I agree that free speech should come first but I seem to recall that the left once had a "no platform" policy for fascists and people like David Irving. On balance I think this is wrong and people with disgusting views should be challenged in debate as banning them gives them the "oxygen of publcity". But both of these men are vile. The Wilders video is horrible, from what I have heard and Qaradawi is certainly not the cuddly figure portrayed by Livingstone as this video shows. It appeared on Al Jazeera and the translation has not been challenged.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/03/qaradawi-and-hitler/

"The problem is, the number of people who really do believe in liberty for those with whom they disagree, appears to have grown exceedingly small"

Yes. It's almost as though we have developed a taste for intolerance and authoritarianism.

"The BBC appeared unable to find any supporter of the principle of freedom of expression".

Perhaps because it doesn't know of any, and doesn't want to. After all, why would it cultivate people who hold a view so contrary to everything the BBC itself holds dear?

I see it less as a freedom of expression issue, and more in terms of the even more pernicious concept of "preventative justice".

The Government is effectively claiming to know that person X will commit a crime in Great Britain. So in order to prevent this crime, person X is stopped at the border.

It is not difficult to work out how dangerous this line of reasoning is.

New Labour are a bigger threat to our civil liberties than the terrorists

New Labour are a bigger threat to our civil liberties than the terrorists

There's a lot of interesting discussion on free speech over at

http://www.nigelwarburton.typepad.com/

Read Spyblog's latest post to see how far down the line Nu Labour have taken the repression of free speech.

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/02/serious-crime-act-2007-used-to-harass-indymedia-server.html

Here's the sort of rundown you seem to prefer http://www.medialens.org/about/overview_of_the_propaganda_model.php

Anyone that cares about liberty should go here : http://www.modernliberty.net/

and attend the convention.

I would rather be obedient to a just ruler who was obedient to the commands and limits set by God, than have total freedom of speech under a government and system that never listens to anybody. Only after they have brought on themselves and on us yet another catastrophe by not listening to all this freedom of speech, do the ministers responsible repeat, ( as they said about Mad cow disease which cost this country billions ) : " Nobody could have predicted this turn of ' events '. " Nobody except a five year old child that is.
Why did Mrs T. think paying the greedy bankers very large fortunes in order to look after our finances would ever work to our benefit? When I criticised this idiocy at the time , 25 years ago, I was told it wasn't my job, I didn't know anything about it, why didn't I get on with my own work and leave others to theirs.
A sound understanding of the ten commandments, Thou shalt not steal, for example, would seem now to be a better qualification or touchstone for good governance than reliance on ' The Market ' as a god. Do we still believe in The Market in modern financial circles ?
Nu labour recently drafted a wonderful piece of criminal law legislation stating that: ' An act of adultery is not in itself an extraordinary event.'
I presume that the word ' event ' is used here in the banking executive sense of total unpredictability in spite of the ensuing divorces and break-up of young families, teenager mental breakdowns, educational failure and heavy reliance on alcohol and drugs.

I've always ended up being attacked from both the 'left' and the 'right' I suppose it was because I was deemed a libertarian anarchist. I wanted a 'revolution' to usher in an age of freedom, not totalitarian tyranny, and even more control than one had before. But this was probably a utopian attitude on my part.

I believe freedom of speech is a central freedom which arguably is the basis of most of our other freedoms. I think people should be allowed to say pretty much what they like. A society which bans Wilders, radical Muslims, or Irving, or Nazis; isn't a strong and healthy society, sure of it's values and strong in its democratic freedoms, on the contrary, it's a weak society, that's afraid of shadows, and the pathetic ramblings of nutters.

We are living in a society were traditional 'bourgeoise' democratic freedoms are being systematically undermined. Why is this?

Put crudely, I think these freedoms were frosting, or a luxury, based on great wealth and economic success. Today we are moving out of one era; the era of complacent, lavish, consumer capitalism; into the era of the post-consumer society, where scarcity will once again rear it's ugly head, and along with it even more economic inequality, social stratification, and polarisation. In a society like this, ideas, criticism, dissent, can no longer be tolerated and ignored. After the age of the 'carrot' we enter the age of the 'stick.'

So, as our economic, social, and political, space, becomes steadily narrower, the social space where we are allowed to express dissent will also be enclosed by the powerful.

In a way, what's happening, reminds me of the enclosure movement, when the commons were taken over and fenced in, today it's our freedoms, and intellectual 'commons', that are being enclosed.

It's completely bang out of order. MP's are becoming just an expensive group of twats.

From the results of the social experiments by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram, indicating the human propensity to conform and obey, I might ask the reciprocal question: How did liberty ever manage to evolve in the first place?

I believe it was the innate cussedness of alpha-males that won these 'rights' against a history of totalitarian orthodoxies like the Roman empire and its bastard child the Catholic church.

And before anybody mentions the Suffragettes, I would say they were fighting to get into the orthodoxy and not out of it. Indeed, the feminist element of Nu-Labour is responsible for the disasters in education and the family, because they are not able or willing to accept criticism of performance.

Liberty is when you accept the right of the other guy to criticize you.

Fascism is when the other guy must believe what your gang believes.

PS: I didn't see your post 'writeon' until after I wrote; otherwise I would have acknowledged its sagacity :))

"MP's are becoming just an expensive group of twats."

98% off MP's have always been an expensive group of self-serving twats.

"The freedom of speech argument is just plain wrong. By preventing this person from entering the UK we are not infringing any freedom of speech "right" - they are free to say what they like, but we don't have to provide a platform for them to say it."
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090211063412AAE7oWA

When i asked a question you did not like, you implicitly warned me i would get censored/banned if i asked it here again, Craig.

"The problem is, the number of people who really do believe in liberty for those with whom they disagree, appears to have grown exceedingly small."

"But the gut instincts of New Labour are viciously authoritarian"

Strange thing is that it is all being set up for the next government...A tory government,me thinks.Like so many things there is more to this then meets the eye.

"Does anybody out there still believe in liberty?" Certainly not Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats, whose TV and radio performances today on the Wilders issue have been a disgrace from someone purporting to uphold liberal principles.

researcher

really? sorry, I genuinely have no idea what you are alluding too - could be impending senility on my part. Anyway, you plainly are not banned because here you are - and have been for ages, and are very welcome.

"the number of people who really do believe in liberty for those with whom they disagree, appears to have grown exceedingly small."

I have just watched the normally dire BBC Dimbleby Question Time and I thought Salma Yaqoob of the Respect Party did a really excellent job of reminding the panel and the audience of the old maxim - it was almost a cliche, till it went out of fashion - "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Happy to stand corrected but from what I saw with half an eye on the programme, was that Salma defended the principle of free speech (including the right of Muslims to demonstrate peacefully against those that attack them) against a panel consensus of shutting him out comprising the Labour Minister, a Tory MP and the loathsome Kelvin McKenzie.

George & Dicky

"MP's are becoming just an expensive group of twats."

98% off MP's have always been an expensive group of self-serving twats."

Please get your quantifiers right, it is a "bunch of twats" not a "group".

Who invited this Dutch person, or did he come of his own accord ? Some poltical activists deliberately invite provocative people in order to deplete the financial resources of the institutions which provide security. This really does raise the issue of "What price freedom of speech?". All well and good, but the tax payer foots the bill.

So if they said providing security for the person was too expensive would the argument be different ?

By the way, I think anyone has the right to speak their mind, like a fart it is better out than in.

Freedom of religion has to include freedom to criticise religion in general or any one religion in particular. But when adherents to a particular religion believe they should kill you if you criticise them or their deity, things are going to get ugly.

Nu Labour has repeatedly demonstrated its determination to grant certain privileges to those who believe in God. In the case of Wilders, this privilege took the form of ensuring Muslims' feelings weren't hurt. The fact that they freely admitted that the action was taken because Muslims might start burning stuff and blowing things up is a dangerous precedent: next time the Pope has a visit planned, I'm going to threaten to start burning stuff because of my hurt feelings, and then maybe I can get him banned.

>>Please get your quantifiers right, it is a "bunch of twats" not a "group".

Can't comment with any expertise on twats (sadly) but 'group' could be correct for MPs, just looking at the mathematical axioms for a bunch of things to be considered a group:

There must be an identity element;
The conjuction of any two elements of the group yields another member of the group (party politics runs in families);
There is an inverse element (one party claims to be the antithesis of the other); and
There is associativity (politicians associate almost exclusively with other politicians).

Therefore they constitute a group, QED.

Best collective prononoun is 'wunch' for bankers, surely?

BTW I've got a link to Fitna on my own blog. It's actually worth watching, but disturbing. In case anybody hasn't watched it and doesn't want to, you should be aware that it consists entirely of verses from the koran, juxtaposed with newsreel footage of islamist violence. The controversy is (or should be) whether that juxtaposition is justified. Personally, I believe you could do a similar exercise with the Old Testament, but then again I can't remember when believers in the Old Testament last flew airliners into tower blocks.

Anas Taunton said

"I would rather be obedient to a just ruler who was obedient to the commands and limits set by God"

We shouldn't be "ruled" by ANYONE. But if any ruler claimed to be "obedient to the commands and limits set by God" he or she would be unfit to rule. Even if God existed, how would anyone know what his commands and limits were? It's powerful religions (and politicians who subscribe to them) which claim to know what "God" wants that cause most of the problems in the world, today and thoughout history.

"We cannot have the police making decisions about what constitutes legitimate politics in this country."
Private ACPO running secret police unit.
No democratic oversight. Not even for the appearence.
Freemasons tentatively mentioned. In effect running UK police, serving hidden masters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/feb/10/police-civil-liberties

""We cannot have the police making decisions about what constitutes legitimate politics in this country."
Private ACPO running secret police unit.
No democratic oversight. Not even for the appearence.
Freemasons tentatively mentioned. In effect running UK police, serving hidden masters."

researcher

http://tinyurl.com/d9qjct

"Freemasons tentatively mentioned"

Does anyone know...is Rupert Murdoch a freemason?.

Writeon

You have it the wrong way round, freedom is not made possible by mass wealth: mass wealth is made possible only by freedom. If freedom goes, mass poverty will shepherd its departure.

Thank you Craig for agreeing 100% with the Qur'an in your thread Some good news... , that Jesus, peace be upon him, was not and could not in any way be God.
As for Geert Wilders, Alexander Pope, 18C poet and blogger, wrote about his opponent: "Shadwell never deviates into sense."
F. King does not offend me by his disbelief in God because it appears to be an honest opinion. By contrast, I have the feeling from the things that have been going on in Holland recently that what Mr Wilders really means is that he doesn't like the foreigners in his country and that does offend me.

I don't know if Salma Yaqub as well as being a Muslim agrees with the Marxism of the Respect website. That's even more out of date than Capitalism which is right now lying in state in Westminster Abbey.
Lying is the only thing that really makes me angry. I don't know why. It's so much easier to tell the truth.

Why should it offend you that Wilders doesn't like foreigners in his country? Surely that's his right, if he believes the foreigners in question are unfriendly to the type of society the indigenous population have evolved over centuries, as is the case with Muslims in Holland and in the UK too.

There is no problem in accepting foreigners who wish to become a contributing and creative part of our society, as our history abundantly illustrates: I am the grandson of an Arab, and as English as the next person. Unfortunately, the followers of Islam are more concerned to impose their values and customs upon us than to accept ours. Wilders has as much right to dislike this as I have to be increasingly alarmed by it.

Thank you, Craig.
Did you receive my email looking for clarification ?

Neil Hoskins wrote (as well as saying that he had a link to Fitna on his site):

"Freedom of religion has to include freedom to criticise religion in general or any one religion in particular. But when adherents to a particular religion believe they should kill you if you criticise them or their deity, things are going to get ugly.

Nu Labour has repeatedly demonstrated its determination to grant certain privileges to those who believe in God. In the case of Wilders, this privilege took the form of ensuring Muslims' feelings weren't hurt. The fact that they freely admitted that the action was taken because Muslims might start burning stuff and blowing things up is a dangerous precedent..."

I'm unaware that Neo Labour has been particularly helpful to 'religion' as such other than by gestures to garner votes in Pakistani and Bengali heavy constituencies. It is these same people who abuse 'religion' as an excuse for what is little better than a culturally conditioned reaction.

Islam has never been averse to engaging in informed discussion and accepting criticism as equals - the emphasis is on 'informed' and on treating each other as 'equals'.

Geert Wilders's film and his outbursts are neither informed nor treat the other fellow as an equal - he is a typical bigoted rabble rouser. Even so, if someone from the Muslim communities were given equal access to Wilders to the media of mass communication it would be obvious to all just what sort of creature Wilders is.

Much of the criticism from the Muslims is because they are denied this equal access. When he was alive (he died in 2006) the late Dr Zaki Badawi KBE was allowed to appear in print in UK broadsheets 4 times since 2001, whereas there was a procession of demagogues from Alan Dershowitz, through Bernard Lewis, to Patrick Sookhdeo and Micahel Nazir-Ally none of whom could be described as objective.

If you are unaware that 'Neo Labour' [as you call it] has been particularly helpful to religion, you evidently haven't been paying much attention to the onging debate concerning the appropriateness of public funding for faith schools, or to the recent laws inhibiting free speech on the dubious pretext of inciting religious hatred - which oddly enough, never seem to be applied to the Muslim preachers of hate against "infidels", Jews, homosexuals, etc. etc.

It's nice to know that "Islam" [please define!] has never been averse to engaging in informed discussion and accepting criticism as equals. It's a shame, then, that all its most vocal spokesmen persist in giving the impression that if you are not a Muslim you are not their equal.

Tolerance is a two-way street. It has to be mutual to be meaningful. If Muslims wish to be respected and accepted in liberal Western societies they will have to understand that and act upon it.

Wprost, publishes a 'cartoon' carrying the title "Stepmother of Europe" had Poland's leaders sucking the German Chancellor Angela Merkel's bare breasts was banned and a Spanish royal sex cartoon was banned, London mayor Blow Jo, and Chris Hic-chenz almost had a hernia about "interfering with UK domestic politics" when Iran criticised the Knighting of Rushdie, yet I have a funny feeling I know their stance over the Mohamad teddy-bear thing, when for some strange reason, it became a news head issue of the greatest national importance. So what you described Craig as being rather inconsistent on al-Qaradwi and Wilders isn't surprising.

Like all liars and rancid Islamophobes, (yes Mel, I'm not forgetting you, don't worry) the toxic sludge he himself oozes damages his cause more than banning him.

Banning only serves to strengthen the fascism we have today in the UK.

"We cannot have the police making decisions about what constitutes legitimate politics in this country."
Private ACPO running secret police unit.
No democratic oversight. Not even for the appearence.
Freemasons tentatively mentioned. In effect running UK police, serving hidden masters."

More on this?...

"ACPO recognised by Parliament"

http://tinyurl.com/ckb9yn

i think the scottish legal system has BIG problems.

http://tinyurl.com/bmpx6c

Did I say "legal system" include the political and law enforcement systems as well.God help us for we have no one else.

Immigration is one way in which colonial countries have tried to atone for their murderous, thieving, colonial pasts. Supporting faith schools is just another sneaky way for Racist Nu Labour to interfere with the teaching syllabus of Islamic schools.
The asylum process mitigates the violence of the past, and the purpose of this in the eyes of Tony Blair was to allow us to continue the process of violent destruction in Iraq with a fig leaf of respectability.

Having invited the foreigners into your country, it is not nice then to abuse their religion even though it is infinitely superior to yours. Mr Wilders has the same right as Tony Blair to instigate the killing of one million Iraqis and the exile of six million. Which is, who's going to stop me from doing what we have always done before? Sir Ian McKellan once drew to public attention this extract from Shakespeare in Sir Thomas More:
Supposing such as Wilders had attacked the foreigners living at that time in England:
"Say now the king,
As he is clement if th'offender mourn'
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain or Portugal,
Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England,
Why, you must be strangers, Would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper
That breaking out in hideous violence
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the elements
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
BUT CHARTERED UNTO THEM ? "

The foreigners come with their own religion, so respect it and respect them.

I personally listened to Sheikh Qaradawi in Regent's Park Mosque in London. He spent a very long time urging the Muslims to abide by the letter of British Law, be good citizens and thereby demonstrate the good character of Muslims and the rightness of Islam.
His reported extremism appeared to me a great deal more moderate than much of the rubbish coming out of the UK and US leaderships about Islam.

Feb 15 2009

"Body in charge of UK policing policy is now an £18m-a-year brand charging the public £70 for a 60p criminal records check"

"Britain's most powerful police body is being run as a private business with an annual income of around £18million."

"The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)"...

http://tinyurl.com/d39xjx

It was a neat linguistic trick of the Thatcher years to change the "citizen" to the "customer" when dealing with governement bodies.

A citizen has rights, the appellation cutomer implies (falsely) that you can take your business elsewhere while negating the relationship of voter to state.

Anas Taunton

If this stuff is "moderate" I would hate to see what the real extremists are saying. Lord help us. Livingstone's advocacy of this nut was the worst kind of political opportunism, and he paid the price for it.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/03/qaradawi-and-hitler/

Neil Hoskins comments are marred by error and deception. "Fitna" is a cut and paste job, and does NOT present Quranic verses in their entirety. Its an amateurish bit of propaganda in MEMRI style. Hoskins then makes us laugh claiming that followers of the Old Testament don't fly planes into buildings. Really? They just live 5000 years in the past and fire missiles at Palestinian civilians, in addition to invading countries based on lies and killing innocent people hoping to steal their oil. As far as I'm concerned only an idiot would expect "moderation" from people who are being invaded, occupied and murdered.
Wilders himself is a racist and has made no secret of his hatred, not to mention the fact that he claims to be a Mossad agent. His aim to "ban" Islam in his native Netherlands negates his hollow claim of being a champion of "freedom."