The Oxygen of Publicity
So the British National Party won two seats at the European Parliament in the elections. Shock and horror, they're fascists.
Well, kind of. They're actually fairly typical of the dimwitted redneck racist fractions which have continued to emerge from the fringes of the greyish-pink (aka White) bits of the British working class, with a thin layer of second-rate intellectuals striving to add some literacy to the rather poisonous mix. Their party programme, such as it is, is your typical cookie-cutter national socialist load of old bollocks - nationalised industries, higher taxes, guns before butter, bring the boys home, quit the EU, encourage immigrants to get out of the country (to include also those descended from immigrants, which makes my position a touch tenuous, to say nothing of all those damn Normans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Celts etc).
Now, there are a number of reasons why they were able to attract a sufficient number of votes under the d'Hondt rules to install two MEPs. We all know about the disgruntled white working class thing (and I guess we all sniggered at the use of a Free Polish Spitfire on their election materials) but I believe there's another reason which should be explored and which may suggest a change in behaviour.
For many years, it has been the accepted truth that certain conversations and debates can not be had in public circles, as the subject matter is so offensive that no mere voter could be allowed to participate in case he or she should be corrupted by the immensely wicked, but somehow attractive content. The topics of these debates have included drugs, immigration, racism and a whole number of other things. This means that the conversations and debates have still gone on, but behind closed doors and in closed groups. Thus, many really bad ideas have been developed and reinforced, sometimes attracting a sort of respectability through their very illicitness.
The consensus also stipulates that people espousing "bad ideas" should be denied a platform, as the intrinsic wickedness of these ideas puts them firmly outside the main stream of public discourse. Cue illiberal moves by student unions and the like.
This is a mistake. The way to defeat bad ideas is to show them to be bad. These sixpenny fascist idiots in the BNP should be taken on in public. Give them access to the oxygen of publicity and then take their ideas on, one by one. Show them to be the illiterate nonsense they are, smash their intellectual credibility through reason and argument and, guess what, besides making sure that Nick Fucking Griffin gets shown up for the third-rater he is, the debates and conversations which probably need to be had in public will be had.
I wonder if there is a medical metaphor here - prolonged lack of public exposure to the sort of nonsense people like the BNP produce, through the consensual self-censorship and "ruling out" of these ideas has left parts of the body politic without antibodies. Open and frnak debate will re-innoculate us.
Well, kind of. They're actually fairly typical of the dimwitted redneck racist fractions which have continued to emerge from the fringes of the greyish-pink (aka White) bits of the British working class, with a thin layer of second-rate intellectuals striving to add some literacy to the rather poisonous mix. Their party programme, such as it is, is your typical cookie-cutter national socialist load of old bollocks - nationalised industries, higher taxes, guns before butter, bring the boys home, quit the EU, encourage immigrants to get out of the country (to include also those descended from immigrants, which makes my position a touch tenuous, to say nothing of all those damn Normans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Celts etc).
Now, there are a number of reasons why they were able to attract a sufficient number of votes under the d'Hondt rules to install two MEPs. We all know about the disgruntled white working class thing (and I guess we all sniggered at the use of a Free Polish Spitfire on their election materials) but I believe there's another reason which should be explored and which may suggest a change in behaviour.
For many years, it has been the accepted truth that certain conversations and debates can not be had in public circles, as the subject matter is so offensive that no mere voter could be allowed to participate in case he or she should be corrupted by the immensely wicked, but somehow attractive content. The topics of these debates have included drugs, immigration, racism and a whole number of other things. This means that the conversations and debates have still gone on, but behind closed doors and in closed groups. Thus, many really bad ideas have been developed and reinforced, sometimes attracting a sort of respectability through their very illicitness.
The consensus also stipulates that people espousing "bad ideas" should be denied a platform, as the intrinsic wickedness of these ideas puts them firmly outside the main stream of public discourse. Cue illiberal moves by student unions and the like.
This is a mistake. The way to defeat bad ideas is to show them to be bad. These sixpenny fascist idiots in the BNP should be taken on in public. Give them access to the oxygen of publicity and then take their ideas on, one by one. Show them to be the illiterate nonsense they are, smash their intellectual credibility through reason and argument and, guess what, besides making sure that Nick Fucking Griffin gets shown up for the third-rater he is, the debates and conversations which probably need to be had in public will be had.
I wonder if there is a medical metaphor here - prolonged lack of public exposure to the sort of nonsense people like the BNP produce, through the consensual self-censorship and "ruling out" of these ideas has left parts of the body politic without antibodies. Open and frnak debate will re-innoculate us.