Since it’s under attack… everywhere, it deserves it’s own thread.
And why not start it off with the death of free speech in the UK.
And the best, imo, because according to the UK he should be arrested for it:
It’s really interesting to compare this to the Borat sketch, where he gets the entire bar to sing along with a ‘song from his homeland’, the chorus of which is ‘throw the Jew down the well’.
The real crime is calling himself Count Dankula.
What does Lord Buckethead say?
Coming to the US from Germany, it stunned me how loose people are with these sorts of jokes and remarks. It seemed more like people were hiding their own similar views and actions behind a fake veneer of NAZI-bashing (or German-bashing in general) because ITS JUST A JOKE AMIRITE LOL!!1 Germans make these types of jokes too, which is kind of my point: you should not sink so low or you will end up as just as bad. Aim higher!
It’s ok to shun assholes who make bigoted jokes.
It’s not ok to prosecute them.
The prosecution was actually for him saying “gas the jews” over and over rather than the salute itself.
Dankula is an alt right racist who hangs around with Tommy Robinson, Paul Joseph Watson (infowars) and Sargon of Cuckad.
Whilst there are issues with the prosecution and application of law and the judges remarks, none of the criticism of these legal issues should include a defence of this racist piece of shit.
tbh I’m rooting for the fucking death penalty. Alt right vermin.
Good vid btw, pretty much nails it.
What’s “not thread”?
The prosecution was actually for him saying “gas the jews” over and over rather than the salute itself.
Weird.
It’s still a silly case but that combined with his association with Spencer et all certainly gives the whole story a different tone. If you’re going to joke about being a Nazi, maybe don’t hang out with self-identified white nationalists?
I admit that actually advocating genocide is beyond joking or saying offensive things.
The crime committed wasn’t inciting hatred or hate speech - it was causing offence, an offence contained within the Communications Act.
The UK has pretty authoritarian laws regarding things like this. It has, for instance, some of the strongest libel laws in Europe, if not the world.
If it’s just “causing offence” then they should have already arrested him for his facial piercings.
Those are exactly the kinds of people that should be defended.
And then hopefully someone punches them in the face. But you don’t jail them. As Pie said, the ruling said to ignore context, so using that as a legal basis they should arrest everyone who reported it.
I don’t understand why this is a much better outcome. The person punching him will get in legal trouble for assault, and I am not so sure that getting punched in the face is more likely to lead to rehabilitation than a month in a minimal security prison (I don’t actually know what the penalty this guy might get).
It’s just weird to turn into Voltaire (channeled by Evelyn Hall) as soon as a racist is in legal trouble over horrific statements he’s made, yet as soon as any case is dropped and he leaves the court room you’ll openly advocate violence against him.
Because the government jailing someone for something they say is never going to end well.
Well being jailed wont rehabilitate him either. But punching is a personal expression, admittedly one with jail time attached to it. As I’ve said before, punching a Nazi is wrong and it will never not make me smile when someone does it.
But not government violence. I’m in favor of someone kicking his ass on their own though. Because that’s how life generally works. If you’re a dick in public, you can expect to get your ass kicked. But saying shit on Youtube isn’t something the government should be putting people in jail for unless it’s an actual threat. Being offended is not a threat of violence, no matter how offended you might be.
I’m not sure I can articulate it very well. But I’ll give it a go if you want to go down that rabbit hole.
Having citizens settle verbal disagreements with violence isn’t exactly a utopia either.
So in either of our solutions someone ends up in jail for a short time: in mine it is the Nazi, in yours it is the guy standing up to the Nazi. Let’s just say there is an equal chance for rehabilitation either way. The other difference is that in mine the Nazi doesn’t get punched.
I guess our experiences are very different because I have never lived in this kind of society.
I do understand the slippery slope argument for ‘illegal speech’. Maybe the only point we differ is that you don’t think repeatedly advocating the genocide of a racial group to be an ‘actual threat’. I do. If he was only getting prosecuted for teaching his cat to do a Nazi salute as a joke (or not), or saying on youtube he loves Hitler, or he got a Swastika tatoo, I would be agreeing with you. But as soon as you advocate genocide in public, I think that is the line for government intervention.
Punching nazis works.
Just punch them, then run away… and let folks who punch nazis get away.
Worked on Richard Spencer.
It’s older than civilization and how the world has and will always work. There is a reason people don’t go around saying horrible things to each other most of the time: it’s because they don’t want to get their ass kicked on a daily basis.
So you’re taking the pro-Nazi stance then. /s
The person punching the Nazi has made the interaction personal and taken responsibility for it. The government is acting to crush Free Speech from one of it’s citizens. I’d much rather be punched by someone who virulently disagrees with me than arrested by the State because they can do it. For one, I can defend myself against a person. If I try to defend myself against the State, the State will kill me.
I doubt that unless you lived in a cave your whole life. Saying the wrong thing has been something that gets one’s ass kicked if not killed through all of human history across all nations, creeds and peoples.
Irrelevant. Unless you want the government deciding what constitutes free speech. Imagine that the GOP and Trump got to decide what constitutes “hate speech” for a minute. It isn’t long before things like valid criticism of political figures or religions gets flagged as such and people get arrested for it.
And it was obviously a joke. It doesn’t matter if he’s a shitty human being, which by all accounts he is. It was a joke. An anti-Semitic joke, sure, but still a joke. Once you establish precedent for arresting people for fucking jokes, it wont stop.
I think we’re too far apart to really continue the entire discussion, but I found this really interesting. Where do you live? Obviously these types of things are a spectrum about what you’d have to do and where to get assaulted, but in most places in Sydney you’d have to do ALOT to give yourself a very high chance of that happening.