I agree with your first statement but I also believe they have the right to be heard just as the anti-facist movement has the right to be heard.
I would actually be interested what they have to say and how they explain away the holocaust, racial purity et al...
At the least it would have been a hoot I would probably have been chucked out for laughing too loud at their idiocy but I still think that I have the right to listen and make my own mind up....
You are always free to attend a BNP meeting (though I expect just after you get chucked out for laughing you'll get your head kicked in to round off your evening).
You are always free to attend a BNP meeting (though I expect just after you get chucked out for laughing you'll get your head kicked in to round off your evening).
Yeah you are probably right and I am not that curious that I really want to attend if I am honest...
It was the two characters in question I would like to hear tell their views..
You are always free to attend a BNP meeting (though I expect just after you get chucked out for laughing you'll get your head kicked in to round off your evening).
If anyone sympathetic to the BNP is reading this and wants to track me down, please be assured that I do not here accuse any member of the BNP of being a violent skinhead. Violence is just as likely to be caused by passing hooligans after said expulsion. (Expulsion means being 'chucked out').
Isn't that similar to what our current government and previous regiemes have put in place in the UK?
It's milder (so far) but yes, and this no doubt is why there are often posts on HP protesting the inroads into our personal liberties - ID cards, etc. Of course, even this post could easily be tracked to my PC if 'they' wanted to.
V
At the least it would have been a hoot I would probably have been chucked out for laughing too loud at their idiocy but I still think that I have the right to listen and make my own mind up....
That's the whole point of free speech, isn't it. To make up our own minds, not have them made up for us. Without free speech and a free press, we'd still perhaps be under the illusion that Iraq was invaded due to WMDs, and that they were found there.
Free speech is important to me since every once in a while a wild-card character comes along who's quite different to the mainstream, but who turns out to be right. So he or she advances our understanding of the world, and of what's true. It's important not to censor anyone so that these essential true voices are also not denied. (In the New Testament we read of untold attempts to murder Jesus when he practised free speech: the attempts would have worked early on, except that he had a knack, as it's worded there, to "disappear from out of their midst".)
V
You are always free to attend a BNP meeting (though I expect just after you get chucked out for laughing you'll get your head kicked in to round off your evening).
Barafundle, are you suggesting that the only way to gain a fair appraisal of the BNP and their policies should be to attend one of their own meetings where an uncritical audience absorbs their propaganda ?
Would it not be better to oppose their propaganda openly in a public arena? We can't have it both ways, we can't say they are carefull even behind closed doors to refrain from insiting hatred but we should ban them anyway.
Dunkirk
Barafundle, are you suggesting that the only way to gain a fair appraisal of the BNP and their policies should be to attend one of their own meetings where an uncritical audience absorbs their propaganda ?
No. Aikijason said...
I also believe they have the right to be heard just as the anti-facist movement has the right to be heard.
I was pointing out that he did have a right to hear them, and the debate in Oxford was not the only place to hear Mr. Griffin's views.
Would it not be better to oppose their propaganda openly in a public arena?
If this wasn't just a gimmick, yes. Also yes if the opposing arguments are presented competently and the audience is made up of reasonable, well educated people, immune from irrational prejudice.
History, though, has shown that far right, racist views have a visceral appeal, rather than a rational one. Their appeal is to the lowest, meanest part of the human character that pays little attention to rational argument. The views are about the danger and threat from the 'other' which will always be attractive to the disaffected whatever the reasonable arguments against them.
We can't have it both ways, we can't say they are carefull even behind closed doors to refrain from insiting hatred but we should ban them anyway.
I haven't said they should be banned. Are they careful behind closed doors?
Yes there was. He also said that if parents could ever discover that a foetus was likely to be homosexual, then they should be entitled to an abortion.
Tricky thing, free speech. If a mentally ill person was ranting on a street corner they would be gently led away and given appropriate care and attention.
Well, yes, indeed. And if you criticised the government in some countries, you'd enjoy a nice spot of torture in a nice local prison.
It also reminds me of one Australian politician (I think) who said that anyone who argued against global warming should be treated like a holocaust denier.
And if you criticised the government in some countries, you'd enjoy a nice spot of torture in a nice local prison.
And those are countries run by governments holding the extreme views we're talking about.
Please bear in mind, I haven't said that this debate shouldn't have gone ahead. When asked whether extremist propaganda should be debated in a public arena, I did say: If this wasn't just a gimmick, yes. Also yes if the opposing arguments are presented competently...etc.
It also reminds me of one Australian politician (I think) who said that anyone who argued against global warming should be treated like a holocaust denier.
And the moral is: Use of extreme language will always wind somebody up.
We hear the argument that extreme right-wingers should be allowed to condemn themselves out of their own mouths, but this is naive. People like Griffin and Irving aren't stupid. They know how to present themselves and their views as moderate and reasonable - thereby luring in those who might be frightened off by the sort of right-wing ranting we used to see from organisations such as the National Front and British Movement. Even behind closed doors, people like Griffin are now careful to sound sensible and appealing. Let's not make it easy for them to con the unsuspecting and the gullible.
The constituency where the BNP is gaining most support is among the people that the mainstream political parties have all but abandoned.
The white working class has almost been written off by mainstream parties especially Labour who these days prefer to represent people in terms of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, culture or religion.
New Labour now refuses to represent or organise working class people in terms of their economic and social interests.
The organisations to the left of New Labour are woefully inadequate in terms of dealing with the issues that are important to working class people because they are wedded to the failed ideologies of Marxism and socialism.
The BNP are willing to organise among the white working class and will feed off of the discontent created by Labour's divisive policies. Unchallenged, the BNP can win support among the disaffected white working class as election results in Dagenham have demonstrated recently.
This is why the BNP have to be challenged politically in open debate rather than simply demonstrated against by student leftists in an attempt to shut them up. They then pose as 'having a message that they don't want you to hear'.
Anti-racism has to return to the principle of uniting people rather than dividing people with identity politics and the promotion of diversity. Let's articulate real arguments against racists, not empty leftist slogans.
Dunkirk