polite_gandalf wrote on Jul 4
th, 2013 at 10:36am:
Whats funny about this Y, is that if you had your way muslims and muslim sympathisers would be routinely barred from entering western countries like the UK.
Personally I have no problem with keeping out sh!t stirers.
I do. The UK has traditionally been a refuge for those exiles with uncomfortable views. Sh!t stirrers should definitely be kept out in a time of war, but the UK isn't in that situation, no matter what the knuckleheads try to argue.
Jihadwatch should have every right to do speaking tours if they don't break vilification laws. Radical clerics continue to speak out in the UK, and are justly howled down. To me, banning Jihadwatch reads as appeasing the Muslim community. I would prefer that this "community" had the opportunity to mount an argument against Jihadwatch's more ridiculous claims.
In my experience, extremist groups only speak to the converted, The danger here is that the converted feel compelled to commit violence. Europe has a huge problem with football violence, particularly in Eastern Europe. Much of this is now being directed at Muslim immigrants. Well, ANY immigrants. Crowds don't discriminate, as we saw in the Cronulla riots.
I'm not sure if speakers like Geert Wilders, Jihadwatch, etc, speak to this audience, but their presence justifies it. Also, these groups integrate and form power blocks - the Republican Party/Christian lobby in the US; the British National Party and various fringe groups in the UK. Due to their networking, fundraising and propaganda, these groups have entered into the mainstream. Groups like Jihadwatch form an opportunity for rallying the faithful, and while this may well be dangerous to democracy, it's part of democracy. It's how democracy functions.
The big difference, of course, is their tactics. You've outlined them in this thread and the old boy has articulated them well: joining the dots. This is how power and knowledge is organized, but in this case, it's a form of knowledge based on lies.
And look how hard they are to challenge - you can expose the lie, but they'll say it refers to an abstract truth. Y and the old boy even blame the lies on the source of the "truth". It's their fault for being Moslems. They deserve it. Tit for tat.
As impossible as it is, I don't think banning the lies i(or their dissemination) is the way to stop them. They just have to be chipped away at, one by one. They have to be questioned, fact-checked, sourced. I'm continually amazed at how willing people are to accept the most ridiculous proposals. The suspension of disbelief is often staggering, based as it is on abstract visual media like Fox News, viral emails and internet hate sites. The medium is the message.
Call me old fashioned, but how can these groups be banned? Jihadwatch is far more powerful on the internet than it would ever be on a speaker's podium in the UK. A few hundred seats at some conservative think-tank function versus millions on the net.
Back in the 1950s, Australia had a similar debate when Menzies tried to ban the Communist Party. Menzies believed that the Cold War would inevitably heat up. Banning the Communist Party was akin to banning German or Japanese nationalists during WWII.
The Communist Party won the referendum because the electorate believed people should have a right to organize and say what they want. As dangerous as the hate groups may be, they deserve the same privilege.
The more you try to suppress them, the more powerful they become. The British Home Office will only turn such groups into martyrs by banning their entry to the UK. As insidious as they are, their freedom of speech should be defended.
Same for Geerty, same for the Muselmen. No one has the right to not be offended, isn't it?
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