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 Kaldor wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Swear at my kids (even though both are as big as me now) and parts of you will be five different bayous within four hours. The parts not served up as "extra special doggie treats," that is. The Legions are always hungry!

"I respect free speech, but if you actually use it, I'll chop you up and feed you to alligators and wiener dogs!"

In my defense, one is freedom of speech, the other a direct attack on my children. I have literallly sworn to defend them to my death, and the wiener legions are endless.

Sidenote, I was called tonight by GC, that she is getting her ears pierced. Yikes!

 LoneLictor wrote:
It seems so alien to me, to censor people because you're offended by what they're saying. I dunno, I just can't help but think, "Maybe you should ignore them?" If you're so immature that you are incapable of responding to the opinions of others in a nonviolent way, maybe the problem is with you and not the idiot who offended you.

This here is the voice of reason...

What the poster did was dispicable... and should be told so... but, definately not jail worthy.

If that jail time is upheld, then ya'll don't have free speech anymore.

 Kaldor wrote:
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.

Meh, in most states in Australia abortion is illegal. Most people are stunned to discover that, because abortion clinics operate openly. There's a vast difference between having a law sitting idle on the books since the 1960s, and anyone getting actually punished someone for simply being rude in front of a child.

So, can you find me an example of someone being given any kind of penalty for saying something rude in the presence of minors?

Alec Baldwin didn't get charged (think it was him that went off on his daughter)

 Peregrine wrote:
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.

Well, he doesn't have a right to say it. If he did then he wouldn't be doing jail time for it.

What you mean is that he should have a right to say it, or that government should have no power to punish him for saying it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
Those were two separate statements that I made.

A: I'm glad that being an Alpha-Class dildo on the internet can have legal consequences. I mean, we all have a little fun, but there's a limit.

B: I don't feel bad for the guy.

Also, as has already been pointed out rather well by Ouze and others, speech isn't completely unrestricted even in places with relatively liberal free speech laws.

Sorry, my post wasn't clear. I was absolutely agreeing with you, and thought you split out the "I don't feel bad for the guy" and "we shouldn't punish people for being donkey-caves" thing quite well.

 sebster wrote:
So, can you find me an example of someone being given any kind of penalty for saying something rude in the presence of minors?

I once charged someone and sent them to court for swearing in public. I don't have the records to hand, it was years ago, and I never bothered following it up to see if it resulted in a conviction, but the person was still arrested, charged, and sent to court.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Give me liberty or give me death!

The fact that the guy is in jail is crazy.

What kind of society puts a guy in jail for writing something on facebook. That is obscene.

Were his posts tasteless? some would thing so.

Were his posts funny? maybe a few people would think so.

Should he be arrested for speech that does not threaten/harm others or result in physical harm to others? No way.

Once again.... I agree that this doesn't deserve jail time, or any punishment at all. I am pointing out to you that your claim that you will defend to the death his right to say this stuff is not true. If it were true, you would be out there actually defending his right to say it, and not just posting on the internet.

But you aren't. You just like talking in emotionally charged language.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaldor wrote:
I once charged someone and sent them to court for swearing in public. I don't have the records to hand, it was years ago, and I never bothered following it up to see if it resulted in a conviction, but the person was still arrested, charged, and sent to court.

Interesting. I stand corrected.

Well then, that's a very silly law we have (or possibly just you Victorians have).

Wow, everyone who goes to a football match is a criminal.

Wow, everyone who goes to a football match is a criminal.

Don't let that out...can only imagine two teams that hate each other going at it and home team fans nuke the law enforcement call centers to report it.

 sebster wrote:
Interesting. I stand corrected.

Well then, that's a very silly law we have (or possibly just you Victorians have).

Wow, everyone who goes to a football match is a criminal.

It's not used very often, and a judge still makes the final call on what constitutes offensive or insulting language. Context is extremely important. When I was going through the academy one of our law instructors told us a story about a judge that decided that the use of the F word in the context of the charge in question, was not offensive. I think the crook had sworn at the police for something, and the judge ruled that due to the nature of their job the police should not find that word offensive. The judge then called the next case. One of the jobs of police in Victoria is to provide court security, which includes locating the people who need to be present for the relevant case, and if they're not present they are to call out "No appearance, your Honour". Well, the next crook wasn't present, so the court security called out "No fething appearance, your Honour". To which the judge reputedly replied "Point taken, but don't you ever swear in my courtroom again".

It's since been amended so that the charge is not applicable if the person on the receiving end of insulting words is a police officer, as we'd then be able to slap that onto every charge sheet since nearly every crook lips off at some point and really, we should be used to it. Context, as I said, is very important. No one's going to be arrested for swearing during a football game, but having a loud and offensive shouting match on the street in front of a church bingo group might have some more serious repercussions.

Honestly, it's more of a tool that allows police to deal with public nuisances and I'm glad they have it in their toolbox. No one is going to bother with the paperwork of compiling a brief of evidence for such a minor charge. 99% of the time, the police will just tell them to pull their heads in and move on, and that'll be the end of it. But when someone is making an donkey-cave of themselves and generally being obnoxious it gives police another option for raining on their parade, and I'm fine with that.

Well I'm glad you clarified that Kaldor... I half expecting to be arrested the second I stepped off the plane from the states. I swear like the worst kind of sailor or dock yard worker.

And now a quote from the great Stephen Fry, legendary comedic actor, on the subject of offensive things. There is an incident of language in said quote, so it has been spoiler-ed in hopes of not breaking international law some how.

 sebster wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Give me liberty or give me death!

The fact that the guy is in jail is crazy.

What kind of society puts a guy in jail for writing something on facebook. That is obscene.

Were his posts tasteless? some would thing so.

Were his posts funny? maybe a few people would think so.

Should he be arrested for speech that does not threaten/harm others or result in physical harm to others? No way.

Once again.... I agree that this doesn't deserve jail time, or any punishment at all. I am pointing out to you that your claim that you will defend to the death his right to say this stuff is not true. If it were true, you would be out there actually defending his right to say it, and not just posting on the internet.

But you aren't. You just like talking in emotionally charged language.

The letter has already been written. Not much more I can do being across the pond.

 Jihadin wrote:
Alec Baldwin didn't get charged (think it was him that went off on his daughter)

Wasn't it Woody Allen that went off on his daughter?

Freedom of speech died in the years post 1997.

It's part of a policy of goodthink brought in by the last administration. Who appointed the current lot of judges.

You get longer in prison for making non-PC remarks than for a violent crime in many cases. Justice has been slewed by this, and frankly deliberately.

What is your opinion regarding the objective of deliberately skewing justice in this way?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What is your opinion regarding the objective of deliberately skewing justice in this way?

What we saw here is similar to what happened when student Liam Stacey imprisoned for two months for the Twitter comments he made after a black footballer called Fabrice Muamba had a heart attack on pitch.

Its only an incidental side effect of the society, not a policy goal. However the UK has headed towards an openly dogmatised culture for political ends. In the late nineties the previous government made heavy use of PC dogma to focus recruiting in public employment, namely unless one subscribed to it one could easily not be employed, promoted or retained. In effect this party politicised the civil service under a form of 'morality'. Furthermore this new morality is very unevenly handled, some forms of offence are weighted more heavily than others. So to Tweet about imposing militant Islam is just an opinion, even calling for people to be put do death is ignored, but to make light of a public tragedy or mild forms of indirect racism is a severe offence warranting immediate arrest and heavy punishment.

The Facebook troll concerned with this case, Matthew Woods was even taken into protective custody, a euphemism for refused bail, indicating in the polices eyes (another heavily dogmatised part of the civil service) that off colour comments on Facebook will likely invoke vigilante action, a ludicrous suggestion frankly.

You have to do quite a bit normally to land yourself in prison for 12 weeks on a first offence. Similar to say a violent mugging. Neither of the cases directly addressed family, they were just open comments. Sick, yes, but not criminal.
However in a dogmatised society that form of sickness cannot be tolerated, and when the judiciary are dogmatised sentencing for these acts are treated like violent crimes against a person, in fact worse. Many first time violent offenders do not get custodial sentences.

The manipulation of social boundaries has resulted in minor vocal misdemeanours being treated as very serious offences, what is most alarming is that the bulk of the general public are ok with that. That is of no surprise as PC indoctrination has gone a very long way in the UK, freedom is dying here, and very few people are noticing.

What is the purpose, though?

Is it just a random thing without any directing force?

 azazel the cat wrote:
Yeah, no physical harm came to the targets as a result of his comments; and I do not believe the state recognizes the concept of mental anguish as a result of insincere language.

Of course it does. You are talking about a country which still considers 'alarming the Queen', as in, causing her emotional distress, to be worthy of up to 13 years of prison.

Here, he could've been sued under civil law for emotional distress, usually up to 60k.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Yeah, no physical harm came to the targets as a result of his comments; and I do not believe the state recognizes the concept of mental anguish as a result of insincere language.

Of course it does. You are talking about a country which still considers 'alarming the Queen', as in, causing her emotional distress, to be worthy of up to 13 years of prison.

If you're talking about Marcus Serjeant, he got five years, and that was for firing a pistol at her. True, it was loaded with blanks, but HM was riding a horse at the time and could have been killed if she'd been thrown off. That's treason. They should have hung the bastard.

 Albatross wrote:

If you're talking about Marcus Serjeant, he got five years, and that was for firing a pistol at her. True, it was loaded with blanks, but HM was riding a horse at the time and could have been killed if she'd been thrown off. That's treason. They should have hung the bastard.

I wasn't refering to any specific case, just to the law itself, as we still have the same one over here too. I'm even a bit surprised about it having been used lately. It was more to point the fact that there is definetely a concept of 'stress' or 'anguish' in Criminal law, as well as in Civil law.

I'll google that Marcus Serjeant right now! Me likey some good old kingslayer stories.


EDIT : He sucked balls. No good call to rebellion or anything. Meh...

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

If you're talking about Marcus Serjeant, he got five years, and that was for firing a pistol at her. True, it was loaded with blanks, but HM was riding a horse at the time and could have been killed if she'd been thrown off. That's treason. They should have hung the bastard.

I wasn't refering to any specific case, just to the law itself, as we still have the same one over here too. I'm even a bit surprised about it having been used lately. It was more to point the fact that there is definetely a concept of 'stress' or 'anguish' in Criminal law, as well as in Civil law.

I'll google that Marcus Serjeant right now! Me likey some good old kingslayer stories.

It's hard to slay anyone with a starter pistol, short of them falling off a horse. He was a fantasist. Not that I'm implying that you are, or anything.

Honest.

 Albatross wrote:
It's hard to slay anyone with a starter pistol, short of them falling off a horse. He was a fantasist. Not that I'm implying that you are, or anything.

Honest.

Meh, as much a fantasist as anyone who still think it's in vogue to have a Monarchy in the 21st century.
Plus, there's the french thing I've got going on. We don't do nice things to our monarchs. Ours still hiding in New York, last I checked.

The Queen isn't in New York last time I checked, my Canadian chum.

 Albatross wrote:
The Queen isn't in New York last time I checked, my Canadian chum.

You're right, of course, I was refering to the most likely contender to the French throne (there's 3 right now, he's the heir of the House of Bonaparte). It's hilarious, these people acts as if they still had a chance, or as if it was somehow something anyone in their right mind would aim to acheive.


Also, I get a kick everytime I get to read that Mattyrm's quote. Hilarious.

 Kaldor wrote:

 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.

Actually, Kaldor, that is illegal after a certain point: if you sit outside my house and scream obscenities, it becomes illegal if I ask you to stop and go away, and you don't. It's called harassment. Point is, it only becomes illegal after you have been asked to stop. If the parents asked him to take it off his page for being offensive, and he didnt, it would be a crime over here as it's a case of written harassment. Also, saying things about others that cause them to lose social status, jobs, money, etc (cause measurable damage) count as libel/slander, and these are also illegal. Posting something on your own facebook page here is not, however it can prevent you from obtaining employment if your employers care about what you post. That said, sounds like the guy is a total douche-waffle and deserves to meet Batman in a dark alley (and tell Batman 'haha, your parents are dead, numbnuts'), but while he is a total and uncaring/thinking ass, it wasn't illegal. (unless parents asked him to remove and he told them to suck it and refused)

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
The Queen isn't in New York last time I checked, my Canadian chum.

You're right, of course, I was refering to the most likely contender to the French throne (there's 3 right now, he's the heir of the House of Bonaparte). It's hilarious, these people acts as if they still had a chance, or as if it was somehow something anyone in their right mind would aim to acheive.


Also, I get a kick everytime I get to read that Mattyrm's quote. Hilarious.

You should meet him in person!

Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Yeah, no physical harm came to the targets as a result of his comments; and I do not believe the state recognizes the concept of mental anguish as a result of insincere language.

Of course it does. You are talking about a country which still considers 'alarming the Queen', as in, causing her emotional distress, to be worthy of up to 13 years of prison.

Here, he could've been sued under civil law for emotional distress, usually up to 60k.

Which would be thrown out of court in about two minutes once the judge recognized that there was no way to prove direct damages. And 'alarming the queen', -which is a stupid law, for sure- only applies to the Queen, and possibly the Queen Mother.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What is the purpose, though?

Is it just a random thing without any directing force?

The purpose was explained above. What we are seeing here are just public symptoms, fruits of a doctrinal change intended to party politicise the civil service, which is intended and to a large extent was broadly apolitical before that time.

 Albatross wrote:
You should meet him in person!

Considering the many comments I've made on the Queen, I'd half expect him to go medieval on my ass if I did get to meet him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Which would be thrown out of court in about two minutes once the judge recognized that there was no way to prove direct damages. And 'alarming the queen', -which is a stupid law, for sure- only applies to the Queen, and possibly the Queen Mother.

What, no way to prove direct damage? Of course you have. Have the parents say ''this fethed me up really badly'', and then have an expert say ''yes, your honour, hearing sick jokes about your kidnapped kid may feth you up badly''. There.

Hell, you can claim psychological damages for being 'badly' fired.

More recently, someone received 3000 $ in psy damages for ''being laughed at'' because she had her picture taken in the street and put in a magazine.

Kovnik Obama wrote:More recently, someone received 3000 $ in psy damages for ''being laughed at'' because she had her picture taken in the street and put in a magazine.

Pretty sure that had more to do with likeness rights in a publication.

Someone was arrested for making offensive comments?

Who won WWII?