I recall a German solider interviewed in some documentary. He was young, got into the Nazi party. Fought with his parents who knew he was being brainwashed in a way.
Later on the eastern front he had some event that made him think of what his parents had been saying. He said something like "I realized they were right... but by then it was all too late."
Those choices that close our ears to things and choices that lead us to irreversible paths seem to be the ones that are the worst.
This is hard for me to admit, but it's unfortunately true.
in the UK I voted for UKIP to go to the European Parliament in 2008~ and I voted conservative in the general election of that year.
I was completely bought in by the populist talking points that Farage and Cameron were touting, and I was warned not to buy into populism but my mind at the time thought: "Well, if it's popular, what's the problem? They're supposed to work for us right".
The reality is that people will tell you what you want to hear. I started watching a British series called "Hustle" (about a fictitious band of conmen and grifters which we follow as they rip off comically awful people) but I noticed some patterns in the way that the cons were set up and how people like Farage speak. I noticed that it's all deflection, indirection, 10 lies a minute so that when you refute one of the lies (usually the most outrageous) the others kinda fade into the background and are assumed to be true.
I think what made me snap was when I started looking into the things that were claimed much more closely: the EU regulations on "bendy bananas", and I realised it was all fluff. Farage himself being chair on the fisheries committee of the EU but constantly complaining about fishing rights of the UK.
I felt betrayed, like I'd been grifted.
but it's much too late, and the damage is done.
Not at my hand directly perhaps; but by many people being taken in by dangerous confident grifters.
Why is this relevant: because I don't think I stick out particularly, if I can be taken in, anyone can -- we like to think we make our own choices, but usually that is not the case.
Its like a wave in the ocean, each water molecule only moves a tiny bit, and contributes a fractional amount of energy to the wave, but in aggregate it can move fast and cause lots of damage
I’m not making the point that Cameron is Hitler. If that’s your take away from my post then I communicated it poorly.
I am making the point that we can buy into ideology that is antithetical to our own rather easily.
Not everyone who voted for the Nazis wanted Nazis. They didn’t win a popular vote and hell: who the hell would think that world war 2 would happen as a result.
I’m equating my “being duped” with nazi voting Germans.
With the greatest respect, the analogy between Farage and Hitler is not a good one, and the analogy between Cameron and Hitler is ridiculous. Farage is a populist who wanted out of the EU, basta. He spent too much time kissing Putin's bum - that is my impression. Cameron was a moderate, without many very deep ideas at all, an admirer of Swedish social democracy (who isn't?) and hardly distinguishable from Ed Miliband.
I wasn’t equating Farage, Cameron and Hitler with each other at all.
I’m suggesting that I fell for populism, the end result of that populism isn’t what I’m talking about really, just the feeling of being tricked and that it happened to me: a person who was brought up to think critically.
I’m not special. Neither are you probably. That’s my point.
Not that Cameron is Hitler. That’s obviously not true. Cameron only killed 30,000~ people due to NHS cuts. Not systematic genocide. It’s not at all the same.
Well, now you are double-backing on yourself and trying to use sarcasm to suggest that Cameron really is like Hitler! This is silly. Any choice a politician makes "kills" people. Cameron "killed" x people by not making the NHS budget higher. Blair and Brown also "killed" y people by not making it higher still. Raise taxes? Businesses fail, owners kill themselves. Cut defence? You kill people because dictators start wars. Borrow too much, cause inflation? The poor are hit by lost spending power, some of them will die. Life is real, politics is serious, analogizing your opponents' policy choices to genocide is for tweens.
Later on the eastern front he had some event that made him think of what his parents had been saying. He said something like "I realized they were right... but by then it was all too late."
Those choices that close our ears to things and choices that lead us to irreversible paths seem to be the ones that are the worst.