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UK Men Arrested For Anti-Semitic Tweets After Football Game
magic maverick writes "Reuters reports that three men were arrested for posting anti-Semitic comments on Twitter following the English Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United in October, police said on Friday. 'Two men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested on Thursday in London and in Wiltshire, while a 48-year-old man was arrested at his home in Canning Town in London last week on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. The investigation following the match on October 6 was triggered by complaints about tweets that referred to Hitler and the gas chambers.'
I guess it goes to show, you'd be stupid to use your real name or identifying details on Twitter. Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof)."
Maybe people should be free to speak their mind without being arrested. I'd rather live in a world where someone can call me a name and not be locked up than any alternative.
Making "racism" illegal is no different that declaring thought crime. When the state can govern your speech and your thought, alls well, as long as you agree with the state. Once you don't, you're fucked. I've always argued, you can easily determine if a law is a good one by the simple thought experiment: "Once we inevitably elect the next tyrant, will this law help or hurt his ascent to power?" What do you think Hitler would have done with such a law? I think it's rather clear.
Perhaps every unthinking idiot who proclaims free speech to be 'mindless' should be reminded that this sort of power is always abused ultimately. It won't be just used to curtail racist speech, but any speech that the authorities dislike. Yet another right that once given away, will have to have much blood spilled to regain.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This! It's always the racist Republicans in the USA that whine constantly about free speech.
But where do you draw the line? If the government has the authority to arrest someone for hating Jews, then why can't they also arrest you for hating Republicans?
'The People' of course.. For example, north korea is a 'People's Republic'!
The way I would prefer to make sure that nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again is to publically ridicule the neo-Nazis, not send the police after them. The entire country pointing and saying "You people are crazy and dangerous" is a better safeguard than throwing some folks in jail. (Hitler got thrown in jail too, and look what happened to him...)
You cannot ban your way into removing things from society.
Someone who would put someone else in a cage for being rude or for having a different point of view deserves no civility.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In the United States, Antisemitism overwhelmingly comes from the political left, both the Occupy Wall Street crowd and the victimhood identity politics left that regard Islamists and Palestinians as protected species.
There are also significant amounts of Antisemitism among liberal black politicians. Indeed, Jesse Jackson seems to have lost no political influence after calling new York City Hymietown.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof).
The British (and the Europeans) have perfectly adequate laws against hate-speech, which is what these comments were likely caught by. Just because you don't know what those laws are, understand how or why they came about, or how their application works, doesn't mean they necessarily need to be reformed.
That is why the law of most civilized countries do not let people randomly punch other people in the face. Saying things you don't want to hear has nothing to do with your nose, though.
Europe has some rather strict hate crime laws because of a certain incident that happened during the 30s and 40s.
It'd be nice if they had strong free speech laws, but their history has led them down a different path.
why do american "news" people say "n-word" ?
Rich
Hate is the defamation of a group.
For example, I hate those who defame blacks by proclaiming blacks to have a higher crime rate than whites.
I hate those who defame Jews by proclaiming Jews to have disproportionate influence relative to their numbers.
I hate those who defame the poor by proclaiming the poor to have lesser capabilities than the rich.
I hate those who defame the rich by proclaiming the rich to have engaged in unfairly acquired their wealth.
I hate those who say that ugly people are ugly.
I hate those who say criminals are criminal.
Hate is Great!
Seastead this.
I find it remarkable that the world we live today, especially those in the West, people are trying to outdo each others in the "I am the best counter-racist there is" competition.
Who is *NOT* a racist ?
Who *DARE* to say that he or she is absolutely 100% free of racism ?
I am not here saying that racism is a good thing, but to point out that RACE is something that is deeply ingrained into what we are.
It's in our psyche, it's in the genes, man.
And regarding "Hate Speech" ... this bastard child of the Political Correct movement is DOING MORE HARM than good in the society.
What actually constitutes a "Hate Speech" ?
If you call a black a "nigger" is it a hate speech ?
Then what if a black person calls another black person a "nigger", is that a hate speech too ??
How about calling a Chinese a "chink", is that a hate speech ?
As a Chinese, (I can only speak for myself) I've met people who tend to describe me with many kinds of very very creative adjectives, and whenever that happen, you know what I do ?
I say "Thank you".
I thank them for letting me know how they feel about me.
It's better that I know how they feel about me up front, than to have someone who keep their grudges hidden and then backstab me at any given chance they get.
Furthermore, I respect their human rights - including their rights to say whatever they want, with their mouths.
Let me put it this way ...
I am born with a mouth, a mouth that is belonged to me. Ever since I was born, I have had the veto power over my own mouth, which includes each and every single words that I've spoken.
And as I do not wish to have other people having the veto power over my own mouth, I do not want to have the same veto power to control other people's mouths.
For me, this "Hate Speech" thing by itself is hateful.
It's a tool used by hateful people to limit other people's rights.
It's a tool to propagate hate, to make the society more hateful.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
look: it's easy for americans to grandstand and showboat on this issue, because they didn't have something happen in the usa within 80 years ago which consumed the lives of millions of people because of a hateful, racist ideology.
Ever think the reason we didn't have that happen is because of freedom of expression? That the worst that's happened here never got to those proportions because people were free to talk about it both to blow off steam and to have their hate publicly refuted?
The one thing that the US does better than any European state is cultural integration. Freedom of expression is a big part of that, we air our dirty laundry right out there in public for all to see, to duke it out in the marketplace of ideas. It ain't pretty at all, but there is no pretty solution, only varying degrees of effectiveness and they are all ugly. We let those assholes have public freak-outs so that the people on the fence can hear the response from the sane ones.
When you censor speech it doesn't go away, it only goes underground where there is no voice of reason to point out the flaws. The cure for bad speech is good speech, not silence.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
sweet geebus: a clueless authoritarian nerd in full-libertard mode...
if you are not free to make mistakes, in fact, if you are not free to do wrong, YOU ARE NOT FREE...
fucking idiot, take your authoritarian 'civility' that is used as a cudgel, and shove it up your ass...
you WILL NOT see how you are promoting the VERY TACTICS that the authoritarian state/society uses to punish and expel ANY and ALL dissenters...
'civility' my ass, the only thing you are interested in is control...
Clearly you are not an american. I feel sorry for you as you have been taught that you are not free to say what you believe. The last time people were not free to speak what they believed was when the church was in control of everything. Remember the inquisition? Question the lord, get murdered. someone says you questioned the lord? get murdered.
what you are advocating is another inquisition.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same