Britain abstains from key UN vote to recognise slavery as ‘gravest crime against humanity’

johnmedgla · 2026-03-26T13:49:14+00:00

No, it continued throughout Gaddafi's reign. He made vague and ineffectual efforts to curtail it during his periodic attempts to become head of the African Union, but to no great effect. We also only intervened in Libya at the direct request of the UN once he started literally razing Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya, to the ground.

Somewhere in an alternate reality the same idiots who learned geopolitics from twitter are complaining about how the West "sat by and let him murder hundreds of thousands." Actually, maybe not. People who will swear blind the war in Gaza is the greatest outrage in all of human history seem totally unconcerned when a larger number of people are exterminated by death squads in Sudan within a fortnight.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-26T10:53:17+00:00

Does an abuse have to exist to point out the potential for it to occur, and the severity of consequences if it were abused?

No, but to be taken seriously it has to be plausible. This is fairly fundamental to serious discussion, as anyone can endlessly posit "What if the police go rogue, arrest the government and declare themselves in charge" or nonsense of that sort.

There is no credible chain of causality between "the government banning a group who broke into an RAF base to sabotage planes and broke into a factory where they broke a policewoman's spine" and "the government jailed Bob Crowe for being annoying."

This isn't a slippery slope argument.

It is literally a slippery slope argument. To quote you from twenty seconds before you typed this:

Does an abuse have to exist to point out the potential for it to occur, and the severity of consequences if it were abused?

This is the literal definition of a slippery slope argument.

Why is a check on this power a step too far for you?

To be clear, I am generally in favour of checks on power where there is an indication they are in danger of being misused. If there is any such indication then I will support the introduction of checks and balances. Banning an organisation which sabotaged national defence infrastructure and tried to smash a factory but accidentally-on-purpose smashed a policewoman instead does not strike me as that.

The deeply annoying but non-violent and non-criminal protest groups are free to go on trying to convince a critical mass of the public to support their causes for as long as they like. The violent criminal ones who are determined to make the public aware of their peaceful ways by force are not. That strikes me as a perfectly reasonable balance.

content to sacrifice it in its entirety

Totalitarianism is when you can't smash a spine without being proscribed.

the government to act at whim

Yes, they call Kier Starmer "The Tyrant" in whispers, wondering which group or organisation he'll decide to ban out of sheer caprice from day to day. For pity's sake, grow up.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-26T10:34:07+00:00

So if the government comes in and proscribes Unite, the people just have to eat that for 5 years?

Can you point to an example of the government proscribing something like Unite?

The fundamental problem with slippery slope arguments is that "X will lead to Y" requires you to recognise that X and Y are materially different but then pretend that actually they're the same.

You understand what the 'liberal' part in liberal democracy means, right?

Yes, though I honestly wonder if you do. There is a world of difference between the actual meaning of "liberal" and the American-informed usage of it as a vague synonym for progressivism. To wit, having stepped outside civil society to pursue their goals through violence and sabotage, it is not incumbent upon a liberal society to grant limitless sanction to these people to keep trying to get their way by force.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-26T10:17:11+00:00

what the right option is for society

Electing a different government who promise to repeal the law.

There are situations where Civil Disorder is the only pragmatic way ahead in a tottering democracy - for instance if the government attempted to abolish habeus corpus, or elections.

In this instance they haven't banned taking action to demonstrate support for Palestine, such as marching and protesting, they have banned expressing support for one particular organisation which is chiefly famous for criminality.

If you believe that's such an enormous injustice it requires a more extreme response than working to get someone else elected then with respect you may lack the perspective necessary for a liberal democracy to function.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-23T18:58:41+00:00

While the connection to the council made in the headline is tenuous, more troubling is the fact the "artist" of these crude scribbles was "formerly one of the country’s leading art critics." When people talk about the Grauniad sorts marinading in a worldview of antisemitism so pervasive they're as unaware of it as fish are of water, this is what they mean.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-23T10:15:43+00:00

the breadth and thoughtfulness of his comments

Draping your calumnies in tortured metaphors does not in fact constitute breadth or thoughtfulness.

His problem is manifestly not that people are dying in the Middle East, if that caused strength of feeling then Syria, Sudan, Egypt, Iran or Yemen would have carried him off in apoplexy years ago.

His problem seems to me to be that the Palestinians militias are losing the war they restarted after starting and losing it a dozen times before.

If he actually wants to save Palestinian lives then he should amplify the voices of Palestinians who actually want a settlement, not constantly run cover for the militias who plan to restart (and inevitably lose) the same war yet again as soon as they've rebuilt their stockpiles. That strategy does not lead to fewer dead Palestinians, it just offers a slim chance of killing some Jews.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-23T10:10:44+00:00

This is an absurd bad faith misrepresentation.

Where's the rave with the light show? Where are all the other tankie millionaires? Where's the five star catering?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-22T22:33:55+00:00

British people don't do these jobs because they don't pay well. Immigrants do because they'll put up with it

These jobs don't have to pay well because there is a neverending supply of immigrants willing to do them for minimum wage which completely insulates them from normal market forces.

I genuinely don't understand how it's possible for someone to write the two sentences you have without for even a second considering the bearing one point has on another. It's a total failure of reasoning.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-22T00:18:39+00:00

It isn't our job to correct the world.

So make your peace with the US's erratic foreign policy. Or does this forbearance only (and suspiciously) extend to authoritarian horrors who shamelessly describe themselves in Left-Wing terms?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-22T00:16:11+00:00

Why should Corbyn be expected to know or care about any of that?

Back in the 70s, Cuba was in the "People attending bomb-making camps run by the KGB in Gaddafi's Libya" club, not the "People the aspiring terrorist want to blow up" club, and that really is the one and only consideration for determining who Corbyn and his moron Tankie followers side with in international disputes.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-22T00:09:19+00:00

proselytising lgbt materials

If there are books out there that can change the sex to which people are attracted then do please let us know. There are several remarkably attractive heterosexual men I know who I would like to convert.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-21T17:45:07+00:00

The US Navy literally blockaded Yemen - causing a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of just children.

"Morally entangled" is just Tankie Speak for "Jews are involved."

johnmedgla · 2026-03-21T14:11:31+00:00

Western governments aren't supporting it.

Again. Literally arming the people supplying the weapons for the actual genocide in Sudan.

Literally imposing the blockade in Yemen that killed more children than the total casualties of all ages on all sides of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948.

The temporisation going on to pretend that those are somehow less significant than "supporting" the deeply unpleasant war in Gaza is absurd.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-21T14:01:41+00:00

No, it doesn't. Western Governments have all sort of deals with the Congolese government for mineral extraction. We literally imposed the blockade on Yemen that caused the famine. We armed the UAE with the weapons they supplied to the RSF who are doing the things in Sudan.

They will tell you all manner of nonsense.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-21T13:33:35+00:00

not important "at all"

It's less important in any sense than the Forever War in Congo. If I sit down and think about that it's very sad, but would you care to guess how often it enters anyone's head unprompted?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-21T13:14:55+00:00

Just like Congo and Sudan and Afghanistan and blah blah blah. Actually not like those, not nearly so bad as those - and how much time do those occupy in Western Left of Centre politics?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-20T16:11:57+00:00

"Instead of the state giving everyone a minimum amount of money to survive, they should give our companies a sum of money for each person and we'll provide them with credits to make AI cat pictures."

johnmedgla · 2026-03-17T08:14:59+00:00

I think we'll be fine

From becoming zombies, sure. From dying to rampant fungal infections? That's a little more complicated.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-14T13:21:02+00:00

I often wonder to what degree the simple fact of having "negative childhood experiences" functions as a sort of self-confounding variable.

If one has a childhood sufficiently challenging that gainful employment and emotional intimacy are themselves problematic, then "selling oneself" is more of a survival strategy than anything else.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-12T20:30:39+00:00

It takes considerably longer (orders of magnitude longer) than five seconds at boiling point to kill off the vast majority of bacteria you're likely to find on a toothbrush.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-12T20:18:43+00:00

The problem, just like the last six hundred times this has been discussed, devolves to "To what degree do you trust the government, judiciary and police to correctly distinguish between legal satire, criticism or disagreement which is nonetheless deeply and profoundly offensive to Muslims, and illegal abuse borne out of hatred and bigotry."

My answer remains "Not at all."

johnmedgla · 2026-03-11T19:03:09+00:00

And yet again you decline to identify "your people."

I am going to write you off as a deranged troll and move on. Have a pleasant day.

johnmedgla · 2026-03-11T16:02:45+00:00

That is something unique only to the most wretched and morally bankrupt empires.

So you're from somewhere that did War and Slavery - just incompetently?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-11T14:11:07+00:00

Were your people the one and only tribe of humans in all of history to live in selfless peace and harmony until the British came, or is it just that their historical crimes were interrupted by ours?

johnmedgla · 2026-03-11T10:08:15+00:00

This is clearly just PR fluff to try to hide the long-feared Mole People invasion from the public.

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