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The views of the BNP don't scare me half as much as the rapidly advancing view of the left that the right to associational autonomy is a flexible thing. There should be absolutely no room for reasoning on this right that is essential for a healthy democracy (indeed a democracy at all).
It's a very hypocritical mindset, these people preach about how diverse we all are and how great it is, but can't seem to stomach the fact that people have views different to their own.
The thing is, on the whole, people aren't fucking stupid, they see that all the BNP represents is racism and hatred, and consequently do not associate themselves with the party (obviously some do, hence why I said "on the whole...") - This is the same for any extremist party in a democracy, grant people their basic right to associated autonomy, and let democracy 'crush' the extremist parties.
The option that sadly has been taken by our government to arrest Nick Griffin will be counter-productive I fear, some (clearly not all as evidenced by this thread) people will recognise this action as oppressing freedom of speech, and it will really get their goat, even if they detest the views of the BNP (like myself). However, there will be, shall we say, 'borderline racists' amongst these pissed off people, who will possibly resort to 'taking their views further', as a consequence of their anger at this action. Bugger I'm waffling a bit, well, to be more concise what I'm saying is that; if you want to 'stir-up' the views that the BNP - or any other extremist party - represent , then oppressing peoples' right to announce these beliefs is a very good way to go about it.
The thing that worries me here is that people are in agreement that merely expressing an opinion is against the law, there is not evidence (that we've been made aware of anyway) of Nick Griffin actually planning a racially motivated assault of some form, which would constitute conspiracy to assault - a crime - so the fact that he was arrested for merely expressing an opinion makes this a much bigger issue than some people are taking it for, the repercussions of which are potentially much worse than some racial tension in Bradford or Oldham.
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