Trying to close down debate by defining someone as racist, homophobic or Islamophobic is a favourite trick of those who want to avoid talking about certain issues…we get the race card etc deployed regularly on this site…so it is interesting to listen to 5Live’s Tony Livesey show (from about 2300) which had a fascinating little spat between someone named ‘Kate’ (didn’t catch her full name), and Brendan O’Neill from Spiked magazine…subject… ‘Freedom of Speech’.
The aggressive and opinionated ‘Kate’ I think you may agree, might persuade us of the need for curtailment of the right to free speech, which was the subject of this discussion….as she railed violently against O’Neill.
It didn’t help that she seems to have made up a ‘fact’ to enhance her argument. She claimed a barrister suggested we ignore the law and don’t prosecute men who have committed sex crimes in the past and was therefore unfit to do her job..and should be sacked. Having read the article (see below) that she was ranting about it doesn’t appear to have said anything quite so dramatic…merely saying that there should be a statute of limitations on prosecutions….that is, don’t prosecute people for minor crimes committed so long ago that genuine evidence must be well nigh impossible to find and that would anyway have resulted in little more than a ‘slap on the wrist’ at the time had they been then prosecuted.
Spiked published an article by barrister Barbara Hewson in which she talked about what she likened to a Soviet style justice system putting celebrities on show trial for sexual misdemeanours acted out many years previously.
It has raised a bit of a stink…especially as one of her recommendations is that the age of consent be lowered to 13 years.
The age of consent issue aside the rest of the article seems pretty much common sense, certainly nothing of a utterly scandalous and abhorrent nature that good old Kate seems to suggest, though Stuart Hall’s crimes were not just ‘low-level misdemeanours’…there was an allegation of actual rape.
What she is certainly right about is that many of the rights and safeguards incorporated into our legal system have been abandoned…..unelected judges able to dismiss Statute law in favour of subjective ‘human rights’, hate crimes defined as such by the ‘victim’ rather than an objective definition and the legal system used not to provide justice or a legal solution but to fulfil a social or political objective:
‘It is depressing, but true, that many reforms introduced in the name of child protection involve sweeping attacks on fundamental Anglo-American legal rights and safeguards, such as the presumption of innocence. This has ominous consequences for the rule of law, as US judge Arthur Christean pointed out: ‘Therapeutic jurisprudence marks a major and in many ways a truly radical shift in the historic function of courts of law and the basic purpose for which they have been established under our form of government. It also marks a fundamental shift in judges’ loyalty away from principles of due process and toward particular social policies. These policies are less concerned with judicial impartiality and fair hearings and more concerned with achieving particular results…’
As I said in the ‘Culture of Denial’ post yesterday, the left are moving closer to the vision of Nazi Germany every day. In the early days there was a purge of Jewish people, and many fled for other countries, we could compare this to the flight of as many who can to other countries, and those who cannot to areas where they feel more comfortable.
People deemed ‘racist’ are indeed sacked from their jobs and if this is public sector the accuser will have a nice little anecdote to relate to the promotion board about how much they have been doing for equality & diversity. This is an essential component for promotion.
I could easily imagine the young enthusiastic SS recruit recounting to his superior how he had discovered a Jew & removed him from his employment.
No way can we allow the age of consent to be 13. 13 year olds are children who might or might not be physically developed, but certainly will not have the mental or emotional maturity to agree to sexual encounters. This would be a green light to predatory adults be they hetro or homo sexual.
As regards the sexual misdemeanor of Saville, Hall et al , there is a lot of truth in the fact that kissing or inappropriate touching through clothing is being treated under the same heading as statutory rape and violent rape or fondling under clothing. All these are offensive and the disgusting perpetrators MUST be punished but there is a great difference between them and more importantly the effect upon the victims.
she spouts “you better think before you speak”
ie – no to freedom of speech then, despite the way she wishes to portray it.
just my twopenneth
immature emotionally, whether physically mature or not
at 13, means these children need the protection IN LAW.
to protect them from manipulative predators, there is little enough deterent to these scum already, to many safeguards have been abandoned, in our multicultural rainbow celebrity obsessed society, they don t need a charter to assist their deviance.
on free speech, what you can say/think, implications of doing so an excellent example and gets the problems UKIP have encountered too into focus.
” Trying to close down debate by defining someone as racist, homophobic or Islamophobic is a favourite trick of those who want to avoid talking about certain issues…we get the race card etc deployed regularly on this site……………………..”
Hardly surprising when you look at the content of many comments. It seems that nearly every article quickly moves from perceived BBC bias (sometimes on a most tenuous link) to comments on race, Islam or sexuality whether it is relevant to the original post or not.
hmm “hardly surprising” i detect a semblance, of agreement … but All bum 😀
thats real freedom of speech
you better flick back over to CIF
to get back to your comfort zone
“hardly surprising” is in relation to Alan’s assertion that “we get the race card etc deployed regularly on this site……………………..”.
Interesting that you are another who has difficulty in typing “Albaman”. Is this an affliction of the “righty’s” or an attempt at humour?
“difficulty in typing “Albaman” … oops! sorry you caught me dropping off
is that it? 😀 …
your powers of debate appear to have all but disappeared 😀
OK lets introduce some new rules onto this site then :-
No anti homosexual posts
No anti Islam posts
No anti Labour posts
And most importantly no anti BBC posts.
Will that satisfy your debating criteria Albaman ?
No what I said at all. I have no problem with open debate but in my view many comments go beyond what any reasonable person would see as acceptable and are certainly beyond what most individuals would see as decent if they were involved in a face to face discussion as opposed to “keyboard” commentary.
Can you give a precise example?
Still waiting.
Keep waiting – I have better things to do than research and “cit and paste” on your behalf.
It should not take you too much time to find examples and if not it says a lot more about you then it does me.
Since you claim that there are “many comments”, it shouldn’t take you very long at all.
I can’t do it because I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s why I asked.
” Keep waiting – I have better things to do….”
The usual Lefty response when their empty rhetoric is challenged.
So instead of tackling actual ‘isms with rational counter, you are admitting the preferred route, at least for those with the power and/or resources, is to seek to ‘close down’ any free and independent outlets comprised of varied individuals that are beyond central controls?
Lucky any entity with such ambition does not have access to limitless funding and enjoys near zero accountability to promote that.
They’d become a propaganda monopoly backed by total censorship of free speech. History may frown on that.
‘It seems that nearly every article quickly moves from perceived BBC bias’
‘Seems’ is such a tricky point from which to kick off such an argument. Other high knackered horse hall monitors may be less thrilled to see it deployed with such lack of irony too.
“So instead of tackling actual ‘isms with rational counter, you are admitting the preferred route, at least for those with the power and/or resources, is to seek to ‘close down’ any free and independent outlets comprised of varied individuals that are beyond central controls?” ………. Where did I say that?
I knew as soon as I saw ‘but in my view many comments go beyond what any reasonable person would see as acceptable’ GW would be in with a another pompous and near indecipherable comment. I’m only suprised he’s forgotten to include ‘FOI/redacted, Boaden’s black hole bla bla bla’.
He mus bore himself surely?
‘I knew as soon as I saw..
Cripes, the gamut of Germanic names exhausted already, and now a whole new selection being loaded into the drive-by poxy server to point and fire.
How many are there and, as boredom has been raised, how often can the same mantra be trotted out? Repeating the BBC’s less stellar moments to remind folk what they’d rather not see talked about is a plus though. Tx.
Avoiding the discussion and playing people must seem a fruitful (see what I did there?) policy to pursue to some.
Stick with it. It’s a rich stew.
Yes, with Onion,
NeepTurnip and now Celery, we appear to hitting our five-a-day target.That made me laugh out loud. Of course, Onion was Nicked Emus. It shows that they all collude together, and that can only be at the BBC. By being unimaginative about their names, it puts a lie to their claims that they do NOT work for the BBC. Most of them clearly do.
Your assertion that those with the temerity to disagree with the core biased BBC clique must be BBC employees is nonsense.
You say “Nonsense” albeit it is clearly true.
Onion is not Nicked emus. Nicked was a self-declared journalist, Onion said he isn’t one. Turnip is Celery, and a couple others besides that. It’s so clever it hurts. I’m just wondering why the same effort isn’t being spent over at Commentary or BBC Watch, for example.
I reckon Onion IS Nicked Emus, they both love to mention that David Vance appears on the BBC as if he should be ashamed. It’s the same Beeboid I tell ya. I don’t believe half the claims they make for themselves.
No, he isn’t. Completely different style and approach. Also, Nicked was very clear that he’s a professional, world-traveling journalist, while Onion has declared that he is not one, and didn’t mean to give that impression.
I’m sure the lurkers who are actual journalists, as well as whoever it is who keeps creating new email accounts, plus Davos/Various Vegetables get a good laugh every time we claim we know who a commenter really is. We shouldn’t give them the opportunity.
Pretty sure laughs are being had no matter what.
On a blog I’m still intrigued how anyone ‘knows’ who is who, down to professional qualifications…. especially if based on self-declared claims. Did I mention I have a Doctorate in Florida Swamp Marketing? Call me.
We’ve had Doctors who turned into doppelgängers and then back, so anything seems possible.
Maybe Demon, you should rebrand your guess as ‘analysis’. When BBC professionals do this, it seems to get accorded more heft.
Certainly there are lines that get taken. Whether by osmosis or strategic coordination who can know?
But I’ll accord a Flokker saying who isn’t as much credibility as a Beeboid saying what is… If based on ‘say so’ alone.
You may be right. So may Demon.
When confronted by oddly synergistic messaging they do seem to mount their knackered high horses on their shaky pedestals, and usually look ridiculous trying to cling on.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but for this alone such teasing seems effective.
But as you say, such vast level of effort by a fair number of folk could surely be better deployed actually addressing bias or inaccuracy discussions with fact and/or persuasive argument than plucking names off supermarket aisles to issue substance-lite, person-over-point one para drive-by’s, often barely resisting a little ad-hom play to the lurking crowd in the cubicles next door.
GW, their emails give away who they are, and the creativity behind creating the series of new ones betrays their attitude. No proxy server necessary. Just log out, and enter a new email and new moniker with an insult built into it, and away you go. They do it at Guido’s all the time. You can even “Like” your own comments afterward. Aside from that, I might just take your advice to Demon and declare everything I post “analysis”, as a kind of “get-out-of-bias-and-mistakes-free” card.
‘declare everything I post “analysis”
🙂
And a secure berth as an impartial, professional, most trusted expert editor will be assured.
There are a few other tricks from BBC Mods & CECUTT that site admins could apply too, which some who seek to test the extent of free speech in hoping of provoking… may find lengths of BBC petard equally discomfiting to end up hoist upon.
As you mentioned elsewhere, it is noticeable how they do seem to find this little site no one cares about to their (masochistic) tastes near exclusively, and are so busy here their critical faculties are too precious to risk being deployed anywhere else.
🙂
I’m guessing herbs next, if possibly missing out on ‘Sage’. Credibility can only be stretched so far.
If it keeps them indoors occupied instead of out worrying sheep there is a value, but it does still seem a curious investment of time and effort.
The irony of the numbers being thrown at this thread in particular by the distract and distort off-topic attrition waves is not lost.
‘less concerned with judicial impartiality and fair hearings and more concerned with achieving particular results’
Indeed.
Ar least my spawned aspiring nemesis but now BFF Mr. Buster did try and string a few coherent paragraphs together (until the logic fail of endlessly debating with a person who he had initially self-created to claim not to understand, sunk in), but these new grocery section guys are just plain lazy.
Dill, more like.
Dill, who used to chase his tail and go round in circles? Probably.
Its the Woodentops! Pass the Weed…
“‘Seems’ is such a tricky point from which to kick off such an argument. Other high knackered horse hall monitors may be less thrilled to see it deployed with such lack of irony too. ” …………… Does this also apply to the original post from Alan in which he writes:
“It didn’t help that she seems to have made up a ‘fact’ to enhance her argument.”
The left is always the enemy of freedom. It is inherent in it’s world view.
Desiring a perfect and impossible world the leftist claims a monopoly on truth as he perceives it. It always ends in oppression .
Saint Just, that blood soaked French revolutionary, justified his cruelty by saying that he killed mercifully. Those he killed would not have wanted to live in the new France.
The left will never change. It is always the enemy of freedom.
When comments go off-topic, as they do in most forums, it is for David Vance and colleagues to decide whether it is diluting the effectiveness of the site. It is NOT a matter for people who believe that certain issues should never be discussed under any circumstances. There’s too much of that elsewhere.
As the BBC is extremely dishonest and hypocritical about race, religion, climate change and Israel, it’s not surprising that people will use this site to identify what, in their opinion, the BBC has omitted.
Very little gets past people on this site. The anger it triggers suggests to me that apologists for the BBC are rattled. Good.
At the end of the day, if you don’t like the site, stay away. It’s not as if you’re being forced to pay for it, is it?
The racist, homophobic or Islamophobic card has been played so many times to avoid having to argue a point rationally that it no longer has much effect, even when justified.
Yes, and that’s a real problem that affects the nature of the debate.
They cry racist or homo…ic or whatever so many times, when it is not justified, that when there is a genuine example of an ism or an ..ia it goes unchallenged or ignored.
It strikes me that the fact that such examples are then ignored, as a consequence of the over-use of such epithets, allows them to make further claims of isms or ..ia’s that have, at first sight, a greater degree of validity.
And thus they skew the nature of the debate even further towards their agenda.
“difficulty in typing “Albaman”
C’mon folks, it’s A-L-B-A-N-I-A M-A-N
Now how hard is that
🙁
Obviously a little too difficult for you!!!
At 12.46 you responded to Joshaw’s request to back up your argument with examples. You responded along the lines that you were to busy and had better things to do.
Was to above response one of those better things you have to do?
Yes.
On dear your a fantasist.
When Allbumman was asked to give an example, he dribbled ”He was far too busy”. Yet he’s spent all day banging dementedly on the computer keyboard, 9 comments and counting.
Cue a musical interlude….
When this country had had unprecedented immigration imposed on it over the last 15 years, a lot of that from Islamic countries, it is hardly surprising that it is a hot topic. Remember, we weren’t asked if we wanted it and we are in danger of becoming Balkanised because of it so to belittle peoples concerns is downright wrong.
Grillocks i meant has had!
I should point out that this was supposed to be a reply to this from Aldiman. I unfortunately posted it in the wrong place.
Albaman says:
May 10, 2013 at 10:33 am
” Trying to close down debate by defining someone as racist, homophobic or Islamophobic is a favourite trick of those who want to avoid talking about certain issues…we get the race card etc deployed regularly on this site……………………..”
Hardly surprising when you look at the content of many comments. It seems that nearly every article quickly moves from perceived BBC bias (sometimes on a most tenuous link) to comments on race, Islam or sexuality whether it is relevant to the original post or not.
Yes I agree Albaman
Something like this below is typical.
BBC employee, Albaman, A Scotsman who hates or loves Islam because it regards homosexuals as perverts.
Since when is telling the truth racist? There’s a world of difference between the old National Socialist description of Jews as verminous parasites undeserving of life and saying that too many of the followers of Islam tend to resort to extreme violence over any perceived slight, engage in terrorist activity around the world and show a marked sexual preference for under-aged, vulnerable white girls. That Islam is also homophobic and sexist cannot be denied, and should a follower decide that Islam isn’t for him, then he risks being executed for being an apostate. Tell me Albaman, how many racist lies have a outlined in my post?
This debate is based on the principle that a tolerant society must be tolerant of not just all speech, but all behaviours except what is criminal.
OTH tolerating the intolerant such as Islam, which will never tolerate other opinions except Islamic, will be signing our own death warrant. Yet, as Islam claims to be a religion, we have to grant it protection from unfettered criticism, even though no other religion is granted such rights.
The result of trying to regulate free speech then ends up in having to categorise what is acceptable and what is not, on a scale of acceptability. Thus we have a scale of unacceptable free speech as
1. Racist
2. Homophobic
3.Islamophobic
being the top three. The only acceptable authority to categorise the “unacceptable” becomes, quite naturally, the judiciary.
I don’t blame the judiciary, as this unsolvable problem created by liberalism, has been dumped in their lap.
As far as I’m concerned a ‘tolerant society’ treats violent people as they have treated others;
that is the ‘tolerant society’ tolerates them just enough to use their own behaviour and methods against them.
It may appear intolerant at times, but the message should be clear:
‘Do as you would be done by”.
Throwing acid in a woman’s face not so ‘culturally’ appealing now?
I think the lefties are more worried about the words people use than violence.
They are not very intelligent, so are unable to retaliate with words, so they prefer to ban “Free Speech”.
It is why less civilised countries and socialist societies in the past banned “Free Speech”.
Evidence that you should not put job adverts in the Guardian newspaper, for it has turned the BBC against “Free Speech” due to the type of morons that have been recruited.
The traitorous Far-Lefties are very concerned with the words people use, and try to limit what can be said in order to limit what can be thought or discussed.
A clear example is in the water-melon Greens shifting re-definition along the lines of:
global warming
man-made global warming
Catastrophic Anthopogenic Global Warming
climate change
Obviously they switched from the scary names as the scam became more transparent, and switched to ‘climate change’ as everyone knows the climate changes. The water-melons then tried to make out that sceptics were in denial about ‘climate change’, even though those sceptics were the ones querying whether the technology our civilisation depends upon had anywhere near as much effect as natural climate change.
That is not to say that all climate scientists are scammers, and equally not all the political left want to remove democracy in the name of ‘social justice’ or ‘peace in Europe’ or ‘white Liberal guilt’.
Some on the political left would like all children to have as good an education as is provided by Eton; some on the Far-Left want most children (though not theirs) to have a constrained and limited education to stop them thinking, discussing and arguing, and possibly supporting different politics.
From this perspective, where do you think the BBC stands?
At the moment I think the BBC stands on whether or not it can continue to censor climate science, scientists and scientific debate. Censoring Atmospheric Physics and Astronomy is essential if the BBC is to continue supporting the left-wing climate change dogma.
By censorship, the morons at the BBC think they can continue to convince the viewers that there are deniers who deny that the climate changes.
But the viewers read the hated right-wing newspapers, so they realise that the deniers are scientists who deny the dogma because of scientific facts.
Good point.
Very likely the reason they spent so much on lawyers to resist FoI requests and to hide the information showing that their ‘expert’ climate ‘advisors’ were predominantly Green activists, rather than independent scientists.
Freedom of Speech. Censorship. And associated dilemmas…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22464290?ocid=socialflow_facebook_bbcnews
An interesting one given the BBC has handed a fair old chunk of its interactive presence to a free US-based social media site.
Interesting what makes it to ‘Editor’s Pick’:
189. Adam
COMMENT NUMBER 189 IS AN EDITORS’ PICK
Why don’t Facebook users just ‘unfriend’ those that post offensive content? Your Facebook feed is something you create yourself by the people you connect to.
I would rather police my own feed than demanding censorship. It’s disappointing to me that so many people demand an external authority decide what they are allowed to see.
I wonder how many of the more vocal demanders here would find themselves in intense debate with this poster or the Editor selecting it?
Get in quick. It’s still open… for now. But the BBC doesn’t really do irony too well.
“But after the BBC revealed that one of its own safety advisers – the head of the Family Online Safety Institute – had criticised its decision, the firm announced a U-turn, saying it would remove clips showing beheadings while it re-evaluated its rules.
That potentially opens a can of worms. ”
By that standard there must be a few wriggly invertebrates at the BBC, no?
if i remember right, it was katie hopkins the successfull tory business woman who they pitted against brendan o neil.boy does that woman take no shitt of the socalists and tells them as it is……http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Hcy3EX8ac
Alan,
“Trying to close down debate by defining someone as racist, homophobic or Islamophobic is a favourite trick of those who want to avoid talking about certain issues…”
That’s hilarious Alan.
David Vance threatens anyone suggesting he is a “racist bigot” with legal action.
I have had my comments deleted and been blocked from posting on this site for no other reason than describing something you said as racist.
Sounds a bit like “closing down debate” doesn’t it? Hypocrisy? Alan? Never!
Meanwhile a regular poster here has fantasised (on more than one occasion) about getting a gun and shooting every Muslim he can find.
What a perversely twisted blog this is.
The place where describing someone’s comment as “racist” is considered more offensive than threatening to murder random people because of their religion.
It saddens me to agree even slightly with someone like Dez.
Haha! I’m cooking your favourite (Toad in the Hole) next Thursday. Will you be round at your usual time? x
p.s. I got those “things” you asked for 😉
Oops.
I think that anyone who has actually fantasised about murdering Moslems, or anyone else for that matter, should have their comments removed and a swift banning. That is hate speech, and is rightly illegal. On this I agree with Dezi, although I never saw his post that got him his banning so can’t comment if I think it was deserved or not.
Didn’t Jeremy Hardy talk about shooting BNP voters in the head?
Marcus Brigstocke did, on “The Now Show” within the last few years; although I’m not sure about Hardy, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
I saw the post and can’t say I saw anything that warranted a banning. That said, it’s not my blog to decide on, and if those in charge think they got it about right, I’m surprised that isn’t good enough for defenders of the BBC.
‘I’m surprised that isn’t good enough for defenders of the BBC’
A different time.
And different standards?
As a metaphor for so many instances where those who proclaim to dislike certain locations opt to squat within them to then moan about their new hosts, when those they support would be less conciliatory, it’s not bad.
Anyhoo, the sun is out, and I’ve noticed this drives the Flokk indoors. An entire wing is currently active. Vets and newbs. The OT & training budgets must be draining fast.
Time to top up on the Vitamin D. It will be interesting to see if any of them get to a point where… well, just get to a point would be a start.
I’m not a fan of banning, really. I’d rather use things like that and Dez’s wrong-headed accusations of racism as teachable moments. If someone continues to make comments that seem hateful and never posts anything useful about BBC bias, then they should be encouraged to leave, and then banned if they don’t learn.
The less of that sort of thing and the more comments discussing BBC bias, the less people like Dez and the Veggie Tales rejects will bother us. After all, Dez doesn’t really give a damn about defending the BBC, nor do, I suspect, most defenders of the indefensible. He’s here to fight with and anonymously libel and defame people whose political views he doesn’t like, and little else.
If all these people were so dedicated to the BBC itself, you’d see them all over places like Commentary, BBC Watch, and the Spectator. And they’d be equally outraged every time some pet BBC comedian does a racist imitation of a Chinese person (practically a weekly occurrence somewhere amongst the endless stream of topical comedy panel shows), the “ching-chong” crap that wouldn’t be allowed on national broadcast networks in a certain country they all do think is full of racists.
Yet, they spend all their energy on this tiny little blog which supposedly nobody reads and they claim is nothing more than a far-right echo chamber.
All defenders of the indefensible are welcome to correct me, and show evidence of their complaints to the BBC and scolding comments on the other sites I’ve mentioned.