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Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

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Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#231

Post by amelius »

bjourne wrote: post #114
dijit wrote: post #9

They aren’t being arrested for being anti-monarchy though. They are being arrested for being rude about it. Was the fella on radio 4 who stated to the entire nation that ‘King Charles and his family should be put in a council house and that the Monarchy should be abolished’ arrested? No. If you are going to attend a funeral, any funeral, be it the Queen’s or anyone else’s and hurl abuse or hold up signs with obscenit…

The queen was a public figure whose lavish livelihood were paid for by British tax-payers. So it seems to me that British people should have the right to celebrate her death in any way they please. Curtailing people's freedom of speech by misusing public order laws (the queen's funeral is not comparable to any normal funeral) is curtailing freedom of speech.

So you see it as a business transaction, where one party is somehow allowed to be rude to the other party because they paid them money?

Am I allowed to be rude to a cashier because I pay them?

Do you not see what (non-monetary) price public figures pay for their role?

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#233

Post by hahaxdxd123 »

afarrell wrote: post #197
deskamess wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise it's just outright sycophancy Well... that's what the monarchy practice is all about. God-like status for some god-forsaken reason. Blind sycophancy.

It is because humans have an irrational tendency towards sycophancy. This was true throughout both the Obama and Trump administrations and before them. Better to direct that impulse towards a dignified institution that does nothing but attract tourists and occasionally signal society’s values than towards something that tries to have efficient and lethal decision-making power.

No post body was provided.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#234

Post by some_random »

ISL wrote: post #22
dijit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will be arrested for hurling obscenities at mourners regardless of who the dead person is. People were arrested at Margaret Thatchers funeral for the same thing. It’s not rocket science. You’re not allowed to do that.

In the United States, with certain limits [1], one can picket funerals and be massively disrespectful. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church#Laws_l...

Unlike the US, there is no right to free speech in the UK

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#235

Post by Rebelgecko »

dijit wrote: post #9

They aren’t being arrested for being anti-monarchy though. They are being arrested for being rude about it. Was the fella on radio 4 who stated to the entire nation that ‘King Charles and his family should be put in a council house and that the Monarchy should be abolished’ arrested? No. If you are going to attend a funeral, any funeral, be it the Queen’s or anyone else’s and hurl abuse or hold up signs with obscenit…

They're being arrested for misbehaving at a funeral that hasn't happened yet?

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#236

Post by zajio1am »

babypuncher wrote: post #29
closewith wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They aren’t being arrested for being anti-monarchy though. > They are being arrested for being rude about it. Got it. Arrested for poor taste. Hard to see the justification for that in a democracy?

I think it's fair to make certain events, like funerals, off-limits to protest. Freedom of speech does not mean you are free to say anything you want wherever you want. I can't just walk into the Oval Office and start hurling obscenities at the President, and attempting to do so is likely to get me shot by the Secret Service.

> I think it's fair to make certain events, like funerals, off-limits to protest.

Private funeral? Ok. State funeral that is essentially a big spectacle? Definitely not.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#237

Post by peatmoss »

prvc wrote: post #112
bawolff wrote: post #47

Im totally A-ok with arresting people disrupting a funeral. Like sessh. These are people too. Let them have a funeral, you can protest them afterwards.

I'll bet vanishingly few of the people with their hackles up over this spoke out in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church when it was in the news for their funeral protests.

Westboro was heckling at funerals for (and attended by) private citizens. The monarchs are public figures. I could imagine some hypothetical reasonable person seeing a difference based on this.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#238

Post by egeek »

pessimizer wrote: post #194
somewhereoutth wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or indeed burning a model of the Grenfell Tower at a bonfire party https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/06/grenfell-bon...

Quoted post unavailable.

As a person from Northern Ireland, I'm not sure what holiday you're referring to.

Closest I can think of is the 12th July, which is a holiday, but not one celebrating burning Catholics[0]. You might be referring to the bonfires that are lit on the 11th, but that's not a holiday.

Aside from some small events in Scotland, the 12th July is not celebrated in the rest of the UK.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#239

Post by throwaway932489 »

lucb1e wrote: post #167
seydor wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 days funeral is not 'a funeral'

It's a bit different when an unholy amount of people show up for it, compared to some regular 'a funeral'

Can't tell which side you're on based on this comment... is the number of potentially offended people greater and so it's a worse crime or is it more of a public event where the public should be entitled to express themselves?

While this isn't at all objective, my feelings on it all started to change when the BBC begun sneaking in pure praise for Charles/monarchy without any balance, having softened us up with the same thing but with the Queen for a few days, knowing no-one would disagree with that. It now feels political.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#240

Post by amelius »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

For all its faults, I love the US. I can go downtown with a sign that says "Not my president", and I may get some cheers, may get some boos. What I won't get is arrested. This is true no matter who is president. Now, if I were saying this about President Harris, say, when she came to visit Biden's body while it was lying in state, that would be deplorable taste. It would be worse if my sign criticized Biden while his…

> For all its faults, I love the US. I can go downtown with a sign that says "Not my president"

You're still stuck with a rigid 2-party system and a rather meager choice when it comes to electing a president.

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