The 'English Democrats Party' declares war on Boaty & D

Well, well, well. One finds gutlessness and racism in the most quirky of quarters in our Age of the Internet.

The other day, I did a piece about my thoughts on the political parties standing in my region for the 4 June Euro elections.

Readers will know that this half of B&D appears on the Libertarian Right of the political spectrum. My discussion therefore ended, unsurprisingly, with a note about my indecision on who to vote for, wondering whether UKIP could be a possibility.

Once the piece was published, I continued with other matters and thought no more about it.

It was therefore somewhat of a surprise to check the B&D Battleship computer today, and note that some of our visitors have arrived here from two quite unusual destinations.

I saw we had visitors from a place called 'democracyforum', and visitors from an outfit called 'crossofsaintgeorge'.

Both of these places are right wing discussion forums.

A little more digging, and I saw that the threads from which people were arriving from these forums were both initiated by the same bloke. A chap called Steve Uncles, who I presume to be a figure within the English Democrats Party.

Mr Uncles had in fact 'copy 'n' pasted' my entire article on the June 4 elections (which included a robust and critical discussion of the English Democrats Party) and whacked it on both of these forums, hoping to prod discussion. He stated at the end of each of the reproduced articles (both instances without my permission and with use of profanity deleted out):

"You may like to educate this guy, he clearly does not understand the concept of an English Parliament".

Now, I have no problem with being criticised at all. It's part of democracy, it's part of what a decent Libertarian state of affairs should be. I have no problem with being asked for clarification on what I mean on something.

But it's the gutless way that Mr Uncles has gone about it that pisses me off.

Firstly, he and no-one from his outfit or these forums have come on to my blog as yet to comment or criticise. This is all happening off the radar, on two discussion forums to which I have no affiliation or membership. I have no intention on joining them, because I don't trust them and I consider those places depressing and extremist.

Why have they not the intelligence or wherewithal to come here? Is it because it's far easier to scoff within the safe confines of their own little online realms?

Is it at all good manners to lay into my piece on a third party site, without alerting me to their decision to replicate my piece, and then not even explain there in any detail as to how I was wrong?

I wish it ended there, but it hasn't. You see, one poster decided to respond to Mr Uncles. Not to answer his vaguely valid question and to discuss the piece, but to make a series of inflammatory, racist, alarming and offensive remarks about my person.

I'll reproduce, unedited, that poster's ("cassie's") post from the British Democracy Forum thread on my piece, and let you judge for yourself:

"The indications are that Dimeeteeooo is of Greek national or ethnic origin, assuming he was born here, who presumes to sneer at all things in England! Instead of tolerating such creeps - as we English people have in the past - we should ostracise them, shun 'em, let 'em know we are not going to put up with their bad manners without protest.

After all, if it is really so despicable here, they can always go the land of their forebears and save valuable space here. With luck, they might even enjoy another military junta, which could be more to their sour taste.

Such pieces as Dimeeteeooo's serve to encourage right thinking English folk that something needs to be done to rid us of all those foreigners who do not want to fit in but impose their ideas on us, whether they come from north or west of the borders or from further afield!"

I'll not waste time commenting on the petty insults ('Dimeeteeoo') and get straight to the point. Besides my name, what other evidence is there that indicates my ethnic origin? What has my ethnic origin got to do with anything? The truth is, I am part, second generation, Greek. Born here in fact, and I know no other land nor owe any loyalty to any other land. Particularly (and 'she'd' know this if she read my blog) Greece of the Junta dominated 1970s.

But never mind this - what evidence is there, at all, in my original piece, that shows that I "sneer at all things in England!"

If you can find a smidgen of evidence, please present it to me. I know what the answer to this is. There is no evidence, because I have not sneered at England at all. So 'cassie's' post was, I can only judge, a racist knee jerk reaction to the fact I had criticised the far right, but more importantly because my blogger name is 'Demetriou'.

She then exhorts her following to take up the BNP's mantle of looking for ways to get rid of foreigners like me. Her overtones and undertones are not just offensive, but worrying. Outside of the fact her opinions are vile, aggressive and racist, her words are threatening or at least could be taken as such.

But you see readers, unlike the left in this country, I do not believe the answer is to shut people up. 'cassie' et al deserve their freedom of speech, as much as they wish to destroy mine. They should not be censored.

It is, however, a moral duty and responsibility to challenge attackers like these and meet them head-to-head in political and other discourse.

Their bad manners and offensive racism will, in the minds of rational humans, be figured out in the natural course of events.

What would be needed here, however, is an apology from Mr Uncles, who I believe has acted out of turn on this occasion. It would also be most welcome if we actually sought to question me here, or at least posit some more detail to his own opinion of my piece under this blog.

I'm done for now.

On to less depressing topics soon, readers.