UK.gov To Treat Online Abuse as Seriously as Hate Crime in Real Life (theregister.co.uk) 307
The UK's Crown Prosecution Service has pledged to tackle online abuse with the same seriousness as it does hate crimes committed in the flesh. From a report: Following public concern about the increasing amount of racist, anti-religious, homophobic and transphobic attacks on social media, the CPS has today published a new set of policy documents on hate crime. This includes revised legal guidance for prosecutors on how they should make decisions on criminal charges and handle cases in court. The rules officially put online abuse on the same level as offline hate crimes -- defined as an action motivated by hostility or prejudice -- like shouting abuse at someone face-to-face. They commit the CPS to prosecuting complaints about online material "with the same robust and proactive approach used with online offending." Prosecutors are told to consider the effect on the wider community and whether to identify both the originators and the "amplifiers or disseminators."
What happened to sticks and stones? (Score:5, Insightful)
Turn off the computer.
Go outside.
It's only crybabies and bullies calling names. What happened to the island that once said 'here and no further' and stood alone against fascism? They're now cowering because someone used strong language.
Did someone put something in the water?
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That island you speak of hung one of the chief "sticks and stones" types at Wandsworth Prison.
Lord Haw-Haw [wikipedia.org]
Re:What happened to sticks and stones? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that easy. With the internet and social media playing an increasingly important role in the life of our kids, and the fact that the internet never forgets, you can easily destroy someone's life permanently that way.
Think back of your youth. I guess everyone here has done something they're not really proud upon, maybe even something that was the talk of the school yard for a while. But it blows over. Eventually. And people forget about it.
Remember the Star Wars Kid? That's been like a decade ago. Want to bet that you can still find videos today? What do you think, how easy he probably has it, finding a job with that reputation, hell, finding someone who'd want to date and maybe even marry an internet meme?
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Re:What happened to sticks and stones? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlikely. Far more likely we'll not get to hear who airs someone else's dirty laundry and what laundry becomes the dirty one depends again on groupthink and popularity.
Do you really want to live in a world like that?
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And, again, "eventually" is never on the internet. It's trivial for someone to dig up some drunk video of you that you thought was funny back when you were 16.
The internet doesn't just know what you did last Summer, the internet knows what you did in the Summer of 69. And it never ever forgets.
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That we could agree on.
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The first time I probably won't. Only after the "don't you know who this is?" questions start.
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I'd just ask her, myself. But, hey, I'm an old fogy, so what do I know, right?
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As a Canadian, I'm pretty comfortable with where we usually draw the line - somewhere around "riling up people to cause harm".
What bothers me is that phrase in the summary... "anti-religious". Wow. So blasphemy laws then, where you're required by law to treat somebody's dangerous delusion with respect?
I say put some radical Jews, Muslims, and Christians in a room and let the lawsuits fly...
Re:What happened to sticks and stones? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does riling up people to cause harm differ from riling up people for a laugh? Can a prosecutor tell the difference? How many 14-year olds will get sent to youth care because an angry SJW decided that "someone had to take a stand against racism, bigotry, and transphobia"? What happens when the "right to be offended" finally overturns the "intent matters" clause?
You see the lunacy of the "anti-religious" point. I think all the points are the same, and just as easy to twist when you want to condemn someone. For those that care about the slippery slope stuff, this new ruling opens up a highway to the SocJus nation.
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"Riling up" was in response to GP.
You have given a great example for both how this law should look and how it should not look.
You say that one should specifically avoid words such as faggot and nig nog. The latter is an excellent word to avoid, and I would have no problem with putting that into a specific law ("One may not the use the word nig nog specifically"). The former shows the problem.
Faggot can mean many things. In old English it means a bundle of sticks, or the person that gathers the bundle of sti
Re:What happened to sticks and stones? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's is a populist effort now to curtail the freedom of speech.
In 1930s, it was the popular-right Nazis. Now, it's the popular-left-socialists. (and I say this with a grain of salt, as I do support some form of socialism). But yeah, if you look at some of the initial tactics, they're no different. Nazis didn't become Nazis on day one... they first became extraordinary popular---so popular that anyone who disagreed with them was afraid to question them.... this is what's happening now! (e.g. Google dude dared to question the current-state-of-affairs, and got fired and perhaps became unemployable due to that... would YOU question something you don't agree with?).
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Hitler had it wrong, he shouldn't have sent his planes...
He should have sent some strongly worded letters insulting the brits instead.
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Nice coinage! I like it.
Re:It's just routine leftism. (Score:4, Insightful)
True of the "right" as well. Useful thing to keep in mind when you're hating on the "right"....
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I agree, which is why I don't think being Republican is being a Nazi. I do think being a White Nationalist, however, if not outright making you a Nazi, makes you a pretty goddamned close neighbor.
Was this inspired by the Rust community? (Score:3, Interesting)
Was this inspired by the Rust programming language community, by any chance? The Rust Code of Conduct [rust-lang.org] and the Rust Moderation Team [rust-lang.org] (which enforces the Rust Code of Conduct) both form the foundation of the Rust community, and have for some time.
It's all really quite odd. Despite claiming [rust-lang.org] to be "committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, or similar personal characteristic", in my opinion the Rust community is one of the least tolerant programming language communities I've ever seen. For example, it's absurd how they'll downvote you at Reddit or Hacker News, for instance, if you dare to express anything that might be considered criticism of Rust, no matter how slight.
This stuff coming out of the UK sounds a lot like the hypersensitivity we've seen from the Rust community.
Re:Was this inspired by the Rust community? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you trying to bully the Rust community??
[Irony alert].
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The idea is to enforce tolerance by threat of violence. Of course, "tolerance" here does mean "strict and unquestioning adherence to the principles laid out by the authorities". In effect, they have redefined "tolerance" to mean extreme intolerance of anything not explicitly allowed. A tried and true technique, as, for example, nicely illustrated in 1984 by Orwell.
Ultimately, this fails, because a community that cannot handle criticism can never produce anything good. Obviously so, as no critical discussion
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The utterly dysfunctional "Rust Community" is an excellent reason to not touch this language at all.
Should also be a shining example of why you don't let people who contribute nothing, write codes of conduct that will fundamentally fuck up your project so bad that not even fire can save it.
Nobody has the right not to be offended... (Score:2)
All those hatin' on haters are haters.
People gonna hate.
People gonna hate haters.
People gonna hate haters hating.
People gonna hate haters hating haters.
ad-nauseum..
Re:Nobody has the right not to be offended... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hate Crime" (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate Crime
Is that a bellythinkful thoughtcrime?
Hate speech (Score:3)
When did I miss the episode where hate speech and hate crime became synonyms ?
Re:Hate speech (Score:5, Insightful)
In a number of European countries, hate speech is lumped in with hate crimes. Try being a public Holocaust Denier in Germany or Austria.
Not every country has the First Amendment, and the UK has traditionally had more restrictions on speech than the US.
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Save that even in Liberal Democratic countries, the limits to freedom of speech will vary. As I said, a number of European countries have some pretty sharp limits on "hate speech", and even in my own country, Canada, there's a level of hate speech which can lead to prosecution (though it is pretty rare, and usually has to be contingent upon the prosecution proving some tangible and relatively immediate harm). The UN Declaration of Human Rights simply does not have the free speech protections that the First
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When did I miss the episode where hate speech and hate crime became synonyms ?
Well you may have missed this episode [xkcd.com], which is an important reminder that freedom of speech does not grant you some magical immunity from the consequences of what you say. You only have to look post-Trump USA, and post-Brexit UK, to see how racist (or sexist, homophobic) rhetoric has real world outcomes. As the WWII slogan says "careless talk costs lives [loc.gov]."
Just wait until the pendulum swings back (Score:5, Insightful)
A MP from Labour had to step down because she wanted to have an uncomfortable conversation about incidents like Rotterham and then was forced to do the ritualized "so sorry, I'm such a racist, I'll go live in a secular convent while I do penance." All because she had the audacity to notice that apparently Rotterham is a large data point in a bigger trend.
Suppressing speech like this with force may make you feel noble, but it's not going to go away. Others will notice, others will talk. Eventually, the pendulum will swing back and the force it swings back on the smug, self-righteous inquisitors will be a function of how much force they put into the swing when it was on their side. The leaders celebrating this today could very well find themselves facing serious retribution.
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You've just been reported to the authorities for spreading this hate fact.
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Actually, that MP has been widely supported and her forced resignation condemned. It's true that she could have worded it better, but she definitely has a lot of support now. It may even have boosted her career in the longer term, and it certainly damaged Labour's leader for taking that action.
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Although lets face it, someone guilty of domestic violence should never have fucking been shadow minister for equality in the first place.
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Eventually, the pendulum will swing back and the force it swings back on the smug, self-righteous inquisitors will be a function of how much force they put into the swing when it was on their side. The leaders celebrating this today could very well find themselves facing serious retribution.
People forget how quickly it can swing too. I recall a few years ago when Obama was in office how quick liberals were to jump on if you don't toe our line on gay marriage we will withhold Federal funds. Fast forward a few years and the liberals are out of power and sanctuary cities were under threat of having Federal funds withheld. Funny how then it was suddenly immoral to withhold funds. Since the root cause of the instability is not being addressed (declining middle class / severe inequality / too mu
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With respect, this as dumb as "Oh, so when YOU imprison people for murder, that's OK, but when WE imprison people for being Democrats, suddenly imprisoning people is wrong? Typical hypocrites!"
Why is it OK to withhold funds from cities that persecute homosexuals and transexuals? Because the government is meant to be protecting people from persecution, and cities are not supposed to persecute their citizens.
Why is it NOT OK to withhold funds from cities that don't do ICE's job for them? Because (1) that
Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost (Score:4, Interesting)
(declining middle class / severe inequality / too much social change in a short span)
These things are inexorably linked due to the ideology behind them. There are, and has been for a couple thousand years, 2 competing ideologies. One where the State is the most important part of society, and the other (which the US is founded upon) that the individual is the most important part of society. The USA succeeded because of ideology enshrining the individual. Now that we have a mass of politicians pushing for (and obtaining to a large degree) socialist/communist programs we are getting what others who taut the Statist ideology get. A 2 class system with the Peons and the Government Elites.
Compare Locke to Marx, or Hegel, or Dewy, or Crowley. The latter 4 all tell you that the individual is nothing without the State, while the former tells you that the State is nothing without the individual. (Same lesson from Plato, Cicero, and to a large extent Aquinas and Luther). The far left ideology is where we get concepts like "The living Constitution", and yes "Socialized" programs from the Government. The State, and the few elites allowed to run the State are all powerful. Everyone else is simply a servant of the State. (See Socrates' Allegory of the Cave [unadulterated version])
Europe as a whole is just getting this by the bucket full. People are supposed to be afraid to push back and take control, that's part of the movement selling you Statism as a religion. People are supposed to be brain washed, because that is how you keep control. People are supposed to be poor if they are in the "wrong think" camp, because if you have money you can push back.
It's too late to continue to claim "it can't happen here", because it's been happening. The push now, and we see it in the US, is to try and turn back from the coming cliff. Let us see if you can prove Rand wrong, or if you all fall to communism.
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I don't see any oscillations happening any time soon in America. The Democrats have continued to lose election after election while spending lots more money.
Control flips, largely on the economy. In 2008 the Democrats won full power and in 2016 the Republicans won full power. Since the 1% will continue to squeeze the rest of us ever tighter expect public anger to cause it to flip again and again. Also expect more extreme people with each swing of the pendulum as the population becomes more desperate. At some point the system will topple because something has to give but there are several more "swings" I expect between now and then.
It's not though. (Score:2)
Governments are quite different... (Score:4, Interesting)
... they don't hate anyone - although you might think otherwise to hear or read some of their statements.
No, when governments kill individuals for resisting them, or millions for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they don't do it out of hatred - or any emotion.
It's icy cold. Just business.
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And exactly that is what makes governments the most immoral and evil constructs known to man. If not kept on a tight leash, they will go off the rails and ultimately establish fascism. Unfortunately, current generations in the west have no idea what that means and are cheering them on.
Sounds like a field day for trolls (Score:2)
Great! Now do the same for... (Score:2)
... enemies of freedom, privacy, etc.!
Oh, wait, they would need to round up most of the GCHQ and of the Government. So that is not going to happen as Justitia has long since stopped being blind in the UK.
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
The above is now considered "hate speech." You get to go first.
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Back in the day you could also shoot commies, only had to go to South East Asia. You could also just shoot every Chink there if you felt like it, nobody really asked. If someone did, just say you think it was a commie. Or in other words, if he runs, he's a VC, if he doesn't, he's a well disciplined VC.
Ah, yes, good ol' times...
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There was essentially an undeclared war between the US and China during the latter stages of the Korean War. So far as I recall, the Chinese weren't directly involved in the Vietnam War at all, so I assume you're talking about the Vietnam War, where, y'know, South Vietnam was a US ally.
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I'm talking about the general sentiment the US displays towards East Asia in general. Basically you have a bunch of Chinks, they all look the same and some get used as temporary allies while someone else gets bombed. At the onset of WW2 it was China being the buddy to get a kick at the Japs, after that it was the good ol' North vs. South game. Twice, for good measure.
But take a look at how the US treated its allies.
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What if he surfs?
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You absolutely HAD TO ask [youtube.com], didn't you?
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That would be a switch, considering the Allied Powers spent a good six years shooting every Nazi they could find, and then had some trials in Nuremberg to hang or imprison the rest of them.
It took the Germans a few more decades to remove Nazi influence from daily life.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/20/why-there-are-no-nazi-statues-in-germany-215510 [politico.com]
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And while they shot a lot of them, many others were not. My great uncle was drafted into the German army. Fortunately for me, his older brother, my grandfather, had immigrated to the U.S. before the war. I met this uncle back in the 80s when I got stationed there with the USAF. Speaking to his wife my great aunt, their first real interaction in the war was when the Americans invaded, and as the linked article points out, she didn't see what all the fuss was about, Germans were doing well under Hitler...
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Political speech is protected in most places remember? You know what that means don't you? Yep, it's a two way street! The rules you use against someone else, will inevitably be used against you.
Ah, the good old days. Where people understood that freedom of speech means, you also have to defend distasteful and hateful speech. Not because you agree with it, but to protect your own.
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I give you the Klan march in Skokie.
Gov't banned the march
ACLU sued, won, Klan marched
Skokie citizens turned out in droves, making the Klan SLINK instead of STRUT
Legal as church, moral as saving a drowning dog.
The thing the Nazis at Charlottesville forgot is that you don't get to silence the opposition by MURDER.
So now the Nazi bastards are going to be watched, and POUNCED upon every time they display a gun agains
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
In the good ol' days, those same nazi's, fascists and authoritarians were also allowed to speak their garbage publicly. Until war broke out remember? Dust off a history book, you're arguing to ban/block speech because it's expedient. Hell the NYT even had glowing articles in the defense of not only nazi's but fascists, in those years.
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And where did I say Nazis shouldn't be allowed to spew their hate? Providing they're not conspiring to commit acts of violence, they have that right, in the US at least (your mileage will vary in other countries). What I refuse to do is to normalize Nazi speech. They have the right to say it, and I have the right to judge them on their speech, and to act upon on my judgment within the constraints of the law (ie. not allow my property to be used to assist them in their speech).
Why would the medium matter? (Score:2)
And where did I say Nazis shouldn't be allowed to spew their hate? Providing they're not conspiring to commit acts of violence, they have that right,
Right. And the article doesn't say anything about changing the rules, It just says that they will apply the rules regardless of the medium. I would have thought that would go without saying. Death threats are death threats. "But I did it on the internet, not IRL!" can't really be a defense... can it?
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Nazis carrying guns and threatening may still be shot.
Leave the threats, or the guns, or the guns and threats behind.
Because self-defense is still cool
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The same slope you fell down. Anyone carrying a gun and threatening may still be shot. You seem to be promoting this against a single group based on your bias. What happens when your group happens to be the victim of someone else' bias?
I seem to remember a famous quote about this. Something along the lines of "First they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist".... This is why we have History.
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Nazi speech is not political, it is hate crime. And remember, while religions are protected - even muslim, yet, ISIS speech won't be protected.
And now we get to see how easy it is to label something a hate crime. "You said so." And now to restrict, to censor, to hide, to let it fester. To show people "yes, we really are being persecuted. Join us because we do have answers ye downtrodden!" Living in Canada and having seen "hate crime" law in action, where the CHRC(Canadian Human Rights Commission) manufactured evidence to go after political opponents, this is why the censoring of non-harmful speech is so dangerous. It's one of the reasons that Section 13 of the CHRC was revoked. [stopsection13.com]
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Referring to a german as a nazi is no less of a racial insult than any other.
Holding nazi beliefs is no different to believing in a religion. It may seem stupid and irrational to the rest of us but those who believe it usually do so blindly and will "feel offended" if you question their beliefs.
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yes, that pretty much makes for a clear case of Political Murder and the various persons involved subject to reprisal
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Are you really publicly hating on people based on their political opinion?
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really publicly hating on people based on their political opinion?
If someone says "I'm a Nazi, I directly support the policies of Hitler" then I have no problem hating on them.
Fair enough. Of course the vast majority of people being called Nazis currently do not meet that definition. They just happen to be anywhere to the right of what the Democratic party dogma.
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
That is total bullshit. No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi.
Sorry, you are being too reasonable.
Plenty of the "Alt-Left" on Twitter think all Republicans are Nazis - there is even a hash tag - #RepublicansAreNazis
https://twitter.com/hashtag/RepublicansAreNazis?src=hash
And more besides the hash tag:
https://twitter.com/search?q=REPUBLICANS%20ARE%20NAZIS%20-not&src=typd
And a writer at The Guardian says Republicans do "the bidding of white supremacists"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/republican-party-white-supremacists-charlottesville
So, QED, your statement is untrue. Plenty call *all* Republicans Nazis.
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The people being called Nazis are, well, Nazis
MightyMartian is a Nazi rightfully being lumped in with their more vocal ideological neighbors.
See how easy this is? The more you challenge the assertion, the more you are a Nazi.
You are also stupid, hand-wringing piece of shit.
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Not what the poster said cupcake. Leftists have lumped all people who are centrist or right of center as part of hate groups and Nazi sympathizers. Don't try to deny it. Hard left communist progressives had their say but not for much longer. The US is still a center right country and payback is hell. The media is not your friend and you don't have good representation in government now.
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly what is not happening. The label "Nazi" is being issued by people trying to silence their opponents by slapping that label onto them.
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Apart from some trolls most of the people using the term "nazi" were warning the right that there were actual Nazis in their midst. Then Charlottesville happened and suddenly it dawned on people that the warnings were justified, and that there were actual Nazis and KKK wizards among them.
Examples please (Score:3)
See, this is what gets me about the right. They're absolutely enraged that somebody with no power whatsoever (a professor, a low level bureaucrat, their postman) is a whack
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Yup. Too bad this is not what we're talking about now.
What happens now is that everyone who dares to be critical of full blown left wing rhetoric gets slapped with the NAZI! label.
50 years ago, anyone not doing the "USA fuck yeah!" dance was labeled COMMIE! The actors change, the strategy stays the same.
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Yeah, except for you failed to correctly identify the actors. The new McCarthyism is claiming that everyone that you don't like is a Russian spy/shill. But it's not the "full blown left" that makes that claim. It's the corporate Dems.
The only group consistently conflated with the Nazis are Nazi sympathizers, and understandably so. This is, of course, excluding clickbait headlines and the internet's general tendency to call everything they don't like Nazis.
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Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Informative)
When there is only two sides to choose from, and I don't want to choose the side that wants to silence those that disagree, you will end up with very, very odd bedfellows...
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The alternative is pretty much saying that you don't give a shit about whether you can voice your opinion. I'm honestly surprised that Nazis would stand on that side of a fence, but just because those assholes have hijacked a topic means now that I cannot actually have that opinion myself? By that logic, all it takes for any kind of topic that I do not want you to be for/against, I only have to make sure that some asshole group is for/against a topic and by actually considering the topic important I may lum
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That's a cop-out. If someone doesn't want to be lumped in with the Nazi's then don't march with them, do a protest a different day.
Now sure, most republicans aren't Nazi's...but...some of the same Republicans condemning Nazis were quite willing to turn a blind eye to racism or use racist dog whistles over the years. Including practically every neo-confederate southerner in the Republican leadership.
Even back in 2008, many Republicans turned a blind eye or condoned the nativist "know nothing" elements of t
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Very few people had Nazi flags in that protest,
So marching around carrying torches chanting Nazi slogans doesn't make you a Nazi. You're only a Nazi if you carry a flag. Got it.
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rather than outright saying the Communists are the master political race and those who don't agree should either be eliminated, enslaved or exiled.
Ah yeah, good times huh?
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a political opinion when it's a political opinion...
If you voice your support for hitler, and your desire for all non aryans to be exterminated then that's an opinion.
If you actually try to implement that policy then it's more than an opinion.
Also you will see many countries which implement racist policies, for instance the education system in malaysia has a quota system controlling the number of available places based on your ethnicity. Many african countries also have active policies of handing resources traditionally held by whites over to black residents.
While these policies clearly don't go as far as the original nazis did, many of todays neo nazis also advocate watered down ideology which only promotes preferential treatment for aryans rather than the absolute extermination of anyone else.
It's only really in the west where nationalism is frowned upon, many other countries openly want to promote their own people and ideologies at the expense of others. Immigration is also largely a western issue, the number of people permanently migrating *to* other countries is relatively small and generally tightly controlled by the government.
Re:Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when did being Neo-Nazi get downgraded to merely a "political opinion"?
Since the alt-left started calling people nazis over any deviation from feminism and identity politics.
Re: Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's play a game. You name a group and/or a prominent person, who did not endorse/vote for Hillary Clinton, and I'll find a group and/or a prominent person denouncing him/them as a "Nazi".
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I think that Weird Al endorsed Bernie, but I'm not sure. I can't find anybody calling him a Nazi, although his song lyrics have referenced Nazis often enough that it complicates searching.
I like corner cases. Who has called Jill Stein, who almost certainly did not vote Democrat, a Nazi? I've found several nasty rants excoriating her, but nobody notable calling her a Nazi.
This game is fun! Your turn.
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Let's play a game. You name a group and/or a prominent person, who did not endorse/vote for Hillary Clinton, and I'll find a group and/or a prominent person denouncing him/them as a "Nazi".
Mike Pence ...
Mitch McConnell
John McCain
Mitt Romney
John Kasich
I mean, really ... I listen to an AM radio station ALL DAY, I know what stupid game you're playing. Every day it's New York Times said this, no good rotten failing New York Times said that, trying hard to be victims and beet pills.
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Very hard to pull off, Poe's law is in full effect.
Strange how it went from being a far right problem to being a far left problem. But I guess it's just an extremist problem altogether. There is no insane statement, claim or demand that would not be made by them, so making it in jest will be taken serious.
Re: Good, nazis need to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
And by Nazis you mean anyone who disagrees with you, even just a little bit.
Violence begets violence. Remember that you condoned it when it happens to you or someone you care about. You have ceded the moral ground entirely, and are just another violent extremist.
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Huh? There's nothing wrong with using violence to get peace. Antifa and ISIS are good. CNN said so.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/... [cnn.com]
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I don't recall CNN defending Antifa, and where exactly did the say ISIS was good?
The fact is that since before the Civil War, the phenomena of counter protests against racists have occurred. Some Abolitionists chose to be more vocal in their denunciations of slavery and white bigotry. Most people think John Brown, for instance was pretty naive and deluded in believing he could create a slave revolt, so his actions are condemned largely as sadly futile, but he still was on the right side of the debate. It's
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You didn't actually read the article you linked, did you?
The article presents the facts about what happened and there are quotes from people who are for and against the behavior of Antifa, but the article itself avoids making any judgements.
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HURR DURR I DON'T KNOW ABOUT HISTORICAL POLITICAL REALIGNMENTS HOLLYWOOD IS RUN BY REPUBLICANS.
This text is to undermine slashdot's anti-caps filtering. I'm just typing this so I can properly mock you with liberal usage of caps lock.
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Most people in germany during the 1930s were not nazis either...
They were normal, honest hard working german citizens living in a country that was falling apart and facing huge problems, where none of the established political parties were willing to do anything about it. So they voted for the only party that offered a solution, even if that solution wasn't ideal it was the only one they had.
Sound familiar? Because history is repeating itself... Society is rapidly falling apart and the only parties promisin
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I'm not clear. Are you saying "Issuing a threat on a computer" should have no legal consequence at all? There's been enough incidents of doxing and online stalking and bullying to suggest that "threat by computer" isn't merely a bit of fun that should be ignored, and there are cases where such activity may, at least in a few cases, rise to the level of criminal activity.
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Doxing and stalking are crimes in their own right - the use of a computer is irrelevant. As for "bullying", that's an extremely subjective thing. Every day, millions of people feel they are being bullied at work - but just let them try to convince a policeman, a court, an industrial tribunal, or even their manager or HR rep.
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Defending freedom of speech and thought is so yesterday. Obviously, a police state and even more so, a totalitarian state is much preferable as there people will only behave well (as defined by the government) or else.
The stupidity and lack of understanding of history expressed in this is truly staggering. Apparently the fascists were not a historical accident, they are alive and well and can be found in the Government.
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A UK person living outside the UK using a VPN to comment on UK issues? Just ensure a return to the UK for any reason. The legal system will be waiting. Commonwealth nations and EU nations have agreements to support courts in the UK in many matters?
Finding a VPN that works in some nations could be an issue for