The police ban Babyshambles from Moonfest:

The decision came after police asked an intelligence officer to research Doherty’s band, Babyshambles, who were booked to headline Moonfest festival in Westbury, Wiltshire, next week. They concluded that the band’s tendency to “speed up and then slow down the music” could create a “whirlpool effect” and spark disorder.

A horrific phenomenon also known as “Putting on a good show”. Apparently Superintendent Paul Williams would prefer “Cliff Richard or Bucks Fizz” to play.

Doherty is reportedly “absolutely devastated and furious”, which suggests that this was one of the shows which he actually intended to turn up to. A day was shortened, a festival pretty much ruined (the amount of Babyshambles fans who came there just for Pete was doubtless substantial) and the puritans win in their efforts to stamp out some fun once more.

Quite why am I reading Robespierre? Specifically, his Justification of the Use of Terror. It’s terrifying (hah…):

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty’s despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

Emphasis mine. The doublethink inherent here boggles the mind. State-terror is justified should it be directed at enemies of liberty, he cries. That this terror requires a basic negation of liberalism appears beyond him. If some people are legitimate target of oppression, and others are not, then clearly freedom from that oppression cannot be a universal value. If that freedom isn’t a universal value, then we clearly aren’t born equal or free - and so on. Robespierre’s words are those of a tyrant.

They represent an extreme perversion; the enabling state gone bad. He posits that we must rid ourselves of tyrants to be free. True enough. But here he falters, with crashing rhetoric demanding an outright tyranny against tyrants. That requires a universal negation of liberty - and a restoration of tyranny. The enabling state exists to make basic freedoms viable for all. When, in order to create liberty, those basic freedoms are cut off - very literally, in Robespierre’s case - that concept ceases to make sense.

Now, let’s put this arcane rambling into a modern context. Quoth Robespierre:

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?

Emphasis mine. The same principles abound as before; some are permissible targets for Terror, and so liberty isn’t a universal value. We can kill some of you to make the rest free, and you’d better appreciate it or you’ll be next.

And guess where that logic crops up today? Substitute, “terrorism,” or, “anti-social behaviour,” for, “counterrevolution,” and it becomes clear. The same clear logic of the, “Justification of the Use of Terror,” runs through virtually all modern counter-terrorist thought.

Even the rhetoric matches, give or take the linguistic drift of 214 years and translation. Take that last question - on whether the servants of tyrants are as guilty as those tyrants. Doesn’t that sound just like Bush’s axiom that, “if you feed a terrorist, or fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist?” It’s exactly the same principle; if you’ve any connection with terrorism/counter-revolution, you are a terrorist or counter-revolutionary.

Thus, Melanie Phillip’s, “terrorist nation.”  A wall around the West Bank because Hamas exists there, regardless of the blameless children who also happen to exist there. Because, in this system, they’re not blameless.

And it goes beyond that. The enabling state and the values of positive liberty again become perverted. The 42 Days detention farce serves as the perfect example. Labour claims it protects the basic freedoms of life and liberty by introducing the measures; but effectively jeopardises those basic freedoms by allowing the police to grab a citizen off the street and hide them away for 6 weeks without telling them why. In a perverse twist of illogic whereby liberty becomes tyranny for liberty’s sake, liberty loses. And so do we.

It’s absurd to equate Revolutionary Terror with the present situation. But it’s the same thought that underlies both; freedom must be restricted for its own sake. It’s a perverse step which attacks the real purpose of the Enabling State. Certain intervention can make greater liberty available to all - but not when that liberty is undermined at a basic level. Modern politicians would do well to learn that, or face the consequences of their own petty tyranny.

Is the EU trying to put me off altogether? First the arrogance of the official reaction to the Irish referendum, and now this:

Speaking about her report, Ms Mikko told us “the blogosphere has so far been a haven of good intentions and relatively honest dealing. However, with blogs becoming commonplace, less principled people will want to use them”.

Asked if she considered bloggers to be “a threat”, she said “we do not see the bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace”. She added, “I think the public is still very trusting towards blogs, it is still seen as sincere. And it should remain sincere. For that we need a quality mark, a disclosure of who is really writing and why.”

Let’s translate that into a language people will actually understand, shall we? Here’s what Ms Mikko really means:

Speaking about her report, Ms Mikko launched what constitutes an attack on freedom of speech. She feels it’s unfortunate that more people are blogging these days.

It’s her view that there’s too much on the internet that she doesn’t like. This includes criticism of the EU. Much of this “spam” comes from anonymous blogs. She’d seek to challenge this by insisting on a “disclosure of who is really writing and why” - in short, by insisting that people revealed their name and purpose.

So - Mikko wants to protect people from us horrible, horrible bloggers. That the ability to publish anonymously is one of the internet’s great virtues has apparently escaped her; it allows those who’d otherwise fear to speak to speak. It’s liberating, and valuable for that.

Oh, and that the ability to publish anonymously represents a fundamental element of the freedom of speech apparently esconsed in the European Declaration on Human Rights also seems to have eluded her.

Mikko’s proposals would require a blog to gain the seal of approval from the Commission. Blogging would be subject to state censure from the platform down to the posts; a wonderful way to challenge the lack of, “pluralism” in the press that Mikko claims to be so worried about.

This isn’t anything more than a resolution - the European Parliament’s weak equivalent to an EDM. It won’t become law. But the very fact that MEPs are willing to discuss such attacks to the blogosphere worries me. What’s the point in a totally open platform if it’s no longer totally open?