Come and get yer Nazis!

[BlackBart]

It doesn't demonise them at all. It just makes their support known. If their demonised that's your own fault.

So you're saying the whole point of this exercise was not to expose 16000 BNP supporters as Nazis? And they're only nasty if people think they are?

The members were already considered Nazis, their names just weren't known to everybody. Anyone who supports any political party should do so in the public realm, because mostly nobody will give a shit, but sometimes there are some very interesting names on there.

Joseph McCarthy had a similar philosophy - that didn't end well.

[Trolldor]

Straw man. None of that follows on from what I've said.

[Lozzer]

Just watched Nick Griffin debate Peter on Channel 4 news...is it bad that I kind of found Griffin's rhetoric persuasive?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

It doesn't demonise them at all. It just makes their support known. If their demonised that's your own fault.

So you're saying the whole point of this exercise was not to expose 16000 BNP supporters as Nazis? And they're only nasty if people think they are?

The members were already considered Nazis, their names just weren't known to everybody. Anyone who supports any political party should do so in the public realm, because mostly nobody will give a shit, but sometimes there are some very interesting names on there.

Joseph McCarthy had a similar philosophy - that didn't end well.

Joseph McCarthy named people he decided off the top of his head were working for the Soviets.

Had he just come across a reliable leaked KGB memo saying who their agents in America were and simply made it public, that would have been an entirely different matter.

[Rum]

In the news today - a group of senior and retired senior army officers put out a statement saying they took the view that the BNP's use of British military symbolism was unacceptable. Nick Griffin responded later as described here. This is from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/. If you were entertaining any doubts about these people here's another brick in the wall.

BNP's 'hang generals' just 'humour'

The leader of the BNP Nick Griffin has told me that he does not, after all, want to see two former heads of the British army put on trial and hanged for war crimes.

Earlier Mr Griffin was reported on the BNP's website comparing Generals Sir Mike Jackson and Sir Richard Dannatt with Nazi war criminals hanged after the Nuremberg trials. The BNP's leader now says that this was "black humour".

This is what the BNP's website said :

"Those Tory generals who today attacked the British National Party should remember that at the Nuremburg Trials, the politicians and generals accused of waging illegal aggressive wars were all charged - and hanged - together.

"This was the reaction of Nick Griffin MEP to the announcement that Tory lackeys Sir Richard Dannett and Sir Mike Jackson had broken all military protocol with their statement attacking the BNP"

I suggested to Mr Griffin that the families of victims of World War II and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might not get the joke. He did not respond.

[BlackBart]

Straw man. None of that follows on from what I've said.

My apologies. I was under the wrong impression that McCarthy was responsible for loyalty review boards. I withdraw the reference to his name.

However, nobody should be required to make their political affiliations public. This puts them at risk from discrimination from employers, government, peers or anyone who happens to disagree strongly with their political orientation, whether that political orientation is intrinisically abhorrent or not.

We cannot take it on faith that this list is accurate. People could appear on there for any number of reasons other than having a national socialist orientation.

And unfortunately, that bastard Griffith is happily making capital on that fact, because we have absolutely no way of refuting it.

Risking the personal security of anyone on that list, or their families, is not worth the mere embarrassment caused to any active members on it - or the idle curiousity of anyone who doesn't really give a shit.

[Trolldor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Brethren

I beg to differ. Any and all associates of any political party should be full and public knowledge.
And yes, still a straw man. I never once said anyone should be persecuted for their individual beliefs, only that it should be public knowledge.

[BlackBart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Brethren

I beg to differ. Any and all associates of any political party should be full and public knowledge.
And yes, still a straw man. I never once said anyone should be persecuted for their individual beliefs, only that it should be public knowledge.

At no point did I assert you said anyone should be persecuted. I stated that disclosure puts them at risk from persecution.

[Trolldor]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

[BlackBart]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

Just because an individual's ideology is just it doesn't mean it will exclude them from persecution. Therefore privacy of political affiliation is required because, society is not perfect.
If that political affiliation is hate based or unjust it needs to be legislated against in the first instance. If the individual continues to practice that particular brand of hate, then they can expect to be prosecuted under the law.

[Trolldor]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

Just because an individual's ideology is just it doesn't mean it will exclude them from persecution. Therefore privacy of political affiliation is required because, society is not perfect.
If that political affiliation is hate based or unjust it needs to be legislated against in the first instance. If the individual continues to practice that particular brand of hate, then they can expect to be prosecuted under the law.

As can anyone who unjustly persecutes anyone simply for having an unpopular point of view.

[BlackBart]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

Just because an individual's ideology is just it doesn't mean it will exclude them from persecution. Therefore privacy of political affiliation is required because, society is not perfect.
If that political affiliation is hate based or unjust it needs to be legislated against in the first instance. If the individual continues to practice that particular brand of hate, then they can expect to be prosecuted under the law.

As can anyone who unjustly persecutes anyone simply for having an unpopular point of view.

If by 'unjustly persecutes' you mean stoving their windows in, yes, robustly and constructively critising them, no.

The bottom line is your political beliefs are yours and is no one elses damned business - Not mine, not the goverments, not your employer, not anyones... If your practice of those political beliefs infringe my freedom and security, then you become answerable. The leaders and active members of the BNP and Exclusive Bretheren are answerable. An unverfiable list of people who are merely guilty by association are not.

[Trolldor]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

Just because an individual's ideology is just it doesn't mean it will exclude them from persecution. Therefore privacy of political affiliation is required because, society is not perfect.
If that political affiliation is hate based or unjust it needs to be legislated against in the first instance. If the individual continues to practice that particular brand of hate, then they can expect to be prosecuted under the law.

As can anyone who unjustly persecutes anyone simply for having an unpopular point of view.

If by 'unjustly persecutes' you mean stoving their windows in, yes, robustly and constructively critising them, no.

The bottom line is your political beliefs are yours and is no one elses damned business - Not mine, not the goverments, not your employer, not anyones... If your practice of those political beliefs infringe my freedom and security, then you become answerable. The leaders and active members of the BNP and Exclusive Bretheren are answerable. An unverfiable list of people who are merely guilty by association are not.

Wrong. When you join a political party officially you constitute the membership which grants that party the minimum number of supporters it needs to run for election. If they gain any seats in Government, it's because you joining their membership gave them the ability to do so. Your actions have affected my life. Don't want your support to be public? Don't join a political party.

[Pappa]

If it's putting them at risk of persecution, then there's an issue your society needs to address. Either the party they support is so incredibly fucked up no unreasonable person would support them, let alone the reasonable, that they must be by proxy also fucked up, or your community has a serious problem with free expression.

Just because an individual's ideology is just it doesn't mean it will exclude them from persecution. Therefore privacy of political affiliation is required because, society is not perfect.
If that political affiliation is hate based or unjust it needs to be legislated against in the first instance. If the individual continues to practice that particular brand of hate, then they can expect to be prosecuted under the law.

As can anyone who unjustly persecutes anyone simply for having an unpopular point of view.

If by 'unjustly persecutes' you mean stoving their windows in, yes, robustly and constructively critising them, no.

The bottom line is your political beliefs are yours and is no one elses damned business - Not mine, not the goverments, not your employer, not anyones... If your practice of those political beliefs infringe my freedom and security, then you become answerable. The leaders and active members of the BNP and Exclusive Bretheren are answerable. An unverfiable list of people who are merely guilty by association are not.

Wrong. When you join a political party officially you constitute the membership which grants that party the minimum number of supporters it needs to run for election. If they gain any seats in Government, it's because you joining their membership gave them the ability to do so. Your actions have affected my life. Don't want your support to be public? Don't join a political party.

UK privacy laws guarantee that your information is to be kept private though.

[Trolldor]

I know it does, and I think that's daft. If your actions are going to affect someone else's private life, why should that be kept private?