So it's been over a month since I last posted on here. There are two good reasons for that: the first is that I'm lazy and the second is that I've been busy.
Glossing over the first one, here's what I've been busy with:
Coursework and writing my dissertation - over the last month and a half I've had two massive pieces of coursework to do, plus a dissertation to write. The coursework was finished off just over a week ago and the dissertation was finished yesterday and handed in pretty much just before the deadline - I have an unfortunate tendency to cut things fine I'm afraid.
Still, it's done and handed in, which means a massive weight has suddenly disappeared from my shoulders. I've still got to do a viva voca on it mind you, where I'll have to academically defend my dissertation, but that's a lot less pressure than writing the dissertation was. The subject of my dissertation, incidentally, was using electropermanent magnets to hold spacecraft together when they're docked. Electropermanent magnets are pretty cool - they were only invented in 2011 and they're basically programmable magnets which you can switch on and off and which don't use any power in either state. Though, unfortunately for me, the ones I built didn't work so my dissertation is basically just 40 pages of me talking about how they didn't work and why I think that is.
Local Elections - on the 2nd of May we had the county elections in Surrey and I was standing for Shalford division. Originally a Tory seat where no one else had a chance of winning, the local Conservatives made the embarrassing mistake and failed to hand their candidate's papers in on time. So a supposedly "unwinnable" seat for the Lib Dems suddenly became a two-horse race between myself and UKIP - and kept me very busy as a result!
While I really enjoyed the campaign in Shalford and doing the best I could to convince voters to back to me, the UKIP candidate unfortunately won and became UKIP's first county councillor in Guildford borough. Still, I got a respectable 1,023 votes (one of the highest totals for the Lib Dems in Shalford ever) and I think we've laid a solid groundwork for next time round so I'm mostly satisfied with the results. Winning would have been nice of course but the voters know best and I'm just proud that so many people voted for me.
Plus my local Lib Dem county councillors in Guildford all held onto their seats and we successfully defended a seat on the borough council in a by-election on the same day as the county elections. So, all in all, I couldn't help but smiling at the count despite losing - which was fortunate as apparently footage of me and my UKIP opponent was used on the news (I didn't see it myself but loads of people I know have told me they did).
The full election results, incidentally, can be found here.
A trip to Estonia - at the end of February I spent three days in Tallinn, Estonia with Liberal Youth at the European Liberal Youth (LYMEC) congress. It was a blast, first time I've ever been abroad under my own steam and I had great fun meeting people from all over Europe and seeing the sights in Tallinn. The congress was great fun as well - the UK delegation did very well in getting more social liberal amendments to various policy resolutions and I made quite a few speeches in the debates which, if I do say so myself, were rather passionate.
In fact, they were so passionate that a Dutch liberal (actually a libertarian who didn't think the government should do anything beyond providing the judicial system and infrastructure) accused me of being a "communist "and "behaving like the Chinese" - and this just for saying that I thought there was scope for governments sometimes investing in their economies to stimulate growth.
On the other hand, I pointed out that my party invented liberalism and that I could confirm first hand that there was nothing communist about supporting the role of the government in encouraging economic growth - not to mention that British liberals had held that view since before socialism was even heard of! Oddly, the Dutch liberal in question didn't seem particularly impressed by that but a lot of the Nordic liberals appeared to agree with me and voted for our amendment, getting it passed, so I can't complain.
And so... - and so that's what I've been busy with. It's a real shame I've been busy with all of that since a lot of things have happened in the past month and a half (UKIP, the Conservatives finally going completely insane, etc.) that I'd really have liked to blog about. In fact, I've ended up staying away from my blog because thinking about not writing anything has made me feel guilty!
But all the stuff that's been keeping me busy is over with now. I mean, I still have exams to worry about, but those aren't quite so totally time consuming as election campaigns/my dissertation were. Hopefully I'll now be able to resume a regular blogging schedule. Sorry for not being able to do so until now. And thanks to any of my regular readers who've stuck around despite my unexplained absence :)
The rantings and ramblings of George Potter AKA "the Potter Blogger". Warning: may contain traces of wishy washy liberalism.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Monday, 8 April 2013
What rape culture is and why it matters
This is crossposted from the LY Libertine who this piece was written for.
TRIGGER WARNING: This article includes descriptions, pictures and discussion of topics which may serve as a trigger for victims of sexual violence.
TRIGGER WARNING: This article includes descriptions, pictures and discussion of topics which may serve as a trigger for victims of sexual violence.
In this article I intend to explain what rape culture is and why it matters - and I hope you'll have the patience to bear with me and read the entire article.
What is rape culture?
(Good basic guides to rape culture can be found here and here).
Unfortunately, there is no single definition for rape culture. However, it can be described - and examples of it can be found all around us in our society and all around the world.
At it's heart, rape culture is a system of beliefs and customs which encourage and supports sexual violence and rape. Women are usually the most common victims of rape culture but men can are the victims of it too.
Since that sound rather clinical, let me give some examples of what it really means, starting with the most recent, prominent, example, the Steubenville rape case.
Rape culture is where two young men kidnap, rape and urinate on a 16 year old girl who is to drunk to even know what is going on - let alone consent to sexual activity. Rape culture is where dozens of witnesses watch this occur and no one says "stop". Rape culture is where those same witnesses film and photograph what's going on and share the pictures and photos on social media. Rape culture is where those dozens of witnesses refuse to come forwards to give evidence when the rape is reported. Rape culture is where the rape is reported to adults and they choose not to do anything because the young men say "nothing happened". Rape culture is where the coaches of the young men involved joke about it, sweep it under the rug and still get to keep their jobs. Rape culture is where the two young men are finally convicted, with evidence they themselves recorded, and the mainstream media coverage focuses on what a tragedy it is that the young men's athletic careers have been dashed by their crimes - as though they were the victims. Oh, and when the mainstream media also avoid mentioning the rapists' names but mention the 16 year old victim's name on television.
Rape culture is when the response to the convictions is for hundreds of people to take to social media to call the victim a "whore" and a "slut". Rape culture is when, despite video evidence of what happened, those same people blame the victim for what happened and say that she was "asking for it" and where the victim receives death threats. Rape culture is this:
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| Hat tip to this article which you should definitely go and read in full right now. |
Rape culture is where 70,000 women and 9,000 men a year in the UK are raped and only 1,070 rapists are convicted. Rape culture is where a man being raped by a woman is automatically considered amusing. Rape culture is where rape victims are automatically asked "are you sure it was rape?" in a way that no one would ask victims of other crimes like muggings or burglaries.
Rape culture is where 1 in 4 women experience rape or an attempted rape in their lifetimes and hundreds of thousands of women have been sexually touched or molested in some way in their lives so many times (you should seriously follow that link and read the article and the comments) that it scarcely gets mentioned. Rape culture is where the fear and threat of being raped or sexually assaulted governs the daily movements of most women. You should read this as well.
Rape culture is where it was legal in England and Wales for a man to rape his wife right up until 1991 (1982 in Scotland).
Rape culture is where a British judge says that a ten year old girl is to blame for her rape by a 24 year old man. Rape culture is when a court rules that even if she is being hurt or has changed her mind a woman is not allowed to withdraw consent after being penetrated.
Rape culture is where women are told that if they are raped while dressed a certain way then it's their fault. Rape culture is where it is assumed that men cannot stop themselves from raping someone if they are wearing a short skirt. Rape culture is where almost all rape prevention campaigns focus on telling women to modify their behaviour as though it's their behaviour which is to blame if they get raped.
Rape culture is where the stereotype of rape is where a victim is violently overpowered and raped in an alley by a stranger before reporting it immediately - despite the fact that women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger and despite the fact that women are nine times more likely to be raped in their own home or the home of someone they know than in the street.
Rape culture is the widely believed myth that there is a typical way to behave after being raped - rather than the understanding that responses to rape are as varied as its victims and that, immediately following a rape, some victims go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don’t; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.
Rape culture is where it is impossible to have a discussion on the topic of rape without the issue of false accusations being raised and presented as though it were a major problem - rather than false accusations making up a smaller percentage of cases, 1.6%, than they do with almost any other kind of crime and despite the fact that 61% of rapes go unreported.
Rape culture is where a footballer and his friend rape woman obviously too drunk to consent while two other friends film it and then, following their conviction, the victim is verbally abused and has her identity revealed by dozens of people on twitter and a team mate of the rapist calls the victim a "money grabbing tramp".
Rape culture is where rape is used and encouraged as a weapon of war and a tool of genocide and oppression - as it was in Europe in the Yugoslav wars and Kosovo in the 90s and as it is being used in countries around the world right now like Darfur or the Congo where tens of thousands of women have been raped by foreign militias and their own government's army. Rape culture is where gang rape is used as to "cure" queer women or where men with HIV are told that raping a virgin will cure them.
Why does rape culture matter?
The last section was pretty long so I'll keep this section as brief as possible (which isn't easy when discussing a topic as multifaceted as this). Rape culture matters for many reasons but the most important one is that it feeds and causes an environment where people are not safe and where rapists are able to get away with their crimes and act with the tacit approval of society.
Remember the Steubenville case I mentioned earlier? Well one of those witnesses I mentioned became involved after tricking the car keys away from a drunk friend of his in order to prevent him from drink driving - so far so responsible. But then he walked into one of the multiple locations where the rape took place and witnesses the victim lying on the floor, unconscious and half naked while one of the rapists slapped her thigh with his penis. The witness laughed awkwardly and left.
That's why rape culture matters. It matters because a teenager knew enough to say "no, I'm not going to let someone drink drive because drink driving is bad and can harm people" but didn't do anything to stop sexual assault and rape happening right in front of his eyes. And not just this teenager but all the other witnesses there. We live in a culture and a society where we have effectively communicated the message that drink driving is bad but haven't effectively communicated that you should try to stop rape if you see it happening right in front of you.
It matters because, upon the conviction of the rapists in the Steubenville case, one of the rapists apologised for taking pictures of the rape - but not for the rape itself. And the father of the rapist then went on record as saying that he didn't consider his son a rapist - despite the incontrovertible video and photographic evidence that he himself had seen shown in court and that his son had helped produce.
It matters because the Steubenville case isn't unique - 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18 and often the abusers are other young people. It matters because cases of sexual assault and rape happen all the time, often in ways similar to the Steubenville case, yet most of the time they go unreported and the rapists go free without even being charged - not least because such conclusive photographic evidence as in Steubenville is very rarely available.
Rape culture matters because rapes take place and, on many occasions, someone could have intervened and stopped it but failed to do so. Rape culture matters because 1 in 20 male university students have raped or attempted to rape someone (63% of the 1 in 20 had committed an average of six each) and 1 in 5 female undergraduates have experienced an actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.
Rape culture matters because someone is raped every six minutes, because 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, because only 17% of rapes are reported to police and because 50% of rapes are pre-planned.
Rape culture matters because it is the reason that these things happen. Whilst almost everyone knows, or should know, that no means no, it doesn't take much detailed questioning to find out that that understanding breaks down and that a lot of people don't understand or refuse to accept the legal definition of rape/sexual assault - any sexual activity where one of the people involved does not actively consent. Yet many people will argue, for example, including George Galloway MP, that having sex with someone who is asleep (and therefore unable to consent) isn't rape. And there are plenty more other examples. These widespread misconceptions are part of the reason that rapes happen - a lot of rapists genuinely do not consider their actions to be rape.
But a far more pervasive, and urgent, aspect of rape culture for young people is what is commonly referred to as "lad culture".
This isn't the same thing as being someone who happens to like sport and drinking by the way. This is a culture which is seen at it's worst in lads mags and in websites like unilad.com. These are publications which are littered with casual sexism and a truly shocking approach to consent. For example, a study at my own university recently found that it was impossible for people to tell the difference between quotes from lads mags and quotes from interviews with rapists.
As two examples:
And that's the problem - people read these things which tell them that women are gagging for a bit of rough sex and that they might resist at first but if they're forceful then the women will end up loving it. Which then leads to some people, not all, but some, going around thinking that that's true. Which in turn is a recipe for sexual assault - particularly when, for example, someone might be in a vulnerable state such as having had a bit too much to drink.
Now let's look at unilad - the website voted "number 1 lads mag for students" and with half a million likes for its facebook page. A website which doesn't talk about women, a website which almost exclusively talks about "wenches”, “hoes”, “clunge”, “skank”, “sloppy seconds”, “pussy”, “tramp”, “chick”, “bird”, “milf”, “slut” and “gash”. Which is completely dehumanising language which turns women into nothing more than targets for sex - 'prey' for want of a better description.
That alone is bad enough. But it also runs articles like one saying that "85% of rapes go unreported. That seems to be pretty good odds" and which come up with point scoring systems for things like inserting a finger into a woman's vagina on the dancefloor. Pretty unpleasant, right? But it gets worse, it also has had articles about things like competitions to grab a woman, say "I'm going to rape you" and then seeing how long they can hold onto them for.
That, quite simply, is assault. It's terrifying for the victims concerned and yet you have entire websites which just see this as a bit of a laugh and talk about it as such.
The fact is that sexual assault is now scarily common place - a lot of female students will have stories to tell about either themselves or one of their friends being the victim of groping or an attempted sexual assault. Yet at the same time you get massively popular websites and a widespread culture saying that all of this is just "banter" which they should laugh off.
And the fact is that people are constantly subconsciously influenced by things around them. Reading websites like unilad doesn't automatically turn people into rapists - but it subconsciously reinforces the kind of attitudes which do lead to rape and helps provide self-justifications to rapists as well as creating a culture where people who complain about rape and sexual assault are dismissed and told to "laugh it off". And a culture where women are told that they should "laugh off" attempted sexual assault is fundamentally wrong.
Which brings me to rape jokes. There are so, so, so many rape jokes about. Lots of students tell them. I told them myself during my first couple of years at uni. And, as someone who's never been in a position of feeling vulnerable to sexual assault myself, it never occurred to me just how creepy and scary those jokes must have been to women in our social groups - particularly when there were more men than women in said groups. And it never occurred to me that some of them might well have been rape survivors who would have been reminded of their experiences every time somebody told such a joke - or how isolated it would have made them feel when people were laughing about the kind of things that had happened to them.
But the real problem is that jokes like "It's not rape if she doesn't have the chance to say no" help feed a culture where myths about rape are commons - such as that it really isn't rape if someone doesn't say no, rather than it being rape if they fail to give active consent to what's happening. Those kind of jokes are one of the reasons why we get MPs like George Galloway thinking that it's not rape to have sex with someone who's unconscious. Additionally, when you laugh about something, it helps you think of it as being less serious - how can we take rape seriously as something which is despicable and yet at the same time laugh about it? It's like
And, what's more, sexual predators and sexual predators, hear such jokes from their friends and take it as validation for their actions. There's hard evidence that, for example, sexist/racist jokes increase people's tolerance for and likelihood to commit sexist/racist acts themselves. So, similarly, rape jokes can help rapists justify their violence and their disrespect for their victims. It helps them dehumanise their victims and find their actions amusing. It sends a message that society doesn't abhor what they do - it sends a message that society thinks it's just a bit of a laugh. What's more - rapists genuinely believe that all other men rape which is how they justify their actions to themselves. They're not predators that everyone abhors, they're just the same as all other men. This is absolute rubbish, of course, but they can believe that because things like other people joking about rape help support their delusion that they're doing nothing different from what all other men do.
That's the fundamental problem with rape culture. It exists and, while it doesn't turn people into rapists, it does make it much easier for rapists to get away with it, makes it easier for rapists to justify their actions to themselves, makes it harder for victims to speak out about what happened to them, and it fosters a sexist culture where victim blaming and the view of rape as something normal or funny is far more common than it should be. Instead of a culture that discourages rape, rape culture at best turns a blind eye to it and at worst encourages it.
What do we do about it?
I'm a feminist. I abhor rape culture. But, at the same time, you can't ban rape culture. You can't pass a law against it. You can't censor the way people think and what they say. You can't even demand that websites like unilad be taken down as much as you might like them to.
But you can speak up about it. Just as unilad has a right to freedom of speech to say horrible, sexist, offensive, misogynist things, we have a right to freedom of speech to call them out on it. We have a right to challenge people reinforcing rape culture. We have the right to say that, actually, rape jokes aren't funny or socially acceptable. We have the right to insist on better education about sex and consent and relationships in schools. We have the right to ask for rape prevention campaigns which focus on the rapists rather than telling victims what they should do to avoid being raped. We have the right to say that we don't agree with rape culture and to explain to people what it is and why and how it hurts people.
We have the right to say that we believe rape victims and that we will support them and stand up for them when other people try to blame them for what happened to them.
We also have the right to boycott publications which encourage rape culture and the advertisers which support them and to call on others to do the same.
And, above all, we have the right, and the duty, to make sure that when we something like the Steubenville case happening right in front of us that we have the courage to step in and stop it rather than cowardly standing by. And we have the duty to make sure that we encourage our friends and family and, when the time comes, our children, to make sure that they do the same.
Thanks for bearing with me throughout this lengthy piece. And thanks for reading it.
Why does rape culture matter?
The last section was pretty long so I'll keep this section as brief as possible (which isn't easy when discussing a topic as multifaceted as this). Rape culture matters for many reasons but the most important one is that it feeds and causes an environment where people are not safe and where rapists are able to get away with their crimes and act with the tacit approval of society.
Remember the Steubenville case I mentioned earlier? Well one of those witnesses I mentioned became involved after tricking the car keys away from a drunk friend of his in order to prevent him from drink driving - so far so responsible. But then he walked into one of the multiple locations where the rape took place and witnesses the victim lying on the floor, unconscious and half naked while one of the rapists slapped her thigh with his penis. The witness laughed awkwardly and left.
That's why rape culture matters. It matters because a teenager knew enough to say "no, I'm not going to let someone drink drive because drink driving is bad and can harm people" but didn't do anything to stop sexual assault and rape happening right in front of his eyes. And not just this teenager but all the other witnesses there. We live in a culture and a society where we have effectively communicated the message that drink driving is bad but haven't effectively communicated that you should try to stop rape if you see it happening right in front of you.
It matters because, upon the conviction of the rapists in the Steubenville case, one of the rapists apologised for taking pictures of the rape - but not for the rape itself. And the father of the rapist then went on record as saying that he didn't consider his son a rapist - despite the incontrovertible video and photographic evidence that he himself had seen shown in court and that his son had helped produce.
It matters because the Steubenville case isn't unique - 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18 and often the abusers are other young people. It matters because cases of sexual assault and rape happen all the time, often in ways similar to the Steubenville case, yet most of the time they go unreported and the rapists go free without even being charged - not least because such conclusive photographic evidence as in Steubenville is very rarely available.
Rape culture matters because rapes take place and, on many occasions, someone could have intervened and stopped it but failed to do so. Rape culture matters because 1 in 20 male university students have raped or attempted to rape someone (63% of the 1 in 20 had committed an average of six each) and 1 in 5 female undergraduates have experienced an actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.
Rape culture matters because someone is raped every six minutes, because 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, because only 17% of rapes are reported to police and because 50% of rapes are pre-planned.
Rape culture matters because it is the reason that these things happen. Whilst almost everyone knows, or should know, that no means no, it doesn't take much detailed questioning to find out that that understanding breaks down and that a lot of people don't understand or refuse to accept the legal definition of rape/sexual assault - any sexual activity where one of the people involved does not actively consent. Yet many people will argue, for example, including George Galloway MP, that having sex with someone who is asleep (and therefore unable to consent) isn't rape. And there are plenty more other examples. These widespread misconceptions are part of the reason that rapes happen - a lot of rapists genuinely do not consider their actions to be rape.
But a far more pervasive, and urgent, aspect of rape culture for young people is what is commonly referred to as "lad culture".
This isn't the same thing as being someone who happens to like sport and drinking by the way. This is a culture which is seen at it's worst in lads mags and in websites like unilad.com. These are publications which are littered with casual sexism and a truly shocking approach to consent. For example, a study at my own university recently found that it was impossible for people to tell the difference between quotes from lads mags and quotes from interviews with rapists.
As two examples:
You do not want to be caught red-handed . . . go and smash her on a park bench. That used to be my trick. - Rapist
I think girls are like plasticine, if you warm them up you can do anything you want with them. - RapistPretty disturbing right? Now let's see what the lads mags said... oh, wait, sorry, I got that wrong. Both of those quotes above are actually from lads mags.
And that's the problem - people read these things which tell them that women are gagging for a bit of rough sex and that they might resist at first but if they're forceful then the women will end up loving it. Which then leads to some people, not all, but some, going around thinking that that's true. Which in turn is a recipe for sexual assault - particularly when, for example, someone might be in a vulnerable state such as having had a bit too much to drink.
Now let's look at unilad - the website voted "number 1 lads mag for students" and with half a million likes for its facebook page. A website which doesn't talk about women, a website which almost exclusively talks about "wenches”, “hoes”, “clunge”, “skank”, “sloppy seconds”, “pussy”, “tramp”, “chick”, “bird”, “milf”, “slut” and “gash”. Which is completely dehumanising language which turns women into nothing more than targets for sex - 'prey' for want of a better description.
That alone is bad enough. But it also runs articles like one saying that "85% of rapes go unreported. That seems to be pretty good odds" and which come up with point scoring systems for things like inserting a finger into a woman's vagina on the dancefloor. Pretty unpleasant, right? But it gets worse, it also has had articles about things like competitions to grab a woman, say "I'm going to rape you" and then seeing how long they can hold onto them for.
That, quite simply, is assault. It's terrifying for the victims concerned and yet you have entire websites which just see this as a bit of a laugh and talk about it as such.
The fact is that sexual assault is now scarily common place - a lot of female students will have stories to tell about either themselves or one of their friends being the victim of groping or an attempted sexual assault. Yet at the same time you get massively popular websites and a widespread culture saying that all of this is just "banter" which they should laugh off.
And the fact is that people are constantly subconsciously influenced by things around them. Reading websites like unilad doesn't automatically turn people into rapists - but it subconsciously reinforces the kind of attitudes which do lead to rape and helps provide self-justifications to rapists as well as creating a culture where people who complain about rape and sexual assault are dismissed and told to "laugh it off". And a culture where women are told that they should "laugh off" attempted sexual assault is fundamentally wrong.
Which brings me to rape jokes. There are so, so, so many rape jokes about. Lots of students tell them. I told them myself during my first couple of years at uni. And, as someone who's never been in a position of feeling vulnerable to sexual assault myself, it never occurred to me just how creepy and scary those jokes must have been to women in our social groups - particularly when there were more men than women in said groups. And it never occurred to me that some of them might well have been rape survivors who would have been reminded of their experiences every time somebody told such a joke - or how isolated it would have made them feel when people were laughing about the kind of things that had happened to them.
But the real problem is that jokes like "It's not rape if she doesn't have the chance to say no" help feed a culture where myths about rape are commons - such as that it really isn't rape if someone doesn't say no, rather than it being rape if they fail to give active consent to what's happening. Those kind of jokes are one of the reasons why we get MPs like George Galloway thinking that it's not rape to have sex with someone who's unconscious. Additionally, when you laugh about something, it helps you think of it as being less serious - how can we take rape seriously as something which is despicable and yet at the same time laugh about it? It's like
And, what's more, sexual predators and sexual predators, hear such jokes from their friends and take it as validation for their actions. There's hard evidence that, for example, sexist/racist jokes increase people's tolerance for and likelihood to commit sexist/racist acts themselves. So, similarly, rape jokes can help rapists justify their violence and their disrespect for their victims. It helps them dehumanise their victims and find their actions amusing. It sends a message that society doesn't abhor what they do - it sends a message that society thinks it's just a bit of a laugh. What's more - rapists genuinely believe that all other men rape which is how they justify their actions to themselves. They're not predators that everyone abhors, they're just the same as all other men. This is absolute rubbish, of course, but they can believe that because things like other people joking about rape help support their delusion that they're doing nothing different from what all other men do.
That's the fundamental problem with rape culture. It exists and, while it doesn't turn people into rapists, it does make it much easier for rapists to get away with it, makes it easier for rapists to justify their actions to themselves, makes it harder for victims to speak out about what happened to them, and it fosters a sexist culture where victim blaming and the view of rape as something normal or funny is far more common than it should be. Instead of a culture that discourages rape, rape culture at best turns a blind eye to it and at worst encourages it.
What do we do about it?
I'm a feminist. I abhor rape culture. But, at the same time, you can't ban rape culture. You can't pass a law against it. You can't censor the way people think and what they say. You can't even demand that websites like unilad be taken down as much as you might like them to.
But you can speak up about it. Just as unilad has a right to freedom of speech to say horrible, sexist, offensive, misogynist things, we have a right to freedom of speech to call them out on it. We have a right to challenge people reinforcing rape culture. We have the right to say that, actually, rape jokes aren't funny or socially acceptable. We have the right to insist on better education about sex and consent and relationships in schools. We have the right to ask for rape prevention campaigns which focus on the rapists rather than telling victims what they should do to avoid being raped. We have the right to say that we don't agree with rape culture and to explain to people what it is and why and how it hurts people.
We have the right to say that we believe rape victims and that we will support them and stand up for them when other people try to blame them for what happened to them.
We also have the right to boycott publications which encourage rape culture and the advertisers which support them and to call on others to do the same.
And, above all, we have the right, and the duty, to make sure that when we something like the Steubenville case happening right in front of us that we have the courage to step in and stop it rather than cowardly standing by. And we have the duty to make sure that we encourage our friends and family and, when the time comes, our children, to make sure that they do the same.
Thanks for bearing with me throughout this lengthy piece. And thanks for reading it.
Friday, 5 April 2013
The Conservative Party - still the nasty party
There's already a lot of outrage on the internet by the Daily Mail deciding to scream a narrative that Mick Philpott (the violent partner who burned six of his kids to death in a plot to get revenge on an ex) is somehow the product of our welfare system. Which, in addition to absolving Philpott of any responsibility for his crimes, is despicable in saying that this individual monster is somehow reflective of everyone who claims benefits - not to mention is hypocritical in the extreme given that the same edition of the Fail had an article about a millionaire who murdered his family yet who wasn't seen by the newspaper as being symptomatic of all millionaires.
But today's blog post isn't about that because, let's be frank, nothing is too low for a newspaper which supported the fascists prior to World War II and who ran vicious polemic complaining about European Jews fleeing the Holocaust coming to Britain. No, today's blog post is about this:
The above is a compilation of screenshots from today's ConservativeHome.
In short, the Conservative party, led by George Osborne (our beloved Chancellor of the Exchequer and all round fuckwit), saw the Daily Mail's disgusting demonisation of everyone in receipt of benefits and decided to raise them by going on a full on offensive saying that the welfare state (which, you know, exists to make sure that vulnerable people don't starve to death) is to blame for producing Philpott and we should all be jolly concerned about it. (Subtext: and we'd give the welfare system a bally sorting-out if it weren't for those pesky Lib Dems blocking us, so make sure you vote for us next time.)
Now this alone, is to be expected, because, after all, Conservative MPs are normally vicious scumbags anyway.
But what really goes the extra mile is ConservativeHome talking about this as a cunning "trap" for Labour (hohoho - aren't we Tories clever?) as when Labour disagree with Osborne blaming the entire welfare system for the actions of one man, the tories now rush to smear them as "taking the same side as Philpott".
Excuse me? I have no love for Labour - they've spent fifty years betraying the poorest and the most vulnerable - but when someone disagrees with tarring everyone on benefits with the same brush as a particularly evil toerag that DOES NOT EQUAL defending the aforementioned evil toerag.
And what this shows is, quite perfectly, the utterly despicable true nature of the Conservative party. Man burns six of his kids to death in a deliberately set housefire - "hmmm, how can we find a way to politicise this to hurt our opponents and find fuel for our ideological opposition to providing a basic safety net for people living in poverty?" That's their mindset. Not one comment about the tragedy of it, not one shred of decency to stop and think that maybe, just maybe, dead children should not be used for political pointscoring.
I'll also say this: my father, who served in the armed forces, claimed child benefit for my brother and I when we were growing up and it made a big difference for all of us in terms of helping us get by after my mother died. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, my father has never burned anyone to death in a deliberately set housefire. For the tories to smear everyone claiming child benefits, including my father, by insinuating they're part and parcel of the same "benefit lifestyle" bollocks, which they claim produced Philpott, is disgusting and morally offensive.
I'm incredibly angry about this which is why I've used swear words on this blog for the first time in a while. But I'll stop here and leave the last words to the Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather who I don't normally agree with but got this particular issue spot on:
But today's blog post isn't about that because, let's be frank, nothing is too low for a newspaper which supported the fascists prior to World War II and who ran vicious polemic complaining about European Jews fleeing the Holocaust coming to Britain. No, today's blog post is about this:
The above is a compilation of screenshots from today's ConservativeHome.
In short, the Conservative party, led by George Osborne (our beloved Chancellor of the Exchequer and all round fuckwit), saw the Daily Mail's disgusting demonisation of everyone in receipt of benefits and decided to raise them by going on a full on offensive saying that the welfare state (which, you know, exists to make sure that vulnerable people don't starve to death) is to blame for producing Philpott and we should all be jolly concerned about it. (Subtext: and we'd give the welfare system a bally sorting-out if it weren't for those pesky Lib Dems blocking us, so make sure you vote for us next time.)
Now this alone, is to be expected, because, after all, Conservative MPs are normally vicious scumbags anyway.
But what really goes the extra mile is ConservativeHome talking about this as a cunning "trap" for Labour (hohoho - aren't we Tories clever?) as when Labour disagree with Osborne blaming the entire welfare system for the actions of one man, the tories now rush to smear them as "taking the same side as Philpott".
Excuse me? I have no love for Labour - they've spent fifty years betraying the poorest and the most vulnerable - but when someone disagrees with tarring everyone on benefits with the same brush as a particularly evil toerag that DOES NOT EQUAL defending the aforementioned evil toerag.
And what this shows is, quite perfectly, the utterly despicable true nature of the Conservative party. Man burns six of his kids to death in a deliberately set housefire - "hmmm, how can we find a way to politicise this to hurt our opponents and find fuel for our ideological opposition to providing a basic safety net for people living in poverty?" That's their mindset. Not one comment about the tragedy of it, not one shred of decency to stop and think that maybe, just maybe, dead children should not be used for political pointscoring.
I'll also say this: my father, who served in the armed forces, claimed child benefit for my brother and I when we were growing up and it made a big difference for all of us in terms of helping us get by after my mother died. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, my father has never burned anyone to death in a deliberately set housefire. For the tories to smear everyone claiming child benefits, including my father, by insinuating they're part and parcel of the same "benefit lifestyle" bollocks, which they claim produced Philpott, is disgusting and morally offensive.
I'm incredibly angry about this which is why I've used swear words on this blog for the first time in a while. But I'll stop here and leave the last words to the Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather who I don't normally agree with but got this particular issue spot on:
I am shocked and appalled that George Osborne has stooped so low as to make a crude political point out of the tragic deaths of six young children. It’s one thing for a tabloid newspaper to make unsophisticated, clumsy political arguments, quite another for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to join in.
It is deeply irresponsible for such a senior politician to seek to capitalise on public anger about this case, and in doing so demonise anybody who receives any kind of welfare support. Mr Philpott should be held fully accountable for his awful actions and it is reprehensible to seek to explain it away by blaming the welfare system which Osborne has been so happy to wage war on.
On Tuesday, when answering a question about living on £53 a week, Osborne said that it’s not sensible to reduce the debate to an argument about one individual’s set of circumstances. It makes you wonder what has changed in 48 hours.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
WARNING: Child Abuse
[Trigger warning for graphic violence]
Today I saw something horrible. It's a video, uploaded to facebook, in which an adult male is physically abusing a young boy - slapping him, hitting him, forcing him to stand in stress positions. It's child abuse. And it's there for the world to see in a video on facebook.
The video itself is below because words cannot describe how sickening it is. I couldn't watch all of it and I didn't want to. As I said, the video's below but I'd strongly warn you that you will find it very difficult and upsetting to watch.
I reported the video to facebook for containing "graphic violence" as there wasn't any way to report it simply for being child abuse. A friend did the same as well and we both got this response:
According to facebook there's nothing wrong with the video. Someone in facebook received our reports, and others like it no doubt, and then looked at the video, saw a grown man beating up a child and said "there's nothing wrong with that".
Yet this is the same facebook that frequently takes down images of mothers breastfeeding for containing "sexually explicit content".
I'm writing this just because I'm so outraged by how fundamentally wrong this is. There's nothing more I can do about it, I've reported it to CEOP because the child in the video might still be in danger and I hope the police will be able to identify the child and ensure that he's safe but that's all I can do. But, judging by the fact that the person in the video isn't speaking English, the actions in it probably didn't take place in the UK and there won't be anything the police can do about it.
That's a harrowing thought. But there's so much violence in this world, so many crimes, that goes unaccounted for and unpunished - we know that, it can't be helped as much as it sickens us.
But this video doesn't have to be up on the biggest social media site in the world for all to see. It doesn't have to be hosted and then formally given a seal of approval by facebook when they say it doesn't breach their "Community Standards". The same Community Standards which say they prohibit "sadistic" content.
We don't have to live in a society where a multibillion dollar company sees nothing "sadistic" about a video of a man violently abusing a child who can't defend itself. That's why I've written this blogpost. Because there's nothing else I can do but draw attention to it and hope that, some way, some how, enough attention will be drawn to it that facebook are forced to act.
Here's the video I'm talking about. It's hosted on facebook so as soon as and if they take it down then it will disappear. But until they do it will remain up here as a reminder of what they find acceptable.
UPDATE: The CEOP got back to me and informed me that the police were already investigating the video and that Facebook has previously told them that it takes the view that, since the video is mostly being shared by people saying how horrific it is, it don't think it's something action should be taken over as long as the video is only being shared to condemn child abuse. For that reason, I've removed the link to the video on Facebook from this article.
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Three things Michael Gove should know
This is a cross-post of a piece I have up over on Lib Dem Voice.
One of the things that seems to characterise tory ministers in this government is a remarkable attraction to putting ideology and an assumption that they know best ahead of little details like "facts" and "evidence based policy".
A good example of this comes in the form of Michael Gove’s education reforms which have been characterised by a breathtaking disregard for decades of research into what works and an aversion to listening to anything or anyone who disagrees with the reforms.
Nevertheless, I'd like to highlight the following facts about education which it would be nice if he were to pay attention to:
Starting maths early damages educational outcomes
Another feature of the Gove reforms is the insistence on starting on basic subjects like English and maths as early as possible in the belief that this will magically boost the numeracy and literacy of students. Unfortunately, evidence shows that, because of the way that children's brains develop, they aren't capable of properly handling abstract concepts like algebra before the age of 14. Trying to force pupils to learn topics like algebra before that age actually permanently lowers their academic results.
Big end of year exams are bad for learning
One of the centre-pieces of the changes to GCSEs is the insistence on scrapping all coursework and modular exams and replacing them with a single three hour exam covering the entire syllabus for each subject which will have to be sat by pupils at the end of their two years of GCSE studies.
However, the flaw with this approach is that all the evidence shows that big end of year exams are a terrible way of getting pupils to memorise information.
And the reason for this should be obvious from the experience of almost everyone who's ever sat a big exam - pupils cram for the exam shortly before they sit it and then the information goes out of their heads almost immediately afterwards.
In fact, the best way of getting pupils to remember information is to have regular, small exams (just like GCSEs had prior to the Gove reforms) to make sure that pupils are keeping up with the material - this has been found to raise overall scores by 16% and has proved so successful that Harvard University has pretty much eliminated them as a part of courses.
Academic competition hinders learning
Finland has come top of global educational rankings since 2000. The reason for this is due, at least in part, to their highly autonomous education system where there are no national league tables or exams with teachers being trusted to test and assess their pupils themselves.
And this approach is supported by evidence which shows that pupils in systems which focus on academic competition amongst pupils and on standardised academic assessment actually results in poorer mental health and academic results of pupils - mainly because they spend more time worrying about potentially doing badly in tests compared to other pupils.
So, there you have it, three important things about education systems based on evidence and research which Michael Gove should really know but which his education reforms ignore completely. It would be niceto think that someone in the education department (perhaps even Mr David Laws) might actually take note of the evidence and call a halt to the reforms in favour of evidence based policy but I doubt it will happen.
My inspiration for this piece came from this article which, despite its lighthearted tone, draws attention to serious educational research which politicians around the world seem to pay far too little attention to.
One of the things that seems to characterise tory ministers in this government is a remarkable attraction to putting ideology and an assumption that they know best ahead of little details like "facts" and "evidence based policy".
A good example of this comes in the form of Michael Gove’s education reforms which have been characterised by a breathtaking disregard for decades of research into what works and an aversion to listening to anything or anyone who disagrees with the reforms.
Nevertheless, I'd like to highlight the following facts about education which it would be nice if he were to pay attention to:
Starting maths early damages educational outcomes
Another feature of the Gove reforms is the insistence on starting on basic subjects like English and maths as early as possible in the belief that this will magically boost the numeracy and literacy of students. Unfortunately, evidence shows that, because of the way that children's brains develop, they aren't capable of properly handling abstract concepts like algebra before the age of 14. Trying to force pupils to learn topics like algebra before that age actually permanently lowers their academic results.
Big end of year exams are bad for learning
One of the centre-pieces of the changes to GCSEs is the insistence on scrapping all coursework and modular exams and replacing them with a single three hour exam covering the entire syllabus for each subject which will have to be sat by pupils at the end of their two years of GCSE studies.
However, the flaw with this approach is that all the evidence shows that big end of year exams are a terrible way of getting pupils to memorise information.
And the reason for this should be obvious from the experience of almost everyone who's ever sat a big exam - pupils cram for the exam shortly before they sit it and then the information goes out of their heads almost immediately afterwards.
In fact, the best way of getting pupils to remember information is to have regular, small exams (just like GCSEs had prior to the Gove reforms) to make sure that pupils are keeping up with the material - this has been found to raise overall scores by 16% and has proved so successful that Harvard University has pretty much eliminated them as a part of courses.
Academic competition hinders learning
Finland has come top of global educational rankings since 2000. The reason for this is due, at least in part, to their highly autonomous education system where there are no national league tables or exams with teachers being trusted to test and assess their pupils themselves.
And this approach is supported by evidence which shows that pupils in systems which focus on academic competition amongst pupils and on standardised academic assessment actually results in poorer mental health and academic results of pupils - mainly because they spend more time worrying about potentially doing badly in tests compared to other pupils.
So, there you have it, three important things about education systems based on evidence and research which Michael Gove should really know but which his education reforms ignore completely. It would be niceto think that someone in the education department (perhaps even Mr David Laws) might actually take note of the evidence and call a halt to the reforms in favour of evidence based policy but I doubt it will happen.
My inspiration for this piece came from this article which, despite its lighthearted tone, draws attention to serious educational research which politicians around the world seem to pay far too little attention to.
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Why blogs are more reliable than the press
Good news blogosphere! I have found the perfect example to illustrate why blogs are more reliable than the press and articles in newspapers!
Yesterday Lib Dem Voice published an utterly bizarre piece by one Michael Taylor in which, on the basis of a ten year old book he's just read, he asserts that the new discoveries (e.g. the decade old "discoveries") of "cosmoclimatology" turn all models of climate change on their head and that Lib Dems should consider this important new "evidence".
Well, the article is a complete and utter load of hokum. Taylor begins the article with:
I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the article and its insistence that 'cosmic rays' (a horrifically imprecise term) make a greater contribution to climate than carbon dioxide does as you can read the article itself but I will highlight just one of the many, many, detailed comments pointing out why this article is nonsense:
Yesterday Lib Dem Voice published an utterly bizarre piece by one Michael Taylor in which, on the basis of a ten year old book he's just read, he asserts that the new discoveries (e.g. the decade old "discoveries") of "cosmoclimatology" turn all models of climate change on their head and that Lib Dems should consider this important new "evidence".
Well, the article is a complete and utter load of hokum. Taylor begins the article with:
I have just finished reading what for me is the most thought provoking book I have ever read. I was totally unaware until I read The Chilling Stars by Nigel Calder and Henrik Svensmark that not only does the earth move round the sun, but that the sun moves round the Milky Way Galaxy that we live in.Now that set of warning bells for me right from the start as, call me precocious, I was familiar with the fact that the Sun and the solar system orbited the galactic centre of the Milky Way from the age of about 12. So this alerted me pretty early on to the fact that this was someone who clearly lacked a scientific background. I'll also just point out that the Sun doesn't "move around the Milky Way Galaxy". The Sun itself remains in pretty much the same place within our galaxy and our galaxy itself rotates - much like a dot painted onto a wind turbine blade, for example.
I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the article and its insistence that 'cosmic rays' (a horrifically imprecise term) make a greater contribution to climate than carbon dioxide does as you can read the article itself but I will highlight just one of the many, many, detailed comments pointing out why this article is nonsense:
#21 on the list of climate change myths ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php ). See http://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-basic.htm for a rebuttal at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.
“Hypothetically, an increasing solar magnetic field could deflect galactic cosmic rays, which hypothetically seed low-level clouds, thus decreasing the Earth’s reflectivity and causing global warming. However, it turns out that none of these hypotheticals are occurring in reality, and if cosmic rays were able to influence global temperatures, they would be having a cooling effect.”
Some of the latest research is also reviewed by climate scientists
at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/12/a-review-of-cosmic-rays-and-climate-a-cluttered-story-of-little-success/ : “There is still no evidence suggesting that [galactic cosmic rays] influence our climate in significant ways.”
The other comments are all well worth reading but the bottom line is this:
- This evidence is not "new" - it's over a decade old
- This "evidence" is not evidence - it's got no hard data backing it up and plenty of hard data disproving it
- The author of the book has not published a single piece of peer reviewed (i.e. verified) research
- The very basics of "cosmoclimatology" don't match with the most elementary rules of physics
- There are many more reliable sources out there which debunk the basis of the article which could have been found within five minutes of googling
- There are about 40,000 different studies on different aspects of climate change which provide evidence of man made global warming and only a handful of scientific studies casting doubt on it
- The theory expounded in the article is pretty much identical to claiming that the moon is made of cheese in terms of all the evidence available for it
And this, in my opinion, highlights perfectly why blogs, like Lib Dem Voice, are more reliable than the printed press. Because, despite the utterly bizarre, unsubstantiated claims of the article which make me wonder why on Earth Lib Dem Voice ever chose to run it, the fact that there's a comment thread underneath the article allowed it to be swiftly rebutted and evidence posted which proved that the article was wrong and that its conclusions were false.
In contrast, plenty of allegedly "quality" newspapers (such as the Telegraph) regularly run articles which are just as bad in terms of their wilful ignorance of basic scientific principles and which make similarly flawed claims about topics such as climate change - expounding crackpot conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence to back them up. But the difference is that when something like that is printed in the press there are no comment threads and no way for the article to be visibly challenged immediately. So people often read the article and assume it to be true without ever noticing the letters published a week later which actually prove that the article was a tissue of lies and misinformation.
And don't even get me started, incidentally, on the quality of scientific reporting in tabloid newspapers which have included such pearls as claims in the same paper that coffee both causes and cures cancer and the infamous list of "100 reasons why global warming is a myth" which featured the same claim made twice (that wind turbines kill birds) and claims which have nothing to do with whether global warming is true or not (such as that countries like India need to consume fossil fuels in order for their economies to develop) with the few claims actually relevant to the topic all being completely disproved by actual scientists in a series of rebuttals published a couple of days later.
So this is why blogs are much more reliable than the press. You're equally likely to come across articles which are utter nonsense with not a shred of evidence behind them but at least with blogs any unreliable articles will normally be swiftly rebutted in the comment threads whereas when you're reading a newspaper you've got no way of telling whether the story is true or not.
That being said, the one proviso for that rule is that the comment threads themselves need to be open for free and rational debate - for there are quite a few blogs (strangely usually of a right wing persuasion) that refuse to publish comments which disagree with or challenge the viewpoint of the author so it should go without saying that these are just as unreliable as the printed press is.
The simple truth is that no publication, online or offline, is infallible and all of them are likely to publish complete nonsense at times - just like Lib Dem Voice has just done. But fortunately, online publications like Lib Dem Voice at least provide a mechanism for readers to find out easily that an article is complete nonsense whereas offline publications almost never do. Which, of course, is just another reason why newspapers are rapidly going the same way as the dodo. Some might consider that a shame but, to be honest, if anyone misses the fiction you regularly find in newspapers then you're probably better off just buying a book.
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Politics tarnishes the soul
Last night it took me a good few hours to get to sleep and I ended up musing over the various compromises you have to make in politics and the effect it has on you.
I'm not talking about compromises with others on things like policy - that's part and parcel of the whole shebang - but the compromises you make with yourself over your fundamental beliefs.
Take secret courts: two years ago I would never have imagined that I'd ever be able to be a member of a party that supported the kind of assault on civil liberties that the coalition's proposals for secret courts represent. But now it looks like Lib Dem MPs will vote for them and yet I'll wind up staying in the party.
The reason for this is that, while I hate what's happening, I still feel more at home in the Lib Dems than I would in any other party and because I still believe that staying in the Lib Dems is the best way to try and achieve the kind of just, fair and free society which I believe in.
If I stay in and fight I probably won't get somewhere on this issue but in time I might well get to be in a position where I can change things for the better - or be in a position where I can help other people change things. But if I leave I'll lose that chance.
So, quite pragmatically, I've compromised the purity of my principles in exchange for the prospect of being able to change things some day - e.g. for the prospect of some kind of power. Because, let's be honest, that's what politics is about: Power.
You pursue power as a tool you need to change the world and you do so because you truly believe in your vision of the country and the world. But, on the way, far too many politicians, people who started out with the best of intentions, end up compromising what they believe in so often that their principles, their good intentions, get lost and all they have left is the pursuit of power for its own sake.
I never could understand that before, I really couldn't. How could people be so stupid? How could they sell out everything they believed in? How could they become so obsessed with winning whilst forgetting why they wanted to win?
But now I can understand. Because, in effect, that's what I find myself doing. I started off with deeply held convictions and as time has gone on I've had to make tiny compromises: such as staying in the Lib Dems despite many of our MPs breaking their promises on tuition fees. And I've always justified them by thinking, well, it's silly to leave just over this - whereas if I stay then I can keep on fighting the good fight for change from within.
And then I've had to compromise again. And again. Despite the NHS reforms, despite the welfare reforms, despite the gutting of legal aid, despite the bedroom tax and despite secret courts, I've stayed.
What's more, I'm still going to stay. I'm a stubborn bugger and the only way I'm leaving my party is when they carry me out the door.
And sometimes I can convince myself that the bad stuff's not so bad, and that the good things we're doing outweigh the good - but I find it really hard to do so. And every time our parliamentarians take another step away from our principles I find it all that much harder. Hopefully by 2015 I'll have found some very good reasons to believe in what we're doing as otherwise I'll have a tough job convincing anyone to vote for us if I'm not convinced myself.
So, there we go. More compromises. Slowly, slowly, compromising on things I never thought I would. Oh, I still have my beliefs, but the purity of belief I once had has been tarnished, step by step along the way.
Of course, the most successful politicians are the ones who manage to walk that fine line of compromise between principles and the ruthless pursuit of power. And, who knows, someday I might even be one of them.
But I know that even if I do I'll feel soiled by doing so. The more I'm involved with politics the slightly dirtier my soul feels and the less clean my conscience is.
Maybe in the end it'll all be worth it and I'll be in a position where I can do the kind of good that'll clear my conscience. That's what I hope anyway because as it is, while I've never done anything politically that goes directly against my principles, I find myself tacitly giving support to things I don't agree with. And each time I do so it adds another sin, another moral debt, that I have to believe that I'll one day be able to pay off. Which makes it really easy to see how some politicians end up abandoning principles altogether - it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to keep them.
Of course, I don't want to be overly dramatic or self indulgent. I still enjoy politics and fighting for a better world after all. And I trust in my friends to keep me honest. And I'm still certain that the Lib Dems fundamentally represent what I believe in.
It's just harder than it used to be, that's all.
And my soul feels that bit more tarnished.
But that's politics I guess.
I just wish there was a better way.
I'm not talking about compromises with others on things like policy - that's part and parcel of the whole shebang - but the compromises you make with yourself over your fundamental beliefs.
Take secret courts: two years ago I would never have imagined that I'd ever be able to be a member of a party that supported the kind of assault on civil liberties that the coalition's proposals for secret courts represent. But now it looks like Lib Dem MPs will vote for them and yet I'll wind up staying in the party.
The reason for this is that, while I hate what's happening, I still feel more at home in the Lib Dems than I would in any other party and because I still believe that staying in the Lib Dems is the best way to try and achieve the kind of just, fair and free society which I believe in.
If I stay in and fight I probably won't get somewhere on this issue but in time I might well get to be in a position where I can change things for the better - or be in a position where I can help other people change things. But if I leave I'll lose that chance.
So, quite pragmatically, I've compromised the purity of my principles in exchange for the prospect of being able to change things some day - e.g. for the prospect of some kind of power. Because, let's be honest, that's what politics is about: Power.
You pursue power as a tool you need to change the world and you do so because you truly believe in your vision of the country and the world. But, on the way, far too many politicians, people who started out with the best of intentions, end up compromising what they believe in so often that their principles, their good intentions, get lost and all they have left is the pursuit of power for its own sake.
I never could understand that before, I really couldn't. How could people be so stupid? How could they sell out everything they believed in? How could they become so obsessed with winning whilst forgetting why they wanted to win?
But now I can understand. Because, in effect, that's what I find myself doing. I started off with deeply held convictions and as time has gone on I've had to make tiny compromises: such as staying in the Lib Dems despite many of our MPs breaking their promises on tuition fees. And I've always justified them by thinking, well, it's silly to leave just over this - whereas if I stay then I can keep on fighting the good fight for change from within.
And then I've had to compromise again. And again. Despite the NHS reforms, despite the welfare reforms, despite the gutting of legal aid, despite the bedroom tax and despite secret courts, I've stayed.
What's more, I'm still going to stay. I'm a stubborn bugger and the only way I'm leaving my party is when they carry me out the door.
And sometimes I can convince myself that the bad stuff's not so bad, and that the good things we're doing outweigh the good - but I find it really hard to do so. And every time our parliamentarians take another step away from our principles I find it all that much harder. Hopefully by 2015 I'll have found some very good reasons to believe in what we're doing as otherwise I'll have a tough job convincing anyone to vote for us if I'm not convinced myself.
So, there we go. More compromises. Slowly, slowly, compromising on things I never thought I would. Oh, I still have my beliefs, but the purity of belief I once had has been tarnished, step by step along the way.
Of course, the most successful politicians are the ones who manage to walk that fine line of compromise between principles and the ruthless pursuit of power. And, who knows, someday I might even be one of them.
But I know that even if I do I'll feel soiled by doing so. The more I'm involved with politics the slightly dirtier my soul feels and the less clean my conscience is.
Maybe in the end it'll all be worth it and I'll be in a position where I can do the kind of good that'll clear my conscience. That's what I hope anyway because as it is, while I've never done anything politically that goes directly against my principles, I find myself tacitly giving support to things I don't agree with. And each time I do so it adds another sin, another moral debt, that I have to believe that I'll one day be able to pay off. Which makes it really easy to see how some politicians end up abandoning principles altogether - it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to keep them.
Of course, I don't want to be overly dramatic or self indulgent. I still enjoy politics and fighting for a better world after all. And I trust in my friends to keep me honest. And I'm still certain that the Lib Dems fundamentally represent what I believe in.
It's just harder than it used to be, that's all.
And my soul feels that bit more tarnished.
But that's politics I guess.
I just wish there was a better way.
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