I don’t doubt people will.
We’ll see how it gets reported in the papers and online.
1 Like
The main thing here being connectivity.
Can you without a doubt and bias connect him uploading the video with harassment done to the jewish community in the area? Or is it about people reacting to their reactions to the video? Or is it an already established group of people who harass these people (which he has condemned, btw). Can you prove without any question or hint of doubt that he orchestrated damage to be done to a specific ethnic group? (Coming back to the nefarious intent + acting against common goodwill argument).
No. You can not.
To do that, he’d have to have targeted a specific group of an ethnic group- Otherwise, the accusation becomes way too broad to quantitatively measure.
Moreover, the “victim” should have absolutely no say in whether the action should be punishable or not. The law dictates that. It’d be awfully convenient if the victims got to decide on their note that how much they were damaged?
Speaking of the damage, what measurements were used by the group about the harassment? How many posts targeted them? What kind of posts were they, and so on.
You have to get precise about these things. Law is not subjective. It’s objective, or rather, is supposed to be.
Such transparency, again, lacked from the courts decision. And the argument falls on itself again once you take into account that you just claimed that simply him posting it on a public platform makes it a bannaple offence- So now actual, professional comedians can be jailed too, for presenting their comedy in public? Well done.
Of course, you’ll be quick to note that “But that’s different”, and I’m inclined to agree. But where do you draw the line? How public is too public? A hundred thousand viewers? A million? Ten million? What time span are we talking about?
3 Likes
Anyone else’s going to miss the Unpopular Opinions thread?
2 Likes
It’s all too common, sadly. Schroedinger’s Jerk. Whether they were joking or serious is determined only by if someone calls them out on it.
3 Likes
Don’t put words in my mouth - I’m not you, after all Mr ‘Retail’.
Zan said they would consider it a problem if harm came about as a result of the “joke”. Testimony from a/the SCoJec director indicated it had. Harm which they believed would not (and indeed, could not) have occurred as a result of the “Joke” had it been kept private. By making it public, harm occured. That was the testimony.
Off the back of that, and…you know, the law…he was penalised.
The dude said, repeatedly, “gas the jews” how much more targeted against a specific ethnic group could you be oh my god.
3 Likes
That wasn’t hard.
Well that’s awfully convenient.
Again, you feeling harmed shouldn’t count whatsoever, if you can not quantify it. And the case had none of that.
In other words there was no concrete proof that it was actually caused by him.
Thanks for getting that out of the way.
“Context doesn’t matter”, in which case, according to the sentencing, you just committed a hate crime by repeating that phrase on an online forum.
Well done playing yourself.
4 Likes
So to be clear:
Esteemed pillar of the community Count Dankula who associates with alt-right people and defends them saying “it was a joke” means we take it at face value and any additional context or anything else is disregarded.
Meanwhile the director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities who consults with police frequently makes a statement regarding backlash against his community as a result of the above “joke” cannot be trusted and indeed needs to meet a frankly impossible burden of proof for his statement to be taken into consideration?
Yeah seems reasonable. Also just because you keep indicating I believe context doesn’t matter doesn’t mean it’s true. I do think it matters. That’s why when he said “just a joke”? I don’t believe him. Because context matters.
Just like how I’m not certain you’re really in this argument solely for free speech given your history of frequently using racial slurs and making anti-semitic “jokes” yourself.
6 Likes
Can I just point out that freedom of speech/Free speech is about your right to have a belief, and to voice dissent against goverments without being punished for it.
It does not mean “I can insult everything and everyone” or “I can discriminate, say discriminative things to groups/people”, since both those cases often fall under some form of law, and it is just the person being a jackwad.
1 Like
Pretty sure Count Dankula said that he was fine with social repercussion but not legal ones.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be jailed over a joke. Wether you believe it is one or not the context here was given even if one disagrees with it.
2 Likes
He wasn’t sentenced to jail.
4 Likes
If he wasn’t fine with legal ones, then he should have thought on it a bit longer, and not contempt the court either by defying sentences and acting like a mook throughout the entire thing.
This is a situation where being humble instead of “Im such dank yo” could have benefitted him.
Correct, if you don’t have any concrete proof that any measurable harm was done, and that there is a context provided in the said video (which there is).
IDK how does consulting with the police frequently make his statement weight more, but oh well.
Also the burden of proof is really low because you need only 1 email or alike to prove that he did in fact orchestrate this action against them. None were found.
The reason why the treshhold is this “high” is because that’s how any credible western justice system works. The victim doesn’t get to decide how gross the offence was. The law does. That’s why you quantify the offense.
So in other words you agree to having just committing a crime online for repeating the infamous phrase above?
After all, if the context deciding is completely arbitrarily up to the individual (like me), who are you to deny it? Since if the phrase alone is so grossly offensive that even if it’s said with clear context to it (which he did) it’s still an offense. Why should you be treated any different, or comedians, or anybody else?
If you really can’t see the can of worms opening up from this then quite frankly you can not be helped and I really hope it doesn’t come around biting you back even after people like you have completely lost the sense of what an objective jurisdiction resembles like.
When I was first introduced to his video, I was amused because a thing like this has in fact happened in my very own country during the world war 2.
Yes, I am not lost on the irony that in fact who were the prosecutors then- And who they are now.
Well thankfully I live in a country where your opinion about what I do and what I associate myself with doesn’t weigh anything in the libra because we judge the case by the context, not by the person.
But you’ve time and time again shown that you’ve never had a grasp of disconnecting yourself from the arguments you make- And this is where we differ.
Not really. Freedom of speech is just that- Freedom to say whatever you please and wish. You either have it, or you don’t.
Now, consequences for what you say still exist- Which I posted earlier. They’re not present in this case.
3 Likes
Your entire argument though is that there should not be consequences cus “joke lol”.
No.
If you could prove without a hint of doubt that
- There was a malicious intent
- The action was done against the common goodwill
I’d condemn it, regardless of whether it was meant as a joke or not.
If for example he’d done the joke so that it’d included bullying some ethnic group member on video without context & consent on the partakers and going “it’s just a prank bro”, I’d condemn it.
Malicious intent you could get past, but since Britain does to this date -thankfully- enjoy comedians who can make grossly offensive jokes and get about it, I dare say that even that’d be hardpressed to come through.
3 Likes
Judging by this thread i should be relieved to have my freedom, and reassured I’ve passed the thought police border checks on my way to work given I live in the UK.
Except pretty much all of the posts here dramatise the situation in the UK massively, and they have no basis in consistent reality, and instead show their face in a minority of cases which the media puts on full blast because controversial stories sell papers.
8 Likes
I don’t understand very well. What is your point Elenthas and Vixi?
That it is a good thing that PC policies are enforced or that, instead, Meechan’s conviction was legitimate? Or something else altogether?
4 Likes
I want to tattoo this on the foreheads of some people. It’s very strange that there’s often this rhetoric that the politically correct left are fragile and easily offended, when the ‘anti-PC’ section of society is just as quick to take offence and wildly exaggerate the situation.
8 Likes
That the ruling in Meechan’s case was correct and legitimate.
http://www.scotland-judiciary.org.uk/8/1962/PF-v-Mark-Meechan Feel free to read it for yourself if you haven’t. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, it’s not that long.
1 Like
You are not immune to propaganda.
4 Likes
The fact that I deem it correct or not it’s up for you to decide, however. Overall, I can see why people make the case that he deserved to be fined. I’ve been reading it from the source in wikipedia - it is a good controversial case and an interesting one. Overall I will refrain from giving an outright judgement, because I still have to make up my mind.
However, considering where this argument came from, and the fact you liked the posts involving this type of rhetoric, I guess you also buy the fact that PC ideals are a positive force in our society?
1 Like