A woman who had (what I certainly think was) a humorous sign on her gate saying “Our dogs are fed on Jehovah’s Witnesses” was forced to take it down by British police because it is “distressing, offensive and inappropriate”. Yet seeing as Muslim extremists can walk down the street holding signs threatening to decapitate people, all with a police escort, it is clearly time to stop co-operating with the police and being so damn polite to them. Instead urge them not to allow themselves to be used to repress people’s right to express themselves and force them to fill out as much paperwork as possible. Got a lawyer? Call him. Just do not meekly co-operate.
We need to establish that there is no right not to be offended that trumps the reasonable right to self-expression. In fact I would argue that police escorted Muslims have already established that. If Muslims extremists can threaten people with death unless they express themselves in accordance with the restrictions Muslim activists want imposed on them, then we clearly do indeed have the right to make jokes about feeding Jehovah’s Witnesses to our dogs.
So stop making the job of the police easy when they try to impose such restrictions. If they want to stop you expressing themselves, do not threaten them but do not feel any great need to be unduly polite, make them arrest you and take the matter to court, every single time. I often go out wearing a tee-shirt saying “My Imam went to Mecca and all he got me was this lousy Tee-shirt”. Offensive? I do not think so but if anyone disagrees, I will not take it off and will force any policeman who takes issue with it to arrest me if he wants to stop me walking around wearing it.
I’m in total agreement. I dig my heels in where I can but unfortunately I’m a big paranoid about being arrested because of my work. However, if I get arrested, even once, I’ll be joining all the marches and digging my heels in whenever I can. In the meantime I do what I can to fill our databases with meaningless data and encourage others to do the same.
I like the sound of this woman. Good sense of humour.
If you were arrested because of the your shirt the police would try and deal with it via the magistrates courts (or via one of Mr Blair’s new on-the-spot fines – which violate both the 1215 Charter and the 1100 Charter of Henry I – but who cares about traditional rights).
If you appealed to the Crown court it would be interesting to see which way the jury went.
Jury nulification (of wicked “laws”) depends on the people on the jury being basically honourable.
The jehovah witnesses start the whole thing by systematically going door to door disturbing people, which is their right of free expression and communication. Don’t truncate the response. Perhaps a no soliciting sign would do just the same, but perhaps the person truly wants to limit just j.w.’s and all others are welcome. The mode of projecting such sentiments, with humor, is the prerogative of the speaker.
As someone who let the Mormons in to their house under the massively mistaken impressoin that they were a nouveau ska band, a la the Specials, (man that is a story and a half) the Jehovahs Witnesses lack any dress sense whatsoever. At least the Mormons do suits, the Jehovahs do hats covered in rain proof plastic .
As for their sense of humour, non existent.
It has taken thirty years for them to get this one and be offended apparently!
I ask you? Would you buy god from these people?
I would laugh some more but I am being called in for my tea..
When Jehovah’s Witnesses make their unwelcome calls here in deepest Tuscany, my stock response to their “why did you leave England” question is “to get away from Jehovah’s Witnesses, really” – which usually elicits a smile from them as dry as a Palomino Fino. Humourless bar-sterwards.
Three Points:
1. Linguistic – this lady’s sign was a statement. The muzzie’s signs were in the imperative.
2. As far as I know not a single JW complained about the sign. Seeing as they were the only people likely to find the sign “distressing, offensive and inappropriate” then why should the cops bother? You might as well call me racist for displaying a sign saying “Kill all Martians!”
3. Obviously it was a joke. If this lady had been feeding her dogs on a stockpile of corpses with a copy of “The Watchtower” clenched in their rigor-mortised hands then I’m sure the dibble would have come up with a far more serious charge.
Perry, I’m with you on your desire to see civil (dis)obedience. Offence is not injury and no ammount of praying in the mosque will make it so. The mark of a true civil society is one in which people can disagree vehemently without resorting to violence, or in this case state coercion which amounts to the same thing.
We have a right to offend. I would contend that we also have a right to be offended. Do we really want a society in which everyone only says nice things to each other?
Paul,
As I understand it, appeal from a magistrates’ court is to the Divisional Court (i.e. a high court judge), and only on a point of law. There’s no jury to nullify anything, and the judge will not re-try the facts.
The route from the magistrates’ court to the Crown Court is by request of the magistrates, where the bench convicts but thinks a sentence exceeding its own powers is called-for – again, no jury.
Blair’s “on the spot fines” are not in law any such thing, the fiction is they amount to a pay-off: the option to pay a penalty in order to forego trial. It might be more profitable to assert they amount to extortion or perverting the course of justice, than to cite ancient statutes that they are deliberately designed to sidestep.
While I understand and can support the attitude of general resistance expressed in this posting, I must say that it is also somewhat misdirected.
By that I mean the suggestion that every contact with the police become a defiant confrontation is much the same as the idea that the best way to deal with a malfunctioning piece of electronics is to go to the store and berate whatever clerk is manning the counter at that moment.
The officer on patrol is not making up either the law or the departmental guidelines given to him by his superiors. While it may be emotionally satisfying to vent at the officer upon contact, the targeting is faulty.
The man or woman on the beat is not responsible for the problem, just as some clerk at the store didn’t design or manufacture your short-circuiting TV.
You need to elevate your aim.
People enforcing laws which abridge basic rights need to know what they are doing it is not alright. “I was only following orders” does not absolve a person from blame.
And from a purely practical point of view, policemen are like anyone else and would rather not take the path of most resistance… if this sort of case is a total pain in the arse because not only will people not co-operate, they will both ‘lawyer up’ and also seek publicity which makes the police look bad, then they will be less willing to enforce such unreasonable laws. The police do not enforce these laws against radical Muslims because they will not meekly put their signs away whern asked. We need to do no less.
Its all very well elevating your aim veryretired, but it has little effect when those you are aiming at are hiding behind bulletproof glass.
My fear is that these abuses will continue until someone decides to disobey uncivilly, at which point they will be branded a terrorist and dissappeared.
Not enough people care, or feel that they can do something about it, for the occasionally disobedience to make any difference.
Does anyone recall a case from Yorkshire a few years back?
An eccentric old boy had done some work on his property without permission from his local council, which was insisting he took it down. He refused, and when they eventually turned up mob handed to pull the thing down, he barricaded himself in the house.
A siege then ensued, which only ended after he shot dead the council planning officer with a World War I Webley revolver.
Obviously, he got life, but I was struck by how many people seemed to be in sympathy with him. I mean, we all know that killing council jobsworths is wrong, but even so, a lot of people seemed to be thinking that he had a point.
The thing about Multiculturalism (and Political Correctness) in Britain today, is that it is all inclusive… except of course if you are white and indigenous to these islands, in which case, you don’t get a look in. And especially if you are white and working class. For example, Islamic extremists can hold up their deeply offensive fascistic signs in the streets of London, in plain view of our police, (and with their consent) but God help you if you protest march on behalf of say, the Countryside Alliance, because you will probably get your f*ckin’ head caved in with a police truncheon. It’s the hypocracy and duplicity of this whole thing that really pisses people off. It makes you feel like a second class citizen in your own damn country.
Nick M
Regarding your point #2… “You might as well call me racist for displaying a sign saying “Kill all Martians!”, I have just read that a British court ruled the using the term ‘foreigners’, directly to another person or OTHERWISE, is in fact racist. What I find the most distressing is the fact that the center of the ‘crime’ lies in what a listener may infer from what a speaker says, rather than what a speaker actually says.
Yes, I saw the film of it. Shot the sucker in the arse he did! Funniest thing I’ve seen in years.
To steal some lyrics from the other side:
“A liber tarian hero is something to be….”
Well, this seems to be getting somewhat fanciful.
People being disappeared? Really.
Get a gun and shoot someone?
Street warfare with the police, Muslims, and anybody else that gets in your way?
Oh, yeah. Those types of actions will certainly improve things.
Get a grip. The quickest way to reach a situation like Argentina’s is the course some here are advocating.
If you can’t generate the intellectual and moral arguments, and public discourse, necessary to change the laws and procedures, taking to the streets to fight the police or shoot some license inspector is a poor second choice.
Want to see people actually disappear? Emulate the Islamicists. Generate a little street warfare. I’ll bet that does the trick. No repression would follow that course of action. No, of course not.
Yeah, right.
The incident involving the council officer getting shot was just over the border in County Durham. The guy had been refused permission to build a house to a certain height on the grounds that it would interfere with the view. So, he dug a hole and built the house in the hole.
As regards the police wasting time I was suitably unreassured that they have found the time to investigate this incident even though no injured party has complained.
Some folks are extrapolating rather too much. I am talking about rather specific ‘offences’ here (i.e. “bollocks to Blair” shirts and the like). Civil disobedience works, folks. What does NOT work is meekly co-operating in your own repression.
She is lucky all they did is ask her to take the sign down. In Australia they would probably have confiscated her dogs and had them put down.
Perry,
And from a purely practical point of view, policemen are like anyone else and would rather not take the path of most resistance… if this sort of case is a total pain in the arse…
Which, I submit, is a key part of the problem. It isn’t and is unlikely to be a pain in the arse. It is in fact the path of least resistance. All the people involved are readily identifiable and available for interview, unlikely to run, disappear, or turn violent. The law is sufficiently broadly drafted as not to offer great difficulties of proof or technical defences. If you “lawyer up” it is no particular concern of the police – you think they aren’t used to it? Even if you are stroppy, you are unlikely to be much trouble by comparison with a yob who’s been through the system many times and has nothing to lose or to fear. It’s perhaps a nuisance in the short term, but ultimately it is the CPS’s problem. And yours, since you are paying.
A nice clear result, neat paperwork, well-allocated crime-numbers and so forth are pretty much guaranteed. Most such cases will be disposed of quickly and all the statments be readily manageable. People will keep appointments and turn up to court because they have something to lose by not doing so. Further, it is legitimate displacement activity away from frustrating, dispiriting, unpleasant, and quite possibly dangerous, activity involving yer actual criminal classes.
Given more and more victimless crimes and failures of bureaucratic compliance by otherwise gentle members of the public to be policed, it would take a policeman of extraordinary cussedness (with tolerant superiors) to ignore the institutional biases and targets, ignore complaints and requests from other authorities, and only attempt to deal with gangsters and other difficult crimes.
I was at a presentation by some credit experts yesterday. They introduced a policeman whom they said was the only one they had ever known to pursue and successfully prosecute attempted identity theft. It’s time-consuming and very difficult, and contributes nothing significant to performance targets or PR – so mostly, and understandably, they cannot be bothered. You use your time, whatever you do, in the way that produces most effect.
So do you suggest we do Guy? Just submit?
Honestly? If you don’t mind the heat, Texas is a nice place. I’m sorry to say but I believe unless there is a major change, Europe, including the UK is a lost cause. I remember in the early 90s in Germany, my turkish landlord in a rare moment of openess telling me and my ex wife “you should convert to Islam, it will save you much trouble in the future, all europe will soon be Islamic.” Well, when they can say monstrous things and mean them, with police protecting their right to do so, while a tounge in cheek joke gets someone threatened with arrest, perhaps the time has come to get out while you can.
Resistanzistas do not have to be angry or hateful to the police. Just calmly explain your position and intention, then calmly cooperate while being arrested.
Then, when you go to court, wear your
“SALMON…the Other Pink Meat”
t shirt!!!
If accused of misogyny, argue that you’re actually a certifiable gynophiliac. LOL
-A heads up on the Jehovah Witness-
There is no Armageddon that will annihilate 6.5 billion people,and install Watchtower leaders as world rulers.
The core dogma of the Watchtower organization is that Jesus had his second coming ‘invisibly’ in the year 1914.Their entire doctrinal superstructure is built on this falsehood.
Jehovah’s Witnesses door to door recruitment is by their own admission an ineffective tactic. They have lost membership in all countries with major Internet access because their false doctrines and harmful practices are exposed on the modern information superhighway.
There is good and valid reasons why there is such an outrage against the Watchtower for misleading millions of followers.Many have invested everything in the ‘imminent’ apocalyptic promises of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have died broken and beaten.
Every Jehovah’s Witness member will grow old and die just like everyone else.
—-
Danny Haszard Bangor Maine ‘expert witness on the Jehovah’s Witness’
The incident involving the council officer getting shot was just over the border in County Durham.
My apologies. I had it in mind that he was a Yorkshireman because he demonstrated those qualities of cussed individualism that one tends to associate with that county, though I concede he went a little far on that occasion. Still, if more council jobsworths had to consider the faint possibility that they might get shot at once in a while, they might at least be a bit more circumspect.
There you go again Haszard. Why don’t you get a life?