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Offline Rushy

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #60 on: August 16, 2024, 01:52:13 PM »
Freedom of speech is just one aspect of living in a free society. Your argument seems to be that we don’t have freedom of speech in the UK because people can be jailed for things they say online. Which is both true and rare. And when I provided an example of that exact same thing in the US your response was along the lines of “well that doesn’t count”. So…

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can literally say anything you like. Both the US and the UK have protections for free speech and limits to that too. Your claim is:

I already explained what freedom of speech is. You keep inventing in your own definition, then getting upset that no country on the planet matches up to the definition you invented. I'm not sure what else to tell you in that regard. Should I start incessantly repeating myself? That seems to be your favorite activity.

Far more vague is incorrect - Pete has gone in to some detail about how they are defined.

Pete didn't reference laws in the UK at all.

Far more oppressive is incorrect too according to the freedom indexes I have linked to.

This just in: Freedom index produced by horrid authoritarians perceives authoritarian nanny state as "more free" than libertarian society. There are also tankies in the US who think the USSR was "more free" than the US. Are you going to start citing them as well?

Far more silly - I disagree. There have been occasional silly cases (look up the heil Hitler dog thing). But those are very much the exception not the rule.

A legal system is defined by its exceptions, not its rules.

In general we do have a pretty high level of freedom of speech over here. The trouble with you lot thinking you are “THE land of the free” is it implies you’re the only one. You aren’t.

We are, actually. We literally invented freedom.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #61 on: August 16, 2024, 09:58:02 PM »
I already explained what freedom of speech is.
No you haven't. You went on some weird ramble on page 2 where you tried to define it in terms of itself.

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Pete didn't reference laws in the UK at all.
He said "The European Convention on Human Rights clearly defines both the right to freedom of expression and its limitations"
These are adopted into UK law in the Human Rights Act of 1998.

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This just in: Freedom index produced by horrid authoritarians
Who are the "horrid authoritarians"? Are you just doing what you did when I showed you that US Citizens have been jailed for Tweets and just going "well that doesn't fit very well with my argument so it doesn't count. So there!"

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A legal system is defined by its exceptions, not its rules.
Those certainly are all words. I'm not sure they make any sense in that order.

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We are, actually. We literally invented freedom.
Maybe if you wave that little Stars and Stripes hard enough and shout U-S-A loudly enough then that will become true. Back in the real world, nah. If you did invent freedom then you're doing it wrong:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/guantanamo-bay-human-rights

Locking people up for FB posts, locking people up without fair trial.
We were codifying things like right to a fair trial in the Magna Carta centuries before we even invented your country.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Rushy

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #62 on: August 17, 2024, 01:33:50 AM »
No you haven't. You went on some weird ramble on page 2 where you tried to define it in terms of itself.

Of course its defined in terms of itself, it's a legal term defined by a legal framework. What you're doing is nonsense. You might as well tell me you define "freedom of speech" to be a purple elephant, and so therefore no one meets your requirements.

These are adopted into UK law in the Human Rights Act of 1998.

In other words, they're not UK law, which is why coincidentally the UK doesn't actually follow them. You might as well reference some old EU laws. The UK didn't follow those either, even while it was in the EU!

Are you just doing what you did when I showed you that US Citizens have been jailed for Tweets and just going "well that doesn't fit very well with my argument so it doesn't count. So there!"

The only example you had was someone that posted copyrighted style material from an official campaign in order to impersonate a campaign official. That's not remotely as egregious as someone posting racial slurs and getting arrested in the UK. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between "I got arrested in a conspiracy to strip voting rights from people" versus "I got arrested because I made a rude gesture in the general direction of a police officer". It's comedic that you would compare the two at all.

Maybe if you wave that little Stars and Stripes hard enough and shout U-S-A loudly enough then that will become true. Back in the real world, nah. If you did invent freedom then you're doing it wrong:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/guantanamo-bay-human-rights

Guantanamo bay isn't in the US and the prisoners there were not US citizens. "The US is mean to its enemies" is not particularly relevant to this discussion.

Locking people up for FB posts, locking people up without fair trial.
We were codifying things like right to a fair trial in the Magna Carta centuries before we even invented your country.

For some definition of "fair trial", certainly.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2024, 01:44:04 AM by Rushy »

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Offline xasop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #63 on: August 17, 2024, 01:59:58 AM »
This thread began with a fundamentally correct premise, which its own proponents then proceeded to systematically demolish by basing their argument on a comparison with an even worse country. This is a remarkable state of affairs because now all sides of the argument are equally inane. To get back to the topic: the UK is not okay.
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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #64 on: August 17, 2024, 06:26:20 AM »
. To get back to the topic: the UK is not okay.
If that is true then it’s certainly also true of the US, no matter how loudly they pretend otherwise.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #65 on: August 17, 2024, 03:32:54 PM »
The UK is a monarchy with a King who is above the law. He is much further left than his mother was, and it's not a coincidence that the administration is further left as well. He does influence the government and has all the royal powers and protections from medieval times, despite the claims that he is only a ceremonial king. He has not just been hanging around with the WEF 'you will own nothing and be happy' elites for the fun of it.

The government of the the UK does not grant free speech in any comparison to the free speech in the US. At some points in history they have at least pretended that they did. In recent times they have reverted to the role of authoritarians of speech.

« Last Edit: August 18, 2024, 01:05:31 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline honk

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #66 on: August 17, 2024, 08:37:12 PM »
This is what I get for waiting too long before responding. Now I have to answer posts from several pages ago.

Honk, do you really think the classic "I'm just following orders" justification is relevant here?

Given the stakes, yes, I do. But don't worry, I'll have a different take if and when this guy starts committing war crimes or crimes against humanity.

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I keep forgetting that you believe normalized injustice is acceptable (you'll claim you don't, then bring this exact point of argument up in some other unrelated thread).

I've already told you that I don't think enforcing these laws is morally right. That doesn't make him a monster or even someone of poor moral character overall. There's a wide gulf between doing a bad thing and therefore fundamentally being a bad person who can always be counted on to do bad things.

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They're not completely different and they are fundamentally related. Power hungry enforcement of insanely authoritarian laws all have the same foundation. His thinking that he can use his wacky powers to extradite people from across the world is not remarkably different from the idea that he can punish people for mean tweets in the first place.

There's a major difference between those two ideas. People are regularly punished for mean tweets in the UK, whereas extraditing citizens of other countries to punish them for breaking laws of a country they aren't subject to is a thing that has never happened and could never happen, and the chief of the Metropolitan Police can safely be assumed to know that. It makes perfect sense for Rowley to believe that he can do the former and not believe that he could do the latter.

He's a rich executive that lives and works in the UK, him calling for the UK to prosecute foreigners is relevant to the discussion.

Yeah, but I don't think it's fair to really blame the UK for having a dumb rich executive who publicly says stupid shit detached from the reality of the law among its population. By way of a counter-example, there's a similar dumb rich executive who lives and works in the US who also publicly says stupid shit detached from the reality of the law - in his case, it's been repeated assertions over the years, including one quite recently, that people who burn or deface the American flag should be punished by the law. Never mind the fact that flag-burning is textbook free speech and laws prohibiting it have been explicitly ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Still, I think you'd agree that it wouldn't really be fair to ask "Is the US okay?" as a general question simply because of this guy. Simply because of this guy's dumb take on flag-burning, I should clarify. I do think it's fair to ask "Is the US okay?" as a general question when we take into account that the guy I'm talking about is the former President of the United States, and has a good chance of being re-elected this November. But that's going off-topic. :)

Real freedom of speech - in the sense that you can literally say anything you want - doesn’t exist in the US or the UK or anywhere. And nor should it, actually. All societies are governed by rules, and they have to be because in a society my actions affect others. So I can’t drive as fast as I like because I might kill someone. You can’t just do or say anything you want in the context of a society. All those Americans trumpeting their “freedom” must scratch their heads every time they get a speeding fine. In the US you can’t even cross the road until the little man tells you. They’re so free!

This sort of response - "Hey, I think your rules are bullshit." "Ah, but you have rules too! Hypocrite much?" - is so pedantic that it's not worth even discussing. What I especially object to about speech restrictions in Britain is that expressing certain opinions is punished, which is a thing that never happens in America. For example, let's look at the case you mentioned earlier. This guy is being punished for expressing his opinion. Maybe things would be different if he were explicitly asking people to burn down a specific hotel, but he's really not. It's a shitty opinion from a shitty person, but an opinion nevertheless, and he should be free to express it. If the government has the power to decide which opinions are permissible and which ones aren't, I don't think that society is truly free. Sure, you agree with them now. But what happens in the future if your opinion is the one the government says isn't permissible? What happens if many years in the future, corrupt elements in the government are cracking down on political and social opposition to their policies by declaring those opinions impermissible?

After all, incitement to riot is illegal under US federal law, and "incitement to imminent lawless action" (lmao nice specificity, good job guys) is also exempt from first-amendment protections. This is fairly sensible (if asininely phrased, but we're not expecting competence here, are we?). Discussing this would be as pointless as pointing out that water makes your skin dry.

I think the "imminent" qualification is very important. It's the difference between yelling "Jump!" at a would-be suicide jumper and talking about how you feel that anyone who's ever had a suicidal impulse ought to go through with it, or the difference between yelling "They're going to kill you! Run, fight back, don't let them take you!" at someone whom the police are arresting and talking about how you feel that as a general principle, nobody should ever peacefully submit to being arrested - or, to return to the Tyler Kay case, the difference between leading an angry anti-immigrant protest to a hotel known for housing migrants and refugees and bellowing, "There it is, let's burn it down!" and expressing your anti-immigration opinion and saying you'd like to see the hotels that house immigrants be burned down.

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Unlike civilised countries, "obscenity" is considered an acceptable excuse to crack down on speech

I strongly agree with you that obscenity laws are bullshit and have no place in a country that values free speech, and I remember making a thread on the subject many years ago on the old FES. In fact, I'll go further and say that what especially grinds my gears about obscenity prosecutions is that judges historically seem to interpret the final part of the Miller test that determines whether or not something should be concerned obscene, namely "Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" as "Do I personally find this work to appeal to my own subjective taste?" which I don't think at all is what the Supreme Court meant by that! For example, George Carlin's hilarious routine about the seven words you can't say on television, an absolute comedy classic, was ruled by one court to lack artistic merit, although thankfully they didn't go so far as to declare it obscene.

That being said, though, do other countries not have or enforce obscenity laws? There's a whole section about the UK on Wikipedia, but it doesn't exactly summarize the question we're discussing neatly. I'm sure you know more about it than me.

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neither is "commercial speech"

"Commercial speech" is simply subject to more regulations than political or religious speech. For example, if you really want to put out a political ad that says something ridiculous about how every citizen will be given their own flying car if you're elected, you can. Nobody's going to stop you. But when you're promising goods and services in exchange for people's money, then there are more rules. You can't just outright lie about the benefits or lack of drawbacks that the drugs you're selling have, for instance. This is perfectly consistent with speech being free as a general concept, and I don't think that other countries do things especially different.

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I'm glossing over the meme that is your defamation laws, because... y'know, low-hanging fruit.

I'm surprised to hear you say that, because I've always heard that Britain is the country that has the most memal defamation laws of all, ones that heavily favor plaintiffs and have been used many times by rich assholes (J.K. Rowling being one prominent example) to silence people they don't like in a way that would never be allowed in America. You really think that America has worse defamation laws?

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Oh, and not to mention the US's poor standing in press freedom benchmarks.

Please explain. What's wrong with our press freedom?

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For what it's worth, it's been great following the UK police's effective response to the riots and terrorist attacks. The US has been left in the dust, despite their police departments being so much bigger and better-equipped. Someone should look into that, y'all are being scammed out of your tax dollars.

There are a lot of things that Britain does much better than America when it comes to policing, but arresting and prosecuting people for expressing certain opinions is not one of them. It's fundamental to a truly free society, and without that, your freedom only exists at the government's pleasure.
ur retartet but u donut even no it and i walnut tell u y

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #67 on: August 17, 2024, 10:58:26 PM »
I think the "imminent" qualification is very important. It's the difference between yelling "Jump!" at a would-be suicide jumper and talking about how you feel that anyone who's ever had a suicidal impulse ought to go through with it, or the difference between yelling "They're going to kill you! Run, fight back, don't let them take you!" at someone whom the police are arresting and talking about how you feel that as a general principle, nobody should ever peacefully submit to being arrested - or, to return to the Tyler Kay case, the difference between leading an angry anti-immigrant protest to a hotel known for housing migrants and refugees and bellowing, "There it is, let's burn it down!" and expressing your anti-immigration opinion and saying you'd like to see the hotels that house immigrants be burned down.
I have no fucking idea what you're talking about, nor do I have any interest in finding out. It sounds like you might be agreeing with me, but its obscured by layers upon layers of whataboutism.

I strongly agree with you that obscenity laws are bullshit and have no place in a country that values free speech
Then you disagree with me, because I think restricting obscenity is pretty sensible, within certain bounds. Nonetheless, it is a restriction on the American mythos of "freedom of speech". The question here isn't whether you or I think it's a good thing. The question is whether it's happening; and it is.

That being said, though, do other countries not have or enforce obscenity laws?
Entirely irrelevant. I'm not debating whether or not the restrictions are common in other places. I'm pointing out that the American myth of unrestricted freedom of speech is just that - a myth.

"Commercial speech" is simply subject to more regulations than political or religious speech. For example, if you really want to put out a political ad that says something ridiculous about how every citizen will be given their own flying car if you're elected, you can. Nobody's going to stop you. But when you're promising goods and services in exchange for people's money, then there are more rules. You can't just outright lie about the benefits or lack of drawbacks that the drugs you're selling have, for instance. This is perfectly consistent with speech being free as a general concept, and I don't think that other countries do things especially different.
Why do you care so much about other countries? What does that have to do with anything? Y'all are claiming to be unique bastions of freedoms unimaginable to other countries, but the moment that turns out not to be the case, you default to "b-but other countries do it too!!!"

I'm surprised to hear you say that, because I've always heard that Britain is the country that has the most memal defamation laws of all, ones that heavily favor plaintiffs and have been used many times by rich assholes (J.K. Rowling being one prominent example) to silence people they don't like in a way that would never be allowed in America. You really think that America has worse defamation laws?
Once again - what's that about "other countries"? How does that affect anything about America's freedom of speech being obviously restricted?

Please explain. What's wrong with our press freedom?
What do you mean by "wrong"? I'm not arguing right or wrong here. It just so happens that the USA stands fairly low in press freedom benchmarks. It is typically described as "problematic" or "flawed" by independent organisations that act as watchdogs for this kind of stuff, like RSF or UNESCO's WPFI.

There are a lot of things that Britain does much better than America when it comes to policing, but arresting and prosecuting people for expressing certain opinions is not one of them.
Right - but that's not a thing that actually happens. You could literally just read the articles the shitposters here provided to find that out.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2024, 11:09:14 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #68 on: August 18, 2024, 08:05:58 AM »
What I especially object to about speech restrictions in Britain is that expressing certain opinions is punished
No it isn't.

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which is a thing that never happens in America
Did you miss
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution

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This guy is being punished for expressing his opinion.
Bullshit. It's not just a shitty opinion, it's dangerous incitement in the context of stabbings in which a 17 year old stabbed a bunch of kids, killing 2, following which a load of disinformation was spread online that the 17 year old was a refugee and/or a Muslim. Neither are true. That sparked a load of riots in which hotels housing refugees were sent on fire and people's lives were endangered. I have no issue with people involved in that either directly or indirectly being punished. To characterise those tweets as "just expressing an opinion" is a massive stretch.

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But what happens in the future if your opinion is the one the government says isn't permissible? What happens if many years in the future, corrupt elements in the government are cracking down on political and social opposition to their policies by declaring those opinions impermissible?
That could potentially happen in any society. Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive government and I don't expect them ever to have. The issue I have in this thread is some people trying to paint the US as a shining beacon of liberty and freedom and the UK as as cesspit of oppression and control. Obvious bullshit. The truth is both are fairly free societies and we both have freedom of expression which has certain caveats in both countries as it should.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2024, 10:33:15 AM by AATW »
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #69 on: August 18, 2024, 12:34:13 PM »
Did you miss
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution

Do you bother reading your own articles?

"eventually prosecutors agreed to dismiss the charge in exchange for Peralta giving a presentation to youth about responsible social media use."

According to this you basically can get away with threatening to burn a Sherriff's house down in America. His charges were dismissed because the police didn't want to fight a first amendment suit.

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Offline xasop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #70 on: August 18, 2024, 12:38:47 PM »
Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive government
Are you aware that a large part of the UK fought a war of independence against their oppressors barely a century ago?
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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #71 on: August 18, 2024, 12:45:50 PM »
Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive government
Are you aware that a large part of the UK fought a war of independence against their oppressors barely a century ago?
Which war are you referring to?
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline xasop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #72 on: August 18, 2024, 12:48:32 PM »
Which war are you referring to?
The Irish War of Independence.
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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #73 on: August 18, 2024, 01:19:50 PM »
Which war are you referring to?
The Irish War of Independence.
Right. Not entirely sure how that’s connected to what I’m saying. We have behaved poorly historically towards other countries, no dispute there. But in general our government hasn’t been overly authoritarian - certainly not in modern times. They don’t in general interfere with people’s day to day lives. The claim that in the US you can say and do what you like and the UK is an oppressive dystopia just isn’t the reality.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #74 on: August 18, 2024, 01:22:59 PM »
His charges were dismissed because the police didn't want to fight a first amendment suit.
Do you know what “in exchange” means?
They came to a deal, but he was initially arrested and jailed for “things he said online”. What an oppressive nightmare you lot live in.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline xasop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #75 on: August 18, 2024, 01:25:51 PM »
Right. Not entirely sure how that’s connected to what I’m saying. We have behaved poorly historically towards other countries, no dispute there.
Ireland was not another country until after the Irish War of Independence. That's what "Independence" in "War of Independence" means.
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #76 on: August 18, 2024, 02:43:42 PM »
His charges were dismissed because the police didn't want to fight a first amendment suit.
Do you know what “in exchange” means?
They came to a deal, but he was initially arrested and jailed for “things he said online”. What an oppressive nightmare you lot live in.

Your article depicts the matter as a problem with overzealous police, not an issue with the laws. If the police are in the wrong then the person falsely arrested could take it to court and get financial compensation for wrongful arrest.

The rest of your article depicts that there is a great level of freedom of speech in America:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution

    "Landon Davis, a San Francisco public defender, noted that the courts have granted citizens broad protections to criticize public officials, even if the comments are repulsive or shocking. Davis recently represented a man accused of making racist threats against a black police chief on Twitter, but ultimately convinced a judge to drop the charge on free speech grounds."

Navigating to the included link, the page is down, but I was able to bring it up on archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171012050053/http://www.sfexaminer.com/charges-dropped-man-allegedly-made-twitter-threats-acting-sfpd-chief/

    All charges against a man who allegedly tweeted threats against Acting San Francisco Police Chief Toney Chaplin were dropped earlier this month, according to the Public Defender’s Office.

    Donald Hoganson, 60, was arrested July 19 at his San Francisco home after the discovery of a series of tweets he allegedly posted calling for the beheading of Chaplin, among other violence.

    ...But on Aug. 8, Judge Edward Sarkisian found there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the case, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

    That finding was on free speech grounds, according to the Public Defender’s Office.

So in America you can call for the beheading of your local police chief by name and the courts will be on your side and say it is free speech.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2024, 01:16:12 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #77 on: August 18, 2024, 05:18:18 PM »
Code: [Select]
Right. Not entirely sure how that’s connected to what I’m saying. We have behaved poorly historically towards other countries, no dispute there.
Ireland was not another country until after the Irish War of Independence. That's what "Independence" in "War of Independence" means.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Exactly what is considered a country is not well defined. I raised an eyebrow at Hong Kong having a separate Olympic team, that definitely isn’t a country. Scotland had a referendum on independence relatively recently, they are not truly independent of England but they are a separate country.
Lots of countries celebrate their independence from the UK, I was in India one year during their Independence day which as a Brit was somewhat embarrassing.

I think we can all agree that we have a somewhat patchy record when it comes to ruling other countries and somewhat reluctantly giving them back - often being forced to as the result of a war. I don’t think that’s quite the same issue as the day to day freedoms British citizens enjoy though.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline xasop

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #78 on: August 18, 2024, 07:19:30 PM »
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Exactly what is considered a country is not well defined.
It's perfectly well defined when you are talking about the borders of the UK, which included the entire island of Ireland between 1801 and 1922. We are not in the midst of a philosophical debate about what it means to be a country. If you want to deny that Ireland was part of the UK before 1922, then you must also argue that Northern Ireland is not currently part of the UK, since at no point in history did Northern Ireland join the UK separately from the rest of Ireland.

I don’t think that’s quite the same issue as the day to day freedoms British citizens enjoy though.
We are literally talking about literal British citizens living in the literal UK who started a literal war to escape. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.
when you try to mock anyone while also running the flat earth society. Lol

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Offline AATW

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Re: Is the UK okay?
« Reply #79 on: August 18, 2024, 08:21:56 PM »
I don’t think that’s quite the same issue as the day to day freedoms British citizens enjoy though.
We are literally talking about literal British citizens living in the literal UK who started a literal war to escape. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.
You are also talking about events of a century ago. Scotland didn't have to go to war to get independence, they just had a vote - turns out the majority of them didn't want it anyway. I don't think how we behaved as a nation a century ago is that relevant to how we behave today.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"