6 ms·

In your country, a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler. You literally can't take a joke. Reporting on c

by burfog 7y ago

In your country, a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler. You literally can't take a joke. Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. Rude comments made on the internet, not even involving actionable threats, can get you arrested. Orwell was British, but "Freedom is slavery" was supposed to be fiction. It was not written as an instruction manual. You've also gone past guns, now starting to confiscate dull butter knives. More importantly, it's not the nature of the weapon, but the right to use it. You are generally not permitted to defend yourself. This does vary in the USA, with places like Maryland being rather British, but in large areas here we are permitted to fight back.

DanBC 7y ago
> Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. No, interfering with trials will get you arrested. > a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler. It wasn't the Nazi salutes that caused the trouble, it was broadcasting the repeated use of the phrase "gas the jews". He tried to use the "it was just a prank bro" defence in court, and they rejected it because i) to show it to his girlfriend he didn't need to put it on youtube, ii) there's no evidence she even saw it and iii) "gas the Jews" isn't funny. Also, you can own a gun legally in the UK.
- burfog 7y ago
  The point is that the US has more freedom. His "it was just a prank bro" defense wouldn't even be needed. Because the US has freedom, people can make videos like that all they want. It doesn't matter if there is a girlfriend to show. It doesn't matter if you happen to think "gas the Jews" is or isn't funny. Well, you'd best never have a thought that offends anybody ever in your rapidly-changing culture. Someday that could be you going to prison for your 2019-era wrongthink.
  - Aromasin 7y ago
    He got fined for it. He was stupid - in my eyes, the judgement was stupid too I agree - but that's it. Equating this to some Orwellian novel though confuses me though. That's some Fox News/Daily Mail level of pulling at straws. We're not living in the 1400s where speaking bad of the king could get you locked up or beheaded, or the early 1900s where that kind of joking was not only allowed but encouraged. It's not quite true classical liberalism, but it's also nowhere near Oceania Thought Police. It's certainly much closer to the former than the later. What I'm struggling to understand is why we're trying to compare fining a person for a joke, versus the systematic imprisonment of four times as many people per capita as that in the UK, and exponentially more if you compare the US to the rest of Europe[1]. 46% of the population is in for non-violent crime. Hell, according to cut50, just under 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars, up 500% in 30 years. [2] More flag waving and anthem chanting doesn't change that, as much as that may upset the patriotic sensibilities of so many. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... [2] https://www.cut50.org/ https://www.cut50.org/
    - burfog 7y ago
      Maybe they belong in prison. Crazy alternatives we could try: a. We let them out, and this is fine because they are good people. LOL. b. We let criminals run amok, pillaging our villages as they please. c. We shoot them, then make their family pay for the cost of the bullet. d. We send them to a prison colony like Australia. e. We import better people. Maybe we could raid Japan or Iceland to get nicer people. What I do know is that they aren't in prison just for being rude on Twitter.
n4r9 7y ago
Your examples are at least semi-valid except for this one: > Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. I assume you're referring to the case of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He was charged with contempt of court for violating a blanket ban on broadcasting of the proceedings of a specific trial. The ban was imposed by the judge as it was "necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in these proceedings". Does your adherence to freedom trump the right to have a fair trial?
Aromasin 7y ago
The other commenters covered the first point. With regards to your 'reporting on court proceedings' comment, you could only be talking about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tommy Robinson to make himself more palatable to a certain demographic), as he's the only notorious one in recent memory that has been charge with this. This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media. Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users. He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously. You're coming in very righteous, so here's something I find quite entertaining - "Reporter Zachary Siegel held in contempt of court and arrested after recording trial" Oct 2018 - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachary-siegel-held-contempt-court-and-arrested-after-recording-trial/ https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachar... I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/ https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/ With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.
- burfog 7y ago
  It was OK for Zachary Siegel to get video of the trial, and OK for him to report on the trial. There was in fact video being made available to him, via the media pool. His violation was of a decorum order -- essentially, being rude and making a scene. We don't generally prohibit reporting on a trial. Judges sometimes don't wish to perform on video, so that can be blocked, but reporting from outside the courtroom is always OK. As I understand it, your situation is more like a general-purpose gag order on the entire trial. Part of ensuring fair trials is making them public. In secrecy, all sorts of bad things happen. Public trials are very much on purpose. Secret trials bring to mind the USSR, North Korea, and similar. We don't have people getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads either. I think you refer to the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Evidence shows he was doing nothing of the sort. Instead, he was trying to grab the cop's gun. His fingerprints were inside the vehicle and evidence from his body shows that the gun was fired from very short range. Yeah, we do have criminals, I admit that, and it sucks.

by burfog 7y ago

DanBC 7y ago

> Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. No, interfering with trials will get you arrested. > a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler. It wasn't the Nazi salutes that caused the trouble, it was broadcasting the repeated use of the phrase "gas the jews". He tried to use the "it was just a prank bro" defence in court, and they rejected it because i) to show it to his girlfriend he didn't need to put it on youtube, ii) there's no evidence she even saw it and iii) "gas the Jews" isn't funny. Also, you can own a gun legally in the UK.

burfog 7y ago
The point is that the US has more freedom. His "it was just a prank bro" defense wouldn't even be needed. Because the US has freedom, people can make videos like that all they want. It doesn't matter if there is a girlfriend to show. It doesn't matter if you happen to think "gas the Jews" is or isn't funny. Well, you'd best never have a thought that offends anybody ever in your rapidly-changing culture. Someday that could be you going to prison for your 2019-era wrongthink.
- Aromasin 7y ago
  He got fined for it. He was stupid - in my eyes, the judgement was stupid too I agree - but that's it. Equating this to some Orwellian novel though confuses me though. That's some Fox News/Daily Mail level of pulling at straws. We're not living in the 1400s where speaking bad of the king could get you locked up or beheaded, or the early 1900s where that kind of joking was not only allowed but encouraged. It's not quite true classical liberalism, but it's also nowhere near Oceania Thought Police. It's certainly much closer to the former than the later. What I'm struggling to understand is why we're trying to compare fining a person for a joke, versus the systematic imprisonment of four times as many people per capita as that in the UK, and exponentially more if you compare the US to the rest of Europe[1]. 46% of the population is in for non-violent crime. Hell, according to cut50, just under 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars, up 500% in 30 years. [2] More flag waving and anthem chanting doesn't change that, as much as that may upset the patriotic sensibilities of so many. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... [2] https://www.cut50.org/ https://www.cut50.org/
  - burfog 7y ago
    Maybe they belong in prison. Crazy alternatives we could try: a. We let them out, and this is fine because they are good people. LOL. b. We let criminals run amok, pillaging our villages as they please. c. We shoot them, then make their family pay for the cost of the bullet. d. We send them to a prison colony like Australia. e. We import better people. Maybe we could raid Japan or Iceland to get nicer people. What I do know is that they aren't in prison just for being rude on Twitter.

n4r9 7y ago

Your examples are at least semi-valid except for this one: > Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. I assume you're referring to the case of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He was charged with contempt of court for violating a blanket ban on broadcasting of the proceedings of a specific trial. The ban was imposed by the judge as it was "necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in these proceedings". Does your adherence to freedom trump the right to have a fair trial?

Aromasin 7y ago

The other commenters covered the first point. With regards to your 'reporting on court proceedings' comment, you could only be talking about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tommy Robinson to make himself more palatable to a certain demographic), as he's the only notorious one in recent memory that has been charge with this. This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media. Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users. He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously. You're coming in very righteous, so here's something I find quite entertaining - "Reporter Zachary Siegel held in contempt of court and arrested after recording trial" Oct 2018 - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachary-siegel-held-contempt-court-and-arrested-after-recording-trial/ https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachar... I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/ https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/ With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.

burfog 7y ago
It was OK for Zachary Siegel to get video of the trial, and OK for him to report on the trial. There was in fact video being made available to him, via the media pool. His violation was of a decorum order -- essentially, being rude and making a scene. We don't generally prohibit reporting on a trial. Judges sometimes don't wish to perform on video, so that can be blocked, but reporting from outside the courtroom is always OK. As I understand it, your situation is more like a general-purpose gag order on the entire trial. Part of ensuring fair trials is making them public. In secrecy, all sorts of bad things happen. Public trials are very much on purpose. Secret trials bring to mind the USSR, North Korea, and similar. We don't have people getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads either. I think you refer to the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Evidence shows he was doing nothing of the sort. Instead, he was trying to grab the cop's gun. His fingerprints were inside the vehicle and evidence from his body shows that the gun was fired from very short range. Yeah, we do have criminals, I admit that, and it sucks.