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Helen Riddell, Newcastle: "Yeah. I wouldn’t mind them if they actually worked and didn’t take all of our jobs."

Rebecca Edwards, Manchester: "I hate Britain, and I want to move to Spain in the next couple of years, ‘cos our country’s not England anymore. It’s very rare for English people to live here anymore."

Jo Bell, Newcastle: "I kind of got into it through my friend Danny. He’s really racist. Everyone calls him “Nazi Danny”. He started telling me about them, and it made a lot of sense."

Rebecca Edwars, Manchester: "Fascist – I don’t understand that word."

-

In case you're unaware of the BNP and their policies, have a look.

If you're aware of the BNP already, you'll probably also be in tune with the amount of protest against their seemingly fascist ideals. And while I disagree immensely with the messages they send, freedom of speech works both ways just as it should....

right?

I was first going to comment "that can't be for real" after reading the interviews, but then I went and read the BNP website. I already had some idea about what the party was like, but wow. Insane policies.

atob wrote:If you're aware of the BNP already, you'll probably also be in tune with the amount of protest against their seemingly fascist ideals.

George Orwell in 1944 wrote:"The word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'.

blue_tetris wrote:

atob wrote:If you're aware of the BNP already, you'll probably also be in tune with the amount of protest against their seemingly fascist ideals.

George Orwell in 1944 wrote:"The word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'.

Quite.

May I add: the ignorance on display by protesters of the BNP is sometimes as alarming as the amount found amongst their supporters. However, while the call of fascism is misplaced often, there are certainly aspects of it to be found within the ideals and long term goals of the party.

They're clearly very racist, they're clearly very aggressive in their policies, and there is enough evidence out their (covert films of their meetings, and so on) to suggest that, were it possible, they'd force their ideals on the country for the 'greater good'.

These are the seeds of fascism.

They're trying to dissolve the political party on the basis that it breaks some law related to their ethnically-based acceptance policies. That's kinda silly. Those dudes may be crazy dicks, but they have lawyers making it into a legal issue.

"Our organization is for Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, etc., etc. (bunch of white dudes)."
"That's against the law because they're all white, and now it's an issue of colour rather than ethnicity!"

Do you have any black student unions in the UK? Are there any organizations that are exclusively for Muslims? If not, there should be. You can't continue to hide the issue of race and, yes, it does work both ways.

The BNP might be crazy, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission is litigous and hiding behind the illusion of unbiasedness.



Also, I outright reject any claims that the BNP is "fascist", beyond the colloquial (which is the only acceptable modern) use of the term. If nationalism is all that makes you fascist, then I don't agree "fascism" is the right term to use for nationalists. The BNP doesn't sponsor authoritarian rule, imperialism, social interventionaism (except maybe in the case of state-funded health care, but I thought most Brits were into that tidbit of "fascism"), and has generally open economic policies.

Being racist doesn't make you a fascist and it doesn't make you a lawbreaker. It just makes you a d-bag.

Those babes are not sexy. Too bad MNP.

The policies of this party are overwhelmingly childish, poorly thought-out and badly presented, conflicting with just about all fundamental British common law and legislation. The kind of change that this party desires could surely only be brought about by revolution or war, not minor party campaigning. Even if these clowns ever actually form government, I don't think anybody needs to be too worried because they're going to drown in litigation and protest, if not violent revolution.

They're like a historical re-enactment group who want political power. They don't seem to understand that national identity and culture are not, and cannot be, fixed and defined elements to be protected. Do they intend to enact whatever legislation is required, however ridiculous, to prevent British culture from changing?


Here's some gems i found in their 2005 election document:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/p ... ifesto.pdf)

"In a world where modern technology automatically and almost irresistibly gives the State powers of surveillance, analysis and potential repression that past dictatorships could not even have managed, it is more important than ever that the citizens of a modern Britain have at their disposal the means, in extremis, to resist any totalitarian government that has managed to get control of those powers."

I choked on my drink when I read this one. This paragraph forms part of their reasoning for a policy of minimal gun control. Basically, this says that citizens should have the right to carry arms to protect themselves against totalitarian governments. This coming from a party that stands candidates for election. This is painfully absurd in so many ways.

The great problem with the power of the media, the ‘Fourth Estate’, is that it is at present not subject to any democratic check or control.

This really needs no comment.
However, I would like to point out that the 'check' on 'the media' is other media. The relative financial power of competing media groups may be a problem in Britain, but in my country at least (Australia, which should be similar), no media group wields such financial power as to require goverment intervention, which is much worse than a media monopoly anyway.
This section rather humourously precedes another section on anti-totalitarianism.



This one is a bit long, so i've put it in a spoiler. I'd reccommend reading it though, for anybody who wants to see the kind of fuckers that should never get a seat in parliament. Essentially, this section is claiming that the political system of a nation is linked to the genetics of that nations citizens. That westerners are genetically predisposed to be democratic, and that other races are not so likely to enjoy democracy due to their genes. The writer has tried to reduce the impact of this through contradiction and babbling, but the message is pretty clear. To make these kinds of claims is bad enough, but to base party policy on it...

These idiots are worse than bloody Pauline bloody Hanson.

blue_tetris wrote:Also, I outright reject any claims that the BNP is "fascist", beyond the colloquial (which is the only acceptable modern) use of the term. If nationalism is all that makes you fascist, then I don't agree "fascism" is the right term to use for nationalists. The BNP doesn't sponsor authoritarian rule, imperialism, social interventionaism (except maybe in the case of state-funded health care, but I thought most Brits were into that tidbit of "fascism"), and has generally open economic policies.

Being racist doesn't make you a fascist and it doesn't make you a lawbreaker. It just makes you a d-bag.

I believe if these people were ever in a position to take control of the country, and they had the means to, then they'd certainly install a fascist state.

The party is fuelled by hatred. The supporters are ignorant, racist, and beyond reason for the most part, and, as you can see clearly from the link above, hold very close to the mark fascist ideals. Scope some secret cam recordings of BNP meetings for more, or have a conversation with someone who supports the party adamantly, you'll surely notice the link.

You'll also notice at these meetings a not so subtle shift in tone from the party's speakers. They rally their troops with aggressive hate tactics, their public face is very much a carefully moulded mask. They hate, and they want things their way, and if they could use violence to get their way then I doubt very much they wouldn't apply it.

I don't doubt for a second that these people would install a authoritarian rule for the 'greater good' of our country if they could, I don't doubt for a second that a good deal of their number support Nazi philosophy, I don't doubt for a second that these are the absolute foundations on which the party was built.

I believe their policies are as close to their true intents as they can realistically hope for, and that their public face is a PR stunt. Nothing more.

>_>

I think for the most part that y'all're sensible people and that our biggest disagreements come from subtleties and semantics.
Now imagine my surprise when I found myself agreeing with the quotes SkyPanda provided.

I was expecting to find their manifesto ridiculous, and granted, I have only read the portions reproduced by SkyPanda so far, but this was my thought process as I was reading through those quotes. Do remember that I was expecting to be reading drivel.
I'll keep scores to keep track of either side's appeal to me; the scores will mean nothing besides that. It starts at BNP: 0, SkyPanda: 0. I'll give a +1 for a solidly established point, 0 for an ineffective argument, and a -1 for an embarrassing cognitive failure.

BNP wrote:"In a world where modern technology automatically and almost irresistibly gives the State powers of surveillance, analysis and potential repression that past dictatorships could not even have managed, it is more important than ever that the citizens of a modern Britain have at their disposal the means, in extremis, to resist any totalitarian government that has managed to get control of those powers."

This is one of the interpretations of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and I think it's pretty solid. I have other reasons for desiring minimal gun control, but this is one of the ones I agree with on principle, even if I don't realistically see an armed revolution happening in countries like the US and Britain.
From a historical point of view, I think SkyPanda's comment that this is "painfully absurd in so many ways" needs a hell of a lot of justification. Before America declared independence, British rule was hellishly oppressive. The Founding Fathers of the US saw that taking away the Americans' weapons would be the final blow to any potential reform. Rulers can and have been oppressive, they were impossible to change in any other way, and an armed revolution did accomplish a much-needed reform and revolution from tyranny. The history of the US is the best and most obvious example in support of this justification for bearing arms, and you're calling it "painfully absurd in so many ways." You have an extremely clear and obvious example in history that demonstrates exactly why it's necessary for people to be able to revolt, and you're calling it "painfully absurd." I want to call you insulting things for saying this.
BNP: 1, SkyPanda: -1

BNP wrote:The great problem with the power of the media, the ‘Fourth Estate’, is that it is at present not subject to any democratic check or control.

I don't know much about the role British media plays in its politics, but I can definitely see a problem with media not being democratic. If government controls media, they control all information the public receives, so it's critically important to have freedom of the press as well as privatized press if you're to have any assurance that the news you're getting is unbiased. One thing I like to do is read about an event from multiple news sources to get a more rounded picture, but you only get the government's view of things if the media is owned by the government.
But again, I have no idea whether or not British media actually has a "democratic check or control," and neither do I know right now what the BNP proposes, but I am terrifically confused that SkyPanda says that this requires no explanation. And his further comment about how this quote is part of a segue into talking about totalitarianism only leads me to believe that SkyPanda is in favor of totalitarianism... although this wouldn't surprise me given his previous input in the Debate forum.
The BNP said nothing in this quote because SkyPanda didn't include any part of their manifesto that said anything, so they don't get any points for this. Neither does SkyPanda, though. This is all just one big unfinished statement.
BNP: 1, SkyPanda: -1

BNP wrote:"Furthermore, when we speak of ‘British democracy’ we do so in an ethnic as well as a civic sense. We do not accept the absurd superstition – propagated for different though sometimes overlapping reasons by capitalists, liberals, Marxists and theologians - of human equality. Whether the now totally discredited feminist argument that men and women are innately the same, to the partly refuted egalitarian claim that everyone within a given population is born as a blank slate with the same innate potential, or to the still dominant Politically Correct denial of the existence of differences on average between members of different races – we reject all these irrational myths.
This must not be taken to mean or imply that we believe that any particular ethnic group or race is ‘superior’ or ‘inferior’; we simply recognise that – as any biologist would be able to predict, and the new medical science of pharmacogenetics is now confirming – human populations which have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like.
To deny such differences on the grounds of egalitarian dogma has always been wrong, but to continue to do so in the light of the latest medical evidence is to condemn people to unnecessary suffering on account of racially specific health problems. We therefore believe that the myth that “we are all the same under the skin” will soon be as discredited as its feminist equivalent, and that all political parties will have to drastically amend their thinking to reflect the new reality in the not too distant future."

This is all completely true by me, and is in fact a restatement of things I've been known to say in discussions of race and genetics. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it, except that it may have done better to stress that different people should be given the same opportunities despite their transparent differences. Y'know, to please those extremist egalitarian retards who say that everyone everywhere is objectively equal for some reason, in spite of the most obvious developments in the entire field of genetics.
BNP: 2, SkyPanda -1

BNP wrote:"Taking these facts into account, we believe that it is far more likely than not that the historically established tendency (and we do not claim that it is any more than that) of the peoples of Western Europe in general - and of these islands in particular - to create and sustain social and political structures in which individual freedom, equality before the law, private property and popular participation in decision-making, is to some extent at least genetically pre-determined. Such tendencies would, naturally, both shape our culture around such institutions, and in turn tend to be reinforced by that culture.
If this is the case, then the idea that it is possible to allow large numbers of people from very different ethnic groups and cultures to settle here, on the assumption that it is just something about our bracing sea air that tends to make us natural born democrats, is fatally flawed. Just as is the idea that we can export our enthusiasm for representative government to other peoples, either by example or by carpet-bombing their countries into giving up their penchant for strong government or theocracy. "

I'm not a sociologist and I'm generally bad at this stuff besides, so I really can't comment on the whole immigration vs culture thing. From that whole lead-in, they've definitely established themselves as people who know what they're talking about and who can see through the bleeding-heart, if-I-wish-for-it-hard-enough-it-will-become-true approach to politics that many liberals I know adopt, so at this point I'm actually inclined to think that they at least have a solid point. I'll still give them 0 points for this, though, because it's not an issue I'm familiar with.
SkyPanda's summary was about as helpful as it was relevant.

SkyPanda wrote:Essentially, this section is claiming that the political system of a nation is linked to the genetics of that nations citizens. That westerners are genetically predisposed to be democratic, and that other races are not so likely to enjoy democracy due to their genes.

My first reaction was, ".......what?? Where the hell does it say any of that?" I re-read the passage in case I missed anything, but it turned out exactly as I had expected: SkyPanda extracted an extremely convoluted interpretation of their point. I noticed immediately that he did his trick of straw-manning something he disagreed with by misreading what they argue against -- in this case, the BNP says that the idea of "natural born democrats" is "fatally flawed," and SkyPanda condemns the BNP for supporting the notion of "natural born democrats." It was a throwback to all those times I've said in discussions on race that people's differences are not justifications to treat them differently, and was only lambasted repeatedly by SkyPanda for (according to him) insisting that people be treated differently. It's honestly like he subconsciously pulls out every negation in a sentence before he processes it; I can't think of any other way to consistently make such a mistake.
I'm tempted to give SkyPanda another -1 for this, but some part of me doesn't like punishing mere misunderstanding.
Final score is BNP: 2, SkyPanda -1.5. As I've said, these only reflect the impression these people had on me. In short, I'm liking the BNP more the more I hear of them, and SkyPanda just keeps on digging his way to the Earth's core.


What I'm most interested in is looking into what brighter's saying. I'd actually be pretty disappointed if what he's saying is true (which, as I said, I'm actually trusting to start with because I think you people think enough like me). I'm a fan of the NRA up until they get racist and demand to keep rocket launchers for home defense, of liberal policies until they start relying too much on wishful thinking and the placebo effect, and of conservative policies until they get religious and bigoted. I'd hate to see another group that's given me a good first impression go down that road, although the cynical part of me is sort of expecting it.

I'm going to read the BNP's manifesto when I have some more time and a cup of some hot caffeinated fluid. Until then, I'm interested to hear more from you people who oppose the BNP, because I definitely admit that I have an extremely limited view of things so far. Hell, maybe I just need to live in London for a few years to fully grasp that political scene. Either way, you say they're bad and I like you people, but I haven't seen anything to live up to that judgment. Please keep talking. Thanks.
Well, except for SkyPanda. What I'd really like to do with SkyPanda is give him anonymized summaries of various world governments and have him pick which is best, because I think that'll objectively confirm for me that SkyPanda wants the whole world to be like North Korea.

I for one completely agree with all of Tsukatu's post, except for his last point. I did read that quote to say that Europeans are genetically predisposed to democracy. The BNP say that people immigrating to Europe with the idea that the mere cultural surroundings will change their views toward democracy should not have those expectations. They do say that "we believe...that the tendency of the peoples of Western Europe...[to democracy]...is to some extent at least predetermined". Their argument is that the Europeans have become genetically predisposed to supporting democratic values, and that they cannot propagate their ideals of democracy to other nations (except through the nations' willing initiation?). Their argument is essentially that genetics determine a person's willingness to accept democracy and democratic values. I'd have to see a larger context to evaluate the efficacy of this point, but it is certainly a valid one.

Edit: I have now read the first few pages of the Manifesto SkyPanda linked to. I can see one of their goals is preserving in stone the British culture and all of its values. This ideal would, if applied, lead to every nation in the world rejecting a politically united global community on the basis of needing to preserve cultural identity. That is a flawed premise. Nations can preserve their cultures within a larger sphere of government and a larger group of nations. There are numerous smaller people-groups in every nation that maintain their identity quite strongly despite being flanked by their opposites. The party does not see or does not accept that. They say that multiethnic countries inevitably break down into hatred and murder. That assumes that different cultures cannot live in the same geographic region together. Assuming that this is correct (I would not trust such a general statement, but referring to areas where it is correct), the solution of the problem is not to split the feuding parties but to settle their feuds. Humanity is not so wrathful as to make judgments based solely on culture and ethnicity; clearly cultures can co-exist.

The main fault of this party is their focus on preserving British culture as an isolated and unchanging entity. Culture is only important to the people who value it. Values change over time.

Other than those points, I have not yet seen anything objectionable from this party. Their policies would be good for the country, although I wouldn't leave them in power for too long. Their idea that cultures should be isolated would be good for British culture, for the short term. Of course breaking with the European Union is absurd, but if there is truly a problem with the Union (as they claim there is - corruption and inefficiency), the solution would be for Britain to stay with the Union and effect its own change upon it. The BNP would have negative effects upon Britain, but they are nowhere near as bad as y'all were suggesting.

Essentially, this section is claiming that the political system of a nation is linked to the genetics of that nations citizens. That westerners are genetically predisposed to be democratic, and that other races are not so likely to enjoy democracy due to their genes.

What is objectionable about that? Humans do not have free will. Our decisions are made based upon our personalities and the details of the situation. It is not necessarily true that all people living and born in a geographic area and belonging to a culture accept that culture's ideals, but it is plausible at least that human genetics have adapted to be receptive in some virtues above others, especially when those virtues come to be applied to government. And this suggestion that our values are at least partly (they themselves used the word partly) influenced by our genetics seems to be quite a reasonable approach to me. Their goal with the statement is to say that each culture has its own identity, its own ethnicity that comes with the identity, and is separate from other cultures because of their nature and tendency to favour certain values.

yungerkid wrote:Humanity is not so wrathful as to make judgments based solely on culture and ethnicity; clearly cultures can co-exist.

Wrathful? Sometimes, you need to make assessments based on culture and ethnicity. Culture and ethnicity provide important information about people. Certainly, cultures can co-exist, but it's not "wrathful" at all to have opinions about cultures and ethnicities--those are some really important aspects of humans and help define us.

yungerkid wrote:

Essentially, this section is claiming that the political system of a nation is linked to the genetics of that nations citizens. That westerners are genetically predisposed to be democratic, and that other races are not so likely to enjoy democracy due to their genes.

What is objectionable about that? Humans do not have free will. Our decisions are made based upon our personalities and the details of the situation.

(For future reference:)

Ooooooooy vey. Word choice ftl. I don't understand why determinism can't exist in a situation where we use normal words to describe traits associated with our personalities. Humans have free will, they make choices, they have decisions; there are things which are "random", there are "unknowns", there are "probabilities". Just because you have a notion of determinism in your head, don't change your whole dictionary of terms to synchronize determinism into a belief system of sorts--where you refuse to accept ordinary processes like "random chance" and "human decision" just because they'll necessarily possess a single (mostly unknowable) result.

I don't care about determinists. I don't care about them. They just need not to hijack semantics for some stilted end. It makes conversing with the folks extraordinarily complex.

(Sorry to stray a shade off-topic.)



Anyhow, I think it doesn't make sense that someone would be knowably predetermined to a certain form of government en masse. There's really nothing that would indicate this.

yungerkid wrote:I can see one of their goals is preserving in stone the British culture and all of its values.

Stonehenge. (Sorry.)

Anyway. yungerkid, you say that it is possible for cultures to co-exist within each other, and you say that there are "numerous smaller people-groups in every nation that maintain their identity". Please give examples. Many of the world's conflicts in the last forty-odd years have involved "opposite" cultures killing each other out of racial (or cultural) hatred. Look at Israel and Palestine right now, or Serbia twenty years ago. I'm sure there are cases when cultures were able to co-exist peacefully (although there's always been a certain amount of cultural... snobbery, say, in America, a place with more mixing cultures than anywhere else in the world, so despite are relative peace, we aren't a good example).

I happen to believe that a necessary inevitable step (if not perhaps a good one) for the world is some sort of united government, and I freely admit this will result in a lot of culture contamination, which is a shame. But the Oriental and Occidental cultures have been interchanging for years, and both good and bad things have come from that mixing. (I think mostly bad, but that's a different argument.)

Moving on. What exactly do you mean by this:

yungerkid wrote:Culture is only important to the people who value it. Values change over time.

I have no opinion yet on the BNP itself, just the statements that you seem to throw out sans consideration. What you apparently are saying is that cultures can change over time. Correct, but what makes it a culture is the fact that it has continuity with the past.

yungerkid wrote:Humans do not have free will. Our decisions are made based upon our personalities and the details of the situation.

And finally, I agree with Dave about determinism, but there's another thread for that. Oh, and, not being British, I've never followed the doings of the BNP, so I can't instantly grasp the nuances of their ideals. But what's wrong with claiming that Europeans are "predetermined" to be democratic? Are they trying to enforce that in some way?

brighter wrote:Nick Griffin, chairman of the BNP, speaking at a private meeting of White Nationalists.

Goddamnit.

Also, what's up with his face? Is he a burn victim, or something wearing a human skin?

Tsukatu wrote:

BNP wrote:"In a world where modern technology automatically and almost irresistibly gives the State powers of surveillance, analysis and potential repression that past dictatorships could not even have managed, it is more important than ever that the citizens of a modern Britain have at their disposal the means, in extremis, to resist any totalitarian government that has managed to get control of those powers."

This is one of the interpretations of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and I think it's pretty solid. I have other reasons for desiring minimal gun control, but this is one of the ones I agree with on principle, even if I don't realistically see an armed revolution happening in countries like the US and Britain.
From a historical point of view, I think SkyPanda's comment that this is "painfully absurd in so many ways" needs a hell of a lot of justification. Before America declared independence, British rule was hellishly oppressive. The Founding Fathers of the US saw that taking away the Americans' weapons would be the final blow to any potential reform. Rulers can and have been oppressive, they were impossible to change in any other way, and an armed revolution did accomplish a much-needed reform and revolution from tyranny. The history of the US is the best and most obvious example in support of this justification for bearing arms, and you're calling it "painfully absurd in so many ways." You have an extremely clear and obvious example in history that demonstrates exactly why it's necessary for people to be able to revolt, and you're calling it "painfully absurd." I want to call you insulting things for saying this.

The UK isn't the US. It might be obvious to you gun-totin' cowboys that everyone needs a firearm, but the UK doesn't really have that gun culture and many Brits would indeed consider it ridiculous that they need to live in fear and always have a gun stashed away, just in case the government turns into a dictatorship overnight or they wake up tomorrow to a zombie apocalypse. Plus, I could equally claim that Australia became independent through democratic vote, thus demonstrating the futility of arms. A more pertinent case might be the Provisional IRA, since they were actually fighting against the English government, and weren't able to achieve their goals through violent action. I also think it's more likely that the weapons would be used when some bunch of nutjobs tries to seize government, than in a widespread public uprising - and such coups have also occurred throughout history.

You also seem to be assuming everyone is completely powerless to do anything about a corrupt government unless we all have a shotgun under the pillow. Firstly, if you're revolting against the government, you're not going to care about laws; weapons can be acquired through the black market (though more slowly, and at greater expense). Secondly, in a revolution, you're not all going to form into platoons and march into battle. Even if you have guns, the government has tanks, artillery, the air force, the police, and a standing army of trained soldiers with superior equipment. Any revolution is going to have to rely heavily on sabotage, bombings and ambushes, rather than large-scale shootouts, if it is to be successful.

Tsukatu wrote:

BNP wrote:The great problem with the power of the media, the ‘Fourth Estate’, is that it is at present not subject to any democratic check or control.

I don't know much about the role British media plays in its politics, but I can definitely see a problem with media not being democratic. If government controls media, they control all information the public receives, so it's critically important to have freedom of the press as well as privatized press if you're to have any assurance that the news you're getting is unbiased. One thing I like to do is read about an event from multiple news sources to get a more rounded picture, but you only get the government's view of things if the media is owned by the government.
But again, I have no idea whether or not British media actually has a "democratic check or control," and neither do I know right now what the BNP proposes, but I am terrifically confused that SkyPanda says that this requires no explanation. And his further comment about how this quote is part of a segue into talking about totalitarianism only leads me to believe that SkyPanda is in favor of totalitarianism... although this wouldn't surprise me given his previous input in the Debate forum.
The BNP said nothing in this quote because SkyPanda didn't include any part of their manifesto that said anything, so they don't get any points for this. Neither does SkyPanda, though. This is all just one big unfinished statement.
BNP: 1, SkyPanda: -1

You clearly haven't been paying attention. Or perhaps the rhetoric is different in the US of A.

Currently, the UK media are largely privatised (with some public services, such as the BBC). This is the situation you said is desirable (multiple sources of information from which people are free to choose). When a political party says that a private industry in which there are already several competing sources needs to be "subject to democratic checks and controls", what they mean is that it needs to come under greater government control. After all, parliament is supposed to be the current system of democratic checks, right? So all media stories should have to be approved by parliament, or a government body which answers to parliament, to ensure that the media reflects the democratic will of the people. And you know we wouldn't abuse this power, because we used the word "democracy"!

Tsukatu wrote:I was expecting to find their manifesto ridiculous

You should see the rest of it, it actually gets worse.

Tsukatu wrote:I want to call you insulting things for saying this.

Such a cognitive 'failure' may be embarrasing for someone of your intellectual calibre Tsukatu, but considering my age and intelligence i'm not the slightest bit embarrassed. I don't expect my viewpoints to be universally accepted, and I'm not at all offended that you disagree with me. I also suspect that you playing devil's advocate, and therefore I have no desire to stab you. Let that set the tone for my post here.

Taking into account what you have said, I stand by my comment that such policy is ridiculous. My hell of a lot of justification for this is:
-Consider that a nation reaches the point where armed citizens are protesting violently in the streets. How many of these citizens do you think bothered to take out gun licenses first? Nobody gets government permission to riot.
-A government that declares that citizens have the need to protect themselves against government is declaring it's own monumental failure, potential or not.
Painfully absurd.

Tsukatu wrote:neither do I know right now what the BNP proposes

My understanding is that the BNP believes 'the media' favours certain political groups and parties over others, and therefore needs to be subjected to some kind of check or control. I find the idea of the government having any specific control over the media abhorrent. Don't you?

Tsukatu wrote:And his further comment about how this quote is part of a segue into talking about totalitarianism only leads me to believe that SkyPanda is in favor of totalitarianism... although this wouldn't surprise me given his previous input in the Debate forum.

Quite the opposite. This section in the document is humourous because they move from "let's control the media!" to "totalitarianism sucks!".
Again, I am flattered that you remember some of my contributions, even if only because you disagree with them.

SkyPanda wrote:SkyPanda's summary was about as helpful as it was relevant.

Thank you. Consistency is one of my key objectives. ;)

Tsukatu wrote:From that whole lead-in, they've definitely established themselves as people who know what they're talking about and who can see through the bleeding-heart, if-I-wish-for-it-hard-enough-it-will-become-true approach to politics that many liberals I know adopt, so at this point I'm actually inclined to think that they at least have a solid point.

Really? I saw them as extreme racists who were trying to manipulate research to justify their dreadful policy.

Tsukatu wrote:My first reaction was, ".......what?? Where the hell does it say any of that?"

"Taking these facts into account, we believe that it is far more likely than not that the historically established tendency (and we do not claim that it is any more than that) of the peoples of Western Europe in general - and of these islands in particular - to create and sustain social and political structures in which individual freedom, equality before the law, private property and popular participation in decision-making, is to some extent at least genetically pre-determined."
Basic comprehension. I think they've confused you with the way they constantly contradict themselves, their policy is, as I have mentioned, badly presented.
If you count the times in this piece they say "we're rascist cunts!" and compare that to the number of times they assert "we're not rascist cunts!", then the rascism is slightly ahead. Thus my overall view of this party.
I won't argue against you here, as I believe you have misinterpreted the passage.

Tsukatu wrote:because I think that'll objectively confirm for me that SkyPanda wants the whole world to be like North Korea.

I've always felt that the trouble with manipulation of the audience in a debate is that usually only the unintelligent portion of the audience is affected by the manipulation, and who cares what idiots think?
You've got the audience manipulation down to a fine art, but you're yet to actually get at me, the person you are arguing against. I think that's a better indication of debating skill. Something for you to practise, maybe.

yungerkid wrote:it is plausible at least that human genetics have adapted to be receptive in some virtues above others, especially when those virtues come to be applied to government.

Considering that you apparently have accepted this statement without any accompanying proof or research, I get the feeling that trying to convince you otherwise would be a fruitless task.
The main 'objectionable' aspect to this party's claims is
a) That they are making such claims
b) That they are using these claims to justify rascist policy
and if you're very anti-egalitarian:
c) They provide no evidence for the claims

Let it be known that not everyone who agrees with gun rights thinks we need them to defend ourselves against the government. I think most people who believe in gun legality have general social liberty in mind. Suki is an exceptional case, and is likely playing devil's advocate.

I'm hoping he doesn't hyperbolously injure the good guys again. :(

Too many short quotes... I'm going to pass on the quote blocks.

Atilla,

The UK isn't the US.

While I don't, as I've said, have any realistic expectation that any civilized country today will need an armed rebellion for reform, I do believe in principle that people should be empowered to resist oppression in any form it could take. While I won't stow an AK under my bed and learn how to make pipe bombs, I think it's a bad move to make it illegal to do so. This is also not to say that I encourage anyone to hoard weapons and make explosives, but that the people who would be doing these things with criminal intent will not be meaningfully affected by such laws. The purpose of government is to help people, not for use as a way to oppress them. It's the whole governments-should-be-afraid-of-their-people thing. Under the assumption that strict gun control does not affect crime, consider why a government would be afraid of armed citizens: if it's doing something it knows a majority will disagree with enough that it provokes a violent response. When the hell is that going to happen if the government is, as it's supposed to be doing, working for the people? The first act of rising military dictators who go on to commit crimes against humanity is disarming their people.
So like I said, it's not that I expect to have to rebel violently against my government at any point in my life, enough that I'm doing nothing to even plan for the possibility. But it's a trust thing. I don't like my government saying, "It's not like you're going to coup, right? So you don't need the firearms," for the same reason I wouldn't want a spouse to tell me, "it's not like you're planning to divorce me, right? So what's the problem? We don't need the pre-nup."
When you feel secure, you tend not to consider how you'd feel when you lose that sense of security. Funny story -- during the LA riots after the Rodney King beating, many known gun control advocates scrambled to buy firearms and were reportedly outraged at the 15-day waiting period they themselves had pushed into law.

It might be obvious to you gun-totin' cowboys that everyone needs a firearm, but the UK doesn't really have that gun culture

While I don't, as I've said, have any realistic expectation that any civilized country today will need an armed rebellion for reform, a lack of recreational shooting culture in your country is still no reason to flat-out ban firearms. The proper answer to "what would you use it for" isn't even something like "self-defense" -- it should ideally be "what the hell do you care?" You restrict something if it does far more harm than good. Not having a use for something -- or in the case you mentioned, having something simply not be all that popular -- is not a reason to make it illegal. That should be obvious.

many Brits would indeed consider it ridiculous that they need to live in fear and always have a gun stashed away, just in case the government turns into a dictatorship overnight or they wake up tomorrow to a zombie apocalypse. Plus, I could equally claim that Australia became independent through democratic vote, thus demonstrating the futility of arms. A more pertinent case might be the Provisional IRA, since they were actually fighting against the English government, and weren't able to achieve their goals through violent action.

While I don't, as I've said, have any realistic expectation that any civilized country today will need an armed rebellion for reform, lacking an expectation for a particular response is not at all a reason to close off that option entirely. This is more of a stretch for a metaphor, but consider also why we don't close threads on this forum when a discussion is over: we don't have any expectation that something meaningful will be contributed long after the discussion has stopped, but that is no reason whatsoever to close off that possibility. That'd be stupid.

I also think it's more likely that the weapons would be used when some bunch of nutjobs tries to seize government, than in a widespread public uprising - and such coups have also occurred throughout history.

While I don't, as I've said, have any realistic expectation that any civilized country today will need an armed rebellion for reform, such a rebellion would necessarily require the sympathy of the majority. And when you have an armed rebellion against the government that is supported by the majority, a government that stubbornly stays the course in spite of that is evil and needs a swift death. There have obviously been standoffs with Confederate morons in the south who hoard weapons and declare their lawn a sovereign nation, but these sorts of people clearly don't come up terribly often in the news, and rarely hurt anyone even when they do. You can lay your fears to rest, Atilla -- that crazy war veteran next door who sleeps with a grenade under his pillow will not take over your country.

You also seem to be assuming everyone is completely powerless to do anything about a corrupt government unless we all have a shotgun under the pillow.

I don't, as I've said, have any realistic expectation that any civilized country today will need an armed rebellion for reform. I fully expect that the US and the UK are capable of solving their various cultural and political problems through a non-violent democratic process. But why would you intentionally tie your hands behind your back when it doesn't hurt you to have them out, just in case the government does end up sucker-punching you? You can use words all you like, but when it gets to the point where your government is simply telling you "no" as it turn you around, bends you over, and drops its trousers, you're going to be kicking yourself for letting them tie your hands behind your back.
The way I see it (and clearly this isn't an argument, but a statement of the conclusions I've drawn): There is no reason to ban firearms. In fact, when firearms are banned, crime goes up. When firearms regulation becomes less strict, crime becomes less violent overall (crime now has a higher chance of resulting in injury or death, but there is less of it to compensate; this is a case where a higher percentage of a small number is less than the smaller percentage of a large number). Also, I don't believe in imposing arbitrary limitations on myself; I probably won't own a firearm for many years, if I end up owning one at all, but I haven't seen any reasons why they should be banned.

Firstly, if you're revolting against the government, you're not going to care about laws; weapons can be acquired through the black market (though more slowly, and at greater expense). Secondly, in a revolution, you're not all going to form into platoons and march into battle. Even if you have guns, the government has tanks, artillery, the air force, the police, and a standing army of trained soldiers with superior equipment. Any revolution is going to have to rely heavily on sabotage, bombings and ambushes, rather than large-scale shootouts, if it is to be successful.

"There are ways around it" is still not a reason to make something illegal. "You shouldn't expect to use it," "most people don't do it," and "you can get by fine without it" are not reasons to make something illegal. Stop bringing them up as though they were. Christ, talk about murder rates or a correlation of greater gun prevalence and crime or something. I expected to have to give this sort of defense to SkyPanda, or atob on a bad day, but not you.

When a political party says that a private industry in which there are already several competing sources needs to be "subject to democratic checks and controls", what they mean is that it needs to come under greater government control. After all, parliament is supposed to be the current system of democratic checks, right? So all media stories should have to be approved by parliament, or a government body which answers to parliament, to ensure that the media reflects the democratic will of the people. And you know we wouldn't abuse this power, because we used the word "democracy"!

I could've sworn that these people were libertarian, not American-Republican; it didn't seem to me that they'd argue against gun control but support government control of the media.
But if that is what they're saying, then I'll agree with you that they're being inconsistent. Like I said, I'm not making a defense for the BNP here, but for a small subset of the things they've been quoted as saying.



SkyPanda,

Taking into account what you have said, I stand by my comment that such policy is ridiculous. My hell of a lot of justification for this is:
-Consider that a nation reaches the point where armed citizens are protesting violently in the streets. How many of these citizens do you think bothered to take out gun licenses first? Nobody gets government permission to riot.

In case you didn't read what I said to Atilla (which you should, because much of it pertains to your response, too), "there are ways of dealing without it" is not a reason to ban something. You need something much more concrete than that.

-A government that declares that citizens have the need to protect themselves against government is declaring it's own monumental failure, potential or not.

Not need; but right.
I don't remember who it was (could've been Scott Adams, I think), but some famous writer made a joke about an ideal president, and that was one who wore a backpack full of dynamite and gave every citizen in the country a detonator.
Compare the following:
"You've picked me to organize you and manage your well-being. I have this job because you've made it and put me in it, so I'm here for you. If ever I fail so much in my duties that I'm acting against your interests, I want you to shoot me in the face with this here gun. Go ahead, take it, but be careful because it's loaded. I like to think I'll do a good enough job that you won't even need to keep it handy, but y'know, just in case. I don't want to do you wrong."
"You've picked me to organize you and manage your well-being. I have this job because you've made it and put me in it, so I'm here for you. If ever I fail so much in my duties that I'm acting against your interests, I want you to submit a formal complaint. I will evaluate this complaint and choose whether or not I want to listen to you. My first decision for your well-being is: you are not allowed to respond to me in any violent manner whatsoever, or keep any weapons that will give you a fighting chance against my army."

Conversations of this nature tend to go something like this:
"Really, when has an armed rebellion ever been necessary or effective in establishing a better, stable government?"
"Um... America?"

(Not saying current American government is better than current British government, only that freshly independent America was better than British oppression in the colonies pre-1776.)

Really? I saw them as extreme racists who were trying to manipulate research to justify their dreadful policy.

Yes, as has been mentioned, I was unaware of that side of them. I did not know that their leader denies that the Holocaust happened and was imprisoned on multiple occasions for racial hate crimes. My bad.
They're definitely some God-awful people, and I can't see how they conclude what they do from their own manifesto.

"Taking these facts into account, we believe that it is far more likely than not that the historically established tendency (and we do not claim that it is any more than that) of the peoples of Western Europe in general - and of these islands in particular - to create and sustain social and political structures in which individual freedom, equality before the law, private property and popular participation in decision-making, is to some extent at least genetically pre-determined."
Basic comprehension. I think they've confused you with the way they constantly contradict themselves, their policy is, as I have mentioned, badly presented.
If you count the times in this piece they say "we're rascist cunts!" and compare that to the number of times they assert "we're not rascist cunts!", then the rascism is slightly ahead. Thus my overall view of this party.
I won't argue against you here, as I believe you have misinterpreted the passage.

Ha!
Got it. Thanks. :p

only the unintelligent portion of the audience is affected by the manipulation, and who cares what idiots think?

Politicians. Isn't that, like, their job?

I haven't finished reading Tsukatu's post at this posting, so this might be redundant;

If it is illegal to possess arms, and a minority of people decide that they wish to overthrow the government through violence, and so they subsequently use the black market to get weaponry, what of the majority who wishes to obey the law while at the same time disagrees with the extremist policies of their new government. Banning weapons means that the people who want to get them still will, but they'll resent you for it.

@Tsukatu: If you admit that the chance of an armed revolt occurring is practically zero, how is yelling "But we need to protect ourselves from The Man!" a good argument for legalizing firearms? Isn't that like arguing that we should all stockpile rocket launchers, just in case Martians attack and we need to shoot down their flying saucers? Or passing a law that everyone must wear helmets at all times, in case they knock their head on something? I'm fairly sure that, statistically, I'm much more likely to get hurt by accidentally striking my head than due to lack of gun ownership in a hypothetical civil war.

I mean, if you want to make arguments about lack of gun control stopping crime or about personal freedom or whatever, that's fine, but it's not what we were talking about. Rather, we were discussing the assertion that the removal of gun control laws in the UK is necessary because otherwise their government would go rampant. My argument was that the chance of a widespread violent uprising actually occurring is negligible and that even in such a case, loosening gun control laws would not necessarily grant the insurgents much of an advantage; furthermore, in the UK "the majority", which you keep saying should be able to enforce its will on the government, is generally in favour of gun control, and by enforcing such restrictions the government is reflecting the will of their citizens. Therefore it is fallacious to claim that the restriction of arms is an act of oppression (in this particular case), and "But what if there's an armed revolt?" is not a good argument against gun control because the probability of that happening is virtually non-existent and even if it did happen, it's debatable how much removing gun control now would actually be of benefit.

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"- Benjamin Franklin.

Tsukatu wrote:Not need; but right.

The term 'right' is indeed often applied to gun control, such as "citizens have the right to bear arms" or whatever.
However, rights only apply to functioning political systems. A violent revolution, the context of this discussion, represents a failure of the political system, and probably a breakdown of law and order. Rights become meaningless because people are rejecting the institution that grants the rights.



:removed the confusing shot <_<

...What?

I don't get the satire you think you're properly laying down, and I don't think many would.



The first thing a good communism or fascism does is restrict gun rights and tighten up security on ways to get guns. Then, if all else fails, you won't have an easily-armed revolution. Sure, the people might be able to get guns other ways, but if the government really cracks down on gun traffic (basically, treat it like the War on Drugs), they can really make sure they're safe from an uprisal.

Bloody amazing quote, Slaps. I had forgotten all about it. Thank you.

Atilla wrote:@Tsukatu: If you admit that the chance of an armed revolt occurring is practically zero, how is yelling "But we need to protect ourselves from The Man!" a good argument for legalizing firearms? Isn't that like arguing that we should all stockpile rocket launchers, just in case Martians attack and we need to shoot down their flying saucers? Or passing a law that everyone must wear helmets at all times, in case they knock their head on something? I'm fairly sure that, statistically, I'm much more likely to get hurt by accidentally striking my head than due to lack of gun ownership in a hypothetical civil war.

I mean, if you want to make arguments about lack of gun control stopping crime or about personal freedom or whatever, that's fine, but it's not what we were talking about. Rather, we were discussing the assertion that the removal of gun control laws in the UK is necessary because otherwise their government would go rampant. My argument was that the chance of a widespread violent uprising actually occurring is negligible and that even in such a case, loosening gun control laws would not necessarily grant the insurgents much of an advantage; furthermore, in the UK "the majority", which you keep saying should be able to enforce its will on the government, is generally in favour of gun control, and by enforcing such restrictions the government is reflecting the will of their citizens. Therefore it is fallacious to claim that the restriction of arms is an act of oppression (in this particular case), and "But what if there's an armed revolt?" is not a good argument against gun control because the probability of that happening is virtually non-existent and even if it did happen, it's debatable how much removing gun control now would actually be of benefit.

Technically...
The process of making a law is declaring something illegal. Everything is legal by default, until a law is made about it. That puts Burden of Proof on you if you want to regulate firearms, which in turn means that I don't have to put forward a case for legalization of firearms if you've only given me "you shouldn't expect to use it," "most people don't do it," "you can get by fine without it," and "there are ways of compensating for not having one where one would be useful," none of which are valid reasons to make something illegal.
Furthermore, I was as repetitive as I was about how much one could expect a coup to actually be necessary because I wanted to avoid this straw man business like "we should all stockpile rocket launchers" and "passing a law that everyone must [do something] at all times," but that seems to have failed completely. So that's frustrating.

But in the case of the world today, there is a law about it, so I kinda do need a case. While I'd prefer to talk about whether or not something needs to be made illegal by starting with the assumption that there are no laws about it and seeing if the consequences would be dire enough that it'd warrant regulating it, this is more a case of unraveling what I consider one mess of a mistake. This also displeases me.
But yeah, you do have quite a whopper of a point in that the democratic process is the reason firearms are regulated. Sounds to me like a societal problem.

As you put it:
"we were discussing the assertion that the removal of gun control laws in the UK is necessary because otherwise their government would go rampant."
The version I was going with was closer to:
The reduction of gun control laws in the UK is necessary. As it relates to government oppression, it is necessary on principle. As it relates to public safety, it is necessary to reduce violent crime.
I was reading a report a few days ago, actually, that first looked into a correlation between handgun prevalence and crime rate (and found none), and then went on to establish causation between an increase in crime and increase in gun control. The report's summarized empirical findings were that increase in crime causes gun control, and that increased gun control has negligible impact on violent crime. There was an implication that increasing gun control is an ineffective reaction out of fear. (I'm not sure how much I trust it, though. For one thing, it only looked at a 3-year window of time, and the authors, Moorhouse and Wanner, definitely had their own set opinions on the subject before conducting the study.)


On a related note, I've been thinking about starting a campaign against flu vaccinations. Flu vaccinations are doses of the flu virus meant to get our immune systems working in order to resist the flu in full force, but this is fighting fire with fire since the tool we use is the virus itself. If the vaccine gets into the wrong hands (which won't happen in the legal market functioning the way it legally should), it can be put to malicious use to give people the flu virus. Also, the number of infections that come from improper administration, handling, and storage of the flu vaccine is greater than zero. So I think that, even though accidental infections are extremely infrequent, and even though just about everyone who gets the flu gets it from an instance of the virus aside from legally regulated flu vaccines, that the flu vaccine should be banned. This will reduce the amount of flu virus "in the wild," regardless of how irrelevant it is to most cases of flu infections, and this will make all instances of the influenza virus disappear and magically go extinct forever. To get rid of a problem, you get rid of the cure. It's science. Or something.

Tsukatu wrote:The process of making a law is declaring something illegal. Everything is legal by default, until a law is made about it. That puts Burden of Proof on you if you want to regulate firearms, which in turn means that I don't have to put forward a case for legalization of firearms if you've only given me "you shouldn't expect to use it," "most people don't do it," "you can get by fine without it," and "there are ways of compensating for not having one where one would be useful," none of which are valid reasons to make something illegal.

That might be true if I were actually arguing for the regulation of firearms, which I am not. I am instead criticising the argument that gun control laws should be loosened in case we have a violent revolt and/or that the present laws are evil government oppression. By the same token, if someone said "Guns should be legal because kittens are cute and fuzzy!", and I responded that they were deranged and that the fuzziness of kittens had nothing to do with gun control, I would not be required to prove the case for gun control.