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The Daily Sceptic
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Free Speech Should Not Include Intending to Stir Up Racial Hatred

by David Hansard
10 March 2024 11:10 AM

If the recent jailing of a prominent member of a far-Right group in the U.K. has taught us anything, it is that some free speech absolutists are content to throw caution to the wind and permit speech specifically designed to create enmity between different racial or religious groups.

Last month, Sam Melia, of Patriotic Alternative, was found guilty of “[p]ublishing or distributing material intending to stir up racial hatred”. As many readers will no doubt know, Melia distributed stickers – for use in public places – which flaunted his and his colleagues’ racist bigotry in all its twisted glory. At the end of last week he was jailed for two years.

Among those who think Melia should not have been sanctioned by the state was Fraser Myers, Deputy Editor of online magazine, Spiked. He criticised the conviction and objected to the sentence. Shortly afterwards, Brendan O’Neill, also of Spiked, added his support in an article, written in his usual punchy and often entertaining style.

I have a great deal of respect for everyone at Spiked. I look forward to its excellent podcast each week (and, of course, to Based’s Weekly Sceptic podcast with Toby and Nick), and I read many of Spiked’s articles. As with the Daily Sceptic, Spiked is vitally important because it publishes the political and cultural views held by much of the public, views which are rarely if ever heard in the dominant liberal and supposedly progressive media.

But in this case, O’Neill’s views are wide of the mark. His article is an unfair and sometimes inaccurate assessment of the Melia case. Worse still, the stance the article takes runs the risk of being counterproductive in the fight for free speech. If that wasn’t enough, he may also have unintentionally provided support for the very people he opposes – the far-Right, while emboldening those on social media who provide such bigots with moral support. If the replies to Spiked’s post on X, which promoted the article, are anything to go by, this is exactly what happened.

The article gives the strong impression that the author was determined to try to make the facts support his convictions – that he worked back from his conclusion to try to make the case fit with his beliefs. Melia would – it was hoped – provide a great example of how our liberty is being undermined by an increasingly authoritarian state. In fact, the case is a very poor fit for such views.

The former editor of Spiked expresses outrage that Melia got two years for “producing offensive stickers”. He then says the case shows that you can now be condemned for making “stickers that express your deeply held beliefs”. He adds: “That really is what happened here: a man was jailed for his beliefs.” None of these things are strictly true. As O’Neill knows, as well as being accused of racially aggravated criminal damage, Melia was charged with and found guilty of infringing the Public Order Act 1986 (6). The Act, among other things, explicitly prohibits displays of any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, and which the person intends thereby to stir up racial hatred. And it is not unreasonable to expect that such an offence would result in a custodial sentence.

The evidence showed unequivocally that the defendant had broken the law, and the verdict was therefore a just one. Melia was not charged with causing offence. And he was not charged with holding any particular belief, but for expressing his beliefs publicly in a way which was intended to create hostility between different racial groups. We all know that is a very different thing from being prosecuted for your beliefs and for being offensive.

The author also takes umbrage at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for stating that the stickers expressed “views of a nationalist nature”, and rails against them for doing so. It will be obvious to most people however, that in its statement the CPS is simply describing the general nature of the messages on the stickers, and is not claiming nationalism per se is unacceptable.

It was pointed out in Melia’s trial that at home he has a poster of Hitler and a book by the interwar British fascist, Oswald Mosley. The article concludes from this that, effectively, Melia was, at least in part, being punished for thoughtcrimes, for having the wrong ideological beliefs. This is also untrue. Melia’s possessions were in fact relevant, in relation to the stickers, as evidence to show an intent to stir up racial hatred. They were not presented in isolation as a way to accuse the defendant of thinking the wrong thoughts and believing the wrong things. In a similar way, the CPS points out that Melia was using a VPN internet connection, to hide what he was doing. And he encouraged others who downloaded the stickers to do the same thing. He therefore likely knew that distributing the stickers, for use in public places, was illegal.

O’Neill rightly says there is a double standard at play and that we have a two-tier justice system: the police rarely arrest and charge those pro-Palestine marchers who carry antisemitic placards, while they did charge and imprison Melia. It is a fair and important point. Yet, perhaps to make it appear even more unfair to Melia, when comparing his stickers with marchers’ slogans, symbols and chants, the author doesn’t directly quote the most extreme and inflammatory examples of Melia’s stickers, such as: “They have to go back,” “Blood and Soil,” “They seek conquest, not asylum,” and for his U.S. counterparts, “Make America White Again.” These examples are only linked to. Instead, while the author condemns all the messages on the stickers, only some are explicitly mentioned.

Regardless of the double standard, the plain fact is Melia demonstrably broke the law laid out in the decades-old Act, and was rightfully found guilty for doing so. This is not to say the law itself is beyond reproach. One can argue, for example, that it may be unjust to punish someone for acting with the intent to stir up racial hatred if, subsequently, none was stirred up. But, on the other hand, how could it be determined whether racial hatred had or had not resulted from a person’s actions? Yet, as it stands, the law may be vulnerable to abuse in a political climate in which the criticism and debate essential to democracy is increasingly under attack.

In light of the two tier justice system, it is also fair to question the custodial sentence, especially its length. O’Neill does indeed criticise the sentence and this is the approach taken in most of the article, which is also reflected in its title. But towards the end the author makes it clear – as Fraser Myers did in his comments to GB News – that he does not believe Melia should have been charged.

That is quite something. For many, including many on the Right, such free speech absolutism and hardline libertarianism will understandably appear reckless and quite unnecessary. There is little to lose and much to gain in punishing actual racists who seek to divide. It is not a sign of overreach by the state. Not unless you are only able to view most or all restrictions on speech as inherently wrong.

To say the stickers are racist but not ask whether permitting them could be inflammatory and detrimental to community cohesion, seems especially rash. Instead, any concerns are summarily dismissed as allowing authoritarian censorship and that censorship infantilises us all. Rather than have a law to punish those who try to incite hatred, on the contrary, it appears we must take the risk and “confront hateful thinking”, after removing the stickers. In practice, how would this work? Are bigots, in particular those eager to sow discord, open to reason? The suggestion seems quixotic, rooted more in abstract principles than in reality.

Deterring and punishing those bent on spreading intolerance, rather than infantilising us, is rightly accepted by most people as a sensible and fair constraint on speech. We should have a right to offend, but not to try to stir up racial hatred. Allowing out-and-out racists free rein and keeping our fingers crossed that we can successfully challenge them, rather being a case of treating people like children is more likely to embolden narrow-minded fanatics whose aim is to create disunity.

Those opposing the progressive elite and radical left’s increasingly authoritarian views should guard against overcompensating by making demands for untrammelled freedoms, regardless of the costs and the wishes of most people. It only serves to provide the perfect ammunition for those who are attacking free speech.

David Hansard has written for Quillette, TCW and Cumbria Magazine. You can read his blog here.

Stop Press: For an alternative view, see this clip with Leo Kearse on GB News.

Tags: Far RightFree SpeechPublic Order Act 1986Sam MeliaTwo-Tier Policing

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109 Comments
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Brett_McS
Brett_McS
1 year ago

The offense of “Causing Offence” is – to use the appropriate term – Bollocks.

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0
iconoclast
iconoclast
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett_McS

Take this concept to its zenith.

Leggings can be offensive. That is why we need a Fashion Crimes Act so we can gaol those who offend by wearing them.

16
0
D J
D J
1 year ago

Good parody article.
Is ‘They have to go back’ not a legitimate opinion?
The alternative is to have our country’s native population made into a minority. False comparison? No I am a white Englishman in London. Now I am part of a minority.
I think it was Anthony Burgess who got into trouble in the navy in WW2 for his bookshelf. Having Mein Kampf and Das Kapital side by side confused his senior officers.
Funny what can be found on bookshelves. He said he wanted to understand both sides.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  D J

“Is ‘They have to go back’ not a legitimate opinion?”

I think it should not be illegal to express this opinion though I think it’s probably morally wrong and impractical as a policy. I think we have to live with the mess we’ve created – at least with regard to anyone in the UK legally, and stop creating more mess. But we won’t, because we’re too “nice”.

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-84
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Happy for people to disagree with what I’ve said here, but have the decency and good sense to say why – you might even persuade me you are right and I am wrong. That is what freedom of speech allows us to do – use it while you can!

I disagree strongly with the article and I would guess so do most of the posters on DS, but let’s use it as an opportunity to thrash out what limits we think there should be on speech and on the issue of immigration/immigrants.

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

D J stated – “Good parody article.”

I would like to think this is a parody, sadly I think not.

If I had the time and patience I would rip this garbage apart sentence by sentence. The article is pretentious wokery on steroids.

“If the recent jailing of a prominent member of a far-Right group in the U.K. has taught us anything,”

The very first sentence. I am not aware of any far right groups in this country, plenty of far left and clearly this Hansard chap is one of them but far right? Would that there was some knocking about.

Is ‘They have to go back’ not a legitimate opinion?”

Too damn right and it is one I share.

I have had enough. I have never been asked if I want to see my country overrun by brown skinned foreigners who proclaim adherence to a so-called “religion of peace” when it is anything but. People who sanction paedophilia, treat their women like slaves, have no respect for other religions, why would anyone want them in their country?

Conform to Britain and our ways or F. Off.

What’s the alternative? The joke that “diversity is our strength?” I do not wish to live in a divided society, amongst people with whom I have nothing in common, with people who do not share my country’s history. What our political establishment has forced upon this country and certainly since Maggie’s time is the most evil and egregious act of treason that it is possible to imagine and this wa#ker believes it is acceptable. He is about as valid as a fart in a thunderstorm.

Talk about making my blood boil. Firkin hell!

Probably the most inflammatory article I have ever read on DS.

By the way tof, I don’t as a rule downtick so not guilty on that score.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Thanks for your comments, most of which I agree with 100%. I would never think you’d downtick as a rule.

I think if people are here legally then I don’t think it’s right to retrospectively change the law. Going forward we could be less generous towards anyone who is still the citizen of another country who commits a serious crime, particularly crimes of violence, and we should be less generous with welfare across the board.

Regarding singling out specific groups (based on skin colour or religion) I would say that I am against mass immigration regardless of these factors but that racial original and culture/religion/education do mean that at a group level people vary in how well they fit into our country, so our European cousins are likely to fit in better than others because of shared religion, history, culture and customs and of course the success of those countries is an indicator of the average value of the human capital being imported.

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Certain new laws are required as a starting point for all those of an immigrant background:

Found guilty in a British Court and ticket back immediately. No appeals.

No access to the benefits system for anybody with an immigrant background.

British culture MUST be imposed on every citizen. If it is not then islam will take over and islamism WILL be enforced mark my words. We only have to look at the Khant’s Londonistan to see the miseries that will give birth to.

No surrender.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I wonder if the author would be happy to see all of us locked up.

The “Great replacement theory” is not a conspiracy theory, just simple arithmetic based on birth rates and the lack of any brake on immigration – when I talk to “liberal” acquaintances they accept that it cannot continue forever but won’t countenance any immediate measures to make it reduce or stop. What will stop it is when the UK is a third world s***hole.

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Unfortunately tof at the point at which this country becomes a third world shit hole, assuming we are not quite there, it will be too late to stop the ‘great replacement’ and in any case the damage will have already been done.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Precisely. Truly tragic. Cannot understand why people do not see this.

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pamela preedy
pamela preedy
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

The traitors who make the laws that we, the voters, never endorsed because mass immigration/multiculturalism was never presented as a party policy at ANY election CAN see this, but they march to a different drum. They don’t care about the people whose country this is – only about obeying the UN, the EU, the WEF and every other greedy globalist that wants a ‘world government’ run by them for their own benefit.

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Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Well said, hp. I’m guessing the author won’t have much time for the likes of Tommy Robinson, so it’d surely please him to know Tommy was arrested yesterday while out with his family. But apparently he was at Selhurst Park, therefore breaking his bail conditions, but I don’t know why he would knowingly do that. The details are sparse and vague, anyway, but he appears in court tomorrow;

https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1766557782650540281

Meanwhile migrants at the old Wethersfield air base in Essex are getting shopping trips to stop the unrest and fights breaking out. I think they’re a bit hacked off at all of the footage posted by migrants who’ve gone before and scored 4 star hotels and luxury apartments. Perhaps send them back to Tentsville, Calais then if they’re just going to whinge and behave like ingrates;

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1874300/asylum-seekers-raf-base-shopping-trip-violence

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Thanks Mogs.

I saw Mahyar Tousi’s report on the arrest of Tommy Robinson last night. I don’t know how those plods sleep at night. They must know that he is being deliberately targeted. The bastards will send him to prison tomorrow. He’s a brave man.

The immigrants are not conforming and so benefits MUST be withdrawn. Of course this might lead to naughtiness on their part at which point hux’s first rule of immigration – break our laws and you immediately qualify for a ticket back – comes in to play.

72
-3
GMO
GMO
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Acceptance should be if they agree to abide by traditional British customs, laws and ideology i.e. they assimiilate to British culture completely..
Race should not have anything to do with it.

2
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pamela preedy
pamela preedy
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Well said, huxleypiggles. And I DID downtick tof for suggesting that we all colluded in ruining our country. As for the writer of the article, the only positive thing one can say is that he offended me deeply but if that’s his view he’s entitled to express it in a free country.
If this is still a free country . . .

1
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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

“When I was a Revolutionary Marxist, we were all in favour of as much immigration as possible. It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants – from anywhere – as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still was at the end of the Sixties. Also, we liked to feel oh, so superior to the bewildered people – usually in the poorest parts of Britain – who found their neighbourhoods suddenly transformed into supposedly “vibrant communities”. If they dared to express the mildest objections, we called them bigots. 
When we graduated and began to earn serious money, we generally headed for expensive London enclaves and became extremely choosy about where our children went to school, a choice we happily denied the urban poor, the ones we sneered at as “racists”. What did we know, or care, of the great silent revolution which even then was beginning to transform the lives of the British poor?
To us, it meant patriotism and tradition could always be derided as “racist”. And it also meant cheap servants for the rich new middle-class, for the first time since 1939, as well as cheap restaurants and – later on – cheap builders and plumbers working off the books. It wasn’t our wages that were depressed, or our work that was priced out of the market. Immigrants didn’t do the sort of jobs we did.
They were no threat to us. The only threat might have come from the aggrieved British people, but we could always stifle their protests by suggesting that they were modern-day fascists. I have learned since what a spiteful, self-righteous, snobbish and arrogant person I was (and most of my revolutionary comrades were, too).”
Christopher Hitchens

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Pretty sure this was Peter rather than Christopher but that doesn’t take away from the brutal truth contained therein. Reminds me of this

“The strongest evidence for conspiracy comes from one of Labour’s own. Andrew Neather, a previously unheard-of speechwriter for Blair, Straw and Blunkett, popped up with an article in the Evening Standard in October 2009 which gave the game away.
Immigration, he wrote, ‘didn’t just happen; the deliberate policy of Ministers from late 2000…was to open up the UK to mass immigration’.
He was at the heart of policy in September 2001, drafting the landmark speech by the then Immigration Minister Barbara Roche, and he reported ‘coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.”

Was Mass Immigration a Conspiracy? | Migration Watch UK

53
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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

My mistake and apologies to Christopher – yes, it was Peter
Unfortunately editing is time limited.

Last edited 1 year ago by sskinner
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

I don’t know what Christopher’s views on immigration were. I think he shared some views with his brother, but not many.

4
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brightlightsweetown
brightlightsweetown
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Sadly the true strength of our country has been trashed by people like Hitchens who felt superior to ordinary people and ridiculed us for it. I am one of the staid, conservative, boring children of the fifties, brought up to work hard for what we wanted, married now for almost 55 years, bought our own house, had my 2 children, never claimed a single benefit in my life, have never been stopped and searched, booked for speeding, or broken any law, I believe in biological gender, yet we were vilified by those ‘superior brains’ and now they have the blasted cheek to admit they were wrong. Well excuse me if I don’t give flying f*** for your apology or regrets, you and your ilk have been instrumental in ruining my country, and you are not forgiven.

4
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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

We are not a new nation that needs immigration. We are not lacking in a skilled workforce because this country set the modern world in motion with a largely ‘uneducated’ and self taught work force. By measuring skills using qualifications it is then possible to say there is a skill shortage while no attempt is made to maintain what was a highly trained indigenous workforce. I have witnessed highly trained and experienced colleagues being ‘let go’ to make way for someone in India, who is then brought over here and housed. On top of that much is made about falling birth rates and a ‘collapsing’ population and the UN provides a ‘solution’ with replacement migration. It actually uses the word ‘replacement’! We are told that immigration is needed for the economy. At the same time we are also told there are too many people on the planet (there aren’t, to be absolutely clear) but the UKs population is headed towards 70 million entirely driven by immigration. When I was born the UK population was 50 million and that was still 5 times the population of the UK in 1800 which didn’t appear to be an impediment to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution.
In addition we are told that we are a multi-cultural country although I don’t recall being asked if that was a good idea and the way it’s being made to work is that the indigenous culture is constantly being undermined and ridiculed while all incoming cultures are celebrated? How do you think that will work in the long run?

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Totally agree, especially the obvious contradictions regarding overpopulation and collapsing populations.

23
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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

A strong culture that is built on strong family ties is always an obstacle to those that wish to treat the world as their play thing. The future of the world requires strong stable cultures and instead of moving people from failing cultures and importing hardship into successful cultures it is infinitely better to find ways of making failed cultures successful. It is better to create than redistribute as the latter always, always ends in poverty – look at Haiti.

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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnTVve6Mj2U
Why Haiti Is Poor And Why The Left Lie About It 

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Yup, just as I suspected.

5
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

100%

As you mention Haiti, it would be interesting to understand how it’s possible that it has failed so badly whereas the country it shares the island of Hispaniola with – the Dominican Republic – is doing pretty well.

8
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sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

There is another video about Haiti that I cannot currently find. In that it explains how following independence they adopted equity laws so that all had equal amounts of land and then off spring were added to this division making plots smaller and smaller, which eventually led to poorer harvests. In addition equipment left by the French that could have been used for economic reasons was abandoned. The problem with the video I have posted above is that the ‘fault’ has been described as low IQ. Considering the French and Russian revolutions were carried out by supposedly high IQ people I’m not convinced by that. However, Haiti’s predicament is not as a consequence of colonialism or the legacy of slavery.

2
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Indeed though both France and Russia are both way more highly developed than Haiti. Some people like to pretend IQ doesn’t exist yet it seems correlated with levels of development in countries and civilisations, along with something one could term emotional intelligence, impulse control, deferred gratification, future time orientation. To think the key factor in Haiti’s failure is its history seems like wishful thinking. Weirdly the president of the DR is of Lebanese descent.

1
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Well said.

4
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pamela preedy
pamela preedy
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Live with the mess ‘WE’VE’ created?! Who is ‘We’? We, the rightful inhabitants, taxpayers and voters of the UK were never asked if we wanted mass immigration and the mess it has created – it was deliberately forced on us by arrogant members of the damned Uniparty. There was NO consultation as to whether WE wanted a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multiculti disaster made of our homeland.

As it got worse and worse over decades, those arrogant politicians and their comrades, the marxist haters of Britain and its indigenous White population, began to insult and demonise us with negative manufactured terms such as ‘racist’, ‘izlamophobic’ etc. if we dared to object.

Our country is being stealthily stolen from us while WE, the people, are adjured to remain silent – or else. Well, we’re not going to remain silent and we’re going to support the brave ones who speak up, including Sam Melia of the Patriotic Alternative movement.

The fools who rule us have set and continue to set this country up for a civil uprising. The person who wrote the article is one of their pathetic spokesmen.

Last edited 1 year ago by pamela preedy
1
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  pamela preedy

By “we” I meant this country. Of course many, including me, do not support what has been done.

The article seems to be close to breaking the record for negative comments.

1
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GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
1 year ago
Reply to  D J

I once heard an English black woman tell a Russian bus driver to “go back where you came from”

I doubt she saw anything wrong with saying this, even though I’d be crucified if I’d said that to her. Her hypocrisy made me wince.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

Totally disagree. Who decides what constitutes “racial hatred”? Does anyone here honestly trust the legal system to judge them fairly? Is “racism” morally wrong? Should expressing racist views be illegal? If so, why? Hey British people, we’re going to import millions against your wishes but you’re not allowed to say anything nasty about them.

The old “asking for too much gives the enemies of free speech the ammunition they need argument” has worked really well for the political right in recent decades, hasn’t it? In our desperation not to appear “nasty”, the right-wing “intelligentsia” has conceded ground and been on the defensive constantly. Sam Melia thrown under a bus.

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JXB
JXB
1 year ago

Common Law is about passive Rights, but these cannot be enjoyed at the expense of the Common Law Rights of others. (Why there is no Right to public protest despite the claims to the contrary.)

My Right to swing my fist stops where your nose starts.

Freedom of speech is limited if it is used to incite hatred and violence (but not offence) – hatred and violence takes away another’s Rights to life, liberty and enjoyment of their property.

This used to be clear, but has been obfuscated by hate speech (causing offence to favoured groups) nonsense, and racism which has a definition so wide the Planet would fit through it.

And being racist is not a crime.

Last edited 1 year ago by JXB
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  JXB

How does “hatred” take away another person’s right to life, liberty and the enjoyment of their property?

I don’t think I “hate” anybody and I’m not advocating for it – but I think it’s often (always?) in the eye of the beholder.

52
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

‘Hate’ has become a very one dimensional and elastic term. Like most of the culture war, we on the centre/right are explaining nuance where the left claim there is none.

I do not like Meghan Markle. She doesn’t seem a likeable person, and I don’t think I’d like to spend any time with her. That is a reasonable opinion, in my view. Yet, not using her Duchess title is ‘hate’, saying that she isn’t someone I would seek out for company, well thats hate too. The truth is that I do not hate Meghan at all. I have opinions which an ordinary person would brush off, (not everyone will like you, and you wont like everyone either). I have never met, not am likely to meet her, so its all hypothetical. There is no emotion attached to my opinions. ‘Hate’ is just another way of trying to get someone with perfectly reasonable views to shut up, so they can ram a bit more ideology down your throat.

76
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

I agree. I am not sure exactly where, if anywhere, I would draw the line. “Group X are subhuman scum” – is that OK? If so, what about “Group X are subhuman scum and deserve to be killed”? I’d like to see this whole area debated sensibly. No hope of that, other than here probably!

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DHJ
DHJ
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

“Group X are subhuman scum and deserve to be killed”

If you’re not enacting that or forcing anyone else to, it shouldn’t be an issue. For all I know, I’d part of this insidious “Group X”.

Anyone triggered by such statements could equally be triggered by something else. Aggression tends to take the path of least resistance.

Notice how government foreign and domestic policy is never considered as “inciting hatred” when in addition to the rhetoric, it often involves violent action or direct support of violence.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  DHJ

I tend to agree.

6
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soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I think the ‘sub’ in subhuman might be the line. They, whoever ‘they’ are, are either human or not – and if human, entitled to human rights. ‘Scum’ is just a derogatory term clearly intended to be offensive and gets us nowhere.

As for human rights: Should we allow people to starve to death on our streets? I would suggest yes, but only if we’ve made provision to feed people elsewhere in our society. If people would rather die than use such facilities then I’m with Scrooge.

9
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  soundofreason

I think my arguments are best summarised by what Ian Rons posted.

The US Supreme Court applies an “imminent unlawful action” test to free speech cases.

I think the origins of a lot of the current restrictions are as pointed out by Mr Rons related to race relations – import different races and cultures then force people to put up with it. In the US, where they have no such laws, “race relations” appear worse than here but is that necessarily a bad thing?

11
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

If so, what about “Group X are subhuman scum and deserve to be killed”?

It all depends. If Group X are Germans, the guy who made the statement is called Arthur Harris and his mass murder tool of choice the RAF bomber fleet, he’ll end up on a memorial¹. And he didn’t get to this point because of anything Nazi or something like that but because he was unhappy with the outcome of WWI he used to call an unfinished job — not only were there still Germans alive, they even still had a state of their own! Reportedly, Churchill believed him to be a bit of a freak but a very useful freak.
[Paraphrased from memory from Jörg Friedrich: Der Brand]

Likewise, nobody jailed Dawn Queva for her statements and if these weren’t incitement to racial hatred, it’s a bit unclear what might be. Hypocrisy is ripe in this area.

¹ Paid for by prominent Brexit supporters like Richard Desmond, to complete the circle.

Last edited 1 year ago by RW
10
-1
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

RW – On this point I disagree with you. By the time Arthur Harris was appointed head of Bomber Command in Feb 1942 the Luftwaffe had bombed Guernica, Rotterdam, Warsaw (and other Polish cities), London, Coventry (and other UK cities). In addition there was the Third Reich’s invasion of Eastern Europe and Russia, the Battle of the Atlantic and the loss of Crete, and the invasions of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States, Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, Norway, Denmark and Finland and the imminent threat to Egypt and the oil fields in Iraq and Syria. All of this does not include the defeats in the East at the hands of the Imperial Japanese army. You make it sound as though the RAF bombing campaign merely followed on from WW1. All the events of WW2 up until Bomber Harris’ appointment were way in excess of all that happened in WW1. While hindsight is useful for correcting actions from the past it is also hard to see what else was possible considering the German war machine was relentless and up until El-Alamein (excluding the Battle of Britain) Britain’s future was precarious and this was a life or death total war. When the USAAF joined the bombing campaign they did not have the excuse of being unhappy with WW1, but bomb they did. In the latter part of the war the European bombing increased with terrifying destruction and not only in Germany but Japan. Again, hindsight will find such action as questionable, or even abominable, but at that time it was understood Germany was attempting to build an atomic bomb and even while the Allies were fighting through to Germany the Third Reich had developed two new terror weapons that rained down on London and the UK. The outcome was not certain.
It has been claimed the bombing campaign had no effect but that is not true. German productivity had been seriously affected as well as the tying up of soldiers and guns to defend against bombing, which all assisted the Russian’s ability to push the German Army into retreat and in the West the Battle of the Bulge collapsed due to equipment and fuel shortages. I don’t need to tell you that WW2 was truly horrific in it’s scale and barbarity but it was about survival by any means against two fanatical nihilistic regimes. Following WW2 I don’t recall my parents or that generation being triumphant as there was a sobering realisation of everything that had taken place. My Uncle jumped into Germany as part of Operation Varsity but didn’t talk about it, and my mother remembers the streams of bombers going over to bomb Germany and having spent 50 nights in a shelter during the Blitz she knew, without joy, what was going their way, only worse.
I guess you are aware that Bomber Harris said the following, but this was 1942 and considering all that had happened up until then I can understand why he thought this way.
“The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
.

Last edited 1 year ago by sskinner
14
-3
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Sorry to be so blunt, but “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”. I’m not in the mood to correct all of the obvious mistakes, so, I’m going to restrict myself to one: The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion — popular (not necessarily really popular, but targetted at a laymen’s audience) German history books published in the 1920s and 1930s already warned that due to air warfare, a future war wouldn’t have neatly defined war theatres anymore, not very surprising as the misconception (strikingly disproven in Vietnam) that the wanton destruction and mass murder via aerial bombing could decide wars was common-place at that time.

But I didn’t write anything about that, just about Harris’ documented motivation for his extermination crusade against everyone and everything German.

Last edited 1 year ago by RW
0
-3
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

“Group X are sub-human scum’ is virtually what the President of the United States said about Republican voters this week, it was said about Brexit Voters by the Remainers, by Hilary Clinton about Trump supporters, and a hundred different examples.

Perhaps the people calling most for law against ‘hate speak’ should have a little think about the words that come from their own mouths.

44
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Hear, hear.

17
-2
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

And then there was that lovely young lady from the BBC.
Dawn Queva, who was a scheduling coordinator at BBC 3 branded Jewish people “Nazis” and white people “parasites” in several posts on Facebook, which included calling Jewish people “Nazi apartheid parasites” that funded a “holohoax”. Her posts repeatedly attack white people, calling them a “virus” and “mutant invader species”. She also brands the UK “bigoted” and “genocidal” and claims white Europeans are “melanin-recessive parasites”.
It took a while to find this on Google as the ‘standard’ type of racism occupies the top slots.

0
0
psychedelia smith
psychedelia smith
1 year ago

Is this article a very subtle piss take? If not then it’s terrifying. Are you seriously suggesting that people should be arrested, prosecuted and jailed on the basis of words and opinions deemed ‘offensive’ by others?

You’re actually comfortable with a judicial mechanism in society by which the State is granted the power to jail you and smash your life to atoms for expressing words and thoughts that were deemed to have ‘hurt other people’s feelings’?

We already have libel laws and we have incitement to violence and murder. The reason we never had nebulous and infinitely flexible concepts like ‘hate law’ is precisely because they are so childish and dangerous and can and will open the door to tyranny and chaos. If these laws are not abolished immediately we are over.

In an intellectually and morally healthy fully functioning free society EVERY person in it has the right to be offensive and NOBODY has the right to be protected from offence. Every person also has the freedom to tell the offensive where to go or ignore them.

The absurdly dangerous idea of making laws around childish finger pointing and hurt feelings means we may as well be back in Salem.

181
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  psychedelia smith

Spot on. I am too angry at the moment to compose an intellectual response. This Hansard is one of the reasons this country is disintegrating before our eyes.

Odds on bet he’s an eco nutter.

76
-3
DHJ
DHJ
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Are you suggesting he has incited hatred?

14
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  DHJ

He’s bloody well wound me up.

36
-2
RDG
RDG
1 year ago
Reply to  DHJ

of himself ?
yes

1
0
pamela preedy
pamela preedy
1 year ago
Reply to  psychedelia smith

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Of course, the persons responsible for the excruciatingly stupid ‘hate speech/hate laws’ were the exceedingly hateful T Bliar and Harriet Hateperson.
In their 14 years of opportunity the Tory fools have never got round to even attempting to repeal them – says it all, really.

0
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

Any kind of hatred (meaning hate in the full sense of the word which it a very strong emotion) towards others is wrong, but I doubt whether punishments would be meted out equally to all factions, eg : the Palistinians set free after the hang glider pictures or the anti Hamas protester arrested while terrorist sympathisers march on!
If fair was fair, but it isn’t!

Last edited 1 year ago by Dinger64
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-8
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

I agree that hatred of others is morally wrong/a character flaw, but not everything that is morally wrong should be illegal.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Are the downtickers disagreeing with the first part of what I’ve said, or the second? That’s the problem with not engaging in debate.

I would possibly make an exception for people who are actively trying to harm me or my family, or have done so, with some extreme action of theirs.

7
0
7941MHKB
7941MHKB
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

For the avoidance of doubt, I never even considered downticking you, even though disagreeing to some extent.
But I am happy to downtick pernicious nonsense, especially when likely produced by hired trolls.

0
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  7941MHKB

Thanks. I don’t think we get many/any trolls. Wish we got more comments!

0
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Totally agree, my point was to highlight the need for equality in punishments for all comers from all backgrounds not basing it on the risks of retaliation as a lot of police and judiciary seem to do!
The likes of Tommy Robinson and Sam Melia are not very likely to threaten physical violence towards their punishers but when some demographics in society make threats, they tend to carry a lot more weight and the ptb react differently towards them. Two tier policing is now common place!
Imagine if the drug cartels operated in the UK! Our MPs word be apologising to them and hiding under the stairs behind 6 body guards, bloody cowards!

Last edited 1 year ago by Dinger64
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0
7941MHKB
7941MHKB
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I am sorry to say that I don’t agree even that “hatred of others is morally wrong”.
I have to confess that I hate (for example) Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and many other evil people. Fred and Rosie West, Ian Brady, – the list goes on.
I have to admit that I don’t exactly hold the likes of Gates, Soros, Schwab, Fauci, and a bunch of others in esteem, either.
Hatred is a powerful but entirely natural emotion. Turning the other cheek is a brilliant idea. But I could find inner peace somehow, if I’d been able to bump off Stalin or Mao.

8
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  7941MHKB

Yes on reflection my statement was too broad.

2
0
pamela preedy
pamela preedy
1 year ago
Reply to  7941MHKB

Well said. The idea that we should NEVER hate anyone, even the most destructive, evil, hateful people is ridiculous, infantile. But that’s what the fools who rule like to do – infantilise us and make us compliant with nonsense.

0
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

The meaning of ‘hate’ does tend to jump around depending on who is being accused. I dont see anything wrong in hate, per se. It means you have strong opinions, like hating slavery, or hating injustice. Can you hate people, and not wish them harm, or visit actual harm upon them.? Yes of course. In which case, what is the problem.?

46
0
Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Exactly. Hate is just one of many natural human emotions, like anger, which the Globalists are also trying to criminalise.

18
0
Ian Rons
Ian Rons
1 year ago

The idea that to be against “stirring up” laws is “hardline libertarianism” is simply bunk – or else that’s what we have to call US First Amendment jurisprudence since at least the 1960s (look up Brandenburg v. Ohio), and incidentally the Free Speech Union.

The author bizarrely seems to say that this “crime” of “stirring up” is ancient, perhaps like the NHS that we also can’t seem to get rid of. Both must be right, then. And the jury gave their verdict, so there!

In fact, English laws that make it a crime to try to induce certain thoughts in someone else that might at some indefinable point lead to violence go back a bit further than 1986, as the author might be interested to know. This came about with clause 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965, which introduced the notion that you could be guilty of causing thoughts in other people’s heads, without any real necessity to connect this with any possible future violence. That’s where all our modern anti free-speech laws derive from – that’s where the rot set in. I wrote about it in passing here, but essentially prior to that, for speech to be unlawful it had to be intended to cause – or at least be likely to cause – a breach of the peace (basically the U.S. standard).

But to want to bring that standard back would be beyond the pale, according to the author.

I find the author’s arguments very vague and stuffed full of logical fallacies, hence unappealing.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Rons
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0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Rons

Thanks for this. I hope the FSU would agree with you. Wonder if it would have been prepared to assist in Melia’s defence, if asked.

23
0
Ian Rons
Ian Rons
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Brandenburg v. Ohio was pretty was pretty much a foundational principle for us back in 2019 — Toby has alluded to that case from time to time. I think it’s a sound bedrock. And yes, the FSU has offered to help Sam Melia.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Rons
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0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Rons

Many thanks for that encouraging clarification.

Re Brandenburg, I guess the fairly liberal court in 1969 still thought that it was the political right who were the danger in terms of restricting freedom of speech, so they erred on the side of caution. Or maybe they just applied the law without trying to bend it. Would be curious to see how that case would get decided now – doubt it would be unanimous.

6
0
Ian Rons
Ian Rons
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I’m sure you’re right, the court nowadays would likely be split 6-3 or 7-2. Just look at Citizens United or 303 Creative.

5
0
Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Rons

Very important point about Clause 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965 sneaking Orwellian “Thought Crime” into the same “Crypto-Open Borders” laws that were mysteriously shoved through at the same time in both the USA and Britain, to try to crush all opposition to the Mass Third World Invasion that the Globalists had already been planning for decades.

25
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Rons

Fair points Ian but I find your response too mildly tempered for my angry soul.

12
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Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago

Right on cue, David Hansard had his article ready to publish on the same day the “Survivors Against Terror” group published its Open Letter:
Survivors of UK terror attacks warn: ‘Don’t equate Muslims with extremists’ | Islam | The Guardian

“More than 50 survivors of terrorist attacks, including the Manchester Arena bombing and the London Bridge attacks, have signed an open letter warning politicians to stop conflating British Muslims with extremism.

The signatories include Rebecca Rigby, the widow of soldier Lee Rigby who was murdered in south-east London in 2013, and Paul Price, who lost his partner, Elaine McIver, in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017. They caution against comments which play “into the hands of terrorists”.”

Well, well, what a coincidence. Looking into this survivors group brings to light some interesting things. Only 50 of the 200 survivors chose to sign this Open Letter. It was organised by their Muslim campaign manager, Julie Siddiqi MBE, former Executive Director of the Islamic Society of Britain; advisor for the creation of the Armed Forces Muslim Forum; previously listed in the Times 100 Most Influential Muslim Women in the UK; a Steering Committee Member of Archbishop Welby’s “Together Coalition”; awarded an MBE 2020, etc.

Shocked that Fusilier Lee Rigby’s widow would sign it, I found more information about her:
Lee Rigby’s widow runs off with friend’s soldier husband who played The Last Post at funeral – Mirror Online within weeks of his funeral.

As for Sam Melia sentenced to two years in prison for making stickers, compare the Muslim immigrant from India who cruelly abused a 94-year-old British man at a UK care home, ran back to India when caught, later returned, was arrested and tried, but was sentenced to only one year in prison by the judge.

Last edited 1 year ago by Heretic
78
0
Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

And the Founder of the “Survivors Against Terror” group is Brendan Cox, former husband of Jo Cox:

“Brendan Cox is a campaigner for more cohesive communities. Along with Survivors Against Terror he has co-founded More in Common (which works to build more inclusive communities in France, Germany, the US and UK); the Jo Cox Foundation, (continuing the work of his late wife) and the Together Coalition (that works to build more connected communities).

He served as Special Advisor to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown between 2008 and 2010 and has worked for and advised a number of organisations including Save the Children, the UN and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”

32
0
7941MHKB
7941MHKB
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

The “charity” work in Africa alleged to have been done by Brendan Cox is also not without interest.

6
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

This is all pathological altruism. The UK has welcomed Huguenots, Jews, Chinese, Italians and Vietnamese, for example, and there are virtually no cases of suiciding bombings and beheadings of the native British from these groups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUXteUGhh7w
The Tragedy of Cultural Relativism

And this is unbelievable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc5lUbNlTtY
RAPISTS BTFO

13
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  sskinner

Following the barbaric murder of Samuel Paty where his head was hacked off in broad daylight, there was rioting in various Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Turkey, against France and Samuel for causing his own death because he disrespected Islam. Of course Turkey’s Erdogan blamed France. Within a month of this tragedy Russia, Iran, Pakistan, China and Myanmar took part in a large scale military exercise with not a peep from the Muslim countries about the fate of the Rohingya or Uighurs.

11
0
Solentviews
Solentviews
1 year ago

And this is how a country dies. Legions of do-gooders (like this author) will come out and defend irrational laws and decisions just to stay in with his left leaning colleagues. Common sense is thrown from the window just to be ‘ideologically pure’. 2 years jail for this – are you serious? All this demonstrates is weakness and cowardice.

This deluded author is feeding the crocodile hoping it will be full by the time it gets to him. If he had any sense (he doesn’t) he would be aggressively criticising the biased judge that let the paraglider girls off. But that would need a spine. I wouldn’t want him in a trench with me.

David Hansard is an embarrassment, the type who would happily hand this country on a plate to the highest bidder.

85
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Solentviews

Thank you.

Brilliant.

25
-1
Solentviews
Solentviews
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Thanks. Too much of this ‘let’s take it on the chin’ nonsense these days. Something about this article particularly irritated me! :))

30
0
RDG
RDG
1 year ago
Reply to  Solentviews

same

1
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago
Reply to  Solentviews

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience”
Adam Smith

18
0
RW
RW
1 year ago

So, let me get this straight: When people argue for immigration of (invariably) ‘global majority heritage’ foreigners, that’s all right, but calling for emigration of them isn’t? I can also see nothing particularly extreme in They seek conquest, not asylum. That’s factually wrong because they don’t come armed, at least not yet. However, intentionally crossing a border illegally is a hostile act and as nobody can reach the UK (except by plane) without travelling through several so-called safe countries, asylum claims made in the UK are specious. Quoted completely, the text in the final sticker reads “We’re more than a passport. Blood and soil.” The second part is an English translation of an old NSDAP slogan referring to German farmers, Blut und Boden. Its meaning is roughly We’re a group of related people who have cultivated this land for centuries. That’s obviously extremely unpopular with people whose ideal white human being is a single living in a towerblock appartment in a large city but it’s just a positive assertion of one’s identity. If this guy was black, nobody would want to take offense with that. It’s certainly not an incitement to anything.

In absence of more reliable information (stuff published by Hedgehogs not hares! certainly isn’t) I side with the Spiked-guy. Melia was punished not because of what he did but because of what some people believe he is – a Neonazi – and this despite this isn’t illegal in itself, not even in Germany.

64
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

Very well put. An RW classic.

10
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago

But, on the other hand, how could it be determined whether racial hatred had or had not resulted from a person’s actions?

Well, there is your problem tight there.

He’s been convicted of doing something that the author claims can’t even be demonstrated.

And that is why most supposedly sensible attacks on free speech like this one are misguided. They all stem from the fear that something bad might happen and that it needs to be stopped beforehand.

That’s a very dangerous slippery slope.

48
0
Jane G
Jane G
1 year ago

I’m not sure whether this article was written specifically for DS or some other publication. If it was for DS then I will exercise my free speech and tell him to go and do one; I won’t defile myself with anything worse than that. I’ll just ask why those who post inflammatory language against white people and Christian culture do not also get banged up for 2 years.

46
0
NickR
NickR
1 year ago

It needs saying that stickers are probably the least effective means of communication known to man. There was no more hope that someone would be converted to hatred of Moslims by a sticker than someone would be by a sandwich board.
Maybe there should be laws against stirring up racial tensions but this conviction was heavy handed & merely served to highlight the disparity between treatment of different groups.

16
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7941MHKB
7941MHKB
1 year ago
Reply to  NickR

Exactly.
Myself, I’m not a big fan of burning Korans.
But with every terror attack, destruction of Christian or Hindu or Sikh place of worship, for all the gang child rapes and other many manifestations of how the RoP actually works, my own tolerance is diminished.

7
0
jburns75
jburns75
1 year ago

This highlights the utter absurdity of criminalising an emotion. Hate is indefinable, and means whatever holders of power, be they judges, juries, agitators and Guardian readers want it to mean.

If a genuinely far right group attain power, which is highly likely in the next decade, ‘hate’ will then mean exactly what this far-right want it to mean.

‘Right Wing’ and ‘Far Right’ have suffered a similar erasure of meaning, thanks to their appropriation by liberal elites as a term of abuse to smear anyone they disagree with. Both suit an agenda very well.

The abandonment of the rule of law by the government and chicken squawking around the issue by the left have made it hard to discern opposition to mass illegal immigration from old fashioned tubthumping racism. You’re now just supposed to see the good people (those who adorn themselves with rainbows) and the bad people (everyone else); and if you’re one of the bad people you need to shut up and keep your opinions to yourself.

This is effectively class-based gaslighting on a massive scale. It’s causing a smouldering resentment which will burst spectacularly into flames before very long.

Absurdist, performatively radical far left ideology has infected the essentially unproductive chattering classes, who see it as a protection mechanism for their interests at a time of economic peril. It needs the idea of a far-right threat to survive. Its ideological world view is so incoherent and detached from reality that it crumbles to the slightest touch (hence their projective obsession with concepts of deficit and “sustainability”). All that can hold it together is the fear of an imagined tyrannical enemy. As it becomes apparent that this is no more than a construction of their unreality, they need to go to greater lengths to make it a reality. The abuse of the concept of ‘hate’ and its weaponisation is a critical means of doing this.

The traditional, unreformed far-right (as opposed to people who own a copy of Lord of the Rings) long for the return of a time of imagined harmony in racial purity, tend to blame all their problems on dark skinned people, using them as a repository for (often understandable) bitterness and disappointment. They often share the delight, through catharsis, in having a chance to throw their weight around, just like their left wing counterparts. No doubt in the current climate their numbers are growing. There is nothing in this climate that gives them any incentive whatsoever to unpack their beliefs and separate the possible from the impossible, the reasonable from the unreasonable, the emotional from the rational. All they have is a vapid mass media and integrity-free, fantasist political class relentlessly wagging its finger in their face, reminding them at every opportunity of how bad and wrong they are.

And more crucially, they have an insane, stupid ‘hate’ law that is criminalising their anger; that is doing nothing to really address harmful behaviour, but instead just gaslighting them further. It’s a recipe for social catastrophe.

Take the emotion out of it – throw the concept of ‘hate’ as a legal construct into the mire in which it belongs – and you have a basis for establishing common sense. Violence can include intimidation, harassment and physical abuse. Incitement to violence might still have fuzzy boundaries but is far easier to determine as a motivating factor than ‘hate’. If you think “send them back”, or use those words in your living room, you might be fostering resentment, but you’re not inciting violence. If you print the words on stickers adorned with EDL fists and plaster them over Asian neighbourhoods, you’re clearly inciting a potential violent action against a group of people. This freedom of conscience makes it easier to see – even from the point of view of people who share your beliefs – how you might have broken the law. The definitions of the law, as well as moral boundaries, are clearer and far less prone to stoking fires they claim to want to put out.

That is, unless common sense isn’t what is really wanted. There have always been laws against incitement to violence, and I can only imagine that lack of their proper enforcement has served the interests of the increasingly authoritarian establishment. It has provided a convenient way to create the bogeyman they need, and the means to control him – along with everyone else – at a more disturbingly fundamental level: that of thought and emotion.

Only it can’t work with anything short of military enforcement. It’ll give rise to a far-right that looks nothing like their cartoon fantasy version, and will be the stuff of real rather than performative nightmares. They will be tougher and more pragmatic than their Antifa counterparts, and will not hesitate to use any authoritarian weapons that have been left to them. The Weimar Republic assures us of this.

Last edited 1 year ago by jburns75
19
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Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  jburns75

“Violence”: late 13th century, “physical force used to inflict injury or damage,” from Anglo-French and Old French violence (13th century).

Now compare your claim that stickers saying “send them back” with a fist on it are “inciting violence”, with the gang of young Pakistani Muslim women who followed a young British couple walking home from a pub at night. The Muslim women suddenly shouted, “Kill the White B*tch!” , attacking and beating her up, continuing to beat and kick her as she lay on the ground. Her boyfriend tried to protect her while avoiding hitting any of the women, as he had been brainwashed from infancy to do.

The judge let all the Pakistani Muslim women off without any prison time, because they said they were not used to drinking alcohol, and it was the alcohol that made them attack a British woman without provocation. You know, how alcohol makes British women rush out in gangs and beat up Muslim women. Not.

That’s real “Violence”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Heretic
30
0
jburns75
jburns75
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

I’m not arguing on the basis of any sort of moral equivalence.

If ‘hate’ is expunged from the law (as it should be), the matter of whether or not an act constitutes incitement to violence would be up to the courts to decide on the basis of the facts of a case.

The examples you cited could easily be prosecuted on the basis of incitement to violence and racially aggravated assault, and absolutely should be. The stickering might be more of a borderline case, but it could be legitimately argued that if Melia targeted an Asian community with “send them back” stickers, along with symbols of groups previously associated with violence, it could be taken as an incitement to violence.

I might be wrong in this, it doesn’t matter – my point is that a court deciding on the basis of existing common sense laws rather than the purposefully nebulous concept of ‘hate’ would be a fairer and less corrosive way of making the decision.

6
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  jburns75

With regard to “incitement to violence” I refer once more to this from the last major free speech case decided by the US Supreme Court in 1969. I think it’s a good starting point.

Syllabus
Appellant, a Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute for “advocat[ing] . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and for “voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Neither the indictment nor the trial judge’s instructions refined the statute’s definition of the crime in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action.

Held: Since the statute, by its words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action, it falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

Brandenburg v. Ohio :: 395 U.S. 444 (1969) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center

What Melia did and the case you are describing (“send them back” stickers in an Asian community) fall well short of the criteria the court defined in a unanimous decision. An example that might trigger the Brandenburg criteria would be an announcement like “To all the men of Bradford, go to the Asian part of town tonight and burn down some houses” though the court might take into consideration how likely this was to happen.

2
0
Arum
Arum
1 year ago

it is also fair to question the custodial sentence, especially its length.

“………..was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and assaulting a child under 13 by penetration and given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.” (Northumbria Police website)

34
0
cchambers
cchambers
1 year ago

This article is interesting, specifically because it’s hard to tell if it’s parody or not. I think it is, but it’s just possible it isn’t.

6
-1
Marque1
Marque1
1 year ago

“If the recent jailing of a prominent member of a far-Right group in the U.K. has taught us anything, it is that some free speech absolutists are content to throw caution to the wind and permit speech specifically designed to create enmity between different racial or religious groups.”

Unless, of course, it is lefties/islamics creating enmity against Jews. That is, no doubt, acceptable.

Last edited 1 year ago by Marque1
13
-2
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

“David Hansard has written for the Quillette, TCW and Cumbria Magazine.”

I have just done a search on TCW and nothing comes up for David Hansard.

I have just found this article via his blog but it does not show on a TCW search…

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/its-a-terrible-mistake-for-sceptics-to-back-mass-vaccination/

And it contains this gem…

Last edited 1 year ago by huxleypiggles
4
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Apologies, I got timed out.

0
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

David Hansard has written for the Quillette, TCW and Cumbria Magazine.”

I have just done a search on TCW and nothing comes up for David Hansard.

I have just found this article via his blog but it does not show on a TCW search…

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/its-a-terrible-mistake-for-sceptics-to-back-mass-vaccination/

And it contains this gem…

“many sceptics are now handing the Government and other lockdown fanatics a free gift. 

“It is baffling and frustrating that they are not just enthusiastic there is now a vaccine, but also believe it is everyone’s duty to have the jab.”

Well that’s a pearl of wisdom.

If DS is the vocal centre of current scepticism I would like to know how Hansard arrived at this conclusion because there was little enthusiasm for the jibbys on here in 2021. And I was a member back then.

Over to you David.

13
-1
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Heartening to know that even though I strongly disagree with his free speech article, he called the “covid” business correctly.

I agree hp, I think the general below the line view of the products marketed as “covid vaccines” was overwhelmingly sceptical, especially for anyone not “at risk from covid”.

3
0
watchdog
watchdog
1 year ago

I hear racial hatred every day from the Left. I just consider the source and move on.

Last edited 1 year ago by watchdog
11
0
Grim Ace
Grim Ace
1 year ago

We know full well why Sam Melia was jailed. Regardless of the arguments of law. This was done to silence white people against the legal invasion of their homeland by people we have never voted to allow in.
The state, and its apparatus of control, wants to shut us up and keep us under control whilst they immigrate us into non existance. We, as the indigenous people of this ancient land, are under existential attack and WILL be a minority in our own homeland by 2060 odd. That is a predicted fact basd on the current rates of legal and illegal immigration, and their birth rates compared to ours. A fact that is now against the law. Apalling. This country is headed for civil war and I will cheer.

Last edited 1 year ago by Grim Ace
18
0
Jackthegripper
Jackthegripper
1 year ago

“… material which is threatening, abusive or insulting,”

I have a real issue with this. It allows anyone to be offended and threatened even if the intention was not to be threatening, abusive or insulting. It allows the police to make value judgements based on their own bias and beliefs.

I don’t know the details of the case and don’t always agree with O’Neill, but his overall assertion that there is a two tier justice system is correct, if clumsily stated.

7
0
allanplaskett
allanplaskett
1 year ago

Rabble rousers can stir up hatred only among people with pre-existing smouldering animosities. This is true of very few people, despite the angry modern times. The way to deal with hate merchants is not to bestow an underdog quality on them by repressing their speech but to allow them to show themselves in full. All bar a tiny loony few will then just turn away from them. You had the classic case with Griffin. If he hadn’t appeared on Question Time, BNP membership would be far higher today.

1
-5
Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  allanplaskett

Ah yes, Question Time with the audience pre-packed with rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth invaders and their Communist Enablers, shrieking and screaming during the entire discussion, shouting the invited guest Nick Griffin down. So much for Freedom of Speech.

Last edited 1 year ago by Heretic
7
-1
lymeswold
lymeswold
1 year ago

Slightly saddened to see the DS publishing clickbait such as this. Reasoned argument is replaced with faux outrage, such as “… flaunted his and his colleagues’ racist bigotry in all its twisted glory”. Usually whenever the word bigot or bigotry is mentioned in an article I know I’m dealing with an implacable lefty mindlessly spouting the current party line.

12
-1
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

The British people (ie those whose ancestors built this country over centuries) never voted for mass immigration and multi-culturalism; it has been imposed on them by an Establishment which is fully aware it wasn’t wanted and has been voted against in successive elections.

I therefore think it is an entirely legitimate position for someone to continue opposing the policy; campaigning for it to stop and also for it to be reversed.

It isn’t a question of “hate.” It is expressing a desire for the country to resemble the one that existed before the Establishment set out to change it with no mandate to do so.

13
0
Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago

There are a few odd things about this case, such as their cold reception of Tommy Robinson’s support, and their refusal to even reply to Toby Young’s offer of help from the Free Speech Union. But all became clear on the Patriotic Alternative website, founded by Mark Collett, who was once arrested and kicked out of the British National Party for allegedly plotting to kill Nick Griffin, so that his envious then-deputy Mark Collett could take his place. Sam Melia is a member of the Patriotic Alternative.

The Patriotic Alternative website features Collett being interviewed by Muslim Dilly Hussain, founder of the Muslim “Blood Brothers” group. Collett focused on Jews and Zionism as the enemy and appeared to ally with Muslims against Jews. For a supposedly “blood & soil” nationalist, it’s all very odd.

Last edited 1 year ago by Heretic
2
0
RDG
RDG
1 year ago

Hansard is someone with the ‘vision of the anointed’ to channel the legend Thomas Sowell.
It’s not for you to say what others can say Mr Hansard, you incredibly conceited person.
That what makes ‘us’ morally superior to you – we don’t think we are God and should set boundaries on what other people can think and say.
I might loathe what they think and say … as I often do … but there is a thing called a principle.

5
0
Safedthinker
Safedthinker
1 year ago

One poster/sticker was not mentioned – the one which gives grist to the decision to the jail term. It said ‘small hats, big problem’ with a picture of a small hat.
Bad. Nothing but bad. Jewish people here will never seek to overthrow the fundamentals of our state.

1
0

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