Margaret Thatcher is dead

[ihop]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

 

I'm sure most if you know who she is.

 

 

[Cin]

I know who she is. I doubt anyone on here can form a vaid oppinion on the account of not being old enough to have experienced her time in power.

[ListenToLife]

True. But I've got parents and grandparents who were. And from what I heard, she wasn't great.

 

But, this is britain. To be honest, it's all kind of 'meh'. I honestly dont think there are many people that are exceptionally fussed.

[Lt. Colonel Remo]

>inb4 another Falklands war

 

But in all seriousness, she was an interesting politician.

 

I didn't agree with all of the things she may have stood for, but I certainly respected her. She will be missed.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Not only did Thatcher have such a disregard for basic human rights that she supported the South African apartheid regime, but she also took it upon herself and her government to sponsor the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, and Augusto Pinochet. Out of respect for all people who were wrongfully detained, tortured, and/or murdered as a result of her actions, please do not lament the death of Margaret Thatcher.

[Agro]

I saw the Iron Lady. Was an okay movie.

[.Rai]

I'm too young to know of her time in power in experience, but I can say that she's shaped Britain to be as it is today, for better or for worse, and that is an influence one cannot ignore. Although, I find it incredibly peculiar that 20-somethings can go out and celebrate her death, despite not being born even by the time she had left office. I find it even more peculiar that these same people are mindlessly liking some Facebook page to try and get "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead!" to No.1 in the charts.

Anyway. I pay my respects to her, not as a politician, but as a mother and a grandmother. De mortuis, nisi bonum, nil shall always apply in my opinion.

[D.A._Sakuyamon]

I'm going to be brutally honest and say I dont know who she is or what impact she had.

[.Rai]

I'm going to be brutally honest and say I dont know who she is or what impact she had.

I assume you're American and in <mid-20s.

Noting that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. World politics is something I try not to delve into anyway.

[bury the year]

I assume you're American and in <mid-20s.

Noting that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. World politics is something I try not to delve into anyway.

 

Same here, which is a shame because my major's International Affairs. (Although it's ironic that I'm doing a group project on the Falkland Islands War right now.)

 

But yeah, my condolences to the deceased and her family. It's not right to laugh at someone's death, no matter who they are.

[Mehmani]

Due to my family being working class miners, Thatcher's policies destroyed the lives of many of my relatives and even drove one of them to his death. She colluded with the brutal Botha government of South Africa, agreed to fund the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, protected General Pinochet, put American nuclear weapons in our countryside, destroyed the British working class without offering them any alternative jobs (the unemployed were told by Secretary of State Norman Tebbit to "get on your bike and look for work") and crushed the Trade Unions in the most brutal fashion. She increased police wages by 50% during her time in government so they would do what she said. She used them as a political weapon to crush her opponents. She had all the hallmarks of Fascist dictators like Pinochet. When someone dies, we should not beatify them. Thatcher deserves nothing but scorn. Although I do mourn her loss as a mother (to a racist daughter and a loan shark/military coup-backing son).

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Although, I find it incredibly peculiar that 20-somethings can go out and celebrate her death, despite not being born even by the time she had left office.

It's easy to attribute that sort of behaviour to youthful pettiness, but before you can fairly resort to such an overplayed card you must understand the resilience of the plagues that tyrants conjure. Their mark does not have an expiration date, and by no means is the passing of a generation a reversal of the type of debauchery perpetrated by Margaret Thatcher. For each unique horror story borne of her crimes, different elements are at play. For each parent afflicted by poverty, trauma, and/or prison time because of Margaret Thatcher's lack of compassion there is a robbed child.

Anyway. I pay my respects to her, not as a politician, but as a mother and a grandmother. De mortuis, nisi bonum, nil shall always apply in my opinion.

That's a classily-made distinction, just don't forget the families of those who have not received eulogizing articles when they were every bit as worthy of one as Margaret Thatcher. To those families I express my coldest and darkest sympathies, for certain wounds harbor a unique gravity that empties warm sentiments of meaning. They are the same wounds that demand bleakness of funereal garments.

[.Spock]

Agro, I say the Iron Man is better.

[Mehmani]

I'm too young to know of her time in power in experience, but I can say that she's shaped Britain to be as it is today, for better or for worse, and that is an influence one cannot ignore. Although, I find it incredibly peculiar that 20-somethings can go out and celebrate her death, despite not being born even by the time she had left office. I find it even more peculiar that these same people are mindlessly liking some Facebook page to try and get "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead!" to No.1 in the charts.

Anyway. I pay my respects to her, not as a politician, but as a mother and a grandmother. De mortuis, nisi bonum, nil shall always apply in my opinion.

 

Were you alive during the Holocaust? You still respect convention on Holocaust Memorial Day, do you not? How do you know Caligula was a bad guy? None of us were alive when he was around etc.

[Kyng's Old Account]

Every human being does good and bad in their life. My view on her was neutral, she wasn't perfect, but that doesn't mean she was all bad.

 

I imagine some will miss her. I personally will not, not due to any real "issues" against her, simply because I never took that much interest.

[.Rai]

Were you alive during the Holocaust? You still respect convention on Holocaust Memorial Day, do you not? How do you know Caligula was a bad guy? None of us were alive when he was around etc.

True, but I have a feeling that the support from these celebrations and Facebook campaigns are still based more on a degree of sheepism (I should have probably specified more).

[.Spock]

Were you alive during the Holocaust? You still respect convention on Holocaust Memorial Day, do you not? How do you know Caligula was a bad guy? None of us were alive when he was around etc.

Because there is a difference between the Holocaust and its documentation, and a potential tyrannical Emperor from 37AD with little to no documentation? Assuming of course this is the Caligula you're talking about.   

[Mehmani]

True, but I have a feeling that the support from these celebrations and Facebook campaigns are still based more on a degree of sheepism (I should have probably specified more).

 

 

In the modern world, there is always sheepism. The fact that many of her critics are supposedly "sheep" (I say that because many of them aren't, it's rather difficult to find someone who hasn't lost someone to Thatcher's policies, particularly in the North) doesn't make the criticism of her any less valid. Do we all have to have been at Hillsborough to complain about the cover-up?

Because there is a difference between the Holocaust and its documentation, and a potential tyrannical Emperor from 37AD with little to no documentation? Assuming of course this is the Caligula you're talking about.

 

There is precious little difference between the Holocaust and its documentation unless you are being rather nit-picky and/or a Holocaust denier. I most definitely agree that the trauma of the Holocaust was used and is used to score political points (I saw a documentary only an hour ago in which Efraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, described Israel as being 'a country that ran on a doctrine of trauma'), but ultimately there is not much that people debate about what actually happened. If you want something a little more contentious, try Unit 731. As for Caligula, the main sources used to describe his tyrannical cruelty, insanity and love of the lulz are pretty good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_of_Alexandria, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Dio.

[.Corgi]

The witch is dead, the witch is dead.