{"id":233,"date":"2004-07-30T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-30T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=233"},"modified":"2004-07-30T00:11:00","modified_gmt":"2004-07-30T00:11:00","slug":"233","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=233","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Nanny-state tendencies, and what about that May Pole?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently, British police officers have been forbidden to join<\/a> the British National Party<\/a>, a political party which might charitably be described as far-right. More here<\/a> from Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

You don’t like far-right parties? Fine. But the BNP is, as its web site points out, a legal political party in the UK. Imagine an American cop being told, “You will lose your job if you register as Libertarian (or Green).”<\/p>\n

In another weird drug-war development, it is seriously suggested that British children could be vaccinated against euphoria<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I don’t mean to pick on the Brits. These same things could happen tomorrow in Canada under the banner of “order and good government<\/a>.” They could happen the day after tomorrow in the United States under the banner of “The War on (whatever).”<\/p>\n

Two incomplete thoughts:<\/p>\n

1. As a Pagan, I have strong small-l libertarian feelings. As Judy Harrow<\/a> once pointed out to me, ours is a “high-choice ethic.” We make up our own minds. Evidently Police Constable Smith is no longer to be trusted to make up his own mind. Nor would the kids be trusted. The less a government trusts the people, the more totalitarian it becomes–even if for the “best” of reasons.<\/p>\n

2. Back to the BNP: Take another look at its web page<\/a>. Click on the link at upper right that says, “”New ‘Land and People’ site launched.” Watch the photos–particularly in the upper right. See that May Pole? Hmm. Does the American political right own “family values”? Does the British political right own (revived) Pagan symbolism?
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nanny-state tendencies, and what about that May Pole? Recently, British police officers have been forbidden to join the British National Party, a political party which might charitably be described as far-right. More here from Wikipedia. You don’t like far-right parties? Fine. But the BNP is, as its web site points out, a legal political party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-233","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6846,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6846","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":0},"title":"Burning Alex Salmond","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The neighborhood celebration of Guy Fawkes\/Bonfire Night happened last night, three nights past the canonical date, but we are southern Coloradans, not necessarily up to date. The hostess is emphatically Scottish. Although she has lived here more than twenty years, raised two kids, and stayed employed, she retains her British\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Bonfire Night\"","block_context":{"text":"Bonfire Night","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=bonfire-night"},"img":{"alt_text":"scotland and colorado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/scotland-and-colorado-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":874,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=874","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":1},"title":"Quick Notes","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 I went away for a high-school graduation and a small family reunion in one of the non-fashionable parts of Colorado, a trip that prompted these thoughts in my other blog.\u00b6 Ian Jamison, a British Pagan graduate student, seeks people to take The Pagan Environmental Engagement Survey. In some instances,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8830,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8830","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":2},"title":"Mystery Deity in Hitler Hex","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Today the Internet served me \"Putting a Hex on Hitler: LIFE Goes to a 'Black Magic' Party.\" For background, you have to know that the pictorial weekly news magazine Life had a regular feature called \"Life Goes to a Party\" \u2014 and many of these parties featured big-name musicians \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/incantation-in-progress.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1226,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1226","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":3},"title":"That Theodish Political Candidate","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Sarah Pike of California State University, Chico evaluates Dan Halloran's run for a New York City Council seat as an \"out\" Pagan and concludes, \"Since for many Americans, the Republican Party is inseparable from conservative Christianity, Neopagans were surprised that the party stood by Halloran, and took it as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11003,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11003","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":4},"title":"Happy Halloween","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Halloween, dear readers. This day finds me still coping with the 16.5 inches (41 cm) of snow that fell this week, working simultaneously on two journals (a new Pomegranate is coming!) and preparing to start a book-editing project. And my own stuff too, of course. It doesn't feel very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/halloween-goth-girl-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7356,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7356","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":5},"title":"Quick, Download this Paper Now","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Israeli scholar of Paganism has published a paper on \"Connecting British Wicca with Radical Feminism and Goddess Spirituality during the 1970s and 1980s: The Case Study of Monica Sj\u00f6\u00f6\" in the Journal of Contemporary Religion. It is currently available as a free download. Here is the abstract: This article attempts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}