Totalitarianism: our political enemies committed no crime, so we must chsnge the law!

[Provost Harrison]

Actually I think Stew has a point here...I find it very worrying that when our government doesn't get its own way, it wants to move the goalposts. I know the BNP can be a nasty bunch but what they were tried for was really quite insignificant (I am sure I have probably said worse about religion on here somewhere) and quite naturally they weren't going to be found guilty for this.

What I am far more worried about that by changing the laws to cover what this trial has been about, I, too, could be culpable for the comments I make which are well reasoned opinions.

I am getting fed up with Blair and his government's heavy-handed way with dealing with everything

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Elok
...was it someone else who implied that black people are genetically predisposed to crime? I'm too lazy to check.

That sounds more trademark of Caligastia...someone who I feel is actually more innately racist than Stew...

[Pekka]

These tree huggers have always been intolerant against anyone who is not with them. They don't understand the concept of different opinions. They understand the right opinion and then bunch of wrong opinions.

They think they march in the front rows of acceptance and ultimate good.. but when ever you pose yourself as the ultimate good, you're effectively labeling everyone else bad. So where's the good in that? All I see is more black and white.

In their tolerance fits, they would gladly abolish anything that they see is controversial. They throw their own brains in the gutter, it is enough for me to say listen buddy, I'm quite offended by... and they'll run to your aid, throwing lefts and rights, thinking they are freeing the slaves, opening the gates of concentration camps and fighting all these evil characters and merchants of hate.

Well, in reality they are nothing but ***** ass punks, just as bad as anyone else, except they ride the ivory towers, so they really think their **** don't stink.

That's why I personally enjoy seeing these people get hurt, injured, beaten up and submitted in different videos, I love to hear how they first shout and are as constructive as they always are and then get beaten up. They deserve the be confronted with moderate violence and recieve bodily harm and physical injuries.

[Provost Harrison]

You're calling our beloved regime 'tree huggers'. They are posing as a left-wing party but make no mistake, they are as right-wing as anything Thatcher could muster up.

[Pekka]

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with your system or current leadership.

I just wanted to bash tree huggers.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I just wanted to bash tree huggers.

[Ned]

While certainly the speeches were "intollerant," I am thoroughly shocked and appalled that any "free" government would try to silence that speech through the legal process. Speech, in my humble opinion, must be unregulated by the government in any manner, otherwise you do not have free speech. You instead do have a form of thought control where non standard ideas are outlawed.

Britain clearly is not a free land.

[BeBMan]

That' would be speech control, not thought control, since it doesn't stop people thinking

[Ned]

Originally posted by BeBro
That' would be speech control, not thought control, since it doesn't stop people thinking

If a person cannot say what he thinks because of fear, that is thought control.

[BeBMan]

No, speech control

[Ned]

Aren't they connected, at least in principle?

[Cort Haus]

It's lucky that we at least have Orwell to help guard, in principle at least, against the concept of 'thought crimes'. Thought control is an extension of speech control. If you're not allowed to say something, you're not supposed to think it either.

We are heading towards a situation where anything that anybody deems offensive is a crime. It is part of a creeping authoritarianism where a strict orthodoxy is intolerant of dissenting views, and where the orthodoxy is frequently driven by emotional forces rather than rational ones.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
PA

"Hate" laws

Seconded.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
It's far more sensible to repeal laws like this.

As explained above (albeit with less-than-ideal clarity), I wasn't talking about hate laws in specific, but the process in general. Saying "they changed the law when they realized it did not criminalize what they considered criminal behavior, they must be TOTALITARIAN!" is absurd. I think the law in question is fairly stupid, but then so's the reasoning in this thread's title.

[Pekka]

I find it ironic that some of these tolerance promoters are actually very intolerant, and are ready to change everything in order of their agenda and it's ok. IF you are against that, you are a racist, nazi or what ever. They deserve a beating for their positioning.