore up the Tory election prospects.

    No other options were considered.

    Funny how when it's Czechoslovakia at stake, all the negotiation in the wrold will be suffiecient if Britain does not want to go to war.

    But when a few windswept Islands inhabited by less people than the crews of the TF sent to liberate it, and good for nobodies economy, Britain rushes to war because Maggie wanted it, and for no other reason than that.

    Argentina were a terrible dictatorship, but the Falkland Islands were not a prize worth fighting over. Resettlement of the few Islanders was a more than palatable alternative.

    Supporters of thatcher obviously kept their jobs during her tenure. If you were one of the many who didnt, what would you have said/
     
  12. Drusus Nero

    Drusus Nero Banned

    For a bit of balance on Good Sence, Slip, tell everyone your views of Gun control, and how you'd give up everything including your house and family, just to hang on to and play with your toys.
     
  13. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    That comment is completely offside and out of line. The juvenile vitriol towards Thatcher is your personal right to expose your ignorance to an entire forum audience but a groundless personal attack is quite repugnant. Probably time for the Mods to shut you down.
     
  14. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    He's not fully wound up yet, Canuck.

    I'm not entirely sure what Good "Sense" he is referring to. I have no issue with stating my full support of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution.

    Pardon me now as I go and juggle my pistols. I like playing with firearms, they make such good toys.
     
    4jonboy, dbf and CL1 like this.
  15. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    It's simply become tiresome at this point. The choice to revere or revile Thatcher usually comes down to how far right or left your personal politics happen to be. With the passage of time I happen to think that history will look favourably on her and I agree with her well known assertion that sooner or later you run out of other people's money. She changed that course but whether you agree or disagree, this debate isn't taking the high road.

    However, there is a delicious irony in that he lives in Darwin!
     
  16. Drusus Nero

    Drusus Nero Banned

    Look Slip. "good Sence" is simply your assertion that anything you, personally have to say online is right and proper.

    It isn't. And you treat anything I've got to say based on your own Redneck values.

    Our relationship used to be good, until the day came when I called Lee Harvey Oswald innocent on the grounds that he was never brought before a court of law. You also brushed aside my very correct assertion that any evidence against him would be inadmissable in a court of law due to a lack of a pre-trial hearing. This renders any evidence submitted by the stae as inadmissable.

    This was brushed aside on the assumption that the law was "different in america compared to australia", even though you knew quite well that a pre-trial hearing to sift through evidence is a standard on both sides of the Pacific, and across Europe. Its a cornerstone of British and American Justice as well as australian and canadian, and many other ountries.

    From then on, you have consistenetly badgered me every time your access to a keyboard allowed you, using your position as moderator unjustifiably. Now you sit on this site doing the same thing.

    You kicked me off your site because you couldnt stand being told how childish your attitude to a possible confiscation of your precious firearms was. Only other Americans were allowed to comment. Brits and Aussies on your site were brushed aside as inconsequential.

    I have made every effort to let bygones be bygones. Now you sit here nitpicking, as usual offering no opinion.

    So, go play with your guns, shoot someone for all I care. Thats what Americans do best after all. And Rednecks are better at it than any.

    There. You've now got what you wanted out of me. So why not jump up and down and tell us all how insulted you are, just for effect.
     
  17. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Drayton
    The British went to war in the Falklands to eject an invader AND to restore that land to the rightful citizens by protecting them ----- BUT you

    obviously never was close to any war - or other means of fighting an enemy as you would KNOW that accidents happen - like Dunkirk - Greece - Crete -

    Singapore and not a lot can be done so I would suggest that you sue the Royal Navy for killing three women and try not to be too big a fathead when

    you criticize something you know nothing about…
    Cheers
     
    Steve Mac likes this.
  18. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Way off topic Chris, again. Stick to the issue at hand.


    If you don't want to talk about Thatcher, then leave the thread. It's odd that you can't handle people pointing out the contradictions in your own comments, since you've exposed your own prejudices so willingly and carelessly. Really, describing a woman in power as acting like a man is old school misogyny.

    You have a knack for turning any thread on any subject into something about you and your personal issues with other members. It's not appreciated here.
     
  19. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Chris

    You let yourself down with a one way biased rant which looks like "its your way or the highway" a tad dictatorial.
    Why get personal with Slip that is not the way to behave.
    This is a democracy, so fair enough wave your flag but if you dont like something and rudeness prevails then expect others to pipe up their thoughts.
    You are in Australia and I am sure your laws have a different twist than the UK as most countries in the world do.Thats the way it is.
    You let yourself down calling Margaret a man.

    The Falklands were and still are British.There is no way that the Argentine regime could have been allowed to succeed in this invasion.

    With regards to the 3 casualties yes this is a terrible price and a terrible accident.

    As mentioned before in a previous post have a look at the regime in Argentina at the time




    regards
    Clive
     
  20. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Many pardons, Diane, for straying with Drusus Nero off topic.

    Here is the thread at WW2F that he is referring to. Read and enjoy.

    http://www.ww2f.com/topic/47178-jfk-assassination-what-do-you-think/

    I'm telling you, guys, you really NEED to read it. Drusus Nero used the moniker Volga Boatman at the time, which was after using Christos here.

    And here is another thread he started after we closed the first, using a thread title I can only assume was intended to disguise the thread subject.

    http://www.ww2f.com/topic/47923-western-union-1963/

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Why is a previously banned member openly posting here again under another user name?
     

Share This Page