Anti-fascists are killing free speech

[Ashberto]

http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/12931/

Doubtless many will think "Of course we should lock up racists" and "well, he's from Stoke" and so on, but it should be clear where this is heading. You can already get arrested for wishing cancer on someone (which many here will doubtless applaud) but it's probably only a matter of time before you can get into trouble for calling someone a cùnt.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

[Ashberto]

the other night.

Citing the arrest and execution of Socrates (the Greek philosopher, not the footballer) for subversion, Marr raised the question of how comfortable can an open, democratic society be with views that it considers to be dangerous or threatening.

[Mack]

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

tweets. The other person in the studio was a disability campaigner. O'Neill (who I don't like) was brilliant in his defence of free speech, using the words 'mental' 'spastic' - to the campaigner's utter outrage, excellent listening.

[Luis Anaconda]

Bit like saying just because a couple of people spend a Saturday night in the cells for drunken behaviour, we can no longer drink, let alone get drunk

[Ashberto]

to the pillock abusing that diver we are regularly seeing more and more of this.

The drinking metaphor doesn't work either. People have been spending nights in cells for drink-related behaviour for as long as there have been cells to put them in. Getting arrested and imprisoned for saying bad things has not been the norm in our recent history. Furthermore, I am assuming that they would have done more than walk in zig-zags to have been put in the cells.

[Ashberto]

Free speech that doesn't include things we don't like to hear isn't free speech.

Oh, and before someone mentions the old fire in a theatre chestnut, it isn't the same thing.

[Luis Anaconda]

and a reaction to that. In the grand scheme of things, no there simply aren't that many of these cases (and lumping them all together so that someone spouting racist abuse and someone, albeit jokingly threaten to blow up an airport under people getting locked away for saying bad things seems illogical to me {and wasn't the latter cleared anyway}), yet everyone receives massive attention and attracts criticism such as yours in equal measure, which suggests free speech is very much alive

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

his pursuit of the 'chattering classes' quite amusing at times.

[Snin]

but an interesting look re current situation..not a bad series so far

[Peter]

Locking him up and shutting him up is in everyone else's best interest.

He is also from stoke

[Berni]

it illegal to say things simply because they are offensive, where can you logically draw the line? You inevitably end up curtailing one person's freedom to defend someone else's 'right' not to be offended.

Like it or not, this is where the concept of politically correct speech (however well-meaning) has always been heading. Which is why people have been railing against the concept of political correctness for years.

[Berni]

And free speech is the right to express things that you don't find offensive?

Deary me.

[Peter]

In its purest form. We all accept that there are instances where it is rightly curtailed and instances where there is legal recourse. In cases such as these you generally find that when the principle of free speech is you only defence it is likely that the comments in wuestion are, of themselves, hard to defend. As in this case.

The curtailment of free speech is nothing new and it is pretty childish to try and sell it as the logical conclusion of political correctness. It is also a rather muddled argument when what is reslly up for debate here is how the law handles the issue. Are we outraged that the guy cant speak his mind or that he is proescuted for doing so? I need to know before we proceed.

[Snin]

[Ashberto]

[The Iron Chicken]

First they came for the Nationalists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Nationalist.

Then they came for the Christians,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Christian.

Then they came for the meat eaters,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a meat eater.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

[Curly]

[Luis Anaconda]

[Peter]

Surely a sympathiser at least.

[Ashberto]

people's that you don't like.

Maybe the time will come sooner than you think that one of your opinions is deemed unacceptable.

[Curly]

[Peter]

Top quality http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/bow.gif

[The Iron Chicken]

not to be considered a fascist ironically.

[Curly]

Great word thon

[Peter]

We are literally flooded with them http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/hehe.gif http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/hehe.gif

[Hillary]

I'm not entirely sure how prosecuting someone from writing racist lies with the intention of stirring up hatred amongst white people towards black people will inevitably lead to a police state- I'm sure you can explain this one though.

[The Iron Chicken]

[Peter]

[Berni]

free seech ought to be predicated on a wider sense of public safety and not on the partial political agenda of a self-appointed elite with ideological axes to grind. The real issue with political correctness is not that it leaves people feeling disenfranchised and voiceless - usually along class lines. That's a dangerous situation.

[Berni]

Would you ban the book/film and prosecute the writer or director? Care to draw that line?

Talking of slippery slopes, like...

[Ashberto]

so I said fair enough for acknowledging that you don't.

Other than that you were partly addressing Berni's point rather than mine, and as for this:



Quote:



Are we outraged that the guy cant speak his mind or that he is proescuted for doing so? I need to know before we proceed.





I think the two things you mention come down to essentially the same thing, which is "you can't say that". For a list of other things you can't say, here's a piece from the link I posted, where the person than brought this case to the police gives the full list.



Quote:



But Garner, it seems, has no intention of taking free-speech pleas on board. If she manages to become police commissioner in Staffordshire, she plans to take a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to ‘hate crimes’ on the grounds of ‘race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, sex or gender identity’. Such hate crimes also include speech crimes, like the ones committed by Coleman. How far will such zero tolerance go? How long before fat people, gingers or ‘chavs’ are included in the list of people Garner wishes to protect from offence? There would be no offensive blog posts, no edgy jokes, no inconsiderate public banter.





That list probably covers about half the posts on AWIMB.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Berni]

Marxist and no-one's that bothered about the fact. Do you think the son of an avowed fascist (let's say Max Moseley) would have got near leading a major political party in this country? And yet communists killed their tens of millions just the same as fascists did. That's the basic difference.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

fairly easily be interpreted in the same light as 'I hope you get cancer' (except directed at an old person).

[Berni]

ideology is unacceptable in this country, while the espousal of another probably means you work in higher education and probably have a Guardian or Independent column. It's seems strange to ignore that anomaly.

[Peter]

Its ok. I dont mind.

[Luis Anaconda]

on her site she clearly lays out why she believed this to be worthy of prosecution, arguments that you and the writer see fit to ignore. If you can find something where she says any single derogatory comment about one of the groups listed in any context is a hate crime as she has described, there might be a point there

[Ashberto]

I was probably exaggerating about calling someone a cùnt, but most of the things in the list below (in my reply to Peter) of topics deemed to be hate-crimes by the person bringing this case do appear on AWIMB in the usual discourse of banter/vitriol/call it what you will.

This isn't just about shutting up some unpleasant meathead from Stoke.

[Luis Anaconda]

if you simply bring it down to Communism is wot the Russians did and Fascism is wot the Germans did it's a bit pointless

[Ashberto]

She gives an example of what she considers to be unacceptable. Perhaps we'll just have to wait and see what she does if elected as police commissioner.

[Berni]

because it's it easier for you to argue against a straw man than a real one.

Fascism was also 'done' by the Italians, Spanish, Japanese and various unpleasant South American and African regimes.

Communism was also done by the Chinese and most of Eastern Europe.

The numbers tell you that both forms of government slaughtered untold millions and were a source of total misery for those unfortunate enough to have to live under them. Forgive me if I find the difference being similar to that between **** and ****e,

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

You might think this is because I am stupid, and you are welcome to that opinion. I just thought it wasn't very well written.

http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/gromit.gif

[Ashberto]

does not mean that free speech is not under threat, even if you are right to say that substantial levels of free speech are still available.

[Luis Anaconda]

really nasty kings with no particular political axe to grind, religious states blah, blah, blah blah, who have all a good go at killing millions of are ****s. Doesn't mean you can simply write off every philosophy as being the same or having the same level of evilness, or maybe they are all evil, we're all evil, b

[Luis Anaconda]

yes, you are right to say

"That fact that I am free to criticise what I percieve to be creeping curtailments on free speech does not mean that free speech is not under threat"

I just think that the fact that both sides of the argument are willing to play this out so publicly that these high-profile cases shouldn't be taken as the norm. For example, here, woman running for office makes big fuss on controversial issue http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/rubchin.gif

[Peter]

I think you know thst i didnt. I think you knew exactly the point i was making but chose to ignore it.

I could be wrong.

[Peter]

I find incitement to racial hatred as rather more than a narrow ideological isuue.

Either way, the principle of free speech is never the issue. We all accept it is limited where appropriate. All we are really doing is disagreeing as to whether an individual incident is appropriate or not.

That was my point, but you seem to understand thst already.