Posts by Deborah
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(and apologies to Deborah that this paragraph largely rehashes a comment I made on her excellent blog last week).
No worries! Your analysis deserves a much wider audience than it will get over at my place.
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Me too, Stephen. I'm damned if I am going to allow my justifiable concern for our civil rights to be turned into some kind of "bring down the state" yelling and screaming. In any case, I'm still prepared to wait for the evidence to come out before making a judgement about the Urewera 16, 'tho it would be very nice if that evidence was to come out SOON.
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But if we're going to agree that there was no excuse for what Richards did, I'd have to take issue with Margaret when she makes excuses for the abusive and aggressive behaviour of some of the protesters.
I thought Margaret's analysis was spot on. And I thought it was oriented to explanation, not excuses.
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I hold no brief for Richards -- I'm quite happy to see him charged and/or expelled, whatever -- but the confrontation was at least in part a result of the atmosphere generated by the protesters.
Richards behaviour is explicable, but not excusable. And it's very hard to escape the impression that because Trevor Mallard has more-or-less gotten away with it (sure, he's been somewhat demoted and he's lost his favourite toys - Sport and RWC - but he's still in Cabinet with heavy hitting portfolios), that there's a level of tolerance for a bit of biffo in the Labour party.
I think that the police have done okay, in this situation., 'tho I will be very angry if Richards isn't charged.
Physical violence is simply not acceptable as a response to verbal taunting, even quite aggressive verbal taunting.
And I don't think it really matters how long Richards has been a member of the Labour party. He's a delegate at the conference, which implies a level of acceptance and responsibility within the party. So now, for the second time within just over a week, a member of the Labour party has responded to verbal taunts / aggression with physical violence.
Get a grip, guys.
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Sorry InternationalObserver, I don't get the joke there, maybe I'm a bit dense tonight?
Me either...
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Neenish tarts or lamingtons, Simon G?
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I'm with Margaret on this "defending a woman's honour" crap. I put up a post on my own blog to this effect, and it's time stamped within 2 minutes of Margaret's post. So I really am with her on this one.
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I said:
Winston Churchill did NOT say that democracy was the worst form of government.
Here's what he actually said:
... with a link to the (ahem) right quote.
And Jeremy Andrew said:
Yup, that's what I linked to as well.
So I'm saying, SORRY.
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Exactly so, Neil. There's good reason for liberal democratic institutions such as the rule of law.
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And finally, crikey, I get busy for an afternoon, and come back to find that EVERYONE ELSE has been having a lovely time discussing anarchy.
My rough take on it - nice enough for small groups where social norms might prevail, but given that we live in communities of hundreds of thousands, and even millions, it's hopelessly unrealistic about human nature. Which is why we might have do make do with Western liberal democracy as a form of government.