Well done, Britspags--No Michael Savage for YUO!

[P3nT4gR4m]

LOL - I wonder just what the fuck our governizors are saving us from? Like what would happen if this dude came to the uk? The minute he steps off the plane do all the flowers wilt and die or does civil war break out or something?

I've said it before and I'm sticking to my story - freedom of speech is a myth. If I cant stand in the middle of the town screaming "kill all gays/jews/pakis...etc" then I am not free to talk. Shift the goalposts and call it "incitement" or "hate crime" if you like but the bottom line is all I was doing was talking and you stopped me because I "crossed a line".

Freedom of speech has no lines. The minute you draw one you've lost the right to use the word "free"

Now obviously (at least I fucking hope it's obvious to you lot) I don't want to stand in the middle of town and scream the death thing but I have to protect the rights of those who want to, even (maybe especially) if the thought of what they want to say makes me want to physically kill the motherfucker who's saying it. Because it's not about what's acceptable or unacceptable, even to consensus opinion. It's about drawing lines through freedom.

It works like erosion - you chip away a little bit here and there and before you know it freedom of speech is the hollow, meaningless sham of a concept it is today. Yes it's too late for me to pretend speech is free. The best I can hope for is they don't draw any more fucking lines.

[Honey]

Yeah, not one of the UK's finest moments, surely.

But there was a point made on the show I heard this on (npr--Michael Savage as a guest) that the notion "I may not have to agree with what you say, but I'll fight for your right (and for some, DIE for your right) to say it" is more of an American concept.  Not necessarily a British one.  They started the ball in the right direction, back in the day, but lately we're all turning towards the so-called "safety" of society rather than the freedom to speak/act/live.

The whole idea of freedom of speech, which ORIGINATED in England, is that EVERYONE gets to speak their mind without legal consequence.

Everyone.  Not just the "right" people.  This is a really bad sign.

Man England has been going that way for a long time. American policies are funny. Englands are a joke but no ones laughing.

The impotent (also desperate & shrill) attempt at manipulation reminds me of this (& y'all know how THAT turned out):

Cotton's central place in the national economy and its international importance led Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina to make a famous boast in 1858:

" Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet... What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years?... England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her save the South. No, you dare not to make war on cotton. No power on the earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King. "

Southerners thought their survival depended on the sympathy of Europe to offset the power of the Union. They believed that cotton was so essential to Europe that they would intervene in any civil war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Cotton

[Honey]

Not to say freedom of speech should be fucked with & it is a facade at times.   

[Scribbly]

LOL - I wonder just what the fuck our governizors are saving us from? Like what would happen if this dude came to the uk? The minute he steps off the plane do all the flowers wilt and die or does civil war break out or something?

I've said it before and I'm sticking to my story - freedom of speech is a myth. If I cant stand in the middle of the town screaming "kill all gays/jews/pakis...etc" then I am not free to talk. Shift the goalposts and call it "incitement" or "hate crime" if you like but the bottom line is all I was doing was talking and you stopped me because I "crossed a line".

Freedom of speech has no lines. The minute you draw one you've lost the right to use the word "free"

Now obviously (at least I fucking hope it's obvious to you lot) I don't want to stand in the middle of town and scream the death thing but I have to protect the rights of those who want to, even (maybe especially) if the thought of what they want to say makes me want to physically kill the motherfucker who's saying it. Because it's not about what's acceptable or unacceptable, even to consensus opinion. It's about drawing lines through freedom.

It works like erosion - you chip away a little bit here and there and before you know it freedom of speech is the hollow, meaningless sham of a concept it is today. Yes it's too late for me to pretend speech is free. The best I can hope for is they don't draw any more fucking lines.

I think you are absolutely right, freedom of speech is a myth.

The trouble is, IMHO, you need to draw lines. If you don't, you say it is perfectly acceptable for, as a friend of mine put it, a pedophile to walk up to a child and explain how much he would like to have sex with them. A ridiculous extreme, perhaps, but absolute freedom of speech- protected by the government- is just as dangerous as any other extreme enforced by the state.

Now. I don't support these measures, and I agree that politically, you should be able to stand and openly campaign for whatever views you might support- extreme views should always damn themselves, and they should be dragged into public scrutiny so that they can be denounced and shouted down properly. But, importantly, freedom of speech isn't just about open public and political debate. It's about giving other people the right to verbally abuse and attack others in their daily lives.

Like almost everything in politics, it's about striking a balance. We haven't got anything vaguely like freedom of speech in the UK, we lost that with the right to free protest. But going to the other extreme wouldn't help things at all.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I happen to agree with you to an extent. What I've always figured the "free speech" people don't take into consideration is the power of words. The old "Pen is mightier than the sword" thing - that's what that means when you strip away the metaphor of the funniest armed conflict imaginable. Words, when used in the correct order, are one of the most powerful weapons available to man. Other than a brief stint in WW1 the only thing Hitler ever did was made speeches and look at the fucking shitstorm he managed to get going.

It's a real sticky thing. On one hand you want to be able to express yourself in an unrestricted way but, on that same fucking hand, there are a lot of potential Hitlers out there, "charismatic" motherfuckers who, if they were just allowed to excercise their right to free speech, would have a neighboring territory annexed and the ovens fired up in next to no time. Hell, it's already going on. The phrase "Radical Muslim Cleric"
springs immediately to mind. We've already kickbanz0rred a couple of these fucks from our shores and they always whine on about "free speech"

The problem is that every time they draw a line they seem to err on the side of caution. And once the rights are eroded they're pretty much gone for good.

So what do we do?

[Scribbly]

I happen to agree with you to an extent. What I've always figured the "free speech" people don't take into consideration is the power of words. The old "Pen is mightier than the sword" thing - that's what that means when you strip away the metaphor of the funniest armed conflict imaginable. Words, when used in the correct order, are one of the most powerful weapons available to man. Other than a brief stint in WW1 the only thing Hitler ever did was made speeches and look at the fucking shitstorm he managed to get going.

It's a real sticky thing. On one hand you want to be able to express yourself in an unrestricted way but, on that same fucking hand, there are a lot of potential Hitlers out there, "charismatic" motherfuckers who, if they were just allowed to excercise their right to free speech, would have a neighboring territory annexed and the ovens fired up in next to no time. Hell, it's already going on. The phrase "Radical Muslim Cleric"
springs immediately to mind. We've already kickbanz0rred a couple of these fucks from our shores and they always whine on about "free speech"

The problem is that every time they draw a line they seem to err on the side of caution. And once the rights are eroded they're pretty much gone for good.

So what do we do?

It's a tricky question. I'd like to believe that half the reason the BNP and other similar groups are as pervasive as they are is precisely because they are being crushed like this. The trouble is, crushing free speech does not make these ideas go away. Just stopping people from talking about racism doesn't mean that it stops being a problem, it just means that it is a problem where the people inciting it don't do so in public, so they aren't refuted.

I suppose the flip side to this is, if we as a people are so stupid as to elect the next Hitler, perhaps we deserve to have them. Not that I'll be sticking around in that case, if I can get out.

If the decision were up to me, I'd cut it off at openly calling for crimes. Such as the sexual abuse thing above, murder, so on and so forth. I don't think the government has the right to stop people making fun of religions or making people uncomfortable, though. If someone wanted to stand up and shout about 'killing all them durn immigrants' that's fine, so long as he isn't surprised when he's shouted down in turn. Noisy, but, sound, I think.

In more practical terms, well. What do we do? You only ever lose freedoms if you choose to allow the legislation to stop you exercising them. I plan to go on expressing my views as I have always done. The only major change that recent practices have lead to is that, if I ever decide I do want to protest, I'll need to do it in a very secure mask and with as much padding as I can get together, for when the police brutality kicks in.

Other than that. You could try writing to your MP to protest the abuses. Who knows, they might actually listen or something! 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This see me trolling. They hatin'. Patrolling, they tryin' to catch me ridin' dirty.
                                             \

FUCKING WIN.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Freedom of speech has no lines. The minute you draw one you've lost the right to use the word "free"

I agree with Thurgood Marshall.  Shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater isn't protected speech, it's an overt act...but saying "I FUCKING HATE <enter the group you hate here> is indeed nothing more than speech.

[Golden Applesauce]

Freedom of speech has no lines. The minute you draw one you've lost the right to use the word "free"

I agree with Thurgood Marshall.  Shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater isn't protected speech, it's an overt act...but saying "I FUCKING HATE <enter the group you hate here> is indeed nothing more than speech.

Sooner or later I am going to have to actually try yelling "FIRE" somewhere.  I have a suspicion that nobody would actually panic if you just stood up in the middle of the theater and yelled.  Maybe if you ran in from somewhere else, though.

[Cain]

While I don't agree with him being banned from coming here (in fact, wasn't this the legislation originally intended for use against "radical Muslim preachers"?  And wasn't I called "objectively pro-Bin Laden" for opposing them by the people now crying "Stalin!"  Funny how that worked out) I have to admit I am taking a perverse amount of pleasure in Savage's attempted boycott of British products.  Apart from HP Sauce, chavtastic rappers, dead foreigners and dodgy financial schemes, I wasn't aware the UK actually produced anything.

[Messier Undertree]

I think this is hilarious, to be honest.

[Cain]

His boycott may bring our thriving economy to a halt!

[BadBeast]

Fuck the Law, anyone is pretty much free to say what they like anyway. You just need to be a bit careful about who you say it to. Having a Law that protects your right to stand on a busy street, shouting stupid
racist shit, or frothy Godgasmic threats of Hellfire on everyone, is crap anyway. If such people want to shout that stupid offensive hateful shit all day long, then I say go for it. But don't expect any help from the State when four big black lads, drag you off your soapbox, and kerbstomp you. If you take up your right to act like that in public, you are also accepting by default, what the consequences of behaving like this bring. If it gets you a kicking, then next time maybe you won't be so across the board. Because that's the thing. Your right to be as offensive as you like, comes hand in hand with everybody else's right to be as offended as they want. Hopefully, this should get people to take a little more responsibility
for their own actions, and their consequences.

Bump.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fuck the Law, anyone is pretty much free to say what they like anyway. You just need to be a bit careful about who you say it to. Having a Law that protects your right to stand on a busy street, shouting stupid
racist shit, or frothy Godgasmic threats of Hellfire on everyone, is crap anyway. If such people want to shout that stupid offensive hateful shit all day long, then I say go for it. But don't expect any help from the State when four big black lads, drag you off your soapbox, and kerbstomp you. If you take up your right to act like that in public, you are also accepting by default, what the consequences of behaving like this bring. If it gets you a kicking, then next time maybe you won't be so across the board. Because that's the thing. Your right to be as offensive as you like, comes hand in hand with everybody else's right to be as offended as they want. Hopefully, this should get people to take a little more responsibility
for their own actions, and their consequences.

Bump.

Okay.  But I get to decide what's offensive.

[BadBeast]

Fuck the Law, anyone is pretty much free to say what they like anyway. You just need to be a bit careful about who you say it to. Having a Law that protects your right to stand on a busy street, shouting stupid
racist shit, or frothy Godgasmic threats of Hellfire on everyone, is crap anyway. If such people want to shout that stupid offensive hateful shit all day long, then I say go for it. But don't expect any help from the State when four big black lads, drag you off your soapbox, and kerbstomp you. If you take up your right to act like that in public, you are also accepting by default, what the consequences of behaving like this bring. If it gets you a kicking, then next time maybe you won't be so across the board. Because that's the thing. Your right to be as offensive as you like, comes hand in hand with everybody else's right to be as offended as they want. Hopefully, this should get people to take a little more responsibility
for their own actions, and their consequences.

Bump.

Okay.  But I get to decide what's offensive.

Of course you do. No one else has the right to tell you what you can be offended by.

(We're not communists)