handofdave wrote:
You simply cannot impose speech restrictions in a free society without compromising the very principles it's founded on.
Of course you can. And we do all the time. There are plenty of restrictions on free speech and we not only find them acceptable, but in some cases
necessary to the preservation of a free society.
And I'm not only talking about "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" kind of stuff (though that does count, as hackneyed as it may seem). In certain cases, extreme historical revisionism and incitement to violence or hatred are rightly proscribed. And we have libel laws and advertising standards to further restrict "free speech". Coca-Cola are breaking the law if they say their drink cures cancer.
handofdave wrote:
Banishing bad ideas or speech only gives the bearers of such filth a kind of underground legitimacy.... in effect, by making them 'too dangerous', you're granting them power.
But I'm not suggesting banishing the BNP or trying to silence them. And I've not heard many others make that suggestion either. It's a question of
context. You may be unaware, but the BNP have been interviewed several times on the BBC. They get to make party political broadcasts on national television. They do not lack access to the media.
But this is the wrong forum for them to appear in. And refusing to share a platform with fascists isn't the same thing as denying them the right to one. For all of sanshee's scepticism, Question Time is the only regular mainstream political debate show (i.e. it gets more than a handful of viewers), and as such occupies an important position in UK political culture. By inviting the BNP to be participants at that debate, I still maintain that the BBC is helping normalise the fascist voice.
This won't be a show where Nick Griffin is constantly grilled about his party's policies (though there will be an element of that of course). Instead it's a show where he'll be asked to share his views on the Postal Strike (views, I suspect, that will be relatively reasonable), extra troops to Afghanistan (again, he'll sound sane on that topic) and a bunch of other stuff. This programme runs a serious risk of presenting him as something other than the racist he is.
The saving grace is the fact that Griffin, the person, is a buffoon of the highest order and is likely to make a complete arse of himself. But that's hardly the point. What happens in 5 years time when the BNP have a bright, charismatic leader and it's perfectly normal for him to be invited onto mainstream political debate shows?
handofdave wrote:
People begin to wonder why the larger society is so afraid.
Which people? Which people living on this planet are genuinely unaware of why we should be so worried about fascism and ethnic nationalism? You don't fall foul of Godwin's Law when you bring the Nazis into a discussion about the BNP. And you don't need to go back that far. Look at the recent history of the Balkans.
We know exactly what happens when these people become part of the political mainstream. We don't need to "wonder".
handofdave wrote:
It puts that society in the difficult position of having to explain why it permits some speech and not others. And where does it stop once you begin? Shutting down free speech is a slippery slope that can go both ways.
Again. I have to disagree. Almost everyone accepts that the BNP have the right to free speech. But fascists have already provided liberal societies with more than enough justification for treating them with caution, and placing their "free speech" into a specific context.
Just my view.
