Author Topic: Free speech in the UK  (Read 8167 times)

RoadKingLarry

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 21,841
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #25 on: March 29, 2012, 01:02:13 AM »
Wow...

I sat here for over 15 minutes trying to figure out what to say.

You are a seriously beaten people if you can't really understand why freedom of speech needs to be a near absolute. Or wonder that such a person or his comments are even a worthy use of the state's time and resources even if you don't accept the first premise.



They'd probably lock you up I the UK for saying that. Beaten people indeed.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Samuel Adams

Balog

  • Unrepentant race traitor
  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 17,774
  • What if we tried more?
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #26 on: March 29, 2012, 01:05:08 AM »
Agricola: what's your opinion on jailing religious leaders for preaching the parts of their holy scrips that are offensive to others? Canada has a good history of it, not sure about England. How offensive do I have to be before I can be thrown in jail?
Quote from: French G.
I was always pleasant, friendly and within arm's reach of a gun.

Quote from: Standing Wolf
If government is the answer, it must have been a really, really, really stupid question.

RevDisk

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 12,633
    • RevDisk.net
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #27 on: March 29, 2012, 01:23:04 AM »
How offensive do I have to be before I can be thrown in jail?

I suspect you merely have to be sufficiently unpopular, or particularly truthsome. 
"Rev, your picture is in my King James Bible, where Paul talks about "inventors of evil."  Yes, I know you'll take that as a compliment."  - Fistful, possibly highest compliment I've ever received.

Balog

  • Unrepentant race traitor
  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 17,774
  • What if we tried more?
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #28 on: March 29, 2012, 02:24:26 AM »
I suspect you merely have to be sufficiently unpopular, or particularly truthsome. 

No giving away the answers Rev... :P
Quote from: French G.
I was always pleasant, friendly and within arm's reach of a gun.

Quote from: Standing Wolf
If government is the answer, it must have been a really, really, really stupid question.

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 17,037
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #29 on: March 29, 2012, 08:46:29 AM »
I don't think there's ever actually been free speech under English law - kings and queens don't like to be contradicted by mere mortals.

I remember reading about a case a couple of hundred years ago in Colonial America - John Peter Zenger was arrested and charged with seditious libel for printing critical but true stories about the Crown-appointed Governor of New York Colony. The court asserted that "Truth is no defense!" on the grounds that true stories were worse than lies, since truth would hurt the reputation of the Governor more - but the feisty Colonial jury still refused to convict. (Colonial juries regularly thwarted bad law from the Crown, which retaliated by curtailing trial by jury and other rights for those pesky Colonials, who eventually had the temerity to write a Declaration of Independence - and we all know where that led.)

Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

agricola

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,248
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #30 on: March 29, 2012, 11:29:50 AM »
Wow...

I sat here for over 15 minutes trying to figure out what to say.

You are a seriously beaten people if you can't really understand why freedom of speech needs to be a near absolute. Or wonder that such a person or his comments are even a worthy use of the state's time and resources even if you don't accept the first premise.



What do you mean by "near absolute", then?
"Idiot!  A long life eating mush is best."
"Make peace, you fools"

Doggy Daddy

  • Poobah
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5,356
  • From the saner side of Las Vegas
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #31 on: March 29, 2012, 02:02:13 PM »
What do you mean by "near absolute", then?

I won't speak for AJ, but the common example here for that would be you can't holler "fire" in a crowded theater.

DD
Would you exchange
a walk-on part in a war
for a lead role in a cage?
-P.F.

roo_ster

  • Kakistocracy--It's What's For Dinner.
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 21,225
  • Hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #32 on: March 29, 2012, 02:15:37 PM »
What do you mean by "near absolute", then?

Actively inciting a riot or lynch mob.  There has to be a mob handy, though.  Saying, "Let us lynch George Zimmerman and the 13YO witness!" on Twitter is not sufficient.

More broadly, speech that will have immediate consequences of death or physical harm and is done for evil intent.

That's about it.
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

Perd Hapley

  • Superstar of the Internet
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 62,152
  • My prepositions are on/in
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #33 on: March 29, 2012, 04:03:38 PM »
I remember reading about a case a couple of hundred years ago in Colonial America - John Peter Zenger


Didn't we all read about that one in public school?
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
--Thomas Jefferson

longeyes

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5,405
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #34 on: March 29, 2012, 04:18:04 PM »
Imams go unmuzzled--and they should--for telling you that England does not belong to the English, but this is where you choose to fight?
"Domari nolo."

Thug: What you lookin' at old man?
Walt Kowalski: Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have messed with? That's me.

Molon Labe.

CypherNinja

  • friend
  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 467
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #35 on: March 29, 2012, 05:01:02 PM »
I won't speak for AJ, but the common example here for that would be you can't falsely holler "fire" in a crowded theater.

DD

FIFY ;)
“Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth,” Hemingway once said. Today, many of us have become rich in the currency of cowardice. We have so many things and so few experiences. We are desperate to live as long as possible, not as large as possible. We are so afraid to say goodbye to the world that we never say hello.
-Marty Beckerman (from a Wired article of all things)

Doggy Daddy

  • Poobah
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5,356
  • From the saner side of Las Vegas
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #36 on: March 29, 2012, 05:03:12 PM »
Would you exchange
a walk-on part in a war
for a lead role in a cage?
-P.F.

SADShooter

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5,242
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #37 on: March 29, 2012, 05:44:07 PM »
What do you mean by "near absolute", then?
With illustrative examples provided above, the operating principle is bias in favor of the "offensive" speaker/speech, requiring direct harm or threat of harm to be actionable.

For me, this is analogous to individual liberty. Yes, there is a social compact, and regulation in the community interest may be necessary, but the decision should be biased as far as possible in favor of individual freedoms.
"Ah, is there any wine so sweet and intoxicating as the tears of a hippie?"-Tamara, View From the Porch

White Horseradish

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,792
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #38 on: March 30, 2012, 12:00:55 PM »
Surely its a bit much to dignify a load of drunken comments on Twitter with the word "opinion"? 

If they can be dignified with a conviction, they can certainly be dignified with a word.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Robert A Heinlein

makattak

  • Dark Lord of the Cis
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,022
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #39 on: March 30, 2012, 12:43:06 PM »
You know, I came here to make the same argument the rest of you are making, but I was struck by a realization.

Speech codes like this are a necessary result of outlawing other forms of punishment. If you value free speech, you ought to legalize and value even physical reprisals to offensive speech.

People don't care for grave dancing. Nor many other offensive things that are "merely words." In the founder's time, such boorishness would get you beaten and tossed out of town (possibly even tarred and feathered with the implicatation that you are not welcome to return without abject apologies) or challenged to a duel.

This is a part of the idea that "An armed society is a polite society" because you may have to back up your impolite words in a test of arms. Thus, people tended to be more polite as impoliteness could lead to your death.

When we decided that boorish louts were not allowed to be dealt with physically, it inevitably lead to speech codes like this because people don't like boorish louts and desire an enforcement mechanism to deal with them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am VERY much opposed to speech codes and am well aware that many of my beliefs would get me in trouble in the politically correct speech codes of Great Britain and Canada. I am simply saying that I can understand reasons that likely have led to their existence.
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

roo_ster

  • Kakistocracy--It's What's For Dinner.
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 21,225
  • Hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #40 on: March 30, 2012, 01:59:45 PM »
You know, I came here to make the same argument the rest of you are making, but I was struck by a realization.

Speech codes like this are a necessary result of outlawing other forms of punishment. If you value free speech, you ought to legalize and value even physical reprisals to offensive speech.

People don't care for grave dancing. Nor many other offensive things that are "merely words." In the founder's time, such boorishness would get you beaten and tossed out of town (possibly even tarred and feathered with the implicatation that you are not welcome to return without abject apologies) or challenged to a duel.

This is a part of the idea that "An armed society is a polite society" because you may have to back up your impolite words in a test of arms. Thus, people tended to be more polite as impoliteness could lead to your death.

When we decided that boorish louts were not allowed to be dealt with physically, it inevitably lead to speech codes like this because people don't like boorish louts and desire an enforcement mechanism to deal with them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am VERY much opposed to speech codes and am well aware that many of my beliefs would get me in trouble in the politically correct speech codes of Great Britain and Canada. I am simply saying that I can understand reasons that likely have led to their existence.

Huh, lack of self discipline and outlawing of vigorous social sanction leads to discipline being imposed by gov't force.  I wonder that no one noticed such a relationship before...
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

AJ Dual

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,162
  • Shoe Ballistics Inc.
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #41 on: March 30, 2012, 02:40:44 PM »
I won't speak for AJ, but the common example here for that would be you can't holler "fire" in a crowded theater.

DD

Yep, that about covers it. And the riot/mob situation, and as stated. The mob has to be present and ready to go. And you pretty clearly need to be the guy standing on top the burning car with the bullhorn too.  =)

We do have libel and slander laws in this country, however they're civil redress for damages caused by 'speech'. There is no criminal peril to anyone involved.
I promise not to duck.

MicroBalrog

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 14,505
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #42 on: April 01, 2012, 06:07:41 PM »
You know, I came here to make the same argument the rest of you are making, but I was struck by a realization.

Speech codes like this are a necessary result of outlawing other forms of punishment. If you value free speech, you ought to legalize and value even physical reprisals to offensive speech.

People don't care for grave dancing. Nor many other offensive things that are "merely words." In the founder's time, such boorishness would get you beaten and tossed out of town (possibly even tarred and feathered with the implicatation that you are not welcome to return without abject apologies) or challenged to a duel.

This is a part of the idea that "An armed society is a polite society" because you may have to back up your impolite words in a test of arms. Thus, people tended to be more polite as impoliteness could lead to your death.

When we decided that boorish louts were not allowed to be dealt with physically, it inevitably lead to speech codes like this because people don't like boorish louts and desire an enforcement mechanism to deal with them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am VERY much opposed to speech codes and am well aware that many of my beliefs would get me in trouble in the politically correct speech codes of Great Britain and Canada. I am simply saying that I can understand reasons that likely have led to their existence.


No. That is nonsense. Quite a few countries have neither speech codes of this sort, nor physical reprisals for them. They are not necessary in any way.
Destroy The Enemy in Hand-to-Hand Combat.

"...tradition and custom becomes intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty. " ~ William Graham Sumner

Perd Hapley

  • Superstar of the Internet
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 62,152
  • My prepositions are on/in
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #43 on: April 01, 2012, 06:29:05 PM »

No. That is nonsense. Quite a few countries have neither speech codes of this sort, nor physical reprisals for them. They are not necessary in any way.


Such as?
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
--Thomas Jefferson

cassandra and sara's daddy

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 20,781
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #44 on: April 01, 2012, 06:46:16 PM »
a return to the code duello
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


by someone older and wiser than I

MicroBalrog

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 14,505
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #45 on: April 01, 2012, 06:48:19 PM »
What, are physical reprisals for tasteless insults common in the US? Funny how all those people wishing for thw heinous death of differwnt political figures or mocking their deaths rwmain free and unhurt.
Destroy The Enemy in Hand-to-Hand Combat.

"...tradition and custom becomes intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty. " ~ William Graham Sumner

purequackery

  • New Member
  • Posts: 17
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #46 on: April 07, 2012, 01:30:27 AM »
Surely its a bit much to dignify a load of drunken comments on Twitter with the word "opinion"? 


Surely it's a bit much to dignify anything except the Queen's English as protected speech?
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.  —Bob Newhart

Perd Hapley

  • Superstar of the Internet
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 62,152
  • My prepositions are on/in
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #47 on: April 07, 2012, 01:53:02 AM »
What, are physical reprisals for tasteless insults common in the US? Funny how all those people wishing for thw heinous death of differwnt political figures or mocking their deaths rwmain free and unhurt.


Yeah, OK, good point.
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
--Thomas Jefferson

AJ Dual

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,162
  • Shoe Ballistics Inc.
Re: Free speech in the UK
« Reply #48 on: April 07, 2012, 12:03:06 PM »
What, are physical reprisals for tasteless insults common in the US? Funny how all those people wishing for thw heinous death of differwnt political figures or mocking their deaths rwmain free and unhurt.

No, but if someone is screaming that stuff right in your face, there is some body of American judicial precedent that the bar for proving criminal assault and battery under such provocation is higher. Not enough to get you off from punching someone out, but it can be sufficient to remove the factors of intent, or premeditation etc. from an assault and battery case. And with such factors removed, the odds the prosecuting attorney would allow a plea deal to a lesser charge, or just decline to prosecute the case are pretty high.

Essentially, legalese for "Them's fighting words." http://definitions.uslegal.com/f/fighting-words/

Is it applied often? No. Does it take some extraordinary provocation on the part of the speaker? Yes.

But it does exist. And the speaker could themselves be charged and tried with assault.

In essence, standing six inches from their nose and saying how they're going to grind you to a pulp, your wife, your kids too... etc.
I promise not to duck.