How does one challenge or address the concept of hate speech without being arrested or cancelled by the authorities who have the power to do so? We know that hate is an emotion and is, basically, in the eye of the beholder so, if the beholder is a politician, policeman or judge, how does one challenge them? I've often wondered why people about to be guillotined back in the day in France always seemed to walk up the steps calmly, people about to be hanged calmly stand still whilst the noose is put over their heads. Maybe it's not true and they were all dragged screaming but, if not then they must all have agreed that they were part of the legal/moral/political system and they agreed to their deaths being necessary. I like to think that George Orwell would have gone screaming out defiance but would he? Why didn't the person found guilty of shouting at a police dog scream the court down? I wonder...
1. We needed (and need) lawyers (including academics and experts on jurisprudence) to assert the basics of English common law - so that only specific things are illegal. Above all, based on actions not ideas nor concepts. But I'm no lawyer - hence my resentment that they seem to have been negligent - just interested in the power and money. It's shocking to hear that one can commit an offence by saying something one knows to be wrong, which someone may find disturbing.
Does that mean flat-earthers should be prosecuted? I don't believe anyone actually thinks the earth IS flat - but some claim to. How can this anyway be assessed?
2. The law has an inbuilt aspect of 'awe', so most of us feel some of that. I guess even when punishments were horribly harsh, unless someone was wrongly convicted (very common) they'd at least feel they'd committed a crime. But speech and thought crime are completely different.
3. So many of these currently being sent down for - say - shouting at a dog have been fooled into pleading guilty (by the police, it seems) to avoid lengthy remand.
During all the lockdowns and nonsense I carried on walking my dogs whenever and wherever I chose and for as long as I wanted. I secretly hoped I would be stopped by the police. I drove to London to collect a lonely daughter when it was supposedly against the law. I had my line all worked out - I wanted to be arrested and charged because I would have refused to pay a fine for an offence which wasn't really. I wanted to go to court and laugh at them all for saying the government had the right to stop me acting normally. I do not recognise the right of the state to tell me how to live. Nobody really seemed to take them on did they? People paid the fines just like they pay parking fines. In my own little-person way, I absolutely refuse to play these silly and scary games but, of course, I am a little nobody who isn't really likely to be arrested for anything. Like most people. Unless I shout at a professional dog, apparently, and, as a preferrer of dogs over people sort of person, that's very unlikely to ever happen!
Well done! I suspect if more people did this, they'd realise none of us are 'a little nobody'. They rely on intimidation and self-censorship, self-regulation - aided by a dumb media class.
Yes , nice one - I found necessary on more than one occasion to take toilet rolls to my ageing parents- never pulled. I was in work the whole time ( that is another belter) every day during ‘lock down’ when driving to and from, breaking landspeed records with wild abandon and gusto - I only ever saw plod once and that was surprise surprise coming out of Dominoes !
Great article, as always, thanks. It’s truly terrifying, and of course demoralising - but I suppose that’s the point, they want us to be demoralised. I’m amazed at how many people I work with, and interact with more generally, that just don’t seem to understand these things are happening, and really don’t seem to be overly concerned either. They go along with that which the regime wants them to go along with - trotting out the various niceties about ‘inclusivity’, ‘diversity’, transvestites and the like. Recently I was publicly upbraided in a meeting for saying “manning” and not ‘workforce’. I shall continue to say ‘manning’ whenever I want. I rail against the self imposed rules that support all the ridiculous legislation; these are so constricting and controlling one would probably be fired before breaking any of the absurd things we now have to call laws.
I’m genuinely depressed and would become an immigrant myself but I fear I’m too old now. I’ll have to stick it out here. I can’t work out how to fight back (rioting isn’t really my scene). I shall continue in the way Solzhenitsyn demanded; by never going along with that which I know is a lie, but I can’t really see what else there is to do. Write to an MP?! We all know the answers I’d get. I shall have to accept that the way things are going a prison sentence or two is highly probable, merely for airing my thoughts, which in a sane world would be considered far from extreme. If all I hear is true I’ll probably also have to accept that I’ll get stabbed in prison by some extreme Muslims. I write this looking out of the window and at the numerous Muslim (Moslem?) asylum seekers that now live around me. They leave their shoes and bits of furniture outside their houses. This whole area has changed immeasurably in only about 12 months. I’m not allowed to say anything apparently. And my depression isn’t helped by watching the busybody do-gooders (the indigenous ones) dropping off food that they have made for them, and presenting them with no longer needed bicycles and other trivial items. Why do they do this? I imagine the Le Creuset doesn’t get returned cleaned, but maybe I’m just being unpleasant.
Sorry, the second half of that may be considered not relevant to the subject at hand. Again, great article. Thanks.
Many thanks - I write these for responses like this! Impossible not to feel as you (and I) do, but you ARE allowed to speak. Self-censorship is their main weapon - don't give in to it.
You’re very kind, thanks. I WILL continue to speak, I will not ever give in and I will not self-censor. I hope none of our small, but elite band ever will. And please keep writing!
I was horrified listening to the broadcast last night- I really did not realise how much legislation was there to ‘charge’ us proles with who don’t do as we are told. My god-and it is not just one law, but layer upon layers of different’ ‘acts’ with ,multiple sub categories- the really noticeable one in 1986!! Then all the equalities act et al from our dear Bliar and soon the ‘online safety act’
I only realise the extent of this last night!! and I thought I was ‘slightly’ in the know😩nowhere near.
My big over riding thought was ‘how on earth did these things get passed in parliament!! How did we let it happen
why have they not been’condensed’ rather than layers added.
I’m surprised more of us are not locked up for calling someone say a twat!!!!
That is the ‘threat’ I suppose - self censor or we’ll pass more😳
How does one challenge or address the concept of hate speech without being arrested or cancelled by the authorities who have the power to do so? We know that hate is an emotion and is, basically, in the eye of the beholder so, if the beholder is a politician, policeman or judge, how does one challenge them? I've often wondered why people about to be guillotined back in the day in France always seemed to walk up the steps calmly, people about to be hanged calmly stand still whilst the noose is put over their heads. Maybe it's not true and they were all dragged screaming but, if not then they must all have agreed that they were part of the legal/moral/political system and they agreed to their deaths being necessary. I like to think that George Orwell would have gone screaming out defiance but would he? Why didn't the person found guilty of shouting at a police dog scream the court down? I wonder...
Thanks for these interesting points!
1. We needed (and need) lawyers (including academics and experts on jurisprudence) to assert the basics of English common law - so that only specific things are illegal. Above all, based on actions not ideas nor concepts. But I'm no lawyer - hence my resentment that they seem to have been negligent - just interested in the power and money. It's shocking to hear that one can commit an offence by saying something one knows to be wrong, which someone may find disturbing.
Does that mean flat-earthers should be prosecuted? I don't believe anyone actually thinks the earth IS flat - but some claim to. How can this anyway be assessed?
2. The law has an inbuilt aspect of 'awe', so most of us feel some of that. I guess even when punishments were horribly harsh, unless someone was wrongly convicted (very common) they'd at least feel they'd committed a crime. But speech and thought crime are completely different.
3. So many of these currently being sent down for - say - shouting at a dog have been fooled into pleading guilty (by the police, it seems) to avoid lengthy remand.
During all the lockdowns and nonsense I carried on walking my dogs whenever and wherever I chose and for as long as I wanted. I secretly hoped I would be stopped by the police. I drove to London to collect a lonely daughter when it was supposedly against the law. I had my line all worked out - I wanted to be arrested and charged because I would have refused to pay a fine for an offence which wasn't really. I wanted to go to court and laugh at them all for saying the government had the right to stop me acting normally. I do not recognise the right of the state to tell me how to live. Nobody really seemed to take them on did they? People paid the fines just like they pay parking fines. In my own little-person way, I absolutely refuse to play these silly and scary games but, of course, I am a little nobody who isn't really likely to be arrested for anything. Like most people. Unless I shout at a professional dog, apparently, and, as a preferrer of dogs over people sort of person, that's very unlikely to ever happen!
Well done! I suspect if more people did this, they'd realise none of us are 'a little nobody'. They rely on intimidation and self-censorship, self-regulation - aided by a dumb media class.
Yes , nice one - I found necessary on more than one occasion to take toilet rolls to my ageing parents- never pulled. I was in work the whole time ( that is another belter) every day during ‘lock down’ when driving to and from, breaking landspeed records with wild abandon and gusto - I only ever saw plod once and that was surprise surprise coming out of Dominoes !
Great article, as always, thanks. It’s truly terrifying, and of course demoralising - but I suppose that’s the point, they want us to be demoralised. I’m amazed at how many people I work with, and interact with more generally, that just don’t seem to understand these things are happening, and really don’t seem to be overly concerned either. They go along with that which the regime wants them to go along with - trotting out the various niceties about ‘inclusivity’, ‘diversity’, transvestites and the like. Recently I was publicly upbraided in a meeting for saying “manning” and not ‘workforce’. I shall continue to say ‘manning’ whenever I want. I rail against the self imposed rules that support all the ridiculous legislation; these are so constricting and controlling one would probably be fired before breaking any of the absurd things we now have to call laws.
I’m genuinely depressed and would become an immigrant myself but I fear I’m too old now. I’ll have to stick it out here. I can’t work out how to fight back (rioting isn’t really my scene). I shall continue in the way Solzhenitsyn demanded; by never going along with that which I know is a lie, but I can’t really see what else there is to do. Write to an MP?! We all know the answers I’d get. I shall have to accept that the way things are going a prison sentence or two is highly probable, merely for airing my thoughts, which in a sane world would be considered far from extreme. If all I hear is true I’ll probably also have to accept that I’ll get stabbed in prison by some extreme Muslims. I write this looking out of the window and at the numerous Muslim (Moslem?) asylum seekers that now live around me. They leave their shoes and bits of furniture outside their houses. This whole area has changed immeasurably in only about 12 months. I’m not allowed to say anything apparently. And my depression isn’t helped by watching the busybody do-gooders (the indigenous ones) dropping off food that they have made for them, and presenting them with no longer needed bicycles and other trivial items. Why do they do this? I imagine the Le Creuset doesn’t get returned cleaned, but maybe I’m just being unpleasant.
Sorry, the second half of that may be considered not relevant to the subject at hand. Again, great article. Thanks.
Many thanks - I write these for responses like this! Impossible not to feel as you (and I) do, but you ARE allowed to speak. Self-censorship is their main weapon - don't give in to it.
You’re very kind, thanks. I WILL continue to speak, I will not ever give in and I will not self-censor. I hope none of our small, but elite band ever will. And please keep writing!
Will do!
I was horrified listening to the broadcast last night- I really did not realise how much legislation was there to ‘charge’ us proles with who don’t do as we are told. My god-and it is not just one law, but layer upon layers of different’ ‘acts’ with ,multiple sub categories- the really noticeable one in 1986!! Then all the equalities act et al from our dear Bliar and soon the ‘online safety act’
I only realise the extent of this last night!! and I thought I was ‘slightly’ in the know😩nowhere near.
My big over riding thought was ‘how on earth did these things get passed in parliament!! How did we let it happen
why have they not been’condensed’ rather than layers added.
I’m surprised more of us are not locked up for calling someone say a twat!!!!
That is the ‘threat’ I suppose - self censor or we’ll pass more😳
The FSU could lobby for repeals, and clarity
One problem is having lawyers as politicians - Blair was an example, also Starmer.
But the whole thing is rotten - hate crime needs to go. Law is now totally politicised.