Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper

[Ken Brown]

Owen Lewis wrote:
 
> If we cannot keep contributions strictly on topic, do let's try to contain
> personal insult within collegial forms. Or better yet, forgo them entirely?

It was you who introduced offensive language, I just escalated it. 

I really do have "zero tolerance" for the implied nationalism and racism
of the language you used, so I replied in anger, and do not regret it. 
There is a long-lasting line of argument from the establishment which
creates demons to scare the rest of us into doing what we are told.

The  "hardly out of the stone age" nonsense just fits right in with the 
demonisation of foreigners, the  idea that there are hordes of
uncivilised savages just over the water, slavering to come in and rape
our poor little country, and we had jolly well better stick together and
keep th bastards out. It is an older lie that the one about the War on
Drugs, or the one about paedophiles, or the one about asylum seekers, or
the one about Jews, but it fits into the same pattern. Get people afraid
so they obey orders.

If you did not realise that you were talking that kind of language, if
you thought that the things you were saying were acceptable, then it is
time for you to wake up and pay attention.  And don't wibble on about
"political correctness" or say I am trying to exercise censorship. I
think you have every right to say unacceptable things, just as I have
every right not to accept them.

Ken Brown