Monday, December 10, 2007
LEGAL CHALLENGE TO GOVERNMENT FINANCED SCARE PROPAGANDA
I have discussed before how our freedom is being threatened by government financing of eco, health & other scares. Here is a comment I have put on a Guardian article but which I think deserves permanent consideration. Obviously it would require some individual or organisation with considerable financial resources , or a lawyer such as Cherie Blair who has no difficulty getting legal aid, to test this. Certainly cases where the Convention have been more ambiguous (eg right to family life used to justify free fertility treatment) have been made & won. Legal action might be a worthwile investment for an organisation, for example a pro-nuclear one, which would be in line for substantial compensation if the government were forced to disburss a similar amount to the amount handed out for anti-nuclear propaganda.
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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Henry Louis Mencken..
This is how liberty is eroded & it is currently being done by government subsidising eco-fascist & health fascist groups (eg 90% of Friends of the Earth Europe's funds coming from government sources or the £3 million our government gave to ASH to promote the smoking ban).
This is contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights
"ARTICLE 10
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises."
since government subsidy of eco or health fascist scares is clearly "interference by public authority".
To be fair the next section does allow government propaganda "for the protection of health" but for that to apply the government would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that passive smoking really kills the thousands that have been claimed &, since it doesn't, that cannot be proved. Even that permission does not apply to "global warming" propaganda.
It might be arguable that if government gave equal subsidies to those organisation opposed to such scares the "interference" would be negated & that such organisations therefore have a legal right to match all the government subsidies handed out over the years to them. I suspect our masters would resist paying as much money for Martin Durkin to do another Global Warming Swindle programme as they gave to Al Gore to show his Convenient Lie film to schoolchildren.
Since the BBC is a state funded broadcasting organisation it has the same legal duty.
UPDATE The Guardian have now twice decided not to allow this post to stand. Since it wasn't offensiv, racist, anti-femisist, mention Yugoslavia or any of the other things this paper justifies censoring it seems they think this would be a serious threat to enforcing political correctness.
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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Henry Louis Mencken..
This is how liberty is eroded & it is currently being done by government subsidising eco-fascist & health fascist groups (eg 90% of Friends of the Earth Europe's funds coming from government sources or the £3 million our government gave to ASH to promote the smoking ban).
This is contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights
"ARTICLE 10
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises."
since government subsidy of eco or health fascist scares is clearly "interference by public authority".
To be fair the next section does allow government propaganda "for the protection of health" but for that to apply the government would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that passive smoking really kills the thousands that have been claimed &, since it doesn't, that cannot be proved. Even that permission does not apply to "global warming" propaganda.
It might be arguable that if government gave equal subsidies to those organisation opposed to such scares the "interference" would be negated & that such organisations therefore have a legal right to match all the government subsidies handed out over the years to them. I suspect our masters would resist paying as much money for Martin Durkin to do another Global Warming Swindle programme as they gave to Al Gore to show his Convenient Lie film to schoolchildren.
Since the BBC is a state funded broadcasting organisation it has the same legal duty.
UPDATE The Guardian have now twice decided not to allow this post to stand. Since it wasn't offensiv, racist, anti-femisist, mention Yugoslavia or any of the other things this paper justifies censoring it seems they think this would be a serious threat to enforcing political correctness.
