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@docrussjackson
Nov 1, 2022 • 14 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
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'The Common Sense Society' is a libertarian group founded in 2009, which "helps future leaders explore the nature of liberty & its relationship to human equality, the rule of law, the market, social institutions, our cultural inheritance, & personal responsibility." 😬 Image
Companies house suggests the CSS is a Private Limited Company based in Hexham, Northumberland, with two Directors: Greggs' former MD, Sir Michael Darrington, & corporate lawyer Andrew Davison OBE (ex-Chair of Greggs Foundation), of law firm Muckle, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Image
Emma Webb is Director of the UK branch of the Common Sense Society.

She is also host of Newspeak, the ghastly but little known #TuftonStreet-based New Culture Forum’s weekly current-affairs show.

Emma Webb was previously deputy research director at Toby Young's Free Speech Union, & now sits on their advisory council. She was the co-founder of campaign group Save Our Statues, along with Robert Poll, who in 2021 was the Reform UK candidate in the #LondonAssembly Elections! ImageImageImage
Emma Webb was also was director of the Forum on Integration, Democracy & Extremism at right-wing opaquely funded #TuftonStreet 'think tank' Civitas, which started out as the Health & Welfare Unit of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). 😬 Image
Emma was also a research fellow at the Centre on Radicalisation & Terrorism at the Henry Jackson Society. In 2017, co-founder Matthew Jamison wrote he'd never have imagined the HJS "would become a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist... propaganda outfit"!
In 2017, controversial right-winger Roger Scruton was invited to give lectures by the Common Sense Society in Budapest.

Scruton has written about Hungary’s “Jewish intelligentsia” & its connection to the “extensive networks around the Soros Empire.” 😬

ImageImage
The Common Sense Society Council of Trustees also includes Professor Niall Ferguson of another opaquely funded right-wing free-market 'think tank', The Centre for Policy Studies, & Alexandre Pesey, founder of the Institut de formation politique. 😬

edition.cnn.com/2022/09/04/eur…
The Common Sense Society recently hosted an evening featuring Anthony Malcolm Daniels AKA Theodore Dalrymple, a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing 'think tank' founded by IEA founder, Antony Fisher! 😬

commonsensesociety.org/event/common-s…
Daniels represents the intellectual "Common Sense" wing of the swivel-eyed free-market hard-right: he claims the cause of much contemporary misery in Western countries is basically due to an awareness of "rights", & a sense of entitlement, without responsibilities. 🤪 ImageImageImage
He denigrates 'sentimentality' as becoming entrenched in British society as "the progenitor, the godparent, the midwife of brutality", & claims the ideology of the Welfare State (introduced to alleviate widespread suffering) is used 'to diminish personal responsibility'. 😬 Image
He pushes the historically recent far-right trope that multiculturalism & cultural relativism are at odds with 'common sense' & that 'left-wing intellectuals have destroyed the foundation of culture & refuse to acknowledge this by resorting to the caves of political correctness'. Image
And of course, the Common Sense Society is part of the same unhinged extremist 'anti-woke' libertarian ecology which brought us the Koch-funded Spiked, & the Academy of Ideas, founded & directed by predictable pro-fracking crushing bore & ex-Revolutionary Communist, Claire Fox.😬 Image
"Sometimes, the merest whiff provides all information required for an instant and thorough understanding of an object’s purpose, motivation and methodology.  Common Sense Society is another link in the far-right circle jerk." ducksoap.wordpress.com/2022/10/26/com…

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More from @docrussjackson

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May 14
🧵In January, Farage said Musk was justified in calling Starmer complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs: “In 2008 Keir Starmer had just been appointed as DPP & there was a case brought before them of alleged mass rape of young girls that did not lead to a prosecution.” Image
The allegation that Starmer was complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs is often repeated. But how true is it?

Two Facebook posts, originally appearing in April/May 2020, claimed Starmer told police when he was working for the CPS not to pursue cases against Muslim men accused of rape due to fears it would stir up anti-Islamic sentiment.
In 2022 the posts and allegations saw a resurgence online with hundreds of new shares. They said: “From 2004 onwards the director of public prosecutions told the police not to prosecute Muslim rape gangs to prevent ‘Islamophobia’.

Then, in January, Elon Musk joined in.
Read 40 tweets
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May 13
🧵

Decades of research shows that parroting or appeasing the far-right simply legitimises their framing, and further normalises illiberal exclusionary discourse and politics.

Starmer's speech is more evidence that the far-right has been mainstreamed.

The mainstream right-wing consider social inequalities natural or beneficial, but support liberal democracy’s core institutions & values.

The far-right rejects liberal democracy & is rooted in nativism (xenophobic nationalism) & authoritarianism (emphasizing order & discipline).
Liberal democracy upholds minority rights via rule of law & independent institutions, ensuring equal treatment & freedoms for all.

The far-right opposes it, & instead prefer illiberal democracy, which favours majority rule, curbs minority rights, & erodes checks on power.
Read 22 tweets
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May 10
🧵

Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist who focuses on political extremism and populism in Europe and the US, is, imho, one of the most important voices on the Left today.

Allow me to briefly summarise some of his work.

Image
In a 2023 lecture, Mudde emphasizes the importance of precise terminology in discussing the far-right, distinguishing between extreme right (anti-democracy) and radical right (accepts elections but rejects liberal democratic principles like minority rights and rule of law).
He argues we're in a "fourth wave" of postwar far-right politics, characterized by the mainstreaming & normalization of the far-right - what Linguist Prof Ruth Wodak in a related concept refers to as the 'shameless normalization of far-right discourse'.

Read 49 tweets
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May 6
🧵

After eight years as US President, on Janury 17, 1961, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during WWII, warned us about the the growing "military-industrial complex" (and Trump2.0) in his prescient farewell address. Image
Before looking at that speech, some context for those unfamiliar with Eisenhower, the 34th US president, serving from 1953 to 1961.

During WWII, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army.
Eisenhower planned & supervised two consequential WWII military campaigns: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–43 & the 1944 Normandy invasion.

The right-wing of the Republican Party clashed with him more often than the Democrats did during his first term.
Read 54 tweets
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May 3
🧵

In England, 18% of adults aged 16-65 - 6.6 million people - can be described as having "very poor literacy skills" AKA 'functionally illiterate'.

This leaves people vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation, and poses significant challenges for society and democracy. Image
Being 'functionally illiterate' means that a person can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately & independently, & obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources or on unfamiliar topics can cause problems. Image
Adult functional illiteracy—lacking the reading, writing, and comprehension skills needed for everyday tasks—poses significant challenges for a country, society, and democracy.

Allow me to spell these challenges out...
Read 22 tweets
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Apr 22
🧵

Two Priests, who both smoke, go the Pope.

The first asks "Is it OK to smoke while I'm praying?"

The Pope replies "No! You should be focused on God!"

The second Priest asks "Is it OK to pray while I'm smoking?"

The Pope replies "Of course, there's never a bad time to pray" Image
Nigel Farage’s rhetorical technique of framing controversial or inflammatory statements as questions, often defended as “just asking questions,” is a well-documented strategy - sometimes called “JAQing off” in online discourse - that has drawn significant criticism. Image
This approach involves posing questions to imply a controversial viewpoint without explicitly endorsing it, thereby maintaining plausible deniability. Farage often uses this strategy to raise issues around immigration, national identity, and 'wokeness' or 'political correctness'. Image
Read 36 tweets

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