Good piece by Brendan O'Neill on the PIE/Harriet Harmon business

[Monty91]

Not sure if I agree, but he makes a good case.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-nccl-was-ri ght-to-affiliate-with-pie/14718 (http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-nccl-was-right-to-affiliate-with-pie/14718)

[Classic Jorge]

There's no grey area

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

[Mc Gooner]

It should be considering where the line is drawn on civil liberties and freedom of speech because there should BE a line and some things WILL be the wrong side of it.

[Berni]

That article is entirely predicated on the idea that unrestricted free speech is in any way desirable. Since I don't believe that it is, I part ways with the author almost immediately.

[Berni]

decency, morality and common sense, it devalues itself.

It's similar to the whole freedom of speech is not the freedom to shout 'Fire' in a crowded theatre. Once your definition of civil liberties starts to include facilitating nonces in f*cking kids, something's gone wrong, no? This is the problem with all dogma - once taken to its logical conclusions, they becomes absurd and dangerous.

[Ashberto]

Stalinist charter, basically.

Free speech must include the right to say bad things, but who decides what is 'bad'?

[Brentwood]

[Classic Jorge]

It's the silly laws that are the biggest threat to civil liberties so lets make proper, robust, workable laws with proportionate sentences.

Call me lazy but isnt that the quickest way to a fair society?

[Berni]

I have no doubt that you and I would differ greatly on what constitute sensible, robust laws and proportionate sentences.

This is why lawyers get paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiid.

[Mc Gooner]

[Mc Gooner]

[Classic Jorge]

They seem to have been sidetracked in to some sort of uglier x-factor style popularity contest somewhere along the way.

Though I'm not sure we'd differ that much. You're a right libertarian, I'm a left libertarian. If you can play down the whole patrician tory stuff a bit I'm sure I could sweep the whole rabid republican socialist business under the rug.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

on all the little details that constitute a fair society, aren't they?

Fair. You might as well say 'nice'.

[Luis Anaconda]

To say that any restriction is Stalinist is ludicrous

[Classic Jorge]

Seriously though, aren't we supposed to all - at least notionally - be british? If we cant have a decent stab at fair and equitable then I don't know who can.

We've taken our eye off the ball after the 1832 reform act

[Hendon Gooner (Only Easy Day Was Yesterday))]

[Ashberto]

then you have a 'Stalinist charter'.

Yet you ignore what I said and pretended I said that "any restriction is Stalinist"

However, I utterly support your right to post scandalous innacuracies about me as long as I can call you out on it and you post a full apology. :-)

[Ears are alight]

that too as a result (comment addressed to Berni and Jorge). We now don't.

I think that article makes an excellent (if rather uncomfortable) point that people should be free to express their views whatever they are, and certainly to hold whatever views they have. We don't want thoughtcrime on the UK statute book imo.

However crossing into actions, particularly where they affect those too young or immature enough to have made their own choices in an fully informed way, is where proper legislative controls become essential. The principle of harm to others is the dividing line.

Obviously I would imagine we'd agree it was legitimate that those expressing thoughts about acts that would themselves be illegal should be kept an eye on, ideally so such acts do not occur at all. But while impure thoughts might be a sin as far as the church is concerned, I don't think they should be punishable by the state as such.

Two main problem areas arise:

1. religion
2. intolerance

(even more so if combined)

I am not big on religion nowadays myself so I'll restrict myself to the secular view of a tolerant democracy where freedom of speech is very important and people should be able to say pretty much whatever they want (drawing upon themselves whatever rebuttals arise) EXCEPT when what they are saying it itself a rejection of tolerance.

So I think it is appropriate that we should have laws against promoting racism, religious hatred etc.

But for those self same laws to have legitimacy, they absolutely must themselves be capable of being debated, and so this is where the view of people we disagree with have to be involved, even if only to be voted down by the majority.

That's the most uncomfortable consequence of the article/argument for me - should peadophiles be allowed to express a view? Surely they must, even if we then collectively reject it.

The fact that sex is involved should not bar this - see gay rights, including to remember the homosexual age of consent was not always the same as the heterosexual one.

[Classic Jorge]

See Anal Turing, or Oscar Wilde for example.

[Ashberto]

without the freedom to do so?

[Berni]

Neither really existed in the homosexuality example, though, so it's a bit of a red herring.

And why should *****philes be allowed to express their view? Would you extend the same privilege to rapists, murderers and other criminals who feel that perhaps they should be allowed to get on with it?

And anyway, that argument is academic as those holding such feelings are unlikely to stick their heads above the parapet since that would (rightly) mean them being identified and targeted by the authorities.

[Berni]

reached. Before that is *****philia, while after that may be morally dubious/repugnant, but clearly isn't *****philia since those involved are not physically children.

It is perfectly possible to have that debate without bringing those who want to have sex with 10 year-olds into it.

[Ashberto]

How can it be 'clear-cut'?

[Berni]

And, of course, the law is able to apply some degree of discretion to such cases.

[Luis Anaconda]