There's something quite bizarre about all these American free speech advocates taking the absolutist approach in defence of their belief.
Everything has limits. All laws have exceptions. All absolute positions are wrong to some degree*.
Government sanction of speech is acceptable in very few circumstances. But 'very few' is not equal to 'zero', and that approximation is only good enough for the hard of thinking - people who can't cope unless all things are proscribed by inviolable rules.
The US Constitution and Bill of Rights is no more suitable as a source of absolutist dogma than is the Bible or Quran.
Governments shouldn't censure nor censor the speech of their citizens; except in those very rare cases when they should.
*Yes, I know. Think about it.
There's something quite bizarre about all these American free speech advocates taking the absolutist approach in defence of their belief.
Everything has limits. All laws have exceptions. All absolute positions are wrong to some degree*.
Government sanction of speech is acceptable in very few circumstances. But 'very few' is not equal to 'zero', and that approximation is only good enough for the hard of thinking - people who can't cope unless all things are proscribed by inviolable rules.
The US Constitution and Bill of Rights is no more suitable as a source of absolutist dogma than is the Bible or Quran.
Governments shouldn't censure nor censor the speech of their citizens; except in those very rare cases when they should.
*Yes, I know. Think about it.
There's something quite bizarre about all these American free speech advocates taking the absolutist approach in defence of their belief.
Everything has limits. All laws have exceptions. All absolute positions are wrong to some degree*.
Government sanction of speech is acceptable in very few circumstances. But 'very few' is not equal to 'zero', and that approximation is only good enough for the hard of thinking - people who can't cope unless all things are proscribed by inviolable rules.
The US Constitution and Bill of Rights is no more suitable as a source of absolutist dogma than is the Bible or Quran.
Laws that prohibit speech that incites violence and hatred is enough. This so-called joke contains neither.
On the other hand when ostensible jokes slope off into dog-whistling constitute problems. There is no clear, unambiguous line between legal and illegal speech, but some legislation is clearly unacceptable to me, such as the criminalisation of holocaust denial, and laws that makes speech a crime on the grounds that someone feels offended.
I am torn between the "First they came for..." danger and the danger of unlimited toleration. We are in constant danger of being wrecked either by Scylla or Charybdis.
No. I think that protection of free speech doesn't include genocide.No, but is that really the type of person we're going to start basing our own behaviors on? Tsk, tsk, tsk...I'd like to at least try to rise above that if nothing else.
Well, that's good but also irrelevant because "speech" and "genocide" are not the same thing.
Lauren Southern said the Home Office permanently banned her because she had been ‘caught distributing racist leaflets in Luton town centre’.
Canadian Southern was filmed handing out racist material which said ‘Allah is a gay God’ and ‘Allah is trans’ in Luton earlier this year. She described the stunt as a ‘social experiment’ but police broke it up after getting complaints from the public, saying it could lead to violence. They also warned it could create a public order offence and that if she didn’t stop she could be arrested.
While she was not arrested during the stunt in February, Southern was detained at Calais when she tried to re-enter the UK on March 13. She was held under the Terrorism Act and banned from entering because her actions presented ‘a threat to the fundamental interests of society and public policy of the United Kingdom’.
Here's another one that demonstrates they aren't real god about the whole free speech thing in the UK:
Lauren Southern said the Home Office permanently banned her because she had been ‘caught distributing racist leaflets in Luton town centre’.
Canadian Southern was filmed handing out racist material which said ‘Allah is a gay God’ and ‘Allah is trans’ in Luton earlier this year. She described the stunt as a ‘social experiment’ but police broke it up after getting complaints from the public, saying it could lead to violence. They also warned it could create a public order offence and that if she didn’t stop she could be arrested.
While she was not arrested during the stunt in February, Southern was detained at Calais when she tried to re-enter the UK on March 13. She was held under the Terrorism Act and banned from entering because her actions presented ‘a threat to the fundamental interests of society and public policy of the United Kingdom’.
Calling someone's speech a "threat to the public policy of the United Kingdom" sounds pretty Orwellian.
Also, not sure what's "racist" about saying "Allah is gay". I didn't realize Allah was a race, or that gay was officially a bad thing in the UK.
Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2018/03/25/far-r...s-lifetime-ban-coming-uk-7415320/?ito=cbshare