"Flying on holiday is as bad as stabbing someone"

[_float_]

Their logic is shite.

Nobody is ever going to get elected on the basis of limiting us on flights. And if some Government just implement it then the opposition will campaign on reversing it and get elected.

Its as simple as that. Cheap flights are here to stay. Anybody who trys and fucks with that is on an electoral hiding.

Unless a significant proportion of the population decides that it is a necessary evil - for example like taxation:

Noone likes paying taxes, but people understand that you need to pay taxes in order to have, for example, the NHS and avoid horrible things (eg dying early from disease etc).

Maybe soon, although noone will like limiting air travel (and other energy use) people will understand that you need to limit things to avoid horrible things (eg disasterous climate change etc).

There might be different ways of limiting air travel: making it expensive is one way, but another way for example would be to give everyone an equal "air miles allowance" (eg a ration or quota). People who wanted to go over their quota would have to buy the extra from people who haven't used theirs.

This would mean that poor people would either still be able to travel (and very poor people would be able to cash in their air miles), whereas companies and richer people would have to pay a lot more for their 'frequent flier' habits (or maybe they simply wouldn't be able to get hold of any extra air miles above their "basic quota").

 

[_float_]

IMO another example of green irrelevence .What Lucas meant so say was ' poor people should not be allowed to fly' as IMO this whole non story basically reveals a typical green attitude which led to her saying what she said.

You obviously haven't watched the video: she was specifically criticising rich people with second homes who 'binge fly'.

 

[_float_]

@ tim

Thanks for quoting my own transcript back to me in answer to "What do you think she said?" It is hard to transcribe conversations where more than one person is talking at once and however you do it, there is a risk that you are not representing what was said. The best thing is to actually watch/listen to the original to work out what was actually being said.

Now for the my second question "What do you think she meant by this?" - ie what concept or idea was she conveying? What was she in the middle of talking about? What was the point of comparison between the two things? In what respect was she being asked if they were "the same"?

 

[_float_]

Oil running out isn't the issue. The planet's capacity to absorb burnt oil is what is running out. Even if we had limitless oil, we couldn't burn it without fucking the atmospheric system that keeps us alive.

 

[tim]

@ tim

Thanks for quoting my own transcript back to me in answer to "What do you think she said?" It is hard to transcribe conversations where more than one person is talking at once and however you do it, there is a risk that you are not representing what was said. The best thing is to actually watch/listen to the original to work out what was actually being said.

Now for the my second question "What do you think she meant by this?" - ie what concept or idea was she conveying? What was she in the middle of talking about? What was the point of comparison between the two things? In what respect was she being asked if they were "the same"?

I can say that your transcription skills are better than your spinning skills. As to her intention, she wanted to make her point dramatically. A strategy that clearly backfired.

 

[Cobbles]

She was not saying that flying is the same as stabbing someone.

UKIP: "Is flying to Spain the same as knifing someone in the street?"
Lucas: "Yes it is, people are dying from climate change"

She could of coursehave replied along the lines of "don't be an arse you're taking my idiotic hysterical hyperbole out of context" - she didn't - from the way that she responded in the videe, she clearly believes this lunatic viewpoint.

Bye bye votes.......

 

[_float_]

"The same as" in what respect?

She was in the middle of a discussion about the legitimacy of limiting people's freedom when other people are being harmed.

In *this* respect the two things are "the same".

If you are in the middle of talking about how many legs an animal has and you say "a cat is the same as a dog" then you are correct. This doesn't mean you are claiming that cats = dogs. You are saying that they share something in common. This is made clear from the conversation that came before.

You might say the sun is "the same as" an orange - they are both spherical. This isn't saying the sun is an orange,
...even if you use large bold typeface!

Lucas was saying that stabbing people and 'binge flying' share something in common - that they harm other people and therefore its legitimate to limit people's freedom. This doesn't mean she was saying taking a flight is "as bad as" stabbing someone - she didn' say this and what she did say didn't have this meaning. The tabloids - and you - are either deliberately lying, utterly stupid or have been unwittingly misled by the UKIP press office.

 

[isitme]

what about them kids who got on a plane to america, stabbed someone, and then crashed it into a building!!!

 

[Cobbles]

"The same as" in what respect?

She was in the middle of a discussion about the legitimacy of limiting people's freedom when other people are being harmed.

In *this* respect the two things are "the same".

If you are in the middle of talking about how many legs an animal has and you say "a cat is the same as a dog" then you are correct. This doesn't mean you are claiming that cats = dogs. You are saying that they share something in common. This is made clear from the conversation that came before.

You might say the sun is "the same as" an orange - they are both spherical. This isn't saying the sun is an orange,
...even if you use large bold typeface!

Lucas was saying that stabbing people and 'binge flying' share something in common - that they harm other people and therefore its legitimate to limit people's freedom. This doesn't mean she was saying taking a flight is "as bad as" stabbing someone - she didn' say this and what she did say didn't have this meaning. The tabloids - and you - are either deliberately lying, utterly stupid or have been unwittingly misled by the UKIP press office.

LOL - deconstruct the use of language all you want - in the video she just said 100% clearly that flying was the same as a stabbing and ends up looking like a total pillock.

 

[_float_]

LOL - deconstruct the use of language all you want - in the video she just said 100% clearly that flying was the same as a stabbing and ends up looking like a total pillock.

Flying *is* the same as stabbing in one aspect: harming other people.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

 

[smokedout]

Flying *is* the same as stabbing in one aspect: harming other people.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

no

you seem to argue that all consumption is harming other people

is eating toast the same as stabbing people

 

[Belushi]

what about them kids who got on a plane to america, stabbed someone, and then crashed it into a building!!!

The little scamps!

 

[_float_]

no

you seem to argue that all consumption is harming other people

is eating toast the same as stabbing people

Does eating toast have a harmful impact on other people?

If it does then in this respect it shares something in common - in this respect it is "the same as".

The argument was that *all* activities that harm other people can be legitimately limited at some point.

Stabbing someone has an immediate, direct and massive harm, and is subject to completely/absolute restrictions unless in self defence etc. ie There are legal controls.

Eating one piece of toast has an uncertain, indirect and far lesser level of harm and so any restrictions (eg. on agricultural techniques and the processing and supply-chain) are indirect and dependent on other factors. For example it *is* illegal to use certain pesticides to grow the wheat for your piece of toast. ie There are legal controls.

Like Lucas said in the debate "...there are limits to people's freedom, there are always limits. The question is where you draw it..."

What the UKIP guy was claiming (and Lucas was refuting with the 'yes its the same' comment) was that it is "undemocractic" to put restrictions on the amount people can fly. Lucas was arguing that it is not undemocratic to protect people from the harmful actions of others, all the way from protecting people from being stabbed (obvious!) to protecting people from the impacts of climate change by limiting excessive flying and other excessive enegy use.

The UKIP guy was also implying that unlike stabbing someone, excessive flying was 'victimless' - which is why Lucas disagreed and said that excessive flying *does* harm people and isn't 'victimless'.

 

[Cobbles]

Flying *is* the same as stabbing in one aspect: harming other people.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Disagree.

 

[_float_]

David Cambell-Bannerman (UKIP):

"Wind-turbines kill people"

"Wind-turbines are a failure of democracy"

"Wind-turbines are disgusting"



(/url now corrected!)

 

[Cobbles]

What the UKIP guy was claiming (and Lucas was refuting with the 'yes its the same' comment) was that it is "undemocractic" to put restrictions on the amount people can fly.

That's funny, I've listened to the eco-moron again and in reply to the simple question: "Is flying to Spain the same as knifing someone in the street?" she is clearly heard to respond:"Yes it is, people are dying from climate change" - a truly foot in mouth moment however desperately you try to spin what she didn't say but may or may not have been thinking......

The "people are dying" bollocks was clearly an attempt to align the nastieness and violence of stabbing with what she thinks is also an evil act (e.g. Easyjetting off to Puerto whatever for a week's R&R).

PS I wonder how she managed to get to Palestine for her hand-wringing tour - did she get a train?

 

[Azrael]

Whether Ms Lucas meant the comparison in every respect is, largely, beside the point. I doubt she micro-analysed the comparison before she made it: people think more generally than that. That Ms Lucas thinks flying and knifing as related activities is worrying enough, whatever particular she may (or may not) have been referring to.

 

[_float_]

From the UKIP website:

Climate: what they don't want you to hear

 

[_float_]

Disagree.

How about: "Climate change is harming people"

Agree or disagree?

 

[tim]

David Cambell-Bannerman (UKIP):

"Wind-turbines kill people"

"Wind-turbines are a failure of democracy"

"Wind-turbines are disgusting"

UKIP Protest against wind turbines at Kingsdyke

I listened to 8 .23 minutes of that tedious fuck and he didn't say any of the things you claim. Just lots of crap about lazy bureaucrats, Communist run governments in Europe (if only) and how we're really much closer to the USA. Either you've posted the wrong clip or you've just libelled him.

I'm an equal opportunities mocker happy to laugh at you and your cack-handed spinning, Lucas and her absurd statements, UKIP fuckwits, Pussy cat George, Blair, Brown, Cameron etc.

 

[_float_]

The "people are dying" bollocks was clearly an attempt to align the nastieness and violence of stabbing with what she thinks is also an evil act (e.g. Easyjetting off to Puerto whatever for a week's R&R).

Not at all.

The example of 'knifing people in the street' was her example of how restricting people's freedom was not undemocratic. The UKIP guy was forced to agree.

She then said restricting freedom to fly was not undemocratic - in the same way.

The words immediately follow on from what was being discussed just seconds beforehand.

The tabloids and various UKIP statements actually invented "as bad as".

"The same as" refers to being the same in respect of what they were discussing - ie. is it democratic to limit activity that harms other people.

Stabbing is limited because it harms others.
Flying "is the same" as it also also harms others.

"The same as" refers specifically to 'an act that harms others which therefore should have some kind of limits'.

 

[_float_]

Either you've posted the wrong clip or you've just libelled him.

Sorry, wrong link. This is the correct one:


UKIP Protest against wind turbines at kingsdyke near peterborough, Cambridgeshire

 

[Azrael]

"The same as" refers specifically to 'an act that harms others which therefore should have some kind of limits'.

Regardless of the specific respect, she still related knifing to flying. I doubt very much whether she gave it this much thought before making the comparison. If she had, there are less extreme restrictions on absolute freedom she could have cited. She specifically said that global warming is killing people. It speaks volumes about her and her agenda, and no amount of deconstruction will change it.

Oh, and I'm not batting for UKIP here. They're an electoral irrelevance. Ms Lucas's comments are still worrying.

 

[_float_]

Regardless of the specific respect, she still related knifing to flying.

It was the UKIP guy (who by the way is a professional PR spin doctor) who chose to make the direct comparison, alway through a point Lucas was trying to make.

Lucas had mentioned 'knifing people in the street' as a no-brainer example of the why the UKIP guy was wrong in claimed that "interfering with pople's freedoms" was always "undemocratic" and "anti-liberty"

"JS Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. One argument that Mill develops further than any previous philosopher is the harm principle. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others."

To which the UKIP guys asks "says who? you say."

For the deputy leader of UKIP to be seemingly unaware of JS Mill is far more worrying and/or laughable than Caroline Lucas claiming that climate change harms people.

UKIP then went on to invent false quotes of what was said and distribute them around their tame journo contacts who published them verbatim without even watching the video in question.

 

[Azrael]

But then, Mr Campbell Bannerman asked Ms Lucas if GBH is comparable to flying. She could have qualified the comparison. Instead, she answers, "Yes it is - people are dying from climate change David, this is news to you obviously, I wish you lot would wake up to." That's unequivocal.

This isn't about the JSM harm principle; it's about Ms Lucas's choice of comparison, and her failure not only to drop it, but to reinforce it when asked to elaborate.

 

[_float_]

This is actually what Lucas said, minus Bannerman talking over her:

"I think that even you would agree that people can't just go around knifing people in the street ...because there are limits to people's freedom, there are always limits. The question is where you draw it. And because I take climate change rather more seriously than you do, I would like to draw it in some, in the same way ... What? Yes it is - people are dying from climate change David, this is news to you obviously, I wish you lot would wake up to..."

Which basically boils down to: "I want to place a limit on people flying because it harms other people"

What is the big deal about saying this? It isn't an extreme thing to say. The UKIP are also in favour of limiting peoples freedoms in all sorts of things, just not flying apparently.

 

[Azrael]

Which basically boils down to: "I want to place a limit on people flying because it harms other people"

Nothing. It's the degree of harm she alleged, namely, people who stab other people.

If Ms Lucas had compared man-made climate change to people's freedom to burn coal, or to play music at 120DB at 3am, no one would've said a peep. Instead she compared flying to GBH, and when given a chance to withdraw the comparison, she didn't take it.

If people who fly are as bad as people who commit GBH, it's but a short step to argue they deserve the same punishment. Of course, by that time the punishment for GBH will probably be a mealy-mouthed apology and court order to be really nice from now on, but all the same.

 

[_float_]

Nothing. It's the degree of harm she alleged, namely, people who stab other people.

She didn't say "as bad as" or that the harm was identical.

She followed on from a UKIP comment that restrictions of peoples freedom was "anti-liberty" and "undemocratic" with an example 'that even you [UKIP] would agree with' - to clearly illustrate JS Mill's point that 'the limits of freedom are when it undermines other people's freedom'.

She then says that where you draw the limits of freedom varies.

"The same as" refers to the legitimacy of drawing limits on flying, not on the level of harm caused.

She never said "taking a flight is as bad as stabbing someone".
She never said "taking a flight cauises the same amount of harm as stabbing someone".

She was saying that excessive flying is an activity that harms other people and is therefore also something that the government can legitmately limit people's freedom to do, just as they do with other things that harm others.

I've now stated this lots of times and anyone reading this thread can see what my argument is, as well as check out the original debate for themselves, so I am going to leave it at that, unless someone says anything new.

 

[slaar]

It's quite, quite absurd. I know what you think she was trying to say, but it's open to broad interpretation. The idea - clearly and directly implied by the recorded dialogue - that harm caused by climate change is as direct or obvious in its causation as stabbing someone is ridiculous, and deserves ridicule regardless of her good work in other areas.

 

[Azrael]

"The same as" refers to the legitimacy of drawing limits on flying, not on the level of harm caused.

It feels like you're reaching here. You can infer a lot more than that from Ms Lucas' comments. Your argument appears self-refuting. If she'd put so much thought into the minutiae, she'd have realised how her comments could be interpreted, and used another analogy.

Best case, she was sloppy, and should apologise for making provocative comments.

Worse case, she meant exactly what it looks like she meant.