Slashdot Mirror
Man Arrested For Photo of Burning Poppy On Facebook
Barence writes "A British man has been arrested for posting a picture of a burning poppy on Facebook. The poppy is a symbol of remembrance for those who died in war, and the arrest was made on Remembrance Sunday. 'A man from Aylesham has tonight been arrested on suspicion of malicious telecommunications,' Kent police said in a statement after the arrest. 'This follows a posting on a social network site of a burning poppy. He is currently in police custody awaiting interview.' The arrest has been criticized by legal experts. 'What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by @Kent_police for burning a poppy?' tweeted David Allen Green, who helped clear the British man who was prosecuted for a joke tweet threatening to blow up an airport."
Arrest the arresting officer on suspicion of stupidity.
"I disagree with what you have to say but will fight to the death to protect your right to say it."
Slippery Slope Argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
moox. for a new generation.
What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by @Kent_police for burning a poppy?
The point was that from 1945 to ~2010, they could not be so casually arrested.
Liberty is not static; it must periodically be re-conquered from those who would deny us.
And certainly your idea of what is useful and what is not is the correct one and should be enforced by law, right?
Slippery Slope isn't a real argument. It's a position people take when they don't have a real argument, as slipper slope can applied to pretty much anything. Try again please.
I deem your post useless. its harmful and I think you should pay a penalty for it.
how's a few days in the lock-up sound to you?
but you ARGUED for this. you agree that some speech should be curbed if its not 'useful' and your post was certainly not useful to ME.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The point of free speech to protect unpopular speech.
But I thought America was the oppressive country hat hated free speech, surely this cant happen in the UK! Why Europeans are superior in every way to Americans!
As well as the picture, he published the words "How about that you squadey cunts". (A squaddie being British slang for a low-ranking soldier). This at a time when emotions are heightened with the Remembrance Day.
The Criminal Justice Act says:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
So that's the legal justification for arresting him.
I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.
i always thought it would be awesome to live in the UK because of the healthcare system but as a chronic troll I don't want to risk getting arrested for posting flamebait!
The BBC has pedophiles and incompetent editors that post stories that are meant to suppress free speech and now this.... UK isn't as free as its citizens say.
Expressions of discontent, whether intellectual or emotional, are a vital component of informative discussion. That's the entire point behind organizing protests. It lets people (both those in power and those in voting booths) know that some segment of the population holds certain views, a segment that might otherwise go unheard or even suppressed, deliberately or accidentally. Of course, some people really do it just for the attention, but that is the downside of freedom: some people will inevitably abuse it (my signature is highly relevant). Freedom is worth that price.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
...why the f*** you burn his poppies if it's illegal?!
Most UK subjects do not realize that we don't actually have it. Speech is not protected in the UK and that won't get fixed until the people in the UK realize that, because of the cultural cross-contamination from the US most UK subjects think we have the same protected speech as you fellows across the pond.
There is no "point of free speech." Free speech just is, as is freedoms in general. If there's supposed to be a point to it, who is to determine that it is not being served by some action, so that action should be prosecuted? If the expression of free speech in some way threatens some other fundamental rights, then that expression should be stopped.
Double irony: people down-voting the original post so that it drops to zero and won't be seen.
It's more like karma-whoring than political speech.
That sounds rather emotional. What are you going to do about that?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
You can't be more subjective than what you are describing. What is "kharma-whoring" or "drama-queening"? Where exactly something crosses the line between "useful policy discussion", and "drama-queening" for example? Should any emotional outburst be outlawed? If a people cries while talkign about something should what he is talking about be dismissed, or better, outlawed?
There is no such thing as conditional free speech. Any conditional free speech is no free speech at all, because there is always someone else who will be deciding what can be said and what cannot based on his own interpretations of abstract things like "emotional acts", as you so clearly showed.
The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy.
Emotional gestures don't actually do that.
Burning flags, burning poppies, etc. express discontent but not much else. In fact, it seems to me that these events get in the way of actually having a discussion on the issue and getting closer to resolution.
It's more like karma-whoring than political speech.
So getting in the way of a productive discussion should now be a jail-able offense? I always understood the purpose of free speech to be preventing the government from censoring dissent or criticism. Seems to me that's what's going on here. It's not illegal to be a jerk, and it shouldn't be.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The slippery slope fallacy argument isn't a real argument either, it's brought up every time someone uses an argument that resembles the slippery slope argument, but fails to recognize that examples of the slippery slope process can be found every field.
People desirous of the slippery slope's outcome call the process progress....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I read that as "photo of a burning puppy" and thought "fair enough". Not sure if I should be disappointed, or relieved for the puppy.
I actually misread the headline as "... for photo of burning puppy..." and I was duly outraged and saddened.
And then I read TFA and was made even sadder...
This isn't subjective. It's not a question of what one person considers useful speech and another doesn't, at least unless you're trying to defend the flower-burners.
It's on a continuum, and there must necessarily be a blurry line somewhere along it where the distinction is subjective. So in giving the judiciary the ability to make that subjective decision, you genuinely do create a slippery slope, towards the point where you have "free speech" as long as you stay within boundaries set by the Establishment.
Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.
Useful speech is the kind of stuff we see on the floor of Congress
Ha ha ha ha, whew.
"The U.S. Senate is a special place. I love all of you and especially your wives." -- Strom Thurmond
The point of free speech is that its free, not useful.
Useful speech is the kind of stuff we see on the floor of Congress
Really?
no taxation without representation!
Slippery Slope isn't a real argument. It's a position people take when they don't have a real argument, as slipper slope can applied to pretty much anything. Try again please.
Yes and no. Properly used, it is a perfectly usable and completely valid point. Here, for instance, the point is that if they start suppressing one individual's freedom of speech, there is less of a barrier for them to start suppressing others as well. It's perfectly true, as illustrated a thousand times (at least) by history. It's an argument from induction (countless examples of human history) rather than deduction (it actually doesn't follow a priori that one action will lead to another... but in practice it usually does). As such, it does not always hold true... but it often does (and of course some people use it poorly, to argue that one thing will lead to another, unconnected thing).
Perhaps more importantly, it can only be used in combination with some argument that the first step shouldn't be taken at all, because if that step should be taken and further steps should not, then there is no slippery slope. In this case, the argument is that freedom of speech should be protected no matter who it offends, which is a pretty reasonable argument.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I find this entire discussion on freedom of speech useless and therefore revoke your freedom of speech.
You are not free to disagree with me nor are you allowed to argue. Since neither will change my opinion, they are useless and therefore not protected by free speech according to your own previous statements.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Somebody brought this to the police's attention - they don't actively "police" facebook, looking for this kind of stuff.
We in the UK have a glorious (sarcasm alert) tradition of being offended and/or taking things personally at the drop of a hat - eg Mary Whitehouse' organisation, or the braying mobs demanding "death to all paediatrics" (sic) whenever a kiddie is murdered (most often by a member of the child's family, it seems, so why aren't they calling for "death to all relatives"?).
I suspect someone, maybe a member of the armed forces or somebody close to them, has seen the poppy burning and rather than thinking "idiot, let's not give them the oxygen of publicity", has instead gone off the deep end and started "shouting the odds", stating that "I'll swing for him, I will", "death's too good for them", "I didn't fight a war for the likes of them" etc. and called the police. Notwithstanding the fact that they would normally the sort of person who decries the wasting of police team and the fact you "never see a bobby on the street these days" and "the streets aren't safe for our kids anymore".
Unsubstantiated hearsay, I know. I'm just blowing off steam.
The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy.
No, the point of free speech is to allow me to say whatever the hell I want without fear of government reprisal, so long as I'm not stomping on someone else's rights in the process. Whose rights are being violated by this man burning a poppy? There is no right to never, ever, ever be offended.
Emotional gestures don't actually do that.
Yes, they do. Some of the most important political statements in history have been emotional gestures.
Burning flags, burning poppies, etc. express discontent but not much else. In fact, it seems to me that these events get in the way of actually having a discussion on the issue and getting closer to resolution.
Expressing discontent with your country's leadership is one of the very, very core ideas supporting freedom of speech. Expressing discontent publicly anounces to other people who aren't happy that they are not alone, allowing movements encouraging change to grow and flourish from small groups to larger ones.
It's more like karma-whoring than political speech.
So what? Karma-whoring should be illegal now?
Slippery slope can be a version of reductio ad absurdum, which is a reasonable argument. ie. if you follow the logical consequences of the proposition, you end up in a ridiculous place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
There is lots and lots of legislation which now covers a lot of things that weren't dreamed of by the legislators. Petty bureaucrats and over-reaching judges are really notorious for doing that. See also: unintended consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
No, but there should be repercussions for being a jerk. While I don't support the state charging this guy for what he did, if a war vet was offended at the act of disrespect and decided to punch the guy out, I'd be okay with that too!
If I goatse the Kent Police department? I'm a US citizen.
The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy.
Emotional gestures don't actually do that.
Burning flags, burning poppies, etc. express discontent but not much else. In fact, it seems to me that these events get in the way of actually having a discussion on the issue and getting closer to resolution.
Bull. Fucking. Shit. Expressing discontent is a perfectly legitimate commentary on policy.
Every once in a while I see a post here that makes me think "stupidest comment ever?" But there is no need to think or question this one, this is the stupidest and most offensive comment I have ever read here. Your argument is exactly the claim that dictators use when imprisoning (torturing, killing) their critics, slightly disguised by a pathetic attempt to make it look like reasonable opinion.
And here I thought that the only thing that a poppy was good for was to make opium. That and making seeds to put on bread rolls that make people fail drug tests. "Officer, I wasn't using opium, it was poppy seeds on a roll, Honest!" They should arrest him for possession of drug paraphernalia, if anything. The current charge doesn't make sense and if it doesn't make sense, you must acquit.
Why is there no mention for those of us not in the UK what the symbolism of the poppy is. Is it like burning a flag? And why has nobody made the joke "Looks like the inmates are running the Aylesham"? Come on, it's easy.
Learn to love Alaska
What was it Voltaire said? "I would defend to the death your right to say it, but I disapprove of what you say"?
Yeah, something like that. I'm pretty sure he would have agreed with you.
It's about what was written in reference to it. The picture was fine, the words associated with it were deemed offensive. Debate all you want the worthiness of that, but at least report it like it is.
so its ok to burn a holy book, but its not ok to burn a poppy ? wtf britain ?!
Uh huh, so your right to free speech ends at my "hurt feelings" or the "hurt feelings" of someone else, real or imagined?
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
To a politician, "useful speech" is something that attracts votes or money.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I really first misread it as "Man Arrested For Photo of Burning Puppy On Facebook". Shocked, I thought that would definitely be a good reason for arrest, for cruelty against animals.
Then I reread the headline, and realised it's an o, not a u. Poppies. So he's probably been smoking something bad. Reason for arrest, indeed. But who would be so stupid of putting photos of them doing drugs on Facebook? Shocking. The stupidity.
Then reading the summary I realised it's for burning some flower. Just a flower. Even more shocking - being arrested for burning a flower. OK that flower is a symbol of remembrance, and thus burning such a flower and telling the world you did it will certainly upset people, it's definitely not a nice thing to do, but also not exactly a reason for arrest imho.
So the whole issue is quite ridiculous. And a bit shocking, still.
it's 1984
Not the OP but OK I'll bite.
Who decides if the statement is "informative discussion and analysis of policy" or simply an expression of discontent?
The good learned lawyer is completely right in his comments. I imagine there are graves of brave servicemen doing a 1200rpm spin-and-rinse over how much of a bureaucratic, oppressive, surveillance police state the UK has become. The flaming-poppy-posting tosspot has every right to act the goat. Everybody eles has the right to point out to him, his social network of choice, his ISP and the rest of the straight-thinking world how much of a tosspot he is and insist that he should obligingly remove evidence of his recent idiocy and keep his tosspottery to himself in future. This situation looks to have jumped a whole big wodge of escalation and gone straight to legal remedies.
The man in jail made a philosophical point -- along with the photo he wrote "How about that you squadey cunts" (as another poster informed us)
Well, how about that? He pissed some folk off, the police brought him in to have a little chat with him, and we've all learned a valuable lesson.
Speech may be free but it's not always cheap. Sometimes you have to pay a price. This asshat isn't going to spend the rest of his life in jail for making a cunt out of himself. He's lucky the police are talking with him, he should be more worried that a veteran might take his little joke personally and come around to explain in person just how offensive he was being.
Police are there to protect property (i.e. rich people's stuff) and keep the peace in general. Better the police quiet this guy down versus letting this thing escalate. Mister Asshat could end up dead and true innocents could get caught in a crossife
...that at least a certain segment of veterans were never fighting for freedom, but rather because they got a thrill from killing.
In Canada, a couple of years ago the President of the PEI Legion threatened lawsuits against the "white poppy" campaign. This isn't even burning poppies, this is objecting to others wearing a different poppy because the white poppy symbolizes the deaths of civilians during wartime rather than the red poppy which symbolizes deaths of soldiers. Considering the symbols both originated in the 1920s, this also isn't some insolent teenager trying to get a jab in at the old men.
Luckily, it seems the veterans who are willing to use threats of violence and suppression against others to prevent their freedom of expression are fewer in number than those who ignore what they were supposed to be fighting for.
Poppy flowers don't grow in November, are in need of fresh earth and are ephemeral. No need to burn those.
You are an extremely obvious example of a type of mind that will ultimately destroy what free speech is left.
There seems to be some sort of a mental blockage in certain peoples thinking about human rights. Could be underlying drift towards a totalitarian state.
Mundus Vult Decipi
I laugh every year about remembrance day controversies. In Canada there was a big stink this year about how school children should be allowed to opt out of remembrance ceremonies held at school. Someone gets arrested for burning a poppy.
Last I checked these men and women fought for our freedoms. While burning a poppy, speaking negatively about veterans, or skipping remembrance ceremonies because you rather sleep in makes you a dick, these men and women fought for the right and freedom to be a dick. Forcing someone to behave a certain way, or forcing people to participate in a ceremony is counter-intuitive to what veterans have fought for.
Freedom is not a give in, but people being dicks is a certainty.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The players in the system are people who are often prevented from exercising their better sense and judgement by their regulations and policied. "Failure to act" generally leads to being fired. Here's a good case in point.
In many of my commentaries, I have shared the fact that I spent some time as a TSA screener. I have been faced with some rather unenviable duties both as a passenger screener and as a baggage screener. For the first two+ years of TSA's existance, I knew the system pretty well. (I don't think much has changed since then) Among these duties, I had to screen people who ... were not typical. While screening people, I had to do a manual patdown of a person with only one leg.
Though it seems unseemly, I actually did pat around the area where there was no leg. Something was in his pocket in that vicinity and had him pull things from his pockets. Among the items was a small bag of marijuana. I attempted to exercise my sense of better judgement and IGNORED the pot. (Oh, how I wished he told me "oh, it's green tea." because I could have easily had an out on the matter... in fact, I wish I had thought to say "oh! This must be green tea. I hear it is very healthy" giving HIM the idea...) But I attempted to ignore it. Another screener noticed it and started to report it. I had to fall into place or risk problems to myself.
The guy was held, then eventually wheeled away my police. Later, the police said "people, for such small amounts, please don't bother us?!" Policy actually changed to reflect better sense. But the fact was, there was no clear instruction at the time.
But we see policies and procedures often get in the way of better sense and judgement everywhere we go. From law enforcement to public education, we see stupid crap all day long. Are people REALLY that stupid or are we playing "CYA" too much to the point that things are simply ridiculous? I favor the second while I recognize that SOME people are not capable of particularly rational judgement.
Or North Korea.
They do not belong in the free world.
Why is this man in trouble, the poppy is a symbol of the worst mass killings to ever take place, which is infact all war is. Lets face it, the point of war is to kill, just kill for no real reason. The difference between a serial killer and a war vet is that the war vet was told to kill by the bully at school ( The Government ) and the serial killer took it into his own hands. I have absolutely 0 respect for any solder, war vet or anyone who plays a hand in hurting humans in an act of war. This goes for both sides!
People talk about a solder as a symbol of devotion and courage, my question is why? If the government hands me a gun and tells me to shoot someone, why should that make me a symbol for my country? I think the real symbols for a country are the people who progress science, technology and medicine. They are the people who we should respect, not the guy who grabs a gun and kills in the name of his country because he doesn't question them.
You always hear saying like "You wouldn't be here if they didn't fight" or "They protected your freedom", bull crap. War happens because people can't think of non hostel ways to settle issues. How about instead of getting hundreds of thousands of your own people killed you sit down and think before you act. I'm not saying that no one has to die but not the insane number of people who do. If you have to kill even 1 innocence person for 10 bad guys then the cost isn't worth it.
Non-useful speech is karma-whoring, drama queening, and other forms of non-productive activity. It's not difficult to see the difference, which was clearly anticipated by the founding fathers when they wrote the Constitution.
Which part of the constitution outlines the categorization of speech into useful vs non-useful???
But in your above argument, you found his post useful for proving that it was not useful, thus making it useful.
Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.
A single poor fruit vendor committing suicide in a very public manner...
I really thought that all those red noses that cars put on their front bumpers were puppy noses.
how cool is it that the UK is so fond dogs, like that.
or, is it a reindeer. it does have a red nose, afterall.
no matter, they're both cute. carry on!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think I'm starting to get it. We're defending our freedoms by making the terrorists laugh till they drop dead.
Yeah, I misread the headline too.
Free speech vs. douchebaggery. That should feed the trolls.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
Malicious Communications Act
1988
1988 CHAPTER 27
An Act to make provision for the punishment of persons who send
or deliver letters or other articles for the purpose of causing
distress or anxiety. [29th July 1988]
B E IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and
with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal,
and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, as follows:—
1.—(1) Any person who sends to another person—
(a) a letter or other article which conveys—
(i) a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;
(ii) a threat; or
(iii) information which is false and known or believed to be
false by the sender; or
(b) any other article which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or
grossly offensive nature,
is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it
is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause
distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he
intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
(2) A person is not guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (l)(a)(ii)
above if he shows—
(a) that the threat was used to reinforce a demand which he believed
he had reasonable grounds for making; and
(b) that he believed that the use of the threat was a proper means of
reinforcing the demand.
(3) In this section references to sending include references to delivering
and to causing to be sent or delivered and "sender" shall be construed
accordingly.
Offence of sending
letters etc. with
intent to cause
distress or anxiety.
2 c. 27 Malicious Communications Act 1988
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on
summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
Northern Ireland. 2. An Order in Council under paragraph 1(l)(b) of Schedule I to the
1974 c. 28. Northern Ireland Act 1974 (legislation for Northern Ireland in the
interim period) which states that it is made only for purposes
corresponding to those of this Act—
(a) shall not be subject to paragraph 1(4) and (5) of that Schedule
(affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament); but
(b) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of
either House.
Short title, 3.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Malicious Communications Act
commencement 1988.
and extent.
(2) Section 1 above shall not come into force until the end of the penod
of two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.
(3) This Act does not extend to Scotland or, except for section 2, to
Northern Ireland.
Where we differ from the US, and I personally support this difference, is that we do not recognise that everybody has a right to insult or defame other people. As the Dean of my college remarked, many years ago, "We have people in this college of violently opposed opinions, we have Communists and capitalists, we have atheists and religious people. We expect them to discuss their differences in a civilised manner."
On Sunday last our SOF Meeting took place when the Remembrance Day procession was taking place in town. Nobody wore a poppy, and after the meeting we heard from someone who had been brought up among the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. We are not likely to have problems with the police.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I thought it said puppy. I was a little freaked out by the tone of the writing.
The standard wasn't "emotional acts," but speech that would fit into political analysis versus speech that does not.
This isn't a negative standard, such as "His speech is emotional, ban it!"
It's a positive standard: the free speech we want to protect comes in the form of political speech that is analytical, informative and discursive, thus is useful to making policy decisions.
Anything else would not be protected.
I don't quite get the controversy. Please help me understand... how offensive is this to Brits?
On a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being "setting fire to a nice picture of cheese" and 10 being "Sinead O'Connor setting fire to a picture of the Pope, sandwiched between the Bible and the Magna Carta with the Union Jack wrapped around it", how offensive is this?
There's no difference between a group of angry people on Slashdot, and a group of voters. This is the government you chose. Assigning it a will of its own, beyond a certain recognition that it perpetuates itself, is to disclaim responsibility for your acts.
Checkmate.
It seems that fascism is alive and well in Kent. Do they have a statue of Franco, Mussolini or Hitler in the central square?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Your argument is weakened because Mary Whitehouse was a national joke. If she complained about a TV programme, the head of the BBC used to send the producer a congratulatory memo. We in the UK are suffering from idiocy being stirred up by the gutter press.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You're using a standard for what is speech, not for what you can disqualify as speech. Insisting on standards does not create a slippery slope; however, insisting on no standards certainly can.
The point of free speech to protect unpopular speech.
That's what he said: "The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy."
What do you think that means?
It's not really true regardless - free speech, like freedom of the press and many other rights, is an attempt to reign in corruption and tyranny. Protecting unpopular speech is just a means to an end. The GP really has a point here, he clearly wasn't trolling. Shame he was modded down just because people disagree with the point he was making.
As for the point he was making: I disagree with it. It's true that flag burning can get in the way of rational discussion, but if you've ever been to a protest you know that they aren't places for rational discourse. They're places for outrage and people doing stupid shit. You don't want the people to do this, it can really harm a good cause when a protest turns ugly, but a protest that is guaranteed to be orderly is a protest over an issue that no one cares about.
Outlawing flag burning, or outlawing cursing at authorities, or outlawing stupid chants, means outlawing protests. And as much as rational discourse is needed to find solutions to problems, protests are needed to implement those solutions. (Yes, really. Some protests are stupid, some are useless, but others have changed the world.)
Honestly now. If he knowingly does something involving something senseitive to his society that is a great offense to them he should know that there might be reprocussions for it.
True I technically have the right to walk into a airport with a sign that says "Im brown so I must want to blow this place up right?" or post a picture of me burning a flag and a fake bomb at the memorial for killed soldiers because of free speech but only a fucking moron would do it and then be surprised that he is arrested for it. Does that mean I can? Sure it does. Does that mean I should? No, it does not.
There are repercussions. They're just social rather than legal. People don't like to hang out with jerks, they don't give their opinions equal consideration (ad hominem is alive and well in social interactions) and in some cases individuals will spend their free time engaging in unpaid negative PR campaigns against jerks.
As long as that social response doesn't cross the line into assault, libel or vigilantism then it is the correct thing to do.
Legal concerns should never enter into the picture.
I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.
How about the police upholding the European Convention on human rights which IIRC sits above UK law. Article 10 grants freedom of expression except in limited, and sensible circumstances and "insulting someone else" is not one of those. In fact if this law really is as written MPs had better watch what they say outside of the commons because they seem to spend a good deal of their time being insulting and attempting to cause MPs in other parties distress.
The ironic thing is that these same human rights laws that technically make his arrest illegal are also probably what caused it in the first place. It used to be that odious idiots who did things like burn remembrance poppies would find themselves ostracized from society to some degree which seems a very appropriate response. However that is now illegal under all these human rights laws because it is illegal to discriminate due to political beliefs. While it is very clear that things beyond our control such as gender, race, sexual preference etc. should be protected it is less clear to me that political beliefs should be protected since this is a conscience choice and so is under the full control of the individual and e.g. withholding services, insults (within reason and without threats of physical harm) etc. seems to me to be a legitimate way to make an argument against a particular political choice - certainly it is far better than locking people up!
Although all part of Western civilization, United Kingdom is NOT France nor the United States of America when it comes to law and its just execution. When it comes to offensive and hate speech, UK is far more stringent, limiting and consistent in tackling from my observations.
It's important to recognize the human bias when evaluating the venom and criminality of speech. Empathizing or the lack there of with the offended is subjective.
I'd like to draw three distinctions in such affairs:
First is the philosophical belief in freedom of offensive, non-popular speech very much at the core of Western civilization. Those who do believe in it ought to believe in it regardless of whether you empathize with those offended or not. Otherwise, you are a hypocrite. Don't come here defending freedom of press/speech when it comes to anti-Muslim rhetoric, but throw the book at those whose actions offended you and vice-versa.
Second is, based on philosophy, the crafting of legislation to combat/protect particular speech. Bias can and at times does creep into legislation where one form of speech deemed offensive towards a small group is legal, while speech that might offend the majority is deemed illegal by law. Simply regurgitation "the law says so, therefore it shall be" isn't a good justification. Law can be wrong, discriminating and amended.
Third, is the execution of law by the authorities. Authorities must address each offending according to law objectively. The size of the population offended, or one's subjective views should not creep in when it comes to enforcing the law. Furthermore, making up legal technicalities in order to make the arrest based on your core bias is unjust and corrupt in my opinion.
Even though I am critical of and find freedom of speech in England to be very limiting , I respect their just interpretation of the law in a variety of cases including this one. Unlike Britain, USA I feel has much more ground to make up when it comes to drafting of legislation and its just, fair execution. There is a reason why one out of every three African-Americans will be incarcerated in their lifetime and it isn't because they are inherently criminal.
I can live with laws I might disagree with, I can use my democratic rights as a citizen to protest and influence (through voting) to amend them. However, I can't live with biased laws and those that are subjectively and selectively applied and enforced.
You might find my rant off-topic perhaps, but the message I want to convey is:
If you were here supporting freedom of expression in cases such as the cartoons of Mohammed, don't let your bias and empathy treat this issue differently.
With Naziism a resurgent threat in Greece and trying to expand all across Europe, with American Republicans who express ideas as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler, it's nice to know that the Kent police are so on top of things that they can find someone to deal with these serious hate crimes.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I actually misread the headline as "... for photo of burning puppy..." and I was duly outraged and saddened.
And then I read TFA and
I was mystified about the whole poppy thing which apparently has a completely different meaning in the UK than in the US.
Here in the US, it seems a random roll of the dice if you'll get arrested for growing poppies due to the whole "harvest for opium" thing. No growing, no harvesting, no wearing, no burning no nothing WRT poppies depending on where you live and how cool the cops are.
Apparently you people who mis-spell stuff like colour and your fags are made out of tobacco (fag means something entirely different here in Jesusland, trust me), staple hard core drug production leaves to your shirts on your equivalent of memorial day. It does make a certain recent sense in terms of victims of war needing painkillers which used to come from plants, but in most of the USA doing stuff like that would probably just get you arrested.
I guess the closest american analogy would be President Thomas Jefferson grew weed, so to celebrate his birthday we'll staple pot leaves to our shirts, sorta. Not a bad idea, really. Um, I'm just growing for Jefferson's birthday holiday, yeah thats it.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Free speech is for useful speech.
Aside from a few people with certain compulsive disorders, speech generally is useful to the person who uttered it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch
Maybe they would like to arrest him too?
There is no such thing as conditional free speech. Any conditional free speech is no free speech at all, because there is always someone else who will be deciding what can be said and what cannot based on his own interpretations of abstract things like "emotional acts", as you so clearly showed.
Except that there is no unconditional free speech in the US either. Sure, the First Amendment is written in blanket language, but in practice there are plenty of exceptions where there is a compelling government or public interest in over-riding it.
For example: copyright violations, criminal conspiracies, death threats, certain types of election-related speech and defamation are all examples of speech that is restricted or punishable by criminal or civil penalties. Speech that is politically related is given the highest protection by the Supreme Court and commercial speech that is not original or is of little or no cultural or political relevance is given the least.
Your argument that a right has to be absolutely unconditional to be worthy of the name does not seem workable to me. Everyone has constraints that prevent him from having true freedom of action, whether governmental, societal, financial, physical, intellectual or physiological. That's the hardest part of moral philosophy to grapple with, and the answers to this question seem to vary widely. I'm not sure that I've ever read a truly satisfying argument.
Having said that - yes, this case is bullshit and the fact that the police and courts seem to have nothing better to do than bust sad gits for trolling on the internet is becoming increasingly unpopular in the UK.
That only happens in the US and this guy would be going to a UK jail if any at all.
Male on male prison rape isn't so common outside the US.
which is a half dozen Marines might have a chat with you as part of the Birthday Ball after party. (please note Marines tend to have actual Edged Swords at the Birthday party)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This occurred in the UK, we don't have free speech enshrined in a constitution
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
What the hell is going on in Britain these days? Is it time to officially change the name to Airstrip One?
Proverbs 21:19
I think I see a trend here........
So if I write "I am the champion of the world!" I could be imprisoned.
Only if:
his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Point one; the guy is an idiot.
Before going into whether his actions merit being arrested I'd like to point out that the Poppy is used as a symbol of remembrance for the fallen in many Countries throughout the world. For example: "The proceeds from the sale of artificial poppy flowers will be utilized for the wellbeing of Sri Lankan Ex-Servicemen and families of the patriotic service personnel who have made the supreme sacrifice. The national ceremony to mark the Remembrance Day will be held on November 11 at the Cenotaph, Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo. Wear a poppy and honour the fallen."
Now, you can say anything you like but you have to bear the consequences if what you say is slanderous or offensive. This person who directed his offensive comment to "squadies" seems to be so ignorant as to not realise that the Poppy symbol has nothing whatsoever to do with serving members of the armed forces anywhere in the world.
Would this person, saying what was posted, face-to-face with a "squadie" expect to suffer no consequences?
I don't believe he should have been arrested. Stupidity is not a crime. ... & for a previous poster: We haven't been "Subjects" for many years. Check what it says in your UK passport. ;)
Mind you, I'd love to see him say what he posted to a group of "squaddies".
Tar and feather him... then hang him.
The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it implies one end is lower than the other and gravity only works one way. i.e A move in a certain direction will inevitably result in a move all the way to the extreme of that direction. Actually that is very rarely the case.
If a person is claiming that this is one of those few cases where this will happen, they need strong evidence to show why. Simply saying it's a slippery slope doesn't mean it is one. And that's why it's a fallacious argument.
If I didn't know better I would swear I was reading the words of a congressman.
I never said that a right must be absolutely conditional to mean anything, I said that this specific right must be absolutely unconditional in order to mean anything, and by that I don't mean people should be unaccountable regarding their use of this right, but all accountability should be a matter of civil law only, never criminal. If you slander somebody, for example, the person should be able to sue you and get adequate compensation, but nobody should be able to prevent you from doing the slandering.
That said yes, US version of "free speech" is similarly flawed, that much I agree.
If you're a teen skateboarder in the Mall, a policeman will beat you and arrest you for calling him "dude" rather than "sir".
I fail to see the difference, except yours is not codified explicitly.
So what? Karma-whoring should be illegal now?
Definitely.
The point of winning most wars is not to rid the world of tyranny, it is to decide who gets to be the tyrant.
a bit of a party tip if your bartender is named Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin then expect some very hot drinks.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Show me the letters patent granting him enoblement with the title of Sir, and I will use it. Otherwise he's just a dude in uniform.
In UK Law (Communications Act) it is an offence to send a offensive messages over a communications network this is the same law that makes offensive phone calls illegal and is proportionate.
First of all, parent post is from a roman_mir sock puppet. Sock puppetry should never be rewarded.
Second, said post is advocating for stripping Americans of their right to vote. Roman_mir is an unwavering supporter of a theocratic dictatorship with a unitary executive who holds unlimited power for unlimited time. Roman_mir's fantasy government would bring about the return of human slavery and the most regressive taxation system the world has ever seen. In no way would such a system prevent the arrest of a man who posted an offensive photo on facebook, indeed the man arrested would under roman_mir's system have already been executed by a for-profit court system.
The idea of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance comes from the WW1 poem "In Flanders Fields" which refers to poppies growing on the graves of the fallen soldiers in the First World War. It was actually an American who brought the idea of wearing a poppy to the UK.
In other words, if you were saying "I am the champion of the world" to a competitor in an athletic event via letter or text message in order to cause anxiety and their poorer performance then that would be a criminal act.
Freedom of Speech... just watch what you say
There are also countless examples in human history of slippery slopes not going off, and there is no proof that descending a given slope is retarded by fighting the first steps of said slope. You'd have to make some soft of statistical study which obviously you haven't done and it's not clear that there is any meaningful statistics that could be done about something so nebulous anyway. You'd be much better off stating your argument in steps in saying "defeat this argument as it stands specifically instead of just classifying it as being erroneous based on being a slippery slope argument."
In this case, the argument is that freedom of speech should be protected no matter who it offends, which is a pretty reasonable argument.
That's not an argument, that's your conclusion.
When this headline came across my RSS feed I at first thought this was going to be some crazy Heroin-related story.
In the case of offensive speech there's certainly a case to be made that it works one way. As offense is a subjective experience and the threshold for offense can reasonably be argued to be related to what can be expected in normal discourse, removing any offensive material will lead to other material being the 'most offensive' and hence cause even stronger subjective feelings of offense in an ever more sensitized audience than it previously would, in turn leading to arguments for its removal from public discourse.
Perhaps it's kept in equilibrium by the tendency of oppressive systems to get violently overthrown and have their standards of offense recalibrated against a curtain of bloodshed and death. But maybe it's better to avoid walking down that road by having people grow up and not base their entire sense of selfworth on whatever verbal diarhea is coming out of some random ass.
'What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by @Kent_police for burning a poppy?
We're talking World War I, a war fought over who had the better monarch.
Protip: Victoria's grandkids won.
So if I write "I am the champion of the world!" I could be imprisoned.
Only if:
his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
So, if he, say, posted "I'm the champion of the world!" on his facebook page, and a member of the Mercury estate happened upon it...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it implies one end is lower than the other and gravity only works one way. i.e A move in a certain direction will inevitably result in a move all the way to the extreme of that direction. Actually that is very rarely the case..
[sputters helplessly for a few seconds...] It's what?!?
What country do you live in? Pretty much the entire domestic political history of the United States over the last 100 years can be summed up as: gleefully accelerating down the now seemingly frictionless slope of taxation and "interstate commerce" as catch-alls for federal regulation of every aspect of life.
The direction of travel of the entire United States government can hardly be described as a "rare case".
Apparently this was done last year, too. A £50 fine:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/07/muslim-extremist-fined-for-poppy-burning
An arrest in the UK is a big deal. Regardless of a conviction, it shows up on background checks in the future and limits the jobs you can get. The police get to keep youru DNA and your fingerprints for a number of years.
It also means that you can no longer visit certain countries on vacation or for work (including the USA) without going through an expensive and time consuming visa application process.
It's a big deal and it sucks that we're arresting so many people under these laws. Mr. Bean is right - section 5 of the public order act needs to go!
Opium poppies and ornamental poppies are different flowers. Related, but not the same.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Do you mean to say Slippery Slope is proof by induction?
greed@All_Evils:~#
White Russian.
I mean come on, this is kindergarten stuff.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Analytical refers to the nature and approach of the speech, not whether it's accurate.
On the off-chance that this is a serious question: start by looking at the whole speech.
There's rhetoric in there, but he clearly outlines policy goals and targets specific practices.
The title should be "You're using the wrong standard." LOL
Doesn't matter; under democracy, they speak for you. But even more, I think the point was unclear or you missed it. If censorship is bad because it opposes ideas, then we should consider whether down-voting a post because it threatens our popular notions is the exact same psychological impulse that "free speech" was created to protect against.
Useful speech is the kind of stuff we see on the floor of Congress, in policy discussions, in think tanks, in political essays and so on.
And I suppose you consulted the magical opinion fairy to find out what is and isn't "useful"?
Besides, your comment is 100% useless. You need to be punished for making it because it offended me.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
If you slander somebody, for example, the person should be able to sue you and get adequate compensation, but nobody should be able to prevent you from doing the slandering.
The trouble with that argument is that there are far too many things someone could say that lead to damage you can never compensate with mere money. That's why no country in the world really has absolute free speech protected under the law, and in many places saying certain things is a criminal act.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sedition as a general exception turns free speech into not-free speech. So do overly broad defamation laws that encourage so-called libel tourism.
British law does not offer such protection.
Which is interesting, because the UK is still subject to the European Convention on Human Rights, article 10 of which guarantees freedom of expression subject only to certain specific limitations. I find the action of the arrested person in this case distasteful, but I'm not sure under which of those limitations article 10 would not apply.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If I own that poppy or the mechanism that started the fire, then he violated my rights.
If the smoke (pollution) came into my property, he violated my rights.
(not directed at you)
If you are not willing to protect the right of someone to do something you despise, then you deserve to lose your own freedom.
Hell, I use it all the time. Thankfully its protected by free speech.
This puts me in the mood to follow someone practicing their constitutional right (opens tumblr).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
It didn't work out so well. After that situation I doubt there was much talk of deals.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Use of the law for that sort of thing has most definitely come about in response to the religious hatred laws because it specifically came about when there was a showdown between the EDL and the "Muslims against crusades" group:
Muslims against crusades was founded in 2010.
The burning poppies arrest was made "under section 127 of the Communications Act" - from 2003.
Which basically states that one could be arrested for trolling. Also, for making shit up on the internets.
A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, heâ"
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b)causes such a message to be sent; or
(c)persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
No mention of burning symbols, religious or not.
Under such a law, YOU TOO could also end up in jail for up to 6 months, because of the following statement:
This is in part, part of the West's battle with Islam, and is not the first time this has been done.
See... you just generalized an entire hemisphere of this planet of ours and several dozens of cultures and civilizations, an entire family of religions and the followers of all those religious flavors - and then you've put them on opposing sides of a statement by which you claim that those sides are in a "battle" with each other.
You do realize that all those generalizations make your statement either a phenomenal pile of bullshit - or a conscious lie.
I.e. "a message that you know to be false".
And considering that barring, maybe, Chinese you've managed to include a grater part of the population of the planet into your generalizations - it is just a matter of statistics for your generalizations to offend SOMEBODY.
I.e. Unless you want to argue some... "inability to comprehend" on your part - you wrote all that, ON the internets, to purposefully cause "inconvenience or needless anxiety to another".
Applying it that way wouldn't really be "being applied consistently and fairly" - now, would it?
On a positive side, it should cause all those annoying penis enlargement advertisements on the internets to disappear forever.
I don't blame the police, they're simply enforcing the law fairly and making it clear that it's a two way street.
Actually, THAT is exactly who you should blame. Along with those who created such a law.
It is a poorly written, overgeneralized law which tries to regulate and/or predict the effect of ANYTHING transmitted by "public electronic communications network" - on some imaginary "offended person".
I.e. It's fucking nonsense.
Police officer who would make an arrest under such a law is either deliberately trolling the judicial system, or is making an arrest out of spite.
The problem is that in this case, the law shouldn't exist at all whether it's for the Koran, a flag, or a poppy, but fundamentally it's got to be one or the other, either you can burn poppies, flags, and Korans, or you can burn none of them.
Well... You're half-right there.
In theory, there should be no such law. In theory, we should all be "brothers and sisters of humanity" to each other.
Then again, we live in a world of "extremists or just general dicks", who's aim is to cause emotional harm and to bully people.
As such, if we want such cases to be handled in civilized fashion by the representatives of a democratically elected government, instead of in an "eye for an eye" fashion - then we need SOME laws and regulations to handle such cases.
But they need to be better written.
And all sides - possible future offenders, those offended and the police should be both educated
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Karma's a bitch.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...I don't mean people should be unaccountable regarding their use of this right, but all accountability should be a matter of civil law only, never criminal. If you slander somebody, for example, the person should be able to sue you and get adequate compensation, but nobody should be able to prevent you from doing the slandering.
Well, to my mind, the threat of being sued into financial oblivion certainly has a chilling effect on my willingness to tell harmful lies about you (not that I would), regardless of whether it is classified as a civil or criminal penalty. We don't normally worry about this because the ability to deliberately lie about people to harm them is not considered a valuable contribution to society. The fact that the penalty applies after the fact doesn't mean it isn't a restriction on freedom of speech - most criminal penalties (including any possible penalties in this case) apply after the act is carried out.
Also, saying that speech should never carry criminal penalties seems odd. If a mafia boss orders a hit, why should they escape all criminal prosecution just because their only part in the events was speech?
I just don't think that it is possible to avoid any application of judgement or discretion when talking about rights, as if it could all be worked out like the theorems of Euclid. That's why some philosophers oppose the notion of human rights entirely - although opposing the philosophical notion of human rights does not mean that they are at all friendly to authoritarianism.
Call it "speech" or call it "expression". If someone burns the flag, are they not trying to make a statement?
"The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy."
No. The point of free speech is to prohibit governments from arbitrarily imposing on the rights of their citizens. For example, trying to prohibit certain types of expression by labeling them as "emotional gestures" and arguing that such gestures are not "useful" and are therefore not free speech.
President Thomas Jefferson grew weed, so to celebrate his birthday we'll staple pot leaves to our shirts...
Oh yeah! Well, I'm burning weed in, ah, 'protest!'
That only happens in the US and this guy would be going to a UK jail if any at all.
Male on male prison rape isn't so common outside the US.
Right.
Well, then send him to a UK boys' school.
Anything can be compensate by money in our society. Even deaths are compensated by mere money. In the end that is a very low price to pay for free speech. That said, the reason why there is no country that has absolute free speech laws has nothing to do with what can or cannot be compensate, but with governments wanting to control and limit what people think and know in order to maintain their status quo.
So, if he, say, posted "I'm the champion of the world!" on his facebook page, and a member of the Mercury estate [wikipedia.org] happened upon it...
It's a pretty safe bet that Farrokh Bulsara left no children behind for there to be an estate.
It is not only possible but very simple to allow for unrestricted free speech, it is just not a very good idea for governments and that is why we don't have it.
You seem to be unable to grasp the difference between speech and action. The mafia boss in your example won't be prosecuted for what he said, but because he ordered the murder and his hitman executed it. Speech was merely the media and giving the order is not a crime in itself. If he orders the murder and nothing happens he couldn't be charged with anything in most countries.
As per usual in these UK-vs-troll cases, they fail to report if the alleged perp posted it to his own wall [innocent] or he/she went out of his/her way to post it somewhere deliberately offensive, such as in this case a soldier memorial page [guilty]. The forthcoming guidance from our dear leaders cant come soon enough... even if its wrong it will kick-start the debate. It also seems that re-tweets are exempt from punishment in these cases as demonstrated by Mr. Robin Hood Airport guy and the many, many people who retweeted it...
In British English the word "poppy" maybe sounds like "puppy"? O_o;
The other PR stunt that legislators can pull is to modify the congressional record after the fact via revise and extend. They can insert words into their own mouths which they never uttered on the floor of the House of Representatives and have those new words be a part of the official Congressional Record. Wikipedia now states that these extended "revised and extended" remarks now come in a different font or with a special bullet-symbol preceding them, whereas in the past, it always looked like a full-and-accurate verbatim rendering of the actual remarks, even when it definitely was not
I am happy to live in a country where you cannot get arrested for posting some photo in facebook of a burning thing. You would also not get arrested for burning some national symbol (except maybe for a live national bird).
And I am happy for the puppy.
...would feel perfectly comfortable with concentration camps for the poor; but we may have staved that off for another four years.
These people will make great guards for the rest of us...
As a current resident of Dumbfuckistan, a place where 'we' elected an all-Republican state government, which I am sure that for the next few years will be a laughingstock to the rest of the world. :facepalm:
In a place where Rape is "gods will" and women are supposed to be subservient to their men, we have some ugly-ass buffalo women to go with those men, lol.
'Popular me' has actually told a female in a bar that I only date within my species. Popular, I was; lol.
...haven't we burned a load of poppy fields in Afghanistan?
Liberty is not static; it must periodically be re-conquered from those who would deny us.
It's pretty obvious to me that liberty is not static. It has to be an instance method, and a virtual one at that, given how frequently it seems to be overridden.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Emotional gestures don't actually do that.
Yes, they do. Some of the most important political statements in history have been emotional gestures.
Burning flags, burning poppies, etc. express discontent but not much else. In fact, it seems to me that these events get in the way of actually having a discussion on the issue and getting closer to resolution.
Expressing discontent with your country's leadership is one of the very, very core ideas supporting freedom of speech. Expressing discontent publicly anounces to other people who aren't happy that they are not alone, allowing movements encouraging change to grow and flourish from small groups to larger ones.
Case in point, this guy, and this guy.
We burn poppies -- and flags, and bibles -- because it's better than burning men.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Emotional gestures don't actually do that.
Really? Emotional gestures can go a long way to getting your point heard.
Anything can be compensate by money in our society. Even deaths are compensated by mere money.
I don't even know how to argue against such an absurd position. It is self-evident that no amount of money can compensate someone whose life has been taken or whose quality of life has been destroyed, because no amount of money can undo the damage.
That said, the reason why there is no country that has absolute free speech laws has nothing to do with what can or cannot be compensate, but with governments wanting to control and limit what people think and know in order to maintain their status quo.
Well, I'm glad you have sufficient insider knowledge of every government in the world to explain their reasoning to the rest of us.
Does it not even occur to you that some people might rationally believe that an absolute right to say whatever you like, no matter how damaging or unfair, without any adverse consequences should not outweigh every other basic right and freedom?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Even if it is illegal (which is debatable), it does not warrant an arrest. A fine of, say, 100 GBP would be ok. However, an arrest is grossly disproportionate. It does not serve any purpose, either, except intimidating people post stuff online that could be slightly offensive.
Are all your accounts modded to oblivion now, roman_mir?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think you could accuse him of being yet another of roman_mir's sockpuppets without having to worry too much.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not so sure, to be honest. People believed in law and order - and respect - in those days. I suspect a fair few WW2 veterans would have been more than happy to give him a good kicking.
As for freedom of speech, they don't seem to be publishing his name and address.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Does it not even occur to you that some people might rationally believe that an absolute right to say whatever you like, no matter how damaging or unfair, without any adverse consequences should not outweigh every other basic right and freedom?
Oh, I do recognize that there are such unenlightened people, but they fail to grasp the consequences of their misguided beliefs, as you do.
In the case of offensive speech there's certainly a case to be made that it works one way.
Actually, no, history of the western world shows it's often been the other way. It used to be that people were put to death for causing offence in western countries. Blasphemy, insulting royalty and such like.
If movement can happen in both directions, then it's not a slippery slope.
Oh, lets be clear. Loons like you will see slippery slopes everywhere. That doesn't mean they're actually there.
Unfortunately, we've already allowed this to occur. If someone is "offended", you can and will be fired in most places. When did we gain the right to not be offended?
Just another day in Paradise
... fighting when Hitler wanted to invade?
In Reason We Trust
Compensation is just that, compensation. Its intent is to give back something to a damaged part, not to rewind time.
compensate, v. tr.
1. To offset; counterbalance
2. To make satisfactory payment or reparation to; recompense or reimburse
You can't counterbalance a human life with any amount of money, nor make a satisfactory payment or reparation for destroying someone's quality of life with any amount of money.
By our society laws compensation is done by money, period.
You're conflating laws with ethics, or worse, implying that ethics are dictated by laws. This is always a dangerous argument, and any reasonable legal system works on the opposite basis.
You're also defeating your own original argument in a way, because by our society's laws you also don't have an absolute right to freedom of speech anywhere in the world AFAIK.
Nobody is saying that money will bring the dead back, but after they are dead it is what can be done.
Right, so maybe we should try to avoid killing people (or, more likely given the subject at hand, destroying their lives) in the first place? We could, for example, introduce meaningful penalties as a deterrent for people who might otherwise do that. We could call those people "criminals", and specify the penalties in "laws". It's a radical idea, but people have been trying it with other unwelcome activities for a little while and so far it's had pretty good results. Unfortunately, it's also fundamentally incompatible with your idea that you should be able to knowingly and wilfully commit an act that will be damaging to another party with complete impunity.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Courts and juries compensate all the time. Life insurance companies do too. Actuarials have built a profession on the calculations of compensating loss of life and reduced quality of life. Businesses make financial decisions all the time based upon loss compensation risks and costs.
It's absurd to pretend it doesn't exist.
Come on, he was just an addict trying to get a quick high. He figured since opium comes from poppies, he would just take a shortcut and smoke the flower.
It is absolutely incredible that anyone would moderate the parent post as flamebait. It is a simple, verifiable and accurate statement. This just demonstrates how low the human race has fallen when so many believe that speech must be silenced when they don't agree.
I guess the next step is shooting 14 year-old girls on buses that blog about education for females. Just incredible...
You can counterbalance lives with money, governments do it all the time, when they decide not to spend enough money to give expensive treatments to people, for example, or food. But I reckon that in the fantasy world you live, lives are "sacred" and cannot be measured against anything.
You do it when you decide not to spend all your money to help the people starving, for example. To you, your money is worth more than the lives of all those people starving that you could feed with it. Even for them, money to feed half their families could be worth more than the lives of the other half. You are a spoiled child who have always lived in the abundance of resources and therefore give too little importance to those resources.
Laws are obviously not dictated by ethics, but they tend to be pragmatic. They compensate damages with money because that is what can be done and that is the sole motive I cited them. I advise you to avoid trying to infer anything else from it, as you are not very good at it.
Yes, we should avoid killing people, unless it is necessary, There are many many cases where it is necessary, and "necessary" is highly subjective, like when governments kill people by cutting healthcare expenses, for example, or by raising the speed limit in a highway, or by starting a war. Compared to this, damaging people's feelings or reputations to allow for free speech is a very low price to pay. Still the former are perfectly legal actions, and the latter is not.
But, by all means, keep trying to justify what can't be possibly justifiable.
That's not compensation in the usual sense of the word, though, it's just the closest approximation you can achieve when the only tool at your disposal is money.
Trying to make an ethical argument that such "compensation" is adequate in any more general sense is like being the guy arguing that a company can do whatever it likes because it has a solid legal shield. Sure, maybe if someone dies as a result of their negligence, the executives have no personal liability and there are limited funds that can be awarded in a judgment before the legally responsible entity goes bankrupt. However, the guy who makes the decision not to implement proper safety procedures that could have saved that life because the cost of doing so was greater than the expected cost of paying the compensation in the resulting legal case is still the scum of the earth.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You're trying to change the basis of the discussion. We were talking about whether certain behaviour was ethical and/or should be legal, and whether money could compensate for any harm done by that behaviour, the point being that such harm would be avoidable by not behaving in such a way in the first place. This comes directly from your original argument that any penalty for abusing an absolute right of free speech should be civil rather than criminal. That is itself is an odd position ethically, by the way, because if you can be punished for exercising a right then it's not really a right at all, or if the punishment is financial, it's arguably a right that is granted only to those people rich enough that they can afford to enjoy it.
In any case, that is a completely different scenario to things like your example of a government not spending money on expensive treatments, because that expensive treatment has a direct opportunity cost in that it means for example that maybe two other people can't have a treatment that costs half as much but might save both of their lives instead. Medical ethics is a complicated field.
And yes, I do think life and quality of life are priceless. Obviously you can't always save everyone no matter how much you might want to, but sacrificing lives or allowing suffering needlessly and pretending that a few pieces of paper with some dead guy's picture on them can somehow make up for it is asinine. (And yes, I do put my money where my mouth is on this issue by supporting organisations that help people who don't have the luxuries that we take for granted, and yes, I always have even when I haven't had much money myself. Your repeated ad hominem attacks against me not only fail to support any logical argument you might want to make about the ethics of this situation, they are objectively also completely wrong.)
But again, this is all twisting away from the original point. Loss of life is one possible consequence of allowing absolute freedom of speech (say, if I tell a hit man that I'll pay him to kill you, or if I tell a group of violent white supremacists that you're sleeping with a black girl) but it's relatively unlikely. It's far more likely that, for example, someone's character and reputation would be irreparably damaged, perhaps resulting in spending the rest of their life in hiding, or losing their job/marriage/house/friends, after being wrongly branded some kind of sex offender/fraudster/whatever other unpleasant character that no-one wants to be associated with. This is why courts hearing defamation cases can typically order more than mere financial remedies, but even then the judges sometimes observe in rulings that no order they can make could adequately compensate the victim. And if you go to the next step, where the speech is actively inciting some sort of crime, particularly a violent one, in many jurisdictions you'll cross into criminal territory at that point.
Compared to this, damaging people's feelings or reputations to allow for free speech is a very low price to pay.
That might be your personal opinion, but I'm aware of no legal system in the modern world that agrees with you. As far as I can see, you still haven't made any sort of argument for why someone should be able to cause substantial harm to others with impunity in the case of free speech, when as a general legal principle this is rarely if ever the case under any other circumstances. You've just stated that the law should agree with you, because.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Please, by all means, keep writing long-winded posts like this without any new argument at all to desperately try to justify to yourself the unjustifiable and your own hypocrisy. It is amusing.
No, I believe that deterring dangerous driving (which excessive speed is a subset of) by fines, bans or imprisonment might reduce the probability of it happening in the first place.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If there's a realistic expectation that the listener would carry it out then both are guilty of conspiracy to murder. The speaker could also be an accessory before the fact.
Yes, if this "British"[1] man wanted to make a point that's the example he should have followed.
[1] Had he been white, the groaniad would have mentioned it, so it's odds on he was British in the same sense that Jesus was a horse.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
what the hell is a poppy?