The Stupidity Of Democracy

Would you prefer a different system?

Yes tsam, one which didn't defend foreign antisemitic terrorists above good law abiding citizens.

perhaps Amber, you and Jon could toddle off to Cuba, China or N Korea if Democracy is really that bad....

DLeigh Ellis, you miss the point. Tolerance of those who advocate sheer evil, and those who wish to overturn democracy, like Hamza, is not a necessary hallmark of democracy.

Interesting that you choose leftist examples - tsam would no doubt ne happy in any of those socialist utopias.

Tolerance does not mean you accept the opinion... It means that you allow them to say it...

So Tolerance of people who 'advocate sheer evil' as you put it, is in fact a hallmark of democracy. It's one of those contradictions that makes democracy worthwhile even if on occasion it produces strange incidents like this. To compromise on these principles would serve to render democracy as pointless as a kaliedescope for the blind.

No DLE, you're wrong. Democracy does not mean tolerating those who advocte values which are the antithesis of democracy. Remember, this man immigrated to the UK - he was not born here. is it incumbent on Western democracies to accept people who hate the very system they are immigrating into? Democracy has never meant tolerating absolutely anything under the sun - and UK laws against hate speech and calls to violence (which this man has done) demonstrate this.

I did not say that 'Democracy does not mean tolerating those who advocte values which are the antithesis of democracy.'

I said that Toleration is a key founding concept and therefore hallmark of democracy. When it is compromised on one level it becomes very difficult to know where to draw the line on similiar cases.

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Some would argue that laws against inciting racial hatred compromise the ideal of free speech and are thereby contradictory to the idea of toleration.

Toleration means that somebody has the right to say something, but it does not mean that anybody else has to listen to it.... I agree with you that democracy does not mean you have to accept every opinion under the sun, no system could function on that principle but that is completely different from the principle of tolerating an alternative opinion.

For example, I never read the daily mail because I tend to disagree with many of its sentiments, but I would not choose to ban it or burn it, (in principle at least,) it would make great kindling.
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Toleration is a useful principle precisely because it prevents people from ignoring a sentiment simply because it offends some arbritrary sense of morality, remember, new ideas are not always dangerous - some are hugely beneficial to humanity. If we did not tolerate new ideas that sometimes undermined the status-quo, humanity would not be able to progress. The notion of Black self-determination in the American civil rights movement was hugely 'offensive' to many white Americans for whom it did not suit their view of morality, but 60 years down the line I think we can accept that the Civil Rights movement was one of the greatest moments in the history of the US. Of course that is very different from the Hamza case but the point is that Toleration is precisely aimed to prevent one particular sense of morality from becoming a universal morality. It exists to ensure that new ideas can be brought to the attention of society. Sometimes this means that nutters will be able to promote their absurd ideas, but this does not mean that Toleration itself is wrong. Do not forget that the concept also means that people have the freedom to argue against such nutters.

Toleration needs to be fluid, for it to stagnate undermines the democratic system, it is therefore - fundamentally integral to the functioning of a viable democracy.

No DLE, it's not difficult to draw the line at all, except for those who are muddled.

The line is drawn when those who either attack democracy itself, or advocate a system of governance which is antithetical to democracy, or spout racial hatred regularly, are, for some bizarre reason, deemed worthy of being awarded UK citizenship.

Not difficult at all.

Not difficult at all if you like to boil things down to overly simple rhetorical statements....

If you actually think about it, it turns out to be a lot more fiddly than we might wish it to be.

DLE, it really isn't. Not if a country has a clear idea about itself.

People have ideas and ideals, a country does not.

DLE, a country which survives, does.

Pretty sure the UK will manage to survive this minor incident without getting rid of its democracy.

Goodnight Amber.

DLE, I don't know if the UK will survive as a Western liberal democracy in the way we know it if enough Hamza's are in the country - and who use its freedoms against it.

Amber, he apparently doesn't care whether or not the country survives, as long as the abstract term
'democracy' survives ...

I see a number of problems here. If he was sentenced to 7 years in 2006, why is he now out and about? If he got time off for good behaviour, maybe he's a repentant, so he's not dangerous any more?

And even for British beaurocracy, if "the then secretary of state gave notice of his intention to deprive the appellant of his British citizenship on April 4 2003", what took them more than 7 years - and it's not yet done? Maybe the "then secretary of state" should be doing time for dereliction of duty?

'he apparently doesn't care whether or not the country survives, as long as the abstract term
'democracy' survives ...'

Why do you always feel the need to completely misrepresent what I say?

Typically those sentenced to prison terms in the UK only serve a third of their proscribed sentence.
This is yet another failing of the UKs "democracy", 7 years should mean 7 not 4 and life should mean life, not what it typically is 15 years.

For acts of terrorism (such as attacking an elected representative for the way they voted in parliament or committing violence to further a political agenda) I don't think the state should pull any punches. I don't care what they do to them to be honest, if found guilty the harsher the sentence the better as far as I'm concerned.

Life in prison is too lenient.

Screw their human rights. Terrorism and democracy cannot mix. It's one or the other I'm afraid.

Well said Matt!

"Human Rights"? what about the victims Human Rights?

"Human Rights"the most ridiculous set of regulations ever dreampt up, again a failing of our democracy.

And thank you mods for deleting yankeeuxb's disgraceful anti-Muslim comments.