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Oh I agree with you there. The editor and proprietor of the S*n (and HateMail, and Express) should have been prosecuted a long time ago for the endless amount of thinly-disguised racist shit they peddle.
I don't have a problem with people being against immigration. I have a problem when they start to go down the line that members of this race are pathologically criminal and members of that race are all terrorists and members of that other race are 'inferior'.
The BNP should be allow to exist as a political party. But anyone who crosses a certain line and starts to peddle racist rubbish should be brought to justice.
Presumably all of you lot are against the Battle of Cable Street, seeing as it prevented poor oppresed Blackshirts from marching to express their views. I say fuck them and their views, and well done to all those who stood up to the cunts. It certainly didn't do Britain any harm and didn't give the Blackshirts any extra support. Look what happened in Germany though.
Me, I look at events in the last century and simply think 'better squash the right of a fascist/racist to spread their filth, than to allow them grow by exploiting the fears and discontent of the people'.
People have a right to an opinion however misguided and offensive it is. If through voicing their opinion they harm others by inciting murder or terrorism it would seem justifiable to limit their free speech. However, to prosecute somebody simply for the belief itself – whether it be Holocaust denial or some bizarre belief concerning racial superiority is, imo, a step too far.
You mean the supression of dissenting views?
But you don't squash it by outlawing it. As a cannabis users you should know that
I know, but I honestly don't believe that by banning the BNP you help it get extra support. They might get a very few, but they would get a lot more by continuing to be allowed to push their agenda and say anything they please no matter how untrue and inflammatory.
I do think the BBC executives, who forced this prosecution, should be made personally liable for every single penny of public expenditure in this matter, though. The journalist in charge should now be personally liable for civil damages awarded to the BNP and Griffin, and these should be enough to bankrupt him.
Aladdin, people who agree with racist agendas will agree with racist agendas regardless of whether the BNP was there or not. Racism has been around a lot longer than the BNP, and racists are not recruited by the BNP political literature. People who hate Muslims and Asians (and a lot of people in cities like Bradford do) don't hate them because of the BNP, they hate them because of racism and because of a perceived injustice in the way they are treated against how the Asians and the Muslims are treated. Ban the BNP and the people in Bradford who hate Asians will still hate Asians, but you might find that the anti-Asian agenda in these cities might move away from the ballot box and be a little bit more "pro-active".
But no-one has suggested that a "race" is prone to terrorism, that's just nonsensical. What was suggested is that a religion is prone to terrorism and aggression - something quite different and something you're deliberately avoiding.
Their position of power had nothing to do with democracy - remember they never polled more than 40% of the popular vote. That 60+% of dissenting voices had to be dealt with some how...
They are getting support now because of the actions of the mainstream, not their own. Why didn't Gordon Brown take their argument apart, instead of threatening to ban it? That's just lazy politics IMHO.
Probably because he can't, considering that he is next in line to preside over the very policies which will make the BNP's visions of muslim aggression and sectarian violence a domestic reality.
What did Cable Street do? Mosely et al were on a legal march which was disrupted and police injured. If he'd been planning to March on Downing street and take power, it might be regarded as achieving something. But he wasn't and all it achieved was they marched through the next week and a few policemen ended up hospitalised
BUF membership continued to rise.
http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/anl/trent1.htm
and lets not forget that three years later many of the communists involved in Cable Street were tacitly supporting Hitler, due to Uncle Joe and Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
Well growing by exploiting people's discontent pretty much covers every single political party. personally I think the lessons of the 20th Century suggest freedom of speech, especially for those we disagree with, are more important than banning marginal political parties.
PS - What's your view of the banning of Sinn Fein and Protestant Unionist Party (both linked to organisations which have murdered British people). Or what about Respect, which is led by a man who claims the saddest day of his life was when the Soviet Union fell (nasty state killed circa 30m in its own borders, before we even go into the rest of Eastern Europe)
In that case it would have risen by far greater numbers if people hadn't stood up to them.
Ultimately the party collapsed and dissapeared. I have no doubt this was if not prompted at least accelerated by popular resistance to the fascists.
My view is that racism/fascism is an a league apart from absolutely anything else on the planet. It cannot be compared with any other political movement or militant group. It stands alone in its wickedness and it should be stamped out.
I have no problem whasoever drawing a line between fascism/racism and every other ideology. Just because you ban the former does not mean you're going to go down a slippery slope and ban others. Fascism/racism are simply not comparable to anything else. They are an abomination.
Well except most of them weren't from the neighbourhood, and it didn't unite everybody. It was a street brawl between supporters of two pretty nasty ideologies, with a few other people thrown in.
Really? And people did stand up to them all the time. Most of those people didn't feel the need to throw paving stones at police.
Whereas I would say that it being banned during WW2 was a bigger cause (unless of course you're claiming that popular resistance to fascism accelerated the invasion of Poland). And I'd support the BNP being banned today if we go to war with Nazi Germany - otherwise they are an abhorent but legal political organisation.
PUP is linked to the UVF. They killed people because they were Catholic. Sinn Fein eulogise Sean Russell, who in case you didn't know was an IRA chief of staff who died on a German U-boat during WW2.
Stalin murdered 28 million people. Pol Pot killed 1-2 million cambodians (to put in context the 1975 population was 7.3 million people).
Unfortunately it does not stand alone in its wickedness
Are you sure? When does something become racist and needs to be banned - a joke about illegal immigrants, a economic treatise on the history of the British Empire? What is a facist anyway? Can you define one?
Even though the march still happened, in that area, within seven days? I'd say it achieved very little except to raise awareness of the scummers.
The BUF weren't illegal then either, and their views can be found today in the BNP even though the BUF were banned during the war - which kind of goes against your point. The reason that the BNP haven't come to power is because their arguments are weak and can be shown to be weak.
Resistance, not law. You make that point yourself.
Except religion?
Actually it can, it is just another form of political expression - just one that you don't agree with. We've been through this before, just because you don't agree doesn't mean that political freedom should be outlawed. Put this way, if a law came into force today which outlawed atheism, would you convert to Chritisanity (for example)?
If not, then you should consider if the banning of any thoughts, opinions etc would work.
yes it does, there would just be another political extreme which becomes ditested - maybe communism would be next. Surely I don't need to quote Neimuller's poem again?
They are, and the price of freedom is constant vigilance. That include vigilance against banning political freedom.
You cannot allow supression of political opinion just because it differs from your own. The BNP will NEVER see power, not even under proportional representation, their politics will never have mass appeal. If they did, they wouldn't be the BNP people abhor.
Leave them to it, they're not doing any harm, and they're certainly not sat in the centre of Leeds planning bomb attacks on mosques.
How so? I've come across quite a few racists who are as intelligent as you and me. You may not agree with it because of the legacy racism has had (holocaust, srebonica etc etc) but it's not an inherently evil concept. They have their opinions, we have ours. They have the right to voice their opinons and we have the right to voice ours. It's part of the rights to freedom of speech which Europeans have tirelessly fought for.
When I heard Reid talking about changing the law to catch (out) Griffin, I thought, bad idea. I've seen a lot of trolls come and go, on various sites, and it should be obvious to most people that Griffin is one of the more skilled practitioners of that art. He provokes a huge response while not straying beyond stating what is legally permissable. It's quite an alarming thought that even in what was supposed to be a private meeting, he guarded his tongue, because that suggests that they might have known the BBC was filming and exploited them.
Again, it's a bad idea if the response to a court ruling that a speech was not actionable, is to change the law to make it so. The right of people to talk bollocks should be protected, along with the right to say they're talking bollocks...
yup, was a private meeting - yes he is a sick man, however it was in private, and freedom of speech is far better than censorship - he wasn't inciting murder so thus it's fine
Re the comments made/suggested by Flashman's Ghost, MoK and others about comparisons between fascism/racism and other ideologies. Fascism/racism do stand apart from anything else mankind has seen. Communism isn't an inherently evil ideology by any means. Putting aside the fact that I don't think there has been a single country in the world where Communism has been properly applied, the ideology does try to make things better for everyone, even if the concept appears doomed to failure in practice.
As for religion, everyone here knows I'm not exactly a fan of it, but comparisons with fascism/racism are equally absurd. Whereas some passages in all the big ones are indisputably revolting and unnaceptable, many others have not. Furthermore many people are able to adhere to a certain faith and embrace the overall good message of it while ignoring the extremist passages. However there is no good message or any redeeming features in fascism/racism whatsoever. None whatsoever. If there is such thing as Evil in this world, it runs through the veins of that ideology. It is not possible to be a fascist/racist and be a good person. And it is not possible for fascism/racism to be good to people. It's as simple as that. Nothing else compares to it. Not communism, no religion, no nothing.
If you lot think that filth should be allowed to exist, fair enough. That is indeed very generous of you. But don't think for a moment those who embrace such ideology would return the favour to you if they gained power (LOL!). The way I see it, I might as well cultivate and encourage the growth of dangerous viruses in my home and then expect they will show me the same respect I showed them.
There's many people who want whites to live with whites, blacks with blacks, i.e. racial separation. It's a belief they have which they think will help all of us and don't hate people who are of different race. I don't think it's fair to call someone like that inherently evil unless they prescribes hate in their ideology.
Griffin is a lot more intelligent than practically everybody else who belong to the BNP. He doesn't publicly say why he doesn't like people of certain races (in fact he won't even admit he doesn't like them). He doesn't explain why he wants to "help" non-whites return to "their countries" (despite their country is in many cases Great Britain). But we all know why he does.
Agreed,
there are some people who don't want different races to live in their country because they don't see it as fair when foreigners live in their country, taking jobs, houses, money e.t.c when there are natives to the country homeless and un-employed. They don't hate other races because they are different, they would just prefer it if they stayed in their own country and we stayed in ours. There are a few people who believe in this so strongly that they are members of the BNP or the former National Front just to get something done about it even though they don't hate other races at all.
These people don't strike me as evil and they do actually have a good point, even if we don't agree with them. I personally think Multi-culturalism is a VERY good thing to a CERTAIN EXTENT, it has helped us understand and be more tolerant of other cultures and beliefs, however I do think it takes the piss a bit when hundreds of islamic immigrants take over certain areas of cities and don't allow western music to be played after a certain time at night in this area and verbally abuse white women who walk down the street wearing a mini skirt because it is againt their beliefs. This does happen because I know someone who lived in one of these areas, I mean c'mon, who's country is it?
No it doesn't
Capitalists are seen as class enemies hence why all Communist revolutions have involved the slaughter of the wealthy, property owners etc.
Communism aims to make things better for the poor industrial working class, certainly not for everyone.......
Of course, many atrocities have been commited by those who claim to act on a communist ideal, but communism itself doesn't call for any of that. To equate fascism/racism (and sometimes even Nazism) with communism is as off the mark as is ludicrous.
This obviously isn't tru because if you make everyone equal then anyone who was above the average before will be made worse off. The logical conclusion of seeing 'capitalists' as your enemy is that violence will be inflicted on them in the revolution, as has been proved in reality.
There are no ideologies that call universally for everyone to be better off, they all respond to their own constituents to some degree, they have the 'promised people' and their enemies to fight against, be that capitalists, ethnic minorities or nonbelievers.
I don't think it is entirely obvious that despisong someone for having different coloured skin is worse tha despising someone for their economic activities......
How about football supporters? Are they all as bad as racists because they dislike from their main rival club?
Fascism, and specially racism, are not comparable to anything else. Not communism, no religion, no nothing. If communism is akin to fascism/nazism then I can assure you that capitalism is 100 times closer to the naziboys.
But's that not really the case. Because fascism/racism are a world apart.
Regardless of some people's dislike of certain ideologies or systems let's try to keep a sense of proportion.
So, what implications would that have for the works of Hume, Neitzsche, Ludovici, Jung, Darwin, Kant, Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle?
There is no scientific consensus, or indeed any substantial research, which supports that claim.
Therefore, you're suggesting a violation of the scientific method in order to impose an egalitarian morality without any regard to reality.
Quite disturbing, really.
The nazis, and indeed most modern day racists, believe certain other races are inferior. Less worthy. To be held in contempt. Undesirable. Flawed.
And I stand by belief that anyone who believes that is a racist piece of shit, and a fucking cunt to boot.