Jump to content

Because The United Kingdom?


Mr King

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 9.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

1. My teeth are quite nice.

2. If Freedom means I can complain about the government without being put up against the wall and shot then we have it.

3. You say "Mom" we say "Mum".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 Mine are superb, all thanks to Socialist Dentistry as a child.Thanks Lenin!

2 if freedom means dressing up as a twat, storming the capitol to take a dump on Nancy Pelosis desk, it's overrated.

3 What's a Mom? Is it an acronym made up by 49 year olds who live in their Mummys basement?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend of his, Billy Connolly, once made a joke about one of the English hostages in Iraq, saying he hoped they would hurry up and behead him because it was getting boring (he subsequently was), and received only a rebuke from the audience. If you did that in the US, I would fully expect an all expenses paid vacation in Cuba for endorsing terrorism, at the very least a lawsuit from the family.

I respect Rowan Atkinson a lot, but he was jumping the gun. But of course, he is perfectly free to do so, thats the point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cases he quoted are proof enough that he didn't "jump the gun". Pretty much any law against "hate speech" is so broad and vaguely defined that it invites overreach by outlawing insult. Count Dankula and his pug merely insulted a few people. He did not advocate genocide, he didn't endorse Nazism in all he said, he specifically put the pug's training into the context of "Nazis: Bad" to counter the silly argument that the dog was the cutest on earth and nothing it could ever do would diminish that "fact", in an even sillier way. He was guilty of a bad hairstyle, a bad Scottish accent, possibly even bad humor - but humor it was, and yet he was found guilty and fined when not only the court should have tossed the case out without even a hearing, the police should never have acted on the fabricated outrage about a nobody's pug in an obscure Youtube video, and the police only acted because the "Section 5" regulation gave it the latitude to rate everything as a criminal offence that might offend somebody, somewhere.

Sorry, Stu. You are one of the people, in Atkinson's words, who are "just intolerant of intolerance". You seem to be quite reasonable in person, but this is the part where our opinions simply split. When only truthful, measured, and reasonable speech is allowed, you have no free speech at all. If you want to know who's in power, check about whom no jokes may be cracked, and be it just under the made up argument that a fragile minority requires protection against "mean words" by a paternalistic society.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem arises, that did not happen the British court, which is presumably was what Atkinson was protesting against potential abuse (it hadnt happened yet as best I can remember). It happened in the Scottish courts.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pug-nazi-salute-youtube-video-owner-guilty-hate-crime-mark-meechan-lanarkshire-a8265301.html

It was even blocked from going to the British Supreme court, where a bit of sanity might have intervened.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46959556

If he had gone to Edinburgh and given that speech after the conviction outside the Scottish Parliament, he would have been on point. But he didnt.

Could it have happened in England or Wales? Yes, because Scotland follows the same legislation, or so is my understanding. But it hasnt happened here, which suggest that we have a little more reason and understanding on how to apply the laws of the land than the good judges of Airdrie seemingly do.

 

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, it hasn't happened here much. :)

1 hour ago, Tim Sielbeck said:

Quashed on appeal. Not surprisingly, because it's really very silly to convict someone quoting a published work.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/teen-prosecuted-n-word-rap-15874476

Should it have happened? Absolutely not. Neither should this.

https://news.yahoo.com/exceedingly-rare-case-iowa-journalist-114755236.html?I

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't that quite the point that Atkinson made, that it shouldn't have to be squashed on appeal because these things shouldn't get to court in the first place, and what stifling effect this will have on people who are mortified by the mere thought of having to defend themselves in a courtroom?

Because for most, ordinary people, the court proceedings are the penalty. And the proponents of criminalizing insult know this very well. It is, I would conjecture, the desired main effect. If you can also get a few people publicly crucified, that's an extra bonus. But mostly it's about making insufferable ordinary people to shut up in the culture war to redefine thought via speech control. They can't punish wrongthink yet, but at least they can go after anyone violating their ideas of what's acceptable to say.

Open dissent undermines the narrative that these professional insultees represent majority opinion. They are happy with being a minority  as long as the majority is silenced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

90x F-35B Lightnings cancelled. Orders to be reduced from 138 to 48
24x first production batch Typhoons withdrawn from use *)
5x Sentinel 3x and Islander R1 withdrawn from use and will not be replaced
14x remaining Hercules transporters withdrawn from use
4x BAE146 used by 32(TR)sq withdrawn from use and replaced by leased aircraft
45x transport helicopters withdrawn from use. No types mentioned, but the current fleet is made up out of Merlin, Chinook and Puma helicopters **)

 

We were never going to buy 138 F35's in the current climate, that figure goes back to the 2002 R&D phase of the Lightning 2 contract.

The Tier 1  Typhoons  are not upgradable to Tier 2 or 3 standards for example they can only fire AMRAAM missiles rather than the new Meteor.

The Hercules was due to be replaced by the A400M Atlas which is in service (we have 20 of them). More likely the C17a Globemaster which we have 8 of them could be in for the chop as they have high flight hours (all those trips to Afghanistan and back) an suffer from maintenance problems.

The Puma helicopters are very old (40+ years) and were only kept in service due to the lack of helicopter lift in places like Afghanistan. Now that we've left there's no need for them.

We have a lot of old Chinook's (38 out of 60) that are approaching their end of service life, also there's no need for them post Afghanistan.

 

Edited by TrustMe
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sentinels have already been withdrawn, so thats out of date. In fact it was the 2010 (Or was it 2011?) Defence review that said they would be withdrawn, they were given a brief reprieve at a later date but it as understood they would go at some point,presumably when they were approaching the need for a MLU.

Yes, smart money is on Puma. Its getting long in the tooth anyway.

Hmm, is that reliable on F35B? Thats really is quite a remarkable cut. I was betting on a force something around 90 airframes. Well I guess we can buy some more assuming the USMC dont cut their buy and shut the line.

If they cut some Chinooks, im hoping Bravo November lives on in the BBMF....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Also the British Army and the Royal Navy will be impacted. Word has it that the number of soldiers with the British Army will be reduced from its currenty number of just over 80,000 to only 70,000 by 2024, with a further reduction of 2,500 by 2030. To achieve this, two of the four armoured brigades will be deactivated and twenty-three battalions will be either reduced in size or completely disbanded.'

There is a problem with this also. It makes it sound like the Army is dropping by 10000 by 2024. Its really something like 2000,because they are 8000 men down on recruitment targets. Im dubious about the further reduction of 2500, I cant see where thats goingto come from. Needless to say the Conservative back benches are going to shit a brick about cuts tothe army. They wont sweat losing what they dont have, when they start trimmingnumbers they DO have, its going to backfire on Bojo very quickly.

We will see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/7/2021 at 4:45 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

The problem arises, that did not happen the British court, which is presumably was what Atkinson was protesting against potential abuse (it hadnt happened yet as best I can remember). It happened in the Scottish courts.

No, if the Police are making those arrests it's a problem. They shouldn't be coming round to check people's thinking at all. PERIOD. It's not their job. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...