Talk:Margaret Thatcher

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Funeral

Technically, it was a "ceremonially" funeral not a "state" funeral.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/no-state-funeral-margaret-thatcher Grim23 (talk) 05:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Liberal Bias in This Report

While I appreciate the fact that RationalWiki is most likely to engage a liberal attendance, I believe any source that slants too far in one direction is not likely to be taken seriously by the very audience the source intends to inform. Note: I have not read through all edit histories and the like and I suspect the bias apparent in this article is a symptom of an abundance of liberal and a lack of conservative input. Also note: I am not English and only marginally follow UK politics. I appreciate Thatcher's reputation to some degree, but this page appears to be a sort of "booger wall" where every left-wing pundit has dumped snot on this personage. Again, I'm a newbie to RW, but it seems the site should have some editorial policies in place (along with personnel to apply such policies) to prevent this sort of bias from running rampant. For example, the MRSA discussion blames the spread of this problem on Thatcher's policies, when it is, in fact, a global problem directly attributable to a bacterial pathogen's proclivity to scavenge useful plasmids - in short, the liberals of this site promote evolutionary theory (as do I) but seem unwilling to attribute it where such attribution collides with their liberal leanings. Margaret Thatcher was no more responsible for the spread of MRSA than the patients that died of it. This is just ONE example of the disturbing bias evident here. I wonder what would happen, were I to find and here post a dozen POSITIVE things to say about this woman... however maligned, she was also a great example of her gender. Any response?--Epsilon3 (talk) 15:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Cabinet

The article says there was only one woman in Thatcher's cabinet. Edwina Currie, Virginia Bottomley, Marion Roe, and Baroness Trumpington were all cabinet cabinet secretaries or under-secretaries^{— Unsigned, by: 96.241.42.182 / talk / contribs} 06:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

About Society

Here's the full quote: "I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation." I'm not saying that the quote piece needs replacement with the full quote. The point I'm trying to make is that if Margaret Thatcher is truly so wickedly cold, why is it necessary to misrepresent her words? Cyberpink (talk) 19:53, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

How exactly is the current excerpt misrepresenting the full quote? Sure, the full quote elaborates on the details, but the excerpt focuses on exactly the point about society having no obligations to its citizens except some sort of charity for the deserving poor. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:22, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

The point she was making was that society isn't meant to be thought of as this abstract mass that can solve your problems. Society isn't a faceless collective but a collective of individual faces just like an individual with a problem. Government and society are not things on their own. It takes individuals to make up these institutions/social constructs. Thatcher felt people forget this and do not keep in mind how other individuals are affected when they make demands from the government. Society has no obligations because only individuals can. Everyone has their own burdens and before someone may take on another person's burden this person must show some attempt at helping his/herself if possible or be in some state in which that is simply not possible such as the deserving poor. The quote as it is currently implies Thatcher intended it with far more cruelty than it has. I think removing the link to Social Darwinism and perhaps the social contract jab would make using the partial quote less of a misrepresentation. Cyberpink (talk) 21:16, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

That's not how I read the excerpt. Just as the full quote it clearly shows Thatcher's attitude that society should at most step in when neighbours or families can no longer support those who fall on hard times or what we may call a sort of "hat in hand society". This is indeed a callous attitude because it shoves responsibility onto neighbourhoods and will encourage a sort of social NIMBY attitude, not to mention that it will be economically regressive (given that neighbourhoods tend to be fairly homogeneous in terms of income with the top and bottom of the economic ladder rarely rubbing shoulders).

My use of the term "deserving poor" was also a rather sneering one, because it harkens back to Victorian attitudes where only those poor whom the bourgeoisie considered "moral" were able to get aid. Sure, it's not fully fledged Social Darwinism of the "just let them perish" variety, but it does rely on the same vein of social callousness that ascribes various socio-economic problems solely or overwhelmingly to personal (moral) failings.

However, I will change the link to Social Darwinism welfare queen because I think this is the core of her message: The straw man that in the U.K. at the time there was a widespread system of entitlements without obligations. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Maggie as a Chickenhawk

I was about to revert this edit when I thought of something. A chickenhawk is a person who supports a militaristic foreign policy while not having served in the armed forces. While Thatcher does fit that definition, she was literally incapable of serving in the armed forces in any combat capacity. Does that make a difference? RoninMacbeth (talk) 04:53, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The way the term is most often used, it is meant to accuse the person so-called, of cowardly behavior, because they had purposely evaded military service. That does not seem to apply in this case.Ariel31459 (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)