A blog giving advice to demonstrators from student fees protest is shut down by the police without a court order.We happen to think that, if only the violent minority had stayed in and sipped a nice mug of camomile instead of seeking attention and chucking fire extinguishers at last Wednesday's London student protest, the debate over the Coalition's trebling of tuition fees would actually still be focused on exactly it: the trebling of tuition fees.
But whatever your thoughts on the demo, it emerged today that the police shut down a blog called FitWatch for the simple reason that they offered a number of tips on students fearing arrest in the wake of the demonstration.
The police reckoned that advice ranging from "don't panic" and "do get rid of your clothes" to "don't hand yourself in" and "do get the name of a good lawyer" was tantamount to "attempt to pervert the course of justice", telling the host (JustHost) to suspend the site. The worrying bit is that they did so without a court order.
I wonder where the Tory Libertarians and assorted "defenders of free speech" are. Let us know if and when you hear a knock.
More on the subject here.
7 comments:
The hosts were threatened. They folded. That happens, and it's Labour's savage assualt on the freedom of speech which facilitated it, and Labour's politicised police which did it? What's it got to do with "tory libertarians"?
I hate the police, I hate lefty rock-chuckers. I love it when they fight. Win Win viewing!
Why do you hate the police? And why do you call it "Labour's politicised police"? Does that also cover the Miners' Strike under Maggie?
I hate the police because I am a libertarian living in a state which imposes all sorts of ridiculous imposittions like when I can and cannot buy a pint of beer. They are the enforcers of the very non-libertarian state. I am not allowed to protect myself from crime, so they're nothing but a protection racket.
I hate trades unionists who want to use the police to force me to pay taxes which eventually get spent on thier members as subsidy. Ditto students.
So when the police get into a fight with the lefties, it's Win Win viewing!
Shame they can't both lose.
I hate trades unionists who want to use the police to force me to pay taxes which eventually get spent on thier members as subsidy.
Oh I see. That's where taxes go. Silly me I never saw that.
I'm off now the carer's coming round to help me help my sick mother. I wonder where his wages come from.
Not all taxes, obviously. But do you think it REASONABLE that the state spends 50% of GDP.
Given That they *ONLY*? tax us to the tune of 40%, for how long do you think this SUSTAINABLE?
And if you agree that it isn't, (and you have more than a brace of Brain-cells you MUST agree that, right?) where are the cuts going to come from?
The fact is most taxes get wasted on subsidy - mostly the subsidy of poverty. A tiny proportion gets spent on police, nurses, armies, teacherss.
I'd rather they come from the police, and subsidy to middle-class students, and especially the grotesque subsidy which keeps the unemployed poor, than your mum's carer (for example). Call me a savage libertarian if you like.
Jackart,
please escuse my delayed reply but I couldn't be online.
Back to the point. Yes you are a savage libertarian.
And (though I don't know why we're talking about it given that this particular blog post was about something different), there are a number of points here to pick up.
You want to reduce the overall cost of Social Security as proportion of GDP, right?
a) That means you wanna pay less tax. But you also want -at the same time- to the Government to sod the unlucky ones, the unemployed, the disabled and the low-paid.
Don't you forget that there are millions of people on low pay in the UK. These are not Daily Mail-style scroungers. Those people work their ass off for a pittance. Right-wing libertarians dont even think there should be a minimum wage in place to improve their condition a tiny bit.
Improve their wages, get the "wealth creators" to cut down on obscene profits and see the improvements.
Think of the millions on low pay who have to rely on state handouts because their wages are a joke.
b) Think of all the money wasted on wage supplements, housing benefits and tax credit so that "the captains of industry" or "wealth creators" can make obscene profits.
c) You want a system where the "Poor", whether unemployed or low-pay are left to their own device (otherwise they turn into too much of a burden), but also where companies can pay them as little as they want.
d) That means a society with masses of desperados living in trailer parks or worse. Thank you but, no, I don't wanna live there. Maybe barbwired areas too, in case the desperados get too cocky as well, eh?
A "libertarian" society would be a disaster. It would exacerbate problems.
Just simply think: why was teh Welfare state created? It's not as if extreme poverty pre-1945 didn't exist. It did and it was OBSCENE.
Incidentally, the UK does not spend anything extraordinary on Social Security. That is one of the many right-wing myths. The British percentage is lower than all Scandinavian countries as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and many others. It's only a fraction higher than Germany, Canada and Spain (details here)
Any chance of getting hold of the text of the "shut down" site and distributing the text? Then we can all place it on our blogs or sites. They'll have a job shutting down ten thousand sites.
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