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NEW FEATURE: Advice to Demonstrators After the Trashing of Millbank
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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: NEW FEATURE: Advice to Demonstrators After the Trashing of Millbank
Nov 20, 2010, 13:32
You've gone back ten months to a post. To me that implies that perhaps examples are not legion. I think you're overstating it a little but basically right to say

keith a wrote:
"We noted in our report that the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is sometimes being used against protesters"...

is a million miles away from...

"The Protection From Harassment Act - supposedly to defend vulnerable women against stalker ex partners - is most commonly used to get injunctions to defend corporations from peaceful protests."


However, as Stray points out, the Parliamentary publications will be couched in very cautious terms, especially compared to an activist talking on a message board.

But if we just remove the word 'most' we get "The Protection From Harassment Act - supposedly to defend vulnerable women against stalker ex partners - is commonly used to get injunctions to defend corporations from peaceful protests", which is pretty much a rephrasing of what the parliamentary quote says.

'Most' is a very potent word though, and unambiguous. I readily concede that yes, I don't have figures for that and the statement is quite probably wrong.

I would go and edit it to remove the word 'most' but after all the kerfuffle about editing I fear what I'd be accused of; on this thread you yourself have made insinuations about it being some sort of underhand thing I do, even though I have never done it for such reasons.

Finding errors and exaggerations in things I've written is one thing. I'm sure, in over 2000 posts and dozens of Features and News items on U-Know, there are many to be found. This is a board for frequent discussion which means we should stick to what we believe but we also shoot from the hip.

But there's a clear implication in what you've said on this thread. Saying I lack integrity, repeatedly saying that I write things that are untrue clearly implies that I deliberately lie as an ongoing strategy.

Posts here are written quite conversationally. This does not in any way mean people should say things that are demonstrably false. I really value - in fact, it's the only reason I'm here at all - the way we pass news and ideas and test their veracity and worth.

We all have opinions that don't stand up, we all believe things to be fact that are untrue, and it's important to disabuse one another of these things. Also, even for the stuff where you know you're right, it's good to have all your ideas tested so that you can be confident that it is in fact watertight.

I didn't reply, and to be absolutely honest I have no idea why, and I apologise for that. I know you believe me to be a devious liar, but I have no memory of ignoring you, and anyway I think that when you ask for evidence and receive silence as a reply, that is pretty much as good as an admission.

Sometimes people don't come back to the site for a long time and so miss any replies that have been said, so we can't always draw that inference. But on this occasion it certainly wasn't the case with me, I was back on the same thread a few days later.

Because silence is effectively the same thing as an admission of being wrong, I'd choose to concede any points that I can't defend, as then the stuff that is right and defensible still stands; ignoring or abusing those who question you undermines the credibility of everything you've said in a discussion.

In this instance, the post did not rely on the use of 'most', it was not a discussion about the relative levels of injunctions granted against various categories of people. With the alteration of 'most commonly' to 'commonly', I stand by everything being said in that post.
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