I think anyone with any remotely socialist leanings probably shares many of my concerns with the way society has been headed since the coalition government took control
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The US seems to consider "socialism" a bad word. I think it's the state encompassing compassion, and therefore to be embraced. Certainly in Scotland we seem to embrace socialism, and welcome changes that support the poor, the young, the old and the disabled who can't effectively support themselves. It makes me feel genuinely ill to see what the Tory government, sitting pretty without their democratic mandate, is trying to do to the welfare state.
It makes it worse when you see them commenting on the protests. I read an article in which someone said that you can't win with protests -- if there's violence then they condemn that and ignore the protest and if there's not they just ignore the protests (think the Iraq war protests).
I've been saying to Dougie that I think our generation has it the worst. A lot of our friends managed to get to uni while the grant system was still there (lucky people!) but I ended up taking out a 20k loan which I'm never going to be able to pay back. So I'm having to pay for my own university education but I would also want to spare any possible children Dougie and I may have the problems of being saddled with debt before they leave university/college, so we would need to start saving up for them as soon as they're born.
And the best of it is that all these politicians who are ranting about how we should all be paying for the privilige of getting a higher education, are all the ones who went through the grant system and so wouldn't have had to pay for anything! It's enough to make anyone bitter.
I agree with you -- we're on the wrong end of the housing curve, had to pay for our own higher education, entered the job market alongside a glut of other graduates, will have to subsidise the retirement of the generation ahead of us, will have to pay for our own retirement and, like as not, will have to pay for our children to go to university and get mortgages. Asking one generation to support three seems rather unfair, but there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it
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It makes it worse when you see them commenting on the protests. I read an article in which someone said that you can't win with protests -- if there's violence then they condemn that and ignore the protest and if there's not they just ignore the protests (think the Iraq war protests).
Sigh.
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And the best of it is that all these politicians who are ranting about how we should all be paying for the privilige of getting a higher education, are all the ones who went through the grant system and so wouldn't have had to pay for anything! It's enough to make anyone bitter.
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