'I will gag the hate clerics': Cameron

[Brian Peacock]

Obviously this screams "knee-jerk".

Yup. "I will make you all less free so you can be more free!"

Let the bigots and the hate-mongers speak - that's how we tell that they're bigots and hate-mongers.

[JimC]

It's very hard to accurately word a law on speech crime.

What could "encouraging a crime" actually mean? If I said " fuck Cameron " am I inciting someone to sexually assault the prime minister? And does it make a difference if someone actually does do what I urged?

For instance, if I said "someone ought to give so-and-so a good hiding, that's one thing. But what if someone DID then give them a good hiding. Does that affect the seriousness of my crime? Even though I was being rhetorical?

In the end, you have to write the law a bit vaguely, and leave it to a court to decide the individual case.

Some good points, mm...

[Azathoth]

Incompetent organisations like the EDL don't get banned they get infiltrated by the police through to be honest I'm more concerned about UKIP. They have real sources and a few brain cells between them

You think the EDL doesn't have clever guys behind the scenes? You just get to see the footsoldiers who get sent out to cause trouble

[MrJonno]

Incompetent organisations like the EDL don't get banned they get infiltrated by the police through to be honest I'm more concerned about UKIP. They have real sources and a few brain cells between them

You think the EDL doesn't have clever guys behind the scenes? You just get to see the footsoldiers who get sent out to cause trouble

Nah the BNP has a couple but the EDL is for people who think the BNP is too intellectual

[Coito ergo sum]

[Mysturji]

Obviously this screams "knee-jerk".

Yup. "I will make you all less free so you can be more free!"

Let the bigots and the hate-mongers speak - that's how we tell that they're bigots and hate-mongers.

Don't gag them. Take the piss. Ridicule is a far more effective weapon than legislation.
(At least, ridicule is more often done effectively )

[Audley Strange]

Yep.

[piscator]

Since when does the UK care about free speech? They've got hate speech laws; might as well apply them evenhandedly.

No we don't tolerate unlimited 'free' speech just like every other country including the US.

That's a bug, not a feature.

You should be talking about how rights should only be fettered by responsibilities.

Unlimited anything is the very definition of extremism

The definition of Extremism is, "Acting outside the norm".


More apropos to you, the definition of Totalitarianism is, "1.of or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.

2.exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

[macdoc]

good on Cameron......hate laws have their place.....use em.

[Coito ergo sum]

good on Cameron......hate laws have their place.....use em.

No hate law ever created so far has been fair, reasonable, or properly enforced. They are invariably overbroad, in that they capture speech which ought to be permissible, and they are invariably vague in that it is difficult if not impossible to predict which speech is prohibited and which is permitted (making it difficult or impossible for the citizenry to comply even if they want to, except by self censoring to the point of ensuring that they are nowhere near the mile-wide and fuzzy grey line).

With whatever good intentions they may have, hate laws serve to chill speech, chill debate, chill discussion. They impose orthodoxy on the world of ideas. They place handcuffs on the human mind.

They insult the dignity of the individual who is told that there are words he cannot hear, and opinions that he is not allowed to listen to, and he is told this by other people who are no more capable of knowing what anyone is or is not sufficiently mature to hear.

As a tool of the State, "hate" speech is often enforced against the weaker squeaky wheel, in favor of the stronger or more irritating squeaky wheel. Christian groups will call anti-Christian messages "hate speech," and eventually mere disagreement and vehement political discourse will be characterized as "hate" speech. We see it with the Islamic groups, where they wish to shut up mere criticisms of Islam because blasphemy of that sort enrages them (and so such criticisms are potential causes of unrest or violent reactions in the listeners).

These laws tend to reduce discussion to the lowest common denominator, where only the most milquetoast of discussion is allowed and people must attempt to govern their behavior by only expressing things that are very unlikely to "offend" anyone. If you've ever tried to think of things that can't possibly offend or piss off "anyone", you'll see how dry discourse becomes.

No official, no bureaucrat, and no cop is qualified to know what is proper opinion and what is hate speech, at least they are no more qualified than indivduals themselves, and such rules infantalize the population, to the point where instead of engaging with each other, we further Balkanize into competing interest groups of people whining for protection from the criticisms of others.

The State and the police wind up enforcing these laws based on considerations of efficiency and avoidance of risk. They will and do err on the side of silencing the speaker in order to avoid having to do the real work of maintaining order along liberal lines. It's much easier for the cops if they just shut down a screaming Nation of Islam cleric to avoid a scene where people are pissed off at each other than to set up police lines and accommodate the competing interests. It also becomes oppressive and stifling.

[Brian Peacock]

A seminal discourse on free speech that's worth 20 minutes of anyone's time...

[Mysturji]

The definition of Extremism is, "Acting outside the norm".

Bullshit

[Audley Strange]

I'd say extremism is defined by your willingness to kill others in order to fulfil your political or cultural ideology.

[Warren Dew]

I'd say extremism is defined by your willingness to kill others in order to fulfil your political or cultural ideology.

I'd say you can be extreme without killing people over it. I'd call that "violent extremism".

[Warren Dew]

I just read that our incitement laws were abolished in 2007 and replaced with "encouraging or assisting a crime".

That should still be sufficient, no?