UKC

Theresa May, bless her inadequate, hollow soul, wants to bring in new laws to make saying things that aren't bad enough to be illegal, illegal.

Personally, I'm not convinced by the idea that our civil liberties are genuinely under attack by this stuff, but I do think it's a massive load of ineffectual, indeed counter-productive, crap.

If people say things you don't like, you argue against them. Up until the point where what they say puts people at risk before you can argue with them, i.e. inciting violence, at which point the right to free speech has to be qualified. Legislating against certain points of view is fundamentally wrong at the deepest philosophical level. On a practical level I doubt it will make much difference except to inspire ridicule and resentment in roughly equal measure, further alienating those who see themselves as opposed to the state to begin with.

Is this woman both a total moron, and completely oblivious to the central ideas of democracy, or am I missing something?

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Appeals to the ukip / conservative rascist fringes, mainly over 50 demographic. Not designed to get you on board old boy. Thin end of the wedge gets thicker and thicker as far as this proposed legislation. I've got no truck with the motivated pointy finger neck beard crew but feel we are sliding toward jack booted authoritarian distopia at an increasingly alarming rate.

Spectator democracy?

D

In reply to Jon Stewart:
I've started worrying she's a little bit nuts.

I'm glad David Davis and Liberty and other people are pointing out it's a bad idea.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Apparently it is about 'British values'! Which is a shame, because I was hoping tolerance and free thought might make the short list when we get to decide what these mythical creatures are.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

You're not missing anything I don't think.
There's a tendency for all centres of power continually to gather ever more power and control unto themselves. There has been a lot of this over the last 20 years or so (last government in particular).

Its what caused Dame Stella of MI5 fame to warn on her retirement of risking the creation of a police state by the drip drip drip erosion of civil liberties: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/17/government-exploiting-terrorism-f...

That may be hyperbole but the erosion of hard won freedoms tends to be a one way street.

In reply to Dauphin:

>I've got no truck with the motivated pointy finger neck beard crew but feel we are sliding toward jack booted authoritarian distopia at an increasingly alarming rate.

At least we don't have Nu Labour in power right now.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Well you can see what they want to happen - which is to stop all the people doing the winding up and radicalisation - but its sure as hell difficult to see how something like this can work.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Laws and regulation doesn't stop crazy individuals with a little bit of bomb-making knowledge from boarding public transport with the intent of blowing it up.
Lone terrorists are a greater threat to us than organised, radicalised groups of well-funded terrorists.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

I don't think we ARE talking about organised groups of well funded terrorists, are we ? I thought we were trying to prevent crazy individuals from having their heads turned. Blowing up a bus. Defecting to Syria. Whatever

In reply to GrahamD:

yes, and no amount of law-making will stop that from happening.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


And air pollution is a far greater threat to all of us than terrorism. Which one makes the news in some way or another every single fu****g day

jk

In reply to Dauphin:


Well this brings us to one of the central questions of politics in a democracy: is this woman just knowingly talking complete bollocks, with the conviction to enforce that bollocks on the country to whatever destructive effect, purely for the sake of power?

Anyone with enough braincells to generate concious thought can see that banning ideas is going to make matters worse by cementing the 'us and them' mentality already present in the minds of the people we're worried about. I struggle with this question: is she really so thick as to be unable to see this (while also being clever enough to hold down the job of Home Sec) or so evil that she's quite prepared to exacerbate the problem of Islamist radicalisation for the sake of courting votes from the thickie right?

My money's on evil rather than thick as mince.

In reply to GrahamD:


I don't think that Ms May is demonstrating that things are better now - she's saying, "I like what that nice Blunket did with civil liberties, and I can take it to the next level".

In reply to Jon Stewart:

https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/campaigning

In reply to GrahamD:


It's an absurd situation. If I'm a young british muslim, then there might be two ideologies competing for my loyalty. One offers high quality education, an economy in which to work in whatever role, opportunity to live my life as I wish in my own space, to bring up a family with the resources of healthcare and social security - but I have to accept that my religious traditions will be sidelined in favour of a society run on essentially secular values (which include religious freedom)...and the other offers going to war with the world's superpowers without any hope of victory, and which has no tangible end goal for people here, but places conservative religious values at the centre. If life in our modern, western society isn't more appealing than that for young muslims, then perhaps we need to ask why that is, and somehow present the case in our favour?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Yes, it's difficult to appear to be dim and sinister simultaneously but she's getting quite good at it.

It seems to be same clear legal thinking that's currently popular in the area of tax avoidance; even if what you are doing is legal, it isn't if we say it isn't.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Between her and Grayling yesterday, I've already reached my shudder quota for the month. Not the good kind of shudder either.

As per usual I'm especially concerned at how any of this would be (inevitably) abused by the state. Do those preaching action on climate change now run the risk of being criminalised because someone they address might have the idea to go and take illegal action? Are any strong opinions now out? Apparently ministers(?!?!) will have to '"reasonably believe" that they intend to incite religious or racial hatred, to threaten democracy or if there is a pressing need to protect the public from harm, either from a risk of violence, public disorder, harassment or other criminal acts'. Well that's me reassured.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

If they repealed these laws whenever things got "better" I wouldn't have such an issue. But like Keynesian economics, we spend when the times are bad, but fail to notice when they improve so then keep on spending.

Fortunately we have nothing to fear if we aren't guilty, apparently.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I am always suspicious of people who want to curb the things you can say.
It smacks of head in the sand politics. If you ban someone from saying it then it doesn't exist.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

The security state and its associated industries have done extraordinarily well since 9/11 and I guess she represents those interests in cabinet. Sureing up power and protecting its ventures in insecurity, there is no profit in tolerance, peace and harmony breaking out.

D

In reply to Jon Stewart:

So you're happy for racist slogans to be shouted out in the street?

In reply to stroppygob:


no, i neglected to mention harassment / intimidation.

In reply to stroppygob:


We already have laws to deal with that.