Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

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dyqik
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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:11 pm

IvanV wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:36 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:52 am
It's either free or it isn't. Once it's not free it will inevitably become controlled by those already in power.
Not at all. It is a very graduated and nuanced thing. It isn't just on or off. The distinctions of the freedom of speech environment are different in every country. We cannot say only a country where you can say anything you like has freedom of speech, because no such country exists and it is not desirable it should.

To what extent is freedom of speech freedom to cause damage through your speech? It's a bit like asking, as AP Herbert once did in one of his satirical books about the law, How much are you allowed to murder your burglar? Just as the state protects our property from damaging physical incursions, so it protects reputations, and privacy, and so forth, from damaging verbal incursions, to a degree. Just as with burglary, there is some kind of a balance to be struck between reasonable protection, and open season on suspected burglars.

The graduations on freedom of speech depend on how we define what is the damage you are not permitted to cause, what enforcement there is of that, and what restitution may apply.

For example, in terms of protecting reputations, the laws on libel vary by country. So what you can get away with saying in the USA, Britain and China is different. The USA is famously a liberal country on libel, whereas Britain is a favoured country for smelly people to sue those who mention their odour, because we are relatively illiberal on it despite an attempt to loosen up a few years ago. In China you cannot mention the misdeeds of the powerful without very serious consequences. In China, accuracy is not a defence, in the way that it would be even in Britain. Although some truths are in the realm of privacy, and that can be a reason the state might prevent you publishing them. And so privacy is often bound up with libel.

State secrets is another issue like that, where the laws are graduated from one country to another. On this one, the USA seems to be a bit illiberal. It is the USA that Assange fears going to, for revealing stuff that needed revealing.

And there are further things the state prevents you saying. These include obscenity, threats, incitement, and abuse of the vulnerable. And sometimes specific religious protections. Most of these things are regulated to some degree in most places, but the extent varies.

Authoritarian states can go too far in all of these kinds of protections to protect their ruling position. But a country in which there was no protection for any of these things? I think Britain would do well to lighten up on some of them, especially libel, but not to a point where you can say anything at all with no consequences.

A common misunderstanding about freedom of speech is to confuse it with right to a platform. It is one thing to be allowed to say things without suffering for it. It is another thing to demand that platforms give you access to say it on that platform. It is helpful if we distinguish these two things, and limit the understanding of freedom of speech to the right to say things without suffering for it. Of course, people who want to stir things up typically make this confusion deliberately.

Edited for clarity.
For additional examples of limits on speech, most fraud is essentially a speech crime, and so is perjury.

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by IvanV » Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:04 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:11 pm
For additional examples of limits on speech, most fraud is essentially a speech crime, and so is perjury.
Yet another example is advertising standards, which are quite tough in Britain, especially for medical products. I'm quite pleased about that.

In Britain, we have limits on how much parliamentary candidates can spend campaigning, whereas any such limit has been deemed as an unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of speech in the USA. The result is the much larger campaign expenditures in the USA, and the advantages the rich and well-funded have. I think the Americans probably have the balance wrong on that.

In many ways it is a feature of social animals that we succeed because we have worked out ways of getting on with each other and thriving in a crowded environment. That success has been contingent upon some kind of agreed conflict-reducing methods, trust-enhancing methods, and arguably security-enhancing methods also.

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:04 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:11 pm
For additional examples of limits on speech, most fraud is essentially a speech crime, and so is perjury.
So's a lot of "conspiracy to commit" etc.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 23, 2021 6:03 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:04 pm
dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:11 pm
For additional examples of limits on speech, most fraud is essentially a speech crime, and so is perjury.
So's a lot of "conspiracy to commit" etc.
"... is you taking notes on a criminal f.cking conspiracy?" = Free press. ;)

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by tom p » Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:22 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:52 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:36 am
Well, that depends on whether you believe in free speech or not.
tom p wrote:
Mon Dec 20, 2021 8:57 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:36 am
Well, that depends on whether you believe in unrestricted and potentially dangerous free speech or not.
FIFY
It's either free or it isn't. Once it's not free it will inevitably become controlled by those already in power.

An example of extremely dangerous free speech is blasphemy and heresy which history has proved has been extremely damaging to Christianity to the extent that very many people today refuse to believe what they're told to.
Grow up, you child

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Millennie Al » Sat Dec 25, 2021 1:11 am

tom p wrote:
Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:22 am
Grow up, you child
Quite some skill at advocacy you have there.

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by FlammableFlower » Wed Dec 29, 2021 11:13 pm

If reports are correct, he's now been involved in a protest at a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes where they filmed themselves walking off with some kit.

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Cardinal Fang
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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Cardinal Fang » Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:43 pm

It's interesting. Compare and contrast

The MK testing centre - no arrests, and people appealing for witnesses. Even though other anti-vaxx protests around the country have descended into violence, police seem to have not had much of a presence

with

the treatment of women at the vigil for a woman murdered by a police officer...
Image

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:00 pm

That's Thames Valley police for you I guess. They do have horses, they walk past the office sometimes. The police that is, not the anti-vaxxers.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Stranger Mouse » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:14 pm

Sound up and watch all the way through

I believe this is a new arrest https://twitter.com/badsciencemonk/stat ... 66402?s=21
I’ve decided I should be on the pardon list if that’s still in the works

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Little waster » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:40 pm

Stranger Mouse wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:14 pm
Sound up and watch all the way through

I believe this is a new arrest https://twitter.com/badsciencemonk/stat ... 66402?s=21
Just think, we are only on this Earth for a brief period of time, you think they could do something more useful with their time like ... I dunno ... volunteer at a food bank or watch puppy videos on TikTok or something. :|


"Granny, what did you do during the Great Pandemic?".

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Stranger Mouse » Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:00 pm

Trial date in May for the last time https://www.itv.com/news/london/2022-01 ... n-protests
I’ve decided I should be on the pardon list if that’s still in the works

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Stranger Mouse
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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Stranger Mouse » Sat May 07, 2022 12:42 pm

I’ve decided I should be on the pardon list if that’s still in the works

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Stranger Mouse » Mon Jun 27, 2022 7:41 pm

I’ve decided I should be on the pardon list if that’s still in the works

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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by Stranger Mouse » Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:26 am

I’ve decided I should be on the pardon list if that’s still in the works

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jimbob
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Re: Should Piers Corbyn be arrested

Post by jimbob » Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:01 am

Pity he's still done well out of it.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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