Liberty Alone

And Boris Johnson? (am I alone in finding that bit strange?)

I’m sure you’ve seen this elsewhere and it should be obvious to you that I would come out defending free speech, but I thought I’d say something on the matter.

Chicken Yoghurt seems to be the main guy with info on this.

Duncan Borrowman also gives pointers to some of Craig Murray’s writing here.

Aside from that I have two things to mention. One is the need to reform English libel laws (I don’t know about the Scottish ones), the system works on a presumption of guilt and publication is deemed to be where the works are read. They go completely against any conception of free speech since they favour the rich against the ordinary person.

Secondly, I hope that the same level of outrage would be expressed against this sort of action against a neo-Nazi or other unsavoury website. Freedom of speech must be absolute otherwise it is meaningless.

For me the most outrageous point made by Tim Ireland in his attack on Guido was that Guido may cause the rest of the political blogging scene (such as it is - its not a unified group anyway) to have restrictions put upon it.

This may be a legitimate worry - the way our government behaves makes this even seem likely - but it is no reason to censor yourself (or ask others to do the same). It is giving in to the very concern you have - the government’s ends have been achieved without even the need for active intervention. When people start behaving this way the authoritarians have won, we fear them sufficiently that we don’t do anything which may raise their ire, no matter how legal it actually is.

This is actually the most insidious and most effective form of censorship. It is silent and thus raises little objection. Restricting your freedom voluntarily to ensure that freedom is not lost leaves you with no real freedom.

As for Guido - if he libels someone, they can sue him for it. There’s no need to resort to legislation.

Finally - on the internet, censorship is difficult - the only way to do it is with something like the Great Firewall of China, which requires the apparatus of a totalitarian government and even then doesn’t work particularly well - dissidents will find ways around the firewall and will be able to hide their actions. If laws are brought in, then sites will migrate to foreign countries under pseudonyms. A great opportunity for third world countries though - hosting political blogs for dissidents… (or for places like Sealand.

In short, the suggestion that we should censor ourselves is short sighted and plays into the hands of those who would silence us. It ushers in some of the most sinister aspects of totalitarian regimes.

It is of course inevitable that there will be discord in the blogging world - people will disagree, there will be trolling, astroturfing and incredible pettiness.

We’ve had Bob Piper v. Prague Tory and now, as I’m sure everyone is aware Tim Ireland has taken aim at Guido Fawkes.

This is being debated all over the UK political blogsphere, its resulted in quite an increase in Guido’s traffic - not quite the desired result.

I will not be removing Guido from my blogroll, I find the arguments to be unpursuasive.

Firstly, Guido is free to do what he likes with his blog. Its his property. If he doesn’t wish to do what Tim thinks he should then that’s fine, its up to him. Guido deletes comments - he makes no bones about that.

Secondly, Guido is Guido - anyone with any sense knows that not every political blog is like him. We cannot start censoring blogs because they cast others in a bad light - we’d never have any blogs - we all do things which are ill advised. Politicians would dismiss blogs anyway, we’re only the little people anyway.
The big part of this claim however deserves the longest response - maybe even a separate post, but fear of restrictions on free speech should never cause you to limit your speech voluntarily.

Thirdly: ‘Mr Scoop’. And? So what? This smacks of jealousy to be honest.

Fourth: We are all opportunists - I think Tim is using this to stir up traffic. That’s opportunism. Somebody else could have done it? Well true, but they didn’t - Guido did it first, good for him. He hit upon a winning formula, lets congratulate the entrepreneurial spirit here.
Guido also attacks all parties - not just Blair. He’s been having a go at Cameron recently - some Tory boy.
Perhaps the informants are making their own decision to go to him. I mean, its a free exchange, nobody forces them to (unless its their job). They’re using Guido, he’s using them, they both gain. Nothing wrong with that.

Fifth: Guido states a policy he is free to implement. You can disagree if you like (indeed, I do) but that’s no reason to boycott him. Guido is also not really a neo-con. That’s sloppy application of the term if I ever heard it.

Sixth: (these really seem to go on a bit…): I doubt the right people will ever get in for Guido - and if he turns pro-establishment - do you really think we are all so stupid we wouldn’t notice? And that’s his choice anyway. He doesn’t share your views - no reason to attempt to censor him.

Seventh: If Guido likes showing us how big his stats are (oooh-err missus) then he can. So what? Are we impressed - not particularly. Perhaps a bit envious - but I’m not Guido and don’t blog like him.

Eighth: Publishers are a private business - no need to disclose where their money comes from. Just take a reasonable pinch of scepticism over them if you wish - agendas become fairly clear.

Ninth: A political difference - Guido seems to be an anarcho-capitalist - I think what comes after is fairly well defined by others - try Murray Rothbard for example.

Tenth: Guido may have prejudices - we all do. So what? We can decide for ourselves what we think. I havn’t detected any homophobia in Guido’s posts. That podcast was Guido and the Monkey stirring up some shit.

Eleventh: Ummm… in your view. Perhaps Guido felt that the theory you espouse was not correct. We do all read other sites though, we can discover information elsewhere.

All in all, lots of these come down to apparent envy of Guido’s success and a very condescending view of his readership. It is not anyone’s place to try to censor anyone else, certainly not for ‘our own good’. We decide whether to read Guido’s blog. Tim has said what he wants to say as is his right. He’s given us information, which we can choose to interpret in our own way- just as we do with Guido, Tim doesn’t know whats best for anyone else.

I will continue to read Guido. Tim has reminded me to take what he writes with a pinch of salt, something we should do with many sources of information, but overall, he’s not succeeded in persuading me.