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I probably say this because I identify with the parents of the missing child in this case, but I'm glad he's getting punished for being a colossal jerk.

Blah blah, free speech, I know.

But I can't feel bad for him.

Kid's a jackass but one shouldn't be able to be sent to prison JUST for being a fethhead.

I think Voltare said it best when he said:

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Jailed for saying stuff on his own facebook page? That is beyond insane. The justice system needs a working over if stuff like this happens.

 DeathReaper wrote:
I think Voltare said it best when he said:

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

You know, the more I read that quote the more I can't help but think 'no, you won't.' I mean, seriously, no-one will ever write a letter home to their wife, telling them they love them, and to tell the kids that their father loves them very much, but he has to go and die in the great war to make sure people are allowed to be mean on the internet.

I mean, I get the principle and I agree with it, but god damn if that quote doesn't way overstate it.

That quote is what the first amendment of the American Constitution was founded on.

I will fight for some donkey-cave's right to say stupid stuff.

The freedom of speech is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 DeathReaper wrote:
That quote is what the first amendment of the American Constitution was founded on.

I will fight for some donkey-cave's right to say stupid stuff.

The freedom of speech is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I disagree. When someone is being insulting or offensive, they are directly impacting someone else's pursuit of happiness and deserve to be punished for it. We have laws governing the use of language in or near public spaces, and I think that's important for a well mannered society.

I may complain about the US legal system a lot, but at least here it's pretty hard to get in jail for saying things a Judge disagrees with.

I would rather live in an ill-mannered society where I know I can say what I please, while understanding that others whom I may disagree with may do the same, than in a well-mannered society where you have to worry about stepping on toes and offending delicate sensibilities.

rubiksnoob wrote:I would rather live in an ill-mannered society where I know I can say what I please, while understanding that others whom I may disagree with may do the same, than in a well-mannered society where you have to worry about stepping on toes and offending delicate sensibilities.

This offends me deeply. It implies that I'm delicate because I'm being offended by this, which offends me deeply.

 rubiksnoob wrote:
I would rather live in an ill-mannered society where I know I can say what I please, while understanding that others whom I may disagree with may do the same, than in a well-mannered society where you have to worry about stepping on toes and offending delicate sensibilities.

Fair enough. I'd rather live in a society where there's legal recourse to punish someone who starts dropping F-bombs and C-bombs in front of a group of kindergarteners.

 Kaldor wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
I would rather live in an ill-mannered society where I know I can say what I please, while understanding that others whom I may disagree with may do the same, than in a well-mannered society where you have to worry about stepping on toes and offending delicate sensibilities.

Fair enough. I'd rather live in a society where there's legal recourse to punish someone who starts dropping F-bombs and C-bombs in front of a group of kindergarteners.

Language intrinsically has no meaning.

What is "Obscene" to Americans is not "Obscene" to the British.

Censorship is Obscene!

We should be able to say what we want, when we want. Americans are too hung up on being "Politically Correct" It is sickening.

Words only hurt if you let them.

 Kaldor wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
That quote is what the first amendment of the American Constitution was founded on.

I will fight for some donkey-cave's right to say stupid stuff.

The freedom of speech is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I disagree. When someone is being insulting or offensive, they are directly impacting someone else's pursuit of happiness and deserve to be punished for it. We have laws governing the use of language in or near public spaces, and I think that's important for a well mannered society.

You can't effect The Pursuit of Happiness... that movie is already out, broham.


That said... there are a million (hyperbolic) reasons to curtail free speech, but none that I support. It's the most important freedom there is, and whilst it would be great to live in a society that isn't crass or rude... that has never existed. If you want to use social pressure to exert controls over the majority that the few are able to buck while suffering only social punishment - that is fair. Making it a legal issue is horse puckey. Saying mean things shouldn't be a crime, no where no how. Saying things that directly endanger people is another matter, which is usually covered separately and should be.

 Bromsy wrote:
Saying mean things shouldn't be a crime, no where no how.

It's ridiculous to think that I could sit outside your house and scream obscenities at you with no repercussions, or swear at your children in front of you, or do any other number of offensive or insulting things. And you don't even want to be able to do something about it?

Blows my mind.

Even in America there are laws about what you can say about other people in the form of slander and libel.

Well, there's a difference between real life and what people say on the internet of course.

I'm sure that in a practical application of the subject matter people would feel differently.

 DeathReaper wrote:
That quote is what the first amendment of the American Constitution was founded on.

I will fight for some donkey-cave's right to say stupid stuff.

The freedom of speech is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

You missed my point completely. Note the part where I say I agree with the general sentiment of Voltaire's comment - that people should be able to say what they want.

My comment was that posting that comment, which involves dying, to indicate the seriousness with which one takes the issue of some guy being an donkey-cave on the internet, is completely overplaying the issue. You aren't actually willing to die to stop that jerk going to prison, if you were you'd be on a flight to Britain to attempt a suicidal rescue plan.

But you haven't got a flight booked, because you're a functioning human being capable of prioritising, and therefore you realise that some guy serving jail time for being as ass on the internet may not be good, but it isn't actually something you're going to die over.

The idea, of course, is that we protect speach like this jerk's, so that it doesn't come to more serious restrictions that are actually worth dying for - when government looks to shut down political debate or artistic expression.


Unless of course you do have a flight booked, and are currently contacting underground weapons suppliers in the UK to provide you with what you need for your suicide mission. In which case my hat's off to you, you crazy bastard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaldor wrote:
Fair enough. I'd rather live in a society where there's legal recourse to punish someone who starts dropping F-bombs and C-bombs in front of a group of kindergarteners.

Really?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I probably say this because I identify with the parents of the missing child in this case, but I'm glad he's getting punished for being a colossal jerk.

Blah blah, free speech, I know.

But I can't feel bad for him.

I think people miss the significant distinction between 'we shouldn't do this' and 'I feel bad for this guy'. Someone doesn't have to be sympathetic for us to realise that what we're doing to them is wrong.

 sebster wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Fair enough. I'd rather live in a society where there's legal recourse to punish someone who starts dropping F-bombs and C-bombs in front of a group of kindergarteners.

Really?

Absolutely. Australia already has laws to that effect, and I haven't noticed any sharp drops in our freedoms because of it. If anything, I feel it makes us more free, as we don't have to just tolerate offensive scumbags in and around public areas.

It's all about WHERE the words are used in my mind. In a pub or on facebook? Fine whatever but I'd say in the U.S. such venom filled posts if directed to say, the family members of these little girls directly would be covered under the Fighting Words doctrine.

Snapshot of the Fighting Words Doctrine courtesy of Le Wiki:

The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine by a 9-0 decision in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. It held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] ... have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

 Monster Rain wrote:
I probably say this because I identify with the parents of the missing child in this case, but I'm glad he's getting punished for being a colossal jerk.

Blah blah, free speech, I know.

But I can't feel bad for him.

I agree with you, in that I certainly don't feel bad for him.

That being said, "free speech", isn't some totally, wildly unrestricted thing in this country, either. I'm not directing this at you, but speaking in general - for some reason the concept of "freedom of speech" is increasingly yelled inaccurately by people that really should know better, like Juan Williams. It's not freedom from consequences. It only restrains the government from censoring you, not other private actors.

More on-topic, though; we already accept that to have a functioning society, we have to have some restrictions on free speech. You're not free to threaten someone, you're not free to yell fire in a crowded theater, you're not free to slander or defame someone, and you're not free to, in most jurisdictions, cause a breach of the peace with your words.

What I'm saying is that he could have theoretically been arrested in this country for what he posted, and constitutionally, that's probably not a problem. Maybe. Depends on how the SCOTUS interprets Facebook in relation to Snyder v. Phelps.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
It's all about WHERE the words are used in my mind. In a pub or on facebook? Fine whatever but I'd say in the U.S. such venom filled posts if directed to say, the family members of these little girls directly would be covered under the Fighting Words doctrine.

Thats the point, he didn't direct them at the family, and they were not venom filled, they were sick jokes on his own facebook page.

Who has never made a tastless joke on the internet? THAT is the problem here. Someone is having there life ruind for making a tastless joke in a semi private place. According to all of the reports he did not direct them at anyone but his "friends". The papers are using the word Troll because they don't know what it means. They think it means anyone making offensive comments on the internet.

 Kaldor wrote:
Absolutely. Australia already has laws to that effect, and I haven't noticed any sharp drops in our freedoms because of it. If anything, I feel it makes us more free, as we don't have to just tolerate offensive scumbags in and around public areas.

There aren't laws that'll punish you for saying a rude word in front of a child.

I mean, I can go outside and say feth to a child right now, if I have to to prove the point.

Meh, I think he got what he deserved. It isn't being edgy or 'dark humour'; it's just being a nob and in the process upsetting quite a few people who have probably not had the best of weeks.

O hay, disregard my last post. I misunderstood the story; I was under the impression he posted them on the girls page, not his own.

And being a nob deserves a prison scentance, along with the life destroying consiquences of that? I would hardly call it proportionate.

I think Frankie Boyle is a nob, and has made comments just as offensive, yet noone is calling for him to go to prison.

I just don't agree with this "hang em all" attitude that many people have at the moment. I have worked with ex prisoners and have seen the destruction even a short spell in prison causes and worry that the public are all to ready to distroy someones life because they have no idea what the real effect of a criminal record and prison is.

How many people made jokes when Michael Jackson or Princess Dianna died? Those would have offended there friends and family. Should they go to prison?

This HANG EM ALL! THINK OF THE CHILDRUN Daliy Mail attitiude is ruining peoples lives for the sake of an ill considerd joke to friends that one of them took offense to. It's not like the guy hunted down the girls mother and started sending her thretaning emails, he made some jokes, all be it in very poor taste.

 Seaward wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
And statements like that should make your fellow Americans ashamed that you're one of them, given the number of Brits that have fought and died alongside your countrymen, you absolute rotter.

EDIT: Better, Kilkrazy?

If you found his statement offensive, could you not have him arrested next time he sets foot in Britain?

I for one am happy to have Britain as an ally, though I do wish you guys would get on board with the free speech thing.

I love this crap. Like the USA is this liberal bastion of freedom where you're free to say whatever you like, and express yourself without fear. You might have it written down on a piece of paper, but functionally, that's just bs. The USA is far more puritanical than the UK. Even just this week, we've heard that there are states in which a person is not allowed to hold public office if they are an atheist. Hell, saying you're an atheist in certain places would probably get you lynched.

The land of the free! This is the land of the free! Why, if I say
anything that displeases them, the free mob will lynch me, and that's my
freedom. Free? Why I have never been in any country where the
individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen. Because,
as I say, they are free to lynch him the moment he shows he is not one
of them.
-- D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

 sebster wrote:

There aren't laws that'll punish you for saying a rude word in front of a child.

I mean, I can go outside and say feth to a child right now, if I have to to prove the point.

Let me know when you're about to, so I can call the local constabulary...



Summary Offences act 1966, section 17. Paraphrased:

Any person who, in or near a public place or within view or hearing of a public place uses profane, indecent or obscene language or uses threatening, abusive or insulting words, shall be guilty of an offence.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/soa1966189/s17.html

Now, while this is only the Victorian version I'm quite confident you'll have a similar version in your own state.

Electroo wrote:
And being a nob deserves a prison scentance, along with the life destroying consiquences of that? I would hardly call it proportionate.

He committed an offence. Within the courts sentencing remit they decided his punishment. Nob or not.

Making sexually suggestive comments about a child is in poor taste at best. Making them whilst an abduction and likely murder case is being investigated is pretty criminal if you ask me. Criminally stupid and ignorance is not a legal excuse.

He put the comments in the public domain, justice is served.

I find this kind of thing interesting (ignoring for a moment the awful subject material) as it serves to illustrate the kind of class/wealth/type of people in the UK, and perhaps why this sentence has been completely OTT.

Specifically, we have a lot of 'multi-tier' systems and structures here in the UK, throughout society. Someone with wealth can choose to send their kids to the best schools, eat in good restaurants, live next door to similar people, go to a private hospital etc. etc. In all of these cases, they don't have to have anything at all to do with the kind of scumbag that would make this kind of post on Facebook. They essentially live in a different universe, and it's why the majority of Politicians in the UK have absolutely no idea of the levels of poverty and generally just crappy places that exist in the UK - and so the government legislation reflects that. The one exception to this is on the roads - here, your local government representative driving his Beemer can encounter David Crud on the road (who has just drunk a few tins of beer before climbing behind his un-insured car, and then losing control of it on a wet road because he doesn't have any tread on the tyres). So, the government legislates the hell out of the highways and pumps a massive amount of money into policing the roads and the people who use them, to the point where we have a level of government control over transport that would make a Soviet Union commissar frown.

I think what we are seeing here is a similar kind of issue. I would hazard a guess that making poor-taste jokes is probably quite far down the list in terms of the negative things he has contributed to society. No doubt he says similar things to the people around him, but the point is that those other people live low down towards the bottom level of the social hierarchy, and those things matter relatively little when you've got cars being torched down the road or have to put 3-4 locks on your door and essentially live in some kind of hellish, 24-hour a day live version of the Jeremy Kyle show. But to those who live in isolation to this kind of stuff, and to whom the most stressful occurrence is someone down the road planting a type of native grass that clashes with their Confuscian pond display, it must seem absolutely reprehensible to say such ghastly things. And so, the Judge comes down on it like a sack of potatoes. To say it is not overly harsh is ridiculous - I've heard of people convicted of manslaughter getting smaller sentences.

I think really this whole thing says a lot about the social and class differential that still exists in the UK, despite many years of argument that it doesn't exist any more or is somehow evaporating.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Making sexually suggestive comments about a child is in poor taste at best. Making them whilst an abduction and likely murder case is being investigated is pretty criminal if you ask me. Criminally stupid and ignorance is not a legal excuse.

Sure, it's "criminal", but only in the sense that it violates a horrible law. It's offensive, tasteless, and the guy is a for saying it, but he has a right to say it.


This is also a good time to point out that things the majority find offensive need the MOST protection in the law, not the least. Nobody cares about the right to freely say things the majority agrees with and wants you to say, the whole point of the guarantee of free speech is that you still have that right even when the majority doesn't like what you're saying. Once you take that away you cease to have any meaningful freedom.

Electroo wrote:And being a nob deserves a prison scentance, along with the life destroying consiquences of that? I would hardly call it proportionate.

One of the earliest life lessons learned as a child is that actions have consequences, whether it's touching a hot stove or taking responsibility for you actions. From an early age you learn that being naughty (for want of a better word) has repercussions. The length of the sentence and whether he should have been prosecuted aside, this chap is now learning that lesson all over again. Perhaps he should have thought a bit more about his actions before trying to be funny? It seems to me this country would be a smidge better for all who live here if everyone took a little time to think through their actions before doing it, instead of pissing and moaning when all of a sudden the consequences of their actions catch up to them. Man up and take some responsibility for what you have done.

Actually, I think 12 weeks probably is a little harsh but I don't disagree with the prosecution, rather the sentence.

Pacific wrote:

I think really this whole thing says a lot about the social and class differential that still exists in the UK, despite many years of argument that it doesn't exist any more or is somehow evaporating.

I think it says more about the fact that our judicial system is still too open to interpretation and precedent rather than having much more fixed tariffs and sentences. Instead of being down to luck of he draw in which judge you get, crimes should have sentences much less open to judge's interpretation and opinion.

I'm not denying that 'free speech' (subjective) is wrong.

The guy broke a law, in a particularly offensive way. It has nothing to do with free speech (regardless of my feelings on the subject).

As for 'freedom' we are free so long as we obey the laws of the land we live in.

Society dictates our freedoms or percieved lack of them.