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Posts Tagged ‘free speech’

Charlie Hebdo massacre: murderous Islamophobia and free speech made us do it

After the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, the liberal turns to Islamophobia. It’s not the murderous bigots we should be uniting against, standing on the front line in this horrendous assult on free thinking and free speech. No. It’s about making a stand against Islamophobia.

Totten:

What good is legal freedom of speech if violent enforcers of a different, older, and foreign set of laws take it upon themselves to punish you extrajudicially?

Richard Seymour writes:

The murder of Charlie Hebdo journalists is appalling. But we should fear the coming Islamophobic backlash.

If your first thought on seeing cartoonists murdered by Islamic racists was to wonder about non-Islamic racism against the racists, you’re not alone.

Now, I think there’s a critical difference between solidarity with the journalists who were attacked, refusing to concede anything to the idea that journalists are somehow “legitimate targets,” and solidarity with what is frankly a racist publication.

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Posted: 8th, January 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


Radical Islam declares war on taking the piss and everything we should value

 

charliehebdo

 

In Paris, France, ten people have been murdered Islamic terrorists:

At least 10 [it’s 12] people have been killed by gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher, after they opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Paris prosecutors say …

The French president Francois Hollande headed to the scene of the attack and the government said it was raising France’s security level to the highest notch.

“This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it,” Mr Hollande said.

Sky News says the two attackers yelled “Allahu Akbar” and “we have avenged the prophet” as they slaughed the innocent.

Bloody hell! This looks like war.

Posted: 7th, January 2015 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


Free Speech: British Police admit trawling for thought crimes

The British police are examining your heads for thought crimes:

 

thought crime

 

Terrifying stuff. But not to worry. The police will only persecute you for thinking unthinkable things and saying unsayable things if you are not on message*.

*Being on message is liable to change with the times, political and moral agenda. What the police don’t prosecute you for saying or thinking now they can hold on file until such a time when they will arrest you.

Be afraid.

Posted: 6th, January 2015 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


Man arrested for eating the koran

To Yorkshire in search of an idiot:

Police have arrested a 19-year-old teenager for allegedly videoing himself chewing and burning a Qur’an. According to the Yorkshire Standard, the video shows a man ripping apart an english translation of the holy Islamic text using his teeth before throwing it into a toilet and setting it alight.

The suspect, who has not been named, was arrested by police on suspicion of a racially or religiously aggravated public order offence.

Superintendent Mabs Hussain, Leeds District Police, tells media:

“The arrested man has been released on bail to an alternative location. We are aware of strong feelings expressed by a number of people in response to this video. We would again urge people to allow this investigation to run its course and remind members of the public that we will take robust action against anyone who acts outside of the law.”

One question: did anyone actually see it?

The police were contacted by the Yorkshire Standard for a clarification on whether the man did rip the Koran, put it in a toilet and burn it. The police refused to confirm or go into detail. The video was deemed as an offensive video.

More questions:

Was it his toilet? Was it his bin? Was it his koran? It was his teeth, we presume. If it was all in private, then what has this private idiocy to do with the State?

Is the thinking that if the police don’t stamp out a man’s right to free expression, however stupid it is, others will think it a good idea and burn copies of the koran? Will jihadis use an idiot and his idiocy to further their own bloodthirtsty idiocy?

When did the idiots take over?

Posted: 4th, January 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


Kate Hopkins charged with world’s first murder-by-tweet

Katie Hopkins

 

The to-deadline controversialist and internet Aunt Sally Katie Hopkins has said something that, as the BBC notes, “police are examining”.

Follwing news that Scots nurse Paulin Cafferkey was being treated for the Ebola virus, Hopkins stretched her thoughts to 140 chracters and tweeted:

“Sending us Ebola bombs in the form of sweaty Glaswegians just isn’t cricket.”

And:

 “Glaswegian ebola patient moved to London’s Royal Free Hospital. Not so independent when it matters most are we jocksville?”

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Posted: 2nd, January 2015 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Free Speech: Leveller John Lilburne stamps out the Court of Star-Chamber

John-Lilburn

 

Leveller John Lilburne: c.1615-1657:

Whilst he was whipt at the Cart, and stood in the Pillory, he uttered many bold Speeches against the Tyranny of Bishops, &c. and when his Head was in the hole of the Pillory, he scattered sundry Copies of Pamphlets, (said to be seditious) and tossed them among the People, taking them out of his Pocket; whereupon the Court of Star-Chamber (then sitting being informed) immediately ordered Lilburne to be gagged during the residue of the time he was to stand in the Pillory, which was done accordingly; and when he could not speak, he stamped with his Feet, thereby intimating to the Beholders, he would still speak were his Mouth at liberty; and the Court of Star-Chamber that day made also this following Order.

Image via: Library of Congress

Posted: 2nd, January 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


Free Speech: Dappers Laughs cannot be killed by the student censors

When Dapper Laughs was booted off the telly for making a rape joke at a club for his paying fans, we thought it a shame. Whan Daniel O’Reilly, for it is he, went on telly to say how sorry he was that he’d caused offence, we thought it tragic. Wear your ‘Too Bad for Telly’ as a badge of honour we urged.

As is the trend, students who would once have cheered for freedom and saying the unsayable now demand things be unsaid:

Earlier in the year, a show in Cardiff was cancelled following a petition by around 700 students who didn’t want him to perform at the university. Twenty-year-old student Zara Lindsay was behind one of them. She told Newsbeat she didn’t want Dapper Laughs performing on the University of Leicester campus.

She said: “Lad culture is quite prevalent these days. It’s especially bad on nights out with theme nights, drinking games and sports initiations. Plus there’s a general feeling that sexual assault is something that you should just take on a night out. Having people like Dapper Laughs holding gigs here suggests that this is an OK attitude and that sends out the wrong message.”

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Posted: 26th, December 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment


College field trip to Millwall studies ‘working class culture and habits’

Millwall fans love stuffed toys

Millwall fans love stuffed toys

 

A college has been branded ‘offensive’ for arranging a trip to a Millwall football match so that students can observe ‘working class culture’.

Varndean College in Brighton says the trip will give students the chance to learn about ‘working class culture and habits’, ‘issues around sexuality, race and ethnicity’ and ‘women challenging gender norms’.

A poster displayed at the sixth form college also urges students to enjoy pies and Bovril and ‘even talk to fans’ at Brighton and Hove Albion’s American Express Community Stadium.

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Posted: 12th, December 2014 | In: Sports | Comment


Cowardly University of East Anglia Students Ban UKIP MP For Fear Of Alarming Young Minds

The students’ union of the University of East Anglia in the UK says UKIP MP Douglas Carswell to too far-out to address the place. Scheduled to speak at the university’s Political, Social and International Studies (PSI) society, Carswell was cancelled. He was likly to breach the college’s ‘Equal Opportunities Policy’.

What censorious, cowardly knobs. The statement on Facebook reads:

The Union has reviewed the arrangements in relation to tonight’s PSI society event with speakers from UKIP attending. A procedure governing the approval and handling of events with external speakers was approved by the Trustee Board last year. In this case an internal investigation has revealed that the Union has not followed the procedure as it should have, and as such the event cannot go ahead at this moment in time. We will review internal compliance with our procedures to ensure that all staff, officers and clubs/socs are fully aware of these procedures in the future.

We will now meet with the PSI society to discuss the postponement of this event and whether we will be able to allow the event to go ahead in the future. In doing so we will be required to consider the potential for any decision to limit freedom of speech as per the university’s code of practice in pursuance of the 1986 Education Act; the potential for the event going ahead to cause the union to be in breach of its equal opportunities policy; the potential for the event going ahead to cause the union to fail in its wider legal duties; the potential for the event going ahead to cause reputational risk to the Union; the potential for the speaker’s presence on campus to cause fear or alarm to members of the student body; and the potential for the speakers presence on campus to give rise to breach of peace. Consultation with interested parties will be carried out.

Students are a cowardly lot. They’re afraid to hear a UKIP MP. His mere words will cause alarm. And these comfortable students must not be alarmed.

Hush, children. Hush…

PS: The local newspaper calls it a “Controversial UKIP event”.  FFS. 

Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


The ‘Guardian Class’ Want Video Games Rated For Sexism

violent-video-games
In light of “Gamergate”, Sweden’s “government-funded innovation agency” Vinnova are looking at rating video games by their “sexist” content.
The Local catches up with one Vinnova “manager” who “said it was unclear at this stage if all video games produced in Sweden would be given a label, or if companies developing games that promoted equality would be given some kind of certification to use for their own marketing purposes… Video games can help us to create more diverse workplaces and can even change the way we think about things.”
Job done. We think you’re an idiot who treats people who play video games as fools. These people who play video games will not grow up believing all women are sexually available 2D bimbos. Just as the elite tell us that football fans’ speech must be controlled lest they race riot, gamers do not need re-educating.
Every aspect of our lives is being politicised. Unwinding with a video game is now a moral issue. Escapism is not allowed. Where once the fearful right condemend video nasties, acid house and comic books, the authoritarian left is now commanding:

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Posted: 20th, November 2014 | In: Reviews, Technology, The Consumer | Comment


Free Speech: Timothy Stanley On The Death Of Thinking At Oxford University

WHEN the Oxford University’s compliant, scared, iliberal wimps and bigots censored an abotion debate, anyone sane should have noted that “Free speech is under assault on campus”. Tim Stanley was one of the speakers who was shut down by the unenlightend, ignorant mob.

He writes:

…someone was outraged that we dared to discuss this issue at all. A protest group of around 300 people called “What the f**k is ‘Abortion Culture’?” appeared on Facebook that promised to “take along some non-destructive but oh so disruptive instruments to help demonstrate to the anti-choicers just what we think of their ‘debate’.” We were guilty of promoting “really sh*tty anti-choice rhetoric and probs some cissexism.” The foul language indicates how sophisticated the protesters were, while the accusation of cissexism had me reaching for my online urban dictionary. Was I being called a sissy by homophobic feminists? Mais non. Apparently a “cis” is someone who identifies with the same gender that they were born with. So that’s a thing now.

The university’s students’ union also issued a statement that took aim at Brendan O’Neill and me for being so offensively attached to our God-given genitals: “The Women’s Campaign (WomCam) condemn SFL for holding this debate. It is absurd to think we should be listening to two cisgender men debate about what people with uteruses should be doing with their bodies.” Next, the Christ Church Junior Common Room (posh talk for “the committee that run the students’ bar”) passed a motion asking their college to decline to room the debate. Eventually, the college caved-in on the grounds that, “there was insufficient time between today and tomorrow to address some concerns they had about the meeting”. The pro-life society tried to find an alternative venue but everyone else said “no”. I believe that two colleges agreed only to later rescind their invitations…

What it also proved is that elements of the Left are working hard to define new parameters for freedom of speech. You are free to speak so long as it doesn’t offend certain sensibilities, which of course amounts to no real freedom at all.

Read it all…

Posted: 19th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


Free Speech Abort! Oxford University Students Run Scared Of Abortion Debate

oxford students for life

 

BRENDAN O’Neill and Timothy Stanley are going to debate abortion at Oxford Students for Life’s Abortion Culture debate. Or are they? Cherwell, the independent student newspaper of Oxford University, has news:

A controversial debate on abortion planned to be held at Christ Church by Oxford Students for Life (OSFL) has attracted widespread student criticism, with the College’s JCR voting to inform college Censors about the mental and physical security issues surrounding the debate.

Mental security? Colleges ought to be beacons of free inquiry. Is the allegation that listening to O’Neill and Stanley will render you unhinged? These melon twisters might make you think, and that would be just awful.

Nick Gillespie cuts in:

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Posted: 17th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


Free Speech: The FA Wants Malky Mackay Charged With Thought Crimes

Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay with player recruitment staff member Iain Moody (left) before the game

Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay with player recruitment staff member Iain Moody (left) before the game

 

EAT your heart out Ched Evans, writing in the Telegraph Jason Burt turns his gaze on Malky Mackay, the former Cardiff City manger whose offensive private emails became a public stick with which to beat him.

It was alleged Mackay shared racist, homophobic and misoynistic texts with former Cardiff colleague Iain Moody, who resigned his position as Crystal Palace sporting director shortly after the messages came to light.

Let’s look again at what was found:

“Go on, fat Phil. Nothing like a Jew that sees money slipping through his fingers.” On football agent Phil Smith.

“He’s a snake, a gay snake. Not to be trusted.” Referring to an official at another club.

“Not many white faces amongst that lot but worth considering.” Referring to a list of potential signings.

“I bet you’d love a bounce on her falsies”

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Posted: 17th, November 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Sports | Comment


Free Speech: Lefty Twitter And The Ideas Police

Freddie deBoer on the you-can’t-say-that moraliser who police free speech on twitter:

“It may be tempting to embrace the violent power of the state as the solution to ideas and expression you find hateful and ugly… Whether the elites that so credulously embrace the notion of empowering the police state to squash harassment like it or not. And it may be tempting to embrace the coercive power of large corporations to limit speech online. But I promise you: that power will also be used against you by your antagonists, who are opportunistic and learn quickly.

“Lefty Twitter might be obsessed with policing language. But they won’t actually get to do the policing themselves. Instead, they will hand that work off to the same broken institutions and corrupt authorities that they themselves have diagnosed as broken and corrupt. And that is one of these fundamental, existential paradoxes within contemporary left-wing orthodoxy today: simultaneously recognizing that we live within structures of intrinsic, intentional inequality and injustice, and yet forever ready to abandon that skepticism towards those structures when it seems convenient to do so.”

Free speech. No buts…

Posted: 13th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


Eric The Chick-fil-A Manager’s List of Banned Words

Chikc-fil-A

 

FREE Speech Watch:

Eric, a manager at a Chick-fil-A restaurant, made a list of words that he forbade his staff from uttering while at work. When someone crossed out “bae” he added it back on the list and wrote, “scratch it our & you lose your employee meals!”

Spotter: Boing Boing

Posted: 11th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


Dapper Laughs Raped My Funny Bone: Daniel O’Reilly Must Be Killed

Dapper Laughs

 

ITV2 have killed off Dapper Laughs show On The Pull because the star, one Daniel O’Reilly, made a joke about rape.

The Daily Mirror helped trigger the campaign to end the show by pointing to O’Reilly’s performance at London Scala, in which he told a female audience member:

“She’s gagging for a rape. Yep, we’ll have a chat afterwards. She’s having a chat about ‘yeah, I get quite tight but I get a bit… poor girl. Do you want to come backstage after? Bring two of your mates, you’ll need them.”

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Posted: 11th, November 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment


Free Speech: Fat John Venables And The Death Of Journalism

THE Sun has a story about John Venables, one of James Bulger’s killers. Vanbles was a 10-year-old child when he killed the toddler.

Gary O’Shea writes:

A JOURNALIST is facing jail after exposing how James Bulger’s bloated killer Jon Venables got private fitness sessions behind bars. The reporter — who paid a tip fee to a prison officer — was convicted by an Old Bailey jury of plotting to commit misconduct in public office.

The story was a prison “source” telling News of the World readers:

“He [Venables] got very body conscious when he had to appear on camera on the day he was sentenced. It gave him the extra spur to improve his body image and he asked the governor for assistance.”

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Posted: 8th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)


Thought Crimes: Man Persecuted For Tiger Sex Tape Was A Victim Of Furry Fury

tiger sexTHE police said they found footage of a tiger have sex with a women on Andrew Holland’s mobile phone. You read that right. A tiger and a woman having sex. That’s not something most of us will have contemplated. Some of us might even want to see what that involves. But take care because looking at the depraved and bizarre could be a criminal offence.

Mr Holland was arrested. The footage, which he had not directed not taken any part in, was deeemd extreme pornography, and that’s unlawful.

Something is classed as extreme porn “if it shows necrophilia or bestiality, threatens someone’s life or could cause serious injury to anus, breasts or genitals.” It’s also extreme porn if it is deemed to be “grossly offensive”.

He said friends had shared it with him, forwarding the tiger-female sex footage to his account. He had looked at the film for six seconds.

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Posted: 27th, October 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


The NUS Bans Free Speech And Won’t Condemn IS For Fear Of Looking Islamophobic

PA-19146393

 

THE National Union of Students has voted. And it will not condemn ISIS.

The Tab reports:

The bill called for the Union – which claims to represent UK students – to support unity between Muslims, condemn the bloody terror of ISIS (also known as the Islamic State), and support a boycott on people who fund the militants. But the motion offended Black Students Officer Malia Bouattia, who said: “We recognise that condemnation of ISIS appears to have become a justification for war and blatant Islamaphobia. This rhetoric exacerbates the issue at hand and in essence is a further attack on those we aim to defend.”

Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.

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Posted: 14th, October 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


A Free Press Does Not Mean Police Approving Only The Voices The State Likes To Hear

MICK Hume is right. He writes in the Times about press freedom, linking the police raids on tabloid journalists to the police spying on the Daily Mail’s phones:

The Labour MP Keith Vaz protests that the police phone hackers have “struck a serious blow against press freedom”. Noble words. He is no relation, presumably, to the chairman of the home affairs select committee who, in 2011, lambasted the Met for “not doing enough” to crack down on the excesses of tabloid journalism?

The Liberal Democrat conference has pledged to reform RIPA to “protect responsible journalism”, a policy proposed by the former MP Evan Harris, now a lobbyist for Hugh Grant’s Hacked Off. Nobody has been more “responsible” than Hacked Off for encouraging a contemptuous official view of tabloid hacks, whom the campaign’s executive director branded a “different breed” at the Leveson inquiry.

Nick Davies, of The Guardian, who led the crusade to expose hacking at the News of the World, says that the police have cheated by using RIPA to hunt down sources. Yet to judge by his new book, Hack Attack, Davies’s role in the hacking scandal was to act as the provisional wing of the Metropolitan Police, insisting that a stricter interpretation of RIPA would empower them to arrest more members of the tabloid press.

Read it all.

Posted: 10th, October 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment


Brenda Leyland: Cliff Richard, Free Speech And Martin Brunt’s Wife

Brenda-Leyland dead

 

BRENDA Leyland continues to make news. The woman monstered by the media, outed by twitter hunters who allegedly tweeted thousands of often abusive and potentially libellous messages about the parents of missing Madeleine McCann, is dead. This is an at-a-glance round-up of today’s news on her:

Bryony Gordon, The Telegraph:

It’s never OK to troll anyone – even a troll – Cyberspace is medieval – we no sooner take in an event than put the people at the heart of it in the stocks, be they the McCanns, Brenda Leyland or Sky News…

On so many levels, the story of Brenda Leyland, the church-going Twitter troll who said some ungodly things about the McCann family, makes my heart ache… I can’t stand the idea of this lonely woman with her pathetic double life under the pseudonym of “Sweepyface”; one minute attending church, the next rushing home to spill on to the internet noxious bile about a couple with a missing child. But nor can I bear that she was treated in some quarters as if she herself had abducted Madeleine McCann, and not just acted like a deluded moron with broadband and access to some of the web’s crazier conspiracy theories.

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Posted: 7th, October 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment


Free Speech: Mario Balotelli Is Guilty Of Tweeting Whilst Black

A free speech campaigner uses a British flag as a gag during a protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013.

A free speech campaigner uses a British flag as a gag during a protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013.

 

THE Mirror’s Brian Reade wants to talk about the problem of grown men exercising their right to free speech. Not everyone gets paid to comment, like a by-lined journalist does. Some people just talk and tweet and write with no concern for deadline or encouraging reader interest and clicks.

Reade begins his columns by explaining how things were great in the days of Roy Race, a fictional footballer who existed in a comic. Reade delivers some Melchester Rovers banter:

FAN: “You were lucky today, Roy.”

ROY: “Really? I thought we had your lot on the run.”

FAN: “Our lot run? That’ll be the day.”

ROY: “Ha ha. That’s a bit unfair on your lads.”

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Posted: 25th, September 2014 | In: Key Posts, Liverpool, Sports | Comment


Life Imitates Viz: Clemson University Calls In The Bottom Inspectors

clemson

 

TO the land of the free (that’s still America according to the brochure, readers), where students at Clemson University are mandated to answer questions on how often they have sex, what sort of sex it was, and the number of partners.

Not to worry, kids, the quiz is anonymous, although students do have to use their official IDs and third-party services to complete. 

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Posted: 20th, September 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment