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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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?
You're right, the UK police do have a fair amount of discretion as to what action to take. Sometimes, though, if they get complaints from the public, then they'll have to be seen to do something.
To play devil's advocate; if you allow police a lot of latitude in how to enforce various laws, you're effectively giving the police a lot of power to abuse. e.g. a racist police force may choose to always prosecute certain races, whilst allowing their own racial group to be let off with a warning most of the time.
To my mind, most police in the UK will apply common-sense to situations, so I would guess that this case has to have some kind of external agitator.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Discretion can be a tricky thing though. One of my favourites is "let's let everybody drive 20 km/h over the speed limit on the highway" thing. So 99% of the time, you are ok. But once in a while a cop will be having a bad day and decide to pull you over and give you a ticket for something that people do every day. I would much rather they set the speed limits at more reasonable levels and enforce them strictly rather than let everybody drive over the speed limit all the time and use it as a way to generate money on the day you decide to start enforcing it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
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 disagree with you. I think its the responsibility of any good citizen to ignore laws that are not just, fair, or in line with the Constitution, the Magna Carta, or etc. In fact, even if its legal within your constitution, it does not mean that it is just for right. If the people of the Civil Rights movement agreed with you, we would still have black people riding in the back of the bus in the US.
Oh we should certainly ignore laws that are unjust. Then the police should arrest us. Then we should go to court. There the law should be exposed as unjust, and overturned.
I don't think it's right to have a load of laws on the statute book which are just informally ignored. As long as they remain on the books, they retain the potential to be abused one day.
This difference is a real problem. If you do not have the right to insult then the accuser can claim that they find anything you say insulting. If you make offending someone illegal (Which we practically have) you have the same problem as exists with blasphemy laws.
Basically if you don't like someone you can claim that some arbitrary view of theirs that they have published somewhere has deeply offended you, if you can add a racial or religious slant to the perceived offense then all the better. You can now get any one you don't like arrested on the grounds that they have violated the criminal justice act.
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 find it amusing that your current speech would not fall under that protection. It's not analytic since it ignores obvious flaws with the idea (such as who gets to decide what speech qualifies). I doubt it's "discursive" in any sense of the word due to the lack of nuance and understanding. And it is only informative in that it informs us of your profound unfitness for making policy decisions.
The point of winning most wars is not to rid the world of tyranny, it is to decide who gets to be the tyrant.