Idiot is all up in arms about free speech in the UK – and rightly so.
As can be expected, this has led to a large number of abusive prosecutions. People have been threatened with prosecution or actually arrested, charged and tried for calling Scientology a cult (an obvious statement of truth), barking back at a dog, standing up for gay rights, opposing gay rights, debating religion, displaying “culled” toy seals with red food colouring on them, and saying that religions are fairy stories for adults. You can think a lot of things about those statements, but one thing is clear: none of them should be a criminal matter. None of them reach the level of threats or incitement which would justify restricting speech in a free and open society.
I guess he’d be really mad at the guy who said his political opponents should have their children taken away from them.
You may have won the vote, but that doesn’t make you right. Anyone who believes that [parents having the right to use force that is reasonable in the circumstances to discipline their children] is either necessary or acceptable is simply a monster. Anyone who thinks its fine because they were beaten as a child “and it didn’t do me any harm” is simply stupid. Any dead people who feel their parenting style is implicitly being criticised are exactly right, and should get the [expletive deleted] over themselves. The old law treated children as property, provided legal cover for extreme violence against children. … But that does not protect the children of the hard-core child beaters who organised this referendum, the people who believe in faeries or devils or other bullshit and think they need to beat their delusions out of their children.Those children need our protection now, and it is absolutely the business of the state to protect them.
(Yes, he framed it as child abuse issue. But the clear lie that his political opponents support beating of children makes it worse – not better.)
And it bears repeating: in Soviet Russia, removing children from the parents was one trick used to shut up dissidents. To the best of my knowledge, Idiot has never apologised for promoting the use of these communist tactics in a democratic society.
It’s all very well talking principles. It seems with some, those principles don’t actually get deployed when the debate is about real issues.
Something should go here, maybe later. 