Church and State

Hello, and sorry for the lack of posts recently. Normal service has been resumed.

The separation of church and state should be one of the fundamental objectives of anyone who supports democracy, so we should all take note when something happens that works against this goal. I noticed this story today about a couple of Christians campaining against homosexuals who have just received an out of court settlement from the police after getting into trouble for calling 'homosexual practice' morally wrong.

The article does not give a few key details, such as where the couple wanted the leaflets displayed. We can assume that it was a council property though, hence them asking Wyre Borough Council permission. It is therefore completely correct that the council refused, since it is not their place to help any church distribute its propaganda. The leaflets that the couples were objecting to were simply informing gay people of their rights, and were therefore exactly the sort of thing that the council should be distributing.

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that the views of these people is bigoted, unpleasant, and down to some deeply objectionable beliefs. What we should be concerned with is the fact that they felt that they had to 'counter' a leaflet explaining someones rights with one containing their bigotry, which doesn't help anyone at all. Even worse, they expected facilities run by the council (and therefore at the tax payers expense) to aid them and their religion. This is fundamentally wrong, and the council were correct to refuse. I would argue that the police involvement went too far since free speech is important, and this ended-up being counter-productive. However unfair this may have been though, the state has no business distributing religious propaganda. I would encourage anyone living in Fleetwood to remind the council of this.

For a while now the public have seemed strangely happy with the fact that 'suspected terrorists' can be held without charge for an increasing amount of time. The government would like us to think that three months is reasonable. This has resulted in the somewhat scary ability of the government to lock anyone up as they feel like it without even having to say why. That's a power I can't see being abused, oh no.

This is all bad of course, but consider the poor Americans for a minute. The government there can lock you up on a whim indefinitely of course, thanks to their handy secret CIA prisons and popular Cuban bases. That was bad enough, but now they're about to pass a law that will allow them to torture you too. Granted, they won't be chopping off your hands, but they'll do pretty much everything else that doesn't leave a mark. Reading the linked article might well make you angry with the disgusting things some of their politicians are saying, but the scary thing is that they say them at all. Yeah, Democrats voting against this are 'helping the terrorists' by saying the government shouldn't torture people are they? Well, good on them. Not that the Democrats are much better of course, but at least they're not quite so obviously keen as fascism as the Republicans.

The fact that a 'cilivilsed' society is changing the law (and the Geneva Convention) to allow torture is appalling. Torture obviously doesn't work - you'd admit to anything if you were subjected to enough pain. Not only that, but if the US do it, there's the green light to all of their enemies to do it too. They've lost any high ground they may have had. As someone on Digg has said: "The provisions are intended to protect CIA interrogators from being prosecuted for war crimes." If you remember nothing else from that article, remember this.. And one more wise comment: When you allow your government to take away the rights of one group, you are destroying your own rights. If you believe this is a good thing then you do not deserve those rights.

Meanwhile, if you're a Christian and a terrorist, hey, it's ok, no torture or secret prisons for you!. Nice to see the same standards apply to everyone, isn't it?

Planes

Nobody can have escaped the news this morning about the 'disrupted terror plot'. Apparently 21 people have been arrested over a plot to destroy 10 planes bound for the US with explosives hidden in drinks containers. The immediate result is that lots of flights have been cancelled, and security on those that have flown as been tightened (no hand luggage, etc).

Of course nobody has actually been charged yet, so please forgive me if I'm slightly cynical of todays events. It's a good thing they've put our brand-new 'alert level' up to 'critical' isn't it? That's the highest it can go of course - I'm not sure what they'd do during an actual attack. Also, I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that those alert levels are there. I mean, I was thinking of going to the shops later, but at 'critical' alert level I think I'll just cower in my bed under the duvet. What a load of nonsense! These alert levels are simply a tool for scaring the public and keeping them under control.

Is it a massive coincidence that John Reid talked about 'imminent' attacks yesterday, and how we may be 'forced to give up our freedoms? This seems like a good way to make people accept it doesn't it? Of course, Reid knew what would happen today when he gave that interview, which is handy. It's good that these things crop up when public disquiet over real events and our governments complicitness in them, such as Lebanon and Iraq, start getting tricky for the government to ignore. It's almost like it's deliberate isn't it?

Galloway on SkyNews

I have mixed feelings about George Galloway. He doesn't spend enough time in parliament (last time I checked, only one MP had a worse voting record - Tony Blair) so I would feel slightly robbed if he was my MP. His Big Brother appearance was also ill-advised. However, his position as an MP does get him a platform, and his views really do need to be heard in these days when public figures shy away from having opinions, especially if they are the truth.

Have a look at this interview he did on Sky News. All credit to Sky for letting it play out I suppose, but nearly every point he makes is excellent. The last few seconds are especially good and are an excellent point.

Turning up the heat

Things in the Middle East are still insane. Our government have yet again made me ashamed to be British. Even though I didn't vote for them we'll all still be considered collectively responsible for their actions. Anyone who thinks that supporting Israel isn't going to make us more likely to suffer from terrorist attacks is a fool. Israel are currently generating plenty of future terrorists all over the world by their actions, and while we could have avoided a lot of ill-will by trying to stop their war, we're now part of it. To rub salt into the wound, the Americans are even using our airbases as stop-off points for the weapons their are providing the Israelis with. If that doesn't make us complicit, I don't know what does...

Israel

Israel is still intent on starting wars with all of its neighbours. It's a sketchy situation there, so I'm not massively surprised to see us doing nothing about it. Of all the polarising issues, Israel seems to be the one that is the most clear cut. When anything to do with the middle east and Israel crops up, people here roll their eyes, make a tutting noise and complain about how Israel should get back to its borders and stop causing trouble. Speak to most Americans though and they say that of course Israel should 'defend itself' by attacking pretty much anyone and blaming everyone else. If it was fair to attack countries that 'funded terrorism' then surely the US funding of the IRA for God knows how long makes them a legitimate target? Of course, funding terrorists is ok when we like them, much as we did the Taliban in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. I'm not sure why quite so many people on the right have a problem spotting hypocrisy. I tend to think that a combination of gullibility and Rupert Murdoch are probably to blame...

Pandering to idiots

At the risk of sounding like someone much older... what is the world coming to? Anyone in the UK can't have escaped this story about a vicar who kissed a schoolgirl on the cheek when giving her an award and found himself in the centre of a criminal investigation. He was found not to have committed any crime of course, but he still ended-up having to give-up his post as a school governor.

So the school loses one of the few people who are willing to give up their time to help out purely to satisfy some insane mother who seems hell bent on someone hanging for innocently kissing her daughter. The quote from her at the end of the article about sums it all up really:

But the girl's mother said she was not satisfied with the investigationor the findings and continued to allege that Mr Barrett's kiss was an assault. "I am so disappointed with the way it has been handled and Iwould like him to be removed from his position," she said.

There are too many idiots in the world and we need to do something about it. To this end I think I will start to 'name and shame' them, so this woman (who sadly remains nameless for now) will be the first person on the list when I get it onto my web site this evening. It might be a very small and probably completely ineffective thing, but I'd get some small satisfaction if these people or their friends Googled their names in future and found themselves on a list of idiots.