FranklyI would rather have that state of affairs than the elected dictatorship that we have at the moment. The UK government have way to much power right now, this is how we ended up going into Iraq.
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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on,
Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:53,
archived)
You assume that the war in Iraq is a bad thing.My understanding is that we got a lot of oil out of it, which is worth quite a bit of money. You may be against the war, but don't assume the majority of people are. The vast majority of people in Britain have no strong opinion either way - if they did, there would have been 63 million people marching in protest, not a mere 1 million.
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Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:57,
archived)
Bad argumentYou'd have a hard time fitting more people into the streets of central London at the same time. Myself, I opposed it, but was a student at the time and had no money to spend on such a long train journey.
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Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:02,
archived)
Of the people I knowAbout 10% of people strongly oppose it.
About 10% of people are in favour of it.
The other 80% want to know what's for tea. Most people just don't care about the reasoning behind the war. Generally people feel sad for the soldiers and their families who've been killed or injured, but by and large have more important things to think about. That's my anecdotal evidence - and in the absence of empirical evidence, anecdotal evidence is all we have.
One thing is for certain; there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong, which is why it pisses me off when I hear anti-war protesters claiming that the majority of people were against the war when there is absolutely no evidence to support this. Until all 63 million people have been asked, you can't know that. If 1 million people march in protest, all you can prove is that 1 million people are against it.
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Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:09,
archived)
About 10% of people are in favour of it.
The other 80% want to know what's for tea. Most people just don't care about the reasoning behind the war. Generally people feel sad for the soldiers and their families who've been killed or injured, but by and large have more important things to think about. That's my anecdotal evidence - and in the absence of empirical evidence, anecdotal evidence is all we have.
One thing is for certain; there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong, which is why it pisses me off when I hear anti-war protesters claiming that the majority of people were against the war when there is absolutely no evidence to support this. Until all 63 million people have been asked, you can't know that. If 1 million people march in protest, all you can prove is that 1 million people are against it.
Or you could look at protests on other issues and compare turnoutto public support.
That way you'll get at least a good approximation of numbers, anecdotally speaking.
Fortunately most of the people I know care about how their government represents them internationally. Most of them care as much, if not more, for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were killed in Iraq as for the soldiers.
And as for "there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong"...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/20/iraq.iraq
(That way you'll get at least a good approximation of numbers, anecdotally speaking.
Fortunately most of the people I know care about how their government represents them internationally. Most of them care as much, if not more, for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were killed in Iraq as for the soldiers.
And as for "there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong"...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/20/iraq.iraq
chenobble rocking his explorer beard on,
Tue 18 Aug 2009, 12:55,
archived)
Agreedbut my point is the war in iraq was based on evidence that was at best dubious (and turned out to be bullshit). Tony Blair was able to force it through because there were no checks, Parliament was whipped into submission.
( Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on,
Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:52,
archived)