Burnley BNP Case - Sentencing

I share the view on the inevitability of a civil war.

Study Islam.

Islam is not a race, it's an ideology which I too am opposed to. It's every bit as bad as Hitler's Nazi ideology.

Study it.

Of course it's a racist double standard. This fascist moron gets a light sentence because he's white and possibly middle class. He's probably viewed as a quaint, misguided patriot is some Mail reading areas of Middle England. Clearly if you're not white you can expect to be locked up, denied immigration, extraordinarily rendered, have your reputation trashed, be betrayed by your government or interned.

Was Timothy McVeigh not also a parnoid white supremacist? He wasn't a "low risk".

Sadly you're going to have all the Islamophobic Melanie Phillips wannabees dribbling their racist bile on your comments boards. What a revolting prospect.

Of course it's not a racist double standard.

Two can play at that silly game.

Where did this word 'Islamophobic' come from? What does it mean in your view? And how, exactly, do you come to equate ideology with race? Can Communist only represent the Slav race for example? Or Naziism the Germanic peoples?

Is Islam Near Asian Arab, for example? Or could it be white European Bosnian? Perhaps neither - maybe it's Oriental Malaysian? No? How about Somali negro? Possibly South Asian Pakistani?

Oh dear; what race is it, exactly? Please enlighten me.

Personally, I don't like Melanie Philips.

And Islam is an ideology. One that is very close to Naziism.

Study it instead of spouting SWP soundbites.

Would CHSM be kind enough to explain exactly what ideals are common to both Islam and Nazism?  Could he or she then conduct the same exercise with regards to 'liberal interventionism'? 

It's slightly bizarre hearing Muslims compared to Nazis! Presumably they're planning world conquest from a syndicate of corner shops and late night garages? Deploying their vast resources to impose a caliphate on Golders Green.
Then again,  I sort of know what people are getting at when they link religion with fascism, so perhaps we should equate Christianity with National Socialism as well? After all, as Father Ted once famously remarked: 'I'm not a Nazi, Dougal.  Nazi's go round dressed in  black, telling people what to do. I'm a priest, and priests, er...."

First get yourself a copy of the Koran, then re-order it so that it reads chronologically.

Then get a copy of the aHadith - Bukhari or Muslim are the best and considered - by Moslems - the most authentic.

Then get a copy of the Sira.

Now sit down and read all three together - work through them a bit of the Sira, then a bit of the aHadith covering the same time period, then a bit of the Koran for the same time period. Repeat until completion of all three.

Then tell me it's not a Nazi-like creed that preaches world domination.

Was every corner-shop German a Nazi?

Did your father have to hate individual Germans in order to do his best to kill Naziism?

I visit these pages most days, and agree with you about Blair etc. I was a Labour Party member for many a long year up until 1999  by when Blair had finally killed the Labour Party as far as I was concerned.

Liberal interventionism? Disgusts me ta v. much. We should stay here and sort our own selves out.

But none of this answers the question: what race is Islam?

As for Christianity. Once upon a time a few hundred years ago I suppose it could well have been described as Nazi-like. But it was brought to heel.

I notice my response to Cassandra's and to Antipholus's comments has been witheld. I've read other commenters mentioning that you work like that and have only now come to believe it.

What's up? Don't like someone explaining how to arrive at their own reasoned judgement on the pros and cons of Islam? Prefer to do your best to ensure that people only follow your propaganda? Can't have people making their own minds up, can we now?

Well well well - learn something new every day.

Into censorship are we? That makes me better than you in at least one respect.

Well, I've got a copy of the Qu'ran, at least in translation,  though I'm not sure that just reading it provides much insight  at all. CSHM, you're probably aware that the same biblical texts have been read in entirely contrary ways by various Christian sects and scholars, with some adopting a literal reading and others taking a highly typological or allegorical approach. Some groups finding scriptural warrant for slavery and others for social justice in virtually  the same text.

I suspect it's the same with the Qu'ran. I doubt that Sufi mystics in Anatolia are reading the same book, in the same way, as Wahabi students in Saudi Arabia. I'm no apologist for religion, but I don't think it's sustainable to claim the Qu'ran as somehow uniquely unpleasant. If you believe that, just open a copy of the Bible and pick a section at random...

I apologise for that last rather intemperate comment.

I was wrong.

Sorry.

My apologies. More of a Douglas Murray wannabe perhaps.

Basically all organised religion sucks. The Born Again Christian idealogues in the White House believe in Armageddon in the Middle East and are doing their best to trigger it off by kicking off an arms race, lavishing weapons on Saudi Arabia and Israel. That's an ideology.

Israel believes it's legitimate to have a "secular state" which grants 1st class citizenship to members of one religion/race whilst discriminating against members of another religion/race and occupying the other's land illegally. That's an ideology.

Nobody seems to pay much attention to "Do unto others..." or "Thou shalt not kill".

I'm not defending any religion; just wandering why it's OK to disproportionately discriminate against one lot of fanatics and go easy on another. It's that double standard that's causing so much polarisation and terrorism.

I too believe all religion sucks. I'm a Dawkins man in this respect.

You can't make sense of the koran by just picking it up and reading it. You have to read it in chronological order, and you also have to co-ordinate that reading with the ahadith (the sayings and traditions of Mohammed) and the Sira (the biography of Mohammed. You also have to understand the rules of abrogation.

Those maniacs who are flying planes into buildings, blowing up trains, beheading hostages, murdering on a daily basis in Kashmir etc all justify what they do by reference to the Koran. Without exception, EVERYWHERE in the world where Islam is in substantial strength within another culture there is conflict.

The O.T. is bloodthirsty yes, but it was specific to time and place, and nobody anywhere claims it is the word of anything but men, "divinely inspired" (I've had these arguments on a daily basis with a devout Catholic I used to work with). And the N.T. does away with the violence altogether. Christians who do the shitty things christians have done over the centuries are doing those things in spite of the bible.

But Islam claims that the Koran is the literal word of God, unchanged and unchangeable for all time, and the jihadis doing the shitty stuff do it in the name of the Koran, and the Moslems do NOT rise up en masse and say "not in my name".

Jihad: it's claimed that jihad is "inner struggle for perfection". In the Koran, 3% of references to jihad are about inner struggle. 97% are about warfare against the infidel.

Anyway, just study it - all three texts in parallel. They tell the life of a narcissistic paranoid psychopath. He personally murdered people; personally raped the wives of men he killed; personally enslaved those wives and their children; personally had sex with a nine-year-old; personally led raids for loot.

Anyway, I wont go on because the only way you'll learn to fear this ideology is if you study it from the original texts. You might also care to study the history of this ideology for the past 1350 years while you're at it. There is not one single country in the world where Islam has peacefully replaced the original way of life peacefully. Not one. And virtually all the military conquests were accompanied by vast slaughter. India alone suffered 80 million dead. That doesn't count the enslavements and the conversions at the point of a sword. Hell, even Mecca itself only became Moslem by use of military force; ditto Medina where opposition was slaughtered, females and children enslaved.

Learn. You wont like it. Christianity USED to be dangerous, but it's had its teeth drawn. Islam still is dangerous.

I used to think and believe exactly as you do.

How many devoted Nazis did it take to enforce their will on all Germans? How many devoted Communists did it take to enforce their will on all Russians? How many devoted Blairites (and Brownies now) does it take to enforce their will on the British?

I have never looked into Islam but it seems all the rage to bash Islam, and I have no doubt that there are genuine whack jobs out there who justify evil actions using their interpretation of Islam. 911 is not a legitimate example of this though, in my humble opinion if you get my drift.

I guess supremacism can be seen a lot in the old testament as well and it  certainly can be seen in the Jewish Talmud antdthat certainly gets less press. 

http://www.come-and-hear.com/dilling/index.html

I guess the interesting questions are what percentages of Jews/Muslims/whoevers believe they have a right to have dominion over other people. Also, which groups enjoy most power and influence? I think the Muslims do not come first there folks despite their numbers.  I have known practising Christians, Jews and Muslims and not had any problems with any of them. They are all a small sample compared to the majority of my friends and acquaintences though who are atheists or agnostic.

Although I think Dawkins is a bit too sure of himself in his atheism I tend to agree the world would be a better place without religious hocus-pocus.

BNP leader cleared of race hate
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2473967.stm
"BNP leader Nick Griffin and party activist Mark Collett have been cleared of
inciting racial hatred after a retrial at Leeds Crown Court."

Judge discharges bomb plot jury
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/6291156.stm
"A jury in the trial of two men with British National Party (BNP) links
accused of plotting explosions has failed to reach a verdict."

BNP man's jail term welcomed
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2473967.stm
"The four-month jail sentence on a British National Party member who incited
racial hatred in Glasgow has been welcomed by the Crown Office."

and then...

"Four men jailed over cartoon demo"
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6904622.stm

"Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 24, were each jailed for six years for soliciting to murder after telling a crowd to bomb the UK.

A fourth man, Abdul Saleem, 32, was jailed for four years for stirring up racial hatred at the protest in 2006."

Dear CSHM,

Are you serious...? You refer to the 'Old Testament' as specific to its time and place, but very few believing Jews or Christians see it as just a chronicle of events in Canaan. The Christian dogma of original sin and divine  redemption is rooted in Genesis, and seems fairly central to the faith. And there are numerous other examples.. As for the New Testament 'doing away with violence' you've clearly never read a word of it.  Must we review the dreary record?

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ" (Eph. 6:5-6)
"Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back" (Titus 2:9-10)

if you're concerned about antisemitism and fascism:

John 8:44,47(KJV) – (44) Ye [Jews] are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye [Jews] will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Perfectly serious.

Though I agree entirely with the poster who said we'd all be better of without any of these ancient systems of superstition.

You know humans - so many of them just can't live with the uncertainty engendered by the words "don't know".

I can (do, actually) just imagine a bunch of cavemen sitting around a fire at the entrance to their cave during a thunderstorm - somewhere in the Middle East where some rather interesting plants grow, along with some rather interesting superstitions (co-incidence?) - and after a particularly close lightning strike one says "why does that happen?" Another, quite happy to accept uncertainty, and probably an ancestor of mine, says "don't know, so what". Another, rather more typical thinks about it a while, holds his finger upright next to his head, and says "I know! - GOD does it" and a quiet murmer of assent sweeps through the cave as the first priest is created.

And there we have it - thousands of years of primitive superstition originating with a bunch of stoned cavemen. All because so meny humans can't live with uncertainty.

There's a discussion on Wikipedia whether to block readers in the UK from accessing articles on the Keogh and Connor Official Secrets' act trial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Application_of_UK_publication_ban_to_Wikipedia

Irrational beliefs are a problem, and virtually every religion has  a history of bloodshed, conquest and violence. Just focusing on Christianity, we have the genocidal conquest of South America, Imperialism, systematic racism, the Atlantic slave trade, the destruction of Africa and much of the carribbean. Clerical support for fascism across Iberia and Latin America, institutionalised anti-semitism, witch burning, the Crusades, campaigns against medical advances, hatred of social minorities. Much of this conitues up to the present. Yet you're asking us to believe that Islam is uniquely inhuman..?

You need to expand your focus beyond official enemies mate.

Nothing to do with being "official" enemies. As far as I'm concerned "official" is just another enemy. I don't let other people choose my enemies for me; I had enough of that years ago when I was an enlisted man.

Strange isn't it - you all seem to know more about the Bible in detail than I do - you see Christianity as the enemy. I appear to know more about the Koran - I see Islam as the enemy. I do know that not many people have been beheaded or blown up on public transport by militant Christians recently, claiming to be acting on behalf of Christianity...

We'll have to agree to differ on this. But do get it into your head PLEASE ... there is a civil war coming and it will make Lebanon 70s/80s look like a tea party. Islam will not accept equality, it must dominate. That is part of the creed.

Anyway, been interesting trying to convince you, but I can see you have closed minds on this issue. Try doing the reading I recommended.

Still with you on most other matters.

You are Nick Griffin and I claim my £5.

LOL

I don't think so though.

It's quite strange all this talk about which religion has carried out more atrocities through the ages. Religion was invented as a tool to justify the actions of the local thugs in charge i.e Kings and the like. As the people at the top had all the money they had to invent a way of keeping the status quo. This is where religion became useful to the local king, he realised that he could get rid of his political enemies by denouncing them as heretics. This made it far easier to justify killing the poor unfortunate dissidents off, who were intelligent enough to be able to stand up against injustice. The masses were unable to read and the teachings of the so called 'good books' could be manipulated, to suit the purpose of the local thug. Wars were carried out in the name of God, he is always on both sides, this meant the local thug did not have to admit the war was for his benefit, as he usually took 90% of the proceeds, if his side were fortunate enough to win, and knew more dirty tricks to aid the victory. 

CHSM says:

"I do know that not many people have been beheaded or blown up on public transport by militant Christians recently, claiming to be acting on behalf of Christianity..."

Really, what about the 650,000 Iraqi's have killed by cluster bombs, depleted uranium and covert operations, all  because God told GW Bush to invade Iraq, and because Blair's 'Christian conscience' demanded he intevene..?  Do you watch the news...?

CSHM said:

"Strange isn't it - you all seem to know more about the Bible in detail than I do - you see Christianity as the enemy."

No-one here is really claiming Christianity is "the enemy". It is not as if one religion must be everyone's enemy. It is quite possible to be a violent extremist and base your rage on the Bible. Plenty of American evangelists (those rooting for an apocalyptic war to bring Jesus back - look up Ted Hagee for more details) use the Bible to advocate world war against Islam, but of course bombing Tehran does not require a terrorist plot.

"I appear to know more about the Koran - I see Islam as the enemy."

I'd suggest the interpretation of the Koran that matters is the interpretation MUSLIMS put on the Koran, not the interpretation someone with a predetermined either anti-religious or anti-Muslim agenda puts on it.

If Muslims generally believed that the Koran required them to wage perpetual violent war against the unbeliever, I think we would have known about it considerably before 2001, and would have been well aware of it for some centuries. The fact is that in the UK there have been very few attacks in comparison to the size of the Muslim population, despite the fact that a large proportion of our Muslim minorities have their roots in the most pro-Islamic-militant region in the world (Northern Pakistan and Kashmir). In France there has been not one successful terrorist attack, and there the Muslim population is huge in comparison to the UK.

You have a point.

But we all know from the security priorities immediately the first phase was over, that it is all about oil, not Christianity.

Er, no, I wont have a television in my house. Do you drive a car and fly on business or holiday? I don't.

Queen Elizabeth had her own cousin beheaded.

Never trust a british christian, they are a bloodthirsty lot.

CHSM,

Yeah, of course it was all about oil, and when leaders of  Muslim states use religion to justify war or conquest it's also about statecraft, political strategy or valuable resources. But when you hear them doing it, you take them at their word, and immediately start leafing through your penguin Koran for proof of their evil ways...Of course, you probably expect Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere to make the distinction you won't, and to understand that they're not really being bombed by Christians on a crusade, despite what they hear Bush and Blair saying, and that it's all about oil.

Anyway, do you really suppose that the billionaire dictators of Saudi Arabia and Egypt really give a toss about Islam..? Or are they more concerned with maintaining their privileges and power?  Somehow I doubt you'll be able to drag them out of their casinos and knocking shops long enough for them to perform Jihad, rape the wives of their enemies and set up an international caliphate! I'm afraid that pointing out the relevant sections of the Koran and asking them to do their duty just won't do it.

By the way,  I'm writing this on my expensive laptop, reclining in the first class section of a rather large and frankly luxurious jet, while watching a pornographic movie (featuring the humiliation of Christian womanhood) and enjoying an excellent scotch!.

Ah Cassie

I've already acknowledged that I'm wasting my time trying to open closed minds. You WONT see ... yet.

Never mind - get back to you on some other topic.

Who has a closed mind..? Most people just take a slightly more nuanced view of contemporary Islam than you do. It's rather strange to adopt a fundamentalist position and then claim we're all to narrow to accept your argument.  Nobody's an apologist for religion or funadamentalism.

It's not too difficult, CHSM, Muslims are human beings too, and not just interchangeable units in a monolithic conspiracy of violence. Religion's just one dimension of identity,part of a vast complex of feelings and motivations, and not an all consuming  obsession in the life of every one who says they're a muslim.

How much experience do you have of living in the Islamic parts of the world? I have eight years.

My Koran was not a Penguin copy - it was green leather bound with gold leaf inlay, and given to me by a man I worked with - an officer (no, not a 'constable' type officer) in the )****** security service.

When people tell you they plan to kill you, believe them. Ultimately, despite the nuances, they all believe the Koran is the literal word of God, unchanged and unchangeable for all time - and it must be obeyed.

By the whole world.

Tell me one, just one, country in the Worls that became an Islamic state peacefully. Even Mecca only became Islamic by threat of military force, and Medina was Islamised using great slaughter.

You'll learn. The hard way.

I get my knowledge of Islam from original sources, not from SWP propaganda leaflets.

CHSM, can you point to the history of any people forming a state or nation peacefully? States just don't form that way. As far as history is concerned, religious minorities had a far better time under the Abbasid caliphate than comparable regimes in Christian Europe. Anti-semitic persecution was far greater under Christian monarchies. There are millions of Coptic Christians in the Middle East, along with Druze, Allawites and Maronites. All these communities go back centuries. Why weren't they converted by the sword? Did the Arab rulers forget to check their Koran?

As for the SWP, you must be joking. I think they're a parasitic little religious cult!

I posted a reply last night. I notice it isn't up yet ...

Anyway, why not see what a Muslim has to say on the topic:

http://tinyurl.com/2blk79

Irrational hatred, pathological fear of 'the other,' gross simplification, reductive reasoning and an inablilty to accept anything beyond a two dimensional, biploar view of reality.

"He who fights monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster"

As old as the hills: don't like the message, attack the messenger.

And I wonder why my post of last night never appeared?

Don't like being contradicted, do you. Not used to it?

Made me too credible did it?

CHSM,

Who are these strange folk?  www.secularislam.org. They appear to be Muslims, but they're secularists,  socialists, liberals and democrats. Did I just imagine them? Surely they can't exist. All Muslims are raging fanatics, Scimitar in one hand, Quran (leather bound, gilt edged)  in the other, tearing across the globe, shish-kebabing our jolly jack tars and ravishing Christian women. Intoxicated by Hashish and driven to  a primal frenzy by the dark, oriental blood that courses through their veins! Driven to acts of unimaginable horror by the throbbing drums..etc.

Shurely sum mistake....

"Why should a judge be 'satisfied' with the man's crackpot assertions about civil war?"

Probably because much of his info must have come from state sources, like the report "Young Muslims and Extremism"

The State no doubt would have liked him to get 20 years to demonstrate "even-handedness" with Islamic terrorists. But the case was so feeble that was too shamefaced a course even for them.

1) As one of the arresting officers said, he isn't a terrorist, and that has been borne out by these proceedings.

2) It had been claimed that he had "rocket launchers" and the largest stash of explosive chemicals ever found in a domestic dwelling. The rocket launchers, which are merely empty tubes quite useless without the rocket and are the sort of thing people interested in militaria collect, slipped off the radar screen of course. Whatever happened to them? As for these "explosives" we are not talking HMTD, the kind of thing terrorists use - but at most material that could be used in thunderflashes. One expert witness said that these were "touch explosives", used in jump jacks. In other words hardly capable of doing anyone much harm.

3) When it was put to a jury on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions, he was acquitted

4) Mrs Justice Swift admitted that the "explosives" were intended to make thunderflashes for "deterrent" purposes but claimed that his ideas were "over-valued". Really? Admiral West has said that Britain faces, thanks to mass immigration, a 15 year war against Islamic extremism. Here, given the increase in their numbers, there is of course no guarantee who is going to win, and, as is their wont -the elective dictatorship and its liberal hangers-on, have effectively co-opted the indigenous people of this country into this conflict. We are told that there are 200 terror cells and 2/3000 suspects. We are told that there may be chemical, biological, radiological attack. Muslims rioted quite extensively in 2001.

So therefore on what basis can it be claimed that Rob Cottage's ideas are "over-valued"? If he is indeed paranoid then who has made him so?

5) Mrs Justice Swift gave, as her view, the possibility that "innocent" people could have been harmed. Rob Cottage sought to defend himself and his property. If there was a screaming Muslim mob underneath his bedroom window trying to batter down his front door and he lobbed a thunderflash into the middle of them the chance of innocent suffering would have been exceedingly small.

6) In view of the threat level the state has admitted to maybe they would like to say when it is permissible to take a few "deterrent" measures in advance. Or is everything to be left to them, in which case it will probably be all just-too-late. Terribly sorry old chap!

7) Rob Cottage had a cross-bow, that's a far more lethal weapon than these ridiculous "explosives", but that's apparently ok.

8) This case was essentially a crock of shxt, and the state has fallen flat on its face.

"Why should a judge be 'satisfied' with the man's crackpot assertions about civil war?"

Maybe the judge realised that Rob Cottage must have much of his information from state sources - like "Young Muslims and Extremism". Maybe she'd watched the Channel 4 Mosque programme herself

The State no doubt would have liked him to get 20 years to demonstrate "even-handedness" with Islamic terrorists. But the case was so feeble that was too shamefaced a course even for them.

1) As one of the arresting officers said, he isn't a terrorist, and that has been borne out by these proceedings.

2) It had been claimed that he had "rocket launchers" and the largest stash of explosive chemicals ever found in a domestic dwelling. The rocket launchers, which are merely empty tubes quite useless without the rocket and are the sort of thing people interested in militaria collect, slipped off the radar screen of course. Whatever happened to them? As for these "explosives" we are not talking HMTD, the kind of thing terrorists use - but at most material that could be used in thunderflashes. One expert witness said that these were "touch explosives", used in jump jacks. In other words hardly capable of doing anyone much harm.

3) When it was put to a jury on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions, he was acquitted

4) Mrs Justice Swift admitted that the "explosives" were intended to make thunderflashes for "deterrent" purposes but claimed that his ideas were "over-valued". Really? Admiral West has said that Britain faces, thanks to mass immigration, a 15 year war against Islamic extremism. Here, given the increase in their numbers, there is of course no guarantee who is going to win, and, as is their wont -the elective dictatorship and its liberal hangers-on, have effectively co-opted the indigenous people of this country into this conflict. We are told that there are 200 terror cells and 2/3000 suspects. We are told that there may be chemical, biological, radiological attack. Muslims rioted quite extensively in 2001.

So therefore on what basis can it be claimed that Rob Cottage's ideas are "over-valued"? If he is indeed paranoid then who has made him so?

5) Mrs Justice Swift gave, as her view, the possibility that "innocent" people could have been harmed. Rob Cottage sought to defend himself and his property. If there was a screaming Muslim mob underneath his bedroom window trying to batter down his front door and he lobbed a thunderflash into the middle of them the chance of innocent suffering would have been exceedingly small.

6) In view of the threat level the state has admitted to maybe they would like to say when it is permissible to take a few "deterrent" measures in advance. Or is everything to be left to them, in which case it will probably be all just-too-late. Terribly sorry old chap!

7) Rob Cottage had a cross-bow, that's a far more lethal weapon than these ridiculous "explosives", but that's apparently ok.

8) This case was essentially a crock of shxt, and the state has fallen flat on its face.