Coconuts vs golliwogs vs bananas vs oreos.

[Rick]

If it's a crime how did the BBC get away with printing it?

Reactions to stupid comments can be just as stupid.

Next up thought crime and dream police...

[Gob]

The bedrock concept of free speech is that the government may not take sides so as to suppress any particular opinion, expression or point of view, no matter how offensive it my seem to the delicate sensibilities of others.

The bedrock of the US concept of free speech is that the US government may not take sides so as to suppress any particular opinion, expression or point of view, no matter how offensive it my seem to the delicate sensibilities of others, other countries see it different.

By the same token, the government may not impose restrictions on such protests beyond those that are absolutely necessary to maintain access and orderly flow of traffic; i.e., the government cannot prohibit you from calling staff and clientele "baby-killers."

By the same token, governments outside of the US may impose restrictions on such protests beyond those that are absolutely necessary to maintain access and orderly flow of traffic; i.e., the government can and should prohibit you from calling staff and clientele "baby-killers," as it is likely to cause a breach of peace.

[Sue U]

the government can and should prohibit you from calling staff and clientele "baby-killers," as it is likely to cause a breach of peace.

And by this rationale the government can and should prohibit you from protesting government policies, demanding social reforms, or offering criticism of anyone in any manner. Just shut up, sit down, keep in your place and do what you're told, then there won't be any trouble at all.

No thanks.

[Lord Jim]

The kind of proscriptions on speech that apparently exist in this anti-democratic law, can be found in many of the "hate-speech" rules and regulations on University campuses all around this country.

Though not, fortunately, enshrined as law for the general public.

We can stand here and engage in an orgy self congratulation (not my favorite kind of orgy, but you take 'em where you can get 'em... ) over the fact that we don't have that sort of idiocy going on here;

However, I for one am well aware of the fact that we have folks in this country who would be delighted if they could get away with imposing just such "standards"...

ETA:

The smoke Nazis, (who apparently know no limits) strike me as one bunch who would dearly love to go down this road...

It doesn't require a lot paranoia or imagination to envision some chuckleheaded town council person in some jurisdiction in California proposing an ordinance that would make it a crime to advocate smoking...

Such a lame-brained proposal almost certainly wouldn't survive a court challenge, but I have no doubt that there are folks who would have no problem with it.....

[Gob]

And by this rationale the government can and should prohibit you from protesting government policies, demanding social reforms, or offering criticism of anyone in any manner. Just shut up, sit down, keep in your place and do what you're told, then there won't be any trouble at all.

No thanks.

If you want to take it to extremes, yes. But you have to realise that some of us are not as afraid of our government as Americans seem to be.

[Lord Jim]

I think Sue's got a legitimate point on the issue of "content" versus proximity....

If I take her point correctly, she's not saying that people should have a right to express their speech or assemble anywhere any time, (see my Rose Garden and Bay Bridge examples) but that they have a right to express the content of their speech, somewhere sometime....

Correct me if I'm wrong Strop, but as I read that article, what this woman is facing prosecution for is not for acting like an ass at a public meeting....

It is for the content of her speech....

It is what she, said, not where or how she said it that is the issue...

It is that she dared to express a boneheaded and bigoted view that apparently is not on the list of officially approved opinions...And for that she can be legally prosecuted....

And so once again...(man I hate doing this...)

I am forced to agree 100% with Sue....

And I am also grateful for the fact that I don't live in a country where such a thing would even be considered....

[Gob]

I'm grateful that I live in one where recourse to action against such racist slurs, by a professional within the work context, is avaiable.

It's her lack of professional standards she is being taken to task for, not the content of the speech.

I

[Lord Jim]

I'm grateful that I live in one where recourse to action against such racist slurs, by a professional within the work context, is avaiable.

I'm sorry Strop, but how does that principle apply here?

Unless I'm seriously misreading that article, the idea of a "professional in a work context" doesn't even apply...

This appears to have been the boneheaded comments of a "community activist", (elected to nothing and employed by no one relevant to this incident) spouting of to a local elected official at a public meeting....

What am I missing here?

[Lord Jim]

Let me be clear here...

I'm not trying to defend this woman's words...

In my view, she's an ignorant, racist, bigoted buffoon....we have these sort of gadfly morons showing up at public meetings in this country all the time.....

But we don't criminally prosecute people here, merely for being racist, bigoted ignoramuses, who express their racist, bigoted ignorant opinions....

[Gob]

Jim, she's a councillor, an elected local representative on the City council. (I'm not sure of the equivalent US position.)

The matter went to a local and then a national standards hearing.

The CPS decided to prosecute, I'm thinking this is a test case for further possible cases which could occur.

Although I do think, and agree with you and Sue to an extent that this may be taking things too far, prosectution for racist vebral attacks isn't per se a bad thing.

[Lord Jim]

Jim, she's a councillor, an elected local representative on the City council.

I stand corrected. In re-reading the OP, this was a a case of one local elected official attacking another...

But that really doesn't change my point...

prosectution for racist vebral attacks isn't per se a bad thing.

Well, I suppose that depends on how one defines the word "attacks"....

To elaborate:

In my view, while Phelps and his twisted bunch have no right whatsoever to spew their filthy venom at the graveside where heroes are being mourned and buried, and laws preventing that from happening are entirely Constitutional and appropriate, this scum does have a right to believe their pathological garbage, and to spew it in their "church", or even on the street or in a public park, so long as they follow the law.

As i said in an earlier post, I don't believe the Nazis had a "right" to march down a street in Skokie Illinois where a large number of Holocaust survivors were living.

But they did have the right to be Nazis, (sick, twisted fucks that they may be) and to hold and express their sick twisted fucked up views, without being criminally prosecuted for holding and/or expressing sick twisted, fucked up views...

No matter how odious and offensive they may be to most of us....

Putting up with this garbage is something that we here in this country see as part of the price we pay for the liberties we enjoy...

Perhaps there's a cultural schism between us on this point...

[Sue U]

It's her lack of professional standards she is being taken to task for, not the content of the speech.

Um, not so much. For her professional misconduct, she was reprimanded and suspended from council following local and national "standards hearings," whatever they are. But this latest action is most specifically a criminal prosecution for the content of her speech -- for expressing her opinion of another council member using terms that, as Jim aptly put it, are not on the list of officially approved opinions:

Although she apologised a few days after the comment, and on several occasions, the matter went to a local and then a national standards hearing.

Brown was reprimanded, briefly suspended from the council and then reinstated. But months later the case escalated when she was charged under the Public Order Act with using "threatening, abusive or insulting words, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress".

It's a serious charge which comes with the threat of a criminal record.

Again, Gob, this is a criminal prosecution for what is at most a rude remark made during a political debate and concerning the suspected motives/allegiances of another politician. At bottom, this is nothing less than state action to suppress one public figure's opinion of another -- which even you admit is a "test case" for future prosecutions. I simply can't understand how you could see this as anything other than terrifying in its implications.

some of us are not as afraid of our government as Americans seem to be.

Maybe you should be.

I am not at all afraid of my government; I know that it is properly restrained by our constitutional guarantee of free speech. No one can prosecute me for a rude or impolitic comment, especially concerning a public figure. In the U.S. we have the right to be assholes, to think that others are assholes, and to call each other assholes as we deem fit, in the terms that we choose to use. It is a freedom I cherish.

And so once again...(man I hate doing this...)

I am forced to agree 100% with Sue....

Get used to it.

(But seriously, Jim, there's a whole lot more -- mostly the really important stuff -- that we actually agree on than disagree on. That's what makes us Umerkins.)

[Lord Jim]

Strop, one of the primary principles that this nation was founded on was the idea that governments, unless they were subject to strong structural and procedural checks, would tend to become tyrannical. This comes through very clearly in the Federalist Papers....and runs through most of the Constitution and our basic laws. It's the reason we have the separation of powers system that we do, and also the reason we have a Bill Of Rights that has so many amendments that begin with , "Congress shall make no law"....

[loCAtek]

good thread

[rubato]

I'm grateful that I live in one where recourse to action against such racist slurs, by a professional within the work context, is avaiable.

It's her lack of professional standards she is being taken to task for, not the content of the speech.

I

The government is not entitled to regulate "professionalism" in the speech of public officials using criminal law. "professionalism" is regulated by the bodies themselves (the US congress condemning a member for call Obama a 'Liar', the state medical boards censuring an MD for racial slurs against a patient, &c). And it is precisely the content of her speech which was prosecuted; nothing else.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Gob, you may think us Yanks extremists in defense of free speech, but is this really what you would rather have as the alternative?

I can't imagine living in a society where you can be ciminally proscuted simply for a rude or intemperate comment.

Neither would I Sue and Jim.

However, there must be a "middle ground" between this sort of "PC" madness, and allowing Phelps and co to have their evil say?

The 'middle ground' is public condemnation.


In America we are not children whose behavior can be corrected by the government. The government has no competence to regulate speech.


Sue has made the important points most clearly.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Even more appropriately, it seems to me, the presence of the Westboro Baptist Scum would be a perfect occasion for a groundskeeper to pass by driving a large machine and -- purely by an unfortunate accident -- spray them all down with a powerful pesticide.

Or coat their church and homes with an inch of nice wet sloppy manure by unloading a manure spreader on them. Side spreaders give a nice even coat over a large area.

yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

And by this rationale the government can and should prohibit you from protesting government policies, demanding social reforms, or offering criticism of anyone in any manner. Just shut up, sit down, keep in your place and do what you're told, then there won't be any trouble at all.

No thanks.

If you want to take it to extremes, yes. But you have to realise that some of us are not as afraid of our government as Americans seem to be.

They you're a fool.

[liberty]

I am so proud of you guys especially Jar and Sue. The first Amendment is too important to compromise.

Jar saud:
No. There can be no middle ground. There is free speech or there is none. There is no room for compromise.

[rubato]

"Coconuts vs golliwogs vs bananas vs oreos."

There are a number of equivalents where whites or sometimes a sub-set of white society used the same kind of 'identity politics" to condemn. Calling whites who believe in social justice "nigger lovers", calling FDR a "class traitor", or most usages of "communist sympathiser".

yrs,
rubato