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Should people be entitled to private political beliefs?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Apparently not.
Whilst the thugs behind the BNP cannot be defended and despite BNP members being very misguided (and probably downright hateful) a McCarthian style witch hunt is unacceptable and surely incompatible with freedom of political thought.
Whilst the thugs behind the BNP cannot be defended and despite BNP members being very misguided (and probably downright hateful) a McCarthian style witch hunt is unacceptable and surely incompatible with freedom of political thought.
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Can anyone defend this?
Inexcusable - as long as it doesn't affect her work and we have no evidence that it does in the slightest, it shouldn't be an issue.
Personally I hope she sues the Guardian and wins.
If you start clamping down more on the far right "extremist" views, then less extreme views of that orientation are at riskof being seen as radical and then clamped down on... Essentially it could end up starting a chain reaction where several people's views are silenced.
Well that's my viewpoint. You start removing some rights and then it's all downhill from there...
Unless the woman was dancing in a racist way, or trying to put over her allegedly racist views in her ballet I fail to see its anyones business.
There can be extremists on the left you know!
and you know, the BNP aren't even a far right party, they are a left wing party with one far right policy and thats it. They always get it wrong on tv and the papers, its so annoying.
The right isn't always a bad place is all I am saying and no I aint a far right believer either.
Its certainly more common for the term extremist views to be linked with Islam than it is the 'right'.
They call it "disallusioned/disaffected muslims" rather then extremist views.
Its certainly not the tabloids who seem to get confused between the term terrorist and muslim.
*Low taxes
*Shrink bureaucracy
*End 'trendy' failure in teaching -
'BNP councillors will campaign to end, or oppose the introduction of , the teaching of Asian languages to classes containing any native British children'
- 'We will lead a grass-roots campaign to give teachers back the right to smack disruptive pupils'
*Abolish spending on Politically Correct projects designed to favour pet minorities
Very left wing
As to the point here the issue is the Race Relations Act of 2000. All organisations that recieve public funding are required to promote good race relations.
The issue is that since giving the interview one of the highest profile members of the English National Ballet appears to be using her position to promote an organisation opposed to appropriate race relations.
So the question is whether she is using her position to promote the BNP - if she then in my mind she should keep her job but the £6million a year given to the ENB by the Arts Council should be returned. I don't see why a racist should be given a platform to promote hate by the government.
Of course, if she'd remained silent on the issue there wouldn't be a problem either - it's using her job for publicity that's in question.
The article seemed to suggest that she didnt come forward till she was 'outed' by the Guardian, if that is the case then its the Guardian to blame for her getting interviews and what not.
I don't think she is using her position to promote the BNP, who in any case are a bona fide political party and should be treated as such. She was listed as a member on a secret encrypted list that the Guardian newspaper stole and then published- she was acting with total propriety until the Guardian newspaper brought her name into the public domain.
I don't think that the ENB or the dancer should have to repay a single penny of grants- she isn't actively propagating racism, she is simply a member of a legitimate political party that some people perceive to be racist.
If she is sacked then every other person in the country who is a member of a political party should also be sacked. If she was using her position to promote NewLabour she'd be given a knighthood.
the BNP are a communitarian party, a left wing ideal, they immigration policy is far right but thats it. One far right polciy does not an entire party make, or you'd think not anyway.
of course the media would never boil down any issue, person, party, debate to one snappy, cover all, reactionary, generalised soundbite would they?
;-)
The BNP is as left wing as Che Guevara was a free market capitalist.
The cynic in me says that it is just the same as with every other political party.
The BNP aren't as mainstream as people reckon, and the BNP aren't as mainstream as the BNP think they are, but the BNP are going to be around just as long as the government continues to ignore the wishes of white working class people at the expense of foreign working class people.
Bradford Council has no money to repair schools in poor white areas but can then find millions for the schools in the Asian areas, and millions more for Mosques and other Asian cultural centres. That is why the BNP get voted in in places like Bradford, and when the mainstream parties lift their hands from the till long enough to see that BNP votes will dry up.
Well in economic terms the restriction of immigration is a left-wing policy and seeing as this is the policy they are mainly associated with it doesn't seem too bizarre to describe them as left-wing.
Rather irrelevant though, just semantics. They are dickheads and that is that....
Jim V, i assume that it was the Guardian that sort the interview and not the dancer?
You seem to be implying that anyone employed by a publically funded body cannot express their beliefs in the media (or is it just when they are 'bad'?)
Most people (including many in power) have little understanding of the effects that the policies they support will have.
For example it seems fairly obvious to me that this woman would not have a job if BNP policies were enacted and ironically would have to go abroard to work.
Thick as shit........
You're gonna have to explain this one.
What on earth are you on about?
What on earth?
A lot of French socialists advocate very similar things. (Except the focus being on the French language, French culture, etc). Left/right labels aren't always sufficient.
I'm just pointing out the law - that all public funded bodies are required to adhere to the 2000 race relations act. It's for other people to decide if that would be broken if you chose to employ a racist employee who acted as a spokesperson for an organisation. Not that I think that is happening in this case.
Yeah and the arguement for a long time has always been that the French left is actually pretty right-wing, not to mention the basic level of racism and oppression that has exsisted in France (and leads to sporadic and hopeless violence from minorities in France).
I think all the example would prove is that the French left is pretty right-wing - I can't honestly believe you've read the BNP manifesto and believe it's anything other than right wing - that's what it is, that's what the evidence shows, that's what they claim themselves - how can it be anything else?
But the dumbed down American system is designed to create a political structure with very little difference between two different parties, and lock out other more radical views - for better or worse.
The term left wing and right wing are somewhat confused today, but I'd suggest that's because most people have barely ever seen a political party from either side, let alone bothered to actually read what parties or the far left and far right have to say.
I've not read it but 'right wing' isn't really a very helpful description. Not meaning to sound like a notable poster here who shall remain nameless but what is 'right wing' exactly? Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Harper have all been described as right wing. How do their 'right wing' beliefs sit alongside this 'right wing' BNP manifesto?
It is surely much more useful to also distinguish between authoritarian and libertarian as the political compass does. (A militant socialist imo demanding control of the media to 'represent the workers' has more in common with the BNP who have talked about banning the depiction of gays in the media than a small government conservative).