Quote of the day 26th July 2015



I picked this one because of the behaviour of SNP "anti-austerity" protesters in David Mundell's constituency last week. And anyone else who thinks they win an argument with someone by sending a hundred people to shout them down in a threatening or abusive way, or by insulting them generally.

As Jim King pointed out in a comment yesterday, the SNP are not the only culprits of this sort of behaviour. It is wrong whoever does it.

It is not impossible, by the way, to organise an demonstration in a non-threatening way, and I don't have a problem with that or consider that Paine's words would apply to it. I have seen, for example, a hundred or more people standing outside a building or the entrance to a venue, at a safe distance so that they are not obstructing of directly threatening the people their protest is aimed at, holding placards. The most effective such demonstrations had people either standing in disciplined silence or singing something associated with non-violent protest like "we will overcome" or "Kumbayah."

That sort of expression of opinion, where people show their own position without trying to threaten those who have a different view, express their is 100% legitimate and does not necessarily constitute the sort of thing Paine was writing about.

But where you get a mob of 100 people running after one person, chanting things like "traitor" and "shame on you" and doing so from six inches away from their car window, that is not a peaceful expression of opinion, it is threatening behaviour. Indeed, I think that the video footage of the demonstration against David Mundell MP on Friday should be studied by the police.

And those who take part in that kind of threat and intimidation have indeed renounced the use of reason.

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