Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on March 27, 2012, 04:30:47 pm
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While I knew freedom of expression is not as heavily protected in the UK as it is in Canada, or anywhere near as protected as the United States, I still find this case disturbing:
A 21-year old student who posted offensive Twitter comments
about Fabrice Muamba as the footballer lay collapsed on a pitch has been jailed
for 56 days for inciting racial hatred.
Liam Stacey, a Swansea University biology undergraduate, provoked disgust with tweets posted as the 23-year-old Bolton Wanders midfielder was fighting for his life following a heart attack during a FA Cup quarter final match against Tottenham. The game was broadcast live on television.
The first of Stacey's messages began "LOL. **** Muamba. He's dead!!!"
As fellow Twitter users took him to task for his views, Stacey responded with further offensive comments.
He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.
Today, District Judge John Charles told him: "In my view there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence."
Charles said that when Muamba collapsed, "it was not the football world who was praying for him... everybody was praying for his life".
He added that abusive remarks made to Stacey "via a social networking site were instigated as a result of vile and abhorrent comments made as a result of a young man who was fighting for his life".
As he was led away in handcuffs to a holding cell beneath Swansea Magistrates' Court, Stacey broke down in tears. He was led past the public gallery where, shaking with emotion, he was briefly embraced by family and friends.
Fabrice Muamba’s recovery since his heart attack on March 17 has been described as “miraculous”. He remains in a serious but stable condition in intensive care, and is reported to be eating, sitting out of bed, watching television and speaking with friends in both English and French.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/student-who-mocked-fabrice-muamba-on-twitter-is-jailed-7591032.html
Society in general may find remarks to be vile, but should they really be a criminal offense if an action doesn't occur or is not reasonably likely to occur as a result?
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This is bonkers. Anyone should be free to say awful things like this... and then everyone else should be free to call them a colossal asshole for it.
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This is bonkers. Anyone should be free to say awful things like this... and then everyone else should be free to call them a colossal asshole for it.
:yes:
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Holy ****, that's messed up.
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Society in general may find remarks to be vile, but should they really be a criminal offense if an action doesn't occur or is not reasonably likely to occur as a result?
I think this is quite ridiculous, and highlights the strange lack of respect for freedom of speech that seems to be so prevalent in the UK nowadays (at least thats the impression I have). As much as the guy was a jerk, I dont think he deserves any legal punishment at all. Grow a thicker skin!
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He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.
read the bold section, nuf said.
For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.
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This can be said of any insults with any kind of background, whether racial, religious, social status-related, origin related, etc. Basically everything that isn't an insult to mental state of the victim (and only because we got used to these). There are many ways to initiate hatred towards another person. IMHO, they should either all be allowed or all forbidden. TBH, outlawing being a jerk and trolling doesn't seem like a very bad of an idea, there are way too many jerks on the internet and outside of it (plus, it'd mean arresting half of 4Chan :)). Of course, it'd still be a bad idea, since such a law would be way too easy to abuse. Still, I prefer "you can say what you think, but politely" version of freedom of speech.
Of course, laws aren't the best approach to the decay of tact and savior vivre in the modern society, but that isn't a matter for this thread.
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He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.
read the bold section, nuf said.
For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.
I really dont think "emotional hurt" is a valid argument for legal action. As I said, grow a thicker skin. Regarding the violence, there is a ban on incitement to unlawful violence, no need to get racial hatred involved. Its hard to judge without seeing the comments, but I do expect that this will be some PC nonsense charge... :D
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True but race has long been a very sensitive subject and less avoided by the lawmakers than in say some states in America. Also racial hatred has been on the books for a long time so tweeting this kind of thing is more like criminal stupidity than excessive law.
Also the issue of cyber bullying keeps being shoved in the politician's faces and there has been made aware nationally on a number of occasions with FB, twitter and bbm being in the middle of it all and national opinion is swinging towards the need for laws to control online harassment and bullying.
He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.
read the bold section, nuf said.
For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.
I really dont think "emotional hurt" is a valid argument for legal action. As I said, grow a thicker skin. Regarding the violence, there is a ban on incitement to unlawful violence, no need to get racial hatred involved. Its hard to judge without seeing the comments, but I do expect that this will be some PC nonsense charge... :D
when we have teenagers hanging themselves for less for online bullying this stuff needs tightening up
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I agree that the prison sentence is a bit much, considering that there is a hook-handed religious nut on our streets, preaching about how every non Muslim in the UK should be murdered in various ways. Perhaps a public apology, monetary compensation and getting his mum to give him a sound caning would have been more appropriate in regards to severity. More profitable as well.
There are a large amount of people who deserve that cell more than that fool.
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I think a public apology, made outside Camden Town Hall would be interesting, he'd probably be safer in jail ;)
The thing is, it's swings and roundabouts, on the downside, inciting hatred being illegal means that silly things like this happen, on the upside, things like the Westboro Baptist Church would never, ever be legally allowed to operate here.
On this I'm kind of in two minds, if I could rely on all humans to be rational, intelligent and moderate about things then it'd be a different story, but they aren't and I can't help feeling that sometimes we need to protect ourselves from ourselves. I think jailing the guy was more a question of showboating the 'we don't tolerate trolls' mentality that the UK is trying to cultivate at the moment than a reasonable reaction to what was done, but I also think that Freedom of Speech relies heavily on the ability to those speaking to do so in a mature manner, rather than simply using it as a thin excuse to pour insults and prejudice into the world.
Edit: This is why I consider the 'Modest Proposal' to be one of the greatest works of Free-Speech, because although it is 'inflammatory', it manages to achieve it whilst remaining intelligent, and the controversy is deliberately used to drive home a point. It is not merely controversy for the sake of being seen, instead it is controversy for the sake of letting other people see themselves.
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what kind of world is one that penalizes you for publicly rejoicing in the misfortunes of someone you dont like? no world that i want to live in.
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Oddly enough, I was talking about 'Death humour' with a friend this evening. We decided there is a difference in, for example, making Micheal Jackson jokes to your mates and making them to the Jackson family. The problem is, with something like Twitter, people tend to forget that everyone is listening, not just the ones who reply, so this kind of falls into both categories.
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He was jailed for inciting racial hatred. Without knowing the contents of his other tweets and whether they had an audience likely to act on them, it's a waste of time commenting on whether the sentence was too harsh or not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/27/student-jailed-fabrice-muamba-tweets
Based on the Guardian's report, it may have been too harsh. But then again when The Guardian doesn't give a **** about him, I tend to not see it as that disturbing.
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Well, HuffPo has posted screen caps of a couple of said tweets here: WARNING: RACIST CONTENT (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/liam-stacey-racist-tweets-twitter-muamba-dead_n_1381876.html)
If this was all he was jailed on as far as the "inciting racial hatred" goes... while I think what he said was repulsive and abhorrent, I really don't think it should cross that line between in poor taste and criminal behaviour. Apparently at least one magistrate thinks otherwise, though.
Canada has hate speech laws, but they are much much tighter than the UK. While I agree with them in principle, I think this case at least demonstrates how they can be abused.
On the plus side... 10 days between offense date, trial (well, guilty plea), and a prison sentence? Where the hell is that kind of system efficiency on this side of the Atlantic?
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...aaaaaand, the law he was apparently convicted under:
Communications Act, 2003
127Improper use of public electronic communications network
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.
(2)A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b)causes such a message to be sent; or
(c)persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
(3)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.
(4)Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).
Given the looseness of that section, I think there are a few HLP members (myself included) that might want to avoid posting from the UK lest someone file a complaint under 127(2)(c) :eek2:
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i am so goddamn tired of the race card. even if race truly IS the motivating factor instead of the victim just being a minority, crimes are crimes and race is no worse a reason than any other to commit them.
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Well, from looking at his comments, they cannot even really be justified as 'jokes' so much as just a plain stream of abuse, I suppose for me the difference there appears to be that it is designed to be offensive to those close to the incident. It's like last year, when a troll was jailed (and again recently) for posting abusive comments on someone's obituary. The defense was that the person suffered from a condition that meant they could not judge the emotional response of others, to which the prosecution pointed out that those comments were quite obviously designed and intended to cause offence, so the defendant must have some knowledge of the impact of their words. In fact, I think there was a thread on HLP about it.
Problem is for this guy is that the Media have now named and shamed him, life is going to involve a lot of running over the coming months I feel, regardless of whether or not he is in jail.
@MPRyan, yeah I agree, that's a really poorly worded piece of legislation right there...
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Well, HuffPo has posted screen caps of a couple of said tweets here: WARNING: RACIST CONTENT (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/liam-stacey-racist-tweets-twitter-muamba-dead_n_1381876.html)
...I've heard more offensive **** in a high school hallway. Dear lord, Britain.
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Wait, that's a crime in the UK?
Doesn't one of your political parties say **** that would be covered under that all the time?
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Yup, and members of the BNP have been arrested for it.
For example, you can say 'I don't trust Islam, it's a religion that promotes violence', that's an acceptable statement under UK law, what you cannot say is 'We should kick all of those smelly Muslim sand n...... out' *
I suppose it's kind of like the Forum guidelines, be abusive for the sake of the abuse and you'll be looking at repercussions.
* Neither of these are intended as a statement of personal belief and are given for example purposes only.
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If someone made a punk rock or rap song or a painting out of this guys words would they go to jail too?
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There comes a point where the law should not be used as a substitute for personal discretion.
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If someone made a punk rock or rap song or a painting out of this guys words would they go to jail too?
I suspect it would depend on presentation and delivery.
Take, for example, the concern over the Californian self-defense law and the problems that has caused recently (look up Trayvon Martin if you haven't heard of it). Sometimes laws that are created with good intentions can be misused, over-used or misinterpreted, sometimes good old fashioned common-sense has to come into the equation at some point. And like the US with its Gun laws, remember you are dealing with a country that sets great stock in politeness, even though that is on the decline. That's not about politeness being right or wrong, same as its not about guns being good or bad, but we perceive things differently in both cases, so it's as much about the social make-up of the country involved as the perceived boundaries that people can or cannot cross.
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Take, for example, the concern over the Californian self-defense law and the problems that has caused recently (look up Trayvon Martin if you haven't heard of it).
Florida.
California would have arrested the guy already.
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Take, for example, the concern over the Californian self-defense law and the problems that has caused recently (look up Trayvon Martin if you haven't heard of it).
Florida.
California would have arrested the guy already.
Oops, yup, it's Miami Dade/Broward area, which I know is in Florida, 4am strikes again :/
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If someone made a punk rock or rap song or a painting out of this guys words would they go to jail too?
I suspect it would depend on presentation and delivery.
This whole business makes me think of A Clockwork Orange. I spent a semester studying art in London as an undergrad, so I do have an inkling of what I think you're getting at regarding the culture of politeness. There certainly seems to be a greater sensitively in the UK to the balancing act between personal responsibility/common sense and the neutering of free speech on a national scale. It's interesting though how the decision to prosecute this douche (pardon my French) sort of casts him in a heroic light. I bet the BNP loves it when stuff like this happens.
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Yeah, but we get revenge on them for that by making them have to accept black people (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/bnp-forced-to-end-policy-for-whites-only-membership-6704646.html). :p
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Now that's awesome. Has anyone joined for virtuous trolling purposes? There's gotta be a Borat type episode in there somewhere :D
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Holy ****! If I'm reading this right, you guys had a whites-only political party all the way until 2009.
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Now that's awesome. Has anyone joined for virtuous trolling purposes? There's gotta be a Borat type episode in there somewhere :D
I was seriously considering doing just that. As not only a "black" person, but one of dual heritage, it'd drive them up the bloody wall!
But then I realised that trolling in real life has a larger chance of me ending up with an arrow to the knee, so I resolved to stick to the net. Easier lulz.
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i am so goddamn tired of the race card. even if race truly IS the motivating factor instead of the victim just being a minority, crimes are crimes and race is no worse a reason than any other to commit them.
this.
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This is bonkers. Anyone should be free to say awful things like this... and then everyone else should be free to call them a colossal asshole for it.
QFT
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i am so goddamn tired of the race card. even if race truly IS the motivating factor instead of the victim just being a minority, crimes are crimes and race is no worse a reason than any other to commit them.
the idea is that crimes selectively targeting a specific disadvantaged group (those with a history of being targeted) are more damaging because you have
[negative effects of the crime on the individual]
and
[reinforcement of the targeted status of the group as a whole]
the idea is that if you go out and shoot someone at random, that's bad, and everyone is afraid of being shot. but if you go out and say 'i hate black people' and shoot a black person, you've targeted a specific group and black people in particular are going to know that crazy people are after them. ymmv as to whether this reasoning works for you, but it's at least supported by some empirical lab work
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What if I was to shoot a person while declaring my unending hatred for humans?
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IMHO, we can't really be talking about "equal rights" as long, as minorities are getting privileges. I don't think anybody would talk about racial hatred if that guy attacked a white person, even if it was on racist grounds. Similarly, have you ever heard of female chauvinism being mentioned?
Tipping the inequality from one side to the other isn't making it any better, it only affects different people.
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What if I was to shoot a person while declaring my unending hatred for humans?
then we will find you a bed in a nice secure hospital while you undergo psychiatric treatment. if you manage to be "cured" beforwe the end of your sentence then we will screw you up again by finding you a nice prison cell
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What if I was to shoot a person while declaring my unending hatred for humans?
the idea is that since the probability of being targeted is 1/[all available humans] rather than 1/[subset of humans] you are less of a danger to any given individual - though you are obviously still supremely dangerous.
there's another layer in that someone may be more likely to act on hatred of a specific outgroup because it's easy to dehumanize those who are different. we might expect hate crimes to be more easily rationalized and more likely to propagate, because hatred of specific outgroups, and specific reasons to act against these outgroups, is more common than hatred of humanity as a whole.
IMHO, we can't really be talking about "equal rights" as long, as minorities are getting privileges. I don't think anybody would talk about racial hatred if that guy attacked a white person, even if it was on racist grounds. Similarly, have you ever heard of female chauvinism being mentioned?
Tipping the inequality from one side to the other isn't making it any better, it only affects different people.
this is a very active field of research and discussion and there aren't any clear answers yet, but racial hatred is definitely talked about when white people are attacked, people are convicted of hate crimes for attacks on white people, and sexism definitely cuts both ways
i think the takeaway here is that 'the issue is very complicated'
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What if I was to shoot a person while declaring my unending hatred for humans?
then we will find you a bed in a nice secure hospital while you undergo psychiatric treatment. if you manage to be "cured" beforwe the end of your sentence then we will screw you up again by finding you a nice prison cell
Sounds like more trouble than it's worth, besides, I already hate vasudans with a passion.
Anyway, most of you are humans and I'd feel a little sad when it came to exterminating you.
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I wouldn't be waving banners about it either... :nervous:
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Other than the "go pick some cotton" part which is a racial stereotype, the tweets on http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/liam-stacey-racist-tweets-twitter-muamba-dead_n_1381876.html don't have any direct or indirect mention of any race (assuming the blurred out parts have profanity), nor do the tweets have anything on the superiority of one race over another.
I'll bet 1 USD that this dude simply hates the team Muamba plays for and wanted to pi$$ off its fans. Either that or he has a bad taste in trolling.
The fact the guy went to jail and lots of people think the punishment is excessive may have a side effect- neo-nazis now have a new propaganda canon, and their "target audience" will definitely like hearing about how situations like this should not happen.
Once they like what they hear, they'll be willing to agree with the neo-nazis on who's at fault (and it ain't going to be the biology student).
Holy ****! If I'm reading this right, you guys had a whites-only political party all the way until 2009.
If my knowledge is correct, there are black/white/other only clubs and scholarships in the US to this day.
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Cubs are one thing, political parties are another. The former don't have much to say regarding national politics.
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Other than the "go pick some cotton" part which is a racial stereotype, the tweets on http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/liam-stacey-racist-tweets-twitter-muamba-dead_n_1381876.html don't have any direct or indirect mention of any race (assuming the blurred out parts have profanity), nor do the tweets have anything on the superiority of one race over another.
I'll bet 1 USD that this dude simply hates the team Muamba plays for and wanted to pi$$ off its fans. Either that or he has a bad taste in trolling.
The fact the guy went to jail and lots of people think the punishment is excessive may have a side effect- neo-nazis now have a new propaganda canon, and their "target audience" will definitely like hearing about how situations like this should not happen.
Once they like what they hear, they'll be willing to agree with the neo-nazis on who's at fault (and it ain't going to be the biology student).
Holy ****! If I'm reading this right, you guys had a whites-only political party all the way until 2009.
If my knowledge is correct, there are black/white/other only clubs and scholarships in the US to this day.
Then why plead guilty to one of the more serious anti racism laws in the country?
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Alright, the full text has some racism and lots of profanity. This guy seems to hate everyone equally, calling people....
Oh well...
The following link has an uncensored version of (some of) the tweets, the amount of not politically correct stuff they contain is boggling the mind. Why anyone had any conversations with this guy is beyond me...
The texts are not safe for work, people under 25, and those who can't sleep after seeing things that cannot be unseen.
My eyes, the goggles do nothing! (http://karenknowsbest.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MUAMBA21.jpg)
He later claims his twitter account was hacked (also contains profanity, not safe for work, minors or people without nerves of steel):
http://www.firmaportal.dk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Liam-Stacey-Twitter-racism-against-Fabrice-Muamba-dont-lose-the-evidence.jpg
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If my knowledge is correct, there are black/white/other only clubs and scholarships in the US to this day.
There are many organizations for various minorities only, but i can't come up with any for whites only. I'm talking offical type of things here, not stuff like the KKK.
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Okay, so he's more than deserving for a public caning, but not much else.
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Those tweets are more telling. Still, while he absolutely deserves a full public shaming for that, jail time seems a wee bit excessive. But that is by North American standards, and as I love to point out in justice-related threads - while the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, etc all share common threads of justice and a common law foundation, the actual systems and codified rights differ immensely by country.
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I don't think anybody would talk about racial hatred if that guy attacked a white person, even if it was on racist grounds.
Have you MET America?
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If my knowledge is correct, there are black/white/other only clubs and scholarships in the US to this day.
There are many organizations for various minorities only, but i can't come up with any for whites only. I'm talking offical type of things here, not stuff like the KKK.
the reason is that these groups would be shot down for being racist, even if in fact they were not. the second a white person shows any pride in their national identity or ethnic heritage they will be called racist. where as blacks, native americans, latinos, etc, parade their culture around everywhere. i find that the reason behind white youth being so open to other cultures is a complete lack of understanding of their own. a few hundred years of americanization does not a cultural identity make. its just whats left over after having almost no clue about what it means to be of european descent. white people (especially in america) are a rather culturally sterile bunch. and i kinda wish the minorities would realize this before flaunting their own rich cultural identities around.
i would also argue what makes a minority. in some places the minorities arent so minor. get on a bus in phoenix, you will be luckey if you see 2 other white people on it. last time i had a job down there, there were more hispanics and blacks on the payroll than whites. of course thats not the case everywhere you go. i mean here in petersburg ak there are very few minorities at all, and in that case the word is correct. i dont get where simply being part of a group of lesser numbers entitles you to any special treatment over the majority. so long as people feel the need to wall themselves off into little groups they deserve the oncoming nukage they will one day receive.
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Well, that's partly down to a lot of Governments believing that by placing all the minorities in the same area, they will support each other. The problem is they didn't quite think that thought through to the end. London, for example, decided it would be a great idea to place Greeks, Turkish and Cypriots all within about 2 miles of each other. Guess how well that turned out.
The problem is there is no real answer, I sort of see the sense behind the idea in the first place, but lack of development or meaningful engagement with the communities after they were formed means they have turned into 'bubbles' of ethnicity rather than areas where people could find their feet and adapt to a new society.
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'bubbles' of ethnicity
There's a word for that and it's "ghetto." :p
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the reason is that these groups would be shot down for being racist, even if in fact they were not. the second a white person shows any pride in their national identity or ethnic heritage they will be called racist. where as blacks, native americans, latinos, etc, parade their culture around everywhere. i find that the reason behind white youth being so open to other cultures is a complete lack of understanding of their own. a few hundred years of americanization does not a cultural identity make. its just whats left over after having almost no clue about what it means to be of european descent. white people (especially in america) are a rather culturally sterile bunch. and i kinda wish the minorities would realize this before flaunting their own rich cultural identities around.
There are tons of pride events and organizations for people of European descent. I'm pretty sure there's some sort of heritage association for just about every European national extraction, though their popularity understandably varies based on demographics and cultural penetration. Some nationalities even get widely celebrated holidays, like St Patrick's day, where everyone pretends to be Irish by getting drunk and punching someone. Pretty racist, but definitely a pride event. If you're looking for general white pride stuff though, then yeah, that's pretty heavily associated with white supremacists. Doesn't help that Europe wasn't politically unified at all when most European Americans came to the States.
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I honestly have next to no interest in celebrating my European "heritage." I don't even know anything about my family line past my great-grandparents, and my grandparents were all born here, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm American and that's it.
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im in pretty much the same boat. my mom was a welfare whore. she only stayed with guys long enough to get pregnant and dump em. so i know nothing of my fathers side. she says he was mostly irish though. my grandpa was from texas so mostly irish, prolly some german and a hint of cherokee (this is a typical mix in those parts). and my grandma is french canadian. my brother rides on the french side while i lean toward the irish, but the truth is neither of us have a ****ing clue. i guess i can call myself american in nationality, but ethnicity is a big question mark.
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I do know that I'm Polish and Russian on one side, and Slovak on the other, so I just call myself a big ol' mess of Slav. :p
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Going back to the original topic:
I'd say the guy already got enough flame to understand tweeting such idiocy is a good way to make the whole world think he's an idiot, and I agree jail time for those tweets is excessive.
If the soccer player or his friends/family were indeed offended, they should be the ones to sue him. An apology published in the national news/media (payed for by the offender) would be the proper punishment for those tweets.
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by making it a matter of criminal law it means the state and there for society saying this is not acceptable rather than the family/friends taking revenge
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There's a big difference between labeling something "not acceptable" and labeling it "criminal," though.
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Reason No. 53 why the US rocks despite all its problems: The Direct Incitement Test of protected speech.
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The article said he admitted to inciting anti-racial violence... Could that not just mean someone asked him "did you tweet those tweets" and he said "yes"?
Did he actually plead guilty in court?
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As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.
Once again, I repeat the difference in laws regarding Guns, in the UK, Guns are illegal outside of very specific circumstances, in the US the rules are a lot more open regarding them. That doesn't make either set of rules 'right' or 'wrong', merely a different set of rules designed for different cultures and different ideas on what is and is not harmful to society in general.
The whole idea that there is some kind of score being kept is... odd to say the least.
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The whole idea that there is some kind of score being kept is... odd to say the least.
But if we can't find some reason why OUR people are better than THEIR people, then what will we hate each other about? :confused:
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Reason No. 53 why the US rocks despite all its problems: The Direct Incitement Test of protected speech.
Keep in mind that Europe has it's dark history of building a nations on the foundation of hatred. As I sometimes don't understand such a strong censoring of symbols of nazism/communism, I know that it's only a consequence of the past.
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Whereas the rest of the world built its empires on Rainbows and Unicorns...
Edit: Seriously though, it's more to do with the fact that we have different beliefs in what constitutes Freedom of Speech and what our own responsibility towards that right is. There are certainly things like Nazi ideals that were pretty abhorrent, much like the KKK or Westboro in the US (though they never rose to power, exactly, though in the case of the KKK the argument could go either way), but that's more part of the problem than part of the solution.
I don't really think there are many Empires that were not built on the suffering of others, but we simply try different approaches to prevent the rise of such extremism again, once again, no approach is right or wrong, simply a different approach.
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I meant that there were not many examples of such a countries being the cause of World/Cold War.
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As an addition, I can understand a US citizen not understanding the concept of a limit to the right of Freedom of Speech so long as that speech does not involve something like the famous 'Fire' in a movie-theatre type speech. In both countries, for example, shouting 'Death to the Leader (insert King/Prime-minister/President as required)' would be a violation of the Right to Freedom of speech because it encourages a violent act, those are pretty clear cut cases.
However, when you get to things like inciting hatred, it's a much more complex situation. You could argue that anyone who listens to Westboro and follows them would have to have been inherently Homophobic in the first place and it was simply a matter of time, and they could be right, but what about kids who go onto X-Box live and learn racist or homophobic comments without even understanding what they mean and then repeat them verbatim? Are they guilty of inciting hatred or merely unknowingly propagating it? I think it is easy for a mindset, if it goes unchallenged, to become accepted without people even truly realizing the impact that mindset has. Whilst parents can indeed educate their children, peer pressure is a powerful motivator.
Both countries have chosen to take different routes to dealing with that, since I only live in one of them, I'm not really in a position to judge the success of the American solution of having the right to ignore them for the idiot they are, but the UK takes the position that strong legal protection is the best way to flush, at the very least, the more intolerant views out of society and prevent confrontations and assumptions from all the different races and cultures here.
Will it work? To be honest, probably not entirely, does the American system work? Once again, probably not entirely ;)
I meant that there were not many examples of such a countries being the cause of World/Cold War.
To be honest, if you go back through history, the area a war covers has depended far more on logistics than anything else, Wars and Empires tend to get as big as they can get depending on the means of locomotion (foot, horse, vehicle), so whilst I'll certainly agree that both World Wars started in Europe, I think had we had planes and tanks in the days of the Syrian empire, there would have been wars of the same scope back then. I'll agree though that fear of resurgence of some of those views is certainly a motivator in the attitude we have :)
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The events of WWII left much of Europe contemplating a lot of serious issues. The biggest was another large scale war sparking off in Europe which was the foundation block for the European Union. The next issue was things like Hitler's "Final Solution" the subject of racial tolerance. One of the reasons Hitler did so well in Germany was that he gave the majority of the population somewhere to target their frustration from the collapse of the German economy following the first war, that target was the Jews who were doing relatively well financially. This nationalised racism is one of the foundation points which allowed Hitler to establish total control of the country. Obviously with this politicians of the time feared similar events happening else where in Europe, because lets face it every country in Europe has some race issues somewhere that could be used to fuel a similar rise to power. End of the day we have to be on the look out for racism because it has cause very real atrocities in out own house, a unsettling thought considering we think of ourselves a bastion of civilisation.
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Not just Europe, as cynical as it sounds, I think all countries have them. Some more than others, but all have them.
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Sorry badly phrased, the concern from European leaders would have been European countries, especially western Europe (draw a line from Germany's eastern border to Italy's eastern border and you will have a good idea of the region I am talking about) who have traditionally held the majority of power in Europe.
As for racial subdivisions in general I would have to agree with you FireSpawn and go as far to say as every country on the planet has such divisions.
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In both countries, for example, shouting 'Death to the Leader (insert King/Prime-minister/President as required)' would be a violation of the Right to Freedom of speech because it encourages a violent act, those are pretty clear cut cases.
To be honest, I doubt that would qualify as direct incitement to violence any more than burning the flag would. Only if you said it in the presence of the man himself.
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I suppose it can be sort of complicated at times, like the shooting of Senator Giffords, where there were a lot of question asked about whether rhetoric that was becoming more and more aggressive in nature was contributing to the idea that violent solutions were an acceptable option. To be honest, I'm not certain what the Legal remifications would be of a group of people standing on a street corner shouting 'Death to Obama', but I would have thought that kind of speech would be unlikely to be tolerated in the US itself.
Admittedly though, if you change the 'b' to an 's', then those chants would have been perfectly acceptable in the recent climate and most likely actually happened...
Law is Hard....
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I suppose it can be sort of complicated at times, like the shooting of Senator Giffords, where there were a lot of question asked about whether rhetoric that was becoming more and more aggressive in nature was contributing to the idea that violent solutions were an acceptable option. To be honest, I'm not certain what the Legal remifications would be of a group of people standing on a street corner shouting 'Death to Obama', but I would have thought that kind of speech would be unlikely to be tolerated in the US itself.
you probably wont go to jail but you might get the secret service knocking on your door when the president comes to town telling you to stay home for the day.
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As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.
To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.
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As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.
To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.
which means that better or worse is subjective dependant on the view point of the observer which is strongly influenced by the culture the observer belongs to.
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As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.
To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.
which means that better or worse is subjective dependant on the view point of the observer which is strongly influenced by the culture the observer belongs to.
Exactly, even throughout the USA there are varying concepts of what is 'better' or 'worse' with regards to things like capital punishment, automatic weapons, abortion, drug laws and even the acceptance of Homosexuality. The USA wasn't designed to be a single homogenous unit from the outset, it is a Federation of States, with varying opinions and ideals held under an over-arching unifying mechanism in the form of the Federal Government, and all of that has at its heart the concept that Freedom of Speech means there is no 'better' or 'worse' ways of dealing with things so long as a basic set of Rights are upheld, and people cannot even agree on the exact meaning of those Rights. That is, as odd as it sounds, a moderately healthy way to do things, less Monolithic than many other establishments.
However, the UK is a completely different country in a completely different part of the world with a different modern history, and just as the American legal system echos the needs and requirements of American people, or at least, is supposed to, the same can be said for the UK.