Democracy also isn’t the highest value anyway:
The arrest of Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted, was a departure from democracy, Donald Trump’s state department has said.
Free speech is about civil liberty, not democracy. And yes, to a great extent I would insist that civil liberty is the more imporant of the two.
Could it not be said that it is, in the sense we – the voting population – were never consulted over whether we wanted this power of ordering immediate arrest to be placed in the hands of a handful of AGP men in frocks?
Very thin skinned, our PM, isn’t he? If you doubt his belief that some women possess a penis the whole weight of the State comes crashing down on you. The forces, previously formed to establish law and order have gratefully turned their attention to enforcing Starmer’s wishful thinking, preferably on women without the appendage but, if necessary, portly unarmed Irish comedians, after diligent work by the Secret Service and their hackers…
You’ve just got to read the papers here in Oz and you’ll see all sorts of cheering as more and more restrictions are placed on stuff on the internet ‘to protect the children.’
Perhaps we’re rushing towards becoming North Korea. And maybe NK’ll end up turning into Oz!!!
@Boganboy – and the bereaved mother of Brianna Ghey has just joined a pressure group demanding that the government withdraws the freedom for headmasters of schools to decide how to tackle mobile phone use in schools and implements a full ban. So we’re fast catching up to Oz!
Boganboy/ Julia M
My only complaint about the Nigel Farage comment:
“And you would be doing us and yourselves and all freedom-loving people a favour if your politicians and your businesses said to the British government, ‘You’ve simply got this wrong, at what point did we become North Korea?'”
Is it’s a bit unfair to North Korea. I don’t think Pyongyang would imprison visitors on account of a complaint from some demented mentally ill Trans lunatic. The UK and Australia, though…..
The USA sees this as a “democracy” issue, not a civil liberties one, because their conception of democracy is that the public get to vote on who will represent them (and a few dozen referenda), and the public and the representatives get to discuss the issues at hand.
Because Graham Linehan was detained on the basis of political speech he made, and not just a joke that somebody didn’t like (c.f. the Robin Hood Airport twitter “bomb threat”), this is seen in the USA world view as an impingement on our democracy (as it diminishes our right to hear political speech and opinions), not on his civil liberty to speak it.
I can’t say I completely disagree with them: as a thought experiment, imagine a country where political discussion is completely and utterly banned, banned from the papers, banned from the internet, banned from the pub, and this enforcement is 100 percent and total as they’ve switched all the birds from “surveillance” to “enforcement”.
In this country, if I present you with a ballot and you choose a name from it but you don’t know the first thing about any of the candidates, you don’t know what their views are, you don’t know what their track record (if any) is, and so on: in this case, are you actually participating in democracy?
“You’ve simply got this wrong, at what point did we become North Korea?’”
I know we all love a bit of hyperbole but that’s all this is. As someone pointed out in the DT, in NK Linehan wouldn’t have been simply arrested – he’d likely have been executed. Possibly with a howitzer.
Geoffers
I’m not sure he’d have been given a visa to get into NK nor would he have any desire to travel there but I doubt they’d have given him anything particularly for anti Trans tweets.
The North Korean attitude to Trans people (and indeed to the whole Alphabet soup community) is one of refusal to acknowledge such people exist – A policy which while arguably naive to the point of stupidity is one neverthless I think the vast majority of the UK populace would be quite happy if it meant someone like the dreadful India Willoughby or the even more psychotic Carrie of Bigmouth Strikes again were silenced as being ‘unreal’.
The notion he’d have been ‘blown away by a Howitzer’ really speaks volumes about the Daily Telegraph, now basically run by the CIA and MI6 as an anti Russian ,pro war propaganda tool alongside various mainstream ‘woke’ mainstream shills.
Grist – Very thin skinned, our PM, isn’t he? If you doubt his belief that some women possess a penis
But he doesn’t. Sinuous Sir Keir stopped believing that trans women are women as soon as the Supreme Court confirmed that they aren’t.
This is the Blob. If Putin nuked London today, tomorrow Greater Manchester Police would still be arresting “TERFS” and ignoring grooming gangs tomorrow. The police are thoroughly rotten and should be purged, but many such cases in a society that has gone bad in East Germanic ways.
VP – True – North Korean authorities would never arrest you for disagreeing with transvestites. Kim Jong Chingchong doesn’t require his subjects to lie about human biology.
BM – in this case, are you actually participating in democracy?
Yarp: there’s no democracy without at least a large measure of freedom of speech and debate.
JuliaM – and the bereaved mother of Brianna Ghey has just joined a pressure group demanding that the government withdraws the freedom for headmasters of schools to decide how to tackle mobile phone use in schools and implements a full ban.
Maybe next, we should ask the McCanns for their advice on protecting children.
Timothy – Free speech is about civil liberty, not democracy
Who does nobody call themselves Timothy anyway? They’re always Tims. It’s a fine name, God’s Honour. Anyway.
If the demos has no freedom to speak, in what sense are we a kratia of the demos?
VP – the howitzer comment was my own embellishment and I assure you I’m not a member of any security/intelligence service – I’m neither gay nor communist.
My wider point was that NK kills its opponents outright – I wasn’t specifically focussed on the trans issue. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
We’re not not anywhere close to NK levels of oppression, that’s all.
Linehan’s arrest does have the appearance of being an ambush to influence his trial for harassing a transwoman; the trial being the reason he arrived in the UK (not something I was aware of). There is no way the jurors will be unaware of these recent events. The trial should have been stopped, in my opinion.
Geoffers
Fair points and I did not mean to imply falsely that you were either gay or a communist.
Of course we haven’t reached the levels of North Korea yet but given the depth of left wing influence then the road to Harare and Pyongyang is very much shorter than we seem to think it is!!
No doubt Graham Linehan didn’t expect a bunch of mentally ill people to collude with the authorities to get him banged up. I think North Korea has a far more realistic appraisal of the self-indulgence of these trans loons than the UK…
I think PJF is referring to this (trigger warning- put down any cups and sharp objects and move keyboard aside. A sick bag might be handy as well)
https://x.com/mrtcharris/status/1963522016662725026?s=61&t=VX5cJ0-osgn_JSz7j-uowQ
G – and I assure you I’m not a member of any security/intelligence service
That’s exactly what a nark would say, fed.
BiND – Wait, I’ve seen this one! That’s the “SCOTLAND IS A SONG” tranny. 😀
Amazing how the audience didn’t laugh, I nearly pissed myself.
And this is the problem tho, right? Taking trannies seriously was a mistake. Our society should not be based around rorting the majority to pander to niche sexual perversions, lunatics, criminals, scroungers, and rapefugees. But currently it is.
Democracy also isn’t the highest value anyway
Democracy is a good thing; but it is not an absolute good or the supreme good, because we can have too much of a good thing (eg alcohol). Indeed, when it malfunctions, and in certain circumstances, democracy can be a bad thing.
Similarly with civil liberties…too much civil liberty could lead to a society paralysed by endlessly arbitrating between too numerous individual rights.
So there is no supreme political value, though some can have priority…
Agreed, Bathroom Moose. Democracy can’t succeed without free exchange of ideas – and that is the American view. Civil rights and democracy are part of the same package.