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Fleetwood / Joey Barton

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  • @Malone said:
    Free speech doesn't actually exist beyond a point though does it?
    You can't say anything and get away with it. There's laws about hate crimes and suchlike.

    What a lot of these extremists do, is have a patter that sounds eminently reasonable on the face of it (say, Tommy Robinson - who could disagree that having so many known people who download extremist material living in the UK isn't bad for instance?), but it's a cloak for a much more sinister viewpoint and band of followers.

    And how do you spot the difference between the reasonable and the unreasonable, whether uttered by one person or several? You hear both and work it out for yourself.

  • Don't bring football into it, @Wendoverman.

    I always appreciate your levity but there is a serious point that is central to the discussion here. It is vital that objection to a viewpoint is evidenced clearly and honestly. The Roger Scruton story last week is a classic example of the deliberate misrepresentation of a person's views (by an eminently unneutral journalist, by the way) in an attempt to marginalise him from society. Because the weak-minded Conservative ministers responsible for making a decision failed properly to appraise the sentiments expressed (or were so craven as not to publically acknowledge the truth of the situation) the dishonest ploy was successful and one of the country's leading academics was lost from a role for which he presumably had considerable value to add. This is a very bad thing for our country.

    Separately, one of the main problems with humanity, I have long found, is that there seems to be a considerable number of people who lack the intelligence to see things the way they should, namely the way I see them. Thus it is that people support ideas that are founded in less than rigorous reason - you mention Farage et al. so let's say them, then. I am resigned to this and will continue listening to what they say on the highly improbable chance that I may not quite yet have the final word in truth and understanding.

  • edited April 2019

    On a related, but lighter, note, I very much enjoyed this tweet on the Scruton affair last week by Titania McGrath - a spoof SJW account. To my mind, through humour, it seemed to highlight the many serious problems with what took place as the journalist tweeted several heavily edited "quotes" from the interview with Scruton:

    "OMG!

    If you delete 85 of the letters in this Roger Scruton quote and rearrange the remaining 11, he is actually saying “I love Hitler”.

    I’m not misquoting. I’m just editing it for reasons of space."

  • You do seem unusually heated by this @HCblue. On one level I do agree with you that the light of reason will expose the flaws in the arguments.

    But on another a significant proportion of the world’s population believe in assorted religions so there is a strong case that it wouldn’t to the degree that anyone would change their minds.

    Genuine question. Is there no line on this you believe that should be crossed?

  • Titania McGrath is the best thing in Twitter. The fact so many people can't see she is a parody just confirms we live in idiotic times.

  • Given his views over a long period of time it is surprising to me that Mr scrutiny was appointed in the first place...so it seems bizarre to sack him for the same! For the same reason you would not make Peter Hitchens an adviser on any social policy at all! Or make Tommy Robinson any sort of adviser...unless you are UKIP!

  • Mr scruton of course! Although more scrutiny...

  • edited April 2019

    Hi, @bookertease. I don't know that heated is the right word but it is certainly a subject about which I have spent much thought in recent months.

    I don't profess a sure-enough understanding to be able to answer your question confidently, let alone authoritatively, but let me try to work through it a little.

    The theory must start with the presumption that we should set rules to allow the hypothetical reasonable person to arrive at the best possible understanding. Let's take one of your hypothetical religious people. Exposed to a variety of views and ideas about religion different to their starting assumptions, that person may change their mind or that they may not. That is their prerogative (and something like religion is an interesting one since it will ultimately always be founded on unprovable beliefs rather than on reason or provable truths). If religious dogma influences them to deny certain realities - say, the age of the Earth - then so be it. We are free in this regard to be unreasonable as much as we are to be reasonable.

    However, what if this person, or a group of such, object in some form to the expression of ideas that contradict their religious beliefs? If their preferences, which can be coloured as outrage, hurt, offence or whatever you like, gain traction, you end up with a society like some modern Islamic ones where it is not possible freely to discuss questions that might cause you to draw conclusions other than those required by the State, cf. also the Soviet Union and communist China.

    Going back to the original reasonable person, that person will find it much harder to arrive at an understanding of truth in a society that filters the information that comes to them through censorious means such as described above. Thus, I suppose, in theory it should be that, if we truly value knowledge and understanding our rules should allow the freest possible expression of ideas. We are some way short of the USA in that regard but nowhere near the middle east. The danger of allowing corner cases like Alex Jones or Milo to be silenced is that it sets a precedent that leads to the country's leading philosopher (Scruton) being marginalised.

    I'd like there to be someone left to speak for me when they come...

  • There are many measured and interesting voices on the right Jordan Peterson, Andrew Sullivan, pj o'rourke and so on who can debate vigorously...your milos Alex joneses and so on who just throw out lies should be ignored and avoided in my view. Then again the Welsh elected that scrounging lying neil Hamilton so there's no accounting for taste.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    There are many measured and interesting voices on the right Jordan Peterson, Andrew Sullivan, pj o'rourke and so on who can debate vigorously...your milos Alex joneses and so on who just throw out lies should be ignored and avoided in my view. Then again the Welsh elected that scrounging lying neil Hamilton so there's no accounting for taste.

    The essential point being, of course, that you can only properly distinguish between the valid and the invalid by hearing both and then making your election as to who to continue to listen to.

    Big Peterson fan. Did you follow last night's debate?

  • edited April 2019

    Those keen on or interested in knowing about Titania McGrath will enjoy this:

    https://spectator.us/interview-titania-mcgrath/

  • Too close to work for me @hcblue I avoid anything serious in my free time!

  • You're a Marxist philosopher?

  • Peterson is awful. And it is a great relief that Scruton is no longer involved in government.

  • @Chris said:
    Peterson is awful. And it is a great relief that Scruton is no longer involved in government.

    Nope.

  • @hcblue aren't we All?

  • Thanks @HCblue. A well-constructed response. I don’t think I am arguing that people should be silenced at all but I am arguing that they shouldn’t necessarily be given a platform in all cases.

    I am 100% in agreement that censoring views and opinions is unhelpful to any reasoned debate but that shouldn’t mean we should encourage them

  • edited April 2019

    @bookertease said:
    Thanks @HCblue. A well-constructed response. I don’t think I am arguing that people should be silenced at all but I am arguing that they shouldn’t necessarily be given a platform in all cases.

    I am 100% in agreement that censoring views and opinions is unhelpful to any reasoned debate but that shouldn’t mean we should encourage them

    I think I know what you mean but one will tend to encourage the ideas that resonate with you and not so much the others - that's the nature of being. We are solely concerned with the extent to which free speech is permitted. And, on those terms, it either is or it isn't. If I want to give you a platform to share your ideas, I suggest I should be allowed to whether anyone else likes it or not and it's not the state's job to tell me otherwise. I don't need the state, or anyone else, to "encourage" me to do so, just not to try to stop me. And if you were the person wishing to speak, you'd feel the same way. If you don't believe in silencing people, you can't deny them a platform if someone is willing to provide it.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    @hcblue aren't we All?

    If the state so ordains it.

  • Phew!

  • @HCblue said:

    @Chris said:
    Peterson is awful. And it is a great relief that Scruton is no longer involved in government.

    Nope.

    I think you meant " i disagree but your opinion is sacred like everyone elses"

    I hope you stand up for all human rights like you do for free speech, otherwise some fairly nasty characters may find you very useful.

  • @StrongestTeam said:

    @HCblue said:

    @Chris said:
    Peterson is awful. And it is a great relief that Scruton is no longer involved in government.

    Nope.

    I think you meant " i disagree but your opinion is sacred like everyone elses"

    I hope you stand up for all human rights like you do for free speech, otherwise some fairly nasty characters may find you very useful.

    Even I don't find myself very useful so it's unlikely anyone else will.

  • I’m still not sure it’s as binary as you are making it @HCblue. Free speech is permitted up to the point it crosses over the (blurred) boundary into illegality, when in a democracy, society then decides that what you have said is not permitted.

    I happen to think that it is the state’s job to set the parameters of what you or I can or can’t do in many areas of life. What is so special about free speech?

    (I’ve not given this the thought you obviously have but there seems to me to be a genuine difference in free speech in a democracy where the boundaries are set by the people (ok in theory if not practice) and free speech in a dictatorship where the boundaries are dictated).

  • @bookertease said:
    I’m still not sure it’s as binary as you are making it @HCblue. Free speech is permitted up to the point it crosses over the (blurred) boundary into illegality, when in a democracy, society then decides that what you have said is not permitted.

    I happen to think that it is the state’s job to set the parameters of what you or I can or can’t do in many areas of life. What is so special about free speech?

    (I’ve not given this the thought you obviously have but there seems to me to be a genuine difference in free speech in a democracy where the boundaries are set by the people (ok in theory if not practice) and free speech in a dictatorship where the boundaries are dictated).

    I'm not sure either but I'm increasingly drawn to the binary argument in the hypothetical as I delve into the principles that underpin it.

    But let's accept that we're talking about the situation as it applies within the law of the land, thus making allowances for the possibility of legislation that places limits on speech in some circumstances. As I wrote earlier, that's potentially a slippery slope but I accept it is the way it is currently here. Of course, the question of whether you're in a democracy or in a dictatorship may well be in the eye of the beholder - Democratic People's Republic of Korea anyone? This is one of the arguments for the absolutist approach to free speech.

  • There is nowhere (as far as I know) that has an absolutist approach to free speech (eg fire in a theatre, child pornography, libel - all the usual suspects) so it’s just a matter of where the line is drawn.

    re Barton - it’s his thread! No other reason.

  • Ah, I see. I'd forgotten he was the subject of the thread. A happy coincidence - well found!

    Agree with the reality of your first paragraph. My intent has been to challenge the current orthodoxy that seems to be subconsciously adopted by the majority.

  • This thread got interesting. I’m with Chris on Peterson, I find his hot takes to have the depth of a Hallmark greetings card. And while I’m somewhere close to hcblue on the dangers of de-platforming, I think there’s something missing from your very reasoned arguments: that we no longer have the ability to have voices automatically weighted based on how fringe they are. Once upon a time flat earthers, meninists, climate change deniers and fascists would all have been given the same kind of limited, and justifiably sneering coverage by main stream media, but now these kind of fringe (and objectively wrong) views can create their own reach, and our media has started to validate them by mistaking reach for validity. Farage isn’t even an elected MP and yet is barely off our screens, giving a sheen of respectability to his loathesome views. Caroline Lucas of the Green Party is and elected MP and has made half the newsnight appearances Farage has.

    In politics we have the concept of the Overton Window, the bit between the far left and the far right that is considered reasonable and acceptable by the public. UKIP and the Tories (especially May as Home Secretary) had dragged the Overton Window so far to the right that Brexit was almost inevitable, it enabled racists and xenophobes, making them think that their nasty little inner voice was actually a mainstream opinion. Despite being a massive let down on Brexit, Corbyn is an extremely important thing to have happened - he pulled the window back to the left, enabling a whole lot of us who believe in public services and basic compassion to feel like there is possibly a future that doesn’t involve descending into a hateful totalitarian state that punches down at refugees and siphons off money for the already rich.

  • Come the revolution

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