Except the Feminists did not fight for freedom. Freedom they had or were acquiring. They fought for the vote.

There is a massive difference between freedom and voting. Illiberal democracy? Thy name is Britain.

Nor did the Trades Unions fight for freedom. Rather they fought from the start to restrict the freedom of others. The freedom to strike your own bargain. That was inherent from the very beginning. Scargill was a good son of the Union tradition.

And whatever wrongs the Irish suffered, by the time the IRA came along, the Irish were free. In many ways their fight was the fight to impose the closest Europe has come to a Theocracy on the Irish people. Whether that is freedom or not is a complex question.

And yes, you’re right, single-issue protest never wins, it’s only vague generalised discontent that wins through. It’s why we see so few pressure-groups these days.

Yep, because when the Tories were in power they never abused it in any way, noooooo…..and when the Liberal were in charge they didn’t either.

What would be the point of protesting such a narrow point – nobody gives a shit about freedom of speech since it isn’t intrinsic to the British way of life – it irritates the Lords and Masters too much when its used against them. That’s why the American Founding Fathers made it the First Amendment to the Constitution to prevent Congress from promulgating laws against freedom of speech like the British Parliament. They knew better.

So what about it, Tim? Are you actually going to argue to rein in the powers of Parliament or just whinge about foreigners imposing laws upon you in yet another vainglorious display of cognitive dissonance and psychological misprojection?

Perhaps the wrong side won.

On Tim’s point, I wonder if it would be worth just going and protesting en masse. A blog-organised event perhaps. They can’t arrest us all and to try and do so would only highlight the very point we sought to raisee. If we were calm and sensible it would just highlight how oppressive this restriction against protest is and how so many people of different political persuasions are opposed to it. I mean more than Holborn’s V idea (which was great). I mean come right out and say, “This is at odds with everything this country is supposed to be about. I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” We’d just be saying what we always say here, just where it needs to be said.

Easy, Tim. You vote for parties (or even shill for extremist nationalist parties) which continue to claim that there’s no reason to have a written constitution that limits the powers of Parliament.

And the rest is history. Bloody history.

And I’m hoping Dearieme is misinterpreting the comment as all-Provo-ish, rather than seriously contending that the pre-1922 IRA was t3h 3vilz.

Go and read up on the history of how Ireland was ruled. You never know, you might learn something.

I have the same rage for the same reason. I thought I was calming down until I heard the story of baby P.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7723042.stm

Best regards

“The Blood of Heroes is the Seed of Freedom”…

…so there.

That’s how it hapened. Be it actual war, or the pseudo wars against drugs and terror. The state uses war to expand its power and to repress liberty.

but populations tend to get lazy and complacent…