... courtesy of Unite Against Fascism. Complaining about the BBC's proposal to invite a BNP representative to appear on Question Time, UAF wrote:
"As a publicly funded body, the BBC in particular has a duty to oppose racism. Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people pay the licence fee too."
Yes, because all Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people agree with your (failed) tactic of refusing to challenge the BNP in debate, do they? And because Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people care more about combating bigotry than everyone else? (So much for uniting against facism.)
Well done UAF, you've just patronised the vast majority of tolerant people in the entire country.
Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
E-cigarettes and the smoking ban
When the smoking ban came in, Lib Dems were split by the issue. You could legitimately use key liberal arguments on either side. I argued the point against Stephen Williams MP at a student meeting - I opposed the ban on the grounds of individual freedom to wreck your own lungs; he supported it on the basis that smoking in public caused unfair risk to others. We were both quoting Mill's famous harm principle on opposite sides of the same debate!
The whole thing was confused even further by the legislation itself, which defined "public place" very widely, including privately-run businesses that were open to the public. That made it even harder to find the dividing-line between personal rights and public menace.
The device that's now in the news is the e-cigarette, a fake cigarette which lets you inhale a fine mist of pure nicotine. Currently unregulated in the UK, various campaign groups (including ASH) are calling for selling restrictions similar to those in place for cigarettes.
The key difference between an e-cigarette and the real thing is that the e-cigarette poses no risk to others in the vicinity. It doesn't pump smoke, tar, or carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. The only person who might be harmed is the person using it. On that basis, I'd argue that any regulation should be very light. Subject to the usual health and safety rules that you'd expect, there's no good reason for making it difficult to get hold of and "smoke" these devices.
The whole thing was confused even further by the legislation itself, which defined "public place" very widely, including privately-run businesses that were open to the public. That made it even harder to find the dividing-line between personal rights and public menace.
The device that's now in the news is the e-cigarette, a fake cigarette which lets you inhale a fine mist of pure nicotine. Currently unregulated in the UK, various campaign groups (including ASH) are calling for selling restrictions similar to those in place for cigarettes.
The key difference between an e-cigarette and the real thing is that the e-cigarette poses no risk to others in the vicinity. It doesn't pump smoke, tar, or carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. The only person who might be harmed is the person using it. On that basis, I'd argue that any regulation should be very light. Subject to the usual health and safety rules that you'd expect, there's no good reason for making it difficult to get hold of and "smoke" these devices.
Friday, 11 April 2008
The three-year-old terrorist from Dorset
Poole Borough Council has just admitted using anti-terror laws to spy on a family. Who were these neighbours from hell, you may ask. Did they stand accused of stockpiling nitroglycerine? Hijacking a superjumbo? Receiving illicit shipments of heroin from Poole Harbour at 4am, and donating the proceeds to Hezbollah?
No. They were suspected of lying about their address, to get their three-year-old daughter into a better school.
Now, this may well be a gross overreaction by one individual local authority, and I'm sure the government will try to write it off as the work of one loony council, rather than a fault with the legislation. But there's an important lesson for our MPs: if you want to vote in greater powers to curtail our civil freedoms, just ask yourselves who else might be using those powers. I'm sure MPs who back 42-day detention assume it'll be used under the watchful eye of Labour. But who has a good enough crystal ball to predict the day when a corrupt or even a malevolent government (as opposed to merely a misguided one) will walk into Downing Street?
This case from Dorset brings home an even more scary lesson - it doesn't even need evil people to be in power for this sort of legislation to be abused. It only takes a handful of well-meaning second-grade local politicians with a major common sense deficit.
No. They were suspected of lying about their address, to get their three-year-old daughter into a better school.
Now, this may well be a gross overreaction by one individual local authority, and I'm sure the government will try to write it off as the work of one loony council, rather than a fault with the legislation. But there's an important lesson for our MPs: if you want to vote in greater powers to curtail our civil freedoms, just ask yourselves who else might be using those powers. I'm sure MPs who back 42-day detention assume it'll be used under the watchful eye of Labour. But who has a good enough crystal ball to predict the day when a corrupt or even a malevolent government (as opposed to merely a misguided one) will walk into Downing Street?
This case from Dorset brings home an even more scary lesson - it doesn't even need evil people to be in power for this sort of legislation to be abused. It only takes a handful of well-meaning second-grade local politicians with a major common sense deficit.
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