I wish they would label Russian and Chinese influence as subversion. But knowing the UK, they'll probably use it to jail people who post mean things on twitter.
UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
21–30 of 224 posts
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.
I hate this quote as it is usually recited by those “weak men”.
I agree with the sentiment, I’d probably phrase it slightly more politely as “people who use this always seem to believe they are the ‘strong men’ and other are the weak”
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#23It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.
Notably, this quote makes actual historians cringe. But hey, if it sounds cool it must be the Truth!
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#24It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.
That is an extremely shallow phrase, usually quoted by people who have nothing to add except an appeal to "the good old times" when "men were men".
So is the idea that "history is cyclical". It's literally the bell curve meme, and you're in the middle x)
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#25It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.
I agree. Although not sure how sustained or substantive that "championing" ever really was.
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#26I can’t find any mainstream news source corroborating the claim that the government has imminent plans to introduce new legislation on the basis of the review mentioned in the article. If you google “hall independent review state threats”, nothing much turns up.
HN is becoming so partisan, it's starting to get on my nerves. The bill text is here[1]. It's extremely benign and the article linked, in fact, argues against it's own straw-man, found in another cited article[2]:
> Yet, another way to view ‘cumulative’ or repeated protests is as sustained public action for justice, solidarity and freedom.
So yes, if you interpret some random bill amendment in whatever way favors your side, you can argue against or for anything (the logical principle of explosion[3]). The problem is that some protests were actually quite disruptive and some people think we should curb this. This isn't some insane authoritarian anti-free-speech power-grab that the original article hints at.
It's sad to see folks lacking any kind of media literacy or critical eye. Also, the source itself is biased (it's a left-wing think tank), but that's a whole 'nother thing.
[1] https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3938/stages/20237/amendmen...
[2] https://netpol.org/2025/10/28/resist-new-laws-restricting-cu...
[3] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dnp/frege/paradoxes-of-material-i...
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#27I wish they would label Russian and Chinese influence as subversion. But knowing the UK, they'll probably use it to jail people who post mean things on twitter.
"Mean tweets" and incitement to commit violence are mutually exclusive.
No they're not, and also, it's irrelevant to my point because I'm not talking about incitement to commit violence.
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.
People who forget the hard lessons their ancestors learned are doomed to repeat their mistakes.
Exactly! Its lucky we learned the lesson of WWII and invaded all those horrid dictators. Wait....
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#29“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
It started before that. The powers that be in western European countries can no longer deliver prosperity or security to their citizens, so must instead use force and repression to cling on to power.
It can he argued that they only delivered prosperity to European countries by using force and repression elsewhere in the world.
Many European countries got rich without colonization (e.g the Baltic States before WW2, or Austria-Hungary).
Moreover, economic studies show that the profitability was discutable - in the case of France it was a net loss due to the massive infrastructure costs and the subsidies for non-competitive industries.