"Thought Police Muscle Up in Britain”

expatter

At the other end of the intellectual market, Celebrity Jade Goody was possessed of the wrong attitude to Indian film star, Shilpa Shetty in “Celebrity Big Brother.”

The Daily Telegraph showed the three “Racists” looking common while Shilpa was shown at prayer, elegant in a Sari and looking sidelong. The programme is based on getting an assortment of characters into a house and titillating the viewers to keep the viewing figures up.

Bullying and personality clashes are the attraction.  But Jade, Daniella and Jo had the wrong sort of personality clash with Shilpa and had to be excoriated to cow down other people.  Forcing Jade to keep apologising and to confess publicly that she is disgusted with herself is our cultural Marxist rulers version of a Soviet show trial.  She had to be broken in public, made to repent and show abject contrition.

Jade has some Afro-Caribbean ancestory and an honest person would look for a cause other than racism like class envy or bad manners, but there is an ideology at work which imposes the same explanation on different situations - white racism.

MaKaiYan

We had a brief flirtation with this in the U.S. about 20 years ago, but after Clinton got elected, the right started screaming bloody murder and most of the "hate speech" legislation was struck down. Now I can walk around my working-class neighborhood in a Midwestern college town and see pictures of our President in white face (as the Joker) or with a Hitler mustache, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing anyone can do about it.

That said, i think those people are fcktards... just like skinheads and the Klan. But I was raised to believe in free speech and press as among our most fundamental rights, and I'm not willing to give that up just so I don't have to argue with idiots from time to time.

MaKaiYan

I just posted something about censoring free speech and it got deleted. Oh, sweet irony!

Anyway, the short of it is this: No country should give up free speech and press just to free themselves of the inconvenience of having to argue with people who hold opposing views, however ill-informed those views may be. My neighbor has a poster on his door of Obama in whiteface (as the Joker). I'm offended, but I'm not gonna call the cops (wouldn't do any good anyway)

expatter

Yes, how do you legislate freedom of speech so that it is fair?


And it cannot be fair if the legislation is weighted too heavily in favour for fear of not being seen as anti-racist.

expatter

The law introduced persecution in the case against working-class lads from Notting Hill after the race battles of August 1958. In the Commons debate a local Labour M.P. Frank Tomney made one of the most honourable and heroic speeches ever in the House of Commons in defence of his young constituents which shows how the police and lawyers had framed them.

They had no rights.

Here is a précis :-

    “Nine young men were arrested. No one in the constituency takes the view that what they did was not severely wrong, but the sentences of 4 years imprisonment for boys of 17 - even coloured people are going round organizing petitions on their behalf. I wrote to the Home Secretary asking him to see me about this but he declined as it is sub-judice.  The case was subject to appeal a week ago and the sentences confirmed. I made sure – none of these boys had a previous conviction.

    “… When people read about comparable cases and find variations in the sentences they come to think that our law does not provide justice. In one case of alleged rioting which concerned coloured people, one man was sentenced to prison for a year and others were fined.  The man who was sentenced to a year had a former conviction in 1948 for shooting a policeman which is a crime with intent to kill.  Yet these boys with no convictions got 4 years.

    “… I have here a letter from the Union of Post Office workers about a boy from Ellingham Road.  It tells of his having just returned from serving in Cyprus, yet he was taken from his bed at 2.a.m. and charged with rioting. He only pleaded guilty because he was foolishly advised to. Contrary to the bias of police evidence, he was in possession of no weapon, though he admits to being an occupant in the car that toured the district shouting slogans. A petition to me is in responsible language and from people I have known for nine years.”

ganzhuolin

Originally posted by emucentral at 2010-5-1 12:02


Sounds very much like Beijing's tactics regarding the D.A.L.A.I  L.A.M.A  !

...is the Dolly lama and the Dorje Shugden (sp?)

MaKaiYan

Originally posted by expatter at 2010-5-3 15:38
Yes, how do you legislate freedom of speech so that it is fair?


And it cannot be fair if the legislation is weighted too heavily in favour for fear of not being seen as anti-racist.

Actually, I think the US Supreme Court has done a fairly good job of this, despite being filled with a bunch of codgers. Of course, challenges will come again from the lower court -- I personally think the recent decision giving free speech rights to corporations is a bad idea -- but for the most part it is your actions for which you should be held accountable... or as my grandma taught me: "Sticks and stones may break my bones..."