How a 'Whitest Kids U' Know' bit went from the Supreme Court to a Channel 5 daytime show, and what the UK is actually doing to people holding cardboard signs.
I fear our speech rights will deteriorate further if the MAGAts continue to hold and build more into our government. It's clear that the Heritage Foundation and ALEC are positioned to do just that from the local level on up.
I want to add that some of the Subreddits also restrict language. r/Texas and r.TexasPolitics have a "no disparagement" clause for Greg Abbott's paraplegia. The moderators still haven't clarified if me calling him mentally ill falls in the same category. There's a lot of hypocrisy there.
There is a distinction between what's called a "public forum" (like, for example, any streetcorner) and more private gatherings like a subreddit. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but the protections for free speech are much less in the latter case.
If Facebook, for example, said tomorrow: "This shit's gettin' out of hand and from now on we're only allowing cat-related posts on Facebook" they'd be within their rights as owners of the platform to do so. And also morally correct, because cats are AWESOME.
As a retired journalist, Steve, I am fully aware of the distinction. The Reddit platform is a private form and has the rights to control content anyway it and its moderators want. But, in the case I mentioned, if the mods have a right to ban posters or restrict subjects, I believe they have the responsibility to at least clarify or explain their criteria. After all, how can you have a decent discussion without knowing the parameters.
What seems significant to me is this is all going on with the blessing of a Labour PM in Keir Starmer, the same man extolling the virtues of a ban on social media use for children under 16 that's a thinly-veiled stepping stone to an authoritarian crackdown on what sites people of all ages are allowed to see or not see. With feckless centrists like him in charge, who needs conservatives (or worse, Nigel Farage and Reform)?
1) On dozens of occasions Palestine Action agitators have broken into military factories and caused tens of millions of British pounds worth of damages. What country wouldn’t designate them as a terrorist org? I’m genuinely asking.
2) On one of my these occasions they attacked a policewoman with a sledgehammer, causing permanent damage to her spine. Maybe don’t assault women with sledgehammers?
3) The fact that you’re portraying Palestine Action followers as just Grannies with Cardboard Signs is absurd.
Sounds like there are already laws against vandalism and hitting people with sledgehammers. Maybe just, you know, arrest and charge people with those existing crimes? And while I'm no expert on what constitutes a "terrorist organization," when I think of terrorist organizations, they tend to be groups that have been responsible for at least one death. Seems silly to lump this group in with ISIS and Hamas.
Also, my point is about free speech. Even if you think they're a terrorist organization, I don't think it should be illegal to say you support bad groups/bad causes/etc. Even if someone wants to say they support ISIS, I think they should be free to do so without worrying about the government throwing you into prison.
"Seems silly to lump this group in with ISIS and Hamas."
Exactly. More like Phillip Berrigan and the nuns. "They threw BLOOD on one of our nuclear missiles! It's TERRORISM!" (said while ignoring the explicit policy of deliberately creating terror by threatening mass death with nuclear weapons, which is, of course, NOT terrorism.) Any questions?
Donald Trump, for example, threatens to end Iranian civilization, and more recently skated even closer to explicitly threatening the use of nuclear weapons, presumably to strike terror into the hearts of Iranians so they will comply with his demands. But whatever you do, DON'T CALL IT TERRORISM.
1) If someone broke into a clinic offering gender-affirming care to trans people and assaulted a doctor (or police officer), would you consider that to be a hate crime motivated by transphobia, or just a simple assault and battery? Generally when violence is carried out in the name of of your political agenda, it gets classified as terrorism.
2) You’re perfectly entitled to that view regarding free speech; in Europe they just simply don’t take that absolutist stance and have strict laws against speech/symbols that incite hate or glorify violence. In fact that’s why many Europeans are shocked to learn that in America nudity has to be blurred on television but the swastikas and everything Fox hosts say about Muslims is A-OK.
In your first paragraph, you're conflating hate crime with terrorism.
In the U.S., domestic terrorism is distinct from international terrorism and not chargeable as a standalone crime. Prosecutors simply charge the underlying crime(s), as Parker suggested. Hate crimes on the other hand, can be prosecuted as standalone crimes, both federally and in many states.
There can be dual classification but it's rare and reserved mostly for high-causality, mass violence incidents.
Your example would be classified as a hate crime, not terrorism.
At any rate, the whole point of this piece was about freedom of speech. Saying you support a group that is socially or politically out of favor, even a terrorist group, doesn't break any laws and we should all take solace in that.
My understanding is that hate crimes legislation was motivated by a desire to protect vulnerable minority groups. Does the RAF now qualify as a vulnerable minority group?
Mark my word: given the (unstoppable) efforts of the Heritage Foundation and the other elements of the Nazi International, within 30 years there will be no free speech anywhere on Slave-Planet Earth. The zero-tolerance ChristoNazification of the failed, permanently reduced to a screwworm-theocracy shit-hole USia is but the beginning of a global conquest. Craven Neville Chamberlain pacifism rules; no nation has the power -- much less the requisite Churchillian strength of will -- to (ever) mobilize sufficient force to stop the nazification.
"you’re portraying Palestine Action followers as just Grannies with Cardboard Signs is absurd."
Yes, the people Parker is talking about are Grannies with Cardboard Signs who are being arrested because of the words they wrote on their cardboard signs. They didn't hit anyone with a sledgehammer, they just held up a sign with the forbidden words on it. And you're OK with that, I guess, because someone else hit someone with a sledgehammer.
I fear our speech rights will deteriorate further if the MAGAts continue to hold and build more into our government. It's clear that the Heritage Foundation and ALEC are positioned to do just that from the local level on up.
I want to add that some of the Subreddits also restrict language. r/Texas and r.TexasPolitics have a "no disparagement" clause for Greg Abbott's paraplegia. The moderators still haven't clarified if me calling him mentally ill falls in the same category. There's a lot of hypocrisy there.
There is a distinction between what's called a "public forum" (like, for example, any streetcorner) and more private gatherings like a subreddit. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but the protections for free speech are much less in the latter case.
If Facebook, for example, said tomorrow: "This shit's gettin' out of hand and from now on we're only allowing cat-related posts on Facebook" they'd be within their rights as owners of the platform to do so. And also morally correct, because cats are AWESOME.
As a retired journalist, Steve, I am fully aware of the distinction. The Reddit platform is a private form and has the rights to control content anyway it and its moderators want. But, in the case I mentioned, if the mods have a right to ban posters or restrict subjects, I believe they have the responsibility to at least clarify or explain their criteria. After all, how can you have a decent discussion without knowing the parameters.
What seems significant to me is this is all going on with the blessing of a Labour PM in Keir Starmer, the same man extolling the virtues of a ban on social media use for children under 16 that's a thinly-veiled stepping stone to an authoritarian crackdown on what sites people of all ages are allowed to see or not see. With feckless centrists like him in charge, who needs conservatives (or worse, Nigel Farage and Reform)?
1) On dozens of occasions Palestine Action agitators have broken into military factories and caused tens of millions of British pounds worth of damages. What country wouldn’t designate them as a terrorist org? I’m genuinely asking.
2) On one of my these occasions they attacked a policewoman with a sledgehammer, causing permanent damage to her spine. Maybe don’t assault women with sledgehammers?
3) The fact that you’re portraying Palestine Action followers as just Grannies with Cardboard Signs is absurd.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79727zeqyvo
Sounds like there are already laws against vandalism and hitting people with sledgehammers. Maybe just, you know, arrest and charge people with those existing crimes? And while I'm no expert on what constitutes a "terrorist organization," when I think of terrorist organizations, they tend to be groups that have been responsible for at least one death. Seems silly to lump this group in with ISIS and Hamas.
Also, my point is about free speech. Even if you think they're a terrorist organization, I don't think it should be illegal to say you support bad groups/bad causes/etc. Even if someone wants to say they support ISIS, I think they should be free to do so without worrying about the government throwing you into prison.
"Seems silly to lump this group in with ISIS and Hamas."
Exactly. More like Phillip Berrigan and the nuns. "They threw BLOOD on one of our nuclear missiles! It's TERRORISM!" (said while ignoring the explicit policy of deliberately creating terror by threatening mass death with nuclear weapons, which is, of course, NOT terrorism.) Any questions?
Donald Trump, for example, threatens to end Iranian civilization, and more recently skated even closer to explicitly threatening the use of nuclear weapons, presumably to strike terror into the hearts of Iranians so they will comply with his demands. But whatever you do, DON'T CALL IT TERRORISM.
1) If someone broke into a clinic offering gender-affirming care to trans people and assaulted a doctor (or police officer), would you consider that to be a hate crime motivated by transphobia, or just a simple assault and battery? Generally when violence is carried out in the name of of your political agenda, it gets classified as terrorism.
2) You’re perfectly entitled to that view regarding free speech; in Europe they just simply don’t take that absolutist stance and have strict laws against speech/symbols that incite hate or glorify violence. In fact that’s why many Europeans are shocked to learn that in America nudity has to be blurred on television but the swastikas and everything Fox hosts say about Muslims is A-OK.
In your first paragraph, you're conflating hate crime with terrorism.
In the U.S., domestic terrorism is distinct from international terrorism and not chargeable as a standalone crime. Prosecutors simply charge the underlying crime(s), as Parker suggested. Hate crimes on the other hand, can be prosecuted as standalone crimes, both federally and in many states.
There can be dual classification but it's rare and reserved mostly for high-causality, mass violence incidents.
Your example would be classified as a hate crime, not terrorism.
At any rate, the whole point of this piece was about freedom of speech. Saying you support a group that is socially or politically out of favor, even a terrorist group, doesn't break any laws and we should all take solace in that.
My understanding is that hate crimes legislation was motivated by a desire to protect vulnerable minority groups. Does the RAF now qualify as a vulnerable minority group?
I'm a little confused by this. Did you mistakenly think my reply was to you rather than Jonas Handsen or am I missing something?
Mark my word: given the (unstoppable) efforts of the Heritage Foundation and the other elements of the Nazi International, within 30 years there will be no free speech anywhere on Slave-Planet Earth. The zero-tolerance ChristoNazification of the failed, permanently reduced to a screwworm-theocracy shit-hole USia is but the beginning of a global conquest. Craven Neville Chamberlain pacifism rules; no nation has the power -- much less the requisite Churchillian strength of will -- to (ever) mobilize sufficient force to stop the nazification.
"you’re portraying Palestine Action followers as just Grannies with Cardboard Signs is absurd."
Yes, the people Parker is talking about are Grannies with Cardboard Signs who are being arrested because of the words they wrote on their cardboard signs. They didn't hit anyone with a sledgehammer, they just held up a sign with the forbidden words on it. And you're OK with that, I guess, because someone else hit someone with a sledgehammer.