Minority report

**Ja'chyra** · 11-11-2011, 18:50

Slippery strawmen

Like them or loathe them surely this is wrong, how can you be arrested for maybe thinking about commiting a crime? Surely preventing them from leaving the pub would have been enough, maybe even force the pub to stop selling alcohol.

**Papewaio** · 11-12-2011, 04:48

You can be arrested for planning a major crime ie bank robbery, kidnapping or murder.

Not sure if it is right to arrest protestors or those who are their anti-equivalents though. Might not go down too well in some courts.

**Husar** · 11-12-2011, 11:03

They say in the video that the terrorism laws allowed them to do that...

This really sounds a bit like those dystopias to me where everybody has to be afraid to get arrested for having the wrong thoughts.

Not that the police shouldn't try to prevent crime but it sounds like they were arrested over really minor things, using a law that shouldn't have applied at all.

**Fragony** · 11-12-2011, 11:36

It's England, like 'It's Sweden' when it's Sweden that is all that's there to say really

**Papewaio** · 11-13-2011, 00:18

Most of the time the shorthand version of groups like this is that they are thugs who don't talk but resort to violence. The problem is by removing the ability for them to vent by talking or marching means that it then limits them to more violent expressions.

After all if you are going to get hanged for stealing a loaf of bread you might as well get hanged for attacking your oppressor. Make laws too harsh and you create an unjust harsh society. Remove someone's voice in a democracy and you deserve nothing less then riots.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 11-13-2011, 01:53

We have a long and proud history in this country of arresting/beating up/brutalising undesirables.

THis isn't really a new thing, except that these days the Police give a legal excuse. The difficulty with the EDL is that they are not, actually, the National Front rebranded, they aren't all loons or racists, they are a movement which is tapping into justified frustration with the direction this country is going and the failure of all politicians to fess up.

They are asking some real questions, but coming up with all the wrong answers.

**Noncommunist** · 11-14-2011, 02:43

Originally Posted by Papewaio

Most of the time the shorthand version of groups like this is that they are thugs who don't talk but resort to violence. The problem is by removing the ability for them to vent by talking or marching means that it then limits them to more violent expressions.

After all if you are going to get hanged for stealing a loaf of bread you might as well get hanged for attacking your oppressor. Make laws too harsh and you create an unjust harsh society. Remove someone's voice in a democracy and you deserve nothing less then riots.

I read the end of the Qin Dynasty resulted from a unit of soldiers who had to go somewhere and got delayed by rain. Since the punishment for showing up late was death, they just fought back and started the chain reaction that brought down the dynasty.