becomes an authoritarian fascist.
Extremists will have to get posts on Facebook and Twitter approved in advance by the police under sweeping rules planned by the Conservatives.
They will also be barred from speaking at public events if they represent a threat to “the functioning of democracy”, under the new Extremist Disruption Orders.
The only threat to democracy here is our own government. Because, you see… define extreme. For some, that is Ukip. For others it is me. I would certainly like to overthrow our present system and remove all of the troughing bastards spewing out legislation designed to remove ever more of our freedoms and increasing taxes to fund their own lavish lifestyles. And I do not look upon democracy as some sort of political panacea – all I see are its massive failings; an unaccountable oligarchy that has been elected by a minority of the electorate, nothing more.
Reality check here – how many times have we had people blown up on the UK mainland by Islamic fundamentalists? Of a population of sixty million, around a hundred have been victims. Yes, yes, I know, it would have been painful if I was a victim or one of those close to me (so don’t even go down that road unless you want an acid response). I am not belittling the effect on those directly involved – but more people die on the roads or in accidents in the home than are killed by terrorists. Terrorism is merely a tool for the state to increase its own power to “protect us”. Well, it cannot do that. It never can, because the lone terrorist can slip through the net and only has to succeed once to be effective. The state has to succeed every time against a largely unknown enemy. If loss of liberty is the price of the government saving me, I’ll prefer not being saved, thank you very much.
And, stopping people speak is not the answer. I mean, do these cretins even stop to think what will happen? Did the Communist regime in the USSR stop the Samizdats? This government now wants to clamp down even further on our basic civil liberties – namely freedom of speech and association. I do not want their protection. I do not need it. I want my civil liberties and I want every other citizen to have their civil liberties. The risk is minimal, despite the scare stories peddled by a jittery state and excitable media.
Those who would trade some liberty for security deserve neither.
How many times does this quote have to be trotted out? Yet still every new generation of politicians thinks that they have the answer, thinks that they will be able to stop bad things happening if they destroy our liberty. Liberty if it is to survive really does require ongoing vigilance. The greatest threat this country faces comes from its own government, not a bunch of rag-tag Jihadis.
I detest Islamic fundamentalists who would impose their sick, warped ideology on us. But I also despise and abhor the vile creatures in Westminster who would use these people as an excuse to clamp down on our liberties, thereby doing the terrorists’ job for them.
H/T Timmy
Absolutely This represents the worst assault on free speech seen in this country for centuries. Most of the things they plan to jail people over have nothing to do with terrorism, but, as usual the measures are justified using reference to fundamentalist religious extremists who “inspire” terrorism” – only the paedos are missing here – while they actually go much much further than this, into what is effectively “you can arrest anyone for just about anything”. May is a worthy heir to Straw and Blunkett — in fact her totalitarianism leaves those 2 old reds in the dust. Another reason not to vote Tory. A Labour government will also implement this too – or cheer on as the Tories do so.
Excellent!
I particularly like “an unaccountable oligarchy that has been elected by a minority of the electorate” as a summary of the illegitimacy of our two party state. A situation that our electoral system perpetuates allowing Cameron’s clowns to claim that voting for anyone other than them ensures that their politically indistinguishable tribal opponents will win.
UKip are the current targets for this cowardly form of politics but I don’t comment as a Ukip supporter, merely as someone who finds negative campaigning and desperate clinging to an obviously undemocratic electoral system utterly contemptible
I cannot agree more with your interpretation of Franklin in the context of modern Britain and I suspect that we may both soon need protection from the anti-democratic UK establishment:
Damn right! I was never blown up by the IRA during the 70s and 80s. I refused to be frightened by the odd pub bombing. When your number’s up, it’s up. I would rather have liberty than nanny fussbucket trying to protect me from a bearded loudmouth that I laugh at anyway.
They would probably say that the internet didn’t exist then as a way of encouraging terrorism/violence…whatever. Of course, the internet being what it is they can’t stop anyone seeing “extremist” material from other countries.
One is tempted to think that the stupidity of the political class knows no bounds – until one recognizes that this isn’t an attempt to really curtail dangerous Islamist extremists who may be a threat to life and limb in the UK at all, but is a massive extension of state power to allow them to arrest/persecute anyone giving expression in some way to things they disapprove of without necessarily even getting someone convicted of an actual crime in court (juries being so unreliable when it comes to things like this). Would the Lib Dems in coalition next year with one of the other parties stop them doing this? Who can tell. If not, maybe the Lords, who often are the ones who spike the worst legislation coming out of the clones in the house of common criminals.
Here we see, once again, the consequences of the truly poisonous precedent setting legacy of Anthony asbo Blair and his gang on the freedom of the nation. Shame on the Tories for proving to be such enthusiastic heirs to Blair and Brown’s regimes.
Of course, if we had not let all these murderous thugs into the country in the first place, there would be no reason for any of this. Put the blame where it belongs; Blair, Straw Blunket, and the rest of them.
And call me Dave’s record on policing the borders and keeping out dangerous extremists is just the same. The Blair junta began this disaster, but Cameron continues it. Heir to Blair, y’know. Some conspiracy theorists may believe than limitless immigration was also a deliberate policy to give them “justifications” to attack and remove our basic freedoms, to start with. All part of the plan.
Once again we can see that fundamentally there is no real difference between Labour and the Tories – despite all Cameron’s pre 2010 blether about stopping the state’s attack on our freedom. Just more lies. I’m sure the Common Purposers in the home office just present that stupid woman May with authoritarian measures with the words paedo or terrorist included in them and she automatically agrees to implement whatever it is.The woman is a catastrophe. – Mrs Nasty alright.
We know from David Cameron, Barak Obama et al that Islam is the Religion of Peace, so clearly Mrs. May isn’t concerned about that.
In the same way that previous ‘terror’ laws have been used to prosecute time share sellers and the European Arrest Warrant to arrest parents that have committed no crime it is a dead certainty that this is a ‘catch-all’ proposal.
Can you imagine Macmillan opening the doors to Russians during the ‘cold war’? They were surely ‘peace loving’ too but just as surely would have manned the tanks of the Red Army given the call to defend the motherland.
I’d bet a tenner that the first banned organisation will be on the extreme right of politics and that the first prosecutions will be of “Islamaphobic” people.
THIS is because the giant collection of fuckwits in Westminster won’t (not can’t) see the reason for this insanity, & it is RELIGION ( specifically a variant of islam, at present)
But, they haven’t got the bottle to really educate people that ..
THERE IS NO BIG SKY FAIRY
That all religion is a combination of lies & blackmail …
And no, we are NOT going to pander to ( Insert name of religious-lunacy-of-choice here) your “beliefs”.
We have a civil society to run, for the benefit of everyone, not you or your narrow, special interest grouping.
But they are so terrified of losing a few votes, that they don’t see that the first person to actually do this will gain millions of votes.
Prats.
Religion is on the periphery of this. Politicians see their role as “protecting” us. The reasons are largely irrelevant. There will always be an excuse.
The Home Office: You don’t have to be an authoritarian fuckwit to work there – but it helps.