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UK Counter-Terrorism Law Calls On Citizens To Be On The Look Out For “Toddler Terror”

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By Emperor

I never thought our own Elmer Fudd of the American political class, Rep. Louie Gohmert, would have something in common with those oh so wise and erudite snoots in the British Home Office! But apparently both class of politicians are freaking out, granted in a slightly different way, over — terrorist babies.

“Mamma, dadda, ga ga…where’s my bomb..goo goo?”

The UK’s most recent act of stupidity in regards to the Prevent program to counter terrorism is a newly proposed law, CST 2014, that would hold British educators responsible for the ideologies of their students, and yes, that includes pre-schoolers.

The suggestion, which is part of the Counter-terrorism and Security Bill currently before the U.K. parliament, has sparked a firestorm of outrage — and has sent the satirical #ToddlerTerror trending on Twitter — since it was reported over the weekend by the Telegraph.

The bill would call on school administrators to “make sure that staff have training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimize terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups.”

“They should know where and how to refer children and young people for further help,” the document said.

This is all being done to promote something called “British values,” which I think is a great idea but what is it exactly? Is the UK government going to start force feeding babies gin and tonic in their baby bottles?

“We are not expecting teachers and nursery workers to carry out unnecessary intrusion into family life, but we do expect them to take action when they observe behavior of concern. It is important that children are taught fundamental British values in an age-appropriate way,” a government spokesperson told the Daily Mail. (Emphasis mine)

This reminds me of that time Rep. Gohmert had the terrorist baby meltdown:

Infants are sometimes known to be terrors in their own right, but this diabolical plan involves terrorists sending pregnant women into the US to birth their America-hating spawns. The mothers and their kids then return home where, the congressman says, the children “could be raised and coddled as future terrorists”— and later, “twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”

In all seriousness, the proposed CTS 2014 law is highly problematic as it opens up the possibility of taking away people’s children. The rights organization CAGE “has released an advisory document that attempts to educate public bodies on the problems inherent within the draft legislation,”

Key to the draft Bill is the ability for the government to use multiple public bodies to make decisions about the lives of everyday people, based on spurious grounds. Of key concern is where Prevent officials cannot gain consent of parents, they will have the ability to use health and social services to potentially remove children from their homes in order to implement their strategies of ‘deradicalisation’.

This CTS bill is utter rubbish and a joke just as the UK’s whole Prevent policy has been from the start.

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    • Lithium2006

      Ugh, I hate this tight jeans/tight pants trend. Thankfully it’s on its way out. Sadly, can’t say the same about Alcohol.

    • Capt. JB Hennessy

      Yet he is viewed by the media as a champion for justice. Go figure.

    • eslaporte

      It’s thinks it is …

    • Tighe McCandless

      It’s interesting how you reflexively presume that merely because I’m critical of the notion that ‘Western values’ are little more than a smoke screen to justify bigotry by some, you make the assumption that I must be in favor of the dissolution between church and state. I am not; I have contempt for theocracy the same as many other forms of -ocracy in general. But that’s rather irrelevant. Never mind the fact that the Reformation only occurred in several parts of Europe – and if we’re talking Christianity collectively, it never really hit places like Russia (where the tsar was still using caesaropapism as a ruling tool up until the Romanovs got offed) or other Orthodox nations.

      Nor was it really applicable to nations that were Catholicism was still alive and well; the Counter-Reformation was a thing. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the complex history of the Catholic Church with many nations, such as Mexico, that found themselves effectively ruled by many clergymen or gave them special privileges. Even the Protestants themselves had to grapple with this notion. After all, many settlements thought that those who were actively partook in church gatherings should lead. You correctly point out it was a long birthing process but the difference between you and myself seems to be in the presumption that Islam could not undergo something similar. Never mind the fact that it is not monolithic (come to think of it, just like Western values), but it too has changed throughout the centuries to meet local conditions.

      The West has had much of the world’s wealth throughout world history. It can afford to have liberal interpretations of its theology in the form we have today. If one is to use examples from the Muslim world, see the lavish parties that Saudi princes throw; alcohol flows freely, as do drugs, and women are freely present. It goes without saying that poverty breeds conservative interpretations of religious thought; even though the poor of the United States might, comparatively speaking, be better off than many of their brethren in other countries, it’s still noticeable even in places like this country. Stability is comforting, even if the ideas that might be found therein might be awful to some. Many Muslim nations are poor – the wealth they have going into the pockets of their local tinpot military man or spoiled monarchs.

      But I obviously support stoning gay people or female genital mutilation for having the temerity to suggest that the West might be hypocritical occasionally. You got me.

    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      I never thought sophisticated analysis would be so daftly ignored for simpelton-ism… Why do you attempt to muddle that as a “justification”??? Is it so hard to understand why they would be targeted? Whether you like it or not, CH was seen as part of a war on Islam/Muslims by these militants…as part of the PR wing of an arrogant conspiracy to destroy Islam and butcher Muslims…they knew this threat themselves and if you want a connection, how about the fact that CH would still be alive if it weren’t for Bush’s war:

      Paris Terrorist was Radicalized by Bush’s Iraq War, Abu Ghraib Torture

      http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/terrorist-radicalized-torture.html

    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      Immigrants brought to Europe came almost exclusively for economic reasons and were drawn and used for that purpose, you know very well that European nations face a demographic crises and for their economies to grow they brought immigrants. Once they came they were told you are not wanted anymore, you are not one of us–unless you can kick a soccer ball well.

      An honest look into these perpetrators background and history should be done in a scientific way, just as Robert Pape, Sageman, and Atran have done. The evidence is there and socio-political reasons trump ideological simplistic causation that is forwarded by ideologues of the counter-terrorism establishment.

    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      I can understand your perspective, since youseem to be speaking from experience. The measures however put in place to detect ‘radicalisation’ have been shown to be often quite arbitrary, at least when it comes to Muslims. Arun Kundnani’s work “The Muslims are coming!” details this very well and he also provides some harrowing cases of harassment as result by British authorities.

    • Capt. JB Hennessy

      Dershowitz is already designing an enhanced interrogation program for toddlers.

    • The greenmantle

      As I said its not perfect BUT I can speak from Personal experiance not second hand but me that we were not just looking at Islam extreamism where I worked

      Sir David

    • eslaporte

      I have read reports of this type of discriminatory “counter-terrorism” nonsense going on in the Netherlands (the place where this crap comes from) of turning in Muslim youth who appear to be “radicalized.” The serious problem with this is that it does not involve violent conduct or engaging in violence, but ideas and expressions. “Radicalization” has now been extended into religious and social conduct of Muslims that has nothing to do with violence, but is just discriminatory.

      We also have the “personal disruption measures” in the Netherlands, which involves the police following and harassing a “terrorist suspect” at all hours of the day and night, in public and at home, usually with harassing telephone calls. This also includes harassing children of the “terrorist suspect.”

      I think it serves to further demonize Muslims to the public as “a special danger” that others do not present. It works to Other Muslims and their communities and exclude them from the mainstream. Much of Dutch “counter-terrorism” is driven by fear of Muslims and foreigners, and this type of discriminatory nonsense serves only to stoke fear of Muslims in the larger community. There is a human rights argument that must be made here with these policies in that they are discriminatory in that they treat members of a religious faith differently.

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