Terror and internment

As I write, there has recently been yet another terror attack in Britain – the third this year.  Westminster and Manchester have both been targeted, and now the area around London Bridge as well.

It is reported that Prime Minister Theresa May has announced four tough new measures to deal with Islamic terror, which are:

• Continue military action on ISIS in Syria and Iraq;
• Make it harder for terror attacks to be planned online;
• Tougher prison sentences for terrorists;
• Persuade Muslim extremists that pluralistic values are superior to their own ideology.

I have already outlined in previous posts why the first measure is – to put it mildly - illogical.  The second measure makes sense, but time will tell how effective it will be in practice.  The third measure does not make much sense, unfortunately.   Three recent terror attacks have ended with the perpetrators dead.  One was killed by his own bomb, and the others were shot by the police.  If you plan to carry out a terror attack in which you expect to die, then you are unlikely to fear a prison sentence.

As for the final measure, I would be interested to know in what way the government intends to persuade Muslim extremists that they are wrong.  It would of course help matters if they could start by identifying who the Muslim extremists actually are.

A recent commentary by Katie Hopkins also takes the Prime Minister to task on this issue, but is also rather short on solutions.  Hopkins goes further than the Prime Minister, by arguing that all people suspected of being sympathetic to ISIS should be interned.  A commentary by Ross Clark argues a similar case, and notes that:

We certainly did not leave things to chance at the outbreak of the Second World War when 80,000 enemy aliens and fascist sympathisers were rounded up and put before special tribunals to assess the risk they posed to the nation.

Most were released but not before the authorities could be sure that they were not planning to assist the Nazis.

True, internment gained a bad name at the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles, when 2,000 suspected terrorists were rounded up – but failed to stop many others conducting a campaign of bombings and shootings.

But the difference then was that the suspects were held without trial.

We do not have to intern without trial Britons who have travelled to join IS because what they have done is a criminal offence.

This may be true, but surely the Britons who have fought for ISIS abroad are only a part of the problem.   So far as I am aware, not one of the five men who carried out the three recent terror attacks had ever fought for ISIS abroad.

I also wonder if either Hopkins or Clark would be keen on the idea of internment if they themselves were likely to be interned.  Let’s be clear about this.  The British government in the 1940s interned people they considered to be politically dangerous.  Hitler’s National Socialist regime also interned people they considered to be politically dangerous.  The difference was what exactly?

Comments are welcome.

Related previous posts include:

Terror in Manchester
The insanity of a war without frontiers

Jews matter, but only if they agree

In recent years I have come to the conclusion that we do not matter for who we are, but rather for what we believe.  At the time of writing, Ken Livingstone – formerly the mayor of London – has been suspended for a year by the Labour Party to punish him for remarks he made which supposedly brought the party into disrepute.

A lot of people have alleged that his remarks were anti-semitic, whereas Livingstone has replied – and I believe him – that at least one Jewish woman has told him that what he said was true.

It is widely reported that he called Adolf Hitler a Zionist, which he denies.  I am not sure exactly what he said, but so far as I can make out he asserted that Hitler struck a deal with Zionists in the 1930s.  I believe it is true that during the 1930s Hitler encouraged Jews to leave Germany and settle in Palestine.

If Ken Livingstone’s crime is merely to state a fact, then we might expect the furore to be short-lived, and yet he continues to make the headlines.  At least one newspaper comment writer has argued that nowadays you can find a historian who will support almost any point of view, which may be a fair comment, but does any historian of the 1930s deny that Hitler’s national socialist regime encouraged Jewish emigration?

I have just read another comment by Dan Hodges (who is the son of a former Labour MP).  He rants that:

Where once they [the Labour Party] raged against intolerance and prejudice, now they shrug it off.

He continues: Labour is now a racist party ... But it’s not just a racist party; it’s an apartheid one. Jews are tolerated, but only as second-class citizens.

He fails to explain how any rational person – whether Jewish or gentile – could possibly be offended by Livingstone’s remarks.  This is presumably because he knows perfectly well that the remarks were not offensive.

He concludes with an allusion to Niemoeller’s prayer, but fails to explain in what sense anyone in the Labour Party is coming for the Jews.  They are not, and I wonder how many Jewish people actually agree with him on this point.

So far as I can make out, Dan Hodges is not Jewish.  He is however a typical establishment figure.  In Britain today, Jews matter if they are offended by whatever the likes of Hodges consider to be anti-semitic.  If they are not offended, then they must expect to be ignored.
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Related previous posts include:
The politics of denial
Jeremy Corbyn is close to the truth

Churchill versus Hitler

A national newspaper is reporting that a new film about Winston Churchill contains many errors.  I do not know and do not care whether or not this is true.

Recently the political party Britain First organised a protest march in London which met with a violent counter-protest.  The march was protesting about Islamic terror attacks, and so presumably the counter-protest was largely made up of people who support Islamic terror attacks.

It was not at all surprising to see many of the counter-protest group holding placards bearing slogans expressing opposition to Hitler’s national socialist regime.  Then again, perhaps it ought to be surprising, given that Paul Golding of Britain First has said publicly that he admires Winston Churchill.

It is perhaps important to note that Paul Golding is aware of something which many people either do not know, or else try to conceal – and that is that Winston Churchill compared Islam with rabies.

I find it curious that many people – whatever their view of Adolf Hitler might be – are reluctant to admit the fact that he was tolerant of Islam.  In fact many thousands of Muslims fought in Hitler’s armies, and at least some of them are known to have fought tenaciously.

Related previous posts include:

Blame the establishment for the march of Islam

The politics of denial

Followers of this blog may be aware that I have for some time now planned to write in detail about the supposed holocaust perpetrated by the German National Socialist regime in the 1940s.  Some may also be wondering why it matters.

In the past week my blog has enjoyed its highest readership in France, the USA, and Greece.  Two of those are countries where free speech is denied to those who seek the truth.  A simple search on the internet reveals that in September 2014 the Greek parliament voted to outlaw any denial of the supposed holocaust, whereas a similar law has existed in France since 1990.

It is never made entirely clear why such laws exist, but links are often made with the inevitably vague concepts of racism and anti-semitism.  I have some questions.

Have the lives of Jewish people in France improved since 1990?  Have the lives of Jewish people in Greece improved since 2014?  Are Jewish people in those countries better off than Jewish people in Britain and the USA where holocaust denial remains legal?

I repeat what I wrote in an earlier post: 

According to a recent press report Britain is currently experiencing a sharp increase in incidents of anti-semitic hate crimes.  [If I remember correctly, the press report did not link these hate crimes with holocaust denial.]  In France the situation is far worse, with many Jews emigrating to either Britain or Israel.

In other words, many Jews feel safer in Britain where it is legal to deny the holocaust than they do in France where it has been illegal for more than a generation.  If anyone still thinks that holocaust denial laws exist for a good reason, then maybe they could leave a comment.  

I remember watching The Cook Report on ITV in 1997 when Roger Cook confronted Nick Griffin about his views, and in particular asked him about the holocaust.  (This programme can normally be found on Youtube by searching for Cook Report BNP.)  It is worth noting that Roger Cook raised the matter, and not Griffin.

About ten years later, a programme was broadcast called BNP Wives (which can also be normally found on Youtube), in which a member of the British National Party called Marlene Guest was shown distributing leaflets during a by-election campaign which refuted allegations that she was a holocaust denier.  I couldn't help but wonder if this were the best possible use of her time.  Surely people tend to vote in elections on the basis of what is happening in their lives today, and not on the basis of what may or may not have happened many decades ago.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is active in a political party is to stay away from this topic as much as possible.  If anyone asks you your view on the supposed holocaust, then reply that you are campaigning on the lack of affordable housing locally - or whatever issues matter to the local electorate at that time.

I am glad that I live in a country where the denial of free speech has not yet extended to twentieth century history, and I cannot help but feel sorry for people who live in countries such as Greece and France.

It seems to me at times that the whole concept of the supposed holocaust of Jews in the 1940s derives from a belief that the life of a Jew is of greater value than the life of a gentile, but then maybe I am wrong about that.  Another simple search on the internet reveals that abortion is permitted in Israel, and that the overwhelming majority of Jews in the USA are tolerant of abortion.

If a Jewish woman has an abortion, then a person of Jewish parentage dies.  Does anyone care to deny that?

Related previous posts include:
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
Another very British holocaust

Another very British holocaust

You may have missed it, but Friday just gone was holocaust memorial day.  This annual event was initiated in 2001, and marks the day when the concentration camp at Auschwitz was captured – I won’t say liberated – by the Russian army.  It is supposed to be an opportunity to remember not only the supposed extermination of Jews by the German National Socialist regime, but also of subsequent acts of genocide in four countries – Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region of Sudan.

To be fair, the holocaust memorial day website does contain limited information about those four genocides, but I am not aware that holocaust memorial day has ever been used in this country to mark any genocide other than the one that never actually happened.

This week my local newspaper quotes a local MP as referring to the supposed extermination of Jews by Hitler’s regime as the biggest mass murder in history.  Here are some facts.

The number of Jews who died under Hitler’s regime is normally cited as around six million.  Many historians believe that Stalin’s communist regime in the Soviet Union killed far more people than that, and likewise many historians believe that Mao Tse Tung’s communist regime in China killed far more than six million people.  I believe that some historians maintain that more than six million African people were murdered in the Congo Free State.

Also, I believe that it is a matter of recorded fact that more than eight million babies have been slaughtered in abortion clinics in this country since 1967.

This year’s holocaust memorial day saw the film Denial released in cinemas in the United Kingdom.  It tells the story of the libel trial which bankrupted David Irving.  The judge in that case ruled that Irving distorted evidence to suit his agenda.  I wonder if the judge in that case would deny that eight million is a larger number than six million.

Related previous posts include:
A very British holocaust
The Pope visits Auschwitz 
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
Is holocaust denial a bad thing?
Of Jews and paedophiles

The question of statehood in the USA

Once again I have decided to dedicate a post to an in-depth reply to a comment.  This time it relates to my recent post about the definition of a state.  When writing this blog I always try to be factually correct, but I may make mistakes from time to time, and readers are welcome to point out any faults.

I am replying to someone called Luke, who appears to be an American citizen.  The original comments are shown in blue, and I reply mainly in black text.
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A State of the United States can secede by a simple majority vote of its State legislator.

I wasn't aware of this.  What is your evidence for this?  Is it written into the Constitution of the USA?

That hasn't happened since our Civil War, but many elected representatives of different States have discussed it openly and even made it an issue in their campaigns just recently. No effort to secede from the United States since the Civil War has been successful, mainly because it has never been popular enough to even come to a vote. 

I do not know whether or not any states have discussed leaving the Union since 1865, but I do know that the efforts of eleven states to secede in 1861 were unsuccessful because the federal government of the USA brought them back into the Union through various acts of violence and starvation.

It would be financial suicide for a State to secede from the United States. Only New York, California, and Texas might be able to survive a cut off from the federal system. Our communal taxation system makes it almost impossible for a State to succeed and be financially successful, without that federal financial help.

Again, what is your evidence for this?  I expect that some people in 1776 thought that the British colonies in North America would not be able to survive outside of the British Empire.  Maybe some people in 1966 felt that Bechuanaland would not be able to flourish outside of the British Empire.

Then their is the question of what happens to the federally guarded rights of an American citizen living in a State that secedes.

Presumably they would be replaced by rights guarded by the legislation of that particular state.

When some States seceded from the United States before our Civil War, there was no federal right that made slavery illegal, protected blacks, or even made blacks citizens.

I believe that is correct.

This is where Lincoln is rightfully accused of making unconstitutional, illegal decisions.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here, but I repeat what I said in an earlier post:

If the states were not allowed to secede, then the citizens of those secessionist states were still technically American citizens.  The war deprived many of them of their lives, but in most cases without the privilege of trial by jury, which is guaranteed by the constitution.
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Lincoln never took the stand that slavery was illegal, or should be abolished. His stance was, as new States joined the United States, they would agree to be non-slave States. 

This is not true.  My understanding is that Lincoln was elected on a policy that all new states of the USA would not have any slavery.  However he subsequently decided - I believe it was early in 1862 - to abolish slavery throughout the USA.  He also decided for political reasons to delay announcing this new policy until later that year.

Our Civil War decided the question of State's rights. 

It decided that states have no right to secede.

Federal law trumps State law. A State cannot deny the federally guaranteed rights of any individual no matter where they (which State) lived. Once our federal Supreme Court decides a certain issues is a protected federal right, that is the law for all States. Same sex marriage is an example. So is integrated schools. 

In short, do states have any rights at all?  It seems to me that they have no rights whatever.  Should they even be termed states?

A person is a United States citizen first, not just a citizen of any one State. It does not matter where in the United States one lives, to have their federal rights protected. 

A big problem with this is that one man's federal right could be another man's federal wrong.

Our Constitution states any right not enumerated by the federal Constitution is left to the States to decide. That's why issues over the years fight in the Supreme Court to get federally protected status.

In other words, a lot of people in the USA do not like to see things decided by states.  That is not surprising when the states are effectively powerless.

This all gets legally complicated and the federal government has sent troops into States to enforce the rights of individuals. Again, the integration of schools is a good example.

I suppose it is easy to decide any legal quibble by sending in troops.  Who needs democracy when you can simply resort to violence?

I know little about the details of your form of government, but I can answer questions about our form of government.

I presume from the above that you are American. Do you accept that your form of government is founded in part at least upon violence?

I came across your blog through a random search and was intrigued by your post enough to respond.

Feel free to respond again.

The quote above in purple text is from this previous post: Mortocracy versus democracy

The only other time I have responded in depth to a comment was with this post: A reasoned approach to war