johnnybangkok

I think you have missed the point. As Placeholder has so eloquently put it, free speach comes with it's limitations anyway (shouting 'fire' in a crowded cinema being the obvious example), but I am talking specifically about politicians. Currently in the UK there is an enquiry into Boris Johnson and his lies about parties at No.10 during the pandemic. There is a very real chance he will be suspended from the party, possibly triggering a by-election. In other words there are some very real consequences for lying by UK MP's, which doesn't seem to exist in The USA. It's not about free speach as the UK has free speach (America doesn't have a monopoly on free speach) but more to do with holding politicians accountable for misleading the electorate; something I don't see happening in America at all.

Now I know Trump isn’t currently a Congressman or Senator but there are plenty in the GOP who are (Marjorie TG for example) who continually push the “election was stolen” lie. My question is why are they still allowed to do this? In the UK, MP’s are held to a strict code that would see them at least lose their seat with a distinct possibility of criminal prosecution if it was particularly egregious. Is the 1st amendment so sacrosanct that it even allows US politicians to keep lying about such serious matters or is it something else that I don’t know about? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_of_parliament

I'm not smug but I'm definately condescending when it comes to people like yourself who go on about 'lefties', 'gay and covidiots', 'hapless Ukraine loser supporters and the 'woke.' I suspect you probably get a lot of condescention with those prehistoric views.

I rest my case m'Lord.

"It feels cooler to say 'I'm not woke' than the truth, which is, 'I'm terrified of what I don't understand and I only know how to process that as anger because I can't look inward''. Sarah Silverman.

Most of the 'expensive' ex-pats were relocated here in the 90's to help set up the business as the skill set wasn't here at that time and companies always want proven talent when it comes to something as important as setting up in a new country. 25-30 years later that is obviously different and the majority of these senior roles are now taken by Thai's (many of which would have been mentored by these ex-pats). There's still some ex-pats in situe in many different industries, but they are more likely to be on a local package (as oppossed to an ex-pat package) and there's certainly fewer of them than before.

I think his point is that many people don't have a Plan B when it comes to their work. And he has hit on a few saliant points; how transferable are your skills if you find yourself unemployed in LOS, can you afford to stay here especially if you are originally here on a large ex-pat relocation salary (with all it's perks) and if you really, really have to, will you be able to re-aclimatise back to your home country. I have a very good friend who has recently gone through exactly this when he took voluntary redundancy from his rather well paid Thai job. I warned him not to do it (as I could see the difficulty he would have getting an equally well paid job) but he didn't listen and thought he would have employers beating down his door. They didn't and after 8 months and a heavily depleted savings account, he headed back home to the cold and the gloom. He absolutely hates being back home and really wants to get back here but it's not going to happen any time soon. He had no PLan B in place and was wildly over-optimistic about his career prospects, which I think is what the video is about.

As has been stated many times, vaping is not without it's risk/harm BUT compared to smoking it's much, much better for you. They are best not to smoke at all but if they do, vaping is the way to go.

The NHS seems to think so. 'Vaping is not completely risk-free, but it poses a small fraction of the risk of smoking cigarettes. The long-term risks of vaping are not yet clear. E-cigarettes do not produce tar or carbon monoxide, two of the most harmful elements in tobacco smoke'. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes-to-stop-smoking/#:~:text=Vaping is not completely risk,harmful elements in tobacco smoke.

If you genuinely didnt know about this then here you go. It was just as much Blair as it was Bush, with both Powell and Bush quoting MI6 as justification. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/spy-agencies-flawed-information-saddam-wmds-iraq-chilcot

That's simply not true. 'For one, sex education has already been banned in Florida (as in many states) until the fifth grade. So critics say the law tries to solve a problem that doesn’t exist for the state’s youngest students. Because it limits even discussions about LGBTQ issues, it could stifle conversations for children who need to work through their own gender or sexual-identity questions, they say' https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/01/what-is-florida-dont-say-gay-bill/ If 'school districts were implementing this kind of curriculum to young children' then I would agree with you but it simply wasn't happening. School curriculums are VERY tightly controlled and all DeSantis was doing was stirring up controversy when there was none there. That's the actually point about the 'Don't say Gay' backlash. He was trying to score political points over something that wasn't even happening with both this and critical race theory. But as you say, we digress.

Not sure what you are saying here as I'm not 'the right' and I thought it was common knowledge that Blair backed Bush with his WMD nonsense.

You are being very disingenuous now by bringing in a VERY obvious strawman fallacy. Obviously no one is condoning random strangers going up to children to discuss sexual orientation but the argument is about teachers discussing it with children in a school setting. Whether you agree with it or not (in the UK it's age 11 which I think is reasonable), it lends itself to the bigger argument about what's going on in Florida with DeSantis banning books and the likes and whether he is just playing with parents justifiable concerns for purely political reasons. However, I'm conscious this is going off topic (and hope the moderators allow this as a one of rebutle) as the subject is about Fox News.

Backed up by Tony Blair.

'Now and then'. Really? I think the whole point of this discussion and the Dominion lawsuit is it isn't 'now and again' but constantly and with purpose. Whether they were backing the ascertion that the election was rigged or that the Capitol attack was nothing to do with Trump but instead orchestrated by Antifa or whoever else was in the crosshairs that week, their once 'opinion pieces' now leak into everyday news (there used to be a split) and it's just pure and unadulterated lies spewed to keep a rabid base away from other right-wing news stations, especially Newsmax. This lawsuit will reveal a great deal about how Fox goes about it's 'business' and I for one hope they get a very large book dropped on them from a very great height.

Like many "Fox defenders' on here, you are confusing popularity with integrity. No one is denying that Fox News is popular, but the post is that they knowingly and willingly lied to their viewers and continue to do so on a daily basis. The headline is 'Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience'. Can you (or any Fox defender) maybe try and counter-argue this ascertion without resorting to whataboutism and deflection?

But children aren't intelligent are they? If fact they're really quite stupid. This is why they go to school and get taught stuff. If left to their own devices children would at best mess up a classroom or at worst it's Lord of The Flies. If you teach and show a child ignorance, bigotry, racism and hate you will get an ignorant, racist, bigot of an adult and lets admit we've already got enough of those. Show a child kindness, understanding, tolerance and that 'different' isn't neccessarily bad, then you might just help a child that has been feeling 'different' and steer them in a very positive way. I see no issue in drag queens reading childrens books to children. And I also think drag queens 'twerking in kids faces' is absolute nonsense and completely made up and I certainly don't see a need to demonise drag queens in what is an obvious political stunt to rile up the homophobes and the bigots. Because that's exactly what this is and as the brother of (I assume) an openly gay person, I would have hoped you would have been able to spot the very same tactics being used here that have been used to demonise the gay community since year dot. It wasn't good then and it's certainly not good now.

Your two examples (back of your pick up, smoking in the car) are health and safety issues that can seriously affect a child. This isn't the case here. And your original statement of 'parents that take innocent children to watch garbage like that' does smack of bigotry and/or homophobia. Have you even seen a drag show? They really aren't that bad. More akin to a rather saucy comedian making crude/rude jokes and lip-syncing to a few old classics than anything sexual. And it helps children by showing them there is more than the two obvious genders and it's not to be feared. It teaches tolerance and understanding; something a lot of you guys could have done with by the sounds of it.

Oh I understand...I just choose to ignore your pettiness and condescention. Any chance you can actually answer any of my points now that we have established you haven't actually seen anything personally, haven't actually been to a drag show yourself and that all of your 'informed' opinion is taken from a video compilation that still doesn't show drag queens 'twerking in front of kids faces etc.'? I will stick with my ascertion that drag queens aren't 'twerking in front of kids faces etc.' and that any sexualisation of what is going on is purely in your (and other posters here) own head.

I'm not the one that said 'However, I've seen a lot of these drag shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc.' A more accurate statement would have been 'I've not actually seen them in person, so I'm basing all my views on this video from a Tucker Carlson founded right wing 'news' organisation that shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc. Even though it doesn't.

Cherry picking one or two scenarios doth not make a convincing argument. I personally see no issue with this but if YOU think it's highly offensive then may I recommend YOU don't book a drag queen for your kids. Isn't this the parental choice all you conservatives scream about?

So you've seen them but not in person? You sound like an expert to me.

'Some conservatives have decided that — forget about childhood poverty, or vaccine paranoia, or lax gun laws — the real threat to our children is when performers in glamorous hair and makeup come to libraries to teach lessons of tolerance and self-acceptance and read books out loud.' 'Nobody is forcing any parent to take their child to a Drag Queen Story Hour. The children who do attend are not being exposed to pornography. They are being exposed to children’s books for children.' This is a great article that pretty much sums up what this is all about and the whole idea that any idea of sexualisation is not coming from the drag queens themselves but from the likes of Christopher Rufo (conservative activist) who came up with the gem, “Conservatives should start using the phrase ‘trans stripper’ in lieu of ‘drag queen,’” No one is stripping. Especially in front of kids. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/23/drag-queen-story-hour/

Here "However, I've seen a lot of these drag shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc.'

I'm calling BS on this. I have been to many, many drag shows (a good friend was a drag queen) and never once have I ever seen a child present never mind drag queens 'twerking' in their faces. Most drag shows are late night events held in pubs and clubs (I'm talking the UK here) where patrons need to be at least 18 years old even to get in. Now of course I haven't been to one in the States so perhaps there's all these drag shows going on in front of 10 year olds, but I very much doubt it. I suspect (just call me Sherlock) that this is just another non-issue from an increasingly irrelevant GOP to yet again stir up 'the base' with made-up scenarios that don't even happen. What they do though is create headlines that are eagerly jumped on by individuals (like yourself) who will try and defend this lunacy because (yet again) it's against the 'extreme' left and/or 'woke brigade'. This is classic identity politics that doesn't add to the narrative but has the desired effect on an increasingly rabid GOP base that should be much more focused on actual politics rather than this frankly absurd distraction.