Is the EDF “vile”?
“The BBC parrots these (Extreme Right, Fascist) claims and refuses to concede that to use them shows a complete misunderstanding of history and the language”.
“Fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs, fighting over the same territory” – Rand
The Labour party and some parts of the media are trying to undermine David Cameron’s brave remarks about the danger of extreme Islamism by cranking up their endemic art of the smear – linking his remarks to a demonstration by the English Defence League, as if Britain’s Prime Minister should routinely coordinate his speaking plans with every half-baked demonstration planned across the country.
We hear the usual insults designed to divert attention from the truth like “extreme right” and “fascist”. The BBC parrots these claims and refuses to concede that to use them shows a complete misunderstanding of history and the language. (I’ve recruited Ayn Rand to show, below, how ridiculous this is – Fascists are lefties). The catch-all insult of “Islamophobia”, like “racist”, is from the same school which uses meaningless hate words to silence argument and corrupt what should be an open and free discussion in a mature democracy.
These are the standard ad hominem attacks used by the left to try and make its opponents look bad by innuendo rather than addressing issues. Labour and its apologists use this tactic routinely in political arguments they are likely to lose if citizens just consider the facts. For example on the NHS, “Tories want to privatise the Health Service” or “The Tories don’t love the NHS as much as us,” say Labour’s morally and mentally-corrupt operatives. Not a word about how we can deliver world class health care to people. Anyone daring to point out that the Muslim religion is uniquely wonky, allowing nutters to justify despicable acts of cruelty and murder, is immediately buried under an avalanche of abuse.
Sadiq Khan
Labour MP and Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan showed he has no business being a British Parliamentarian when he accused Cameron of “writing propaganda” for what he called the far-Right English Defence League. Please note – just the insult, no attempt to justify an argument. The Labour party should dump this surprisingly inarticulate and slow-witted socialist, whose every utterance makes clear he owes his prominence to his religion, not his talents.
This warped mindset is at work in the criticisms we are hearing of Cameron’s speech in Munich, in which he said it’s about time we tackled head on those whose apologies for extreme Islamism endanger our short-term lives from exploding suicide bombers, and our long-term unity as a nation which will surely be undermined if we don’t act quickly to stop them. Cameron suggests ending government funding of many questionable Muslim organizations. Excellent. Unfortunately, he stopped short of carrying through his manifesto promise of defenestrating Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, which makes me wonder if he is being as brave as I originally thought. I’ve offered Cameron my own ideas, through my MP Nick Herbert, that British Muslims should compile a New Testament Koran, shorn of the dodgy stuff which might have made sense 1,000 years ago, but now is used by nutjobs to justify cruel and senseless acts, and brings the whole religion into disrepute.
Childish
Every time the left hears something about an issue it thinks will harm its future if allowed air time, accusations of “Fascist” and “Extreme Right” are launched. The BBC routinely allows these conversation-stopping and childish taunts to be spoken without ever seeking justification.
I’ve tried before to point out that Fascists are in fact socialists who grew out of rifts on the left in the 1920s and 1930s. Fascists want government control of all aspects of life, although they are not quite as extreme as Communists who are even against families and religion. These two factions are bitter enemies, but it makes no sense to call Fascists right-wing. In the real world, the right is libertarian, for a small state and as much individual freedom as possible. The left thinks most individuals (excluding them of course) are too stupid to control their own lives, and need “guidance” from above.
Adolf Hitler conveniently named his party the National Socialist Party of Germany, (NASPD in German – not be confused with the National Association of Steel Pipe Distributors) presumably because he wanted to point out to potential voters that this was a Socialist party. This wasn’t some grand scheme to dupe the German electorate into thinking that they were socialists, when they were really freedom loving capitalist right-wingers. Why on earth the BBC and the most of the media seem unable to grasp this simple point constantly amazes me.
Masterful ally
But I’ve found a magnificent ally to make my point in the form of Ayn Rand, the masterful writer of marvelous books including “The Fountainhead”, “Atlas Shrugged” and “We The Living”.
In a collection of her journalism and speeches “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, Rand says the difference between Communism and Fascism boils down to a dictatorship of the rich (Fascists encourage ever bigger big business) or the poor.
“Fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs, fighting over the same territory – that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state – that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders – that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favour of a ruling clique – that fascism is not the product of the political “right” but of the “left” – that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor”, but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government – which means: capitalism versus socialism,” said Rand in an article entitled “Extremism, or the art of Smearing”.
The idiotic ramblings of the British National Party (BNP-not Banque Nationale de Paris) to tax the rich until the pips squeak, end free trade, stop imports and protect industry, are classic leftie policies. Right wingers want ever freer markets and an end to governments trying to pick winners. But the BBC will routinely call these fascist dopes extreme right wingers. Watching pimply demonstrators calling themselves Anti-Fascists, when if they took the trouble to open a book or two would find that everything they do comes straight out of the Fascist handbook, is annoying. But I digress.
Stop the smear
Politicians of the left wouldn’t be able to routinely smear their opponents if the BBC was a bit more aggressive and principled in its reporting. The other day, I was listening to a discussion on Radio 4 when someone whose name I didn’t catch called the English Defence League “vile”. That is a very strong word and he may well have been right. But if you look at its website, (englishdefenceleague.org I haven’t read everything, just the Mission Statement) the EDL (not Electronic Differential Lock) calls itself a human rights organization claiming to seek action against extremists. I couldn’t find anything in this statement that David Cameron would disagree with in his declared policy against extreme Islam.
So my plea to the BBC and the media is this. When you hear politicians using abuse to describe their opponents simply ask them to justify what they say. The interviewer on Radio 4’s Today Programme should have simply said “Why do you say the EDF is vile? Surely it can’t be because you think they are a bunch of ignorant, under-class oiks with skinhead haircuts exploiting the Union Jack and they therefore can be insulted without any reference to the political point they are making?”
That attitude might protect us from encroachment by real Fascists.
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