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Oh Puhleese, do fuck off you grotty little fascist

The home secretary, Theresa May, has ordered Muslims Against Crusades, an Islamist group which is planning to disrupt Friday\’s Armistice Day ceremonies, be banned from midnight.

Sigh.

Freedom of speech means that people are indeed allowed to burn poppies if they want to be idiot enough to do so. Freedom of association also means that people who want to burn poppies are allowed to join together with other people who want to burn poppies.

No, of course I don\’t like people who burn poppies: but that\’s got fuck all to do with it, has it? My dislike of the shitty little creatures is not a sufficient reason to invoke the law of the land to salve my affronted opinions.

Yes, the Illinois Nazi Party really does have the right to march: and we to protest against it.

So, how do we go about getting shitty little fascist cockweasels like Theresa May out of public life?

42 thoughts on “Oh Puhleese, do fuck off you grotty little fascist”

  1. “So, how do we go about getting shitty little fascist cockweasels like Theresa May out of public life?”

    It seems we can’t. Even if we don’t vote for them, they get in regardless.

  2. It could well have had something to do with fears of what might happen when these poppy-burners met up with the EDL and similar. Not excusing her of course and have made some choice statements on her and have the pen ready to hand to her for her resignation.

  3. Tim I agree with you.
    However they should have been prosecuted for their death threats to Charlie Hebdo and Cheryl Cole.
    “The Islamist group Muslims Against Crusades, who are close linked to Choudary, warned Cole on their website saying, “Cheryl Cole has made the disastrous decision to go to Afghanistan in a bid to support and boost the morale of British soldiers presently fighting Muslims in Afghanistan. In a bid to improve her own public image, she has put her security and life at risk, Muslims will view this as an action of aggression against Islam and Muslims.””

    Also if it is true that Anjem Choudray is receiving benefits for disabliity he should be investigated for benefit fraud because if you can travel to central London and burn poppies then you can work.
    (One the EDL’s aims).

    Also ideally an undercover policeman should burn a quran in front of Choudray and then arrest for assult!

  4. I see you’re working through your ‘sexism’ wrt insulting women!

    Excellent progress within the space of a week… Harman will be please!

  5. Surely she could just have had them sectioned. After all, you’d have to be mad to try to burn poppies, wouldn’t you?

    Tim adds: That would be getting a bit Soviet, don’t you think? Psychiatric wards for people with the “wrong” views?

  6. What if they had come up against the EDL? So what if they had? Personally I’d have had no problem with them being allowed to kick seven shades out of each other then being metaphorically (or not) picked up by their ears by Plod and told “you’re both as bad as each other, off to chokey for both of you”.

  7. So Much For Subtlety

    Britain used to have a good record of this. The British police stood up for the right of the British Union of Fascists to march at the Battle of Cable Street. Rightly. Blair Peach died when the British police tried to protect some other bunch of Fascists. The BNP? The NF?

    It is a pointless media stunt as they are not actually going to enforce any ban. Andy Choudhuri has been banned before. He will just relabel his group. So this is a lose-lose-lose situation. We lose our rights. We don’t even get these pricks banned. And our leaders get to pounce about making stupid statements to try and sound tough.

    Hempen rope time.

  8. Would be tempted to agree with you but:

    May doesn’t exactly start from a level playing field, does she? The last lot were keen on banning anything that they didn’t like & did so on numerous occasions. Freedom of speech is already largely hollowed out. I’d go along with Snr Botzarelli above but that’s not going to be allowed. If they burn poppies, someone like the EDL takes exception & under the rules of the game, as now played, the EDL gets its rights of free speech & assembly nobbled. What’s come about is the entirely predictable: once you ban one person’s freedom you end up banning all freedoms.

  9. “So, how do we go about getting shitty little fascist cockweasels like Theresa May out of public life?”

    I agree, but if you look at the behaviours of politicians over such things, they’re more socially liberal than the public. 72% of the public in a poll supported 90 day detention.

    The only way you’ll get something better is for things to get extremely bad first. You need an invasion by fascists, or for fascists to somehow run the country, for people’s friends to get imprisoned, tortured or killed. The meaning of civil liberties will then be understood by all. Then, in the post-fascist period, you create a written constitution with protections with public support, and make the constitutional amendment process as tricky as the US system, so that when people forget about why they fought for liberty, it can’t be simply undone by some populist rat.

  10. And banning the organisation isn’t going to be productive is it? All they will do is form under a different name as they have done in the past. And what happens if the people who belonged to the group still go and burn poppies as individuals rather than under the banner of MaC.

  11. So, how do we go about getting shitty little fascist cockweasels like Theresa May out of public life?

    By banning leopard-print shoes?

  12. There is one genuine bit to address, how do you let people noisily protest and also have people have a silent remembrance right next to each other? You have directly competing rights here and given that the remembrance takes two minutes, happens once a year and is widely supported, MaC can fuck off and protest another day.

    They still shouldn’t be banned though, that’s retarded.

  13. @FALCO
    “They still shouldn’t be banned though, that’s retarded.”
    I agree but the ones who threatened to kill Cheryl Cole should go to prison.

  14. Er, she hasn’t banned the individuals concerned from saying things (freedom of speech), nor has she banned them from meeting with each other (freedom of association).

    She’s banned an organisation, which is an entirely different point.

  15. “There is one genuine bit to address, how do you let people noisily protest and also have people have a silent remembrance right next to each other?”

    Don’t allow them to do it next to each other. Simples!

  16. For many years in Northampton a woman used to interrupt the Armistice Silence with loud complaints about her war widow’s pension.Soon, every year, she was arrested and detained for the duration of the service.We have a long record of this kind of thing.

  17. I think there is an argument for applying restrictions in specific zones around sensitive public places. And those restrictions should apply to conduct, not persons. The right to protest should be maintained, but what you should not have is the right to disrupt a solemn public event and ruin the occasion for everyone else. There should be places and events which are off limits.

    So let people burn poppies, burn bras, and burn qurans. Just keep them out of the proscribed zone.

  18. Philip Scott Thomas

    The right to protest should be maintained, but what you should not have is the right to disrupt a solemn public event and ruin the occasion for everyone else. There should be places and events which are off limits.

    Ah yes, the British love of the half-arsed fudge, neither one or another. Not quite free speech, but not quite banning it, either.

    A long tradition. In fact, it is the British tradition. But that doesn’t make it any more acceptable. A public space is a public space. It is no more permissable for one group to occupy it and demand respectful silence from others than it is for those others to disturb that peace.

    Free speech is absolute or it isn’t free speech. The solution is simple: either tolerate the disruption and carry on or move to some other place.

  19. Philip Scott Thomas

    Chris,

    No. Sorry to disappoint, but I am most definitely not Arnald. For one thing, Arnald doesn’t seem to give a crap about such things as liberty and freedom of association and free speech.

  20. @ Philip Scott Thomas: Well, no, I don’t think that anyone seriously believes free speech should be absolute – cf Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous example of someone falsely “shouting fire in a crowded theatre and causing a panic” in such a way as to create “a clear and present danger”.

  21. Any see that a hundred and sixty odd EDL’ers got nicked for trying to go the LSXoccupy thingy to tell those lazy wankers to go get jobs…?

    The irony… it hurts!!!!!

  22. @Johnnydub.

    I was at the Remembrance ceremony and watched as the police kettled over 160 EDL members in a pub on Whitehall for over 3 hours before going into the pub with batons and dogs. There was no intention by the EDL to go to St Paul’s, there was also no intention of the EDL to go to Tower Hamlets (another rumour) All that happened was someone tweeted that this was the EDL’s intentions and the police moved in to arrest the EDL because of a potential breach of the peace, not something the EDL had done, or said they were going to do.

  23. Philip Scott Thomas

    @Churm –

    Yes, I’m familiar with that quote from the guy who wrote the majority opinion in Buck v. Bell.

  24. @Philip Scott Thomas – Are you suggesting that because you believe that Holmes erred in Buck v. Bell his point about free speech does not stand?

    Let me put it another way. If freedom of speech is an absolute, then child pornography (for example, though I could give many others) must be allowed. Is that your position?

  25. Child pornography is indisputable evidence that a crime has been committed. In my opinion, those who see it and don’t turn it in to the police should be prosecuted as accessories.

    A better question would be written or cartoon child pornography. Should that be illegal or is it free speech?

  26. “….Arnald doesn’t seem to give a crap about such things as liberty and freedom of association and free speech.”

    Based on the opinion that democracy can only work if the machine of government is dismantled by unaccountable shysters?

  27. @ Matthew – “Child pornography is indisputable evidence that a crime has been committed.” With respect, no it’s not, except in the sense that child pornography is illegal and therefore criminal by definition. The criminality arises because society has decided to deny “freedom of speech” to child pornographers. Which is my whole point – freedom of speech is not absolute, but has its limits. The debate, surely, is about the limits, not the principle.

  28. No, Matthew has the right of it. Child pornography is indisputable evidence that a crime has been committed against a person. Written or cartoon child pornography is not a crime against a person. It is true that “society”, or rather, society’s legislators, have decided to deny freedom to such writers and graphics artists. That, in itself, does not make that denial just.

    For the avoidance of doubt, yes, laws against hate speech and incitement to whatever are also unjust.

  29. So Much For Subtlety

    G Orwell – “I agree but the ones who threatened to kill Cheryl Cole should go to prison.”

    Oh come on. Who hasn’t threatened to kill Cheryl Cole from time to time? If the plod was sitting in front of my TV set as I was changing channels, I would be doing 25 to life by now.

  30. So Much For Subtlety

    Matthew – “Child pornography is indisputable evidence that a crime has been committed. In my opinion, those who see it and don’t turn it in to the police should be prosecuted as accessories.”

    No it isn’t. It depends on what it is. The laws on this are absurd. What can be a legal act in one jurisdiction can be child porn in another. If the age of consent is lower in Spain and I have a picture of my 16-year-old girlfriend doing her thing, is that child porn in the UK? It would seem so in Britain.

    “A better question would be written or cartoon child pornography. Should that be illegal or is it free speech?”

    Well some Australian guy was convicted of child porn offenses because he had cartoon parodies of Simpson’s characters performing sexual acts on his computer. Draw a giant penis on Bart and you could do ten years in Australia. Still, it could be worse – another Australian guy was sentenced for owning a book that is legally on sale in his state. The laws are daft.

    However, cartoons prove that you can have child porn, even be convicted of it, and yet no child is harmed at all.

  31. “So Much For Subtlety // Nov 12, 2011 at 12:20 am

    G Orwell – “I agree but the ones who threatened to kill Cheryl Cole should go to prison.”

    Oh come on. Who hasn’t threatened to kill Cheryl Cole from time to time? If the plod was sitting in front of my TV set as I was changing channels, I would be doing 25 to life by now.

    I haven’t but that is because I never watch the X factor or anything that she might be on.
    If I was you I wouldn’t admit it.

    Everyone – however bad at singing – has a right to be safe.

  32. So Much For Subtlety

    G Orwell – “I haven’t but that is because I never watch the X factor or anything that she might be on. If I was you I wouldn’t admit it.”

    If I did I would be happy to admit it. But I haven’t. As is clear from what I said. Nothing like a little inaccurate snobbery to start a conversation is there?

    “Everyone – however bad at singing – has a right to be safe.”

    Who is arguing otherwise? But I have a right to shout death threats at my TV as well. If there is not the remotest chance I will act on such threats, there is also not the remotest reason to prevent me from doing so.

  33. “Child pornography is indisputable evidence that a crime has been committed. In my opinion, those who see it and don’t turn it in to the police should be prosecuted as accessories.”

    So, if you watch a film and someone is murdered in it is that also indisputable evidence of a crime?

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