Bob Geldof vs. the war on terror
Bob Geldof's editorial against the new British law that suspends habeas corpus by making it possible for the authorities to lock us up for 42 days without charging us with anything ( (even more than the old law that suspended habeas corpus by letting them do it for 25 days) really nails it:
Still today, 800 years later, Magna Carta resonates: "To no man will we deny, To no man will we delay, Justice and Right." Is that not grand, worthy of your vote? Is habeas corpus to be traduced in one sad moment of political expediency? Do we not clearly deny and delay Justice and Right when we imprison a person for 42 days without charge?Link (via Blogzilla)What existential threat do we face greater than those of the past 800 years? What great terror exists today that not civil war, not world war, nor recent other terrorisms could make our forefathers change the fundamental basis of this state? What is so dangerous that our oldest statutes could be upended for such a ha'p'orth of momentary panic?
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This makes me love Bob Geldorf even more!
As a dyed in the wool conspiracy nut I always hoped to be proven wrong. They ARE coming to get us.
If we act stupid and apathetic then they'll leave us alone.
Brilliant.
What existential threat do we face greater than those of the past 800 years?
Nuclear weapons. One of which could kill more people in a single blast than died during an entire crusade.
Does that justify removing habeas corpus? Absolutely not.
If the price of a free and open society is the minute and remote possibility that somehow, someway, some lunatic might possibly lay hands on such a device and actually manage to use it sucessfully than I'll gladly pay it.
Kudos to Geldof, and "bite me" to critics of his Live8 work.
hear hear.
And anyone who thinks something like this can't be abused is a raving lunatic. Got a pesky political opponent? Have some strings you can pull? get him arrested! You don't need real evidence since they don't need to charge him for over a month. You don't need very good evidence to make an arrest, and charges that are never made never need to stick.
Hey that's "Sir" Bob Geldof, don't forget... hehe.
Nope, not "Sir". He's only an honorary KBE. Not a citizen of the commonwealth.
It's a shame to hear him falling into the old trap of 'what they hate is our freedom'.
What they hate is the perceived inteference of The West into Islamic/Arabic matters. I doubt they're particularly bothered by the number of days we can be held without charge by our government.
We're frogs and we're being boiled.
But anyone who points that out is derided as 'alarmist.'
JJASPER, that's why i put the Sir in quotes and the hehe
"What existential threat do we face greater than those of the past 800 years?
Nuclear weapons. One of which could kill more people in a single blast than died during an entire crusade."
Extending habeas corpus eliminates them in exactly which way?
As for the 800 year, the black plague killed a higher percentage of the western population than any conflict.
The current limit isn't 25 days, it's 28!
It was passed in the aftermath of the 7th July attacks. Tony Blair was going for 90 days (in order to send a message to the terrorists/cave in completely to fear/appear hard in front of the tabloid newspapers [delete as appropriate]), but was defeated, so it could have been a lot worse.
britain has no freedoms for quite a while, no surprise here, semi-socialist nanny states tend to be like that.
what's surprising is that the alarm went in their heads only now, not when they disarmed brits under the pretext of danger of handguns, and then canceled their freedom of speech under pretext of hate crimes. after these two, all other freedoms are as good as dead.
Prettyboytim SING IT.
Wasn't it our fascist overlords who really hate our freedom that spawned that little lie?
This makes me want to watch Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father" w/ Daniel Day Lewis. It's really uplifting and shows how useful it can be to detain without charges.
If anyone thinks it strange that Sir Bob of Geldof is raising left-wing sentiments in a right-wing newspaper (the Torygraph - lover of royals, pro hunting, opposer of immigration...) then you don't know how strange British politics has become since Thatcher left office. The pigs are walking on two legs now. How about we just abolish party politics - because it's pretty much dead anyway.
The fat is in the fire and The beasts are at the gate,Pete!
It amazes me that Gordon Brown seems to have inherited Blair's tendency to latch quixotically onto some ludicrous issue (Blair: Iraq war, Brown: 42 days) and refuse to let go, even when almost everyone else (except of course their craven and useless MPs) thinks they are totally nuts.
Fine, Gordo, go for it, stand your ground on this particular piece of stupidity. You just lost any trace of a chance of getting my vote.
Padster, there was a trace? Ouch :)
"The United States feels itself at war, but has an absolute limit of two days of pre-charge detention." That is, of course, unless you find yourself in Guantanamo . . . then it's Habeus Who?
"It's a Rat Trap, Judy . . . and you've been caught!"
@17 Patchouli Pete:
... And here I was about to abandon all hope.