121–130 of 224 posts
In 2023, the number of people arrested for online comments: UK (12,183), Belarus (6,205), Germany (3,500), China (1,500). How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale. Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?
In 2023, the number of people arrested for online comments: UK (12,183), Belarus (6,205), Germany (3,500), China (1,500). How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale. Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?
Hmm. Ironically, the party most likely to abolish such laws is probably Reform. Tories have done approximately nothing, Labour is an old mother lode of speech policing and the Greens with all their postmodern sensitivities plus deference to Islam don't look particularly promising as well. Once upon a time, Lib Dems were strong on civic freedoms... but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cam…
Does anyone remember them doing anything other than apologising for going against their election pledge about tuition fees and losing the electoral reform referendum?
Why is it my earlier comment with so many upvotes got [flagged] ? Is it because I mentioned the entity name? Here is the comment: "It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly sh…
Religious conflict is old enough to gone through every kind of modern and non-modern ideology, including freedom of speech and humans rights. Why would the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has been ongoing since late 19th century, be a major driver in west ideology? It is not a suddenly adaptation of authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights. Die Gedanken sind frei demonstrates that people been fighting f…
Some of them:
* Israel is losing support across the world, because now it can't control the narrative, before it was able, people thought journalism exist, now we see it doesn't, and we are witnessing 2 different narratives in the media vs social networks
* EU and US politicians took money from relevant lobby entities (or as we should call it: bribe)
In 2023, the number of people arrested for online comments: UK (12,183), Belarus (6,205), Germany (3,500), China (1,500). How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale. Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?
[flagged]
Well, except perhaps Jeremy Corbyn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It's not sudden. The West's hate speech laws have been coming for ages. Anyone silly enough to put that much enforcement over speech into play cannot now complain that it's being used against people they like.
This US-centric take blatantly fails to address all of the problems, the right-wing ideologies, which have easily had a much greater impact on the rise of fascism across the world. And to be clear, US liberalism is largely supportive of right-wing ideology, the US Democratic party would be considered a right-wing party in many other countries. So it's both parties who are to blame here, but the underlying authoritari…
I'm trying to talk ideas; your post is riddled with just identifying which team is the goodies and the baddies. I don't think there's much common ground to be had between discussing ideas vs tribalism.
I can’t find any mainstream news source corroborating the claim that the government has imminent plans to introduce new legislation on the basis of the review mentioned in the article. If you google “hall independent review state threats”, nothing much turns up.
HN is becoming so partisan, it's starting to get on my nerves. The bill text is here[1]. It's extremely benign and the article linked, in fact, argues against it's own straw-man, found in another cited article[2]: > Yet, another way to view ‘cumulative’ or repeated protests is as sustained public action for justice, solidarity and freedom. So yes, if you interpret some random bill amendment in whatever way favors you…
1. We have had various highly disruptive repeated "climate" protests (Just stop Oil, etc)
2. We have had over a year of "pro Palestinian" hate marches, more or less every weekend.
3. We have had repeated protests outside various hotels repurposed as hostels for housing illegal migrants.
Of these the latter is the most recent, least disruptive, but most embarrassing for the regime. The regime seems to be complicit with the second.
I suspect most folks expect this power to be used against '2', but I'd not be surprised if it was used against '3' instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm. Ironically, the party most likely to abolish such laws is probably Reform. Tories have done approximately nothing, Labour is an old mother lode of speech policing and the Greens with all their postmodern sensitivities plus deference to Islam don't look particularly promising as well. Once upon a time, Lib Dems were strong on civic freedoms... but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cam…
> but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cameron coalition government. Does anyone remember them doing anything other than apologising for going against their election pledge about tuition fees and losing the electoral reform referendum?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.
It's a protofascist phrase, part of the problems we have is people adopting this worldview, that life has to be hard in order to create "good men". It's used to defend rightwing social darwinism. If anything, history goes the other way around. Fascism ("strong men") comes from good times, as a reaction. They create authoritarianism and discrimination ("bad times"), which slowly liberalizes and equalizes (gives rise t…
Anyway, the quoted saying is not about any specific ideology, that's just your own projection. Here's the cycle reformulated without any specific ideology:
Hard times create strong men: hardship breeds discipline
Strong men create good times: discipline breeds prosperity
Good times create weak men: prosperity breeds complacency
weak men create hard times: complacency leads to hardship
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Graham Linehan is an example of nothing other than how to tank your marriage, friendships, and any semblance of a professional career over a misguided moral crusade. He was a well-known and liked figure in Ireland off the back of Father Ted, Black Books and the IT Crowd. He was a huge blogger and early presence on Twitter, with both him and his wife being public feminists and supporters. He was also - and this is the…
[flagged]
It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman” other than when it is used in the provisions of the EA 2010. It has a more limited role which does not involve making policy. The principal question which the court addresses on this appeal is the meaning of the words which Parliament has used in the EA 2010 in legislating to protect women and members of the trans community against discrimination. Our task is to see if those words can bear a coherent and predictable meaning within the EA 2010 consistently with the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (“the GRA 2004”). (Para 2)
The court also concluded that a biological sex interpretation would not have the effect of disadvantaging or removing protections from trans people. This is because, in addition to protection based on the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, they would also be protected from discrimination based on being perceived as or associated with a sex which differed from their biological sex (paras 249-261).
Unfortunately, it was taken as vindication of the anti-trans position by all public commentators regardless of the commentators themselves were pro or anti.