“Liberal, democratic” is something that we’re all in favour of. It’s the definition of those words which is the difficulty. The older and correct meaning of liberal would have us all doing whatever the hell we want as long as our doing so doesn’t impact upon the rights of others to do the same. A regulatory system which bans large motors on vacuum cleaners for our own good is not liberal in this sense. We also can’t throw the bastards out so it’s not democratic.
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Sometimes I think maybe I’m becoming too strict as I age. Maybe this is all a natural evolution of a technology. But I can’t close my eyes to what’s happening: A loss of intellectual power and diversity, and on the great potentials it could have for our troubled time. In the past, the web was powerful and serious enough to land me in jail. Today it feels like little more than entertainment. So much that even Iran doesn’t take some — Instagram, for instance — serious enough to block. I miss when people took time to be exposed to different opinions, and bothered to read more than a paragraph or 140 characters. I miss the days when I could write something on my own blog, publish on my own domain, without taking an equal time to promote it on numerous social networks; when nobody cared about likes and reshares. That’s the web I remember before jail. That’s the web we have to save. – Hossein Derakhshan, who is speaking at State of the Net in Trieste today June 15th, 2018 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 What is more, if I want to hold lectures or seminars on the topic of empire, I will do so privately, since I cannot be sure that my critics will behave civilly. On one occasion recently, I held a day-conference to discuss Bruce Gilley’s controversial article, “The Case for Colonialism,” and found myself having to use pseudonyms to hide the identities of some participants. One young scholar only attended on condition that his name nowhere appear on print, nor his face on any photograph, lest his senior colleagues find out and kill his career. What this shows is that the legal right to freedom of speech is not enough. What’s also needed are colleagues who are willing to conduct themselves according to informal norms of civility and responsible, rational exchange. Clearly some colleagues are not so willing. So the question is, will middle-managers in universities—faculty and college heads—do anything to uphold norms of civility against colleagues who trample over them, or will they abrogate their civic responsibility and off-load it onto the courts? June 11th, 2018 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am not entirely out of sympathy with the Francis Turner view of Tommy Robinson ‘doing a Gandhi’, but not entirely convinced either (in that Gandhi never denied he was indeed breaking the law, whereas Robinson seemed rather surprised when he was arrested). And like Francis Turner, I agree that even if Robinson is a ‘racist’ these days (and I have no deeply held views on that, but suspect he is not), it does not in and of itself mean many of the points he has raised are wrong. But I also have grave objections to how this whole thing has been reported by people on the ‘Right’, usually the same people who keep telling me (an actual resident of London, and someone who contrary to rumours does venture out of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, into the trackless wastes of North End Road, Camden, Bermondsey & Hackney, all without encountering burqua-police), that London is Londonistan & women are fearful of going out in short skirts these days… and not just in Salafist blighted Tower Hamlets, but pretty much everywhere. It is quite simply, a steaming pile of arrant nonsense that anyone wandering around London on a sunny day can see for themselves. My reaction to the reporting on L’Affaire Tommy Robinson on many sites was part of my journey from being a Mark Steyn fanboy to someone who thinks he & several others like him who I once widely admired, have become people I am not willing to automatically trust anymore. When they are right they are right, and when they are not, they are not. Yes, my reactions to the mass rapes in certain working-class areas like Rotherham (to name but one) and the utterly not-fit-for-purpose police & political establishment was in many ways like their reactions, but my notions of how to make sure it does not keep happening again and again is different. I do not think the ‘Right’ should become like a mirror image of the SJW Left, inventing their own facts. I do not think the ‘solution’ to identity politics & institutions being rotted from the inside by political correctness, is a different set of identity politics ostensibly pushing the other way, but rather an attack on all identity politics. So, the reason I am unsympathetic to undeniably ghastly rapists going unpunished due to the establishment’s fear of being accused of ‘racism’ & ‘Islamophobia’, is the same reason I am not very sympathetic to Tommy Robinson, the designated ‘good guy’, getting a free pass for possibly prejudicial shenanigans around a courthouse. Might a character more sympathetic to the establishment sensibilities have merely been warned away instead? Possibly so, but that would just be another example of the system not working, rather than a good thing. Either justice is blind or it is not justice at all. Yes, Islam (and indeed everything else) must not be beyond criticism. But that does not mean everyone who engages in much needed criticism of Islam should themselves be immune to criticism if they also make unwise choices. June 4th, 2018 | 86 comments - (Comments are closed)
I found this amusing…
So as the DUP have said anti-abotion Catholics who usually support Sinn Fein might vote DUP due to the issue of abortion, it would appear that the DUP and the Sinn Fein spokeman both agree with the contention that “The issue of abortion is not a Unionist versus Nationalist issue.” 🤣 June 3rd, 2018 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Holocaust denial is, of course, completely irrational, has no basis in historical fact, and is almost always motivated by deep-seated racism. But there are no specific laws against Holocaust denial in the UK. Britain has even resisted attempts to enforce an EU directive outlawing Holocaust denial. In 2008, British courts prevented the extradition of suspected Holocaust denier Frederick Toben to Germany. No matter how abhorrent Holocaust denial is, there are important reasons not to ban it in law. Deborah Lipstadt, who successfully defended a libel suit from the notorious Holocaust denier, David Irving, argues against giving politicians ‘the power to legislate history’. Banning Holocaust denial simply turns deniers into martyrs. It should be defeated by the facts, not by the law, argues Lipstadt. May 31st, 2018 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
What I found particularly annoying is the degree to which certain commentators elevated the importance of Meghan Markle’s race. If the media hadn’t told me, and then not shut up about it for months, I would never have guessed she was the daughter of a black mother and white father. To me, she looks as much Spanish, or Italian, or Lebanese as mixed-race American. Her mother simply looks like someone you’d see shopping in Marks & Spencers in Croydon, so why anyone should think her race is even worth mentioning I don’t know. Actually, I do: it’s because some people think race is the be-all and end-all (e.g. David Lammy, Katie Hopkins), and others simply took the opportunity to virtue-signal, rubbing people’s nose in the subject of immigration. May 20th, 2018 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am a radical on Town & Country planning as on other economic issues. I would abolish it. To me it is offensive that the value of a man’s land is stripped from him by laws that deny him the right to put it to its highest and best use without grovelling to local politicians in thrall to his envious neighbours. May 17th, 2018 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
May 13th, 2018 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
There’s a conference called A Conservative Renaissance in London today. But I can’t see any renaissance coming to pass whilst the Conservative party is being run by a Blairite. Before any rebirth, the old order needs to die, and given the dire threats we face from within, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for them to literally pop their clogs, so the sooner the better. – A certain Tory who shall not be named. I made a somewhat similar observation myself. May 12th, 2018 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I saw a fascinating letter in the Continental Telegraph to Agatha Antigone asking for advice. There is something about it that makes me strongly suspect I know who the man of wealth and taste seeking wise counsel is… any ideas? 🤣😂😜 May 9th, 2018 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
No, no, not eating Irish children, this is 2018 (not that I have anything against grass-fed Irish children), but rather a modest proposal to ensure national unity:
Seems perfectly reasonable to me 🤪 May 8th, 2018 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
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