Barack Obama seeks Nick Griffin at BNP rally.

And why should the title and picture have anything to do with the content.  This is politics!

The Patriot Act

It is actually the USA PATRIOT Act and stands for (can you believe the fun and games these people entertain) Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.  What a lot of fun.  I bet those guys are good at crosswords.  So why piss about with a very serious subject like this.  It is because to call it what it is would be too obvious and revealing.  It is Increased Detection Intended to Oppose Terrorism by Legally Authorised Waffle.  Oops that acronymizes to IDIOT LAW.  What the IDIOT LAW does is to increase powers by law enforcement agencies to detain, deport, and spy on anyone.  Admittedly it is qualified by saying anyone suspected of "terrorism-related acts".  Wanking?  Maybe.  Millions of little half people are destroyed and with the perverse justification given by legal beagles it is not too far-fetched to imagine they could construct a convoluted obfuscation of intellectual spaghetti to justify that one.  When they vote on whether to extend the Patriot Act for another four years they are expected to vote on it without being able to examine it because, for security reasons you understand, some of it remains secret.  Now that really is democracy working well.  I'm not too bothered about this because bullies will be bullies and there is little in the short term you can do about that but what does worry me is that lovely man Barack Obama.  He is so nice.  He is so good looking, so fit, so suave and sophisticated, intelligent, charming and, damn it, he's also of Irish decent!

I listened to his speech at to the UK Parliament at Westminster Hall and I lapped up every word of it.  98% of it was thoroughly agreeable.  The problem is, as we all know, liars, the best of them, are very hard to detect.  And you are not going to become President of America if you are a crap liar.  It's not that I am so cynical as to imagine that everything he says must be a lie but he, like so many politicians, says what he believes is the good stuff that other people, and even possibly himself, want to believe.  But you cannot uphold freedom and democracy with clandestine phone tapping and voting on invisible laws.  On the one hand they support, even promote whistle blowing but when someone does it to them they scream in rage that he should be assassinated.  That's what I mean by lying.

I believe in free speech and you won't catch me booing and jeering at Nick Griffin.  You don't find me going along with the hysterical applause at the killing of Osama bin Laden.  I listen to what Nick Griffin has to say and give it some consideration.  An awful lot of what he says is good stuff.  A lot makes sense and a lot of it I don't happen to agree is a good approach to running a country.  I listen to Obama and most of what he says makes sense.  But it is not philosophically consistent and I don't happen to believe him on the grounds of the evidence so far.  I listen to what the Pope says and read his speeches and his philosophy and I heartily agree with most of what he says but it is still bullshit because he doesn't believe it.  He might wish it were true but that is where we depart.  I believe all people are equal - he doesn't.