John Howland finally emerges from hibernation to expose the everlovin’ folks at Heritage Journal for what they are….dolts and dullards, dead set on eliminating our metal detecting pastime.
Hands Off Government
John Howland
Though I hate giving the loonier elements the oxygen of publicity, the following brand of fanaticism is well worth bringing to a wider audience. There’s no telling which one of the Heritage Journal’s (HJ) clique of barmy anti-metal detecting knuckle-draggers wrote committed the following piece of journalism garbage: Here’s a taster of the excremental dross: – Artefact Hunting: Who Should Make the Rules?
“Shouldn’t the rules be made by those who have only Society’s interest in mind?”, the “United Arab Emirates have just signalled so,” (the self-righteous anonymous clown asks). Following the evangelical house style, he/she/it trumpets the UAE’s new draconian antiquities legislation. So far, so good; but he/she/it fails to mention that the UAE is feudal kingdom and is anything but a democracy and zillion light years from the democratic freedoms the Heritage Journal enjoys. Nevertheless, the dopey writer summarises the legalities of the UAE’s antiquities legislation: –
“Antiquities are to be identified as items of national interest and importance and the ownership of both portable and non-portable items are for the nation regardless of who has found it.”
And there’s more!
“Anyone in possession of an antiquity who does not properly register it, or who takes action regarding the antiquities without a permit, will face a minimum of two years in jail and/or a fine between £10,300 and £41,200″. [What, no lashes? ]
Running true to the HJ’s in-house style, the obscure buffoon spurts; – “No “negotiating” the rules with artefact hunters there! Only Britain does that. The rest of the world knows that allowing artefact hunters to influence the rules is about as logical as asking the Trump boys to draft rules on big game hunting!”
The idiot scribbler unsurprisingly fails to mention, “rest of the world knows that” the United Arab Emirates is an absolute monarchy where apostasy is punishable with death; where women found guilty of adultery are buried up to their necks, their heads exposed, then stoned to death. Homosexuality is a capital offence; where flogging is meted out for a wide variety of offences including kissing in public, and alcohol consumption to name but two, with between 80 to 200 lashes administered.
The idiot clown again fails to mention, “rest of the world knows that” it is illegal for Muslim women – in the UAE – to marry non-Muslims. Such a marriage union, because it’s deemed to be fornication, is punishable under law (with the usual attendant lashes HJ).
The stupid scribe also fails to tell his/her/its parochial po-faced self-styled élites that “The rest of the world knows that” amputation of limbs is regularly used as punishment in the UAE, as is unbelievably, Crucifixion.
Yes, Crucifixion! And in an act of utter stupidity by a political naiveté, the Heritage Journal (nee, Heritage Action) puts forward the UAE as a worthy legislative example. Amazingly, the snooty shysters at HJ/HA somehow reckon they should be running the heritage circus and then snuffing out your hobby.
I doubt these idiots could organise a p**s-up in a brewery.
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Stout Standards 
Uh…..always refill your dig holes.I’m sorry,but,I don’t get the point.(read it twice)Help Dick
Frank you would need to know the history here concerning the Heritage Journal. https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/ They are constantly running down our pastime and advocating for it to be regulated, or worse.
‘Though I hate giving the loonier elements the oxygen of publicity…’ Eh? That’s almost all you ever do!
The oxygen seems to have revived you…whoever you are. Not enough fresh air in Jersey?
Another headline in the Heritage Journal ironically sums up the entire organization : “Dancing fairies spotted at Rollright Stones!” Indeed. Good summation John!
Fore people with “Heritage” in their name, they certainly don’t seem to be at all familiar with world history, or even today’s history!
Oh, it’s all to do with politics…archaeology has nowt to do with it. Have e a trawl through their website and you’ll find some real, 24-carat BS…it’s very funny stuff. Also, look at the people who ‘follow’ them…oddballs or what? One of them looks as though she’s got a dead cat on her head…hahahah.
They hate the fact that 95% of valuable artefacts are found by detectorists. The thing is that in the UK we have land owners permission to look for stuff. If laws ever came out trying to curtail our past time what could they actually do? We are on private land. The outcome would be that we just wouldn’t tell anyone what we found and a black market would develop for our finds. That is the path the lunatics are wanting to walk down since they’ve come to realise that a lot of what they do is in fact BORING and they want us to stop having fun finding cool stuff.
I agree John. Curtailing what we do and doing away with the PAS would only privatize what we do and the landowners don’t give a rat’s ass about any of this.
Hope all is well in Eastbourne. It’s bitter cold here at the moment….