Via PDF who goes along with this arrant piece of stupidity from the comments at Illiberal Conspiracy:
I hope it’s not too extreme to point out that our granddads’ response to their generation’s Nazis was to bomb them and strafe them from the air; to shoot them with machine guns and rifles; torch them with flamethrowers, incendiaries and white phosphorus; to crush them with tanks, blow them up with grenades and high explosives and so on, and then march their supporters off to prison. I don’t know how people could’ve missed this, since we have well-publicised memorials at which we salute their courage for kicking Nazi arse so righteously, every single year.
Not that I think this would be a reasonable response to the BNP, of course, but it sure puts all this Oooo, we must understand the motivations of poor, misguided racists who consciously vote for Nazi organisations in perspective.
It doesn’t put anything into perspective, being a rather silly piece of hyperbole. Our grandparents’ generation were at war with a hostile foreign power that had invaded its neighbours. We are not at war with the BNP – an organisation that happens to be a legal political party. You have to be particularly dense not to see the difference. If we do not allow the BNP freedom of speech, if we do not hear their arguments and understand why people support them, we cannot counter them, we cannot expose their nastiness, indeed, we become them – the very thing we rail against. One of the outcomes of our grandparents’ sacrifice was supposed to be freedom from this type of tyranny. When you allow political freedom, you allow it for all, no matter how vile we find their ideas; that is why we are supposed to be better than they are. Clearly, though, we are not – at least, some of us are not.
I’m rapidly growing irritated that I have to keep pointing out this truism to people who should damned well know better.
1) FlyingRodent’s comment was inspired by the “we need to understand the very real concerns of BNP voters” lot: it’s not a manifesto for denying them the right to say stupid and appalling shit, just to bear in mind that it’s wrong and shouldn’t be conceded to.
2) As I’m sure you know, the UK didn’t need to fight WWII for survival: Hitler offered us peace and to leave the sea and the colonies to us if we let him have mainland Europe. We chose to fight because that wasn’t fucking on.
and he always kept his word didn’t he.
“I’m rapidly growing irritated that I have to keep pointing out this truism to people who should damned well know better.”
Ah, but their audience consists of people unable to do their thinking for themselves, and wanting someone to tell them what they should think.
So, you can understand why they do it….
.-= ´s last blog ..That’s A Lot Of Schools & ‘Ospitals…. =-.
Yes, it is annoying when people make stupid over the top connections between parties like that.
https://www.longrider.co.uk/blog/2006/03/05/
Pot, meet kettle.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand why there is a growing protest vote – and far larger abstentions – against the mainstream parties by people who feel that their concerns are ignored and their interests betrayed by politicians who couldn’t care less what they think and want.
The truth of the matter is that the BNP is a dead dog. They got less than 7% in an election, and a lot of people start beating their breasts. But the BNP remain totally marginalised, having the sympathy of a small proportion of the electorate, and disdained by the vast majority. And yet a lot of idiots are behaving as if they pose the sort of threat that Hitler did in the 1930s.
The authoritarianism that strangles liberty is not, however, a dead dog. It is real, alive, and dangerous. Those who live in a time-warp are convinced that it will come to us wearing a brown shirt. They are wrong. It will come to us in different clothes this time. Very different clothes. Indeed, it is already coming to us.
Protest votes it may be but never underestimate the stupidity of the general public. Even now there are a significant number of supporters who still say Gordo is doing a good job and Cameron’s lot are not exactly sailing out into the lead. A few points maybe but it fluctuates so much it’s not even consistant.
I hope they will never be a mainstream party but you never know what will happen when people suddenly realise what Mandleson, Gordo, Cameron and those other traitors have done to get the UK signed up to the Lisbon treaty.
PDF – Yes, I understood perfectly what the comment was referring to. I was merely expanding on the understanding point – i.e. if we don’t let them speak as some have done recently, then we cannot hope to respond effectively. And, yes, we do need to understand why people follow an ideology if we are to counter it. Frankly, five minutes thought and a modicum of common sense will do it. Clearly, that is beyond the reach of the Labour Party and its acolytes.
Your second paragraph is largely irrelevant to what I wanted to say, however…
We did not bomb and strafe the German military machine because they were Nazis – indeed, there were folk in the British government sympathetic to the ideology – we bombed and strafed them because they bombed, strafed and invaded our allies.
Yes, we could have reached a peace deal with Hitler. Why not indeed? It worked out well for Uncle Joe after all.
While the “what if” thing makes for an interesting historical discussion, it is besides the point. Hyperbole to make a point is fine – if make a point is what it does. To do that there has to be an underlying truth – comparing a war with a foreign power with a domestic legal party is no comparison, so it fails on that point. It also fails on the humour one as well
EvilEuropean – Sigh… A parallel – even a hyperbolic one is fine – if it is a relevant one (i.e. there is a parallel) and/or there is some humour that reveals the truism. My references apply because I was directly comparing like with like – creeping authoritarianism and misuse of language, Flying Rodent does not. Comparing a war with a foreign power with a modern day Roderick Spode is plain silly as there is no parallel. If FR had compared the racist policies of the BNP with those of Adolf’s Nazis, then he would have had a point. As it is, he does not and the comment is meaningless.
You have to be particularly dense not to see the difference.
Indeed, some even are, Longrider.
.-= ´s last blog ..[l’interdiction du burqua] pourrait expédier l’islamicization =-.
Indeed so James, indeed so.
We did not bomb and strafe the German military machine because they were Nazis… we bombed and strafed them because they bombed, strafed and invaded our allies.
No doubt, although it raises Realpolitik to silly levels. Let’s see what a contemporary British citizen, picked entirely at random, thought about the fight against the Nazis once the war had begun…
(we shall) …wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime; …The British and French peoples have advanced to rescue the world from… the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history; …If we fail, then the whole world… will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
The world has surely gone mental when a lefty like me has to lecture a load of right wingers on the wisdom of Churchill.
And as PDF says, nobody is talking about making war on the BNP – let them bump their gums unhindered, all day and night, so we can see what a bunch of evil rats they are. I’m saying that the idea we should listen to their “very real concerns” and those of the morons that vote for them is idiotic bullshit. Nobody thinks we should listen to 9/11 truthers or moon-landing doubters, but we should engage in conversation with cranks who think the nation is gravely threatened by immigrants, and that we will save ourselves by kicking out all the blacks? People who prove it by voting for Nazi thugs whose idea of political action is pushing dogshit through a Pakistani shopkeeper’s letterbox?
Funny how all that hardline, we-don’t-negotiate-with-extremists stuff goes flying out of the window the very second right wingers sniff a couple of votes in it, isn’t it? Because it’s entirely obvious that all of this Ooo, we must understand the BNP voter translates into non-bollocks English as the Boy, these Nazis are politically useful for my non-stop whining about political correctness and the darkies, aren’t they? you get from various reactionary fucknuts with blogs, some of whom may or may not be represented on this thread.
Fuck that, and fuck the BNP and the cretins who vote for them. I’ll listen to anyone, but voting for Nazis is and always has been a line in the sand for reasonable discussion.
Still, I’m not entirely without sympathy for BNP voters – they’re just misguided, racist idiots. The people I really despise are the BNP themselves and especially the type of asshole who tries to quietly big-up BNP success to further their own political agendas. They exist on the left – hi, Mr. Woolas! – and the right, and they’re all, without exception, contemptible bastards.
(Ignore this one)
No, it doesn’t. You were comparing bananas with mango juice.
Two points here. While it is true that my position has drifted over the past two decades from slightly left of centre to slightly right of centre, the key word here is “centre”.
Secondly, I am well aware of Churchill’s point and concur with it. However, he was talking about a tyranny that had engulfed a continent following a war of expansion. Had Germany not engaged in a war of expansion, it is likely he would have not said it and we would not have gone to war – it generally being bad form to invade other people’s countries because we don’t like the coves who run them. The BNP are a British political party, not a German one and they are not invading other people’s countries (see the difference?), preferring, it seems, to leave that sort of thing to the Labour party.
Therefore, there is no comparison to make, which was my point.
I was responding to this statement made by PDF on his own site:
Throwing eggs at them is bad – quite apart from being common assault, it the kind of tyranny that Churchill was rabbiting on about. Freedom from censorship of ideas and speech being a core ideal. And as I said, I really shouldn’t have to keep pointing it out. Freedom of speech is – or should be – sacrosanct.
No it isn’t. There are people who feel that they are aliens in their own country and if they say so, they are labelled as racist. Those are real concerns and ignoring them or simply writing them off as “racist” is both ignorant and arrogant. Indeed, having concerns about immigration is not necessarily racist anyway.
Personally, I’d happily see free movement of labour. However, I do so with the caveat that incomers integrate with the host society – that, rather than immigration per se being at the root of the issue.
When a significant proportion of your core vote switches to an extreme party, it’s sheer bloody stupidity not to ask why.
Non sequitur as the BNP is a legal political party whereas the “we don’t negotiate” stuff relates to illegal organisations. Frankly, I don’t much care about the votes as Young Mr Brown pointed out above – electoral mathematics means that under the current system, they will remain on the fringes. They may, however cost the Labour party enough votes to sink their electoral chances, so it isn’t all bad.
Given that this is simply an assumption on your part, it isn’t at all obvious.
Maybe, maybe not. If you make no effort to find out, you have only your own assumptions to go by – if you keep telling people that if they make a fuss, they are “racist”, don’t be too surprised if eventually, they take the view that they may as well be guilty as charged. But, unless you ask the question, you will never know.
Yup.
Therefore, there is no comparison to make, which was my point.
This is getting daft. Forget WWII – the point is “Our grandads didn’t listen to the very real concerns of their generation’s Nazis, and nor should we”. More on the Nazi sympathies of the BNP later.
Throwing eggs at them is bad – quite apart from being common assault, it the kind of tyranny that Churchill was rabbiting on about.
The notion that throwing eggs at people is the kind of tyranny Churchill was rabbiting about is obvious, laughable bollocks. I imagine that non-white Britons woke up that morning wondering whether their neighbours harboured extreme racist views – the act of egging Griffin demonstrates to them that actually, lots of people think “Take that Griffin, you great wobbling Nazi arse”. The fact that even the Sun – a paper that is very sensitive to the opinions of its readership – ran “Ha-ha Nick Griffin is a twat” headlines suggests that this is a popular view.
I conclude then that egging the BNP is a good and wholesome part of our democracy in exactly the same way that egging and soaking John Prescott was, and if you disagree then I suggest you Google “sense of proportion” and reflect on the results.
There are people who feel that they are aliens in their own country…
You’re getting your argument arse-about-face here. It is common knowledge that the BNP are Nazis, and I don’t mean that in the Dirty Fucking Hippie all coppers are fascists sense. Their members have repeatedly been caught expressing overly-fond opinions of a certain political movement from the thirties and forties; they have been caught denying the holocaust and they are very upfront about their dodgy views on ethnicity. If you read Stormfront, Redwatch or any number of BNP blogs – there are lots, if you care to look – you will see that they are cheerful white supremacists. In fact, the ubiquity of racist and white supremacist views on BNP blogs is the reason why the party has asked its members to stop blogging. It is undeniable that the BNP’s racism is common knowledge, and also that the people who voted for them cannot claim to be unaware of it.
Ergo, BNP votes are not evidence that “people feel like aliens in their own country” – that’s your interpretation. If people know that the BNP are racist and vote for them anyway, it is entirely fair to call BNP voters racist.
It is also common knowledge that the BNP is filled with violent thugs who have long histories in baseball-batting minorities and chucking shit through letterboxes. I’ve met BNP activists on four different occasions, and I can assure you that their attempts to hide their thuggish stupidity are woefully inept. If they showed up on your doorstep, you would conclude that they were stupid thugs within ten seconds. It is therefore reasonable to call people who vote for the BNP idiots and morons, since voting for thugs is a supremely stupid act.
This means that the only logical conclusion that can be drawn about BNP voters is that they are a) racist b) idiotic c) morons.
Further, I’ll note that wittering about “labels” and understanding arsehole behaviour used to be the territory of sappy left wingers, and so any attempts to explain away racist idiocy through understanding and sympathy should be recognised as an annoying, right-wing version of political correctness and mocked accordingly.
So, there’s no denying that the BNP are an extreme, racist party. There is no way that either Labour or the Tories are going to adopt enough policies of racist extremism to satisfy BNP voters, so why bother listening to their very real concerns? Neither party is going to start baiting the blacks, so they will never get BNP supporters’ votes. This means that our response to BNP voters should be Fuck Them, Because Fuck Them. The fact that they don’t like being told to fuck off is neither here nor there – of course they don’t like being told to fuck off. But they can still fuck off. They can fuck right off, in fact.
If you make no effort to find out, you have only your own assumptions to go by – if you keep telling people that if they make a fuss, they are “racist”, don’t be too surprised if eventually, they take the view that they may as well be guilty as charged.
They are guilty as charged. This is why I say, Fuck Them, and quite frankly I’m inclined to similar thoughts about people who talk about BNP voters and put the word “racist” in scare-quotes. Their racism isn’t some leftist conspiracy theory, it is an actually-existing fact of reality, and I’m deeply suspicious of attempts to cast doubt on it as some left-wing conspiracy theory. It should be beneath you, for a start.
There’s probably a way I could’ve said all that in a hundred words, but what the hell.
Well, you were the one who raised it, not me. The comparison you made was daft and I have merely pointed that out; my point, the one you persist in missing, is that their response was to armed aggression, not a minor party winning votes at an election. There simply is no comparison to make here. There is a comparison to make if you are referring to ideology.
Again, you are sidestepping my point. Nick Griffin may be an odious little creep, but he is an elected odious little creep and as such has every right to hold a press conference without being silenced which was what happened. The behaviour of the nasty fascists who effectively censored him made them no better than him. It was not a part of democracy, it was the antithesis of democracy. It was pure thuggery and any reasonable person should abhor it. It is not a part of the democratic process to engage in throwing eggs or custard or whatever at your opponents. Ever. If you think that it is, you are a part of the problem and you are no better than those you rail against as you approve of their tactics. Quite simply, you admit here that you do not support the principle of free speech. Quelle surprise. My irritation referred to earlier is more than justified.
As for my sense of proportion, you’re having a laugh… Given the reason we are having this discussion, you are the last person I’ll be taking lectures from on my sense of proportion, you simply aren’t qualified. Nice try, though.
Laughing at them, though, is fine (yes, he is a twat), censoring them is not. The latter is what actually happened.
No – you are twisting my point to the point of being disingenuous. We were not talking about BNP membership, we were talking about members of the electorate who feel inclined to vote for them – and that is who that sentence referred to. The rest of your point, therefore is a strawman, not that I disagree with your statements about the BNP, simply that they do not apply to what I was saying.
Bollocks, frankly. You have deliberately evaded the point I was making. You are prepared to simply label people racist without making any attempt to understand their motivation. To assume it is simply racism is incredibly facile. It may be, but if their concerns relate to uncontrolled immigration and a failure of immigrants to integrate, then it is not racism and the concern is perfectly valid. These people hear someone like Nick Griffin pandering to those concerns and it echoes their sentiments. People can be persuaded to follow the most absurd political agenda with suitable propaganda. It took me a while to realise that my support for Labour was misplaced, something I will spend a long time regretting. What I will not do is make sweeping assumptions about a group of people based merely on their perceived voting patterns. There is insufficient evidence on which to reach a conclusion. This is neither right wing, nor left wing, nor political correctness; it is common sense.
You don’t know that. Some of those people have switched from mainstream parties. You assume that they want to bait blacks. You don’t know this. Some of these people voted as they did to protest. This does not make them racist. Having been told repeatedly that complaint about lack of integration or uncontrolled immigration makes them racist it should come as no surprise if eventually they decide that it makes no difference, they might as well do what they have been accused of all along – it can’t be any worse.
And there you neatly make my case. Well done. And if you don’t like the quotes around “racist”, tough shit. Get used to it or lump it. No conspiracy theory, merely an observation of history and an understanding of human nature and an unwillingness to make sweeping assumptions and assertions without sufficient factual evidence.
my point, the one you persist in missing, is that their response was to armed aggression, not a minor party winning votes at an election.
Fine, enjoy – we fought a total war to unconditional surrender against both Germany and Imperial Japan because Germany invaded Poland, as did the Soviet Union, and our former intolerance of Nazism is totally unrelated to how we should respond to Nazism today.
It is not a part of the democratic process to engage in throwing eggs or custard or whatever at your opponents.
We have an irreconcilable difference of opinion, then. Nick Griffin gets ample opportunity to express his views, just as Mandelson and Prescott do, and if some joker eggs them in public once every couple of years then that is one of the risks of the job, whether you’re Nick Griffin or Barack Obama. Calling people who throw eggs once at a Nazi MEP fascists is silly beyond belief, but I can see you’re not about to be swayed on this one.
You have deliberately evaded the point I was making.
I’ve tackled it head-on and dismissed it after reasonable consideration. You are saying that BNP voters are alienated voters who feel like aliens in their own country, who vote for the party because their concerns may relate to uncontrolled immigration and a failure of immigrants to integrate. Well, perhaps – but there’s nothing concrete in electoral data to confirm that this is the case. It’s simply your opinion. The fact that the BNP vote increased both in areas with high non-white populations and those with low non-white populations supports my contention, not yours.
I’ll reiterate my point on this, for clarity. Ask a random punter in the street about UKIP, and they will tell you it is a eurosceptic party. It is therefore logical to suggest that UKIP voters – even protest voters – are very likely to be eurosceptics. The same goes for the Greens – it is logical to say that Green voters, even if they vote in protest, are very likely to be big on environmental issues.
Now, I did go to some lengths to point out that the BNP are actually Nazis with a long history of neo-fascist pronouncements, holocaust denial and white supremacism, and that the primary thing that the public know about them is that they are racist thugs. It is, in fact, common knowledge that the BNP are racist thugs. It is therefore logical to suggest that BNP voters – even those voting in protest at the awful multiculturalisses – are very likely to be racist. If all you know about a party is that they want to kick out the darkies, and you vote for them anyway, then you haven’t got a leg to stand on when people call you racist, any more than a dog can claim to be a chicken.
Further, I would add that the Nazi connections and white supremacism of the BNP are also common knowledge. It is the one constant in media coverage of the party, since it is undeniable and reprehensible, and I’m sure you’ll agree that it is reasonable to assume that a majority of BNP voters would be at least vaguely aware of it. Since this is the case, and since only an idiot would vote for a Nazi thug, it is logical to conclude that BNP voters are very likely indeed to be racist idiots.
These are the only conclusions you can draw from the electoral data (more on opinion polling on this in a minute). Received opinion about the BNP, multiculturalism and immigration in the press may or may not be accurate, but is not a refutation of this simple point.
It’s also worth pointing out that the BNP’s vote is now at similar levels to the NF’s electoral heyday, and in similar areas. In my opinion, the BNP’s support are the same people who marched for Enoch Powell, plus their kids; who turned out for the National Front at the arse-end of the seventies, mysteriously disappeared in the eighties and nineties, and have magically reappeared with the failure of Labour and Cameron’s purge of the Tories. In short, Britain has always had a small, self-sustaining minority of about one million fascist voters; it always will have, and it always will do.
If that is the case, and if we agree that fascism is unacceptable in modern government, then I suggest that there is no point at all in listening to their opinions, because there are no policies that we can impliment that will satisfy their extreme political demands. We should instead be telling them to fuck off in no uncertain terms.
The alternative is to start suggesting racist policies that Labour and the Tories can adopt, and I know that neither of us will have any truck with that.
I really can’t summarise this any more briefly.
(Additionally, this may be of interest – http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2172)
At no point have I disputed your point on BNP activists – we are in absolute agreement on this point. We probably are agreed on the level of support they get.
However, when a small extreme nationalist party starts to do well in the polls is it better to stick one’s fingers in one’s ears and shout “racist” or to pause for a moment and ask the difficult question? Of course, you might not like the answer – and multiculturalism combined with a lack of integration may well be the problem. That has nothing whatsoever to do with race. Nor is insisting that people who live in this country speak English and adopt the British way of life and values.
To put this into context, I moved to a foreign country last year. I do not expect official documents to be translated, I do not expect local people and shopkeepers to converse with me in English, I expect to fit in with them, not the other way around. When you have enclaves that do not fit in with the host community you get tension and resentment. This is not racism, it is human nature.
A couple of years ago, I voted Tory for the first time in my life. That does not mean that I am a Tory, it does not mean that I support their policies (although on ID cards, I do). I was voting against Labour, not for the Tories.
In parts of the country, a BNP vote will hurt Labour and people hear Labour ranting about the bogeyman and not to vote for him. These people are not as stupid as you may think – they are aware that a vote for the BNP won’t lead to a BNP government, so the policy of repatriation isn’t going to happen. What will happen is that labour will get a bloody nose and they are doing what these self-righteous bastards are telling them not to. Human nature again. Yes, people who do this with the BNP are misguided and foolish, historically unaware, perhaps, but I will not make the assumption without corroborating evidence that they are automatically racist.
The egg throwing incident – yes, I will go back to it because it is important – was a deliberate (and successful) attempt to silence an elected representative. That was the purpose of the exercise. It had nothing to do with the democratic process and a reasonable person would find the behaviour repugnant. Censorship of ideas using thuggery and violence is fascist behaviour. They believe their views should be heard but not those they find disagreeable, this is tyranny. Yes, you could argue that Griffin was getting back what his acolytes are happy to dish out, but since when did two wrongs make a right? I must have missed that one. The Anti-Nazis are merely the opposite side of a sickening little coin. They are scum.
when a small extreme nationalist party starts to do well in the polls is it better to stick one’s fingers in one’s ears and shout “racist” or to pause for a moment and ask the difficult question?
The BNP has not “started to do well” – as I said, Enoch and the NF were similarly popular, and the BNP’s vote has been static for the eight years since its re-emergence as a minority party of note. This strongly supports what I’m saying here – that Britain has a small but loyal fascist voting base, with a cluster of the racist idiot vote – as does the point that BNP votes appear to bear only minimal correlation to non-white population.
I’ve gone out of my to explain my reasoning here, and to give logical reasons for why I believe that BNP voters are just racist assholes who should be ignored. I can’t see any evidence in any of your responses that suggest you even read them beyond the word “racist”.
Yes, I understand what you’re saying about protest votes; I get it about the horrible PC multiculturalisses, and I’ve given reasons for why I disagree. What I’m not getting is why you think digging your heels in on right wing received opinion (which is what it is) and repeating yourself refutes these points. It doesn’t.
Anyway, if you want to put something in context, I suggest you look long and hard at the following formula you’ve concocted in this and related threads –
Labour Party – Hideous authoritarianism means ZaNuPF/Nazi comparisons totally justified.
People who throw eggs at Nazi politician, once – Literally fascists, sickening thuggery, tyrannical scum. As bad as actually-existing fans of Adolf Hitler.
People who vote for a racist, white supremacist party knowing full well it is racist and white supremacist – Well, let’s not get overexcited, jump to conclusions and start calling people silly names. After all, they may have been forced to voting for Nazis because Labour are so horrible.
You don’t need to explain why the Anti-Nazi egg-bombers upset you over again – I get that. I’m just saying that if you can’t see what’s wrong with this mindset after everything I’ve said, then I doubt another round of comments are going to resolve much.
.-= ´s last blog ..Jacko – All Paedo Gags Good For One Week Only =-.
Well, I’ve certainly seen a few logical fallacies – the non sequitur, the strawman and the appeal to authority – if that’s what you mean by logic.
I have read your points in detail. The reason I remain implacably unmoved by them is that while elaborately made, they remain opinion and assertion, not facts backed up by hard evidence. Can you provide me with testimony from a range of people who voted for the BNP explaining why they did and what they would like the BNP to do about their concerns? If you can and they say “send the darkies home” then you will persuade me. Otherwise, simply repeating your opinion won’t cut it. Sorry.
Where applicable, yes.
Yes. They have set themselves up to decide on our behalf what we may or may not hear. They have no such authority and such behaviour is, indeed, intimidation and violence. Such behaviour is, indeed, that practised by authoritarian thugs employed by the fascists. Hitler and Stalin may have disagreed over which books to burn and whom to shoot – but they agreed on the burning and shooting. The BNP and the Anti-Nazi league may differ on whom to beat up and whom to silence, but they agree on the beating up and silencing. They are identical, they are anti-liberty, they are anti-democratic.
Strawman.
There’s nothing wrong with my mindset. It is entirely consistent. I don’t jump to conclusions without corroborating evidence and I utterly despise despots of whatever political shade.
Well, I’ve certainly seen a few logical fallacies – the non sequitur, the strawman and the appeal to authority – if that’s what you mean by logic.
Trying and failing to find a way of putting this without being a total dick about it…
Look, mate, I think you’re confusing the invocation of “logical fallacies” with “magic words”. The word “strawman”, for instance, is not a mystical incantation like “Alakazzam!” or “The power of Christ compels you!” that need only be invoked to vanquish leftist demons.
Let’s take this example…
Well, let’s not get overexcited, jump to conclusions and start calling people silly names. After all, they may have been forced to voting for Nazis because Labour are so horrible.
Strawman.
This is a strawman in the same way that an orange is a peacock, i.e. it isn’t. You’ve made that point at least three times that I can count – recognise this?
…I will not make the assumption without corroborating evidence that they are automatically racist… I don’t jump to conclusions… To assume it is simply racism is incredibly facile… etc. etc.
That’s you saying “let’s not jump to conclusions”, repeatedly. A “strawman” argument is one that fundamentally misrepresents one’s opponents’ statements – the quoted passage is a reasonably accurate (although, I admit, humorously intended) summary of your argument. Surely I don’t need to go back and pull out the bits about multiculturalism and giving Labour a bloody nose to prove this point?
I have read your points in detail. The reason I remain implacably unmoved by them is that while elaborately made, they remain opinion and assertion, not facts backed up by hard evidence.
This does tend to be the nature of arguments. What usually happens is I take some known facts – say, that people know that the BNP are white supremacists; that BNP voting and non-white population aren’t strongly related, or that Britain has had a roughly stable fascist vote for almost fifty years – and then I draw a conclusion from those facts. The conclusion may even be wildly wrong, but simply saying Non-sequitur or some naming some other logical fallacy is akin to just repeating the words No it isn’t… No it isn’t… No it isn’t… over and over.
Can you provide me with testimony from a range of people who voted for the BNP explaining why they did and what they would like the BNP to do about their concerns?
If I could, I would hardly have spent all this time explaining the history, electoral record and politics of white supremacism in Britain, would I? This is the funny thing about people with extreme, unpopular views – they tend to invent seemingly plausible reasons for their votes so that they don’t look like mean-spirited idiots. People get with the programme – I can remember a guy I knew when I was twenty telling me that he left the north of England because there were “too many Pakis” there. Last time I met him, about three years ago, he’d modified his stance to exactly reflect the Very Real Concerns you’re talking about.* For the reasons I’ve outlined above, I think this is a fairly standard stance for BNP voters.
It’s entirely possible that many or most of them are telling the truth when they talk about their Very Real Concerns. That said, I think it’s also worth noting that Nixon’s southern strategy was a deliberate race-baiting policy of promising a crackdown on the blacks, but that the millions who voted for him told pollsters that their chief concern was “law and order”. I doubt even the late Lee Atwater would pretend that they weren’t appealing to the racist beliefs of southerners with that campaign.
Further, you’ll notice that racist coppers don’t write One of the things that attracts me to the force is the opportunity to beat up and harrass black people with impunity on their application forms, but I think recent history has shown that such people exist, in greater numbers than we might think.
Anyway, on reliable stats – I tried to link to this report earlier, but it didn’t work. These are by far the best statistics I’ve seen on BNP voters so far, and I think they back up my points reasonably well.
http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2172
*That, incidentally, was a logical fallacy – for all you know, I could’ve made that up. I didn’t, but hey ho.
.-= ´s last blog ..Jacko – All Paedo Gags Good For One Week Only =-.
You don’t give up, do you?
My use of the term strawman is perfectly accurate. You misrepresented my point (at no time did I suggest that people are “forced” to vote for the BNP). Humorous? really? Don’t give up the day job.
When people persist in twisting my words, I cease to bother replying in detail and merely point out that it is a logical fallacy as I will not defend what I have not said; it being futile.
Unless you can provide clear, verifiable evidence (I trust you understand what I mean by “verifiable evidence”) to back up your assertions, they remain just that; assertions. Some of them sound perfectly reasonable, but they remain assertions nonetheless.
Well stop saying “yes it is, yes it is” over and over… 😐
You don’t give up, do you?
Well, I do when people just keep repeating No, you’re wrong because you are, which is roughly the point we’ve reached, so cheers for your time.
.-= ´s last blog ..Jacko – All Paedo Gags Good For One Week Only =-.
Thank Christ for that. I was beginning to lose the will to live.