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Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

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Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#271

Post by travisgriggs »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #223
Traster wrote: post #208

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.

> Churchill summed it up best, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

I’m disillusioned, discovering that it wasn’t Spock (Nemoy) uttering this as his dying words.

Did someone eventually tell Churchill that sometimes “the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many?” Or do I have to wait many years in the future to hear that sentiment?

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#272

Post by Beldin »

rglover wrote: post #151
xboxnolifes wrote: post #121

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.

This is exactly why "hate speech" laws are so dangerous. It gives carte blanche to the government to go after anyone who says anything any one person (or the government itself) might find offensive.

> This is exactly why "hate speech" laws are so dangerous.

If you think any single example of a law being applied in a manner that is technically defensible but (arguably) morally wrong should rule out an entire category of laws - you'd have no laws left.

My guess is that most laws are occasionally abused. The trick is to distinguish between those laws that invite it and those that don't.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#273

Post by ciupicri »

beaconstudios wrote: post #188
rootusrootus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is racism actually worse in the US? I feel like in many other western nations it's just more socially acceptable, and not so controversial.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by racism. Interpersonal racism seems to fly under dogwhistles moreso than outright statements now that it's socially unacceptable (in most places), where e.g. casual racism against Romania people is still pretty common in Europe. Judging from economic outcomes, though, I'd say the US is still pretty racist, even if being individually racist is mostly condemned (though I think it…

There's no such thing as racism against Romanians, since it's not a race, but it could be xenophobia. Or maybe you're making a confusion with Romani (Roma, gypsies) people.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#274

Post by travisgriggs »

Traster wrote: post #208

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…

There’s something I find holistically loathesome that a) other people read twitter at all, leading to b) it actually matters and has to fall under legal jurisdiction. If people moved on and quit reading twitter, this just wouldn’t matter.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#275

Post by beaconstudios »

rootusrootus wrote: post #252
beaconstudios wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by racism. Interpersonal racism seems to fly under dogwhistles moreso than outright statements now that it's socially unacceptable (in most places), where e.g. casual racism against Romania people is still pretty common in Europe. Judging from economic outcomes, though, I'd say the US is still pretty racist, even if being individually racist is mostly condemned (though I think it…

That's fair, though I understand economic outcomes are very sticky across generations (IIRC descendants of Irish immigrants, for example, remain significantly poorer than other white people). Even if we could wave a magic wand today and eliminate racism altogether, I'd expect this inertia to result in black families having significantly less wealth on average than white families for many years to come.

It's true that economic status is sticky (or in other words, social mobility is limited), but with black people in the US it goes beyond that into underfunding, predatory policing, gentrification etc that serve to compound existing inequities. While I think that we should aim to uplift poor people more generally through economic reform, in the specific case of black people in the US there are still definite institutional thumbs on the scale.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#276

Post by hcnews »

iotku wrote: post #220
rglover wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why "hate speech" laws are so dangerous. It gives carte blanche to the government to go after anyone who says anything any one person (or the government itself) might find offensive.

Add the idea that has been floated over the years into making law enforcement officers a protected class as well and it's not a large leap to see how such seemingly well-intentioned things can be abused by the state.

Isn't that the US model? And yes, it's a disaster.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#279

Post by f7ebc20c97 »

basisword wrote: post #13

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

The slope is slippery because, given enough time, lawyers are always be able to form a causal effect chain from human action A to undesirable outcome B.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#280

Post by Dylan16807 »

ciupicri wrote: post #273
beaconstudios wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by racism. Interpersonal racism seems to fly under dogwhistles moreso than outright statements now that it's socially unacceptable (in most places), where e.g. casual racism against Romania people is still pretty common in Europe. Judging from economic outcomes, though, I'd say the US is still pretty racist, even if being individually racist is mostly condemned (though I think it…

There's no such thing as racism against Romanians, since it's not a race, but it could be xenophobia. Or maybe you're making a confusion with Romani (Roma, gypsies) people.

"romania people" is a misspelling halfway in between, so I wish you wouldn't assume they meant the wrong one.
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