Arguably, his ‘let us look to making sure our future is safe from similar situations and similar people’ is where things really get creepy. Mandela definitely engaged in some good, old-fashioned, political violence; albeit total chickenshit by the standards of even 3rd rate nation states that can afford defense contractors; and then when the (very hard to say nice things about) state he was fighting fell, he stopped, and even passed up the opportunity(definitely one he could have pulled off, and which many ‘freedom fighters’ do) to engage in some nice, cathartic, retributive bloodletting and a presidency-for-life.
It isn’t really worth denying that he was a ‘terrorist’; but would that all terrorists were so polite(and that fewer were motivated by the fact that it’s not as though anybody else was stepping up to right the wrongs that motivate them, South Africa being our Official Freedom Buddy and so on).
Joined an hour ago to support bigotry.
Nice. That didn’t take long.
What’s the network like that sends out the word so proper astro-turfing can take place to defend racist honor?
You’re the same kind of filthy bigot as the little Oxford shit floating through his life on daddy’s money. Sorry for the Oxford comment
Nope. Most of the pixels in the screenshot have no expressive content that would be subject to copyright, and if they were, copyright on them belongs to facebook not him, so he would lack standing.
You know, the standing that he wouldn’t have to bring a US legal tactic into play in the UK anyway.
Another episode of “when idiots happen on the internet”. It’s unsurprising that he’s a Tory, since famous war criminal Margaret Thatcher is well known to have considered Mandela a terrorist. It’s a little disappointing that he’s a law student.
When I first read the article, I was under the distinct impression it was worded differently. Corey implied belief unnecessarily.
I remain convinced that quoting ‘terrorist’ implies something is not true and not fact. This style of textual assassination detracts from the point: an Oxford student studying law who aspires to join the political elite doesn’t understand how the Streisand Effect applies to his activities on-line.
Yes, the party faithful, to use your description, are a bunch a brainless sheep. This function of parliamentary democracy is called collective responsibility: the members back their cabinet and the cabinet enacts unified decisions. Whips exist to enforce precisely this system. Bashing a party for following party politics is meritless and NIMBYy - politics is rarely black and white. Instead we should bash the authors and sponsors of poor bills, and likewise praise those involved in the good ones.
Not defending Vinall’s views here, but you’re making an unfair assumption based on the fact that he’s at Oxford, which costs no more than any other British university to attend.
He’s not even a public schoolboy (he went to a state comprehensive). I have no idea what his father does for a living, or how much he earns, but class-based attacks based solely on the fact that someone attends Oxford and must therefore be a rich toff are insulting to the students who worked hard to get there, and actively harmful to the university’s access efforts.
I don’t think bigotry means what you think it means, or you’ve mistaken my response.
Edit: I’m sorry you value contributions by the length membership rather than content. I must severely disappoint you having merely read BB for a decade. I’ll continue to contribute sparingly to avoid disappointing you further.
1990s Efnet called and want the AOLers glined again!
It is always worth remembering that not everyone attending Oxford or Cambridge comes from a public school. The most interesting people there usually come from the state schools, or resisted the public school programming.
Question of style, here - why use quotes around the word terrorist? I can understand using quotes if you’re quoting the whole sentence (or at least more than one word of it) that Vinall used, but to quote one word? It looks more like scare quotes in that case. And I’m not calling out Cory on this, it’s done that way in the PoliticalScrapbook article as well. Is there some reason to quote it that way?
You ‘have no problem’ defining the French Resistance as ‘just a bunch of terrorists’?
Anyone who tries to use language to clearly convey meaning has a problem with crypto-fascists attempting to muddy the waters. Not that you are a crypto-fascist but acquiescence to such behaviour may constitute a synthesis of it.
It’s not just maddeningly annoying because of the innaccurate use of language but deliberately employed to sway opinion and bring a presumptive end to discussion.
You’re probably an American. In fact, Brits are perfectly capable of being racist on their own, and South Africa is their former colony so those Brits who like colonialism are annoyed about the locals taking it away from them. Most of them are Tories, though some support the farther-right crazier parties.
Saying someone was a terrorist isn’t really a factual claim because the term itself is so loosely defined. What it shows is someone’s perspective on an issue, not an objective truth.
You could probably use that argument to approve a pretty broad range of violent crime in the US, if your only justification is retaliation against the state using the police as a blunt weapon to enforce the status quo. If “Occupy Wallstreet” had started bombing public buildings, would that be okay?
I believe the actions of Mandela after he left prison give him the right not to be called a terrorist.
“former terrorist who paid his debts to society and became a peaceful statesman beloved by millions” is acceptable I suppose.
