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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

opera lovers hogging the pavements

Monbiot has really lost the plot this time.

I found that apt. I enjoy opera and ballet. If you stand outside the coliseum 15 minutes before an ENO performance, you will see - most surely - opera lovers hogging the pavements. I cannot imagine for one moment a PC handing out a citation to a single one of them. Teens waiting to get into a show in camden however, I can see these being handed out like take away flyers. (sorry for the bad analogy)

When opera lovers start looting shops, then the police will start handing out citations. You seem to think it's unfair that a group with no history of causing trouble should be treated differently from one that has. And yes I have been both a teenage goth in Camden and in the queue at the ROH to see Turandot (among others).

I never said I agree with it, I am merely stating opinion of how this law will be (ab)used. I have been to many shows in camden myself and have caused a fair share of trouble "on the pavements". This law is a terrible idea - but make no mistake - the author knows exactly how it will be levied.

Treating a group differently because a similar group was trouble in the past is no way to run a police service!

If it's a bunch of people affiliated with a political ideology (e.g. EDL marches, occupy) then you might have a point since they're voluntarily associating - but profiling based on age, race, what type of entertainment they're queuing for, that is unjustifiable! think of the number of false positives....

The existence of football hooligans would tend to disprove that. Also punks. You can actually very easily correlate "trouble" with "preferred entertainment".

Punk was political, specifically anarchist - argument void.

I didn't say you can't correlate it, I said you can't treat them all like criminals by default - only a small fraction of football fans are violent, similarly teenagers.

A law that effectively bans people queuing up to watch football is the same level of crazy as banning teenagers from queuing up for goth metal.

Political, specifically Fascist I think you mean. There is a big overlap with punks, football hooligans and BNP/Combat 18. Ever heard of Skrewdriver? Where does the law ban people from standing in queues?

Your initial comment referenced the possibility of people being given an order for "clogging up the pavement", whether protesting, queuing for the opera, etc - that is what I've been referencing.

Skrewdriver had nothing to do with punk. Apart from being long dead by the time the BNP formed, punk was nihilist and situationist, not fascist.

You can. That doesn't make it right.

Instead of attacking 1-2 cherry picked (and typical Monbiot) tangents from the article, it would be helpful if you'd point out if his representation of the new law is accurate or not.

"A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.com" suggests this is done already for those following the link.

If you do, he lists these :

References:

1. Anna Minton, ?2006. The privatisation of public space. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. http://www.annaminton.com/Privatepublicspace.pdf

2. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/media/articles/pdfs/a...

3. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy13/liberty...

4. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/apr/17/protester-rec...

5. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy13/liberty...

6. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy13/liberty...

7. http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/antisocialbehavi...

8. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2013-20...

10. http://reformclause1.org.uk/files/opinion.pdf

11. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/dec/18/right-to-protest-...

12. By phone, 6th January 2013.

Various independent sources cited including Liberty - a well respected organization covering human rights issues in the UK. And of course, Parliament's own official publications of the bill.

Of those only 7 and 8 can be considered valid. Liberty, whether you agree with them or not (on some issues I do, on some I don't) no-one can deny is a lobbying group with an agenda. And I am pretty sure even Wikipaedia frowns on using Wikipaedia as a reference, why does the Guardian get a free pass to reference the Guardian? Scriptonite is just some guy's blog!

There's nothing wrong with an article referencing something from another article in the same paper. It doesn't count as a circular reference if the articles are by separate, identifiable authors. Wikipedia needs stricter citation rules because it's harder to verify authorship.

Why can't references to (allegedly) biased source be references? Every author has an agenda, knowingly or unknowingly. Unless they referenced papers are false or lie they still may reference facts that allow you to form your own opinion - just don't take every conclusion at face value. At least the author provides you with the references so you can go an check for yourself.

Also: Why are you excluding reference 1? It's a paper written for the RICS, which is an institution of the royal charter. They probably have their own agenda, but I'd not expect them to publish false information.

Why isn't there a service that overlays references on articles instead of having to search for them?

It's a bit sensational, but I don't think that counts as losing the plot.

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