Comment Re: Official Secrets Act? (Score 1) 395
OSA only applies to government employees. What is being argued for here is an extension of that scope (to everyone).
OSA only applies to government employees. What is being argued for here is an extension of that scope (to everyone).
Type URLs? What are you, Amish?
Why would he want a baseball bat?
Censorship is binary: you are in favour of it or you are not. You can't have "partial censorship".
Actually you can, and we do. Here's an incomplete list of exceptions to the right of free speech: slander, libel, defamation, obscenity, threatening behaviour, perjury, contempt of court, profanity, incitement to violence, noise pollution, copyright infringement, passing trade secrets, treason, espionage, conspiracy, shouting "Fire!" in a cinema, sedition, encouragement of terrorism.
The Daily Mail was the paper that ran a pro fascist piece called "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" in the 1930s.
They are with a shadow of a doubt a tabloid.
Get the Germans to pay, just like any other day.
I wouldn't dream of it, old bean. That really would be a step too far.
The EU has done more to spread freedom and democracy than any other organisation on Earth. It projects soft power with a single carrot, the offer of membership.
The first success was rehabilitating Germany after the War. Spain, Portugal and Greece all used to be military dictatorships. Now happy, prosperous, modern democratic states. Admittedly there's been some unrest recently in Greece, but there is zero possibility of another military coup, it will stay free and democratic no matter what. That's because of the larger structure it belongs to.
Then it rehabilitated central and eastern Europe. All the countries that were offered membership are free and democratic. Every one of them. Doesn't that strike you as odd? All the non-EU candidates (Ukraine, Russia) are not. Coincidence?
Turkey is far nicer place than it used be. The army stays out of politcs. The Kurds and other minorities are being treated reasonably. All thanks to EU negotiators banging on about human rights during 30 years of talks.
What other organisation can boast such an effective record at democratisation?
Nobody gets credit for ideas they neglected to write down for being too obvious.
Who gives a flying fuck where it comes from? Do you think "what would we ever do without the Arabs" whenever you write down some numbers?
Of course not. However, if someone here posted that the Arabs were doing a better job of implementing our number system than we were, I would call them out on their error.
It's partly because, of course, the Europeans are a number of otherwise independent states so it's like a democracy on an international scale - chances are that SOMEONE will kick up a fuss about something that they disagree with and concessions will have to be made
Actually, the European Parliament has a much better record of standing up for citizens rights than the Member Governments, who are usually the villians in such arguments.
I read this a lot of times, but repetition doesn't make bullshit right.
According to Wikipedia: "The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787" and we all know the French Revolution started with the assault on the Bastille on July 14th, 1789. So how can a piece of written paper borrow ideals from a revolution that started almost 2 years later?
Both the French Revolution and the US Constitution are products of the Enlightenment Era or Age of Reason as it's also called.
The US Bill of Rights was not adopted until August 21, 1789. They were passed by amendment, remember, they didn't make it into the original document.
Eh? It's the other way round I'm afraid. The french were heavily influenced by what happened in America. Check the dates!
The US Bill of Rights was not adopted until August 21, 1789. These are all amendments, remember, for some reason they didn't make it into the original document.
It may shock you to learn this, but your home country's stated ideals are all European in origin.
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry