henryfitzgerald.bsky.social
Dissolute, but harmless
Canberra, Australia
169 posts
15 followers
11 following
Discussion Master
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Twitter certainly has more dissent per se: it's more intellectually stimulating to read. Which is why, when I visit this benighted location, I feel obliged to provide the dissent: otherwise you'd have none at all.
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Gen-Xer, thank you very much.
"Boomer" was always misapplied: it seems to mean "person I whose views I can get away with dismissing because he's older than I am, heh heh, old people, amirite?"
Once used to refer to people to old to be actual Boomers, it's now used on people too young
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Yes, she "did something": she made a nuisance of herself.
Burden of proof is with her.
"Racism"? Easy to claim: any nation you support, or condemn, will have some racial composition or other.
"Profit"? That one is even more of a head-scratcher
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I don't know where you got that idea. I don't post at all (or even look at the site) on a majority of days.
What always gobsmacks me when I do look, is what a oppressive monoculture this place is. Nary a dissenting view anywhere.
I always feel: "Surely SOMEONE should say something different"
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English speakers have a nifty little mnemonic; Spanish speakers have a dull piece of political propaganda.
I take no joy in this; or at least, no joy in its being publicised. This seems too easy a victory for anglophones. I'm sure Spanish has more to offer the world than tiresome left-wing hogwash
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What is she famous for, anyway? What has she actually accomplished that gets her in the news?
Like Kim Kardashian, she's just famous for being famous. The difference is that Kardashian is famous for being famous for being famous. Thunberg's fame for being famous slipped under the radar
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Why do people persist in shoving microphones in this cretin's face? Even granted her fantasy, comic-book vision of the Israel-Hamas conflict, her explanation of what motivates foreign governments (racism, short-term economic profit, etc.) is fatuous beyond belief.
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I think this is a bad idea, but the important thing to note is that it's a CONCESSION to these trans™ athletes. It gives them more, not less, than they're reasonably entitled to.
Of course, that's not enough for the gender crowd: nothing ever is
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Biles suggested that, rather than allow these men to compete against women, which is what they want, but clearly ludicrous, a third category ("trans™") be created for their benefit...
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All sports involves segregation currently: it segregates men and women.
Some men who want to pretend they're women (they use the brand name trans™) want to avoid competing with other men.
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It seems anything short of total capitulation to gender ideology is insufficient for some people, it seems.
Apologising for her earlier nastiness is surely admirable, whichever party you agree with. And Gaines also showed admirable grace in response both to the earlier offense, and later apology.
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I'm calling for it to be changed. And so, surely, would any reasonable person: anyone who values free speech, opposed to tyranny, and all that.
Am I "challenging the legal basis for the law"? I don't even know what you mean by that, and I don't care.
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If it's broad enough it's also not necessarily a bad thing.
For instance, someone who carries a haemophilia gene voluntarily deciding not to have children, is, on a broad amd fair definition, practicing eugenics.
It's the killing bit that's bad, surely; not the mere "eugenics" bit.
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Clearly you attach some bizarre, idiosyncratic meaning to the word "unjust". Fine, whatever. I'll concede whatever you have in mind; I don't insist upon the word.
So let me reframe my question: Do you really think BAD laws are okay, so long as people convicted under them plead guilty?
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Looks like the usual piece of tendentious, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, guilt-by-association claptrap a Guardian journalist churns out when he wants to do a hatchet job on someone but doesn't really have any material.
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For mirror-image reasons it was in Dutton's political interest for Yes to win, although I believe this would have benefitted him less had it happened. I think the pro-Yes people were on average more vindictive; less inclined to forgive having gotten what they wanted.
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One observation I made at the time of the referendum was that it was in Albanese's political interest for Yes NOT to win.
Having "lost" the referendum, Albanese gets credit, and no blame, from the Yes camp ("You tried"); and the No camp have nothing to resent, and can let bygones be bygones.
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We all know that there are court cases which both sides think they stand a good chance of winning. Does this mean one side or other is incompetent, or deluded? Not necessarily. It could mean, and often does mean, that the law itself is inherently hard to interpret with any certainty.
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Laws can be badly formed such that their meaning depends on a judge's interpretation, which no defence lawyer can predict without being clairvoyant.
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"Reported for encouraging hate speech" is one of the most ludicrous things I've heard.
I'm not even accused of encouraging hatred: I'm accused of encouraging the encouraging of hatred.
That you think that is a reportable charge at least confirms my suspicion that you don't value free speech.
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People express nasty sentiments on the internet all the time (you've been doing so yourself just now), and riots happen occasionally.
Lucy only CAUSED the riot if, but for her words, there would have been no riot. I consider that unlikely to be true, and even if true, impossible to prove.
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Glad to hear it. And you'll be glad to hear that there's virtually no chance of the UK becoming "Nazi".
Making allowances for hyperbole, I suspect you mean you don't want the country to move slightly in that DIRECTION.
In which case, you too should want current restrictions on free speech relaxed
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If Hitler's only crime was making people really, really angry, then of course he should not face jail time for that. But we all know that's not all he did.
Moreover he was the Fuhrer. You would interpret HIS expressions of sentiment a little differently than some rando on Twitter.
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"Incitement" only makes sense as a crime if the thing being incited is itself a crime. Kristallnacht consisted of vandalism, and vandalism is a crime. One can, in principle, reasonably be charged with "inciting" that.
Hatred is NOT a crime. No one should be charged with inciting mere hatred.
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She said "If that makes me racist" so be it. She didn't say "If I'm inciting racial hatred so be it".
And in any case, have people forgotten what the word "if" means? It's as though you (like the judge) are deliberately making yourself bad at comprehension so as to be as uncharitable as possible
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Maybe. Who knows? I'm not commenting on her defence lawyer..
The key point is: SHE SHOULD NOT BE IN PRISON. If she's in prison, the law went wrong somewhere. Where EXACTLY it went wrong—her lawyer, the judge, the legislation, all three—is more debatable than THAT it went wrong.
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"Inciting racial hatred" most definitely SHOULD NOT be illegal.
Murder is and should be illegal, so it at least makes sense to have laws against inciting murder.
But hating someone is not and should not be illegal; so "inciting" hatred should therefore not be illegal either.
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And in any case, I have no authority to order you. If (improbably) you DO jump off a cliff after reading my last tweet, perhaps to spite me, I should not be hauled off by the police and charged with inciting suicide.
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Saying "Jump of a cliff for all I care" is not actually telling you to jump off a cliff. The "for all I care" clearly makes it more an expression of feeling than an order. People who say she "called for" the the burning of hotels are (I think deliberately) forgetting how language normally works.
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My claim is not that she's not in breach of the law. It's that what she did SHOULD NOT BE illegal.
So either the law was misapplied, or the law applied was a bad law, or both. I don't claim to know which, but clearly SOMETHING is wrong with these legal proceedings.
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As for "she should have contested the charge"... From a prudential point of view, maybe. But the UK's anti-free-speech laws are so broad and vague that you can understand someone not really knowing if they're technically in breach of them or not...
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However much her tweet was "amplified" it's highly unlikely that it actually CAUSED a riot (which is to say: but for the tweet, there would have been no riot). And as I pointed out the prosecution should face the burden of proof here. Can you prove her words DID cause a riot?
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Punishing speech in any situation short of that is bad policy. Lucy did not order a hit. She vented, nothing more. You shouldn't have to worry about being arrested for that; particularly when, as in this case, no harm eventuates from your words.
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In this case, morally speaking, he's guilty of the murder itself. He might as well be the murderer; for all intents and purposes, he IS the murderer...
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A paradigmatic case of speech justly earning a sentence is a mafioso ordering a hit on someone. He doesn't get let off just because he didn't wield the dagger. In this case his order was tantamount to actually doing the deed...
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At the very least, the burden of proof should be on the prosecution to show that the speaker's words actually DID lead to a riot: but for them, the riot would not have occurred...
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It almost certainly didn't lead to any of this, but yes: in the unlikely event that it does, the rioters should certainly be punished, but the tweeter shouldn't.
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And do you REALLY think unjust laws are okay so long as people convicted under them plead guilty? If standing on one leg is made illegal, are you fine with me going to jail for standing on one leg, so long as I plead guilty to doing so?
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You've GOT to be kidding me. Of course she wasn't "completely fine" with going to prison. She surely plead guilty because she believed, rightly or wrong, her chances would be better that way. But she surely can't be so utterly crazy as to think going to prison is totes fine, no biggie.
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This must be that "inclusiveness" I hear so much talk about
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You don't mean to tell me you're honestly fine with her being in prison? No qualms, all is hunky-dory here?
Her being in prison is, simply, WRONG; and "She pled guilty"; or "Hey it's the law" are feeble justifications for this appalling state of affairs.
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Why should that be "end of story"?
As I pointed out: if what she did broke any law, THAT IS A BAD LAW, one in urgent need of repeal. The "end of story" should be when that atrocious law is removed from the books.
Or rather: when the law is repealed, AND she is released.
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Fair exchange, I reckon. A non-answer to a non-question.
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Were you "making fun of me"? I'm afraid I couldn't tell (although I still doubt that's an accurate description). To be honest I couldn't tell what you were attempting. Whatever rhetorical move you're attempting, I don't think you're quite pulling it off
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I'm not asking for your civility, and in any case I don't expect to get it. I was making in-general points. Nothing to do with you or me in particular; nor did what I said have anything to do with whatever weird thing you have against "white men over the age of fifty"
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Not for many years, but I don't see how this has any bearing on the points I just made.
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What this does NOT mean, though, is either of the following:
1. You should consider yourself to be infallible
2. You should not be civil to those other people you believe to be wrong
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I'd say rather that "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong" is the bare minimum needed for a coherent psychology. If you believe that (say) cats are mammals, then OF COURSE you must also believe that anyone who thinks cats aren't mammals, must be wrong.
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Certainly not the only place and indeed I'd say it's where this is LEAST likely to happen (relative to traffic).
I found that with the old no-cap message boards, using more words simply gave people more material to misinterpret.
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I don't know if this ruling was legally correct. But either it wasn't, or UK law is in urgent need of change on this point.
And probably both; because even if the law doesn't compel or even technically allow rulings like this, it certainly encourages them.