Monday, May 17, 2010

Silencing the EDL

EDL header

The English Defence League website was taken down today, apparently because of an article that used the Koran to describe Muslim attitudes towards the kuffar — that is, dirty infidels, you and me.

I haven’t seen the article in question, but I know very well what the Koran and the hadith say about the apes and pigs who do not follow the religion of Allah.

Here’s the story as reported by Aeneas at the International Civil Liberties Alliance:

English Defence League Website Apparently Taken Down For Telling The Truth About Islam

Today the English Defence League Website has been suspended, apparently because of an article that describes, using suras from the Quran, how Islam looks on the Kuffar (non-Muslims). This latest act of censorship is reminiscent of the way Geert Wilders’ short film, Fitna, has been demonised for revealing truth. Wilders juxtaposed Quranic quotes with acts of terror, the article in question did not even go that far. It seems that the thought police are about their work again, suppressing debate, denying reality, and bolstering established interests.

Apparently the reason provided for this blatant act of censorship was that the article ‘contravenes UK racism laws’. If this is the case then it means one of two things, that the Quran itself contravenes UK racism laws or Islam has an exemption from UK racism laws, and is treated as a special case. Since the Quran is still available for sale on the shelves of UK bookshops it must mean that the latter is true. That being so effectively means that the UK is already under a form of Sharia law which demands that Islam is above criticism and completely outside the realm of rational debate. When the Racial and Religious Hatred Act was put before Parliament the British people were assured that freedom of expression would not be a casualty. It would appear that the British people were seriously misled and that the Racial and Religious Hatred Act was nothing other than a Sharia enabling act designed specifically to usher in a period of Islamic rule.
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Promoting hatred is wrong and if our legislation exempts religiously inspired hatred then the laws currently on the statute book is not fit for purpose. All the law seems to do these days is empower those who want to undermine freedom and equality before the law, and discriminate against those who want to protect the British way of life. This is wrong and is an affront to our democratic system of government because it acts as the handmaiden of tyranny. Far from promoting multiculturalism, such legislation is effectively promoting the monoculture of Islam. Our legal system has effectively been subverted and is now simply a crude instrument of Islamic da’wa.

It is amusing to think of the great and the good cowering in their holes simply because they are chilled to the bone over the revelation of the truth. They construct a picture of the world that is not based on reality but on their feelings, and their desire to push forward the programme of globalisation without regard to culture or popular will.

The elephant is in the room, and the EDL is pointing to it. The ‘elite’ is acutely aware that the EDL is fully capable of mobilising large scale support and making it impossible for them to continue to hide their distortions and false premises. They worry that the truth will be revealed to the masses with such clarity that only the imbecilic and the corrupt can deny its presence.

It seems that the authorities really fear the EDL, and fear it because it occupies the intellectual high ground. Those who currently rule Britannia perhaps spent too much time in the smoky haze of the 1960s if they imagine that people cannot see what they are up to and that people will fail to peacefully oppose them and their nefarious scheming.

43 comments:

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss - Neoliberal.

The ConDems will be more efficient and ruthless in building their progressive multiculturalism.

Its going to get tough ...

tedh754 said...

Liberal multiculturalists will find out soon enough that no matter what they do, they are still infidels.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if this is widely or explicitly admitted or not but it is obvious that a critical part of modern leftism involves willfully ignoring facts that are obviously true, about minority behavior and intelligence. These have been shouted down in various psuedo-scientific ways for decades; these argumente are no longer credible if they ever were but they are at least arguments.

Noticing that the Koran says what it says, as is the case with the EDL and Wilders, is different. There is not an alternate explanation for these things, and if it was offered Islamic fascists at high levels would assure us, as they regularly do, that they really do intend to kill or subjugate all us filthy infidels.

Zenster said...

Since the Quran is still available for sale on the shelves of UK bookshops it must mean that the latter is true. That being so effectively means that the UK is already under a form of Sharia law which demands that Islam is above criticism and completely outside the realm of rational debate.

As noted later in the article, this represents unequal protection under the law and there cannot but be language on the British books that forbids such iniquity.

Thrasymachus: … a critical part of modern leftism involves willfully ignoring facts that are obviously true …

Welcome to the world of Magical Thinking™.

Ex-Dissident said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Baron Bodissey said...

Ex-Dissident --

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the last of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.

Use of asterisks is also an appropriate alternative.

----------------------

Ex-Dissident said...

Perhaps I will start a new religious movement that will have as its focus, [micturating] on korans.

tedh754 said...

Did you ever notice how the Muslims
say the Koran is the word of God forever, never changing, and then they talk about abrogation? Did I spell that right? Seems God changed his mind quite a bit.

filthykafir said...

I’ve a question. Was the removal of the EDL site at the request of or on the order of the government, or was it the decision and action of a private web-server corporation. Only the former would constitute actual censorship, and the EDL’s response to that would necessarily be different from its course of action against, or around, the dhimmitude of a privately or publically owned business.

Cobra said...

Baron,
This PG-13 is a new thing, or what?
C'mon.
Let's be serious, especially since we are talking about islam...

Baron Bodissey said...

Cobra --

No, it's not new. I've been enforcing these rules since we started.

Rule #4 says that we pretend that we are discussing these issues in front of intelligent 8-year-olds who want to listen in. In our family we didn't use language like that in front of 8-year-olds.

So that's the standard we apply.

Besides, if you can't make your point without inserting gratuitous references to bodily functions, then you aren't capable of making it at all.

Personally, I prefer polite discourse. I'm old-fashioned that way.

Anonymous said...

Cobra is a Romanian though. We are a foul mouthed people. lol. They say that you're not a driver in my city if you can't curse for 20 minutes straight without repeating yourself.

I always laugh at that and since only me and Cobra would understand it, it's PG13 :P

Green Infidel said...

Just when you thought with Labour's passing things could only get better... then again maybe this shouldn't be too surprising.

Any chance of legal action?

Cobra said...

Well, I am an American who happened to have been born in Romania...

costin said...

RV, looool

edlwatch said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Baron Bodissey said...

edlwatch --

I'm not going to let a link to an unexplained Chinese-language website stand. What was your point in leaving that here?

Zenster said...

Baron Bodissey Personally, I prefer polite discourse. I'm old-fashioned that way.

That's not "old-fashioned". It's civilized.

costin said...

Zenster,
what Baron wanted to say, i think, is that being civilized is old fashioned :)

Baron Bodissey said...

Civilization is old-fashioned. Watch MTV and Spike if you don't believe me.

costin said...

Baron, I guess edlwatch wanted you to see this.

Sonic said...

Isn't it funny to see you guys delete posts you do not like on a thread about "freedom of speech"

As he said, Irony.

costin said...

Sonic, the guy posted a link to a Japanese site about restaurants or something. The point is his id here: edlWatch

Baron Bodissey said...

costin --

Oh, is that all? I've seen his blog before. What's the big deal?

Nice of you to leave a link for him, though.

Baron Bodissey said...

Sonic --

The guy posted a spam link to a Chinese-language commercial site, for whatever reason. I delete all referrer spam comments.

I also delete death threats, personal insults, obscene jokes, and links to child porn.

I guess that makes me a censorship-obsessed enemy of the First Amendment.

Sonic said...

So you do agree some forms of speech need to be censored, well that is progress at least.

Now if you could extend that understanding to hate speech we might be getting somewhere.

Baron Bodissey said...

Sonic --

I realize that you are not commenting here in good faith, and that debating you is pointless, but just for the heck of it...

Whatever I choose to delete, it's not "censorship".

This is a private blog, which means it has its own rules. If they constiture "censorship", then being naked in a private nudist club is "indecent exposure".

IOW, "censorship" cannot exist unless performed by the government or its agents.

As for the rest, "hate speech" and so on, I'll let you argue that one with your hand puppet. Been there, done that.

Homophobic Horse said...

Here is a short cartoon which illustrates "truth" as it is understood in P.C.

Sonic said...

Oh I'm debating in good faith

"This is a private blog, which means it has its own rules"

Can society then not have rules?

Baron Bodissey said...

Sonic --

Can society then not have rules?

I assume this is some kind of trick question, but I'll bite: yes, of course it can. Have I given the impression that I'm an anarchist?

Zenster said...

Excellent cartoon link, HH. The baseball bat attack analogy is comparable to nuanced language that surfaced during the final decades of last century per:

"We are slowing down the growth rate of inflation."

Notice how inflation is not actually being stopped in any way, merely its growth rate is being decreased. This gets us back to the cartoon's "right kind of truth" (as in things that aren't entirely bad becoming "very nearly very good" to "achieve a significant re-emphasis of the good bad ratio"), versus actual truth.

This links directly back to Newspeak and the way that the replacement of "bad" with "ungood" and "plus ungood" forces all descriptions into shades of "good" while eliminating any possible terming of something as actually being bad.

X said...

Sonic appears to be confusing the rules of civilised societal discourse with the violence of state censorship. It's the difference between voluntary limitation of personal speech and a universally enforced limitation of the right to speech.

There are words I don't use, pictures I don't look at, activities I don't engage in and people I don't want to associate with - the key here is that I don't do it. So long as I don't attempt to use the apparatus of the state to enforce my voluntary limitations of myself on everyone outside my property, either in the public sphere or on their property, there is no censorship.

There is no such thing as hate speech. There is speech. You may well be offended by what I say but you no more have the right to stop me saying it than I have the right to stop you telling me how much you are offended. If I'm polite then I'll stop saying it around you out of politeness - and if not, then I won't. That's the consequence of a right to free speech. Limiting speech takes away the right to free speech in total, transforming it from a state-protected right into a state-granted privilege that can be taken away at any point. Using the threat of criminal prosecution to limit free speech in the public sphere is simple state-enforced violence against "things that I don't like", transforming the state from something that is there to guarantee our rights into something that is there to enforce an ethical code - not even moral, but ethical.

James Doleman said...

without being funny may I ask how many of you free speech advocates agree with your Dutch friend that the Koran be banned?

X said...

That again?

Wilders was pointing out that Dutch law bans hate speech, but that the Koran, filled with such hate speech as defined by dutch law, was not banned. He was highlighting an inconsistency in the way the law was enforced and asking that it be remedied. If A is banned, and B is not banned, yet both A and B are the same, why are they not both banned?

He wasn't simply saying "I don't like it and it should therefore be banned", but "Dutch law bans speech the like of which is contained in the Koran, therefore by your own rules it should be banned."

The inconsistency of application of the law demonstrates that it is bad law. That is what he was trying to point out.

James Doleman said...

A very long answer for which thanks, however it failed to address the actual point, do you wish to see the Koran banned, a simple yes or no would be good.

edlwatcher said...

An update, and you get a mention as well

http://edlwatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-on-edl-censorship-scam.html

X said...

Actually it does address the point. You asked how "we" feel about Wilders wanting to ban the Koran. I explained that Wilders doesn't want to ban the koran and was merely making a point about the inconsistency of the application of Dutch hate-speech law. Now you're asking a completely different question. You can have my answer after you accept that changing the question moving the goal posts after you don't get the answer you want is a very childish debating tactic.

Marginalized Action Dinosaur said...

"without being funny may I ask how many of you free speech advocates agree with your Dutch friend that the Koran be banned?"

I don't think the Koran should be banned but islamic immigration should be, because of what people do, because of the Koran.

Cobra said...

I prefer to use civilized language, as Baron prefers, too.
But my point was about censorship,for what I perceive to be a minor violation, especially since there aren't too many many 13 years old, entertaining discussions about Islam and EDL (maybe I am wrong).....
Oh, well, we have better things to talk about.

Zenster said...

Archonix: Now you're asking a completely different question. You can have my answer after you accept that changing the question [and] moving the goal posts after you don't get the answer you want is a very childish debating tactic.

Thank you for doing all of the heavy lifting, pal.

This one had "tedious" written all over it.

Baron Bodissey said...

Oh, for goodness' sake, Cobra -- I didn't censor anybody. I took the trouble to delete and repost the comment with a single word -- a vulgar term for a bodily function -- replaced with a Latinate word that means the same thing. That's hardly censorship -- I used up precious time, of which I have very little to spare, to help make sure the commenter had his say.

In any case, as I've said so many times that I'm sick of it, "censorship" is not even possible here. This is a private forum with its own rules, which were devised at the discretion of the blog's owners. Censorship can only exist when it is performed by a governmental body or its agents.

Case closed.

James Doleman said...

And still we await an answer, this is getting rather tedious.

Do you think the Koran should be banned?

Yes of no, not difficult.

X said...

I would think that answer would be obvious. Would be, if you hadn't tried to change the question half way through the debate.

hyph3n said...

Guys,

Was the EDL site taken down because of a breach of the hosting companies Acceptable Use Policy or was it forced by UK government?

One thing I know for sure is there are several UK hosting companies with Muslim Directors who would not tolerate this within there Data Centre space... How do I know this? I work for one... Can't wait to move on tbh... We are always treated as the lower life forms...

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