The Political Thread

[Mabs]

Sorry, meant Hebdo.

[TordelBack]

Five suspected al-Qaeda militants are awaiting trial for the attacks at a military tribunal at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

BBC News article on 9/11 debris found this week.

There really can't be a worse abdication from the rule of law than what is contained in that statement.  Awaiting trial for 13 years.  America, what has become of you.

[The Legendary Shark]

Frustrating, isn't it? The U.S. could be such a force for good in the world but instead it seems to want to be the biggest wanker on Earth.

[The Legendary Shark]

So, laughing at Muslims is freedom of expression but laughing at Jews is a hate crime:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4351672/French-cartoonist-Sine-on-trial-on-charges-of-anti-Semitism-over-Sarkozy-jibe.html
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[TordelBack]

A court case is at a healthy remove from being shot at your desk, but you're right that this reflects the difference in attitudes towards jibes against the powerful and the powerless. Much as the reaction to these awful deaths and suffering is so different to the reaction to the equally awful deaths of so many others elsewhere in the same ideological (?) struggle.

In this whole sad business a distinction has to be made between supporting the right to expression, and supporting the views expressed. 

[The Legendary Shark]

I agree there's a significant difference between a court case and a massacre but they are both attacks on freedom of expression, it's only the method that differs.
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Your observation about the distinction between supporting freedom of expression and supporting the expression itself is astute. In my view, if a society wants freedom of expression then it can't pick and choose what can and cannot be expressed. Distasteful as it is, even racism, sexism and warmongering must be tolerated. To tolerate something doesn't mean one has to agree with it. (I'm sure there's a quote about that...)
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[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

To tolerate something doesn't mean one has to agree with it. (I'm sure there's a quote about that...)
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Aye, I think Twain said something about disagreeing with what you say, but defending to the death your right to say it.

Society does curtail freedom of expression though. Views that incite violence or hatred can find you on the wrong side of the law. I think that's just sensible. In the States however, that is not the case. They have laws against inciting violence (fighting words),which I believe is why Chuck Manson will never get out of prison despite not technically murdering anyone himself, but the constitution covers you if you incite hatred, which is why Fox News is still on the air and the Tea Partyers still roam free. Interestingly, I read that if they did introduce laws against hate speech, the Westboro Baptists would still get away with it. They aren't expressing their own opinions, just representing God's. They're basically a cabal of scheister, flim-flam lawyers. They want people to attempt to silence them so they can sue for breach of constitutional rights.

[The Legendary Shark]

Hmm, that made me think. I'm not entirely sure that there should be any limits whatsoever on speech. It really doesn't matter if someone gives a speech inciting violence, it's the people who listen and carry out the violence who are most guilty. Also, I think that by outlawing certain topics and words we give them power. Remove the taboo and remove the power. Of course, we'd first need to start teaching people (especially our children) how to think critically so they can tell the nutters from the psychopaths themselves before we lift all restrictions. A big job.
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My next thought was along these lines: If I say "invade Wales and kill the Welsh!" I'd be inciting violence and get slapped. If David Cameron says "invade Syria and kill Syrians!" it's just foreign policy and he gets a cushy retirement plan. It's just one more example of authority assuming rights and powers that nobody else has.
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Thanks, KP!

[Fungus]

It really doesn't matter if someone gives a speech inciting violence, it's the people who listen and carry out the violence who are most guilty.

The 'most' implies you and the mob are both 'guilty'. Which is fair, incitement is real.

It's just one more example of authority assuming rights and powers that nobody else has

That's parliamentary democracy?

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

It really doesn't matter if someone gives a speech inciting violence

No. Growing up in Norn Iron taught me that it really, really, really does matter

[The Legendary Shark]

Fungus, Parliament (ostensibly) derives its rights and powers from the electorate - none of whom has the right to commit theft, violence or murder (except under the most extreme circumstances). If the electorate does not possess these rights and powers then, logically, it cannot pass them on to government. Even if everyone in Britain voted for the same Prime Minister, 70,000,000 times nothing is still nothing.
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KP, you're right of course. In a perfect world with an enlightened populace it wouldn't matter but in the Real World at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) it does matter. Point conceded.

[Fungus]

Um... of course I wasn't suggesting that murder, etc. are legitimised in government. Very simply, that government and electorate are distinct; government alone declare war, raise taxes, etc. I can't. That's the deal.

[ZenArcade]

Parliament dreclares war. Z

[TordelBack]

I always think Sharky's argument that the electorate can't delegate powers that they don't themselves possess (perhaps as an inverted analogue of God devolving some of His powers to an earthly King) is a clever and thought-provoking one, but it only works if you assume that the electorate can't create powers 'greater' than their own.  In an age where we drive vehicles and operate machines with abilities we could never have, limiting legal powers to only those we ourselves enjoy seems quaint - and probably undesirable.

However, I can certainly imagine a world where all communal powers existed only where they also existed at the level of the individual (i.e. if it is illegal for an individual to kill, it is illegal for a community to kill), and it is an interesting place to ponder.  Not least because it draws me back again to the distinctions so regularly drawn between the acts of violence carried out be individuals in New York, London, Madrid, Sydney, Paris etc., and those carried out by states in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and stateless organisations in Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria et bloody cetera. 

[ZenArcade]

Murder is illegal on the individual level; the state reserves the right to kill in certain tightly defined and alas sometimes not so tightly defined situations.  Z