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If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P

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Nienor SharkAttack
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 9:34 am
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elfshadow wrote:
Could someone possibly give a brief background to this ignorant American? :oops: I only know the very basics of UK and EU politics so I'm a rough on some of the processes in the article that Iavas posted. It sounds like the BNP is a pretty extremist fringe party (I'm looking at some of their platform points and kind of going into shock). How were they able to get two seats in the EU Parliament? :scratch: I seem to recollect that the EU Parliament elections have pretty low voter turnout and are the weakest of the three branches of the EU governance. Is it not very difficult for a minority political party to win one of these seats?

I guess, coming from an American political perspective, it seems almost absurd that such an extremist party could actually have enough votes to win a seat in an international governing body. But third-party candidates are so rarely elected here that I suppose that gives my perspective a bit of a bias.
It's absurd and sad, but that's how these elections work. The elections for the EU Parliament are second-order elections where people often vote differently from how they vote in national elections. Many people feel that they don't matter much, and see them as a low-cost opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction with their governing party(ies). So they vote for other parties, and what better protest than to vote for a protest party of some kind? Also, because people feel that there is less at stake than in national elections, there is less reason to vote strategically (supporting another party than the most preferred one because the preferred one is too small to make a difference in the national elections, is not a member of a possible governing coalition, and so forth) - and use the EP elections to vote for their preferred party. Also, a little less academically, I think it's almost become a "thing" to vote for - uhm - somewhat eccentric parties in the EP elections. It's sorta "cool" to be able to vote for the Pirate Party. And the small parties know to work with this public mood.

This would probably change (somewhat) if people stopped feeling the the EU elections were second-order and not so important. But the low turn-out shows that we are far from there yet. The European Parliament has been gradually strengthened since it became an elected body in 1979, but I think it needs to be stronger still, and more visibly so, for people to feel that their votes really matter for policies at the European level.

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Lidless
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 12:38 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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I miss the days of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party from the 70's and 80's. At least they were harmless.

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They had a bizarre manifesto, such as being able to vote at 18, passports for pets, and all-day pub openings. It'll never happen.

I actually knew one of the protagonists whilst at Cambridge. John Lewis changed his name by deed poll to Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel, a Mony Python reference and still managed over 200 votes in a by-election.

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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 1:05 pm
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Firstly, Lidless, chill. I am not a "BNP Supporter". I am someone with no inclination towards supporting any of the big parties who just happened to hear the BNP leader being interviewed on the radio and thought he came off okay. That's it. I knew I would have to learn more but thought I'd give you all something to sink your teeth into first.
Quote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... ook-expose


It doesn't take much of a search.
Okay noone could seriously condone attitudes like that, but I would point out a couple of things.

- Actions speak louder than words. Have any BNP members actually taken part in violence or other criminal activity? There's a big difference between mouthing off in an internet forum and actually acting that way. I know I've probably said some angry things about our floods of immigrants in conversations at the pub after a few beers but it doesn't mean I would really treat the individuals that way.

- Some members that subscribe to mainstream parties can have some pretty extreme viewpoints that don't represent all the others - i.e. certain preachers on the US right.

Quote:
Well then this begs the question, where do people go to escape poverty, war, famine, disease and a million other things?
Never heard of someone escaping perils to go to a place with the same or worse perils.
I don't think that describes somewhere like Poland particularly well. They are primarily coming over here as cheaper labour.

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 1:41 pm
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It's not a new problem:

"There was trouble away in the South, and it seemed that the Men who had come up the Greenway were on the move, looking for lands where they could find some peace. The Bree-folk were sympathetic, but plainly not very ready to take a large number of strangers into their little land. One of the travellers, a squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow, was foretelling that more and more people would be coming north in the near future. 'If room isn't found for them, they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other folk,' he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect."

Population crunches are nothing new. Neither are the resulting waves of migrations. Wish there was a solution that would make everyone happy, but I don't think there is. Somebody's got to lose.


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 5:02 pm
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I looked at what Lidless posted. I've seen stuff like that before...on white supremacist sites. If I were a Brit, I'd be shitting myself in horror right about now, that anyone could take this seriously.

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RELStuart
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 5:30 pm
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Riverthalos wrote:
I looked at what Lidless posted. I've seen stuff like that before...on white supremacist sites. If I were a Brit, I'd be shitting myself in horror right about now, that anyone could take this seriously.

I was all set to be all devils advocate on this one till I read that stuff... If they were just amount tighter immigration controls that would be one thing. But exculuding fellow citizens based on their race crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 5:33 pm
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Yeah, it was the ethnic break downs and bits about "indigenous" that got me. There's no way to package that up pretty. You can try, but it's like putting powdered sugar on a turd.

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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 5:34 pm
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Quote:
Somebody's got to lose.
I don't see why. I think Britain has gained immeasurably from the migrations. Not counting the Flemish and the Huguenots and the first wave of black immigrants from Tudor times to the early 19th century, our first big influx was from the Jews escaping the Russian pogroms in the late 19th century. One started a costume jewellery factory in my home town and his son became my fencing buddy. Those Jews and the later refugees from the Nazis gave a huge amount to us in arts, science, education, politics and entertainment. We didn't lose at all.
Since the war we have had big movements of West Indians, Hindus from East Africa, Muslims from Pakistan and Sikhs from the Punjab. In addition we host people from Europe and refugees from a host of nations. A Hindu family came from East Africa and set up a shop opposite my house more than 30 years ago. The still chat in I dunno, Gujerati or Hindi. When Ray hit 50 he hired a marquee at the local pub and around 200 people from the village and town turned up to the party. Britain is better for becoming more mixed. It was never a monoculture anyway.

We have two main problems: one the spread of a radical and intolerant Islam supplanting earlier easy going versions. This is a world wide problem but we suffer from it too. It will be defeated but not before they manage to spread a deal of misery. It's not a racial thing, it's ideological. The other is a truly vile tabloid press that runs anti-immigrant stories as main headlines virtually every day for year on year. The very worst is the Daily Express but the Daily Mail and the Sun (surprise, surprise, owned by Murdoch) run it a close second. You hear people parroting their stories every day. Propaganda works. :(

My mother and father's generation went to war to defeat this miserable doctrine and it sticks in my craw to see self satisfied smartly suited thugs get the dignity of political office.

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Lidless
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 6:17 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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So Iavas, still thinking of voting for them, or can we put this to bed?

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 7:58 pm
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I don't mean to imply that multi-ethnicity or multiculturalism is tantamount to losing. I think the world is full. Not full to overflowing, but full to the point that it's becoming uncomfortably crowded. Areas that have high birth rates but few resources feel it the most*. Half a century ago, Europe solved its population problem through massive emigration (the Native Americans lost rather severely from that process). Since that time we've come up with a variety of ways to support more people on the same amount of land, but even with that we're starting to test the limits again. Unless we start colonizing Antarctica, the sea, or space, I don't see any alternative except trying to crowd each other out, and that's the sort of game where one man's gain is another's loss.

*A somewhat off-topic observation: The Middle East has extremely high birth rates, but essentially no resources other than oil, which is controlled by tiny elite. I think the resulting population pressures are a large part of the reason that so much of it has gone crazy. Overpopulation seems to spawn warrior death cults, which I suppose serves a cold sort of logic.


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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 9:07 pm
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Quote:
I looked at what Lidless posted. I've seen stuff like that before...on white supremacist sites. If I were a Brit, I'd be shitting myself in horror right about now, that anyone could take this seriously.
What if you were a Brit who lost their job in favour of cheaper immigrants? For example there are building contracts where all local builders are being overlooked in favour of bringing in a foreign workforce. The level of immigration is scary for many too.

To be fair, I wish there was a better party than this to fight for tighter immigration control - I strongly object to the wording in that constitution; "non-white", which does sound racist and on the face of it doesn't have a problem with the eastern european immigration. Opposing open borders for all races is fine, opposing it for certain races only is not at all. The interviews I heard did not suggest this racism. Are we 100% certain that "non-white" is meant literally here?

Quote:
I don't see why. I think Britain has gained immeasurably from the migrations.
Up until a few years ago I agree. But I don't think you can look at all levels of immigration the same way. There's a good level and then there's too high.

Quote:
So Iavas, still thinking of voting for them, or can we put this to bed?
If I vote at all Greens would be an option. BNP would have to become quite a bit clearer about not being discriminatory in any way.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 9:57 pm
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Iavas, I really hope you're trolling. However, I tend towards the rational so if I lost my job to a Pole I don't think I'd start foaming at the mouth and demanding that all Poles be expelled.

From Lidless's homework:
Quote:
POLITICAL OBJECTIVES
The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic
character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial
integration between British and non-European peoples. It is therefore committed
to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by
legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the
British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.

MEMBERSHIP
The British National Party represents the collective National, Environmental, Political,
Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests of the indigenous
Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as
closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the
European race also resident in Britain. Membership of the BNP is strictly defined
within the terms of, and our members also self define themselves within, the legal
ambit of a defined ‘racial group’ this being ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic
groups’ emanating from that Race as specified in law in the House of Lords case of
Mandla V Dowell Lee (1983) 1 ALL ER 1062, HL.

The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous
Caucasian’ consist of members of: i) The Anglo-Saxon Folk Community; ii) The Celtic
Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The
Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic
Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community; viii) The
Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The
Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community; xi) Members of these ethnic
groups who reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them.
On closer inspection, this actually is set up to exclude ethnicities within white people as well. And it gets really awful when you compare that to anything and everything you've ever read about various ethnic cleansing movements. The hell that went down in former Yugoslavia in the 90's began with what sounded like sweet and reasonable words to those with a weakness for scapegoating. We know how that ended. A smart political leader doesn't call for violence; he or she just says the things that make the idiots who would commit violence think they would be right to do so. And it starts with stuff like above.

Now, consider that list from the BNP and this snippet from wikipedia's entry on white supremacy:
Quote:
Supporters of Nordicism and Germanism consider Nordic people (Scandinavians, Germans, and Dutch) to be superior, shunning those of Southern and Eastern Europe (who may have darker features and different cultures) along with anyone whose ethnic heritage is not European. In Madison Grant's 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race, Europeans who were not of Germanic origin, but who had Nordic characteristics such as blonde/red hair and blue/green/gray eyes were considered to be a Nordic admixture and suitable for Aryanization.[4]
The US has its problems, but at least we keep these morons on the margins where they belong.

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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 10:08 pm
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You need look no further than their history to be absolutely clear about their nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party" target="_blank


Here's what one of their little darlings did in 1999: (from Wiki)
Quote:
David John Copeland (born May 15, 1976) is a former member of the British neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black, Bangladeshi and gay communities.

Copeland placed homemade nail bombs at targets in London, each containing up to 1,500 four-inch nails, on three occasions before he was arrested. Firstly, on 17 April outside a supermarket in Electric Avenue, Brixton, an area of South London with a large black population; then on 24 April in Brick Lane in the East End of London, which has a large South Asian community; and finally on 30 April in the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho's Old Compton Street, the heart of London's gay community. The bombs killed three, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs.[1] No warnings were given.
.........................




Quote:
In May 1997, at the age of 21, he joined the British National Party, a right wing, anti-immigration & Anti Homosexual party. Copeland acted as a steward at a BNP meeting, in the course of which he came into contact with the BNP leadership and was photographed standing next to John Tyndall, the then leader of the BNP. It was during this period that Copeland read The Turner Diaries, and first learned how to make bombs using fireworks with alarm clocks as timers after downloading a so-called terrorists' handbook from the internet.

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Eruname
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Tue 09 Jun , 2009 10:24 pm
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Riverthalos wrote:
Iavas, I really hope you're trolling. However, I tend towards the rational so if I lost my job to a Pole I don't think I'd start foaming at the mouth and demanding that all Poles be expelled.
He's not trolling. Stuff like this has been on respectable news programs like the BBC. Lots of people have lost their jobs over here just like in the US. There have been quite a few stories about local laborers being passed over and companies hiring groups of workers from continental Europe to come over and work (a story about a group of Italians being hired sticks out most in my mind) supposedly because they are cheaper labor. The local laborers were very, very angry about being passed over as they need work badly and there were protests and strikes that lasted for days.

It's somewhat like the issue the US is having with outsourcing or people having a problem with Mexican immigrants taking jobs, though usually the Mexican immigrants do jobs most Americans wouldn't want to do any way and there's a huge issue with illegal immigration. With Europe, it seems like it's all legal with no checks and balances.

I can definitely see the viewpoint that locals should be considered and taken care of first, but then I'm an immigrant and want an equal chance....there doesn't seem to be a good answer really. The BNP certainly isn't it and I'm pretty appalled a party with a viewpoint it has has been allowed positions in the European Parliament. People deserve free speech and they can talk all they like, but if they got their way, they would restrict rights based on skin colour and nationality which is illegal. It just doesn't mesh.

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Di of Long Cleeve
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 11:48 am
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Riverthalos wrote:
I looked at what Lidless posted. I've seen stuff like that before...on white supremacist sites. If I were a Brit, I'd be shitting myself in horror right about now, that anyone could take this seriously.
You pretty much describe the way I feel. :neutral: I am so dismayed by this.

The GOOD news is that the loathsome and ludicrous BNP actually lost 9,000 votes in terms of actual votes, from the last local elections we had here.

The BAD news is that it was the complete collapse of the Labour vote that led to these two MEP elections. I am dismayed and disgusted that these two clowns will be representing my nation. I can only hope that this Mickey Mouse party is soon exposed to the people who so misguidedly voted for them as the bunch of clowns they really are.

Which is why we are nowhere near a Germany-in-the-1930s analogy. The trouble with the Nazis is that they actually rebuilt Germany's infrastructure -- that's why they rose to power, people saw them doing something positive and concrete to restore Germany's national pride and just chose to ignore that little anti-Semitic agenda. :Q :(

I seriously doubt that the BNP, by way of contrast, could organise a piss-up in a brewery. :rofl:

However, some of their members past and present are perfectly capable of organising a terrorist bombing campaign. As Tosh's link shows.
Erunáme wrote:
The local laborers were very, very angry about being passed over as they need work badly and there were protests and strikes that lasted for days.
Exactly, Eru, that is the trouble. If local, indigenous people do not feel listened to or heard, that is fertile ground for parties like the BNP.

Although when people start ranting about Poles and other fellow Europeans -- let alone other races -- coming over and taking the crap jobs that the English can't be arsed to do, I do start to lose my cool. Rapidly. :suspicious:
Quote:
With Europe, it seems like it's all legal with no checks and balances.
Indeed, the lack of checks and balances is the problem, IMO. Not immigration per se. The races of the British Isles are composed of immigrants. :)
Quote:
I can definitely see the viewpoint that locals should be considered and taken care of first, but then I'm an immigrant and want an equal chance....there doesn't seem to be a good answer really.
It's a really tricky issue. :hug: Especially as Britain has a very big population for such a small nation. But I do regard (controlled) immigration as essentially a healthy thing ...
Quote:
The BNP certainly isn't it and I'm pretty appalled a party with a viewpoint it has has been allowed positions in the European Parliament. People deserve free speech and they can talk all they like, but if they got their way, they would restrict rights based on skin colour and nationality which is illegal. It just doesn't mesh.
I sincerely hope and trust that Britons would rise up to a man -- and woman -- and throw that bunch of clowns out of Parliament if they ever rose higher in the echelons of power. That would be the time for a revolution. :blackeye:

By the way, sometimes I have to love Tory MP Ann Widdecombe. She was reported this morning as saying that having eggs thrown at him was an occupational hazard Nick Griffin would have to get used to. :LMAO:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8091605.stm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

It's no laughing matter though.

Oh, and my favourite quote in that BBC article ... Nick Griffin denying that he had past links with Oswald Mosley, as the former fascist leader "was very hostile to the National Front from which I am from".

Well, that's reassuring. :blackeye: The National Front, eh? There is Mr Griffin's impeccable past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Front" target="_blank" target="_blank

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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 1:07 pm
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Quote:
Iavas, I really hope you're trolling. However, I tend towards the rational so if I lost my job to a Pole I don't think I'd start foaming at the mouth and demanding that all Poles be expelled.
I would not demand that. I would advocate moving to a work permit system with entry granted only for jobs having a shortfall of british workers, the exception being spouse/fiance visas.

Also, ethnic cleansing in Britain? Don't think that could ever be a possibility unless something drastic changed about our society. So I might call that fearmongering.

Quote:
However, some of their members past and present are perfectly capable of organising a terrorist bombing campaign. As Tosh's link shows.
Admittedly the BNP is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that, but it doesn't mean all the rest are guilty by association.

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 1:35 pm
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Quote:
Admittedly the BNP is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that, but it doesn't mean all the rest are guilty by association.
If that were the case, what would people say about anti-abortion preachers, and pundits nicknaming a certain man "the killer"?

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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 2:04 pm
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Iavas_Saar wrote:
Admittedly the BNP is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that, but it doesn't mean all the rest are guilty by association.
I bet the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party had some swell people in them, too.

Sorry. If you're a member of an organization that espouses the kind of hate and racism that the BNP does, then, yes...you ARE guilty by association.


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Di of Long Cleeve
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 2:11 pm
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Iavas_Saar wrote:
Admittedly the BNP is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that, but it doesn't mean all the rest are guilty by association.
Iavas, if the BNP 'is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that', then why would anyone vote for them???? :scratch: This guy designed and activated bombs. He was a mass murderer.

And I can't believe that awful incident was in 1999 ... goodness, it hardly seems ten years ago ...

My head is just boggling at the BNP vote. I can understand people protesting against Labour. But the BNP???? Don't people understand their origins and their dubious politics, or don't they care?

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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: If I'm going to come back, it should be to controversy :P
Posted: Wed 10 Jun , 2009 6:15 pm
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Quote:
If that were the case, what would people say about anti-abortion preachers, and pundits nicknaming a certain man "the killer"?
:confused:

Quote:
I bet the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party had some swell people in them, too.

Sorry. If you're a member of an organization that espouses the kind of hate and racism that the BNP does, then, yes...you ARE guilty by association.
Listening to Nick Griffin I did not get the impression that he "hated" anyone. Caveats: Yes he would try to sound 'nice' on the radio. Yes the wording of the constitution seems to imply some level of racism.

Quote:
Iavas, if the BNP 'is more likely to attract a dangerous individual like that', then why would anyone vote for them???? This guy designed and activated bombs. He was a mass murderer.
Again, I don't think one past member being a terrorist automatically makes everyone else a bad person. Decent enough people can be misguided, as I have been many times! It doesn't mean I'm saying they are mainly decent people either - but it doesn't sound like BNP members being terrorists is yet a recurring pattern, unless there are others cases besides this one?

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