I don't know if you're awaee, but the number of arrests for terrorism has skyrocketed in recent months, in the UK.
Sounds terrifying, until you realise people were arrested as terrorists for holding placards. (That fact is of course terrifying, but in a chilling way).
I hope I’m not adding 2 + 2 to get 5, but it’s incredibly convenient that a lot of people are being charged for supporting a proscribed group the same month as the online safety act is rolled out…
The cynic in me almost wonders if when it comes to re-election time, these increased numbers in terrorist charges will be trotted out and the context conveniently forgotten.
It does sound terrifying that arrests for terrorism have skyrocketed lately, given that I'm pretty sure that it's neither the case that the number of terrorists has skyrocketed lately, nor the ability of the police to catch terrorists.
You forgot to mention those people are holding placards in support of an illegal "terror" group whose objective is to protest the unnecessary human loss of life in Palestine by spray painting British military equipment.
Obligatory legal notice that I obviously do not support said group, but historically terrorists would actually need to commit acts that instil a sense terror in people to further their political objectives. N one I've spoken to feels even remotely terrorised by Palestine Action, and it wouldn't even make sense to be given what they stand for.
I say this as someone who neither supports Palestine Action or shares their concerns.
Even more chilling when you find out that sentences for previous criminals are being commuted and reduced significantly for heinous crimes (theft, burglary, rape, assault, etc.), so as to clear space and make room in prisons to accommodate these "terrorists".
The more dangerous people they can get on the street the more fear they can generate and the more they can whip the public to their bidding. Getting rid of the few people trying educate the public on these matters goes hand in hand.
Spraying paint down military jet engines rendering them inoperable until repaired, at a cos of millions of pounds.
> historically terrorists would actually need to commit acts that instil a sense terror in people to further their political objective
The legal definition of terrorism in the UK has for many years (at least all of the current century, I think a lot longer) included "serious damage to property":
and I think causing many millions of pounds worth of damage is clearly serious.
I do not entirely agree with the definition (I particularly oppose making collecting information and disseminating publications terrorism) but it is what has long been accepted.
Palestinian Action are a sanitised, Westernised front for Hamas fundraising. Their founders have praised the Oct 7th attacks and called for repeats. That by most measures counts as being an active part of terrorism. The spray painting was pretty small in the list of threats they pose.
Palestine Action broke into a British military base and sabotaged millions of pounds' worth of equipment. What did you expect the government to do exactly — shrug it off? What kind of message would that have sent?
The Terrorism Act 2000 gives "serious damage to property" as one definition of terrorism so I find it hard to argue that the government was doing anything more than neutrally applying the law here. Those protestors knew full well they were supporting a proscribed group and they were warned what the consequences would be. Protesting in support of Palestine remains entirely legal in the UK just as long as you don't use the name and branding of this one specific group.
I'll probably regret posting this but there are some extremely disingenuous half-truths in this thread and I think that readers should know the full context.
Personally I expected prosecutions for sabotage rather than for terrorism.
The UK has very broad terrorism legislation, but conventionally terrorism is something directed at civilians, and it's not something we usually tar, for example, resistance groups with.
I think you even have to be able to kill people in internal political conflict without being called a terrorist. There are many circumstances during which such things are necessary.
FWIW the specific activists who entered the base were charged with "conspiracy to commit criminal damage" and "conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK", not terrorism. [0]
If the government wants to shut this group down (which I think is a reasonable response to an attack on our military) then I'm not sure what other options were available to them. And like I said, what they did seems to meet the legal definition of terrorism (regardless of whether that definition is a good one.)
Of all the arguments we could be having about Palestine, I'm really not going to shed any tears for Palestine Action.
But I'm not here to get lost in the weeds, I just objected to the misleading half-truths that were being presented above. Most people reading this don't follow UK news closely and might come away with the impression that the government is banning pro-Palestine protest entirely, or is making it illegal to merely "hold placards". That's an outrageous distortion, and it hardly helps the pro-Palestine cause. I couldn't let it slide.
Here in Sweden what organizations are engaged in terrorism is up the courts and the government has no right to intervene at all to proscribe a group, with EU and other political terrorism designations being irrelevant.
Furthermore, I think that there is a duty, if one suspects that a capability is or may be used to aid genocide, to destroy that capability. Hopefully Palestine Action are incorrect, and targeting assets that have not been used to aid genocide or otherwise make it easier, but if they are right and the UK have actually aided genocide, then they have done too little violence.
> You forgot to mention those people are holding placards in support of an illegal "terror" group whose objective is to protest the unnecessary human loss of life in Palestine by spray painting British military equipment.
Yet more false equivalence.
You can be for Palestine.
You can be for Hamas.
You can be against ethnic cleansing.
You can be against genocide.
These are all different things. And note, this smearing of things like equating 'genocide to Hamas so they deserve it' doesn't make genocide better.
This smearing terms together is also being done by Israel as well, by trying to equate Israel with Judaism, and all Jews across the world. And that any denouncing of actions done in a genocide or ethnic cleansing is somehow antisemitic.
All of these false equivalence arguments are basically just motte-and-bailey fallacies.
Hamas won that election in large part by throwing their opponents off the tops of buildings, and then, having secured power in Gaza, never allowed another election, to the point where a plurality of Gazan Palestinians are not old enough ever to have participated in an election. Anyone calling Hamas "freedom fighters" is telling on themselves. No, I don't think you can reasonably be for Hamas.
I don't have anything else to nitpick about your comment! Just that one thing you said stuck out, because, no; being for Hamas is like being for the Khmer Rouge. Like, yeah, western imperialism in Indochina was absolutely a thing at the time of the Khmer Rouge. But no, you don't get to be for the Khmer Rouge!
("Last elections too"? What did you mean by that?)
It still arguably complies with the Paradox of Tolerance.
Terrorists (as well as their supporters) are intolerant and non-pluralist. Therefore, for a pluralist society to survive, it must be intolerant of one thing- intolerance.
The paradox of tolerance isn't wrong, but it's also invoked awfully quickly in the last years, often by people who weren't tolerant to begin with.
I'd at least like to know who defines who is a "Pluralist" and who is a "Terrorist".
Also: The paradox of tolerance can legitimately be used to call intolerant behaviors of individuals. When you use it to define entire population groups as "intolerant", and therefore not worth of protection, you have joined the side that you ostensibly want to fight against.
> When you use it to define entire population groups as "intolerant", and therefore not worth of protection, you have joined the side that you ostensibly want to fight against.
Suppose there was an organization that had written by-laws which were not permitted to be changed but which demanded adherence (on pain of death), including never leaving the organization. Also suppose that most of the members of that organization collectively decided not to adhere to all of its rules (some were considered incompatible with "progress")... but some continued to. And others sometimes began to, but only under stress, because the by-laws book (which, again, cannot be changed, on pain of death) made NO clarification on scope of application, and people were free to interpret the by-laws literally.
Why would you not judge that organization, given that its by-laws are its core? Why would you make special exceptions for ANY organization (or its members), here?
I mean, objectively-speaking, if we weren't reflexively defending the org we're of course discussing, it sounds like a dystopian science-fiction novel. (If I'm being honest, it sounds A LOT like Warhammer, actually.)
"With few exceptions, Islamic revelations do not state which Quranic verses or hadith have been abrogated, and Muslim exegetes and jurists have disagreed over which and how many hadith and verses of the Quran are recognized as abrogated, with estimates varying from less than ten to over 500."
Also note that naskh tends to recognize later passages as overriding earlier passages. Guess which ones are the more violent ones...
See a problem, yet? Please don't gaslight me into not seeing one.
Who decides who is considered “tolerant” and who isn’t? This idea is ripe for manipulation and will end up producing the opposite of what was intended.
To be sure, in the original context of Popper's writing, I believe "intolerant" meant something like "committing violence against others for disagreeing with you", and "tolerate" meant "refrain from intolerance". The full quote is below:
"Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force;
Sounds like speech suppression with force because (later in the quote) the speech may later give way to force. If he was only talking about force in response to force it wouldn't be considered a paradox I don't think. This quote hasn't dispeled popular characterizations of his stance for me, it seems in line with what most people say he's saying.
As you say, it's because the speech may later give way to force. It does go farther than American free speech law permits: the latter draws the line at something like "threats of immediate criminal action", whereas this would attack "propagating ideologies that one thinks will eventually lead the followers to criminal action". There are certainly deep problems with potential implementation here: e.g. the main American political parties would probably both accuse each other's ideology of eventually leading the followers to criminal action. One would want high standards for that (of, say, what percentage engage in what magnitude of criminal action; as well as evidentiary standards), and want it to be established in a mega-trial, or by a supermajority of Congress declaring war on an ideology; and even that might not be enough. I'm not necessarily in favor of Popper's approach, except in emergencies.
However, I think that, when most people use the word "intolerance" today, they include things like speaking racial slurs or expressing any negative emotion towards a demographic group. There are contexts in which these things are done, and manners in which they are done, in which, yes, they do give a significant signal that the speaker is the type who would cheerfully escalate to aggressive violence towards the targeted group; but also contexts and manners in which they do not give such a signal.
I think there is a distinction to be drawn here, between "always tracking whether this is likely to escalate to criminal action" and "just attacking anyone who vaguely resembles a known 'intolerant' group". The latter is essentially an autoimmune disorder, which has led to massive collateral damage and its own discrediting. The former ... has a danger of turning into the latter, certainly (which has an interestingly meta angle to it), but is there any version of it that is well-protected against that fate? I expect there's room for improvement compared to earlier versions. I don't know if it can be done well enough to be worthwhile.
I think we can have stronger protections in the US, while keeping it within existing frameworks. Why is it constitutionally ok to give mega corporations strong protections against slander backed by the state who will enforce the ruling, but protection of ethnic groups from slander is constitutionally off limits? It doesn't follow from the constitution.
No, we need to be intolerant of people who threaten others freedom. It does not require preventing them from expressing intolerant views. It means preventing them from actively trying to harm or intimidate others - e.g. making threats, becoming actually violent etc.
Are you talking about the tit-for-tat strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma? That's a particular toy model with an exaggeratedly punitive payoff matrix. But not every daily interaction can be reasonably mapped onto that matrix. A random interaction with a brusque stranger in a queue isn't necessarily going to result in a good outcome for your being rude ('defecting') in a tit-for-tat. If anything it might cause you more stress and embarrassment than if you'd remained mum.
I don't know if you're awaee, but the number of arrests for terrorism has skyrocketed in recent months, in the UK.
Sounds terrifying, until you realise people were arrested as terrorists for holding placards. (That fact is of course terrifying, but in a chilling way).