Living in a democracy

Toleration of minority interests

Living in a democracy affords us some eccentricities in defending the rights of minority interest groups that many might abhor. I do not condone the behaviour or beliefs of some of the people illustrated in this John Sweeny report in The Sunday Times, but they certainly need to benefit from some re-education.

Am I free to call them just a bunch of holocaust denying nutters?

Don’t clang your spoons

A reminder of Binns in King Street, South Shields

I had a wry chuckle at this little story in the Daily Mail, of a tea shop owner battling to save English manners and etiquette, in his quest to preserve the civilized cup of tea!

The whole atmosphere of the story takes me back to images of pink and blue rinsed little old dears sipping cups of Earl Grey and Darjeeling in the little restaurant on the top of floor of the old Binns departmental store in King Street, South Shields. The favourite accompaniment to the tea was a toasted teacake with “real” Lurpack slightley salted butter dripping from it. Divine!

It was a haunt frequented by some of South Shields most socially respected ladies of the day, I often met up with Marjory Cox, Chairwoman of the Conservative Association there, where she viewed it as an ideal location to get away from those “dreadful women who ran the Ladies Tea Club” at the HQ in Westoe Road. (They were the terrible ladies who raised the majority of the money and stuffed most of the envelopes at election time!)

Oh yes, good manners and decorum are sadly missed!

Talking of Freedom.

EC to pass sinister law that destroys freedom of expression

There are some nut cases around, we know there are, there always will be, some people are delusional and always will be, some people just can’t think straight, we have to accept that, it’s just human nature. However, because they might now and then produce delusional or dangerous rantings we don’t go around screaming for them to be locked in prisons, do we?

Sometimes we might say things in the heat of the moment and have regrets later, we don’t expect to put in prison for that, do we? There are times when some of us think in terms of conspiracy theories and get a little paranoid about them, should we be jailed for that?

There are some poor individuals who contend that the holocaust during WWll never happened, O.K. they are a bit loopy, but are they criminals?

I hope you have been able to answer NO to my questions, because that’s the sort of freedom of speech (in some of it’s more extreme forms) that we have been able to enjoy for centuries, yet now the whole concept of freedom of speech and expression is under massive attack. The EC Commission is about to pass laws that make denying or trivialising the Holocaust a criminal offence punishable by jail sentences and will be introduced across the European Union, according to a proposal expecting to win backing from ministers Thursday. Offenders will face up to three years in jail under the proposed legislation, which will also apply to inciting violence against ethnic, religious or national groups. It sounds innocuous but it’s ramifications will be massive for journalists, commentators, bloggers, and individuals, it has implications too for the employers of people who exercise their right to freedom of expression, penalties include the compulsory winding up of the company!

Bloggers could find themselves hamstrung by these laws as they apply to authors partially or fully inside the EC boundaries and information systems hosted outside of those boundaries. The issue has been blogged about today by Iain Dale, Tim Worstall, and The Devil’s Kitchen, amongst others. If holocaust denial and incitement to cause violence or hatred against certain minorities is the beginning, then where will the end be?

Shall I be locked away for expressing my opinions on the sanity of the EC Commission and it’s “Prince of Darkness” Mandelson, or will it be an offence to express hatred for anything and everything that a political party or group decides to pursue - especially if that group is based within an ethnic minority?

These are dangerous times, and you and I have little or no control over the unelected EC Commissioners!

Update 09:17 20th. April 

Today’s Daily Telegraph picks up on the story and quotes David Davies;

“We don’t need yet more law to combat racial hatred and incitement to violence. We already have British law dating back to 1861.”

Holocaust

Remember The Holocaust

This week sees the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz camp by elements of the Russian army in 1945, which pre-saged the discovery of shocking evidence of the Nazi regime’s determined attempt to eliminate an entire race of people. What became known as the “Final Solution” was one of mankind’s greatest criminal acts aganst it’s own, the face of evil had been exposed to the world.

These websites provide further information and education;

Auschwitz - free dictionary
Auschwitz museum
The Auschwitz album

“Those who cannot remember the past will be condemned to repeat it.”