The freedom of expression question comes up once again in the Coroners and Justice bill which will have its 3rd Reading on Thursday 5 November. This will be the last chance for amendments and votes.
The battle is between those who believe free speech is so important that it has to encompass insult, and anything short of incitement. Others (including the Government) feel equally strongly that certain kinds of insult (for example racial insult – already a crime), or homophobic insult should be outlawed.
I am in favour of the widest possible freedom of expression and have argued this many times on the floor of the House and on this blog. However, I was presented on Thursday with an amendment by those who believe that sexual orientation insult should become a criminal offence and which seeks a compromise: outlaw homophobic hate speech but include the phrase that there be ‘mindfulness of the importance of freedom of expression.’
Mindfulness, I have been reminded, is already a requirement under the Human Rights Act in any case – so I am suggesting a phrase which emphasises the postitive duty to have regard for the importance of free speech.
One man’s insult is another’s description. You err in thinking that there can be compromise here.
Re-read “On Liberty”, twice.
Absolutely. Why should some groups of society have more of a right to not be offended than others? I’m sure that white, heterosexual, middle-aged men have feelings too!
As far as I’m concerned there should be no right to not be offended – that is true equality in the eyes of the law.
I’m unhappy with the compromise position simply because it doesn’t really seem to change the status quo, which is already too far swung in one direction. In fact, I’m surprised to learn that it’s not already a crime given the recent case of that lady who wrote to her local council in opposition to a gay pride event and had a visit from the police.
I’ll keep an eye on proceedings on Thursday!
After the sacking of Prof David Nutt, Les King resigned from the Advisory Council on the Misue of Drugs accusing Alan Johnson of denying Nutt his freedom of expression, according to the BBC.
If I said “Alan Johnson is a big girl’s blouse” would I be liable to prosecution?
Whatever it takes, please ensure that we can have the widest possible freedom of expression as a statutory defence.
Shh! OSA and all that!
As a former journalist, I have much sympathy with your position, Baroness D’Souza. However, without a written constitution we can’t have a First Amendment to it and are forever on a slippery slope on many issues. Perhaps an Unwritten First Amendment might be a way forward?
Sub judice, libel, miscellaneous laws – for example those prohibiting the publication of the identity of juvenile offenders or alleged rape victims – all constrain our freedom of expression in the UK, though to what extent they are practical in these days of the web I think we’re all unsure.
Our media cannot take photographs in our own courtrooms, so our licensed TV watchers have to watch Judge Judy in the US instead.
This goes back to the days when heavy press cameras went bang and let out large quantities of fumes when a photo was taken to produce the required flash. However, our Home Office is in charge of this area of the law, so we fully expect the matter to be righted in about three millennias time, or perhaps next year if Al Qaeda crashes a plane into Marsham Street.
Now then, in this context what do you think of putophobia? Desperate to learn French on entering my secondary school at 11 – I had missed out on a year of it at Primary School – I wanted to nuke Paris by the time I was 12. Which says a lot about my French teacher.
I mention this because putophobia is a French expression meaning a hatred of sex workers. According to the French sex workers’ organisation Les Putes, it takes two forms – direct prejudice and discrimination against sex workers, and the reduction of sex workers to hapless victims, thus rendering them voiceless.
Already in Liverpool, I believe, attacks on sex workers are regarded as a hate crime. Whether this includes non-physical action, such as verbal abuse, I do not know.
This may be a pan-Merseyside policy. It is quite advanced for the UK in its thinking – indeed almost Neanderthal – so one expects the Home Office to stifle it any minute, like the city’s recent planned tolerance zone.
Do you think laws should be prohibited that prevent hatred of sex workers? Or prevent incitement to injure sex workers, as many street sex workers (perhaps about 15% of prostitute sex workers) commonly suffer verbal or physical abuse, especially when forced into areas they are unfamilar with by roving gangs of Home Office police officers carrying out ‘kerb crawling’ drives?
Anxious for both freedom of expression and the protection of vulnerable minorities, I do find myself personally torn on this and would welcome a fellow sufferer’s views!
“However, without a written constitution we can’t have a First Amendment to it and are forever on a slippery slope on many issues.”
Just like Israel then?
Freedom of speech has already been lost to mad political correctness. As an eastender nicknames were terms of endearment not meant to offend but used in a joke manner. It has alway`s been the case that what one would say or call friends would not be done to strangers. I presume the law would make everything I call my homosexual nephew and friends illegal, albeit it done in jest ? Would I not be allowed to call my wife ginger anymore ?
On TV and in rap we hear constantly African-Americans -Anglo`s using a word (the N word) no white man could use. Afro-Americans took on the “N” word and after that it could no longer be an insult. I can call a Scottish person a Scot but what about a Pakistani ? I`m offended when I hear rap artist`s reffering to their girlfriends as “Bitches” and “Ho`s” but it`s upto their girlfriends to educate them.
I have taught my children if someone calls you a name to sarcastically agree and walk away, they`re rarely offended by name calling.
Freedom of speech is vital to debate and education.We cannot allow our own Government to become as the Taliban are where open discussion of certain subjects are major offences.
As Baroness D Souza states we must all be mindful but allowed the freedom to educate ourselves. If a law came about where I could be offended and have legal recourse I`m sure I would at times for no other reason than I could.
In this day and age where Police struggle to prosecute all numbers of crime from rape to serious assault let`s not fill the courts with children stating “He started it, he called me …”.
Actions speak louder than words.
You would be amazed at how often a statement of fact is considered an insult.
Whilst I think that freedom of expresion is a fundamental right, there are also legitimate restrictions on how far it can go.
Protecting peoples identities is a clear one, and this can still happen, indeed, is more important, in the age of the internet.
We do need to extend freedom of speach to cover as much as possible, even insults.
Liberty is for everyone, even morons.
@ Carl Holbrough: You’re being disingenuous, the words that you describe were invented by Westerners as a means of insult, they were not how these people have historically described themselves. They are still insults, picked up by some members of the respective groups in order to shock.
‘Paki’ in-particular, is used to descibe people with Asian heritage, not simply Pakistanis.
Disingenuous: Calculating, dishonest, insincere or naive.
Was this meant as in insult ? Do I need the protection of the Law ?
Or was it simply an honest personal description of my post by Troika21 ?
How far should we go to protect peoples sensitivities ?
I wasn`t insulted by the way, my post was obviously not worded well enough to educate Troika21 in my points and explain. One of the detriments of this form of communication and my typing skills. It does however illustrate how one could feel insulted or aggrieved by whatever one chooses and we depend on the law to choose the “reasonable” (average persons) viewpoint.
Baroness D’Souza,
Perhaps a better way to effect the thing would be to direct such questions as arise from the duty to a special refereeeing system so that at some level of appeal the duty you write of is always subject to the kind of review that makes the wheels of justice turn more carefully.
Patterson and others:
Off the top of my head here are some limits on free speech not prohibited by the First Ammendment at all times in the USA:
1.Crying “fire” in a crowded theater.
2.Divulging secrets vital to national security.
3.Inciting a riot, subversion or treason.
4.Inciting a Common Law Felony: Murder, rape, mayhem, arson etc.
5.Expressions not strictly speech or the press such as TV cameras in most courtrooms.
6. Actions by third parties not governing or sovereign may limit speech.
7. States may limit speech except in limited cases where the first ammendment binds them or larger areas where most states have a similar provision.
8.Copyright and trademark laws abridge many forms of expression including speech at times.
9. The Lawyer -Client privilege and other fiduciary obligations may be enforced by law in a way which limits speech because the governing power exercises a privilege it does not hold itself.
Behind these old right-wing and rock-ribbed rules there are newer, more liberal and otherwise complex exceptions. The Government of the UK is a government of reserve power under our theory — so are our States. The Federal government is a government of designate power much like a minor council for you but in our syetem it is the higher powers that are designate and the majority but less awesome powers that are reserve. It really does change the meaning of all federal laws compared to the same language from the UK Parliament.
franksummers3ba – you comment at
http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/11/01/a-return-of-free-speech/#comment-8296
is very useful & I hope we have a post where we can explore it further sometime. I think we are all aware of various US litigation in which the First Amendment becomes a contentious issue, but there again, there is so much litigation in a country with 50 sets of laws in addition to the federal ones that it is a wonder so many Americans spend so much of their lives out of prison that there are any left to fight in wars etc.
Nevertheless, you do have a written First Amendment.
Err…I am a little finicky about my name having one ‘t’, franksummers3ba. It’s Scottish (Clan MacLaren, actually). Two ‘t’s is English. Of significance only on UK political blogs, pardon my pernicketiness.
To give you some context. I have at many times earned my bread by attempting to wirite error free prose. However, in this LOTB format I find my subconscious is trying for the largest number of spelling and typographical errors ever recorded by a single human in any language — I am almost there!
When I have achieved this singular greatness you will have the satisfaction of contributing your own part to it. Then your Paterson ancestors will have an unusual but distinct credit to their lineage which none of your forebears ever brought to the ancestral tombs and sites of the clan.
I come to believe more and more that this country only has a monarchy to prevent it from carrying the label of ‘banana republic’. If the government is allowed to tell us we can’t say one thing, or think another, what else may they legislate upon? Free speech is very important.
I have to say that most of what you all say makes my Monday morning rather a pleasant one. I wonder if you feel that this strong protection of the widest possible interpretation for freedom of expression is one more generally shared by the population or are we conversing with an intellectual elite?
I’m not sure it matters. Traditionally rights have sometimes been unpopular or misunderstood by the public at large. But that is no argument against their necessity. The fact that the layman doesn’t understand habeas corpus doesn’t deprive him his right to hear the evidence against him. In the same way, the fact that many people think insults mean and snarky ought not be construed so as to deprive them of the basic mechanism of their democracy.
I tend to think exactly that. Restricting speech that they don’t approve of or cannot be found in their newspaper of preference seems to be the chattering classes perennial weakness. It sets a meaningless standard of free speech; surely if it means anything it means accepting that things we/I may find upsetting/distressing or offensive is allowed because others may or may not feel the same and have a reasonable right to speak or listen to the same. The US first amendment, as others have mentioned, is a wholly more robust protection – which while case law has defined limits makes the strongest presumptions in favour of free speech. This clause operates almost on the reverse assumption – mindfulness seems the weakest of legal protections. It reminds me of the so called press freedoms protections in Section 12 of the H-Rights Act. While parliament intended it as a real protection it proved tissue thin as soon as the courts got their teeth into it.
It depends.
If one confines freedom of expression to language, one would get one set of results from the public.
If one expanded it to different forms of expression, one would get a totally different set of results.
Clearly the present Government, while anxious to reduce prejudice and discrimination in some areas, is equally enthusiastic about encouraging – even to the point of embodying – prejudice and discrimination in others, eg laws against ‘violent pornography’ and most of the contents of tomorrow’s Part 2 of the Policing and Crime Bill.
One could think of the film “Dirty Pictures,” for example (see link below).
One could think of photographs of naked pre-pubescent children – perfectly legal until the late fifties or sixties, if I remember rightly, when Kenneth Alsop and a TV crew decided it was a “loophole in the law” after discovering a market for the taking and distributing of the same (which sadly tends to be the case with legal activity).
At the same time we can remember the full-frontal photo of the little naked girl running along a track in Vietnam with her back ablaze as a result of US napalm bombing, c 1969-70. Would that make the front pages so readily today if it happened in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else, or would the picture editors self-censor it out, or crop it?
Freedom of expression on a trumpet would be one thing to the inhabitants of a jazz club, another thing at 3.30am in an adjoining flat to the trumpeter’s.
For freedom of expression in paining and art, try opening a conversation about Tracy Emmin’s bed in any back-street cafe in London or anywhere else.
Among the general public, I would expect differing results depending on socio-economic grouping and age, and to a lesser extent on sex and other factors. Rural and urban backgrounds may be another factor, but sadly this rarely seems to emerge in opinion poll data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Pictures_(film)
Good Morning Baroness D`Souza.
I would class myself as “Working Class” self employed mixing with football supporters and the average builder.
The question of freedom of speech is extremely important to the working man and is a common gripe nowadays in conversation. The average man already feels he has lost the ability to say how he really feels, albeit that sometimes those views are in my opinion wrong. He feels he is living in a big brother state ruled by a few left wing protectionists.
One of the reasons the BNP have gained popularity is the working man no longer feels equality. He can accept equality but not at the detriment of his freedoms, where it “seems” he is less equal than another. Should the working man declare that minorities are treated in someway different to him he is branded a racist. To this end the working man will remain silent but may vote BNP.
Without the freedom to express his views, he cannot be educated in opposite views in explanation. Freedom of speech is a fundemental right of democracy.
I may just be an antipodean hick, but I am of the opinion that offence can not be given; only taken.
To say that one has a right to be free of offence is to say that everyone else does not have the liberty to perform acts which may cause offence. Since all acts may cause offence within an individual, this is indeed a very slippery slope to be taking. I am of course referring to making such speech illegal rather than allowing for freedom of speech.
Sapient – Hick on, oh antipodean wonder! Were our nation inverted, it could only be an improvement!
Yet pause. For there is a time in the affairs of men that, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Yet there are other times when, taken at the ebb, it leads only to a conviction under a Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Designated Area) Order.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmstand/deleg2/st051012/51012s01.htm
Had such orders been around in Paris in the 18th century, French and European history might have been very different.
But there again, it might not.
We’ll just have to wait until Monty Python do the film.
“intellectual elite?”
Our contemporary freedom of expression and obligations has roots in the eighteenth century. The population increased dramatically and politeness and good manners were central to maintaining neutral forms of communication between layers of society that were both educated and uneducated. The corrective mechanism was social exclusion and gave rise to the aristocracy’s continuing preoccupation with being nice to nice people.
Now Parliament takes it upon itself to exercise social exclusion by passing laws that are largely unenforceable. Why does it do this, because society is not cohesive but filled with people who confuse freedom of thought with freedom of expression? This constant barrage of inane laws dilutes the judicial system to the point where voluntary adherence to law is seriously threatened by an attitude: “Take no notice, its just one of those stupid laws passed by stupid politicians”.
Ref: Paper 24: 8. Manners
Culture and Identity in Britain’s Long Eighteenth Century
http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/part2/2008-2009/paper24.pdf
Some of the comments here seem to imply that speech-censorship laws are wrong because there is no real problem other than overly-sensitive do-gooders. I totally disagree with that – racism and homophobia are huge problems and can be exacerbated by language and this should be fought. Just not with censorship laws. I strongly believe this for two reasons:
1) Difficulty of interpreting hatred: ‘hate speech’ can easily be construed to include anything that some people interpret as critical of a particular group. For example, does a strongly-worded condemnation of Islamic animal sacrifice practices constitute incitement to religious hatred? What about if the speaker is fixated on Islamic animal sacrifices, and doesn’t speak about Spanish bull-fighting with equal venom? Should the speaker be arrested in the latter case but not the former? I don’t think it’s possible to frame ‘hate speech’ laws in a way that doesn’t have the potential to put a gigantic limitation on the scope of debate about many, many issues. Whether something amounts to ‘incitement to hatred’ is just extremely subjective and open to interpretation.
2) Incoherent justification. What principle justifies speech-censorship? Perhaps the principle is: “free speech is important, except when people say evil things”. There are many, many evil things that people can say. Why not ban them all? How about whenever a political party comes to power they pass laws banning everyone from saying everything the party considers evil, untrue or socially damaging.
Or perhaps I’m arguing against a straw man. Perhaps the real principle is that “free speech is important, except where nearly everyone agrees that what is being said is evil and untrue”. Perhaps our government believes that since all the major parties can agree that incitement to racial/religious/sexual-orientation-related hatred is a very bad thing, it’s okay to have censorship. When should something be banned? When 90% of a nation’s citizens think it’s evil? 70%? Or is just the percentage of MPs that count?
Whatever the principle (and I think the answer is that the government forgot about that), it makes a mockery of any genuine commitment to the principle of free speech.
I fear we are rather heading in that direction of travel.
On your latter point there seems to me a fundamental difference between two points you link.
While we could argue about the definition of ‘evil’ I accept that we could probably settle on there being such speech but ‘truth’ is another matter. I’d be deeply worried by the law deciding truth in terms political or historical views. That way leads to criminalising holocaust denial. While I would and do feel that it is historical nonsense to deny the holocaust I’d be greatly disturbed if the government was instructing the public on a legally sanctioned version of history.
Just to be clear, I am completely opposed to the principle that “free speech is important, except where nearly everyone agrees that what is being said is evil and untrue”. I said that in attempt to guess at what the government’s concept of free speech is.
As I wrote previously, I think that the idea that an overwhelming consensus (about either ‘evil’ or ‘truth’) legitimizes censorship just makes a mockery of the principle of free speech.
all the above is good grist for the mill. Carlholbrough’s point about using an existing law is important. Laws on the statute books are hostages to fortune and the fewer laws restricting freedom of expression the better.
I take it that most of you would therefore agree that another appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time would be acceptable?
“I take it that most of you would therefore agree that another appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time would be acceptable?”
Absolutely, but and it is a big but he should be appearing in exactly the same way and on exactly the same terms as any and every other political representative. He is part of a legal party with a certain level of support and shouldn’t be denied proportionate access on the national broadcaster. I was fairly exasperated at the shows normal format being changed to a BNP policy/ideology show. NG should have been asked about the post office or whatever other topical issues the audience wanted. Any other politician on a normal show would have after all.
The NG incident was interesting because of the number of politicians and commentators who in effect argued, to varying degrees, that because they didn’t like his views or those of his party it was ok to either ban him from certain shows or the BBC entirely. We may not like, indeed I could use stronger language, the BNP or its views but none of us have to watch or listen to any programme and with their level of support they are unlikely to appear very often.
Agreed.
Griffin, who appeared to be loving the attention during filming, was quick to capitalise on the format change by declaring himself a victim.
The strident audience were tedious and annoying too. Because of all the baying, we only got to hear a tiny bit of Griffin’s fascist leanings. Had he been allowed to spout a little more about ‘the elites’, the BBC as an ‘ultra-leftist’ organisation and ‘the mob’ outside being a Communist conspiracy, people would have been far more turned-off.
It is interesting that he denied being a Nazi, as that is probably strictly-true; I was really hoping someone on the panel would follow that statement up with the question: ‘Yes, but are you a fascist?’
Well, Nick Griffin is elected to the European Parliament. His party secured one million votes. Whether we like it or not, in a democracy, these sorts of things happen. I thought his Question Time appearance was wholly justified and the BBC were right to do it. His party’s bigoted views and bigoted constitution were the biggest indictments against them, forcing them by law to change them would only serve to concel their agenda.
Absolutely!!
If there are people that are saying the kind of vile and despicable things that the BNP is often associated with, I want to see them. To see them, to hear them and to point out the flaws in their rhetoric is the only way to permanently disarm them.
Indeed, let them march down the high street so that good respectable people can count their numbers. Parents can point out to their children that such men are ridiculous and contemptible. Brave men can stand in opposition and counter those arguments with their own. The rest of us can listen and then excercise our power by walking away unconvinced. Hate-speech legislation makes this robust exercise of liberal debate impossible.
These scenarios are far more comforting to me than the thought that feel good legislation should drive these men to meet in secret, to exchange ideas and plan action far from the gaze of any good citizen.
Speech is a formidable weapon that can do the most good when entrusted to the hands of citizens. Depriving people of the ability to develop pointed critiques to the outrages of bad ideas cultivates exactly the kind of passive, timid and dependent citizenry that this government has tried very hard to produce!
Nick Griffin needs more time on TV so he can be educated on who are the indigenous people of the UK. Take your pick from Romans,Vikings, French, Dutch and many more all descended from the original African man. More recording time will also ensure his inbility to state ” I didn`t say that”.
Yes immigration is a major issue, you should not have more children than you can responsibly feed, house and afford. Nick Griffin`s answer of forced repatriation is not the answer. Neither is repression of his right to suggest it.
Education is key and that means listening to both sides.In the end you will not fear that which is farcical. The people trying to stop Nick Griffin speaking on TV obviously underestimate the UK public or suffer a superiority complex where they fear the average man will be taken in by him.
Democracy means to me that every person has equal chance, even a fool.
First of all Baroness, good for you.
I’d also be interested to hear your opinions on Britain’s libel/slander laws and their chilling effects on free speech. Maybe you, or Lord Norton, would like to do a reader opinion post (in the same vein as the lap dancing posts) on the subject.
Baroness, I have to admit to not having read any of your speeches on the subject, so you’re probably aware of any points I can raise, however:
1. outlawing racism/homophobia will not change people’s minds, it will just make them feel persecuted;
2. people’s racist/homophobic views, will never be heard and thus will never be challenged;
3. the slippery slope, surely the right not to be insulted should extend to all minority groups? Criticising the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories is anti-Semitic and should be banned, blaspheming against Christianity has been banned in Ireland, we should keep it here and surely the UN’s attempt at an anti-blaspheming law for Islam is an admirable precedent;
4. when Samuel Johnson completed the first dictionary, two ladies complemented him on the omission of naughty words, he replied: ‘What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?’
People will seek out things to be offended by, encouraging them will make it worse. Never mind rivers of blood, the future is a sea of pointless and costly litigation.
This debate between Christopher Hitchens and Shashi Tharoor — ‘Freedoms of Speech’ may be of interest, if you have free time enough to watch/listen to it that is!
Welcome to the Internet, where free speech is treasured. 🙂 I doubt you’re conversing with an intellectual elite, it’s just that people who enjoy the Internet do so because of the freedom it provides.
Quote “racism and homophobia are huge problems and can be exacerbated by language and this should be fought.” Unquote
Language is not the problem, if you were to change the “wicked” word to say “IC3” or other it wouldn`t alter that it`s the behaviour not the words. We aready have laws that cover harrassment and threatening behaviour to anyone without picking out specified groupings.
When the law picks out specific groups for special protection this only emphasises a difference and sometimes will compound discrimination. If we truely want equality surely we have to accept everyone as the same with the same applicable law ? Assault against or threats against an ethnic minority should be treated the same as anyone else.
What is happening re BNP voters at present is they appear to see ethnic minorities/immigrants being treated in a better way than they are, for instance with housing. If groups of people appear to get special favour they will often be disciminated against by those who do not. No I do not know the answer andperhaps there isn`t one because even where people are the same they will split themselves into groups,be it football supporters or religion.
Example: Naughty children at schools are being bribed to be good by rewards.Good children get nothing. Result unhappyparents who see the naughty children getting special treatment.
The present laws relating to harrassment and threats cover all we need without the Government helping make discrimination worse by picking out certain facts about a potential victim. There should be no difference in terms of law if a drunken group harrass by calling “You fat/ginger/ugly etc.,” than “You black/paki/gay etc.,” the offence is still the same.
But racial abuse isn’t just something that can be directed at particular groups. It can be directed at anyone. Indeed, a man is currently on trial charged with racially abusing none other than Nick Griffin:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8338022.stm
How is a law against racial harassment giving special treatment to a particular group, when even the leader of the BNP can benefit from it?
Likewise, I’m sure it won’t be too long until a case is brought against someone for discriminating against a heterosexual person. It’s discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation that’s outlawed, not specifically against someone who is homosexual.
Jonathon, I appreciate your reply in stating that the law CAN be applied across the board but neither I nor the average man in the street believe this is why it came about. Nor do we believe we need it`s protection, at this present time.
Why pick “race” out for special treatment ? Please define race for me I find that awfully difficult. If we are talking skin colour why should we not also include hair colour, most redheads find being called “ginger” extremely offensive. Why should they be treated different? We can go on picking out human differences until the cows come home and each one will be differentiated and picked on at some points.
I`m not saying things were/are hunky dory but we are making rules that will allow some to take advantage and making special cases of some. We`ve recently seen a call for people that cry “rape” falsely to be imprisoned after all the effect on the accused is monstrous. Why is the same not to be applied to racial abuse, how many times have good officers been investigated because of false accusations ? How many times are Police officers accused of “You only pulled me up cos I`m…..”
Ian Blair once stated,I believe, that most muggings in London were committed by Black people. This was a fact, he was labelled “racist” why ?
People on the street ask why when 6 black guys attack a white it is a mugging but in reverse it is a racial attack. Why a “Black Police Association” exists but a “White Police Association” would be outlawed. These are questions I am hearing more and more frequently. I hear the BPA exists because of institutionalised racism and if that is the case and the evidence is present why has it not be dealt with without the need for a seperate “appearingly” racist organisation. It does appear racist to the man on the street though I am fully aware it is open to all skin colours……As I expect the BNP to be soon. It doesn`t make it right.
If we do not get this right it maybe that the “Rivers of blood” speech that was merely a prediction(imho) may yet be seen. Mr. Powell stated:
“This does not mean that the immigrant and his descendants should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow-citizen and another or that he should be subjected to an inquisition as to his reasons and motives for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another”.
He was branded a racist and I`ve no doubt people will feel the same about my expression, if this gets past moderation.
I hear on the streets daily of good people wanting to leave this country, stating it`s finished, their freedoms eroded by Political Correctness and Liberalism. Please do not let this Country, that I was once so proud of, fall into the hands of the likes of the BNP.
It is strange how the same people trying to ban the BNP on BBC are the ones shouting loudly about freedom and equality.
By eroding peoples freedom of speech and expression you will do no more than to start the smouldering.
Question : How far will the Labour party go in protecting minorities ? Will an amendment to protect the minority Tories from insult be included 🙂
Here are some lessons (tips?) I have gleaned from your blogs:
Do not provide minority politicians with special treatment but require them to perform in the normal context of hurly-burly day-to-day politics.
The best possible answer to offence is to turn the tv or radio off, don’t read the book, don’t see the play or film.
The worst possible response to offence is to criminalise it.
I think I have said it before but it may be worth repeating; Le Pen in France was required by French law to temper his facist message. It was reported that his party had many more applications to join after he produced well disguised, calm and enticing, but still facist, messages.
There’s an important message here!
No, the best possible answer to offense is to respond to it by highlighting its flaws. If you turn it off it still has power over you, by responding to it one destroys its ability to cause offense.
B -no I think the point is that what offends me may not offend you at all. So I allow you to continue seeing or hearing whatever you want, but I can protect myself by not seeing or hearing?
Sorry to keep this going but I wasn’t sure if the last sentence was a question directed to me.
I think ignoring the offense if an illiberal response.
Liberalism, as understood by J.S. Mill and others sees us as bound together in a common project. Namely: the project of trying to figure out which are the best ways to live. Ignoring answers to that question on the grounds that they are offensive or incorrect is to fail in our duty to one another. Such a response encourages Balkanization and a relativistic attitude toward truth. Mill argued instead that the liberal should seek engagement with his fellow citizen. In fact he says that we should constantly challenge one another and, in so doing, force each man to take better stock of his justifications for his point of view. It is only in this way that discourse and debate acts as a tide which raises the level of all ships and results in all of us having an apprecaition for the opposition and the ability to respond to them.
To do anything else, Mill argued, was just to saddle oneself with dogma and habitual opinion for want of being able to see the flaws in what one believed. Ignoring offense then deprives you from seeing what others have to say for their position and deprives them if the chance to be corrected.
Once again, please, (re?) read “On Liberty” it is short and there is almost no better defense of the liberal state and its goals than this.
Quote “The best possible answer to offence is to turn the tv or radio off, don’t read the book, don’t see the play or film.”
TV, radio, plays and films have governing bodies with some kind of censorship, that`s not to say no one is offended but it is limited by law already. Books…hmmm…Satanic Verses ??? Mein Kampf ?? Interesting reads maybe but will offend someone. In the interest of freedom of speech, thought and the ability to learn a necessary evil maybe.
We cannot do as Japan and others have tried, alter something, history in this case because it offends.
You can protect yourself by not seeing or hearing, or even going out your door, that`s your choice but enough bodies and laws are already in place to protect you should you wish to do so.
Society is still tiered, the language of a building site may offend a Baroness. Should we pretend it doesn`t exist ?
B and Carl Hobrough – there is some confusion here. Let us go back to the well tried and famous US Supreme Court case which ruled that to ‘(falsely – the false element is very important!) cry fire’ in a crowded theatre is unlawful BECAUSE it would necessarily cause undue panic and injury. To do the same on a street corner would be well within the law because there is far less danger of injury, the implication being that people could AVOID risk.
All I am suggesting is that offensive material exists in the world (and on building sites) but offense initself is not a crime ESPECIALLY since it is possible to avoid offense (e.g don’t go near the building site).
If, however, we are talking about more than offensive material, for example, death threats which constitute a clear and present danger to an individual or group, not only is this against the law in this country (incitement) but each one of us should take responsibility to curtail such incitement.
I take myself to be understanding you, I’m not sure you are following me though.
Free speech is justified by the good it provides to society. That good is the ability to freely debate, and in the process, come to improve our ideas. In other words free speech is a kind of trial by fire for ideas which leaves only the best and most well-justified ideas behind.
But that good cannot be realized by ignoring offensive speech. It can only be gained if everyone is willing to counter offensive ideas with better ideas of their own. Of course this is only to occur in the context of debate, not ‘countering’ by legislation.
In fact, offense is not a crime not because it is possible to avoid it, but precisely because it is impossible to avoid. We can’t criminalize that which we can’t remedy.
In this way your analogy with shouting fire is inapt because it conflates offense with real danger. Offense is like growing old – its unavoidable if you live long enough. However unlike growing old offense is understood, in the liberal tradition, as an opportunity: to debate and, hopefully, correct one’s opponent. If you treat offense as potentially criminal and saved from that designation only by being avoidable you have already taken a step down the wrong path. It is the wrong path because it is always possible to find offensive ideas to be ubiquitous and then, by your logic, they have the achieved the status necessary to make it possible to criminalize them. But if you begin with the idea that offense is unavoidable, but is not harmful, then you see that the only weapon one has to counter it is one’s own ability to debate it and, in so doing, defuse it.
Ignoring offense is a recipe for not engaging in your world and having a bunch of poorly justified ideas as a result. The better option is a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, but these are goods that can only be cultivated in the furnace of conflicting opinion.
…but each one of us should take responsibility to curtail such incitement.
Are you suggesting that we should have a moral or statutory duty to report wrongdoings or, moderate our language in case some over-zealous individual decides to feel threatened?
I agree with your distinction but that seems precisely what the present and growing anti hate speech laws seem to almost wilfully ignore; they are criminalising a level of hurt/upset and offence that falls short of the proper standard of incitement to violence or similar.
As an aside the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote you referenced is interesting because as an argument I fundamentally agree with it and for the exact and obvious reasons yet it was advance in a court case (Schenck v. United States) and used as a justification for upholding a conviction that didn’t meet the standard the quote seemed to set. Indeed later cases overturned that precedent for those reasons.
Quote”All I am suggesting is that offensive material exists in the world (and on building sites) but offense initself is not a crime ESPECIALLY since it is possible to avoid offense (e.g don’t go near the building site). ”
By avoiding the building site, some of who`s language maybe colourful yet offensive, you are depriving yourself of a different culture, different opinions, opportunities to learn, opportunities to educate.
The language of another culture may seem offensive but languages evolve. Words we accept today may have seemed offensive 20-30-40 years ago. And language evolves from mostly the common people on the street. The way a builder expresses a view will be wildly different to that of a Baroness but maybe the same opinion. Freedom of expression is vital.
A tent with a lot of mens names written on the tent that the lady has slept with. Offensive ? To some yet this is billed as art from Tracy Emmin. Did we get her message, did we try or did we avoid ?
Avoidance is a type of discrimination,” I dislike or am offended by Islam (or other) and avoid”. I learn nothing, I educate no one. If you avoid you can often be left with your own misconceptions.
Two children in the playground being offensive to one another. Should the teacher punish them for being offensive or try to educate them in what they are doing ?
People, especially uneducated people, and I do include myself, often express themselves in what can be deemed an offensive way. However if you criminalise these people rather than attempt to educate you achieve nothing, the concept/idea still exists.
We teach children about apartheid, about the Holocaust, why ? To educate so the mistakes cannot be remade.
If someone offends most of the time it is through ignorance, where does fault lay for that ignorance ? If I am not taught that coming into the House of Lords and using colourful language is wrong is that my fault ?
If a child is not taught the reasons and consequenses of crying “fire” in the cinema is it his fault?
Ladytizzy: If you plan on inciting hatred or violence, then for goodness sake do moderate your language if you want to avoid a criminal act.
B – how about this; how is it possible to counter offensive ideas unless those offensive ideas are freely expressed?
Its not! That is exactly my point!
I fail to see where you got the idea that I was in favor of criminalizing speech. (In fact, how any one who advocates reading “On Liberty” multiple times could be interpreted as a censor of any type begs credulity!)
My points in response to you were just an attempt to get you to see that advocating ignoring offensive speech is to advocate an illiberal response to it.
Finally I find all of this lack of comprehension rather frightening, given your position. I can’t see any comments of mine that could cause you to misconstrue my position. What was it that you found so confusing?
Troika, when you say “Some people confuse a statement fo fact iwht insult”, do you mean lik when you demand others agree with you? “Dawkisn is right and you know it” comes ot mind, but that want a statement of fact but opinion.
That said, I do not beleive in limiting speech. I don’t care for the uual “Racism and Homophobia” claims. Whilst Racism is clealry wrong, it shoudln’t matter, since ultimatley you can’t tell others how to think and feel. Provided no actual harm comes to people, such laws woudl be unhelpful. As for Homophobia, thats just a mad eup word with no real value. Anyone who opposes Homosexuality, or even thinks it anythign other than a natural and healthy variation of Human Sexuality, is deemed a Homophobe.
Which is why Hate Speehc las are so horrid. No one can critisise behaviours liek Homosexuality, which we are ordered to think of as the same as Race.
Why shoudl Homophobia, as brioadly defined by the media and most others, even be criminal, as an obviosu example? ( I doubt hate criems laws would exist except for ths.)
Why shoudl someone sayign they dont approve of Homosexuality be labled a Homphobe and threatened with elgal penalty?
Its simpl;y madness ot think you can control ohers thoughts and feelings on such topics, which ultimaltey are moral issues.
I’ll post mroe later as this is a topic of great interest to me, but shcool cut sinto net time of late.
Very interesting debate! I’ll just add that if one thinks that belief in free speech is only shared amongst an intellectual elite, one ought to go into any working-class pub in any given part of the country, only to find out the hard way that belief in free speech is very strong in all strata of society!
Mr Mulholland – indeed. Yet in the same working class pubs it is common to see freedom of speech in practice constrained in inverse proportion to one’s youth and/or the size of one’s muscles!
This is indeed a very interesting debate, though I have rather regretted to date its constraint to freedom of speech (fair enough, that’s what it says on the label of the post) rather than freedom of expression, of which freedom of speech can form only a part.
Song, music, dance, painting and many forms of cultural activity have subtle ways of changing attitudes no less powerful than speech, as a student of the freeing of South Africa from apartheid will testify.
Perhaps we need to free our own speech to discuss them?!
Gosh, Baroness D’Souza, I would never plan to incite hatred or violence – that would be a crime.
Unfortunately, as an employer, I’m expected to know the difference between freedom of speech and harassment between members of staff. Oh, joy.
Memo to self: Must add Greenologyismstuff for morning assembly.
Aarrrggh, apologies – the above post should have linked to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/03/tribunal-climate-change
It is becoming nigh-on impossible to continue taking part on this blog with only 0.25Mb broadband speed (tautology or oxymoron?).
Farewell, best wishes to all.
You seem in a bit of a tiz. I blame BDS, she is actually blogging would you believe it?