I am not entirely out of sympathy with the Francis Turner view of Tommy Robinson ‘doing a Gandhi’, but not entirely convinced either (in that Gandhi never denied he was indeed breaking the law, whereas Robinson seemed rather surprised when he was arrested). And like Francis Turner, I agree that even if Robinson is a ‘racist’ these days (and I have no deeply held views on that, but suspect he is not), it does not in and of itself mean many of the points he has raised are wrong.
But I also have grave objections to how this whole thing has been reported by people on the ‘Right’, usually the same people who keep telling me (an actual resident of London, and someone who contrary to rumours does venture out of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, into the trackless wastes of North End Road, Camden, Bermondsey & Hackney, all without encountering burqua-police), that London is Londonistan & women are fearful of going out in short skirts these days… and not just in Salafist blighted Tower Hamlets, but pretty much everywhere. It is quite simply, a steaming pile of arrant nonsense that anyone wandering around London on a sunny day can see for themselves.
My reaction to the reporting on L’Affaire Tommy Robinson on many sites was part of my journey from being a Mark Steyn fanboy to someone who thinks he & several others like him who I once widely admired, have become people I am not willing to automatically trust anymore. When they are right they are right, and when they are not, they are not.
Yes, my reactions to the mass rapes in certain working-class areas like Rotherham (to name but one) and the utterly not-fit-for-purpose police & political establishment was in many ways like their reactions, but my notions of how to make sure it does not keep happening again and again is different. I do not think the ‘Right’ should become like a mirror image of the SJW Left, inventing their own facts. I do not think the ‘solution’ to identity politics & institutions being rotted from the inside by political correctness, is a different set of identity politics ostensibly pushing the other way, but rather an attack on all identity politics.
So, the reason I am unsympathetic to undeniably ghastly rapists going unpunished due to the establishment’s fear of being accused of ‘racism’ & ‘Islamophobia’, is the same reason I am not very sympathetic to Tommy Robinson, the designated ‘good guy’, getting a free pass for possibly prejudicial shenanigans around a courthouse. Might a character more sympathetic to the establishment sensibilities have merely been warned away instead? Possibly so, but that would just be another example of the system not working, rather than a good thing. Either justice is blind or it is not justice at all.
Yes, Islam (and indeed everything else) must not be beyond criticism. But that does not mean everyone who engages in much needed criticism of Islam should themselves be immune to criticism if they also make unwise choices.
How odd Perry – you are normally keen to say people should “link” to articles, but you forget to link to the Mark Steyn article in question. Nor do you point out any factual inaccuracies in the article of Mark Steyn on the case.
As Rod Liddle (hardly a man of the right) pointed out in the Spectator – “Tommy Robinson” (not his real name) did not really say anything outside the courtroom before he was arrested, there was no way at all that he was guilty of a “breach of the peace” (unless filming people in a public place is a “breach of the peace”). The man was a total idiot to plead guilty to “Contempt of Court” a year ago (never plead guilty when you are innocent – never “make a deal” with the state, it will end up with you going to prison for much longer in the end), but that had nothing REALLTY to do with his recent arrest. He was arrested, as Rod Liddle made clear, for being who he is.
Would it be better for the anti Islam movement in the United Kingdom to be represented by someone less uneducated than “Tommy Robinson” – yes, of course it would, as he just walks into every legal trap the state carefully lays for him. However, better educated people (Dr David Wood, Robert Spencer, Lauren Southern, Brittany Pettibone….) are not allowed into the United Kingdom (the government, the real government, does not want anti Islam figures who would be harder to trip up into legal traps) – which leaves us with “Tommy Robinson”. The government, the permanent and unelected government (which, for example, will make sure we stay in the European Union), loves the anti Islam movement to be led by “Tommy Robinson” precisely because he walks into every legal trap they set for him.
“Either justice is blind or it is not justice at all”.
Well “justice” is clearly not “blind” – as it deliberately targeted (over a long period of time) this man, whose real “crime” was talking about mass rape – the mass rape and enslavement of girls that the state (the officials and the POLICE) had been covering up for years.
As “justice” has not been blind (it has been carefully targeted to eliminate a specific individual – there were seven policeman with a wagon just waiting in hope the man would turn up, and other people have been barred from the United Kingdom for the “crime” of wanting to interview him in the past) it is, by your own argument Perry, “not justice at all”.
The most prejudicial behaviour in this whole sorry affair was from the state when it tried to impede justice and stop certain trials happening at all.
Now that same state insists that everyone else fights clean while it reserves the right to fight dirty whenever it wants.
Are any media outlets going to look at what TR actually said, and compare that to how mainsteam media outlets act in regard to trials? I’m not holding my breath.
Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of TR’s behaviour, it is clear that the UK is heading in one direction, and one direction only.
My question to those who traduce Tommy Robinson is what have you done to publicise the mass rape, trafficking, torture and murder of our young white children by muslims?
I did not forget anything, because what I am writing about is not a responce to any specific Mark Steyn article, so the only ‘article in question’ is the one by Francis Turner (which is duly linked). I only even mentioned Steyn because he is emblematic of a whole swathe of very selectively factual ‘on-the-right’ commentators who are mostly on the other side of the Atlantic. The article I am actually focusing on is one by Francis Turner, who I find vastly more interesting than Mark Steyn. So… no appologies from me for not writing a different article, or focusing on the things you would rather I focus on 😉
Except he wasn’t actualy jailed for that now, was he? No.
Who cares? You obviously do but I don’t. I am not part of any ‘anti-Islam movement’, I am against Salafists, against Takfiris, against Wahhabis & vastly more importantly, against the notion of ‘protected groups’ & ‘hate speech’ (i.e. an end to free speech). But I have nothing against Mr. Ahmed & his family running the local corner store. They are Muslims in the same sense many nominal Anglicans are Christians (i.e. not very & in any case it has sod all impact on the wider world). And I implore you, spare me an exegesis about what the Koran says about infidels or Taqiyya, I give as many damns as Mr. Ahmed does as a practical matter, so I like to target my opprobrium more narrowly. I also have nothing against Syed Kamall, who really is a pukka practicing Muslim & if I could wave a magic wand would make a pretty splendid Chancellor of the Exchequer.
So it is unfortunate that Tribune of the People Tommy Robinson made a sacrificial lamb of himself by doing something no reasonable journalist (they do exist) would do. But the argument that banging him up for contempt shouldn’t have been done because it isn’t always done to others, is an argument against the rule of law, yet I know for a fact you are very sound on the importance of the rule of law, Paul. Surely you should be arguing for the law to be applied more robustly to everyone rather than even less so, no?
Now THAT I agree with! I actually think whole swathes of local authority people & police responsible for Rotherham etc. should not just be out of a job but also belong in jail
“The man was a total idiot to plead guilty to “Contempt of Court” a year ago (never plead guilty when you are innocent – never “make a deal” with the state, it will end up with you going to prison for much longer in the end)”
Tell Stuart Hall about it.
Amongst the oldest of the slebs and first up, the likely fear of dying in jail was likely played on by our monkey-suited friends. Which (that or something) possibly induced him to deal and plead guilty. Thus the quality of the “evidence” against him was never brought to light or test in the courtroom.
They then shafted him with a mob rule increase on his sentence.
Because the CPS wanted to set the pattern for subsequent trials.Monsters who deserve no mercy.
Fortunately the next two were made of sterner stuff and the state’s attempts to “prove” guilt in the face of the absolute piffle they had as “evidence” failed miserably . Leaving the entire Yewtree caper near collapse. Another acquittal would have done it.
At that point The Bulk ordered in their best femmi-legal talent (previously on complex fraud capers) and replaced fatuous “facts” by a legal theatre blubfest and cashing in on the fact that a man of 84 I believe ( ie Rolf) could not remember exactly what towns he’d been in and when from 40 years before.
That is how the state rolls when CM wants a piece of you. With Mr Robinson we see how it rolls when it wants a cover-up of crimes that embarrass it.
Well as someone hopefully arguing for a long over due return to the impartially applied rule of law (given your choice of words I do not take that as a given), are you against the very notion of contempt of court?
You are right that the Robinson story is largely a distraction. The real story is that the Muslim grooming gangs and their police and judicial collaborators are procuring children for the elite pedophile rings in Parliament, the BBC, the Civil Service and, likely, the British military. Ranting on about how badly Robinson was treated (it wouldn’t happen in the US) provides useful cover to the pedophiles.
Yeah, not exactly their finest hour 🙄
I rarely agree with bob & I do not agree with the entireity of his comment, but yes, there are a great many targets out there that need to be attacked before this all vanishes down the memory hole. But Tommy Robinson’s tactical mistake (if that was indeed what it was) is not the hill to fight on.
The prosecution of Mr Robinson (aka someone else) for mortgage fraud did have the appearance to me of a US-style ‘process crime’ of raking over someone’s life looking for a crime when there was no complainant, a start contrast to the approach around the alleged issues around the then Peter Mandelson’s mortgage and an alleged undeclared advance from the the personal finances of Her Majesty’s Paymaster-General. The lender was perfectly untroubled by the allegation that a senior politician and occasional member of the then government had (between resignations I presume) somehow not fully characterised the source of finances, nothing material of course, the money was there, it just might not have been whose it was said to have been. An easy mistake to make, no mens rea, no action, nothing untoward, not one law for them.
In many cases of contempt that I am aware of, the alleged contemnor has the opportunity to purge his contempt by apologising in open court before being sentenced (or in some cases, AIUI, convicted), but I am not aware of enough detail in this area to say that Mr Robinson has been treated improperly. It all has, in a way, an air of a class war, the undying hatred of the English public sector middle-class for their country and those who feel any sense of pride in it, as Orwell put it:
The prosecution of the chap from Coronation Street was a notable farce, the judge stopping one complaint from even going to the jury as the complainant’s evidence was not that the alleged assault had happened, but only that she remembered or thought that it had happened. Her assertion that she remembered it, but without asserting that it had happened, was insufficient as an evidential basis on which to convict.
I would have thought that bringing such a charge was a clear contempt of Court, and I would have hoped that the judge would, in such cases, summon the DPP and whoever put the charge forward and thrown them in the cells pending sentence for contempt, along with their entire legal team.
When a lefty, while denouncing the second amendment, appears not to know some relevant fact about guns, then we point out their error.
When someone (especially from the U.S. with its different legal evolution on this issue), while denouncing the TR case, appears not to know some relevant fact about English law (not new PC law but centuries-old established law), then I think it very proper for Perry and others to point this out – firmly if need be, so no-one on our side imitates a “ban guns – so I don’t have to know anything about them” lefty.
However, I do not feel that making that firm point lets us conclude that the famous blindfold remains safely over the eyes of Dame Justice. Biased enforcement of law is the exact opposite of that blindfold. If anyone black doing this got 13 months while anyone white got a caution, we’d rather swiftly notice that the ‘blindfold’ was transparent to colour. I would very happily learn that the blindfold is opaque – that left-leaning activists have been and would be treated the same as Tommy – but the decade+ background to all this tells me I should not assume it is so. Obviously, anyone who tells Perry and the rest of us
will not question the accuracy of that
who told Bruce Bawyer that
By contrast, I’d love to question it. I visit London from time to time and confirm Perry’s point that women there are not as terrified as his mock-quote would suggest. I can believe that these stories told to ‘L’ and thence to Bruce have grown in the telling. Rumours exaggerate – that’s what they do (and one reason why banning free speech does so much harm). But so astonishing is the amount of PC complicity revealed by the Rotherham-style cases themselves that I can still believe there’s something quite ugly underneath any exaggerations. Please show I’m wrong if you can.
All that said, it remains a separate question whether
When General de Gaulle warned the U.S. that Vietnam was not the country to fight communism in, it was not because he wanted communism to win; it was because he wanted communism to lose.
“Now THAT I agree with! I actually think whole swathes of local authority people & police responsible for Rotherham etc. should not just be out of a job but also belong in jail”
Well I’d put a tenner on a good proportion of them being participants. The report into Rotherham said that up to 300 people could be prosecuted for participating. What proportion of the adult Muslim men in Rotherham is that?
Flubber,
Probably about 10%, but that would require the abusers all to be local Muslims which is unlikely since some of the convicted came from elsewhere and some weren’t Muslim. Still really high, but if the authorities don’t do anything about it then crimes will spread. Incentives and all that. I don’t think that we could say that if white British people were getting away with child abuse numbers involved wouldn’t keep increasing either. This isn’t about Islam so much as it is about the state and its perverse incentives.
A simple question we should ask ourselves here. Why is anyone trying to make a martyr of Tommy Robinson? Like all statist movements, his followers can’t make an argument that justifies their view of how a state should work as they want (make no mistake: Robinson and his ilk are not interested in individual freedom any more than those who want him imprisoned for his views) without having a figurehead. Gandhi might be an accurate comparison in that respect at least. Like the cult of Corbyn, those who wish to control us show their hand by trying to create a quasi-religious leader figure to cover up their own failings.
A man too stupid to realise that reporting an ongoing trial is risking contempt of court is no figure of resistance to the ‘deep state’. He’s no campaigner for truth (unless you believe in Julian Assange) but a populist demagogue, which is fine, for an indefensible statist position, which is not. Would we get so worked up if the leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain (no preferences as to which one) was arrested for his own stupidity under an archaic but clearly understood rule. I doubt it, and frankly I can’t see the difference.
PdeH: “Who cares?”
Lots of people. And we aren’t going away
“You obviously do but I don’t. I am not part of any ‘anti-Islam movement’, I am against Salafists, against Takfiris, against Wahhabis & vastly more importantly, against the notion of ‘protected groups’ & ‘hate speech’ (i.e. an end to free speech).”
With the last bit “free speech” etc I agree with you.
The Salafists/Wahabis etc bit is Camoron’s doctrine–it is just a bad few.
Well it is and it isn’t.
“But I have nothing against Mr. Ahmed & his family running the local corner store. They are Muslims in the same sense many nominal Anglicans are Christians (i.e. not very & in any case it has sod all impact on the wider world). And I implore you, spare me an exegesis about what the Koran says about infidels or Taqiyya, I give as many damns as Mr. Ahmed does as a practical matter, so I like to target my opprobrium more narrowly.”
Does Mr Ahmed’s disinterest in religion extend to jacking in mosque attendance?
If someone who used to be a CoE regular decides to quit he might get a sorrowful phone call from the Vicar and that would be it. I suspect Mr A’s absence would draw the interest of some much nastier types than have inhabited the CoE for many decades if not centuries. The penalty for dropping out is very clearly stated amongst the RoP. I doubt it is carried out often because there are few –esp amongst ordinary non-well-off folk who live in the communities–with the moral courage TO drop out. Esp after cases like the Glasgow “corner-shop” Butcher murdered because he wished a Christian a “Happy Easter”.
As said before I doubt that most Germans under Hitler were filled with the combative urge to set Europe ablaze and have their families butchered in response. However few of them were standing up at the Nuremberg Rally shouting “No, no, this is all wrong”. And the horror of war arrived anyway.
Do you think Mr A is standing up to protest in the mosque about what is going on? A few Saints possessed of great moral courage perhaps might but there are few of those. Do you think Mr A wants fear and who knows what more trouble dumping on his wife and kids because he spoke up? As numbers grow and the time to choose a side becomes unavoidable, however unwanted, do you think Mr A is going to put everything into hazard to stand with the Western Enlightenment. I don’t.
When push comes to shove ordinary people will do what their leaders tell them to. That is what makes them ordinary. If Mr A is obliged to cut your head off in some future conflict Mr DeH he will likely have nightmares about it. But your head will still be off.
For Mr A to continue his commonplace tho’ prosperous life two things have to happen.
1–Migrants imported must go down to near-zero. Certainly no more mass migration. No more reunions.
2–The domestic breeding subsidy must end. Benefits for two children and one women only per man. Their family sizes must be reduced to a par with the natives so we are no longer being outbred. Done by economic pressure or any other means. Including recognising their marriages as equivalent to UK ones and strictly applying bigamy laws.
Otherwise conflict on a grand scale is inevitable.
As a metaphor for the situation now this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKWSZXHahjc
is a good one.
From the Last of the Mohicans film where the British Garrison is marching away from the fort. As the Huron attack begins isolated and sporadic war cries and musket fire can be heard around the column. People are agitated but not clear that they are under attack. See at approx the one minute mark.
“I also have nothing against Syed Kamall, who really is a pukka practicing Muslim & if I could wave a magic wand would make a pretty splendid Chancellor of the Exchequer.”
Who is doubtless well-off and middle-class or above whatever his devout observance. Not a very likely Jihadist. The fact that one might be pals with Wilhelm Canaris does not mean that Adolf and his chums are no real threat.
I also have nothing against Syed Kamall, who really is a pukka practicing Muslim & if I could wave a magic wand would make a pretty splendid Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I also have nothing against Syed Kamall, who really is a pukka practicing Muslim & if I could wave a magic wand would make a pretty splendid Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Well that is where we disagree, much as I did not blame ‘the Catholics’ everytime there was an IRA attrocity. So no, although I have often been critical of Islam, I am never going to be part of a broad front ‘anti-Islam’ movement. Indeed the vast majority of people who are enablers of this problem (and almost all the important ones) are not themselves Muslims. Theresa May comes to mind (Fish Faced Cow I believe you call her 😆 ).
My view is the problem is active anti-integration measures (including retrictions of freedom of speech & association) and the welfare state (what you rather crassly but not entirely inaccuratly call “The domestic breeding subsidy”).
“Why is anyone trying to make a martyr of Tommy Robinson?”
Ask the British state.
“Like all statist movements,”
The vast majority across the planet are statists still. So effective has been the Libertarian outreach. What you are saying is the standard (womiccumalobus) snob tripe about thick ( working class) pricks who support etc etc
“his followers can’t make an argument that justifies their view of how a state should work as they want”
A mighty mind read indeed. They are not trying to do so. They simply don’t want their nation turned into a third world one with 7th century standards re rape, murder, crime, corruption and theological–marx or mo–dictat.
That alright with you? As if anybody cares.
“(make no mistake: Robinson and his ilk are not interested in individual freedom any more than those who want him imprisoned for his views)”
How–exactly– do you know? Wanting people not to be imprisoned on the hypocritical double standard whim of some Beak for saying things already in the public domain for 12 months or so sounds like a concern for Liberty to me.
“without having a figurehead. Gandhi might be an accurate comparison in that respect at least.”
You want to translate that into English?
“Like the cult of Corbyn, those who wish to control us show their hand by trying to create a quasi-religious leader figure to cover up their own failings.”
Tommy is a front for…. who exactly? The Klu Klux Klan? No –I don’t think Tommy is a member of the Democratic Party. Neo-Nazis? I’m not sure he is any sort of socialist. Aliens–no I think you have got that franchise Watchman.
“A man too stupid to realise that reporting an ongoing trial is risking contempt of court is no figure of resistance to the ‘deep state’.”
Or a man who cares about abused girls whom no one much is taking any action to help even now. Rotherham/Telford are still only the tip of the iceberg. But why should you care Watch? Obviously not your kids.
“He’s no campaigner for truth (unless you believe in Julian Assange) but a populist demagogue, which is fine, for an indefensible statist position, which is not.”
So telling the truth disbars you as a truth-teller does it? Trump should pardon Assange for his help in fucking Killery up.
Being a populist demagogue is “Fine”??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vorNd01E4ak
See at 1.50
Were you not complaining about just that alleged circumstance at the beginning of the rant? It is mighty difficult to get the drift clearly. Drug fuelleds are often that way.
“Would we get so worked up if the leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain (no preferences as to which one) was arrested for his own stupidity under an archaic but clearly understood rule.”
If such a person was trying to right a real injustice and not just spinning Marxist agit-prop bullshit –then yes. Not likely tho’ –those lads want everybody else inside. They avoid it themselves like the plague.
“I doubt it, and frankly I can’t see the difference.”
That is just rambling. Tommy is a commie now? Please.
In short Perry – you do not link to the Mark Steyn article (in spite of me sending it to you), because you can not find anything really wrong in it, and know it to be the truth.
Thank you Sir – you have refuted yourself.
As for Islam. The point about any opposed doctrine is not to just be “critical” of this or that detail, but to defeat the doctrine itself. One is not critical of (say) “Lenin’s” exact interpretation of Marxism – one seeks to defeat Marxism, by arguing that it is false and presenting the truth in opposition to it.
Now you may argue that is what you mean by saying that Islam should not be beyond criticism – but you certainly do not come over that way.
The West persists in this idea that it can defeat Islam by pretending it is not fighting Islam – and using bullets and bombs, rather than evidence and rational argument. Both sides of the Western policy are wrong – the pretence is wrong (morally wrong, because it is a lie, and practically wrong because it is self defeating), and the bullets and bombs in the Middle East achieve nothing (apart from creating dead bodies), if there is an increasing Islamic population in the West itself.
The West should look to itself – people should seek to use both arguments and evidence (not violence – other than in defence) to refute Islam, and to attract people away from it. But that can only be done by presenting valid alternative thought systems – not drugs, booze and porn (nice though these things may be). People need real belief systems – of value.
This is where “Tommy Robinson” (not his real name) FAILS. Whilst certainly not stupid, he has not studied enough to show that Islam is a false system, and he can present no superior system of thought to it.
Paul Marks is, as am I, rather fond of the views of Edmund Burke. Accordingly, at least a bit in support of Perry deH, a think the following might be at least somewhat applicable.
Best regards
I explained why I did not link to that article you sent me by email: because the article I wrote was not in response your email, was only tangentally about Mark Steyn & was not about that article you refer. The dead give away is that I did not link to it or even quote even a single word of it.
Hate to break this to you, but my article is not about what you wrote or what you think or what you linked to. How else can I explain this in words you can grasp?
Let me start out by saying that i did not comment on Niall’s preceding post, because i felt that there was little for me to add, except agreement.
This post, however, is more open to debate.
There is little to debate about the title, of course — but that is begging the question: the implicit assumption in the title is that we should be fighting for justice; that it is not (yet) the time to pick a side.
I do not mean to suggest that we are in a civil war, far from it; but, in a sense, we are in a “civil cold war”. If we “fight” like Bush (either of them), McCain, or Romney (or Cameron or May) then we are effectively practicing unilateral disarmament. The way i see it, we have to fight like Trump; or else, emigrate. (Assuming that there is any country above this fight.)
Whether this particular battle (over Tommy Robinson’s tribulations) is worth fighting, is a minor issue in the great scheme of things. (Not a minor issue for Tommy Robinson, of course.)
I believe that, at the very least, we should make as much political capital as possible out of this issue.
Having said all that, i am very much in sympathy with Perry about the way that “our side”, the ersatz “Right”, has a distorted view of reality. I have become aware of this distortion from commentary by the Anglo-American “Right” on Euro-continental politics; and, aware of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, i have become wary of ALL commentary.
Perry,
Good points & well defended. I hate to bring up Steyn again, given it’s not about him, but I too had the same reaction to the uninformed commentary by him and others in the US on this issue.
It seems the UK has become an example to those on the US right in how not to run a country in respect of gun rights, immigration, etc., whilst those on the US left (e.g., NYT) have taken a similarly hostile position because of Brexit.
I share many of the misgivings the US political right has towards UK public policy, but I find it deeply frustrating when straightforward laws against prejudicing a trial produce such a ludicrous reaction. However, maybe Steyn deserves some forgiveness on account of the fact that he deals with his own legal messes with the same kind of haughty indifference to established legal principles that he has deployed in this case.
I’ve started building a list of actual towns with gang rapists. The only comprehensive list I’ve seen so far comes from the EDL – http://www.englishdefenceleague.org.uk/islam/grooming-gangs/ but IMHO it is too comprehensive as it is reporting a larger set of crimes (Muslim rapes of anyone) which is not very helpful if you want to figure out the gang rapes.
From what I’ve got so far it looks to me that the gang rapes are all (or almost all) done by ethnic Pakistanis (and by their names Muslim) on white girls. Others from Muslim countries rape too but I’m not certain that the rate of this is notably higher than other ethnicities and it doesn’t seem to be a group activity. Moreover these people don’t limit themselves to white girls they also rape others of their own background too.
Furthermore, even in the worst cases (e.g. the Keighley ones) the number of participants is a very small fraction of the number of (male) Pakistani residents in the area. I found an article that said Keighley was at about 1 in 250 – which is mindblowingly large compared to expectations of about a 1% of that (i.e. somewhere between 1 and 10 per 10,000 population) but it is still a number in the dozens out of a population in the tens of thousands. If the message comes across that it is all Pakistanis (or worse all Muslims) then that will be just as much of an injustice as the ignoring the whole thing was and won’t help matters.
I concur. That is why this needs to be done with the application of smarts and not by intellectual area-bombing. Carefully picking targets that need to be subject to harsh critique is far more effective.
Indeed. Someone earler attributed a quote to Shaw relating to people who mistakes the customs of his own tribe for universal laws 😆
The right to a fair trial… universal. But how you actually achieve that within this fallible world of ours is open to debate.
Amen. If there is any real value in the TR affair, it’s that it might trigger a general discussion about this.
Agreed bobby, the way I see it, that is the only possible positive aspect.
Snorri,
I’m unclear about with who we are in a cold war. Because if its Muslims then I’m with the majority of them against anyone who wants to use a single aspect of a person (their religion, which is not entirely a free choice thing as it is normally a parental decision) to define them. I have Muslim friends and colleagues and frankly they are vastly preferable,socially conservative views and all, to the sort of identity politics that identify Muslims as enemies for no other reason than their religion.
If however the cold war is with the statists with their identity politics, let’s get to it. But that excluded those who might think they are on our side but really just want to impose their own identity politics on us all. The only war worth waging is that for individual freedom.
I can agree with this on an individual basis. I probably know as many Muslims as anyone here, and they tend to mirror the ratio of jerks to nice people as I find in non-Muslim cohorts.
The problem is, if one looks to the worldwide statistics on who is bombing, beheading, raping, and knifing others based on a single aspect of difference, Muslims don’t come off all that well.
We live our lives by statistics. If we do this thing, our chance of cancer goes up 12%, so we don’t do that thing. If we drive without seat belts, our chance of dying in a car wreck goes up, so we use seat belts. We gauge risk statistically.
I understand that not all young black men in urban areas that hang out in groups are going to hurt me – probably a small minority are – and yet I avoid running into groups of young black men in urban areas. Unfair to some of them, but I’m managing my own risks, and my life – to me – is worth more than being fair to all.
I end up being wary of Muslims because statistics guide me so. Statistically, a Muslim is a greater risk to me than is a Hindu or a Jew or a Zoroastrian. On an individual basis, once I get to know someone, that single aspect of their life has less and less meaning. But in the absence of personal knowledge, that single aspect does tell me something about the risk I take in their vicinity.
Like I said, that’s unfair to individuals, but my being killed because someone else takes my personal single aspects as cause for hostility is more unfair. So, we play the odds, and live longer.
Francis T: I clicked on your name and found an article by you that i already read: Why Government Doesn’t Scale. (h/t Innstapundit)
That seems to me a most convincing argument in the socialist calculation debate, at least to mathematically inclined people such as myself.
WRT your comment here:
That is a worthwhile enterprise: name and shame!
Our fight is not against Muslims — at least, not at the present: we cannot know about the future; but we can be cautiously optimistic.
Our fight is against the ruling class. The ruling class have adopted Muslims as (one of) their mascots. That is the root cause of the “grooming gangs” (mostly Pakistani in Britain, mostly Moroccan in Holland). We must strike at the head of the snake: not the Muslim population, not even the grooming gangs (not as a top priority, i mean), but the ruling class.
That last paragraph also serves as an answer to Watchman’s comment.
I would just like to point out one glaring piece of evidence in the Tommy Robinson contempt of court case that is constantly misreported, and that is that TR did NOT report on the case at all in his live stream…… Surprised?????
If you bothered to watch it (Perry de Havilland please confirm Yes or No), you will see that TR only stated the names of the defendants and the allegations against them, all public knowledge on the court websites. He did not report on any of the actual proceedings. Furthermore, the day of his broadcast was AFTER all hearings had been conducted, Te defendants where there for the decision and sentencing, which TR stated he could not and would not be able to report on as the 3rd and final trial is yet to start.
By making judgements on TR’s case without reviewing the evidence yourselves that is publicly available you show yourself to be prejudiced.
The really important point is: in which towns are the council PC-complicit? In which towns is it “you can’t say that”, not the law, that is being vigorously enforced? It was Alisa who pointed out that PC is like HIV: once you’ve caught it, problems you’d otherwise shrug off can kill you.
There will always be crimes and criminals. Some groups commit statistically far more of them than others, but even in groups with a disgustingly high rate and an encouraging culture, the actual perpetrators will be a minority.
IIUC, about one German in every four hundred (or even fewer) got their own hands dirty killing in the final solution. So, while the “small percentage” statistics some other commenters quote above are (I daresay) accurate, they may not mean quite what those commenters think.
“Either justice is blind, or it is not justice at all”. A fine sentiment. But what if Justice is blind to the elephant in the room — the failure of the English Establishment to act on the long-term abuse of underage girls, despite apparently being aware of what was going on?
If there really were Justice, some of those Establishment figures would be facing their own day in court — politicians, imams, police officers, social service bureaucrats, lawyers. But the Establishment seems to be beyond the reach of Justice in England.
For those outside England, who tend to have a high regard for the English legal system, it is incomprehensible to see the more Politically Correct part of the English people remain completely silent about grooming, while the rest of the English apparently get exercised only over TR. All the while, that elephant apparently remains invisible to all concerned.
Nial Kilmartin: “so no-one on our side imitates a “ban guns – so I don’t have to know anything about them” lefty.”
The position put forward by the BBC ( for example ) over the last ten years, vilifying Robinson and denying that his accusations of Mohammadan grooming and rape gangs are true – actually it was more subtle than that, pushing the ‘FAR RIGHT’ label and by virtue of such, it was not necessary to accord any veracity to his accusations of large scale peodiphilia, rape, torture, in some instances murder and possible collusion of arms of the State in the afore said activities.
It could all be dismissed by the BBC because they had convieniently labeled Robinson ‘FAR RIGHT’ and ‘RACIST’.
And of course the BBC gave cover to Jimmy Savile for thirty years.
I’ve often wondered why the Tories, having been in power now for, eight years? Haven’t done anything about the BBC. It so blatently opposes the party – I’d like it broken up and sold off. But the Tory party won’t do that because the BBC is the governments means to control the ‘narrative’.
In the case of Tommy Robinson the BBC has done that job magnificiently.
Nial Kilmartin: ” Obviously, anyone who tells Perry and the rest of us;- that London is Londonistan & women are fearful of going out in short skirts these days – will not question the accuracy of that ”
An anecdote from twenty years ago. I had a flat in Tottenham five minutes walk from seven sisters tube station at one point I was showing prospective tenants around the property. One twenty something woman’s first question, do you have any problem walking to and from the tube to the flat. My reply, that I a six foot male had never had any problems didn’t seem to satisfy her.
No doubt, things have improved since then, so in the same scenario today, I’d have been able to tell her that she’d have absolutely no issues, and all the neighbours she’s likely to meet would be sweet Mrs Marple types. Er, that’d be a no.
Bruce Baywer: “often, when one of these “grooming gang” trials is being held, the extended families and friends of the defendants stand outside the courthouse and “heckle and intimidate” the rape victims as well as their families and supporters.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/640095/Family-of-teenage-gang-rape-victim-reveal-FIFTY-friends-of-sick-Somali-men-harassed-them
No, that’s not happening.
Francis Turner made an important point: Robinson appears to be advocating or tacitly encouraging indiscriminate violence against Moslems. Which is wrong.
The law on this subject which Robinson was convicted of breaking is intended to bar inflammatory publicity which could pollute the proceedings.
I can think of a case where inflammatory publicity did a lot more than just damage jury impartiality. In 1913, in Georgia, Jewish businessman Leo Franks was convicted (probably wrongly) of the rape and murder of a girl employee. After his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, Populist firebrand Tom Watson began denouncing “the lustful Jew” in his newspaper and magazine. He succeeding in inciting the lynching of Franks.
I agree that public anger over such crimes and apparent official negligence is justified – but such anger is dangerous, and can erupt into tribal violence.
Robert Shields: yes I watched the Tommy Robinson livestream, but you seem to have zero understanding of how postponement orders work.
tl’dr version: stay away from courthouses until it is all over. He didn’t. None of the rest of the points you raise are relevent.
Frankly I’d like to see more restrictions (to stop harrassment by family members of rapists) rather than less in such cases.
Watchman, at 9.39pm on June 4 th is partly right.
A child’s religion is a matter of parental choice.
But what about an adult’s religion?
Why don’t all those nice reasonable muslims that people claim to know renounce their religion? I suggest that either they believe in the religion or they are scared to renounce it.
So why are they scared to renounce it?
The answer to that leads us to one of the evils of Islam – an apostate risks death.
I have said before, although I am not the first to say it, that if the ideas of Islam were put forward by middle-aged white men then it would be banned very quickly.
Take away this nonsense about it coming from the deity, and view it as a political system, a way of organising society and see it for the evil it is.
Or maybe they just think they aren’t going to change their religion cos it’s none of your damn business to tell them what religion they can follow? I reckon Rita Ora hasn’t ‘renounced’ Islam because she is that actually kinda common breed, the purely nominal Muslim.
Thanks for the link, APL (June 5, 2018 at 4:43 am). Some words of George Washington come to mind. “I am sorry to be assured of what I had little doubt before”.
The sentence is from a letter he wrote in 1786 in reply to information from John Jay
What a pity it is that so few in the UK establishment seem to think it even a misfortune that Mr Robinson should have so well-grounded a pretext for his own (possibly palpable, possibly unwitting) infractions.
We only have her word for it, of course – just as well she did not try to discourage them by live-streaming their behaviour, eh! Might have been 13 months for her – or maybe just 3 months suspended, as it would have been her first offence.
Mark Steyn wrote a good article on the background to this case – and I did send it to samizdata (and to Perry personally). There is no excuse, none, for a “drive by” attack on Mark Steyn without showing how the article is wrong.
“how I can explain this in words you can grasp” – I do grasp the situation Perry. Like a certain lawyer you are hiding behind legal technicalities (and you may be ENTIRLELY CORRECT about those technicalities) in order to try and obscure the fundamental background of the case. The fundamental background to the case is that the authorities (including the police) IGNORED the industrial scale rape and enslavement of infidel girls for years (they knew – but they did not care). Putting “Tommy Robinson” (or Joe Soap) in jail does not alter the fact that they (the people who covered all this up) are the real criminals.
Nor do you give any sign of understanding that this is civilizational conflict – not a question of a few bad individuals, or some false “interpretation” of Islam. This is the point that Mark Steyn, and many others, have explained at length – to use your own words, what words can they use to get you to “grasp” the situation?
Now it may be that Mark Steyn (and David Wood, and Robert Spencer and…..) are quite WRONG – but then you should present an article they have written and refute the evidence and arguments within in it. Not just IGNORE their evidence and arguments – as something that “nice” people do not touch. And then launch drive-by attacks upon them (linking to nothing they have written).
As I have said before – it is bad to go to memorial events for terrorist attacks (and so on) and then lie. Indeed it is offensive to behave in this way. If the establishment feel that they unable to tell the truth about this civilizational conflict (this conflict of systems of thought) then they should just go away (they should not be at the events). Not go to memorial services, light candles and cluck lies.
Lastly – do I believe that “Tommy Robinson” is a good spokesman for the anti Islamic position? As I have said before – I do NOT believe so (i.e. I am NOT a fan). He is not a stupid man – but he has not studied enough to make the case against Islam (in terms of a system of ideas) or to present a real alternative to it. Also he walks into legal traps that the establishment set for him. It may well be (indeed I think it is the case), that they would have “got him” whatever he did (they were determined to “get him” for something – and they, the judges and other such, did not care what it was). But HE MADE IT EASY FOR THEM.
There I think we are in agreement Perry.
To give example of what I am pointing to…
What is a crime?
Is a crime a violation of natural law (natural justice) – the violation of the body or goods of others?
Or is a crime (as Thomas Hobbes argued) the violation of a command (the ARBITARY command – the WILL) of the ruler. Be the ruler God or some person or persons?
I think it is clear that Islam takes the latter position – although it is careful to state that the commands must be from God (the creator of the universe), not just any old ruler or rulers – in this the understanding of “law” and “crime” by Islam is certainly superior to a Legal Positivist such as Thomas Hobbes or Jeremy Bentham. YES – I just said that Islam is superior to many thinkers fashionable in Western universities. However, Islam still takes (forgive me I am going to use some theological jargon here) the “voluntarist” position in relation to God and the law. The test in Islam is NOT the use of moral reason – it is “is this commanded or forbidden by God – as an act of will”, this is not the way that a Talmudic Jew deals with the Torah or how a traditional (I stress traditional) Christian deals with the Bible. The idea of moral reason (natural justice) INDEPENDENT of scripture is itself central to how scripture itself is interpreted – to the Talmudic Jew or the traditional Christian.
I know I may be being obscure so I will try and explain. The statement “that command can not be what God really wants – because that command is EVIL” makes no sense in Islamic thought if the command is clearly in scripture, because the very DEFINITION of what “good” and “evil” means, is “what God commands” and “what God forbids”.
So to say (for example) “God does can not really want you to kill that person for mocking Muhammed-Mohammed – a command to kill a person for such a thing would be evil and God would not really want you to do evil” gets the reply “God decides what is good and what is evil – what God commands is good, what he forbids is evil (by definition)”.
It is a logical and consistent world view – but NOT one that is compatible with the West.
When Muhammed-Mohammed and his followers called out to Jews and Christians “raise your hand” they were not calling for surrender (it as not “hands up Tommy – for you the war is over”), they were making a specific theological and legal point. The point being that when reading scripture aloud non Muslims tended to put their hand over “dodgy” parts of scripture (that to the literal minded call upon people to do dreadful things – such as stone women to death for adultery) so that impressionable people would not hear them read such stuff out without explaining it should not be done. What Muhammed-Mohammed and his followers were saying was “read that out aloud – and DO IT”. This is not some detail – it is the core of what Muhammed-Mohammed and the religion he created is about.
It is an incredibly logical and straight forward system of thought – no wonder so many fashionable (fashionable now) Western thinkers from the 18th century onwards were attracted to it (the Western thinkers who hated not just traditional Christianity, but the very idea of moral reason and natural law).
Paul Marks: “How odd Perry – you are normally keen to say people should “link” to articles, but you forget to link to the Mark Steyn article in question.”
Assuming this is the offending article. It’s obviously not worth the read.
Then this;
“But it is a fact that in 21st-century England – in Yorkshire, in Shropshire, in Lancashire, in Oxfordshire, in the Home Counties – child-rape gangs are Muslim. It is a phenomenon, one that has never existed previously in the British Isles and one which will continue and metastasize until there is honest debate about it.”
Reminded me of this, the unrelentingly stupid and complacent Creseda Dick vomiting up her latest platitude; “[grooming gangs have been] part of our society for centuries and centuries and centuries”.
Police attempt to normalise criminal behaviour?
Nigel Sedgewick.
Opposing a doctrine and those who follow that doctrine – should I refrain from condemning Marxism because some Marxists are personally nice?
Some of the people who admired Rousseau were personally nice – but that did not stop Edmund Burke condemning the followers of Rousseau (often without naming specific individuals – i.e. condemnation of the group).
As for people who claim to be Muslims but who do not follow the clear commands of Muhammed-Mohammed (which he claimed came from God) – Muhammed-Mohammed called them “hypocrites” (his term – NOT mine) and demanded that they be put to death (his view – NOT mine). And what commands was Muhammed-Mohammed specifically talking about? He was admirably clear about that as well – the commands to raid infidels, to rob, to kill those who resist, and to take infidel females into sexual slavery. This was not a minor thing – this is why young (and not so young) men joined his movement. He promised them that they could do these things and still go to paradise – indeed that they would go to paradise, in part, because they did these things.
This used to be common knowledge in the West (Gladstone and Winston Churchill referred to it – and assumed their listeners and readers already knew) – but a lot of effort has been made in the West to shove-down-the-memory-hole (and keep there) such basic knowledge. And it is an effort that has been directed at the infidel population – according to the establishment (including the judges) we are not supposed to know this – or, if we do know, we are not supposed to say it publically.
As you know Nigel – people have been arrested for just reading out (in public) the words (the in-context words) of Prime Minister Gladstone and Winston Churchill on Islam.
If a libertarian does not stand for Freedom of Speech – they are no libertarian at all.
Liberalism destroyed itself in the 20th century out of a desperate desire to be “Progressive” and to avoid seeming “reactionary” and “bigoted” – it would be a pity if libertarianism went the same way as liberalism. And libertarianism WILL go the same way (down the toilet) as liberalism – if libertarians get their definitions of what such terms as “Freedom of Speech” mean, from many British lawyers.
Steyn’s article includes this:
This outlines the problem quite well (although Steyn sees more merit in TR than do I) and makes the article worth the read by itself. Your State addresses its problems by insisting that no one address its problems. That’s a problem.
Between prosecuting “hate speech”, gagging current-event speech, and Reporting Restrictions, you’re all on the cusp of big trouble. Right now, you can still tell what isn’t being allowed to be said. They’re going to become more effective at shutting you down quite soon, and then you won’t know what’s not being said, and then you’re screwed.
Sorry, I managed to mangle my second link. It should be;
Reminded me of this, the unrelentingly stupid and complacent Creseda Dick vomiting up her latest platitude; “[grooming gangs have been] part of our society for centuries and centuries and centuries”.
Police attempt to normalise criminal behaviour?
Yes APL – that must be the article that Perry is referring to (in the drive-by swipe). It is certainly the one I sent to him.
The obvious question is “if Mark Steyn is wrong in this article HOW is he wrong?” What basic things has Mr Steyn got wrong here?
Attempts to pretend that this is about the fair trial of a few specific rapists are pathetic – utterly false (as if a modern judge could give a Tinker’s curse about such things as the right to a fair trail). What this is about is the massive could-not-care-less attitude by the state. Indeed it is worse than could-not-care-less about the rape of very large numbers of girls. It is an attempt by the state to actively conceal (to cover up – to lie about) the basic nature of the doctrine behind the attacks.
But, I repeat, “Tommy Robinson” (not his real name) MADE IT EASY for the state to get him.
Lastly, I must admit there is a certain insane sincerity about some of the members of the establishment – they are NOT all “shyster” (to use the Yiddish word for a person who uses their legal training to deceive rather than to stand for justice) lawyers and other such. For example a German establishmentarian reacted to the rape and murder of his daughter by “refugees”, the young woman had volunteered to work for a charity to help the “refugees”, by donating money to bring in MORE such “refugees” to Germany.
I can not deny that this establishmentarian is sincere – and no doubt many others are sincere also.
Paul Marks: “But, I repeat, “Tommy Robinson” (not his real name) MADE IT EASY for the state to get him.”
It was said about the East German state under the Soviets, that there were so many laws, that almost nothing was legal. If the state wanted to get you, they could get you on anything.
… and then we’d imagine what’s not being said, and the government would be very surprised at (and contemptuous of) the common people for believing so many wild, ‘racist’ rumours – especially the true ones.
That said, the gag order was abandoned – and quite quickly too. We must hope that such crude papers as the mail, the express and similar are not quite ready to be neutered just yet. Just as Perry notes that the ladies of London have not all donned burkas just yet, so a visiter from East Germany would probably tell us we hardly know we’re born as regards losing free speech. And while they still need people to make technical mistakes before they can throw them in jail for a year plus without the formality of a trial, some will avoid making them.
It’s all pretty grim and a huge step down from where we were, and no doubt the appropriately-surnamed Cressida will presently tell us that the world of free speech we seem to recall from two decades ago was as much a myth as other things we imagine we recall about that far distant time, but, “For myself, I am an optimist. There does not seem much point in being anything else”, as Churchill said in far grimmer times.
Molly: “Or maybe they just think they aren’t going to change their religion cos it’s none of your damn business to tell them what religion they can follow?”
On the other hand, it might just be that they know what awaits should they be inclined to stray from the doctrine of Mohammed.
Then, some girls don’t get the choice.
Paul, your comments here is why I trust your commentary about as much as I trust Mark Steyn: you are often right but seem incapable of measured reply & pull conclusions out of thin air to support your narrative. I tried to explain politely that my article is not about the link you sent me. If I want to write dedicated “Why I don’t trust Mark Steyn” article, I will, but not because *you* demand it. Indeed I actually started the above article before you even sent me that email. Where do you get off demanding I write about what *you* think should write about? I explained politely several times now that my article was not about the Mark Steyn article you sent me or indeed anything to do with your email, so I am being less polite now: if you don’t believe me, that is your problem, not mine.
So Paul Marks doesn’t believe in rule-of-law if it doesn’t suit his political agenda, good to know.
Perry:
Given that this thread is about the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson, and given that the Mark Steyn piece was about the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson, I think I can understand why Paul feels you are being somewhat cavalier in refusing to discuss Steyn’s piece.
You have every right not to, but it seems a bit wilful to refuse to discuss why you have a problem with his writing on the very topic which is being discussed. You did bring it up, after all.
As to the Tommy Robinson case, clearly he was “set up” by the establishment. Seven coppers don’t turn up out of nowhere to arrest a man talking on his mobile phone for “breach of the peace”.
Clearly, given he was on a suspended sentence for contempt of court, he was taking a big risk being in the vicinity of a Crown Court when this particular trial was taking place. However, we do know that he was live streaming for about an hour, and that the proceeding which led to him being sent down for 13 months lasted a few minutes.
It must therefore be obvious that the judge did not bother himself to review anything which TR actually live streamed, he sent him down for 13 months based on the fact that he was in the mere vicinity of a court. I have a big problem with that, and I do not know if there is any legal avenue for TR to appeal.
The judge does not seem to have seriously reviewed the evidence or considered the extreme risk of violence TR will encounter in a modern British gaol. I just hope he survives his time in prison. Those are rather chilling words to have to write in Britain in 2018, but they are still true.
James Strong,
As Molly says religion is people’s own business. And your description of Islam as a system not a religion applies to any religion equally. If you want to oppose Islam on those grounds feel free. I assume you oppose the much more structured and political Catholic Church as well?
Consider that there are pictures of the judge in his second-story window looking out at Robinson below as he livestreamed. Consider that the judge has been handling this trial for some time and is very familiar with Robinson and his website.
Consider that the judge was very likely watching Robinson’s livestream for much of his broadcast, and thus had personal knowledge of exactly what Robinson was doing.
Can you think of a more effective way to enrage a judge and guarantee a very quick contempt finding?
“Either justice is blind or it is not justice at all”
Police interrupt a gang rape involving two underage girls ( legally incapable of consent, therefor rape is the accurate term ) in Rotherham, arrest and charge one of the girls, but do not bring charges against the adult men involved. [ Same link as before but here for comparison ]
Then on the other hand Jeremy Forrest absconds consensually with a willing little minx, but is extradited and sentenced to five and a half years.
And by the way, the Press traduces his reputation and destroys his career. No secret trial for this wallah.
I’m guessing we can expect no justice at all in this country.
Paul Marks responds to my quoting of Burke, starting with:
Burke said nothing there about niceness; but of the difficulty of indictment. There must be at least reasonable cause to believe (and actually more – perhaps the balance of probability) that any particular person is guilty for them to be indicted of a crime. It is not enough to have suspicion of unspoken sympathy with the criminal himself; nor is it enough to have suspicion of unspoken belief in the ‘legitimacy’ of the crime itself. One must have evidence against each indicted person of commitment of the crime (or of assistance to the criminal to avoid prevention, detection or arrest) before, during or after the criminal act itself. And surely Rousseau’s supporters (criticised by Burke) were those who spoke or acted in support of Rousseau’s actions – not every French adult outside the aristocracy.
And Paul writes:
Paul presumes too much knowledge on my part. At best I have a vague recollection of something to do with Churchill; of Gladstone it is new to me.
I’m not sure of what Paul really means by “in context”. For me, WRT Churchill, I think that would include this spot of “my friend is my enemy’s enemy” here from the Telegraph in 2014:
Did Paul Weston (the arrested quoter) mention that?
Though I don’t know whether it is relevant to any of the utterances Paul is particularly thinking of, we should also be wary that actual speech is not the same as just the word sequence. Intonation (timing, pitch, volume, etc) can be used to change or even invert meaning; in British English. Exaggerated nasalisation often signals a sneering attitude; and paletisation can signal cynicism. Shouting and other stylistic or rhetorical features can change meaning or add aggression – or add up to incitement of an already somewhat ‘vulnerable’ audience. “I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.” Give me a recording (video even better) rather than a transcript, anyday.
Just so we don’t forget: I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Best regards
APL: you have just demonstrated one of the very reasons I wrote the above article.
All true, all appalling, and manifestly justice was not blind & therefore not justice, but at the risk of sounding callous… so what? Serious, what does that actually have to do with anything I am referring to? If all we do is roll up our grievances into an undifferentiated mass of outrages, we start to look more and more like the Left. It is true what you say, no argument from me, none at all, we are basically on the same side, but within this context it is also whataboutism of the sort that Paul Marks has become the true master of, which I say more in sorrow than anger.
If we are at the stage of open rebellion and killing our enemies in the streets in some manner that riffs off 1642, then ok, I agree that it makes little sense for me to opine about the need to support rather than weaken our common law right to a fair trial… so how about we steal a bulldozer and bust Tommy out of klink because who cares? If it is too late for legal niceties, the only thing I should be publishing is photocopies from the Anarchists Cookbook, an Idiot’s Guide to the Heckler & Koch MP5 (for when you brick a copper & take his) & how to wire an IED into a modern car.
But I don’t think we are there yet & hopefully we never will be. So no matter what horrendous things happened in Rotherham (to name but one), I am not ready to write off arguing for a legal system that jails not just Tommy Robinson for prejudicial contempt, but ideally also Muslim hecklers outside courts the moment they show up.
Watchman June 5th 2.02 pm.
Sure. When Catholic theologians quote scripture to command their follows to kill or subjugate non-followers of their religion, and this happens in the 21st century, I’ll take the same position.
It’s a reasonable assumption, since you come here, that you abhor Nazism.
Do you know that mohammedans believe that inanimate objects will speak to mohammedans telling them about hidden Jews, so that the mohammedan can then kill them.
Is that a) OK because the mohammedan claims it is God’s will
b)OK because most mohammedans have brown skin and we mustn’t be racist
or c) evil, and we must both oppose it and publicise the evil of it.
or d) any other apology you would like to offer for mohammedan barbarism.
Over to you now.
I only mentioned Mark Steyn in passing as emblematic of quite a few commenters for the on-line right on the other side of the Atlantic who I do not rate highly as commentators on British & European matters. So frankly I regarded the article Paul linked to as a waste of time. Moreover, he says nothing commenters right here have not said, so it is not like Steyn brings any new insights. I find Francis Turner more insightful & above all, more honest and so that is who I actually linked to.
Astonishing! From a quick count, maybe 15% of the comments on this long thread even address the main issue — English Justice has failed to take any steps to hold to account the public officials who knew about the grooming. It is easy to understand why the Political Class is looking the other way — but why would so many individuals with interests in libertarianism also ignore the main issue?
This reminds me of long ago student/staff meetings about the grievance of the day, where the academic staff would talk out the clock discussing the appropriate wording and correct punctuation for the students’ statement of grievance. That was all good fun in a university environment — but it is sad in a nation which appears to be sawing off the branch it has sat on for so long.
Bobby:
You are making an assumption that the judge is familiar with TR and his website. Do you have any proof? All a judge would have seen looking out of the window is a man in a suit walking about talking at his mobile phone. No obvious sign of a breach of the peace there, and that is why TR was arrested by seven cops, nothing to do with contempt of court.
Again, that is pure supposition on your part. If you can back it up, fine, otherwise it is nothing.
I agree with you there, TR seems to have faced a pissed off judge and received the sort of hearing which would not even qualify as a kangaroo court. He was arrested for one thing, breach of the peace, and then got a 13 month sentence for something else entirely, contempt of court, and based on what? A judge had seen him out of a window and didn’t like the cut of his jib? Maybe TR did commit a contempt of court, maybe he didn’t. All I do know is that a four minute appearance before a judge is no way to determine it.
The fact that the bewigged fool thought he could then keep it all secret by imposing reporting restrictions shows all you need to know about the “judgement” of this particular individual.
PdH: “But I don’t think we are there yet & hopefully we never will be. So no matter what horrendous things happened in Rotherham ..”
Perry, I really really would like to agree with you about something, I’d like to be as sangune about the rape of young girls, and the actual murder of my fellow citizens in the streets.
I understand, these things may not matter as much to you, but it does matter to me. I actually would like to live ( and used to, for the most part ) in a society where we all respect each other and just get along fine. And in the absence of State action, the only thing left for me at the moment is outrage.
By the way, just because you aren’t inclined to defend yourself, makes not one jot of difference to the guys determined to attack you.
I am happy for you not to agree with me, but what I find more exasperating is you don’t seem to actually understand what I am saying, so I am clearly not saying it right.
I am not in the slightest bit sanguine about the rape of young girls, and the actual murder of my fellow citizens in the streets. My point is it just has nothing to do with what I am writing about.
PdH: “My point is it just has nothing to do with what I am writing about.”
We are in a state of civil insurrection in every British conurbation. The civil authorities are either unwilling or unable to apply the law evenly, a significant and motivated fraction of the population utterly rejects the concepts that you and I, agree are central to a civilised civil society.
Law abiding citizens have been murdered, and the authorities vomit up their usual platitudes “we will not allow this outrage to change the way we live”, then immediately go back to Parliament and propose legislation to further eradicate free speech under the guise restricting ‘hate speech’.
But your concern is “how this whole thing has been reported by people on the ‘Right’”?
As Alistair Campbell might have said, if we spin this right, no one will notice what’s going on.
This may be the sort of scenario that Scott Adams frequently refers to. You and I are watching the same actors on stage, but somehow, listening to a completely different dialogue.
All this hand-wringing is quite entertaining to me. It seems that in many ways, you have all accepted the rules of the game, e.g. the laws, which are designed to make you incapable of ever winning the game or to change the rules.
You need a revolution, and revolutions need men like TR (lots of TRs) to pull it off. Too bad you have too few of them to make a difference.
I’ll continue to enjoy the schadenfreude as the UK spirals into oblivion. Is there anybody here who thinks things are gonna get better? Who thinks it’s gonna get worse?
And there you have it.
Finally! You (almost correctly) understand that my article was not a Paul Marks style blob-of-amalgamated-hissy-fit about all the various (and don’t get me wrong, undeniable) outrages that permeate the United Kingdom. It was about two things (not one)… (1) A great many people on the other side of the Atlantic have no fucking idea how things work over here, either in theory or in practice (2) Tommy Robinson was banged up for reasons I would like to see applied more, not less, often and with ‘blind’ impartiality, in support of the common law right to a fair trial.
That’s it.
Obviously that isn’t the article you were looking for. I can write another one about how I’d like to see a great many Plod & local authority drones banged up for conspiracy, but that’s not what this one was about 😆
More often? The point of having such laws is for those in power to decide when to leverage them against their enemies, while ignoring it against themselves. Impartiality? It’s been long gone from the shores of the UK.
To want your govt to apply them fairly is like wishing for pigs to fly.
Perry: “I can write another one about how I’d like to see a great many Plod & local authority drones banged up for conspiracy …”
Please do! Because that is the main issue. It is not about whether TR actually impacted anyone’s fair trial (something for which no evidence has been presented). Nor is it even about Muslims. No — this is about the English Political Class closing ranks to divert attention away from their failure to protect their own citizens.
As far as your annoyance about those on the other side of the Atlantic, please show a little compassion. In the US, we know that Lady Justice is not blind. Bill Cosby goes to jail over allegations of sexual misconduct; Bill Clinton goes free despite credible allegations of rape. A sailor goes to jail for taking a photo of his workplace; Hillary Clinton walks the street despite having broken the law by setting up an insecure server and using it for State Department business. Very unfortunately, in the US, those who are important parts of the (Democrat) Political Class are indeed above the law.
We Americans thought England was better; we were wrong.
No, the point of these long standing laws is non-prejudicial trials, and it has more or less worked as intended for some time (sometimes more, sometimes less). It just needs to work better.
Main issue to you. To me there are a great many issues.
I have had the basis for that article about our corrupted institutions kicking around for some time, I just need to bring it all together & actually have the time to write it.
Gavin Longmuir: “about the English Political Class closing ranks to divert attention away from their failure to protect their own citizens.”
Well, we know why ‘they’ failed, just two examples. Cyril Smith MP for Rochdale for sixteen years (1972 – 1988), conveniently after his death the CPS ‘stumbled’ across evidence that Smith should have been prosecuted for tampering with little boys, sadly now he was dead, it just wouldn’t be proper to do anything that might sully the reputation of such a fine fellow.
Clement Freud another British MP outed for kiddie fiddling, conveniently seven years after his death. With a holiday home in Praia de Luz where Madeline McCann disappeared – coincidence natch, he consoled Kate and Gerry after the disappearance of their daughter. – But that’s just what you want, a paedophile helping you look for your missing daughter.
Then more recently, there was the Westminister kiddie fiddling scandal that never was. Apparently Leon Brittan then Home Secretary ‘lost’ the ‘dossier’ in 1984. ( Hmmm! Dossier, that has a familiar ring to it?)
So, I’m not as bothered by the tenor of right wing commentary from abroad. I simply appreciate we’re getting any information at all. Because the British Press are trussed up like Turkeys.
Let me ask the defenders of the ‘it’s just a few bad apples’ theory who they think the ‘good’ muslims will side with if a low key race war starts up? Middle class englishmen with no spine or tase for blood? Or their countrymen who will kill them in an instant for any sign of disloyalty? It’s beyond a joke that you imagine these people are in any way on your side with regard to anything. They like having money and being out of jail, anything more than that cannot be taken for granted. Certainly not a general support for white mans culture.
‘Low-key race war’? Seriously? Do you arm-chair warriors actually wank off fantasising about the glory and the honour that will be yours come the revolution or something?
You know why I’m not worried about Islam as a force to be feared? Because it doesn’t exist. If a thing exists then it can be defined meaningfully; if it cannot be defined meaningfully then it doesn’t exist. What meaningful definition of Islam includes all self-identified Muslims? One that include the Wahabis, the Shi’ites, the Sunnis, the Salafists, the Ahmadiyya, the Sufis and even the Bahai’is? And no, ‘a follower of Mohammed’ is neither meaningful nor accurate.
Talk of either Islam or Muslims as a single entity, one hell-bent on the destruction of Western civilisation, needs to recognised for what it is: nothing more than base collectivism. It’s the same base collectivism as racism, except that the selective criterion is religion rather than skin colour. It is no more acceptable, and no less vile, when it’s our side doing it than it is when the Left does it. To see it here, on this blog of all places, is disturbing, to say the least.
Yes, of course there are ‘bad apples’. And that term doesn’t even begin to cover the level of their depravity and murderous hatred. But there are also those who are doing the same as the rest of us – trying put food on their family’s table, keep a roof over their heads, make things a little bit better for their kids than they were for them, and generally get through life and out the other end in one piece.
The immanent immolation of Western culture and values, and the crying need to point it out, is not the main point – not in this point in Britain’s story, not in Tommy Robinson’s arrest, and not in Perry’s post.
It would seem, then, that evidence of the latter having happened, not once or twice but with sufficient frequency to make it a meaningful deterrent, might be a good indicator of Lady Justice’s ocular acuity.
Can anybody point to any?
My point exactly. APL replied, very pertinently, with a link to evidence of its not happening in one location, and my plea for evidence that it elsewhere has happened is AFAICS unanswered in this or any prior blog post threads. I fully appreciate that most people here – like me – do not spend their time standing (whether adjacent to Tommy Robinson or at a pointed distance from him) outside courts where rape-gang trials are happening, but given the eagerness of the PC to show these things in the best light, wouldn’t such evidence be not so much put as thrown into the public domain if it existed?
Fortunately, this is not (yet?) true in general (as the link APL gave me demonstrates). However it is true that foreign coverage had much to do with the quick death of the gag order, so, like APL, “I simply appreciate we’re getting any information at all” and am less disposed than Perry to criticise US commenters because the gag order had the predictable effect of things being described as even worse than they were. (I do defend – and have defended – the wisdom of Perry and others in pushing the full background firmly into their field of view.)
That is the mistake of the intellectuals: treating “I cannot conceive it” as meaning “It cannot be”. This does not of itself prove Philip’s comment wrong, but his other arguments would fare better if unaccompanied by it. I’ve read enough WWII history to know that loads of people who fought the nazis were very poor at defining national socialism.
Niall Kilmartin: “and my plea for evidence that it elsewhere has happened is AFAICS unanswered in this or any prior blog post threads.”
Well in the article by Steyn, he claims to have visited Rotherham and interviewed some of the girls, ( now, presumably young women ) and describes them as ‘garrulous’. Because, he is almost the only fellow who has sought them out to discuss their experiences them.
It sounds like they, their parents and other family members might likely be a rich source of first hand information about the conduct of their court cases. Including the behaviour of the defendants family and friends at the trials.
Just sayin’.
Someone interested might contact Steyn or the Times Journalist, Andrew Norfolk, too.
Niall –
I have chosen to take the reference to intellectuals as a compliment. Thank you.
This, however, is not a matter of that of which I can or cannot conceive. Nor is it a matter of that which this or that person is able to define. It is a matter of logical consistency. ‘A’, as Ms Rand (and Aristotle) so frequently remind us, cannot equal ‘not A’. It is simply not possible to define meaningfully a disparate group of beliefs which regard each other as apostate. No more is it possible to define meaningfully a Christianity that includes Southern Baptists, Unitarians, and Mormons. That is to say, no, it cannot be.
APL (June 6, 2018 at 5:08 pm), I’ve read some Steyn and some Andrew Norfolk on this subject – by no means all of either of course. If the Rotherham girls and their families, after describing the council’s appalling neglect, then gave these journalists information for the request that I and the other rob independently made – i.e. they told tales of judges who did deal as effectively (or at all) with muslim behaviour more prejudicial to a fair trial than Robinson’s – then those journalists must have reported it in articles I missed.
I presume you mean that the victims and their families would likely be present, so able to notice if any virtuous judge did in fact use the power of contempt to protect the trial from prejudicial behaviour of muslims or others acting improperly to aid the accused, or to aid the PC narrative. The not-so-large pool of journalists who put serious time into talking to them would then be more likely to be told it by them. They are a source of information that it ever happened – or that, sadly, nothing so even-handed ever happened.
For now, it remains the case that the other rob and I, and all others wondering the same, have no such evidence of un-PC judicial virtue to set against what happened to Mr Robinson – no such assurance that justice is indeed blind and will punish equally contempt from either side.
Muslim insurgents are active around the world in low key wars everywhere yet you think this is some fantastic fantasy that could never occur in Britain? It is simply not possible to take such willfully blind pronouncements seriously.
“West Midlands Police were called to a gang rape above a Kebab shop where they .. did nothing .. er .. where they arrested the understandably distraught and angry father of the raped girl for breach of the peace .. ” ( heard that before somewhere).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPoitFQQ8Y
“West Midlands Police were called to a gang rape above a Kebab shop where they .. did nothing”
Yes, outrageous, it really is. And Stalin starved millions of kulaks to death & there are people in the Labour Party today who think that nevertheless he was not an altogether bad chap. And Hillary Clinton is above the law. And Firefly was cancelled. These are all outrages that should darken the soul of any right minded person. I am just not sure why any of these things are relevant to this topic 😉
“And Stalin starved millions of kulaks to death”
“& there are people in the Labour Party today who think that nevertheless he was not an altogether bad chap”
“And Hillary Clinton is above the law.”
“And Firefly was cancelled.”
“I am just not sure why any of these things are relevant to this topic”
At last, I can unreservedly agree with you Mr de Havilland. None of those things have anything to do with the topic of the perversion of the rule of law in the United Kingdom. But kudos for persistently treating these ‘matters’ with such levity.
Justice? Consider the case of “Matthew Charles: Justice vs. the Law.”
If this be justice, then here, indeed, “justice is blind.” But perhaps it is (legally required) blindness to justice altogether.
Discussion by the “Right Angle” (old “Trifecta) team of Bill Whittle, Steven Green, and Scott Ott. ~ 12 min.
https://www. UToob .com/watch?v=sw3icrE1QeE
.
For my fellow Provincials, the URL to petition His Trumpness for clemency:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reverse-reincarceration-rehabilitated-matthew-charles-nashville
97,748 more signatures (for a total of ≥ 100,000) needed by June 25, 2018. Petition reads:
. . .
Perry, I hope the quoted petition and the URL are acceptable. If you wish to delete, I will not go away mad. :>) Thanks.