Heretic TOC

Not the dominant narrative

Silence does not betoken consent

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Well over a year ago, in January 2013, Heretic TOC ran a blog called No wonder women turn against ‘teasing’. A few days ago a carefully argued, information-rich, 1,300-word comment in response, complete with links to numerous scholarly and other references, was sent in for moderation. It seemed a shame to let such a magnificent contribution languish in a place where – because the blog was so long ago – not that many people would notice it. So here it is, below, presented as a guest blog. It is from “A”, which is not the most user-friendly of pennames, being about […]

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Should we publish and be damned?

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We’ve seen it before, haven’t we? Those who start wars on terror end up behaving like terrorists themselves. The virtual ink dry was barely dry on Heretic TOC’s warning last week that British paedophiles are to be treated as terrorists when news came through that in Germany the police have begun their own reign of terror. For what else can it be called, really, when 150 police officers – that’s right, one hundred and fifty – are deployed in an operation to arrest a handful of people peacefully enjoying a Spring day out, including a trip to a zoo with a

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Paedophiles to be treated like terrorists

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Guantanamo Bay here we come! Brace yourselves, oh heretics of Britain; pack away your remembrance of freedom to the size of a crushed dream; it’s the only personal property we’ll be left with when they take us away: a war against paedophilia has now been officially declared, along the lines of the war against terror in the wake of 9/11. Paedophiles are to be treated like terrorists. In his forthcoming legislative programme, prime minister David Cameron “wants to close a loophole that allows sexual predators to produce and possess ‘manuals’ giving tips on how to identify victims, groom them, and evade

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Blame the goats, pigs, caterpillars, slugs…

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In the wake of the great Jimmy Savile so-called child sexual abuse scandal of 2012, there has been a whole series of prosecutions of similarly high-profile figures in the UK for alleged sex offences. Interestingly, these are now producing a crop of acquittals as juries refuse to take the word of those claiming to be victims. Most recent of them was that of Nigel Evans, a former deputy speaker of the House of Commons, hence quite a lynchpin of the country’s democratic governance. He was cleared of all charges this month, having been accused by seven men of offences ranging from

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An open letter to Frank Furedi

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Many heretics, including myself, have been impressed by the online magazine Spiked on account of its vociferous support for free speech, distaste for state oppression, and its robust backing of civil rights, including for paedophiles. So when one of its leading contributors, sociologist Frank Furedi, recently joined the media chorus of those attacking paedophilia, the virulent hostility of his diatribe came as a shocking disappointment. The context was an article, “What PIE and the NSPCC have in common”, which was fine up to a point. Its central theme was actually a rather interesting argument in defence of parents against the concept

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Should Cinderella Law go to the ball?

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The heart sinks at news this week of a government initiative to expand yet further the already vast empire of victimhood. In Britain we have been told to expect a new law that will combat child abuse from a different angle, raising the spectre of yet another bunch of compo-seeking losers leaping at the chance to escape any degree of personal responsibility for their adult descent into drug addiction, gambling, dog-shagging, morris dancing, baking off, and suchlike depravities – who will inevitably be lauded for their “courage” by legions of counsellors, whose job it will be to keep these weaklings wallowing

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Creating victims, real and imaginary

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How do you turn a so-called child victim into a real one? One sure-fire way is to have her locked up for 20 hours in a police cell after she has refused to give evidence against her lover. That is what Judge Robert Bartfield did earlier this month when a 15-year-old girl would not testify against her 32-year-old boyfriend at Bradford Crown Court in northern England. After the girl eventually testified under duress, the man was found guilty of sexual activity with a child. A spokesperson for Victim Support rightly said the girl had been treated in a “grotesque and, frankly,

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Gentle poet Ginsberg doesn’t deserve this

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Last time, Heretic TOC showed how the past is being pilloried in an orgy of accusations and recriminations. Among the cultural icons suddenly being denounced is the poet Allen Ginsberg – a remarkable twist of fate for his reputation so soon after being lionised as a crusader for freedom in two recent movies, Howl and Kill Your Darlings. But do those delivering the damning judgements really know what they are talking about? In a guest blog today, Eric Tazelaar points out that the younger generation of commentators would not have known those they now so freely castigate – unlike Eric, who

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Paedogate puts the past in the pillory

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You know when a scandal has made it to the news big league when it gets the “gate” tag, like Watergate. Well, the last ten days or so in the UK have given us Paedogate, in which the rabid right wing Daily Mail launched a sustained campaign to expose left wing support for the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) when I was its Chair back in the 1970s. The aim was clearly to embarrass and undermine three leading figures in the Labour party. It worked. Initially dismissed as old hat because the story had been around for years as vague internet gossip,

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Home Secretary cheated justice by dying!

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It’s not Harman and co. the media should be after but Roy Jenkins, the former Home Secretary, who cunningly escaped justice by dying over a decade ago. Unlike Jimmy Savile whose “victims” (alleged victims, actually, despite increasingly injudicious assertions to the contrary by people who ought to know better, including the politically ambitious former DPP Sir Keir Starmer) numbered only in the hundreds, Jenkins was responsible for policies that affected millions, ushering in the “permissive society” of the 1970s that was responsible for all manner of evils if you believe the likes of Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens – and

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