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The importance of defiance

· UK affairs

Here is a project I certainly welcome called We are not afraid. The message is simple, worth repeating and lets you do strange things with a camera.

July 13th, 2005 |

17 comments to The importance of defiance

  • David Crawford
    July 13, 2005 at 10:59 am

    So, de Haviland, why no praise for how quickly Scotland Yard, and other law enforcement agencies, cracked this case? Oh, that’s right, that approaches that icky concept of praising the state, something that would send you to bed with tummy-aches the rest of your life.

    I know, I know, the libertarian solution would have been waiting for private citizens, acting as private investigators, to snoop out the details. (Reference: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple. etc.)

  • GCooper
    July 13, 2005 at 11:31 am

    David Crawford writes:

    “…why no praise for how quickly Scotland Yard, and other law enforcement agencies, cracked this case?”

    Oh, come off it. It’s not so very hard to find the culprit when they leave their calling card.

    More to the point, why didn’t MI5/Special Branch know in advance?

  • Johnathan
    July 13, 2005 at 11:36 am

    David Crawford, many libertarians like yours truly support the need for a state and for police, although as Perry as said before, how exactly would ID cards, for example, help us track down home-grown killers?

    In any event, vigilance by ordinary citizens is likely to prove an essential feature of dealing with this issue. We cannot expect to contract out the job to Pc Plod, so spare us the sarcasm.

  • Andrew Ian Dodge
    July 13, 2005 at 11:41 am

    DC: Where were these bombers local communities? These evil cretins didn’t just decide to go kill as many infidels as possible overnight?

    As Johnathan all these guys would have had ID cards and the cards would not have stopped the bombings.

  • Perry de Havilland
    July 13, 2005 at 11:47 am

    What a preposterous remark, Crawford. I have never taken such a view and regard law enforcement in such matters and defence as amongst the few legitimate roles of a state. Kindly critisise me for what I write (it is not hard to discover my views on pretty much anything), not your half arsed assumptions of that you think my position must be based on your weak understanding of ‘libertarianism’ (not that I really use the term much regarding my views).

    In any case it takes a bit more that drawing chalk lines around the bodies and saying “Al Qaeda dunnit” for us to say this has been “cracked”. It will be ‘cracked’ when they have rolled up Al Qaeda’s presence in the country (assuming they are actually allowed to).

  • GCooper
    July 13, 2005 at 11:49 am

    Perry de Havilland writes:

    “… (assuming they are actually allowed to).”

    And that’s the bit that worries me.

  • verity
    July 13, 2005 at 2:06 pm

    David Crawford, both Perry and Jonathan have been perfectly constant in allowing that there is a role for the state in protecting society – as in domestic policing and the military protecting our intersts.

    Yes, G Cooper, that bit worried me too. What also worries me is that Tony Moron is “shocked” that the bombers were born in Britain. Why would that be? Even with all his access to secret information, why was he the only person in Britain who didn’t realise the bombers had probably been born in this country? Isn’t that a bit of a worry?

    Worse is to come: now that the fact that the bombers were born in Britain (I do not use the word British) has made its way into his brain, he will be busy thinking about volumes of new concessions he can make to the Muslims so they won’t feel so put upon.

    Look for drastic new curtailments of your rights inorder to accommodate Moslim sensibilities.

  • Jacob
    July 13, 2005 at 2:43 pm

    This “we are not afraid” site Perry linked to is pure nonesense (benign nonesense, kumbaya… ).

    Be afraid, be very afraid !

    Maybe it will cause citizens to pressure Government, and Government to actually do something to protect the citizens – like uprooting the extremist muslim cells in Britain instead of trying to appease them as it did so far.

  • Verity
    July 13, 2005 at 3:12 pm

    Jacob – Tony Blair is an appeaser. He is not confrontational. He cannot bring himself to fire anyone because he doesn’t like confrontation and he doesn’t want to be disliked by the person he would fire (if he could bring himself to do it). Some people in the cabinet simply refused to go to the new briefs he assigned them when he got re-elected, and he accepted this display of impudence with a shrug.

    Tony Blair is an appeaser. He is afraid to confront the Muslims. He would rather appease them, even as their demands become ever more rigorous.

    He is an appeaser. He gives in. Tony Blair surrenders. Do not expect Tony Blair to do anything about terrorism in Britain except appease the Muslims and the mullahs and make ever more draconian laws against “incitement to religious hatred” or whatever, at the command of the mullahs, who he will continue to appease.

    Has no one figured it out yet, after nine years? Tony Blair is a coward.

    What is more, he is run by his wife.

  • Shtetl G
    July 13, 2005 at 5:41 pm

    A big plus in favor of wearenotafraid.com is how much it pisses off the hoity toity New York Times reading crowd (and I’m sure there equvalent in the UK):

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/design/12boxe.html?ex=1278820800&en=e3b2072c5990cea8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

    Possibly (maybe, ok doubtfully) the dumbest thing ever written in the NY times.

  • EU-Serf
    July 13, 2005 at 6:44 pm

    ….and I’m sure there equvalent in the UK….

    Yes they read the Guardian.

  • guy herbert
    July 13, 2005 at 8:42 pm

    Me, I’m annoyed the tubes aren’t running properly and that I’m paying for a vast amount of police overtime not connected with the investigation, mostly standing around chatting while “guarding” things. And then there is Parliament planning to put up the steel security fencing it has previously rejected. Not terribly defiant.

    What worries me about “we are not afraid” is that it sounds like some new age affirmation, being repeated by a public to try and persuade itself.

    Rather like people who begin remarks, “I’m not racist…” they are the one’s bringing up the subject. Nobody asked, “Are you afraid?”

  • CRL
    July 14, 2005 at 2:22 am

    Well, they’re not really the ones bringing it up. The site was begun in response to osama bin laden preaching “The nation of Britain is crazy with fear from the North to the South, and so we will soon prevail over these cowards” or words to that effect.

  • Monique
    July 14, 2005 at 3:40 am

    Is Tony Blair going to order mandatory female cirmcumcision and purdah when they request it of him?

    Coward.

    Of course, my own “dear leader” Paul Martin isn’t so different. Why do we keep electing these mountebanks?

  • Julian Taylor
    July 14, 2005 at 8:45 am

    Today’s Sun echoes the ‘We Are Not Afraid’ sentiment rather nicely as well.

  • Verity
    July 14, 2005 at 2:41 pm

    Monique – “we” don’t keep electing mountebanks and cheap fakers like Blair. As the Opposition fails to put forward anyone who can offer an alternative programme that isn’t a pale wannabee of Labour authoritarianism, “we” don’t vote at all. Blair got in by default. Not because the British wanted him.

  • Julian Taylor
    July 15, 2005 at 11:12 am

    Or, in another more direct way … this [LINK] possibly puts the message across slightly more directly ..

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