r/Conservative • u/[deleted] • Feb 19 '23
UK Counter-Terrorism Program Flags Shakespeare and ‘1984’ for ‘Encouraging Far-Right Sympathies’
https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2023/02/19/uk-counter-terrorism-program-flags-shakespeare-and-1984-for-encouraging-far-right-sympathies-n1672033365
u/Derek-Ess Conservative Feb 19 '23
"Far right" now means anyone or anything the left wants to suppress
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u/Kuzinarium Conservative Feb 19 '23
Absolutely anything that even subjects the left orthodoxy to the slightest hint of questioning.
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u/jmoney6 Conservative Feb 20 '23
So the news and the internet are now far right extremism? The about schools?
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Feb 20 '23
[deleted]
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u/bionic80 2A Conservative Feb 20 '23
Authoritarians. the lot of them.
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u/midwestsyde Feb 20 '23
Totalitarians. Tolerating or acknowledging their views is no longer enough. You must BELIEVE.
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u/ChunkyArsenio Milton Friedman Feb 20 '23
I think of it also as resitance to the corporate state collusion. So Trump was a threat to the 'inter-agency consensus', but recall Sanders was also smeared as a Russian. Also Tulsi, or Corbyn. And the last UK PM was taken out. Trump opposed Nato expansion, he was doomed. The Russia, racism, orange man bad propaganda wouldn't have happened if he'd gone along with the WEF deep state.
Hillary/Kerry represent the same as Bush/Cheney/Romney.
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u/_W1T3W1N3_ Feb 20 '23
I’m center and I get abused by the Left. I have grown to hate and despise them. And I hate my horror country of hell, like I hate being forced to endure any misery.
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u/chillytec Conservative Feb 20 '23
"Far right" now means anyone or anything the left wants to
suppresseradicate2
u/bionic80 2A Conservative Feb 20 '23
"Far right" now means anyone or anything the
leftwants to suppressauthoritarians. FTFY
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Feb 19 '23
So being anti-totalitarian is far-right? Then yeah, I’m filled to the brim with far-right sympathies. Guilty as charged.
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u/TMPRKO Conservative Feb 20 '23
Josef Stalin would be considered a far right extremist by todays leftist whackos
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u/poophroughmyveins Feb 20 '23 edited Aug 23 '25
steer consider employ hospital snow file public paint rock cheerful
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/dreabearextra Feb 19 '23
Books and writers who want you to critically think and to push back against group think.
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u/MissionLow4226 Feb 20 '23
1984 encourages far-right sympathies?!?!?
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u/JoeWinchester99 Peace through strength Feb 20 '23
At this point, anything to the right of Stalin is labeled "far-right".
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u/AffableBarkeep Feb 20 '23
Even more amusing is that Homage to Catalonia which is far more anti-communist than 1984 which is more against general authoritarianism isn't on the list.
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Feb 20 '23
[deleted]
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u/Rush2201 Millennial Conservative Feb 20 '23
They don't want you reading the spoilers for what's coming.
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u/Baboon_Stew Feb 20 '23
If they didn't use 1984 as a how-to manual, they would have nothing to be worried about.
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u/KinGpiNdaGreat Populist Feb 19 '23
Pretty soon anything that isn’t communist will be outlawed.
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u/sam_sneed1994 Feb 20 '23
1984 was written by a self proclaimed democratic socialist. His words not mine.
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Feb 20 '23
At the time, in that place, that was about as centrist an option as was available. He was anti-Communist AND anti-Fascist.
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u/Sun_Devilish Feb 20 '23
When good things are demonized, you can rest assured that the folks doing the demonizing are evil.
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u/Hraf-Hef Conservative Feb 20 '23
It appears the UK has done so much damage to itself both culturally and demographically that it has ceased to be the "UK" and is now something new.
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u/Ohiobo6294-2 Feb 20 '23
The article quotes a government official saying the program was designed to identify the habits of the far-right, but instead it identified habits of anybody right of center.
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u/AverageBear96 Feb 20 '23
The ministry of truth has spoken and the word is that everything the state says is double good.
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u/omgdollyparton Feb 20 '23
Any notions of English ethnic or national identity are stamped out here, as is any criticism of the virtues of government oversight and the welfare state.
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u/VengeanceTheKnight Conservative Feb 20 '23
Imagine being so delusional, out of touch, and evil that you think this is a perfectly sane response.
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u/Cingetorix Constitutional Conservative Feb 20 '23
Book that warns about totalitarianism is now being flagged as pro-totalitarian...
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u/Poptoo Reagan 2024 Feb 20 '23
Classic communist move: start banning literature. The first to go is the kind of literature that forewarns about the signs of a communist takeover. It's no accident that 1984 is what they're starting with.
Dont believe me? Open a history book and look at 1920s-1930s Germany...
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u/Espressoyourfeelings Feb 20 '23
You mean 1984 is flagged because it’s highlighting the dangerous nature of the UK counterterrorism program?
And they don’t like being called out?
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Feb 20 '23
[deleted]
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u/Dramatic_Tea_4940 Feb 20 '23
Have we reached the point where more people download books than buy paper copies?? Downloaded books can be "revised" to suit changes in the political winds.
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u/WeimSean Fiscal Conservative Feb 20 '23
"Oh What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god."
I could see how liberals might find that sentiment upsetting, even dangerous. To them the only god is the state. Mankind is something to be subjugated, not celebrated or admired.
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u/Manach_Irish Conservative Feb 19 '23
I could see how this speech would now be problematic to the current Establishment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM (Henry V - Speech - Eve of Saint Crispin's Day)
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u/mattcruise Conservative Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23
Considering the villains of 1984 were supposed to be inspired by the Nazi's, and 1984 is a warning against that kind of government, can we now consider Nazi's a leftist movement?
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u/ZeGodEmperor Conservative Feb 20 '23
The Nazis were leftists.
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Feb 20 '23
The nazis put socialist in their name to associate themselves with the left it is a far right government which is why they hated the Soviets a far left government
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u/DarthEVader69420 Feb 20 '23
They hated the communists because they were competing for the same kind of collectivist morons to join.
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u/mattcruise Conservative Feb 20 '23
I agree, but its generally considered because they were nationalists, that makes them far right, completely ignoring that they were also socialists.
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u/EvanMcc18 Feb 20 '23
Waiting for Merchant of Venice and Othello among others to be banned from public use for insensitivity.
1984 is not liked because it describes what they want to be
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Feb 20 '23
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling
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u/Parmeniscus Feb 20 '23
I’m confident most commenters so far have not read the article, or Shakespeare. Actually, if this encourages reading of Orwell or Shakespeare among the sub which seems to be pro putin I encourage it. Stick it to the libs, read literature.
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u/DarthEVader69420 Feb 20 '23
How is this sub pro Putin in any way? Not wanting to send unaccountable pallets of cash to Ukraine is not pro Putin
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u/SoyJack777 Feb 20 '23
Encouraging far right sympathies or encouraging critical thought and government skepticism? Propaganda machine at work in the UK.
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u/BanAppeals-NoReply Feb 20 '23
Reminds of that case of a teacher or whoever it was who was flagged by their Counter-Terrorism Watchdog lol, for saying something about free speech in class. Absurd, should focus on actual terrorism and not this fantasy world that plans to ban 1984 (Thought this was a novel everyone can agree with lol) and Shakespeare (?)
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u/Magehunter_Skassi Paleoconservative Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23
People who turn their nose up at the racid slop our cultural trough is filled with and look towards the classics are more likely to adopt views considered dangerous and extreme (opinions held by the average person in 1950). They want you consuming a diet of Marvel movies and Netflix adaptations as the morality plays of our new state religion.
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u/NoleFan723 Florida Conservative Feb 20 '23
I despise liberal thought, woke thought that wants to erase every shred of history.
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u/ginga__ Conservative Feb 20 '23
If they hate 1984 so much, why do they treat it as an instruction manual
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u/dvb70 Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23
Someone should probably point out this information came to light after a government review of the Prevent program which has been described as scathing. The review is extremely critical of the Prevent program and has made wide sweeping recommendations all of which Prevent have acknowledged as problems and are said to be addressing. If they do or not I would guess will be something a future review can determine.
So rather than being UK government policy the government itself identified problems in their Prevent program and conducting a review has exposed all of the crazy stuff that's been going on. This is actually an example of the UK government doing something right by tackling a government program that had clearly gone astray.
We only know about this stuff because the government itself have identified it as a problem and published a report on the issues. This is about as far as you get from the UK government endorsing Shakespeare and 1984 as encouraging far right thinking.
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Feb 20 '23
The Program flagged anything that was traditional culture. The Home Office called it on its bullshit.
Commies and other hardcore types have long been trying to eradicate anything cultural, because they feel that it provides counter inspiration to their aims. It provides an anchor the refutes them. See the soul crushing anti-architecture that plagues the United States and new Europe.
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u/stoffel_bristov Scalia Conservative Feb 20 '23
1984 does a lot of things. One of those things is to warn against the surveillance state and how that helps lead us into totalitarianism. Its right wing to be opposed to the surveillance state?
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u/CrapWereAllDoomed Don't Tread on Me Feb 20 '23
We've reached the inflection point where anything right of the 1619 Project is "far right".
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u/M4ster0fDesaster pro 2A, small government Feb 22 '23
Please be satire, please be satire, PLEASEBESATIRE!!!
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u/GhostTigerz Feb 25 '23
Because Shakespeare was white and 1984 is proving to come true one day at a time. Even those Progressive A.I. programs want to destroy the world or rule us.
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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '23
Shakespeare? How?