Guarded Reason

In response to: "Put Your Own House In Order First" 1226 days old
by ViEiRA [Member]

I totally agree. Sometimes I'm not brave enough to speak out what I truly feel about this issue, because there is such hysteria over it.

I clicked on your blog because of your avatar and was delighted to find another socialist blogger! Were you at Marxism last weekend? I was stewarding:)

God bless, Jenni xx more…

In response to: "Diagnosing Imperialism: No 5, Patient Believes Their Actions Are Beyond Question" 1334 days old
by Vort1gern [Member]

If only he would take that logic to its inevitable conclusion - proof that Blair is undergoing some sort of psychotic episode and can't think rationally. more…

In response to: "New Labour, Mediaeval Decision Making" 1350 days old
by  [Visitor]

Napoleon

'What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I:
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky;
Soldiers, this solitude
Through which we go
Is I.'

Walter De La Mare more…

In response to: "Playtime" 1353 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

the old mutually assured destruction doctrine. sounded good but it was predicated on leaders being psychotic enough to fire them first if they weren't stopped. fortunately the evidence of history is that they haven't actually been that mad. india had a bomb before pakistan even had a blue-print, china was years behind russia who was years be more…

In response to: "Playtime" 1354 days old
by Alexa1000 [Member]

I am taken back to some political science class and a lesson on mutual deterrents. Basically meaning if you can annihilate me and mine and I can annihilate you and yours, then neither of us will press the button to do so.

Scary game used to keep one's enemies in check. I would love a world without weapons! more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1355 days old
by KarenF [Member]

I don't think it is a simple as that though. You can make a law against rapists and murderers. You can make a law against inciting people to murder or rape. You can't really make a law against saying things that in some particular cases would encourage some people to murder and rape. Most law is based on what the 'reasonable person' would assume to more…

In response to: "New Labour, Mediaeval Decision Making" 1356 days old
by  [Visitor]

Blair is crazy, you are right. How can we get him committed under the mental health act. more…

In response to: "New Labour, Mediaeval Decision Making" 1356 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

what makes you think you'd be in front ? they're god's soldiers, you know, straight to the "pre-paid counter" for them. more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1356 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

no, the strategy of the anl was to stop them before they were able to influence many people. it did what you did at upton park but on a large scale. i think it really comes down to accepting or not accepting the link between those, like irving, that provide comfort and encouragement to nazis and the deaths of their victims. i think this is e more…

In response to: "New Labour, Mediaeval Decision Making" 1356 days old
by KarenF [Member]

I used to think I was screwed if Christians were right and there was Judgement. Now I'm just going to be careful where I stand in line. 'You think I'm bad, just wait 'til you see the next two - and they both said *you* made them do it!' more…

In response to: "Lying for a Living" 1356 days old
by KarenF [Member]

Did you hear Margaret Beckett on 'Today' this morning? She had the nerve to whinge that it was despicable that people could possibly think that Jowell had left her husband as a career move. Just why does she think people assume that? It's because we've learned that *that is the way New Labour works*. They're a bunch of lying, snivelling toadies who more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1356 days old
by KarenF [Member]

In a way you've kind of undermined your own argument here, in that it wasn't anything to do with restricting free speech that stopped the BNP; it was the backlash against what they were saying. That's what I think about this type of person - let them say what they like and show how dangerous and vile they are. I'm not sure that Muslims advocating S more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1359 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

quite agree about the dangers of the law being used against the wrong people which is why i don't advocate the law as the solution (just happy that, by chance, its got irving out of circulation). the bnp weren't stopped in london by the law but by the anti-nazi league organising protests against them (somewhere i have a charred scrap of a union jac more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1359 days old
by KarenF [Member]

You know, I kind of agree with you. But there's still this nagging doubt and I'm sure you can convince me otherwise, so I shall voice it!

First on our current 'censorship': we censor what our children watch because they are not yet old enough to make that judgement for themselves. I'd presume that we'll all be relaxing that censorship more…

In response to: "Lying for a Living" 1359 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

it fascinates me that many people demand high standards of morality from the people they know and even more so from people who are trying to change things but, as you say, accept the most appalling standards from the establishment. i think you're right, they feel powerless to change things and so end up actually defending the indefensible. i'm not more…

In response to: "Lying for a Living" 1359 days old
by deleted user [Visitor]

I think the simple answer is because we have learned to accept it without complaint...

The lack of success of the anti-war and Countryside Alliance protests, where a million people marching made not the slightest differesnce to policy, has also effected the was that we see our powerlessness.

Most pople can't even be bothe more…

In response to: "Our Freedom and Theirs" 1361 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

i agree he's dogmatic. he's written that he couldn't imagine being an atheist before 1863 (the year darwin, after much agonising, finally published his work on evolution). it seems that dawkins thinks there couldn't be any other serious and rigourous reason to reject religion than darwin's work. whatever you think of marx, nobody could say he didn' more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1361 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

well thats the "end doesn't justify the means" argument. its an abstract one. i don't think we can disarm ourselves on the grounds that someone bad, like a stalin or a hitler, could do the same as us to achieve something undesirable. people are already deciding what is acceptable and what isn't and, as vort1gern said above, we already don't have ab more…

In response to: "more cops and robbers" 1361 days old
by  [Visitor]

LOL! Eat yer heart out, Chief Wiggam! hehe wonder who gave him the promotion? more…

In response to: "Our Freedom and Theirs" 1362 days old
by Vort1gern [Member]

Well said, sir. I kind of got stuck on that odious gargoyle Goldsmith, but your comments on Hitchens and all the assumptions brouht to the programme are well put. more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1362 days old
by KarenF [Member]

Right, I've finally decided what I think about this, so hence my very late comment!

I'm thinking more and more that freedom of speech *has* to be absolute - because otherwise someone is deciding what is ok and what isn't. The reasons they will give will *always* be that what a person is saying is dangerous to society. This was the rea more…

In response to: "Our Freedom and Theirs" 1362 days old
by KarenF [Member]

Haha! I think we were shouting at the TV at the same time! The miners were brutally treated by the police - as were the pregnant women hit in the stomach by police when all they were doing was going to Stonehenge for Solstice.

The other problem with DNA is that it will mean police don't investigate properly - they'll just go for the ea more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1362 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

hah ! i'd been thinking of suggesting that as a joke more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1362 days old
by Alexa1000 [Member]

lol I used to be a psychiatric nurse (RN was my first profession) more…

In response to: "Cops and Robbers" 1363 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

yeah, i expect they're all breathing a sigh of relief cos they didn't actually cause this one. what they do about it though might be another matter... more…

In response to: "Democracy, Free Speech and Fascism" 1363 days old
by Vort1gern [Member]

We don't have "freedom of speech" - and rightly so. If we did, anyone with half a brain cell would be allowed to spout whatever malevolent crap they liked, no matter how offensive or prejudiced it was.

People still do, but in a public forum at least they have to couch it in terms that try and make it into a cogent argument or else it's more…

In response to: "An Attack on Democracy" 1363 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

can't deny any of that but still say the bigger picture is more important. the right still see him as a lefty and they are happy to bypass democracy - ours, not livingstone's - in order to get his scalp. more…

In response to: "An Attack on Democracy" 1363 days old
by Vort1gern [Member]

I see Livingstone's been making up for lost time with his cheap travel by hiking prices through the roof though. I don't know what size war chest he was required to present in order to be accepted into the bosom of New Labour (or is it all going on the private C-charge firm?) but between that and paying Bob Kiley thousand for doing fuck all, I thin more…

In response to: "Cops and Robbers" 1363 days old
by KarenF [Member]

Tessa Jowell must be very grateful for bird flu. I'm so sick of how Avian flu is all the media care about. more…

In response to: "History, Liberals and Nazis in Suits" 1363 days old
by richard_arnold [Member]

alexa, i see you got more sense out of steph and rob than i managed - you must have highly developed people skills... more…