221–230 of 443 posts
I feel like I must have been corrupted by the internet or something if the tweet in question is considered "grossly offensive". It certainly isn't nice , but 18 months supervision and 150 hours of community service? I don't even know how to put my bafflement into words here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside from me absolutely being in favor of even offensive and racist speech out of general principles, you'd be surprised (or not) by how easily "racism" can be redefined to include all kinds of things that are very, very dubiously racist by any normal definition. There are extremely woke people who consider even questioning any of their arguments about race or class as a racist act. There are cases where a person ma…
> Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries. Depends on how you measure it. The US has some pretty notable racial issues, even compared to other Anglosphere countries. I wouldn't put tha…
It's easier to be morally upstanding about you presume you and your fellow citizens would handle a potentially racist situation when it's hypothetical and not just a fact of life.
None of this is meant to excuse any of the awful stuff in the US, but to point out that there's a lot of confounding factors. It was a lot easier for Europe to take the high ground on abolishing slavery early on when they were century old empires who could still fill their coffers by exploiting people in Asia and Africa directly instead of importing them.
There's something I find loathesome about this "Send a message" sentencing. What the judge has done is send a clear message, that he won't sentence you on the merits of the case but will sentence you to serve his own agenda. The only message this sends is that justice has failed. It's always completely transparent who exactly gets made an example of, and who gets off with a slap on the wrist. We'll spend months hunti…
Churchill summed it up best, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, which means people will be made examples of as and when needed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about China’s supposedly social credit system? Maybe government intervention on such “trifling” matters is now possible thanks to IT systems, and we will come to see this as the norm, rather than the exception, as more and more people forcefully or willingly give up some of their liberties in order to have (or merely feel?) more security.
If you compare UK with China then what is next, North Korea? What is the point of mentioning China, is relevant to the discussion? Is China a model of great society and personal freedoms that other countries should follow?
So I bring China not as to put UK in a worse light, but to put an example of countries implementing these sort of systems of surveillance and enforcement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OK hand sign is racist now. There's rumbles of milk being racist. The scary thing that should terrify everyone is we are going to come to a point where being called racist no longer matters or nobody cares, and then your gonna see REAL racism come back with a fury and force you wont like.
Wait, milk?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the national review doesn’t count as the usual crowd, I don't know who does. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-scottish-governmen...
The National Review is very much on the respectable ideologically consistent side of the Usual Crowd (TM). (I mean, don't get me wrong, it's awful, but it largely has the courage of its convictions). Rest assured that, like, the Sun and Daily Mail and Spectator aren't going to be decrying this.
[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sending-a-mean-tweet-abo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it would have been better if the poster had cited sources instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylesbury_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_grooming_g…
So ~0.1% of towns, does that constitue 'widespread'?
The UK is a large country, so even if some event is rare, it's easy to find 10-20 incidents, and claim it is widespread. And if it's emotionally charged, people are afraid to call out such misleading use of anecdote, because they'll be accused of downplaying or defending the events, despite having valid concerns.
This gives whoever decides which anecdotes enter the public consciousness the power to pain any picture they like, no matter how divorced from reality. I'm sure you can think of a few such cases in the recent past.
There's something I find loathesome about this "Send a message" sentencing. What the judge has done is send a clear message, that he won't sentence you on the merits of the case but will sentence you to serve his own agenda. The only message this sends is that justice has failed. It's always completely transparent who exactly gets made an example of, and who gets off with a slap on the wrist. We'll spend months hunti…
One thing I have learnt is that anything bad reported in the so called british press that other countries do, goes on here in the uk as well. Churchill summed it up best, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, which means people will be made examples of as and when needed.
Looking at the cases it seems like "the needs of few" at the top outweigh the needs of many. So cut the BS Mr. Churchill