Freedom lovers unite: A worthy cause

Brought to our attention by, amongst others, Old Holborn.

There has been a fair amount of comment in the blogosphere regarding the six month jail sentence given to Nick Hogan for flouting the ‘no-smoking ban’.

Outrage has been duly expressed, here, there, and everywhere. Perhaps we can do better than just express outrage?

Nick was actually jailed for non-payment of the fine originally imposed for a ‘mass smoke-in’ on the day the ban came into force in 2007 in his pub, the ‘Swan and Barristers’ in Bolton. He no longer has that pub. He was fined again when council inspectors walked into his present pub and discovered a group of customers smoking – Nick wasn’t even on the premises.

His wife, Denise, is now managing their present pub in Chorley herself. Their trade is so low that they don’t even bother to open the downstairs bar. Nick is bankrupt, and had gone to court intending to argue that he could not afford the £500 a month payments demanded by the council towards their £11,600 bill for prosecuting him. He has already paid off £1,600. The court gave him a six month sentence instead, and he is currently in Forest Bank prison in Pendlebury, unable to help to earn the money which would ensure his release.

And that, thanks to OH, is where we come in.

Put your money where your mouth is. You’d only spend it on drink and drugs otherwise.

The total raised as of 16:00 today was £3188.50. We can get to £10k this week and see this man released from the clutches of the bully state. Do it. Now!

The Telegraph blog now also has the story, adding a nice little comparative tale.

Match the crime with the sentence:

1) A man who used his two-year-old daughter as a decoy so he and his pregnant girlfriend could steal from three Poppy Appeal tins and a Multiple Sclerosis charity box over a period of two weeks last year, hiding the cash in their daughter’s buggy.

The 25-year-old also pleaded guilty to carrying a lock knife, stealing a guitar, and the attempted theft of another collection tin. He has a string of previous theft convictions dating back five years.

2) A pub landlord convicted for non-payment of a fine for allowing a “mass smoke-in” in his pub on the day of the smoking ban. He no longer owns the pub, and is bankrupt.

a) Six months in jail

b) A suspended sentence and a six-month drug rehabilitation order

And as you’d expect, Dick Puddlecote has an impeccable post on same. He concludes:

Nick Hogan stood up to a fundamentally unjust, and deeply undemocratic, law imposed by a corrupt and morally bankrupt government. His isn’t an attack on society. In fact, it is the reverse, as Mencken once reasoned.

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

And this is why Hogan is considered dangerous, and why the system studiously constructed by our legislators has concluded that he must be severely punished.

He didn’t kowtow to an irrational definition of society, entirely fabricated in this country by 646 hideous bansturbators and their Igor-esque rent-seekers, instead he resisted.

And as far as the state is concerned, that is the most heinous crime of all.

AJ

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