Sunday, August 03, 2008
Letters from a Tory
Letters From a Tory is not a particularly well known blog, but it ought to be. Its author writes daily letters on various topics. They're precise, insightful and brilliantly written. He's now written a blogpost on why he writes these letters. Do yourself a favour and click HERE to read it. He should be one of your daily reads.
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9 comments:
Yeah, I read him occasionally. However, that manifesto is a little incoherent in a number of places.
Here's just one example: from policy 4...
"Freedom of speech is so fundamentally important to this country that unless you support it, I don’t think you can call yourself English or British."
And this from policy 19...
"Unless there is a representative of the public behaving inappropriately, newspapers, magazines and websites should be banned from publishing any details of anyone’s private life. Huge financial penalties and possible criminal action should be thrown at those publishers and individuals who break this law."
Right, so free speech is really important unless it's free speech about someone's private life. Okaaaay.
Admittedly, his get-out clause is this:
"The public and the media have no right to follow people, harrass people, take photographs of people or publish stories about them. The only exceptions to this would be if an elected represenative of the public e.g. MP or MEP behaves in a way that is unfitting of the responsibility that they have been given."
Well, that's good, right? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper...
Because if anyone digs into a story about said MP or MEP and finds that there is no impropriety, then they are subject to "Huge financial penalties and possible criminal action".
At least one result will be less exposure of the disgusting troughing of our politicos, as publishers dare not even publish any story for fear that it might be judged insufficiently heinous.
Either you believe in free speech or you don't; LFAT obviously doesn't.
DK
P.S. We already have libel laws that ridiculously favour the litigant: I don't think that we ned criminal sanctions too.
He contributes to ConservativeHome often.
Bland uninspired trash. That's why he isn't more widely read.
I enjoy him, mainly because he has slightly more cerebral comment threads and a lower percentage of loons. I like loons and rudeness myself, but LFAT is a nice change of tone once in a while.
I've been re-reading some of his stuff. His instincts are those of a barking authoritarian, barely tempered by a realisation that he should not admit to it.
DK
I visited and posted this:
Iain Blair recommended this site. He was wrong. What a stupid lot of stuffed shirt British cowards you are. I am glad you chaps don’t have a Bill of Rights, you are too worthless to deserve one.
Thanks DK, always nice to have your opinion. I'm not a barking authoritarian, but I don't think that the government can take it's hands off the steering wheel and hope everything turns out for the best - which may explain some of my posts that support government intervention in some circumstances (which I admit doesn't fit well with your philosophy!).
There is no contradiction in curtailing freedom of speech in order to maximise freedom, just as there is no contradiction is curtailing freedom of actions ( Like murder)
Devil, like many heedless youths has a theoretical commitment to freedom of speech which would stop short of allowing that speech should anyone listen and act upon it . It is a sly deluding and bourgeois conjuring trick usually to be found on the left.
Freedom is the product of rules not their absence , for most men at most times slavery was the norm not a golden pre –state age and on a more abstract level the addition a of rules to poetry increases the possibility of expression , the submission to piano lesson provides the freedom to play.
Letters from a Tory is indeed a fine blog as is Raedwald who I hope you will feature soon.Devil is also very good but I sometimes think the 'enfant' part of the 'enfant terrible' persona might be emphasised a little less.
teacher.paris:"I visited and posted this:
Iain Blair recommended this site."
He did!? I wonder he's got time to read blogs, what with all the other top cops plotting his demise....
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