I think we all basically agree on Quatar and the World Cup.......maybe we should choose another theme ?
That is a very good question. Yes they should be given the right to say what they think, but it needs very clear responses from the more moderate as to why they are wrong. The FN in France is extreme, although they are having an internal fight over how extreme to be. So far because of the legal battles they are involved in they keep shooting themselves in the foot, but not too many have at this point have had to show up how wrong they are.
A very tricky one Vic. There has been much debate here in Germany about whether the NPD should be banned as a party, and certainly both Pegida and the AfD (Alternativ für Deutschland) are very much on the border line. When a political party either breaks the law, acts against the constitution, or produces inflammatory material which is designed to produce hate then yes I would step in. However, denying them all right of expression simply enables them to play the martyr. I think it is safer to have them out in the open. Recently one of the leaders of the AfD stated that Islam had no place whatsoever in German society - that she wanted to ban the building of Mosques (even though there are churches in most Islamic countries) that she was against the wearing of headscarves in all public places, and also against circumcision (which effects the Jewish population here as well) - in other words she is playing to the gallery, feeding off the current wave of Islamophobia in Europe. However she is also contradicting the German constitution which guarantees freedom of worship, so, sooner or later, controls will come in. I am sceptical about banning political parties from speaking out because this can also happen to the left - as in when membership of the DKP (Deutsche Kommunistisches Partie) was forbidden in Germany. So, if I want to retain the right to say that I want to bring down capitalism then I must also allow my opponents the same rights (until they advocate violence). We would also need to clarify what we mean by the word 'Nazi'. I think I was one of the few on here who spoke against the 'Je suis Charlie' brigade, because for me caricatures which could only have the result of inflaming relations to the largest minority group in France should not have been allowed.
Much safer in the open as long as there are no lies (eg haulocaust denial) and comments can be questioned. If we deny them free speech then the underground speech would not be questioned and contextualised and would make them a very dangerous proposition. Bit like these idiots in Paris and Belgium. They create their own versions of reality because their ideas are unchallenged. If cologne and I were to only spend time with completely like-minded people we could end up with a warped take on reality, ie that we should seek to overthrow capitalism by force, possibly through terrorism. ( l haven't given too much away, have I, cologne? I was thinking in terms of a double-bluff ).
Yes I remember you and ,was it w_y, made similar points.. I think now if you allow free speech you need to have strong laws too to set the context of when free speech becomes racist etc etc Hard to police though as i see from some of the stuff that comes my way on fb...
This is a tough one. Free speech and how far does free speech go. Free speech gives us the ability to speak our mind and criticize the status quo and help us prevent a 1984 situation whereby we cannot speak out against the goverment. At the same time, free speech also invites all sorts of negative discussion like racist ideology or radicalisation of people. I'm a little torn as i don't think we should allow such indoctrination as there are far too many people who can be indoctrinated too easily but at the same time i wouldn't want to live in a state like Russia or China whereby free speech is repressed.
A great deal is spoken about free speech but in practice governments everywhere have the right, and do, restrict it on many different grounds. Just to name a few: libel, slander, pornography, sedition, incitement, classified information, copyright violation, right to privacy, public order, religious offence, political correctness, incitement to ethnic or racial hatred - there are many others. Governments tend to interpret these catagories in their own way, so eg. Charlie Hebdo was more 'acceptable' in France than it would have been in the UK. or Germany. The other point is that some people have more access to free speech than others (ie. they have a bigger audience) but with this greater access belongs also greater responsibility and if political parties are found to be violating any of these restrictions with their circulated propaganda then they should be controlled. Some of the catagories on this list I find questionable eg. What can a democracy have to do with 'classified information' ?
I guess if you have spies or agents in another country, that information is classified so they aren't caught? Or if you were trying to strike up a trade agreement with another country and you don't want them knowing your country is going to the ****ter so you can negotiate better, that is classified??
I think in this modern era: Democracy*=Hypocrisy * and by that I mean the great democratic systems of the two party Americo-Eurocentric axis On a minor point if you tried to write the word BOMB on the bbc 606 boards the posting was blocked!
I guess that I was implying that a 'real' democracy would have no secrets from either it's own population or from other countries - but bearing in mind that there is no 'real' democracy in the World then you are probably right.
Depends what you define as a real democracy? Is that where everyone has a say on how the country should be run? So does every law passed, every planning permission, every jury should be determined by a the population is some sort of referendum? I agree though there is no true democracy in the world, even here I cannot be PM without having a load of ministers backing me and running in other counties even if the populace want me to be the sole PM.
As you say there is no democracy in the World though many countries call themselves democracies. There is definitely truth in the old adage that the best way to stop somebody fighting for something is to tell them that they have it already. They do not want us to analyse the word democracy. For me democracy is a never ending process - countries are either democratizing or they are post democratic. It is not a word which can only be used to describe the political sphere, or how we elect governments, but rather describes our whole society (or nothing at all). How can you describe a country as democratic when it's economy (the organ which feeds it) is not run on democratic lines ? Is democracy possible without collective ownership of the means of production ? (By this I mean ownership by the workers themselves - and not, in their name, by the State). For me democracy means that all power comes from the base of the pyramid and that all decision making (whether political or economic) emanates from there, and the 'state' has reduced itself to a purely administrative function - in other words the political sphere and the non political have fused into one. Achieve all of this and, at the same time, accord human rights to minorities (because the mass will can sometimes be wrong). In the UK. we describe the country as a democracy even though only between 1 and 2% of people are party members and yet all political ideas come out of this narrow segment - the rest vote yay or nay to a limited range of ideas once every 5 years, and that is supposedly enough to describe the country as democratic ?
Although I can see your reasoning Cologne, it just doesn't work like that. I was chairman of a Parish Council for too long, the lowest form of government, and the one closest to the people. Having a rather contentious issue come up the council decided to consult and get the opinion of every household in the village, about 380. We spent two weeks chasing up the returns, and it was hard work to get people to express an opinion. Far too often they would say that you have been elected to take decisions, and if we don't like it we will not vote for you again. Every year we held a Parish Annual meeting to go through what had come up in the year and how we had dealt with it. Out of the numbers who could have come about a third did, and we were thought to be one of the best attended meetings in the district.
Your comment is similar to a reference to the turnouts in elections in Jersey - usual turnout in St Helier is 20 - 22% but the country parishes is usually 30 - 40%. This means that due to the vast majority of the island living in SH, the overall turnout is usually about 24%. The most farcical election recently was for the Procureur du Bien (legal and financial representative of the Parish) in September, where the turnout in SH was 1.18% - I haven't put the decimal point in the wrong place - it was 219, including me, out of over 18,500.
