The Death of Logic

I agree with the concerns expressed by Republican Senator Ben Sasse in my quote of the day about the Travel order signed by President Trump and with the concerns expressed by Communities Secretary Savid Javid.

It is important that we use diplomatic and other channels to express those concerned to the US administration.

One protest, however, that I will not be signing, is the petition to ban President Trump from making a state visit to the UK.

The people signing this want to ban him from coming to our country as a protest against him banning people from coming to his country.

Have they really thought through how silly that sounds?

Comments

Anonymous said…
They only want to ban one individual for very specific reasons. Trump wants to ban all people because of where they were born or religion. One may be justified the other certainly can't.
Jim said…
I thought it was in protest of his policy of banning pre-shredded cheese, I know its a bit of a pain, but i don't think that wanting to make America grate again is really worth all this fuss
Jim said…
^ sorry, just could not resist.

Though I do find it ironic really that there are mass protests in the USA about what Trump is doing.

This means people are protesting because for the first time in living memory a president is actually doing exactly what he said he would if elected at the time he was campaigning. - and they elected him.
Chris Whiteside said…
I'm not defending the policy because such a crude and oversimplistic approach is only too likely, as Ben Sasse explained, to make matters worse by creating the impression that the US and the West are biased against Muslims and thereby, in the long term, work against the solution of the problem that Trump is trying to solve.

It may also be very unfair to some individuals.

It is not wrong, however, to try to prevent Jihadis from moving round the world to murder people, as long as you don't identify all Muslims or everyone from certain countries as Jihadis.

And I stand by the view that if a protest can be presented as trying to ban someone from making a visit to your country as a protest against him banning people from coming to his country, then that opens you to ridicule, and is therefore not an effective way to make a point.
Jim said…
Im not defending the policy either, what am am saying is that Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do.

I dont agree with many party manifestos, but, if a party is elected, and they do exactly what they said they would do in their manifesto, then how could I hold it against them.

Usually you would protest because someone is doing the opposite of that which they promised, which is why the Lib Dems took so much flack over tuition fees. Or because they are doing something really bad that was not mentioned in the manifesto, but doing what you said you would do is hardly a crime.

If i dont like what you said you would do, then I simply wont vote for you, but, I dont really have the grounds to complain too much when the party who wrote the manifesto go on to win a democratic election, and then fulfil the pledges within the manifesto.
Chris Whiteside said…
He certainly said before the election that he would do this.

I've forgotten who made the point, but someone said that Trump's enemies took him literally but not seriously while wise people took him seriously but not literally.

In this case he apparently had to be taken both seriously and literally.

I would hope he can be persuaded that his legitimate concern and the substance of the promise - to stop terrorists travelling - can be addressed more effectively be a less literal interpretation of the promise.
Anonymous said…
Are we to believe Sir MO Farah a terrorist?
Anonymous said…
Nadim Zahawi is obviously a terrorist, he was born in Iran.
Chris Whiteside said…
Exactly - of course neither Mo Farrah or Nadim Zahawi MP are terrorists, which is exactly why a blanket travel ban on anyone born in or travelling from the seven countries concerned is oversimplistic, unjust, and likely to be counterproductive.

As you will have seen, the UK government has managed to obtain an exemption for UK citizens so neither of them should now be affected but there are large numbers of people still covered by the Executive Order for whom it is equally inappropriate.

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