http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26376026
Nigel Farage does tend to annoy me. He's come out with some real "zingers" of late, and unfortunately, UKIP's popularity is still a rather shameful burden to the progressive spirit of the country - based on how clearly he states his opinions, and on how clearly mistaken he often is.
Farage says that parts of the UK have become unrecognisable and in places you don't hear English spoken any more. This was having a detrimental impact on social cohesion. "This is not the type of community we want to leave to our children"
This, of course, has undertones of racism. Could it be that people like Mr. Farage, who have no interest in integrating with "foreigners", are actually part of the problem in creating these "unrecognisable" areas?
Go to any other country in Europe and you'll find English being spoken quite commonly, as well as the native tongue. In places like Sweden, most people can speak English to a pretty reasonable standard.
Being the place of origin of English, the main "language of business" has made us culturally lazy in this country. There is little appetite for learning other languages amongst the general populace, because they think they don't need to, and so they feel threatened by any words they don't understand, and withdraw further. This is the feedback-loop that we unfortunately find ourselves in. Farage's folly here, of course, is to not realise this and assume that it is immigrants who must learn English, and never us that should take up a bit of another language, whilst actually, either solution would work.
What actually does have a detrimental impact on social cohesion, is racism. And I know one type of society that I don't want to leave to our children, and that's one which views immigration as an evil and Brits as intrinsically superior to everyone else.
To me, patriotism is the aspiration to continually improve the country's humanitarian welfare standards; to raise the consciousness of the country's citizens to the best of humanity's achievements and the best that humanity can achieve in the future. It is to hold ourselves to the highest standards of conduct whilst realising that things have not always been thus, and others may not be able to reciprocate, and if so they should be helped. Farage's main problem is how he always sees foreigners in a negative light, while in reality they are people, humans, just like everybody else.
Farage also said: "The most significant change is the rise of women in the party. Our women have achieve(d...sic) these positions on the European elections lists through merit, which is the example of the kind of society we want to live in."
The dark undercurrent of misogyny in this statement is pretty forceful. Notice the implicit assumption in his words, that some women who have reached important positions in business and society have not done so on merit. He is referring to, of course, female only shortlists, or quotas, for greater gender representation or equality, which those equality-challenged souls love to mock. This makes me laugh. The only reason that these shortlists are even needed (they are a temporary, last resort approach after all) is the glacial rate of natural improvement of the representation of women in business. This is not exactly surprising, but it is entirely avoidable and should have been rooted out some years ago. I say this because the problem is well-known to many. A large study found that the problem of women being significantly disfavoured for jobs, when equally qualified as men, was endemic in the STEM fields; and even extended to women interviewers and employers themselves. So the point is that women will not be employed on merit in the natural business or academic environment at the moment. So Farage is fundamentally mistaken. And of course, notice how philosophically problematic it is for Farage to insinuate that women aren't as competent as men, since beating only other women to a job does not count as "getting there by merit". But on the other hand, isn't using the tactic of quotas or shortlists intrinsically unfair to men?
Nope. Although it may mean that some men who may have been otherwise employed under the normal (and demonstrably unfair) system may miss out on these jobs, it's not generally unfair to men because there is a clear trade-off in responsibilities occurring. This can be referenced by thinking carefully about what exactly happened in political gender topography when women finally achieved the right to vote during the suffrage movement. Using the same logic as "shortlists hurt men" we could conclude that women getting the vote reduced the political influence of men, decreasing their say, and harming their interests, in the shaping of the political landscape at a local and national level. But of course, (thankfully) very few people reason like this, simply because granting women the basic right to vote was more important than some vaguely defined loss in socio-economic "dominance" of men, from the maximum skew, to something less. It created a fairer society. To me, the employment situation is clearly analogous.
We are having to manually force equality by re-balancing employment potential slightly away from men and towards women. I hope you realise what a massive non-sequitur it is to say that this is harmful to men. We are gaining more freedom from the burdens of financial responsibility which have perennially plagued us, and increased opportunity for family time, childcare and other under-appreciated domestic activities.
If you don't like this idea, ask yourself why. Is it because women belong in the kitchen?!? Is it because they should be having babies?!? Is it because they are "sluts and dumb bitches"?!?! Listen to yourself, and the shape of the world these answers represent. Is it possible to answer these points without coming across as a massive misogynist? It may reveal some uncomfortable truths in just how much faith you place in the traditional gender roles.
In my experience in the field of science, I've never encountered a woman student, technician or teacher who wasn't eminently competent - organised, efficient, hard working and great to get along with. The same tired old sexist society that can't even see the problems in front of its own nose, is not the sort of society I want to live in, thanks very much Mr. Farage. And I'm not knocking meritocracy here, but just remember, it needs to be tempered against who is actually socio-economically capable of achieving that merit.
Overall, it's clear Farage only subscribes to what I call "tick box, pseudo-equality" and has no real interest in egalitarianism, promoting race issues, women's issues, or improving anyone's lot in general...unless you're British of course. In which case he'll try, but almost certainly, ultimately, fail.
My only hopes for UKIP are that Farage is ousted by a more moderate underling, and that the party really does increase its proportion of females, which could well moderate its right-wing leanings.
My plea to all the UK voters is, think carefully before voting UKIP. I know the other Parties aren't gereat either, but there are worrying signs of UKIP's adherence to various seemingly unfalsifiable and damaging fantasies, namely climate change denial, pseudo-equality, and the "merits" of their own definition of "patriotism". "Love Britain, vote UKIP"? More like "Longing to be part of a bigoted Britain so insular and xenophobic that it can't see just how intellectually incoherent it is? Vote UKIP!"
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