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Civil Liberties

The Slow Death of Free Speech in Britain (America, You're Next!)

From the Internet to the press to the public square, Brits' speech is being policed and punished

Brendan O'Neill | 4.26.2015 12:01 AM

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Freedom of speech no longer exists in Britain. The land that gave the world the Magna Carta, the Levellers, and John Stuart Mill—three of the key foundation stones of the modern conception of liberty—is now arresting and even jailing people simply for speaking their minds.

To see how bad things have got, consider three cases from the past week alone:

Twitter Crime

A man has been investigated by the police for a hashtag he used on Twitter. Seriously. Never mind speechcrime, or even tweetcrime—now we have hashtagcrime, the criminalisation even of those snarky, ironic asides people pepper the internet with. The man in question, Stephen Dodds, committed the sin of taking a photograph of two Muslims praying at Anfield, the home ground of Liverpool Football Club, and posting it on Twitter alongside the tweet: "Muslims praying at half-time at the match yesterday. #DISGRACE." That hashtag saw him become the victim of a furious Twitterstorm, the modern version of a tomato-wielding mob, and he was eventually reported to the cops. They investigated the matter for two weeks—two weeks!—before finally instructing Liverpool FC to take appropriate action against the evil hashtagger. Liverpool this week said it is deciding how to punish this man who dared to type the word "DISGRACE" on the internet.

Aggravated Meanness

2. A journalist, Katie Hopkins, has been reported to the police, and, bizarrely, to the International Criminal Court (ICC), for writing a column for the Sun in which she referred to the African migrants trying to get into Europe as "cockroaches." Hopkins is known for her outré views. She's been reported to the police before, for "hate crimes against fat people"! She said "fat people are just lazy," which is apparently a police matter now. The police didn't charge her over her fat-shaming, but they might well interrogate her over her migrant-bashing. Her cockroaches column caused the Twittersphere to go into meltdown; 285,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Sun to sack her (my preferred solution to Europe's migrant crisis is to swap these 285,000 intolerant Brits who fancy they have the right to shut down writers they don't like for 285,000 Africans who want to live in this country); and now the Society of Black Lawyers has reported Hopkins both to the UK cops and also to the ICC, demanding it investigate her comments "under the provisions of incitement to commit crimes against humanity." Am I allowed to call this a DISGRACE?

Shameful Bodies

Twitter

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has launched an investigation into the appropriateness of an advert for protein supplements which features a sexy woman in a bikini next to the words: "Are you beach-body ready yet?" The ads, which appear on the London Underground, have been vandalized by SJW feminists who claim they "body shame" the plump. More than 30,000 people have signed an online petition—again with the petitions—demanding the ads be removed because they make women "feel physically inferior to… the bronzed model." And now the ASA, overlord of advertising in Britain, which has the power to expunge from the public sphere any ad it judges to be offensive, is heeding the feminist vandalizers and subjecting the ad to one of its stiff-lipped investigations. We wait with bated breath to see if this unelected institution will graciously allow the rest of us, the 64 million people of Britain, to keep seeing this actually quite pleasant ad.

These three cases of the past week encapsulate the crisis of free-speaking in 21st century Britain. They show that no zone of British life is free from the peering eyes and always primed red pen of the new censorious set that longs to scribble out or shut down anything dodgy, eccentric, hateful, or upsetting (to some.)

The cases confirm that everywhere from the new virtual terrain of the Internet (that hashtag guy), to the old-fashioned printed press (the Katie Hopkins case), to the public square itself (that bikini ad), speech is under threat from an unholy marriage of intolerant virtual mobs, censorious Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), and state institutions keen to censor stuff in order to protect the allegedly fragile public.

And these cases aren't one-offs. In relation to the Internet, numerous people have been arrested for tweetcrimes. In 2010, a man was found guilty of being "grossly offensive" after he joked on Twitter about blowing up an airport in Nottingham that was experiencing severe delays. He was fined £385 and lost his job. His conviction was finally quashed on the third appeal. In 2012, a student was imprisoned for 56 days for making racist comments on Twitter. Also in 2012, a 20-year-old man was sentenced to 240 hours' community service for writing on his Facebook page: "All [British] soldiers should die and go to hell."

Other tweeters have been arrested and interrogated by police for making off-colour comments. In December last year, a 19-year-old man was arrested for making a joke about the truck disaster in Glasgow, when an out-of-control truck hit Christmas shoppers and killed six. The tweeter said: "So a bin lorry has apparently driven into 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash it's picked up in one day." For that, for doing what people have been doing for generations—making up stinging jokes in the wake of a tragedy—he was arrested. He was let off, but the police sent a chilling warning to us all: anyone who makes horrible jokes on Twitter we will be visited and given "strong words of advice," they said.

Various laws enable this police invasion of the online world: the Public Order Act of 1986, which criminalizes "racially aggravated" speech; the Malicious Communications Act of 2003, which criminalizes "offensive, indecent or menacing" speech in electronic media: these are the statutes the cops have used to colonise the internet.

The war on Katie Hopkins isn't a one-off, either. It follows hot on the heels of the Leveson Inquiry's creation of a chilling, choking climate in relation to the British press.

Launched by David Cameron in 2011 ostensibly to investigate phone-hacking at the News of the World, but actually having the vastly expanded remit of looking into the whole "culture, practice, and ethics of the press," the Leveson Inquiry has created a situation where Britain might soon have a press regulator set up by Royal Charter—which would be the first system of state-backed regulation of the press in Britain since 1695.

Even before that Royal Charter has been signed, Leveson has already, predictably, emboldened the petty censors in our midst who have long desired to silence offensive columnists, especially tabloid ones. As one agitator against Katie Hopkins admitted. "Leveson was a smack in the teeth" of newspapers like the Sun, he said, which should now feel less able to publish Hopkins' and others' "vicious… right-wing opinioneering." In short: A state-decreed, judge-led inquiry is leading to the castration of the press, and we should be happy about that.

As to the ASA's investigation of the bikini ad—such topdown regulation of the words and images of the public sphere has become commonplace in recent years.

The ASA has banned ads for hair products that were offensive to Christians (they featured nuns in suspenders); ads for an airline that had a woman dressed as a schoolgirl, on the basis that they could cause "widespread offence" (in fact, only 13 people complained about them); and even an ad for a supermarket that showed a girl taking the salad out of her hamburger on the grounds that it "condoned poor nutritional habits." Censorship in the UK has become so psycho that even the presentation of hamburgers is now strictly policed.

Over the past decade, our virtual world, our media, and our public spaces have become subject to ever-greater policing by both SJWs demanding bans and officials all too willing to ban. The end result is a nation which poses as liberal and modern yet where everything from pics of a woman in a bikini to naughty jokes can be subjected to official sanction, and where everyone becomes less sure of what they're allowed to say and thus tends to shut themselves up to be on the safe side. Self-censorship: the worst kind.

To this end, we sometimes haven't even needed coppers or campaigners to force the closure of allegedly offensive words or art: institutions and individuals have silenced themselves in the face of hollers of complaint.

Last year, the Barbican Arts Centre closed down a piece of performance art exploring slavery and racism after 250 protesters turned up on the opening night. ITV ditched a TV show featuring sexist comic Dapper Laughs after journalists and SJWs tweeted and petitioned against it. And numerous theatres have pre-emptively cut or changed plays that mention Muslims out of fear that Islamists will kick up a fuss. Free speech in Britain is being killed by police, officials, agitating mobs, and by us—by a culture of fear which encourages people to opt for self-silence over the possibility of causing a stir.

Americans will, I hope, be aghast at all this. The one massive difference between you and us is that you have a constitutional guarantee of free speech that shackles the state, whereas we have a long history of brave battles for press freedom and free speech, yes, but no written-down surety that such liberties will be respected or protected. Which is why they can now be so casually trampled underfoot.

And yet, Britain and America do share something scary in common on the new-censorship front: we both have new armies of the intolerant, growing groups of so-called SJWs and other agitators for the silencing of foul or simply old-fashioned views.

This is especially the case on campus. On both sides of the Atlantic, universities have become hotbeds of the new intolerance. British student leaders have banned the pop song "Blurred Lines," the Sun newspaper, and numerous controversial speakers, while American campus agitators demand trigger warnings on edgy (and not even edgy) literature and the disinvitation of anyone who offends them, and they harry and scream at anyone who holds different views to theirs: most recently the non-victim feminist Christina Hoff Sommers.

America and Britain might be divided by a piece of paper guaranteeing free speech—you have one, we don't—but we're united by a shared new generation of aspiring speech-policers. And in Britain, it has often been the demands of these informal groups of heresy-hunters that have coaxed the state to take action against eccentric or outrageous speech. How long can the First Amendment hold out against America's budding new censors? How long before the U.S. joins the U.K. at the funeral of free speech?

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NEXT: Mattress Girl Defends Right to 'Artistic Expression' in Response to Lawsuit Over Rape Claims

Brendan O'Neill is editor of spiked in London.

Civil LibertiesWorldUnited KingdomCensorshipFree Speech
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  1. Chumby   10 years ago

    Will they still publish Page 3?

    1. Harold Falcon   10 years ago

      They stopped in the print editions back in January.

      1. jay_dubya   10 years ago

        *rends garments, puts ash on forehead*

      2. Quixote   10 years ago

        Didn't they reverse the page 3 decision? At any rate, to Britain's credit, Parliament removed criminal libel from the books a few years ago and, towards the same time, the High Court threw out the famous "Twitter joke" case. But the real problem with this article is the premise that Britain is "first" and the U.S. "next." The fact of the matter is that free speech is already dying very quickly in America. So-called "hate" speech is now regularly suppressed on campuses around the country, people have been arrested around the country for writing anti-bank slogans on the sidewalk with chalk, a Twitter-user was notoriously arrested in Peoria for mocking the mayor online, and a much publicized case in New York has sneakily brought back criminal libel under the pretext of criminal satire. See the documentation at:

        http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/

    2. marslife66   10 years ago

      no, it was obviously sexist. Sad.

  2. MarkLastname   10 years ago

    "America and Britain might be divided by a piece of paper...?you have one, we don't."\
    And that's pretty much all it is. Americans can (and have) vanquish said scrap of paper by simply not reading it, or pretending you never read it.

    1. jay_dubya   10 years ago

      "Congress shall make no law" has turned out to be more a dare than a prohibition.

      1. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

        "Congress shall make no law" means "have all the laws made by other parts of the government."

        1. Gindjurra   10 years ago

          It used to be enough to say Congress shall make no law -- because only Congress could make laws. Between executive power grabs, an apathetic supreme court and Congress giving its own power away, there are an awful lot of government agencies that can make law independent of Congress.

          The thing is, if Congress delegates authority, it's still the authority of Congress behind it. Delegated authority is subject to the same restrictions, you can't evade limits on your power by having a subordinate do it.

      2. F. Stupidity, Jr.   10 years ago

        Present-day constitutional scholars agree that "Congress shall make no law" was written by a guy stifling a chuckle as he wrote it.

        1. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

          HE WUZ A SLAVE OWNER!

          1. Gindjurra   10 years ago

            If you go back far enough in any legal system you will find a slave owner.

            Are you saying we shouldn't have any laws?

            1. Fk Censorship   9 years ago

              That would actually be nice, yes.

      3. rudehost   10 years ago

        FWIW speech is a lot more free now that it was 100 years ago. If you don't believe me look up cases like Whitney V California. Naturally since this is one of the few areas liberty has actually expanded it is important to the proggies and SJW's that we fix that.

        1. Zeb   10 years ago

          I think this is a good observation. It's easy to assume that everything always gets worse. And except for in the specific areas of commercial and election related speech, free speech protection has mostly improved in the US. There used to be a lot more censorship. And even electioneering speech has become a bit more free in recent years, despise noisy calls for further restriction.
          I think there is reason to be optimistic about free speech in the US. There is plenty of reason to be vigilant and some reason for concern too. But I think we are still pretty far from going down the road the UK is on. Outside of the areas I mentioned, free speech is pretty absolute these days. You can publish any kind of wild criticisms of politicians or public figures, obscenity laws are generally ignored.
          I'm not saying things are perfect, but it's never been perfect and it's still better than anywhere else.

          1. np   10 years ago

            obscenity laws are generally ignored

            Depends on the location and if a prosecutor gets word of it. Less dependent on location if it's a Federal case. You don't hear about most cases because they're not widely reported, like this one. Only a couple were by reported by Reason like this case. Most prosecutors don't actively go after it because it's no one knows ahead of time what exactly constitutes obscenity. Usually the process is, someone complains or the Post Office opens your package, LEOs investigate, prosecutor comes to you with a plea bargain. There are also harmful-to-minor laws that's similar to obscenity but more subjective and coercive.

        2. Cap'n Krunch   10 years ago

          Or possibly you're mistaking a spurt of unconstitutionality in the nation for the history of the nation. The 1900s were the start of the era of federal growth, with the creation of the income tax the government started using taxation to commit unconstitutional social/economic engineering. With the advent of radio, television and moving pictures that 'need' for a centralized social/economic control became seen as far more important than constitution or freedom. While our first prohibition was by constitutional amendment because both citizens and politicians respected that the federal government did not have that power, and that amendment was repealed when we realized that a more powerful federal government was worse than the problem of alcohol, we quickly after that decided to just allow fiat power to prohibit anything it desired without actually giving the federal government that power. The power of the federal government to commit charity, something Madison himself could not find anywhere within the constitution he wrote, came with SSI, medicare, welfare. Power to tax or not tax speech, power not only of the federal government but even the state governments to abridge constitutionally guaranteed rights and turn our bill of rights into a bill of privileges, these all happened within the 1900's and the nation went into a biblical frenzy in the 50's. Today the democrats are just government dependents and the republicans are just democrats with bibles.

          1. rudehost   10 years ago

            I don't think so. Up until the 20th century states were completely free to restrict speech. It wasn't until the incorporation doctrine of the 14th amendment that the first amendment applied to states. See Gitlow V New York. The Alien and Sedition acts go all the way back to our founding. Lincoln famously persecuted the copper heads etc. There was an article here some time ago about libertarians romanticizing a much freer past. In some ways we were definitely more libertarian especially at the federal level but many of those statist abuses were going on in the past they were just being done by the states not the federal government.

            1. np   10 years ago

              Thaddeus Russell has talked and written about how despite having some more restrictive laws people before were much more rebellious and able to get away with more. A lot more, even by smaller groups of people. As we modernize, there's a more to loose, resulting in greater compliance, more effective social engineering, so we have to rely on the beneficence of the state nowadays.

        3. Pulseguy   10 years ago

          I grew up in the 50s. It was way worse then. In the 60s sitcoms showing husbands and wives in bed always showed them in two single beds.

          But, you could say the n-word then.

          1. Thomas O.   10 years ago

            I'm guessing that was part of the "Hays Code". And truth be told, that was part of a voluntary self-censorship effort on behalf of the media. Though you could argue that government was breathing down their necks.

    2. Denan7   10 years ago

      By definition, anyone involved in vanquishing the Constitution, it's protections of rights, liberty and freedom is *not* American. Perhaps they were American at some point, but allowed themselves to be fundamentally transformed into something else, something not-American.

      1. Zeb   10 years ago

        Definition? I thought the definition of American was someone who was born in America or who has made it their permanent home.

        1. Private FUQ   10 years ago

          Don't interrupt Mr Flag Waver. He climbed on his soapbox with that apple pie for a reason.

        2. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

          I get your point. I'm not completely sure I agree. Yes, in literal terms they are Americans. The thing is, in a real way, they're betraying the defining factor of what the country is, or at least is supposed to be, about. Is an Englishman who doesn't honor his country's traditions an Englishman? Is a Frenchman who doesn't respect his culture a Frenchman?

          1. Pinky   10 years ago

            Is a Scotsman not a true Scotsman?

            1. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

              +1 Ardbeg

              1. Zeb   10 years ago

                More than that, surely.

          2. Rhywun   10 years ago

            Is a Frenchman who doesn't respect his culture a Frenchman?

            Depends where his parents were born.

          3. Zeb   10 years ago

            Is an Englishman who doesn't honor his country's traditions an Englishman? Is a Frenchman who doesn't respect his culture a Frenchman?

            Yes.

            Cultures change and are defined by the people who make them up. If there is some special characteristic that Americans have or had at some point, give that a name, don't assume that it is identical with being American because at one point it looked that way. Loving freedom has been something stronger in American culture than in many others. That doesn't mean it is American culture. It is it's own thing and is a good regardless of it's place in any culture or national identity.

            1. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

              I get your point. I still don't agree. Qualities to some extent define cultures. Or at least give them a reason for being beyond just historical accident. An American culture that abandons its "civic religion" of constitutional republicanism is as pointless as an English culture without its traditions or a French culture without, well, its culture.

        3. Akira   10 years ago

          Obligatory.

        4. Gindjurra   10 years ago

          There's a reason military personnel and public officials swear to defend the constitution from its domestic enemies, not just its foreign ones.

      2. Vampire   10 years ago

        But slavers like you believe government will follow the constitution, and keep their power limited. After you've lied to yourself, waved your flag, and told yourself you support freedom and liberty, do you then go and vote others into slavery.

  3. yutowo   10 years ago

    pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
    This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

  4. Sanjuro Tsubaki   10 years ago

    Speech codes are just the legal precedent for the eventual muslim ruling class to use to turn the UK into another Pakistan.

    OTOH, nevermind I didn't say that.

    1. JeremyR   10 years ago

      Pretty much. They are using the gullibility of leftists.

      1. Mike M.   10 years ago

        It's not all gullibility. The psychotic left has consciously chosen to ally themselves with the Islamonazis because they share their virulent hatred of Christians and Jews.

        1. Michael Ejercito   10 years ago

          Truly, Judenhass is a plague worse than AIDS.

        2. Zeb   10 years ago

          Yeah. No Christians or Jews on the political left.

          1. JWW   10 years ago

            Oh there are Christians and Jews on the political left, it's just they don't realize that once those dirty tea partiers and conservatives have been dealt with, they're next. As is "oh you really hate Christianity in general and not just conservative Christians?"

          2. Acosmist   10 years ago

            People can't hate themselves. Good to know.

            (I can't know an untrue thing so this is sarcasm)

    2. Hyperion   10 years ago

      All of Limeytardia will be in burquas within a decade. They have just given up and told the invading horde, 'hey, we're all a bunch of pussies, just take over, we won't fight back, we can't because we're a bunch of pussies'.

      ISIS are licking their chops just watching all of these European countries turn into a bunch of spineless effeminate jelly fish, afraid to even speak any word that might offend some whiny bunch of immature spoiled children.

      People get upset with me for saying this, like I am cheering on ISIS or something. But I'm only being honest about what is inevitable they way things are going.

      1. Hyperion   10 years ago

        But on the good side, just think how much better most British women are going to look in burquas.

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          The Burkini.
          HAWT

          1. Hyperion   10 years ago

            +1 SJW achievement award.

            I mean, I'm saying that lots of British women have great bodies, but the face can be quite scary. So just put one of those black things on their head so that the face doesn't show and it's all good.

            As a bonus, I'm wondering if the Islamists want to sell off some good limey orphans? We can never have too many.

            1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              I like Ellie Goulding, but she very clearly has an American dentist.

      2. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

        They have just given up and told the invading horde, 'hey, we're all a bunch of pussies, just take over, we won't fight back, we can't because we're a bunch of pussies'.

        I think that's a fair assessment of Britain's and Europe's leadership.

        My concern is that, by silencing rational opposition committed to Western ideals and principles, they won't wind up with the passive populace they intend, but nativists happy to play the game on the same terms as the Islamists.

        1. Michael Ejercito   10 years ago

          And what would be the downside?

          1. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

            Yes, it would. Because then you wouldn't be looking at guys standing up for what makes English civilization superior to these brutes', but just another gang of thugs bent on pushing their own brand of collectivism.

          2. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

            Yes, it would. Because then you wouldn't be looking at guys standing up for what makes English civilization superior to these brutes', but just another gang of thugs bent on pushing their own brand of collectivism.

      3. mtrueman   10 years ago

        "All of Limeytardia will be in burquas within a decade"

        It seems like you disapprove of this. What you have to understand is that Europeans can't resist the attractions of following some desert band wagon from Asia. They did it with Christianity, they'll do it again with Islam.

      4. Porque Pig   10 years ago

        You're confusing the current governments, which have to curry favor with the elites, with the people. Anti-immigration and even some overtly racist right-wing parties in Europe are experiencing a meteoric rise at the polls, indicating that Europeans are not interested in rolling over. (Please do not interpret my comment as support for anti-immigrant or racist parties)

      5. MarkLastname   10 years ago

        I don't blame the Muslims. It's the Europeans' fault, they're creating a vacuum in their countries. And now the neighbors are arriving to fill it. It's entirely their own fault.

      6. Zeb   10 years ago

        I retain some hope that the people of Europe will wake up before it comes to that. I guess we'll see. Seems like it will have to be confronted in our lifetime.

  5. Brochettaward   10 years ago

    The good thing about the American electorate is they tend to turn on whatever party is in power. The pendulum always swings back.

    The Obama admin has stirred up something crazy in the progressive wing. Especially in the aftermath of Bush. Under Bush, we had the SoCons seemingly ascendant in their political influence.

    Beyond that, the average American really doesn't give a shit about the SJW types. The far left rhetoric has always had more appeal overseas.

    This comment is about as optimistic as I get on the American electorate.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      They may not 'give a shit' but how to define their influence? That an SJW can lie and still manage to convince powers that be to destroy a life for a narrative, I'd say, demands some attention from citizens.

      1. rudehost   10 years ago

        Not while dancing with the stars is on.

        1. Hyperion   10 years ago

          I can just envision a couple of SJWs watching dancing with the stars.

          SJW 1: Hey, look at the way she is dressed! She's being exploited and don't even know it!

          SJW 2: I know and like... do you think she's pretty? I mean is she prettier than me? *starting to sulk and weep*

          SJW 1: No, no, of course not honey... oh now don't cry, you're way smarter than that exploited woman!

          1. rudehost   10 years ago

            And if she was dressed like an Amish peasant while clogging she would be a victim of the male patriarchy who won't let her be free to dress as she chooses. Really the salient point here is they get to be outraged and weepy no matter what they see.

            1. Hyperion   10 years ago

              It's just victims all the way down.

    2. Hyperion   10 years ago

      The progressive left spent the last 100+ years in a painstakingly subtle but inching forward effort to take over the USA, an inch at a time.

      Then, finally, when Obama was anointed the true progressive savior, who was to come, to the throne of the great Utopia, and they declared victory. Their 1000 year reign was finally here. But, they declared victory a little too soon.

      Now the true lunatic fringe of the progressive left have take over the movement and run amok, and they cannot wrest back control from them. While the left now want to reign in the loonies and go back to their decades long tireless almost overly cautious plan of inching the goalpost leftward, the lunatics who escaped from the asylum are running amok and lighting fires faster than anyone can put them out.

      It's going to get very interesting because it's way too late for the left to put the mask back on, and their loonies are out of control.

  6. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

    America may have it 'written down' but the piece of paper (written by old dead white men) is constantly and severely under attack by the left - the parts of it that stand in the way of their agenda.

    They're winning I'm afraid. Not just in Britain and the USA; but in Canada and perhaps Australia and across the West.

    It's an intellectual scourge; a dark hour if you will.

    1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

      "America may have it 'written down' but the piece of paper (written by old dead white men) is constantly and severely under attack by the left"

      It's cute that you can have this single minded focus on a week in which, for example, we had some SCOTUS decisions handed down where the conservative justices used the Fourth Amendment for toilet paper while the liberal ones stood up for the right thing.

      I realize this has become the forum for All SJW Hate, All the Time, but we've got a fairly bi-partisan assault on liberty going on, and it's been that way for a long time.

      1. Private FUQ   10 years ago

        It's cute that you have this single minded focus on the right when it's a fairly bi-partisan assault on liberty going on.

        1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

          Most here, most of the time: We hate SJWs, we hate SJWs!

          Me: er, you know it's not just coming from SJWs, right?

          FUQ; look at you fixated on the right when the problem is the right and left!!!

          Haha, stay golden FUQ!

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            What's up with all of this "haha" and "hilarious" bullshit?

            You're not funny, you're sad.

            1. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

              What's up with all of this "haha" and "hilarious" bullshit?

              It's standard Social Justice Cadre debating tactics, Rather than address the substance of someone's argument, dismiss the argument as beyond debate.

              1. SimonJester   10 years ago

                +1

            2. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

              It's me laughing at people like you Playa. If you spent time with your kids instead of policing your internet family maybe they could explain it to you!

          2. MarkLastname   10 years ago

            Ever consider that the indignation is merely being dispensed in proportion to the egregiousness of the offenses?

            When a major right-leaning columnist gets an article published demanding that people who believe in global warming should be incarcerated, say, for starving the third world or whatever, then you can say the right is equally of concern as the left (I am referring to the Gawker article about criminalizing global warming denialism, if you weren't aware; and spare me the sermonizing, I am not one who thinks global warming is a hoax, but you know, 'though I disagree with what you say' and all that).

          3. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

            What Bo is studiously evading is the fact that traditional conservatives will sometimes, even if just by accident, come down on the side of individual liberty. The Social Justice Cadres? Well, pretty much never. Bo also wants everyone to studiously evade the fact that conservatives don't assign moral condemnation to individuals solely for their existence as a matter of ideology. The Social Justice Cadres, with their claims of privilege, make it a central tenet of their ideological creed.

            1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

              "conservatives don't assign moral condemnation to individuals solely for their existence as a matter of ideology"

              Now I really need the hahaha!

              1. Bill Dalasio   10 years ago

                Now I really need the hahaha!

                Like I said previously, the standard response of the Social Justice Cadre. You really are pathetic, Bo.

      2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        I will concede the right can be nasty too.

        But all the talk to 'alter' the Constitution comes from the left, sir.

        I prefer the term sexy to cute.

        1. Chumby   10 years ago

          +1 Tipper Gore versus Twisted Sister

        2. Zeb   10 years ago

          Not quite all. Flag burning amendments come up from time to time. And anti-abortion amendments.

          1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

            And amendments to get rid if the anchor babies.

          2. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

            And amendments to outlaw gays kissing/coupling.

            Rufus is just Team Red hockey version.

            1. Chumby   10 years ago

              Sulkowicz's Buttplug

              There was a constitutional amendment wanting to ban same-sex kissing/coupling? When and by whom?

          3. MarkLastname   10 years ago

            Flag-burning is a poignant example. I've not heard of anyone trying to add an anti-abortion amendment to the US constitution though, as the dispute, as I understood, was over what the constitution implicitly permits or forbids as is, as it of course says nothing about abortion one way or the other.

            1. Chumby   10 years ago

              I believe the push is to put the abortion issue back on the states, sorta how the constitution had it.

  7. Super Kevin Horlock   10 years ago

    Don't use Twatter or Twatbook, then?

    I'm English and I hate the intellectual totalitarianism/surveillance state with a passion. But anyone posting anything whatsoever on these social media sites is a straight moronic cockwomble to begin with.

    Zero upside to having any opinion whatsoever in any medium even remotely traceable to your offline self.

    1. OneOut   10 years ago

      So you have let them silence you then ?

      Just what they wanted. Now theirs is the only voice and only opinion on any subject out there.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      I'd go scream this on Twitter.

      To bust balls.

    3. Zeb   10 years ago

      I don't use those services because I think they are stupid and annoying. And I manage pretty well to keep a low online profile that can be connected to my real life identity. But that's mostly because I don't want just anyone to be able to find out things about me. I'm not too concerned about other things.

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        Other things like....come on Reason?

        Reason is Hotel California. You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.

        /Joe Walsh grimace.

        1. JWW   10 years ago

          +1 best lyric ever being used in context

      2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

        I'm in your bushes right now, Zeb.

        1. Zeb   10 years ago

          Well, come in and have a beer or something.

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Well, that didn't go the way I thought it would.

            *zips up fly*

    4. Officer Jim Lahey   10 years ago

      "straight moronic cockwomble"

      Thank you for my next online handle, sir.

  8. adolphowisner   10 years ago

    Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
    This is what- I do...... ?????? http://www.jobsfish.com

  9. F. Stupidity, Jr.   10 years ago

    More than 30,000 people have signed an online petition?again with the petitions?demanding the ads be removed because they make women "feel physically inferior to? the bronzed model."

    *looks at ad, hasn't seen any of the petition signers, still believes their feelings are justified*

  10. Chumby   10 years ago

    When they take away Jimmy Carr's citizenship we will know it is completely over.

  11. mr burns   10 years ago

    My hope is that much of this is due to fiat money. Governments that can spend infinite sums of money do. Some to bribe the plebes and more on growing the government and its power. The new positions and expanded powers this unfettered spending engenders is immune to market forces and instead is directed by whatever excuse to spend that comes to hand. This seems to be protecting the public from unpleasant realities. These include the fact that Islam and western civilization are incompatible which gives rise to the silencing of any criticism of Islam. The fact that men and women are different is also verbotten. So is any hint that man (the state) is not all powerful, in particular suggesting the state cannot control or even fully understand the climate is not yet forbidden, but the urge to do so is strong. And so on . Fortunately infinite current debasement is not possible and the ensuing hard times will sweep most of this nonsense and many completely innocent people away.

  12. The Bad Captain Madly   10 years ago

    speech is under threat from an unholy marriage of intolerant virtual mobs, censorious Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), and state institutions keen to censor stuff in order to protect the allegedly fragile public.

    I was strongly tempted to post "Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out" in response to that. But that'd probably get me an unwelcome knock on the door...

  13. cewiwoc   10 years ago

    Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
    This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

  14. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

    "the Public Order Act of 1986, which criminalizes "racially aggravated" speech"

    Enacted under that famed SJW Thatcher...

    1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      One trick pony is doing his trick!

      1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

        Keep focused on those SJWs and ignore the facts that put a kink in that, we've got a two minute hate to orchestrate here!

        1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

          How does Thatcherite legislation from almost 30 years ago put a kink in opposition to SJWs?

          1. Chumby   10 years ago

            Tulpa Tulpa.

          2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Let's ask "bless". You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?

            1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

              "You're sooooooo good lookin'".

          3. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

            It puts a bit of a kink when the law was passed by the opposite of SJWs.

            1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

              By that logic I guess the founding fathers are the ones who really deserve all the credit for ending segregation. They did, after all, have the foresight to write the commerce clause.

              Question: who has more power over how and which laws are enforced and to what ends?
              A) the dead people who wrote them long ago, or
              B) the people who currently dictate how and which laws are enforced and to what ends?

  15. Porque Pig   10 years ago

    It wouldn't be Sunday without a Chicken Little thread!

    As speech in the UK has gotten more restricted, speech in the US has gotten more free. That "piece of paper guarantee" has a lot of bite due to being uniquely cherished among the provisions of the Bill of Rights in the American psyche. Politicians and judges can erode the 4th and 5th amendments relatively easily because a large part of the American people (wrongly) sees them as protecting only criminals, but they touch the 1st at their peril.

    And please don't treat the SJW mobs as a serious threat to free speech. There have been mobs demanding that speech they don't like be silenced since the founding of the Republic, and they were far more successful in the past than today. The current mob is already seeing their behavior backfire, as it always does when they have to compete in the marketplace of ideas. The problems arise when they gain control of the brute force of the state, and luckily the American people still have enough nerve endings when it comes to free speech to prevent that.

    Yes, they have managed to prevent a couple of speeches at college auditoriums. That has been shameful, but it also has precisely zero effect on the spread of ideas in the modern age, as auditorium speeches are not how ideas are disseminated in 2015. Anybody who wants to read Summers' or Coulter's ideas is perfectly free to do so, anywhere they want.

    1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

      I would also add that, despite being heavily eroded over the past 200+ years, federalism and the separation of powers help to dampen the ability of the govt to trample on liberties. The "rule by executive order" crap that Obama is pulling right now would be business as usual under a unified parliamentary govt like the UK has.

    2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      When you say something reasonable, even insightful like this, doesn't it make you wish that you hadn't trolled so much?

      You can be spot on, but people still won't take you seriously because of your past behavior.

      1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

        If someone refuses to consider an insightful comment because of an irrational dislike, it is their loss, not mine.

        And I never trolled. But thank you for the compliments otherwise.

        1. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

          it is their loss, not mine.

          No..really...it's yours.

          I agree with your above comment completely...

          AND I believe you to be a fucking asshole who's normally not worthy of any consideration whatsoever.

          1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

            I believe you to be a fucking asshole who's normally not worthy of any consideration whatsoever.

            But to make the determination of whether it's worthy of consideration you have to consider it.

            1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

              Nietzsche: "Even the man who despises himself nonetheless thereby esteems himself as a despiser."

      2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        Yeah that was...rational and on point.

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          Weird, isn't it? I feel dirty.

      3. Chumby   10 years ago

        PM

        Has Tulpa turned over a new leaf or is this merely a case of a broken clock being correct twice a day?

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          I refer you to this, posted just 40 minutes later.

          1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

            What is your issue with that comment? It's akin to the halting problem.

        2. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

          I think he's on a 24 hour digital clock and is only right once a day.

        3. Porque Pig   10 years ago

          Neither: I have always been reasonable and insightful. And it's "stopped" not "broken".

          1. Chumby   10 years ago

            Tulpa

            How many aliases have you used over say the past twelve months?

      4. Porque Pig   10 years ago

        I derive zero benefit in real life from someone liking my comment here. So I don't see how it would be my loss that someone doesn't.

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          C'mon. You KNOW that's not true.

          1. Chumby   10 years ago

            PM

            Tulpa wants attention but it doesn't need to come in the form of a hug or a gold star.

          2. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

            Playa can't fathom someone not finding the opinions of his online family to be anything less than of critical importance. Hence his desperate attempts to 'whip' sentiment here to it's defense.

    3. np   10 years ago

      While I agree that some areas have improved, you can't blankly say we've "gotten more free". Since there's not a single unit of measurement and since freedom, including speech, is divided up into many tiny distinct pieces, it is possible to be both more free AND less free at the same time. Exacerbating the issue is the fact that we are increasingly at the mercy of a more powerful state whereas in the early days people could have raised the middle finger to it.

      WRT hate speech, say you perform act that results in a minor misdemeanor.

      Take the very same act and circumstances, now let the authorities find some racist tweet you had made. Felony hate crime or Felony Bias Crime in Ravi's case:
      How Dharun Ravi's Prosecutors Turned a Minor, Nonviolent Offense Into a Felony Subject to a 10-Year Prison Sentence

      The acts are the same. The only differentiator is speech.

      WRT to the campus speech shenanigans, they are indicative and related to real ruinous allegations of crimes.

      1. np   10 years ago

        While political speech has gotten more free, commercial speech and sexual speech has not. All of the entertainment industry regulating bodies were formed through government intervention or coercion. Through the FTC, the government is making sure the industry is regulating speech the way it wants. And speech concerning regulated products like alcohol and tobacco (and now marijuana) have become even more restrictive.

        Recently the Senate unanimously passed the trafficking bill which included the SAVE Act after abortion funding was removed. It would allow:

        And perhaps most egregiously of all, the SAVE Act would empower the DOJ to ban the use of certain words in all online advertising. If the agency determined that something was a potential euphemism or "code word" for trafficking, web operators, publishers, and digital ad networks would be forced to censor ads containing these words or phrases.

        and would criminalize websites for not only assisting, but allowing users to post content that "promotes" exploitation.

        1. Robert   10 years ago

          Sexual communication in the USA is immensely freer now than 50 or 100 yrs. ago. You can always find some relatively brief interval over which you can at least argue that it's become less free, but that's not been the trend.

          Commercial speech, mixed bag. I don't think there's an overwhelming case that it's gotten less free, though, because in some important ways it's gotten freer. There are no more limits on the amount of commercial time per hr. of broadcast. Certain professions that forbade advertising are now allowed to advertise. Prescription drugs are allowed to be advertised to the consumer. Dietary supplements are allowed to make claims now that they probably couldn't have previously.

      2. Porque Pig   10 years ago

        Ravi's crime may have been nonviolent but it did violate a person's rights (right to privacy in this case). And it wasn't his speech that was being punished, it was his motivations for the crime; the speech was just evidence of that.

        Using a defendant's speech as evidence against him or her is very common and has never been claimed to violate the freedom of speech. If it did, no confessions would ever be admissible, for instance.

  16. np   10 years ago

    Moral of the story? However bad it gets, there's always some place worse.

    The ASA has banned ads for hair products that were offensive to Christians (they featured nuns in suspenders); ads for an airline that had a woman dressed as a schoolgirl, on the basis that they could cause "widespread offence"

    Hawt. Regarding the schoolgirl ad, there was similar outrage in America for an ad in Brazil.
    Kia Apologizes, Distances Itself From Sexy Brazilian Cartoon Ads
    Is This Award-Winning Kia Ad Promoting Pedophilia?
    (The award was later withdrawn)

    1. generic Brand   10 years ago

      Projection, pure and simple. Whenever I hear or see people whose instant reaction is "that's vile! That's disgusting!" I automatically assume they are the ones with the dirty minds. The same thing goes for people who cry "Racist!" at the first mention of some sort of disparity.

      There are no alternative explanations because in their mind there is only pedophilia in the world.

  17. Vampire   10 years ago

    Maybe if the British had to actually fight for their freedom would they have held on to it and fought for it as we speak.

    Their country has a rich history of violence against others. The state is engrained in their collective heads, as they walk around like they are victims of violence, while they've dished out more than many other countries.

    1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

      Wow. Seriously? The UK has had to fight for its freedom far more recently than the US has. Ever heard of the Battle of Britain?

      And they also had to fight Napoleon to keep from being conquered around the same time as we had our last invasion of an American state. (Of course that war was just a result of massive stupidity on the part of the US... we were lucky to get away with status quo ante bellum).

      1. Vampire   10 years ago

        Please, the Battle of Britain is trumped by their violence against others. Look at what they did to ancient Ireland. A free people under private law, until 1600 when the British took it away. That was after killing all those people for for over a millennia. No means no, and the Irish functioned fine when they were free. But nooooo, they just needed to be killed and have a government forced down their throats.

        The British have done more to take away the freedoms of others than they did fighting for their own.

        1. Porque Pig   10 years ago

          Again, the US exterminated a people whose land they wanted far more recently.

          You could find fault with pretty much any group's ancestors on the face of the earth. I'm not interested in what someone's ancestors did 500, 100, or 40 years ago, I'm interested in what they're doing today.

        2. Los Doyers   10 years ago

          I'm a dirty mick, and I approve this message.

          /marks targets in the Shankill

        3. Corning   10 years ago

          Look at what they did to ancient Ireland.

          Was it really Britain that did that? Or the Gauls or Romans or Saxons or Vikings or Normans?

          The ancient peoples of Britain including Ireland seems too desperately diverse to be pinned down as one evil group of today vs some clan in the dark past.

      2. Robert   10 years ago

        I don't think they'd've lost any of their freedom to either Napoleon or Hitler. They were fighting for their influence, not to keep from becoming vassals.

        1. Chumby   10 years ago

          Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all fought in the Great War because?

  18. The Bad Captain Madly   10 years ago

    So? what to make of this?

    The First Amendment Should Never Protect Hatred

    1. np   10 years ago

      Bill Maher is right-wing hatemonger?

      Is that what progressives think now?

      1. Somalian Road Corporation   10 years ago

        He dared besmirch the perfect religion of Islam. Didn't you see Ben Affleck breaking into apopleptic fit about it?

        1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

          Watching his prog guests squirm when he rails against the barbarities and backwardness of Islam is a real treat.

          And I still don't understand how criticizing Islam/Muslims is racist. The Berbers in North Africa probably don't want to be lumped into the same race as their rich warlords in Saudi Arabia.

          1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

            It's not necessarily racist to condemn a billion people based on the actions of a smaller set of that group, but it's the same kind of collectivism.

    2. VG Zaytsev   10 years ago

      One of the most admirable things about Europe is that most (if not all) of the right-wing rhetoric that you hear in the US is explicitly against the law there.

      Wow

    3. GILMORE   10 years ago

      I believe that thing ("Tanya Cohen") was identified as a troll in their very first post

      that isn't the only example, but i think someone tracked down the author to a reddit poster who is a vigorous SJW-troller

  19. Bluepig   10 years ago

    Report from America.

    Not only are we following in your footsteps, I suspect that within three years we will be the ones walking on virgin sand. America is not only racing to be the world leader of restricting free speech, we are publicly advancing the idea of Thought Crimes. Example. If you are white, conservative, religious, or don't support the sweeping homosexual movement you might be fined just for having either association or thought.

    Yes, we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, but they do little good when the President hates both and supersedes his power and authority with executive orders that work in direct opposition to its existence. We also have the natural right of freedom of association, and in conjunction with the first amendment, those two should protect us from doing business with anyone we choose for any reason whatsoever. NOT THE CASE. Businesses who exercise Religious Freedoms (a protected right) are being sued out of business by Homosexuals (not a protected right) for refusing to sell them their wares.

    Recently a bakery in the US was fined $180k for refusing to sell a gay couple a wedding cake. I fully support them, as they believed doing so would be seen as supporting gay marriage (which I do notReport from America.

    Free speech is not dead in America, that is as long as you support the leftist ideology of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Muslim/Obama and other deconstructionist ideologies

  20. Bluepig   10 years ago

    Sorry on the last post. Somehow my title was later embedded.

    In conjunction with the Presidental abuses of the Separation of Powers act, he is being supported by a corrupt Congress, as well as a bought and paid for Supreme Court (see Justice Roberts). His abuses are unchecked, and will create in him a Dictatorship. I suspect in 2016 there will be an "event" where he will declare Martial Law, and under martial law all elections are suspended.

    When we are all slaves to the government the only free speech will be the freedom to chant the approved mantra. Reeducation is free education.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Surely the Constitution is bigger than ONE lousy President?

      1. Bluepig   10 years ago

        Nearly 400 million people would hope so, but it does not seem to be the case. When three of the four bodies of government are working to upend the fourth (We the People), it is an uphil battle funded by our subservient obligation to paying taxes. Ironic, the government we elect to support our rights could care less, and they use our own hard earned revenues to fund the fight against us.

        1. Bluepig   10 years ago

          Lesson to self. Don't type while sick, and spell check.

  21. Hyperion   10 years ago

    Hey Tony and Butthead, better to get lickin those cankles

    1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      They're gonna have to lick a little higher than that.

      1. Hyperion   10 years ago

        Ewww, I'm eating lunch!

    2. Mint Berry Crunch   10 years ago

      Eh, I'm not Tony or shrike, but none of these recent Clinton scandals have convinced me to abandon my opinion that she'll still beat any Republican in 2016, assuming she gets the Dem nomination.

      1. Hyperion   10 years ago

        Whatever you say.

        1. Mint Berry Crunch   10 years ago

          "Rand Paul 2016 - Because he'll totally pull in votes from people who usually vote Democrat since he's not as terrible as most Republicans on the War on Drugs!"

          Sorry if I'm not as sold on this idea as most people here.

          1. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

            Sorry if I'm not as sold on this idea as most people here.

            I'm sorry that's all you take away from here.

          2. GILMORE   10 years ago

            That's not even close to the "idea" or the argument for why hillary can/will lose vs a Walker, Rubio or Paul.

            That's not even a particularly competent straw-man.

            She'll lose because, unlike Obama, who united traditional democratic-party base with hordes of motivated youth and minority voters....

            ...Hillary has neither particularly well sewn-up.

            yes, she gets a whopping % of the Women voters polled.

            but in reality, a very large share of those female voters (IMO) will actually stay home rather than agitate on behalf of the Hildebeast.

            I think you underestimate the amount of people that genuinely despise hillary on the left.

            And that with the people that don't despise her? there's not a lot of enthusiasm for their love other than "Not a Republican".

            You may justifiably think that's enough to win... but i think acting like its an obvious 'slam dunk' is ridiculous.

          3. MarkLastname   10 years ago

            But you're sold on Clinton? Why? This is a woman who is every bit as dumb as Sarah Palin but more power hungry and without a semblance of consistency.

            Perhaps you're saying that you think Hillary will win, regardless of whether one wants her to, in which case I'd more or less agree. I think she will probably win. But I think that's shame, because even most of the slackjawed hillbillies the GOP plans to shit out this election aren't likely to be as bad as her.

            1. Mint Berry Crunch   10 years ago

              Perhaps you're saying that you think Hillary will win, regardless of whether one wants her to, in which case I'd more or less agree.

              Correct. I'm not saying I personally want Hillary to win, I just expect her to.

              If it's Clinton vs. Chris Christie, I couldn't root for either of them. Clinton vs. Bush, I'd "root" for Hillary only in the sense that the GOP deserves to lose if they nominate Jeb. Clinton vs. Paul, I'd prefer Paul, but might not bother to show up and vote (Clinton cannot possibly lose my state, anyway).

              And that with the people that don't despise her? there's not a lot of enthusiasm for their love other than "Not a Republican".

              You may justifiably think that's enough to win... but i think acting like its an obvious 'slam dunk' is ridiculous.

              I wouldn't feel confident enough in a Hillary victory to bet hundreds of dollars on it or anything. Yeah, this is politics, a lot can happen in the next year and a half, etc. I just think the Dems have the Presidential advantage for at least one more cycle.

              1. GILMORE   10 years ago

                "I wouldn't feel confident enough in a Hillary victory to bet hundreds of dollars on it or anything. "

                that isn't exactly consistent with ""she'll still beat any Republican in 2016, assuming she gets the Dem nomination.""

                I think its an easier bet to assume she *does* win the nom. whether she's likely to win or not, imo, is who she's up against. And that's a crap shoot there.

                I made a couple grand betting on Obama in 2008. i made the bet pre-primary, which yielded about a 5-1 return.

                I felt particularly good as I took about $800 off a liberal guy from arkansas who said, "American will never elect a black president. this country is just too racist"

                1. Chumby   10 years ago

                  To be fair he is half black. The same amount he is white.

                  Congrats on the bets.

      2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        And that's depressing.

    3. Los Doyers   10 years ago

      "Each day threatens to deliver the straw that breaks the *camel's* back."

      Shudder. Dat word choice.

      1. Hyperion   10 years ago

        FAKE SCANDALZ!!!

        /Shreektard

    4. Francisco d'Anconia   10 years ago

      I prefer her demise comes when it's too late to run someone else. She'll be easy to beat if nominated. Someone else may not be so easy.

      1. Chumby   10 years ago

        The only thing she has been successful at is becoming a senator and that was only afyer Guiliani dropped put to fight cancer. Hillarycare bombed. Bill put his penis in other women. She didn't get the 2008 nomination. Assad is still in power in Syria. She's got more baggage than Samsonite. She already has 35% of the vote for being a Dem. other than the Rs running a jackass or a third party/independant all-star showing up I'm not sure she can convince enough Is to bote for her. She sure as hell ain't stealing any R votes.

  22. adolphowisner   10 years ago

    My dear, the next five minutes can change your life!
    Give a chance to your good luck.
    Read this article, please!
    Move to a better life!
    We make profit on the Internet since 1998! ????? http://www.jobsfish.com

    1. Hyperion   10 years ago

      We make profit on the Internet since 1998!

      You should have spent some of it on learning English. Sigh...

      1. Chumby   10 years ago

        Me score happy goal

  23. Robert   10 years ago

    The funny thing is that a version of LeChatelier's Principle comes into play. If you make it illegal to insult a certain group, that encourages that group to troll for flames. At some point that group's behavior will then become so obnoxious that the insults will be justified.

    1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

      But it's more than just trolling; it gives that group a weapon in their arsenal of means to undo their opponents. They can bait people into getting themselves arrested, and so people will be less willing to debate, challenge, or confront that group, since any dialogue carries with it the one-sided threat of incarceration if the critic of the group steps over a highly subjective line; or even if he doesn't, he can still be punished by the process following a frivolous accusation.

      Funny how SJW's talk about 'power imbalance.' If I can say anything I want to you with utter impunity, but you have to watch what you say around me for fear of even an accusation of 'hate speech,' then which of us is really in the position of greater power?

      1. Chumby   10 years ago

        Sorta like: I can falsely accuse you of raping me and turn it into a hobby. But when you complain and cite fact that is bullying.

  24. Robert   10 years ago

    I'm trying to figure out what it is about "Blurred Lines". It's just a sexy video w sexy lyrics replacing those of Yankevik's original tune "Word Crimes". (I'll keep my Oxford comma thanks.) The lyrics seem to say the same thing untold #s of popular songs have said probably since language was invented: "You're an attractive lady, let's make out." Why did this one catch so much heat?

  25. Ivan Thomas   10 years ago

    Oh yeah, it's so much nicer in America where police shoot people for being the wrong colour and women get 20 years in jail for having a miscarriage.

    1. Wasteland Wanderer   10 years ago

      Yeah, police in Britain NEVER shoot someone for being the wrong color...

      And where the fuck did you see someone being jailed for having a miscarriage?

      1. Holgar   10 years ago

        That's how it's being characterized.

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ed-before/

        1. Rhywun   10 years ago

          I must have missed the 500-post mudslinging on this one. Thank god.

  26. Rich   10 years ago

    demanding the ads be removed because they make women "feel physically inferior to? the bronzed model."

    Even though the *intent* was to make women feel *less disciplined than* the bronzed model?

    1. mtrueman   10 years ago

      "less disciplined than"

      You mean less self-disciplined. The whole point of the ad (and perhaps most ads) is to empower your inner-policeman.

  27. mtrueman   10 years ago

    I'm not sure this isn't a case of having one's cake and eating it. Over the past century the state has gradually recognized the rights of certain groups. A good example is marital rape. The first nation to criminalize this was the Soviet Union under the leadership of V.I. Lenin. Europeans followed their lead and more than 50 years later, marital rape was criminalized in the USA. Even Libertarians seem to approve of these laws, at least I've never seen anyone at Reason arguing for their repeal.

    With rights, responsibilities come hand in hand. As the state grants rights, such as the right to be free from unwanted sex, the state takes on the responsibility to see that these rights are enforced. That means regulation of speech. Once it was legal to force a marriage partner into sex, now it's illegal (or strongly frowned upon) to advocate marital rape. One thing follows another. I'm not sure this is as bad as the author thinks it is. Not all that long ago we could say that Africans were cockroaches or that the marriage contract ruled out the possibility of rape. Today we can't, not without social or legal sanction. Does that mean we're worse off today than previous generations? For men and non Africans, of course it does. Others wouldn't dream of trading in the morals of today for the freedoms of the past. Adapt or die, it's the cruelest law of all.

    1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

      Are you capable of saying anything that makes sense?

      Social and legal sanction are not interchangeable. People should be allowed by law to be racist. Punishing wrong views is not a job of the state. That I should have to say this is depressing.

      And take your false equivalencies and shove them up your ass buddy. Feminists trying to make consensual drunken sex rape for a man or trying to banish accurate statistics on the incidence of rape from classrooms are not asking to outlawing marital rape. I sincerely doubt you would call for Andrea Dworkin or Mary Daly to be arrested when they said things like "all men are rapists", or the makers of the twitter 'killallmen' hashtag should be imprisoned, along with Cornel West and other African studies professors who say flagrantly anti-white things. Laws limiting free speech have already begun to be used to punish speech that would only be called hate speech by a lunatic.

      "Adapt or die." Tell yourself that when someone is sending you to gas chamber because your views aren't in line with the 'latest ideas.'

      1. mtrueman   10 years ago

        "Are you capable of saying anything that makes sense?"

        If you have trouble understanding, feel free to ask me for help. I'll be happy to oblige.

        "Laws limiting free speech have already begun to be used to punish speech that would only be called hate speech by a lunatic."

        That's inevitable, as I tried to point out in my previous comment which said you couldn't understand. Marital rape has already been criminalized, thanks to laws limiting sexual activities, restrictions on freedom of speech, even ridiculous ones, were already there in the wings, though you never realized it. Actions have consequences, and however much you prefer to return to past and all its freedoms, you'll never do it.

        1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

          "return to past and all its freedoms"
          Huh? Who's trying to go back to the past? Are you suggesting that it is impossible to live in a society in which rape is illegal while consensual sexual activity is not? It's not a question of limiting 'sexual activities,' or any particular class of activities.

          And whether laws being used to abridge individual rights are on the books or being newly proposed makes no difference. A newly fashioned dagger or a newly discovered old one, both are still daggers. The gist of what you imagine to be your point seems to be that we should just accept the inevitability of totalitarianism. What a plan.

          1. mtrueman   10 years ago

            "Are you suggesting that it is impossible to live in a society in which rape is illegal while consensual sexual activity is not?"

            No I don't mean to suggest that. I mean that when you turn to the state to recognize rights and enact laws, you're going to get more, sometimes a lot more, than you bargained for. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if looked at from the point of view of groups of people who had a bad deal decades ago. The woman who called Africans cockroaches isn't in jail, she hasn't lost her job, she was just subject to criticism by people exercising their free speech. Have a sense of proportion. Brendan's lost his.

  28. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

    Brendan O'Neill

    What rubbish you speak, you obviously have no experience in the way that Freedom of Speech works in the UK, EU, and UN. You can hold whatever view you like, but the caveat is that you can't just hate people based of their race, colour, religion, sexuality, disability, or gender. Why is this important, well think about this, if you hate Gay people because they are Gay, it's not right that you should be able to abuse a person based on your immature views of someone being Gay.

    Problem with the USA's inherent belief that the Amendments unalterable, so they've a political and legal system which is unfair and bias, as it is the big money who writes the laws. Look at the mess of the gun laws, they've a murder rate by guns 71 times higher than the UK (2011). But still they allow the the unelected NRA dictate to Congress and Senate; they quash the thousands of voices who oppose US gun laws, by using their money to influence political decisions. That's not freedom of speech, it is freedom to buy a voice and silence the views of many. As for the Amendments, the US have believed that you can't alter these, but what they fail to see is that they are an alteration, it's in the name, but they are too blind to see that. Also by refusing the ability to change those, is in fact in itself an act of denying Freedom of Speech.

    So don't tell me Brits we are killing freedom of speech, we don't need an idiot to put our country right, we have our own voices to do that.

    Milton

    1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

      Congratulations! You have just made the retardedest comment of the week! Give yourself a pat on the back and throw some torn bits of paper around and pretends it's confetti, you've earned it! It really adds a special something that you're an Englishman who seems barely literate in the language his own people invented, and what's more, so indolent an Englishman purports to share a name with one of England's greatest poets. Bravo, bravo, sir! Like a chimp named Shakespeare eating his own shit.

      1. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

        MarkLastname

        That has to be the most retarded answer to my well thought out, and well informed argument, obviously you realised I'm too intelligent to be hoodwinked by any crap you can type!

    2. Chumby   10 years ago

      MeMeMe

      The murder rate in the UK is higher than in my state and the violent crime rate in the UK is THIRTY times higher. My state has "shall issue" concealed carry, no waiting periods, no additional background checks, no registrations, no magazine bans, no semi-auto bans, no restrictions on purchase of ammo. Maybe get a logically valid argument before trying to restrict free speech.

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        Not just the UK. It's also higher in France and Germany I believe.

        Left-wing Europeans seem to live on another planet. Especially the British who have lost their effen minds.

        That's all he's doing - he's just OMGing.

        1. Chumby   10 years ago

          The only state with a lower violent crime rate than Maine is Vermont, which has constitutional carry for residents and non-residents.

          When I looked at the statistics I was shocked (national crime survey vs FBI crime data) because I always see how safe the UK is. I should compare the sexual assault rate in the UK versus college females in the US and submit it as an article here.

        2. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

          You are so so wrong, the US is the highest murder rate in the Western World, but if you wish to believe in fairy tails, go and read Cinderella

  29. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

    I'd like to add that if you write an article about freedom of speech where YOU are allowed many thousands of characters, don't do it in a place that restricts comments to 1500 characters. That is silencing the voice ie killing my freedom to reply in as much detail, as you were allowed!

    1. GILMORE   10 years ago

      Brevity is the soul of wit.

      And that's just fucking dumb.

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        We should collect every derp we find. Like sea shells.

        1. Chumby   10 years ago

          He is one of the thousand derps of light.

        2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          I don't have the square footage for that.

      2. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

        GILMORE

        You are the dumb fuck, I bet you have 6 fingers!

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Me etc.

      If you can't get your progtarded ideas out in less than 1500 words, I shutter to think how you must be at the dinner table spewing that stuff.

      Pass the fucking mash potatoes already!

      1. Chumby   10 years ago

        I would be open to having MeMe and Hihn go at it under an article without a word limit.

        1. C. Anacreon   10 years ago

          Ugh. We had those all the time before registration.

      2. MeMeMeMeMe   10 years ago

        Freedom of speech and the Website which shouts loud about it, restricts it. But you probably are too simple to understand that equality, and how that relates to Freedom of speech.

    3. jmg09   10 years ago

      Trust me, you don't need 1500 characters. I barely made it through your first paragraph. By then, I knew your opinions and had written you off as a moron.

      If you want to rabble on longer than that, go start your own blog. I've heard people can do that.

  30. Hugo S. Cunningham   10 years ago

    It used to be said that "An Englishman's home is his castle," but strict victim-disarmament laws have assigned his home to burglars.

  31. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

    Someone posted to a NYP article about Hillary but later in the article it had this:

    "Doubling down on his opposition to a City Council plan to decriminalize some quality-of-life offenses like turnstile-jumping and public urination, the commissioner drew a clear red line.

    "Under no circumstances will I as police commissioner support anything that weakens the ability of my officers to police and keep this city safe ? all areas of the city safe," he said at a press conference.

    Later, he said that while talks continue, he was firm that "you need to preserve the criminal aspect of it, because that's the only enforceable way to ensure that we don't start engaging in officers not being able to police the streets of the city effectively. And we have no intent to allow that to happen."

    Needs more spinal snaps and choke holds. Is this guy for real?

    Criminalizing people who jump turnstiles and piss in public is 'keeping a city safe'?

    I said, is this guy for real?

    1. GILMORE   10 years ago

      Bill Bratton is the guy credited with implementing the "broken windows" policing-strategy in NYC in the mid-1990s

      *(part of the 'broken windows' theory was that by enforcing the most 'petty, visible crimes', it would help reinforce the idea that the city was not 'lawless', and that it would have a 'trickle-up' effect on more serious criminality, and make people more self-conscious of the 'impropriety' of lawlessness overall)

      While there's a lot of debate about how much it actually contributed to the massive drop in crime during his tenure... people mostly agree it had *some* effect. As long as he is still commissioner, its unlikely he's going to adopt an entirely different attitude about 'petty crime', regardless of how low the existing crime rate is in NYC.

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        Has it led to a more 'aggressive' NYPD?

        1. GILMORE   10 years ago

          Of course.

          To be fair - how you define 'aggressive' is all relative.

          I think the NYPD are actually distinct for a few things that make them different than many other major-city police departments

          - they actually *shoot people* at a far lower rate than almost any other big city. This was true even when crime was higher in the city. Discharging your firearm is a huge @*(#$ deal and there's a lot less "shooting a guy for running away". It may just be the police culture in the city, where you're expected to get busts without drawing your gun

          - they are one of the few cities where most of the cops still work on foot. They still have 'rollers', but more than half the cops patrol areas on the sidewalk and are very familiar with the local population.

          - perhaps less known - the "Stop and Frisk" policy wasn't even invented until the early 2000s, and was never part of the 'broken windows' approach of Giuliani. between 2002 and 2012 it multiplied 500%. And mostly produced an enormous number of "possession" busts, even though the city was supposed to have 'decriminalized' pot.

          1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

            Ah. Thanks.

          2. Thomas O.   10 years ago

            "- perhaps less known - the "Stop and Frisk" policy wasn't even invented until the early 2000s..."

            Ah yes. Another thing to thank Bloombitch for.

    2. Rhywun   10 years ago

      Criminalizing people who jump turnstiles and piss in public is 'keeping a city safe'?

      I think the intent is that such people tend to "graduate" to more serious crimes. And these ARE crimes, so what else would you propose? I saw a punk jumping the turnstile the other day and my immediate desire was to see him arrested. Minus the beatdown and bullets, of course. But dude was effectively stealing from me and I don't appreciate that.

      1. Rhywun   10 years ago

        PS. I should add that I think turnstile jumping is way more criminal than peeing in public. I mean, who hasn't done that.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

          Gotcha.

          1. Rhywun   10 years ago

            To be fair, it's a lot easier to get away with it (and therefore less of a "public nuisance") in a city like SF which has a lot of little alleys to duck into than in NYC which doesn't. Or so I've heard.

            1. MarkLastname   10 years ago

              I imagine a man (any women do this?) who pees in public is more likely to commit a serious crime later on if he does get arrested for doing so than if he doesn't.

  32. kevaze   10 years ago

    my Aunty Sophia just got a nearly new BMW X4 SUV just by some parttime working online with a lap-top
    This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

  33. jmg09   10 years ago

    This article hurt my feelings and had no trigger warnings. I don't even have a Safe Area to protect me. To whom should I be sending my report?

  34. Simon Atford   10 years ago

    Katie Hopkins isn't a journalist. She is a former reality TV star and opinionated gobshite.

  35. xemafin   10 years ago

    uptil I looked at the paycheck which was of $6898 , I have faith ...that...my father in law was actually erning money parttime from their computer. . there neighbor had bean doing this for less than nine months and at present cleard the loans on there apartment and got a great new Nissan GT-R:...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

  36. toxapirax   10 years ago

    my roomate's half-sister makes $71 /hr on the computer . She has been laid off for 5 months but last month her pay was $17321 just working on the computer for a few hours
    ...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

  37. Gindjurra   10 years ago

    Wouldn't it be amusing if someone hacked in and censored an ASA decree on the grounds it 'condones poor intellectual habits'?

  38. NIKE FREE 4.0 DAMEN DK online   10 years ago

    Bloggers so insightful, admire.And this view exactly the same with me, friend ah.

  39. Nike pascher paris   10 years ago

    freedom and peace are very important to us .everyone should try his best to do sth to protect our peaceful life.

  40. Savagedoor   10 years ago

    Forfeit your right to bear arms and all rights are at risk.

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