England Jails Homophobes Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NEXT | |
I disagree with their message and I am an M15 agent, god save the queen and stuff, can I have a gun now? | |
I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read this. Anyone who claims that a any one group/thing is the "root of all evil" is an assuming dipshit who should be publicly laughed at. The only time an argument like this can come close to being true is when that group has been shown to be TRYING to cause harm and damage. Even then, it's still a stupid statement. | |
Information. Also discussion whether or not hate speech and death threats should be illegal or not. People are actually discussing something here, anyhow. | |
All right, ElPatron, I am officially done arguing with you. Only on the Internet could you find someone that, while sort of addressing certain sentences you write, completely and utterly misses the overall point. However, you seem like an OK sort, so I will wish you a good day. Just one request before I go: would you please, please tell me that you don't think killing all gay people is a good idea? Please? It's necessary for my peace of mind. | |
It's been going on in this country for years for fuck's sake. Usually it's the minorities we're taking extreme care not to upset. Usually at the expense of common sense too. | |
Hmm I wonder if we could coax Westboro over here and then arrest and jail them for hate mongering... Still have to say it is a good thing they are arrested as free speech only goes so far since words actually do hurt. If your free speech is to try and incite others to cause violence against people causing them to fear for their lives then the hatemongerers have no place in civilised society and I'm sick of the criminal being treated better than the victims. | |
How? Is there no difference between saying "people should be punished for using pot by law" and going out and attacking people who use it? Death threats are an independent crime, but there's a major difference between threat to do something and proposing the government do something. Similarly there is a major difference between saying "you should go to jail for that" and threatening to kidnap somebody as retribution for something they did. Yes, we may not like the opinion, but why should he be legally be prevented from expressing them. That's the point. | |
The Westboro guy is banned from the country. If i remember right they wanted to do their koran burning over here, or A burning. The government responded with a resounding "mmmno". | |
See the last point is an arguement i see often but always comes across as a straw man. Im FINE with apposing views. Views that lead to the mistreatment, abuse and discrimination against others are NOT ok. Remember when the majority thought it was ok to make black people slaves? Democracy is a double egded blade. Sometimes some things are so wrong that no matter how many people agree it should ALWAYS be illegal. This extends to the mass execution of innocent people. As such campaigning for such a change is not protected by free speech. Offer any view that cant be considered a war cime by any means. Or is comparable to hitlers acts. And the mass slaughter of gays is most certainly comparable. | |
I have read some posts describing the distribution of these leaflets as a misguided attempt to change a law. I have listed a few ways in which this comparison fails. 1. This was not an attempt to change a law, as there is no law against homosexuality. They may have been in the right to start such a campaign. Instead, they started a campaign to get a local populace to approve of the execution of homosexuals. 2. Laws are written to punish/rehabilitate people for what they do, not for who they are. This was not a campaign to criminalize homosexuality but to execute homosexuals. 3. The United Kingdom does not execute its criminals. Calling for the execution of someone in Britain is calling for action outside of the British legal system. Additionally, while the trio claimed that they were merely spreading the message of their religion by citing passages from a religious texts, the inclusion of 'the only question is how it should be carried out' was not a historical citation but a call for action, specifically the execution of homosexuals. This was a clear case of attempting to incite violence (execution) against a group for who they are not what they do. | |
Stop there. This isn't a "Thought crime" because if it were then we would have up to half of England in jail. Thought crime implies that by merely holding a belief you are guilty of the act of inciting racial hatred/violence etc etc and oddly enough this isn't actually illegal. You can hold as many xenophobic/homophobic/?????phobic beliefs as you want. You can even freely converse with others in private about your beliefs. In legal terms what you have here is a mens rea but no actus reus which cannot be a crime. To get said actus reus and therefore make it a crime is where you go out and start actively publicising and promoting your beliefs on the public forum and where those beliefs are dangerous to another (in this case its homosexuals specifically) then it becomes a crime because you held a belief and acted upon it and therefore now have actus reus with that mens rea. This is what these people did and hence why they are locked away. To define the difference between a dangerous belief and a non dangerous one is where its key though because this is your whole "what beliefs the government deems legal". Lets make this as simple as possible and say Person "A" hates person "B" because "A" finds the practice of "Z" immoral and "B" practices or is "Z". Now this is not dangerous in itself because you can hate whoever the fuck you want and not face any reprocussions. You can even inverse the situation and have "B" hating "A" because "A" doesn't do "Z" and it still not be a problem. The problem lies where when say for example "A" goes out and starts pubclising and advertising and otherwise pushing his opinion down everyone elses throat in a public as opposed to private area that "B" is a horrible person because he is "Z". That is where it starts getting dangerous and becomes a crime because one person is detrimenting another for no other reason because he is "Z". This is the reason why Religion as a whole is ok by the government (because they don't act on it) but the extremist cults/versions of it aren't (because they do). If you want a proper act of free speech which was condemned by nearly everyone in the UK and most likely in private including everyone in the government (Although they weren't allowed to voice their opinions on the matter credibly due to the fear of a media reprisal) and had members of the EDL in a bloody rage look no further then the poppy burning of last year on november the 11th. The reason why these people weren't carted off to jail was because the only people this could possibly be against is the memories of dead soldiers and you can't kill memories. Obviously the whole point of this was a protest against the invasions of Iraq and by extension Afghanistan but thats a whole different story since they weren't remembered for that protest just the fact that they dishonered the memories of servicemen. Actually if I remember correctly the Police were there to protect them because the crowd around them was understandably so getting a bit more then fucked off about this issue. Even I was a bit annoyed at this despite the fact that I disagree with the invasions just because these people decided to highlight this issue in the most antagonistic way possible. As you can see just from the above example and a bit more indepth explanation of the difference between a benign and dangerous belief why these people were imprisoned. | |
Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves... Such a British response. [insert hate speech here] I say, old boy, would you calm the bloody hell down, we don't accept that kind of rudeness around here [continue hate speech here] Right, that's it. You're nicked, you slaaaaaaaaaag! | |
Isn't that what I said? | |
Why? Why should we not stop people from asking to legalise prejudicial slaughter? The slippery slope argument is complete bunkum. They're not going to come for the jews and the communists and whatever else because we didn't stop them from locking up people who were inciting and spreading hatred.
Yeah, that is very clearly satire whilst this is not. So I don't really see your point. I don't think you actually understand why these people were arrested. They were inciting hatred and alluding to threaten people of a certain sexual preference. It is 100% a good thing that they were punished for that. We don't want to set the precedent that we allow people to do that. This isn't just an opposing viewpoint or a different opinion that got censored. They were trying to get people to round up and burn gay people. Regardless of whether or not you think they could have accomplished this. What they were proposing was dangerous. Nothing to do with a clash of ideals. But of prejudice to such a degree that they would kill the people they deemed unworthy or whatever. That is the complete antithesis of a free country. Stopping people from suggesting such things is not going to bring about the collapse of our freedoms. Why should we entertain this sort of behaviour at all? The freedom to express ones opinions ends at another persons suffering. And I think you'd have a hard time suggesting that gay people wouldn't be suffering as they're being burnt. Or even simply at the threat of such an action. I really don't want to flout Godwins law here... But it's a pretty good parallel. In a free country, do you think Hitler should have been able to express his opinions knowing what they lead to? That's actually a really good example of why a true democracy without regulation is a horrible, horrible idea. The majority of us are way to easily manipulated and lead by charisma and rhetoric. And that can lead to woeful things when combined with the right external factors such as economic collapse etc. | |
I'm seeing a lot of 'these guys didn't really do anything wrong' comments in regards to the fact they were going about campaigning, albeit in a fucked up way, for a law that makes being a homosexual a death sentence. Seriously? Didn't do anything wrong? I know the world is still dragging it's feet and people still get touchy over something like homosexuality. But we REALLY need to rip church (or whatever form of religious belief) and state apart. I'm aware these guys feel it's a crime because of their religion. But religion has no say in what laws should be passed when those laws make absolutely no sense. Calling for a law that allows the execution of murderers or pedophiles? Fair enough, people believe these guys are the scum of the earth for doing something as horrible as that. Calling for a law that allows the imprisonment and execution of people of the same sex loving each other? No, that is not alright. We shouldn't even be trying to give the homosexual community equal rights, they should already have the exact same rights we all have already. | |
A nice, lively discussion going on. Most people going about it pretty civilly too. Great to see ^^ It seems two sides have emerged and there is very little compromise; those who don't believe it should be a crime to vocally hate gay people or any other group, and those who think it should be a crime to vocally hate said groups. No one at all seems to have taken the side of "these guys are heroes" which is, although expected, awesome, lol. I'm still of the opinion that it should be legal to voice hatred of a sexuality and to campaign for their legal execution. I'm pretty hardline when it comes to what I accept under the freedom of speech banner. | |
I read your comment in the most stereotypical 'old English man' voice, lolol. | |
You think it's awesome because they are locking up people you disagree with. Would your tone change if they started locking up people who were bigoted towards a group you also hold hatred for?
You mustn't have read any of the 7 pages, then. | |
See this is what I feel as a society we have a problem with. Not that I hate your opinion or disagree with you (though I have no way to say it without seeming like I am disagreeing) but saying it's okay to voice hatred of a people's sexuality would mean people pushing for more. If that ever did come to pass (and I pray to whatever force in the universe that it doesn't), what's to say people won't start saying let's campaign for the legal execution of minorities or the execution of people following religions we disagree with. Nobody can say that it's horrible and wrong, because if that's wrong then everything that had led up to these campaigns would also be wrong, starting with the right to legally voice that homosexuals should be legally executed. As a footnote. People would be saying stuff like this now, but how fast do you think they would change their tune when the men realize that includes the homosexual women in porn? | |
Oh god. I was just reading through some of the pages of posts that have poped up while I was asleep and it dawned on me... for the first time ever... I think America has it right and England is all back the front o.o But seriously, hyperbole aside, that the WBC is allowed to operate in the U.S. and would see its members swiftly thrown in prison under this British law, makes me rather sad. More and more people seem to be happy to file speech they dislike under the 'hate speech' folder and send folks off to jail without a care. I think we have become TOO comfortable; we have decided our way is right and anyone who disagrees with us can just be locked away because "I won't want to hear their incorrect hate speech." I don't like where this is going and suddenly find myself a great deal less liking of England. | |
You can't say make that argument if we can't :P We are saying: allow people to be locked up for this, and what else will people be locked up for? You are saying: allow people to get away with this, and what else will they want to do? Obviously neither of us wants harm to come to people and we all want every one to be as happy and free as possible. It just comes down to how we go about it. Oh humans, why you so different? | |
Exactly, people don't defend homosexuality as avidly as they defend groups with equal rights in society and bullying on any level cannot be tolerated, I can't imagine how unsafe the people living there must have felt, i'm sure this is a relief for them and their loved ones. | |
I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with voicing your disdain for a group of people. It certainly wouldn't win you a lot of public favour, especially if your words are racially or sexually motivating. But calling for the execution of people, especially based on something as benign as sexuality. Well I really don't see why we should put up with that kind of behaviour. It is at complete odds with true freedom. I've already flouted Godwins law once today and I don't really fancy doing it again... but. Would it be alright if someone started trying to round up all the gays and put them in concentration camps.... legally of course. Movements like that are very dangerous. Regardless of whether or not it's likely that they'd even have been partially successful. There are certain things that a free society shouldn't tolerate. This kind of behaviour is one of them.
Oh come on now, it's got nothing to do with people disagreeing and everything to do with inciting hatred. | |
Forgive me, it's almost 3.20 and I haven't slept for a while. I take back my statement and agree that if we lock them up for this we'll all wonder what else people would be locked up for, but when we don't take things like this seriously, we are kind of just sitting back and watching what happens, only stepping in when things go to far. I don't think these guys should have been arrested for saying stuff like this, even though I disagree with what they say. But I'm just going to agree with George Carlins' thoughts that if rights can be taken away then they're not rights, they're privileges. We can all shout about we have a right to do this, the right to do that etc etc. but when we go too far you'll see that those rights can be pulled out from under you faster than you think. And my mind is too tired to care if this post made any sense whatsoever. | |
I couldn't disagree more, this makes me proud of england Our diversity is our greatest attribute and we protect our diversity in all shapes and forms, this is truly the way to breed an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding of different sexual alignments, different religions, races etc etc. These groups have all been persecuted and showing that we protect our people from hate rallying is important. If all these men wanted was to change the law there are proper channels for this. If they wanted to rouse hatred in the community and create a hostile environment for legally abiding residents they should be excluded from society | |
Is it bad that I looked at the pictures of the convicted and thought about how typical it seems? I am not a racist in any way, but something about people like that just scream "I hated this, and it's a typical thing for me, and/or our kind" That's really just me though. Captcha: Love you .............. I am ok with this | |
There are no legal executions in Britain; therefore, this is a campaign to elicit illegal action. It is not a campaign to criminalize homosexuality, but to execute homosexuals. | |
I was expecting something different from this, but I'm not entirely sure what I expected. I'm interested in what potential history these guys have. You don't just suddenly start handing out leaflets saying "KILL THE GAYS" some day, that shit builds up. | |
Are you saying that it'd be alright if they made it a two-pronged campaign, one to legalize execution for certain "horrendous" "crimes," and the second to include homosexuality as a "crime" worthy of death? I really don't see much of a distinction between this approach and "we should execute homosexuals." Not that I don't think that these assholes deserve to rot in jail and learn some lessons on sexuality the hard way (if you know what I mean), just that I don't see where the line on speech is drawn here. | |
Your post is fine, don't worry. We seem to agree; these guys are idiots, maybe locking them up is not a great idea.
So long as your opinion isn't that of hate against a group I don't hate, it seems ;P I once heard a man refer to England as a socialist nightmare and didn't understand them at all. It was a few years ago. But now I'm starting to. The law over there is going out of its way to be PC and make everyone all happy and lovey dovey. People should be free to stand in the street and proclaim their hatred for homosexuals until the cows come home. They should have every right in the world to say they should be arrested and to request they be executed. Filing it under hate speech and rushing to make sure no gay people were upset is offensive as hell. You don't get special treatment because you're a minority. You don't get to make laws that demand no one voices how much they hate you. The world isn't free if if no one is free to hate. I dislike the U.S. for a lot of reasons, but one thing they do right is their free speech.
Robot, human love? I will not stand for this! Execution! It is immoral! | |
That's a strawman argument at best and completely missing the point at worst. They are arguing it SHOULD be legal, not that they should illegally execute people. | |
I find myself thinking the opposite; that the United States may be in the wrong on this, and the UK might have the right idea. Free speech is beautiful notion, and one of the most fundamental rights in any decent government, but how free should free speech be? It is very easy to quote that famous line from Voltaire and say that that is the last word, but in reality it's rarely that simple. Almost every nation that has free speech places limits on it. The US Constitution's Bill of Rights protects the right to bear arms and the right to assembly, but if a group of people were to arm themselves and assemble in order to prepare an organized assassination attempt against the president, then the bill of rights most certainly wouldn't protect them. Why? Because such an action would represent a threat to the safety and security of the state. Speech that seeks to undermine the fundamental rights and freedoms of a part of the population (gays, for example) is just as much a threat to the state as an attempt on the president's life. Many European nations have laws against affiliating oneself with the Nazis or Neo-Nazi movements, and laws against Nazi propaganda. Some of them criminalize holocaust denial. It is easy for Americans to censure such things without thought or context, insisting that a person ought to be able to express his ideas freely no matter how hateful those ideas are. But why? Why protect them? Is there anything to be gained by allowing those who have no respect for the spirit of the bill of rights to seek sanctuary behind it while they spew venom with every word, while they intentionally ostracize and paralyze others with fear, intimidate them into silence? Hate speech is not merely "mean words", and any people who must live in fear are living under oppression, perhaps less visible but no less real than a system of slavery. Freedom of speech and expression, in my estimation, are meant for those who respect freedom in all its forms and for all people, not for those who would utilize their own freedoms to repress those of others. | |
Because what happens when your opinion is the minority? What happens when everyone thinks your wrong? Do they get to demand you be silenced because they think your hateful or flat-out wrong? Just because you don't agree with them and won't lose anything by them behind forced to shut up, doesn't mean it's okay. Remember: at one point in time, people campaigning for race equality were the extreme minority. Until very recently, saying that gay people should be allowed to get married would be insane--in some places you could easily be jumped in the street for it. These guys are idiots and I couldn't disagree with them more. But I think they should be legally allowed to say how much they hate gay people and how much they wish they could be executed. Luckily, that some right allows me to loudly proclaim beside them how ignorant, selfish and bigoted they are. That's freedom. | |
The irony is also that they will be enjoying some nice penis while in prison...the very thing they were fighting against! | |
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I meant that this thread seems more focused on congratulating the UK for drowning the freedom of speech than actually just accepting that they did it in a fashion that disturbed the public.
What makes it so different from going to the street and trying to convince people to legalize piracy, marijuana, or even pedophilia? (that Dutch party needed the signatures, didn't they?)
I have been asked for so much weird shit on the street that I think that "sign here to make homosexuality illegal and let the populace help carrying out the sentence" should not be worth the jail time.