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> One person who saw the tweet, Janet Hunter Jess, told the court of her hurt at the message. > The 72-year-old, whose family served in the armed forces... Th
by tasha0663 5y ago
> One person who saw the tweet, Janet Hunter Jess, told the court of her hurt at the message.
> The 72-year-old, whose family served in the armed forces...
That's just surreal. Bringing in little old ladies to testify that your tweet hurt their feelings. I really wanted this to be fake, but other outlets are running the same story. Madness.
- aeternum 5y agoIt also creates a crazy spiral of potential hurt. Like what if the tweet author had a relative that was killed by a British soldier? Would that have justified the tweet because now the hurt is somehow more equal? How do we measure relative hurt?
- throwawayboise 5y agoI'm mildly surprised a 72-year-old is so thin-skinned.
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- katzgrau 5y agoI was thinking that the story kind of read like a Monty Python sketch
- rbanffy 5y agoI can easily imagine Michael Palin defending Graham Chapman and claiming the offending comment was made as a form of art, that it should stand on its own because of its offensiveness. Of course, Graham Chapman would not have made such a bland comment.
- BizarroLand 5y agoThis is basically how I saw it also, but interspersed with scenes of a car chase and a fight breaking out and and cops evicting pensioners and beating them with their sticks and finally Graham in his old biddy outfit talking to the press afterwards mentioning how great of a country we are when we put vile hooligans like them behind bars, "Scotland is no place for that kind of rubbish!" Camera pans back as Palin turns towards it to close out the news report and in the background a swarm of naked people jog blithely into the distance.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoLaws in England are much less free on speech than in the USA. Slander and libel laws in particular in England are far stricter and easier to win a court case than in the USA.
- raxxorrax 5y agoAnd for being offensive apparently. To be honest, the US has the better approach in my opinion and Europe lacks in development or anyone that wants to prosecute others for internet comments. Yes, some older people might not jump onto this development and you should not go out of your way to be offensive to them.
- LegitShady 5y agowasn't in court for slander or libel - this is just for being offensive
- vmilner 5y agoThis is Scotland, which has a separate legal system (and more authoritarian speech-limiting laws than England.)
- donatj 5y agoI am only half kidding when I say if you are saying something and it doesn’t offend at least one old lady, it’s probably not worth saying.
- rbanffy 5y agoIt may be a good rule, but that doesn’t include comments which have no other purpose than to offend at least one old lady. In order to be defensible, you need at least a bit of content to accompany the offensive form. Offend all the old ladies you want, but make it worth their time.
- donatj 5y agoI disagree. If you're purpose is to offend old ladies, that should be your right. There is no actual harm in offence alone.
- rbanffy 5y ago> There is no actual harm in offence alone. But there's also a lack of a purpose. The reason we have free speech is that it is beneficial to society to have it. This is not one of the cases I'd like to use if I had to support its benefit for society.
- anonymouswacker 5y agoThey need to bring in witnesses that thought it was a shite joke, mate, and bloody uninspired. Sir Tom was a cunt but deserved better.
- harry8 5y agoIt's the politics of the comment that should bother more than little old ladies. It's a very, very anti-armed forces comment. I may disagree with it, but it's a completely valid point of view to hold. The idea that the armed forces, whose job it is to kill, is above this sort of criticism (wishing death, hellfire), is pretty mental and actually quite worrying. Imagine Major General Snodgrass says "we must go to war with Russia now and hang it if it's nuclear!" Someone responds that Snodgrass is an idiot, a fool, a bounder and trying to compensate for the fact that he is slightly less sexually attractive to humans than a badger that was hit by a lorry last tuesday fortnight. Snodgrass will have medals and be described by establishment types as a "National Hero." It goes with rising through the ranks. Also likely upper class for students of the British class system. Prosecuting people for being critical of a national hero who supports the class system is a thing some dream of seeing happen. This is a step forward for them. Again I don't think it's right that all UK soldiers are evil and am generally opposed to killing in any circumstances where there's a viable alternative. The idea that expressing the other side of such an opinion should cause you to be prosecuted is insane on every level. I've heard that the most celebrated holiday throughout the world (albeit on different days) is "Independence from England." Death is what soldiers deal in as even the armed forces most strident supporters will agree. It's the whole point, otherwise they'd be aid-workers.
- tim333 5y agoThere are a surprisingly large number - independence from Britain mostly - and places I wasn't aware we'd been running - I'm English. Botswana, Afghanistan, Israel etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_independence_days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_independence_...
- hilbert42 5y ago"Death is what soldiers deal in as even the armed forces most strident supporters will agree. It's the whole point, otherwise they'd be aid-workers." That's undeniably true but it's oversimplifying and cherry-picking the facts. The literature covering this subject is so vast that many libraries would not have the space to contain it all. What's contained within that information is a myriad reasons that explain why that statement isn't as straightforward as you would have us believe. It explains why nuances and fine minutiae are so important in any such discussion—and so on. You should also not forget that war and soldiering have been inseparable from the human condition from the very beginning of recorded time, furthermore, archeology supports that view much, much further back—even back to the time of the Neanderthals. As much of many of you who've never been in the position where you have to make a decision come a war may dislike the notion, war isn't going to be declared obsolete anytime soon. Only an ostrich would believe that. One wonders what you would say when an enemy was at your country's door and unless some of you actually stopped it, then not only would your life be in danger but also it's likely everything you own will be pillaged and that everything you stand for will be rubbed out in utter disillusionment not to mention that your women would most likely be raped and then killed. I say that as someone who had his rights to say no taken away by my government and was forcibly inducted into the military system against my wishes.
- wink 5y ago> He walked 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday, raising more than £32 million for the NHS, and was knighted by the Queen in recognition of his efforts. I found this more surreal. Sir Walks-A-Lot. (yes I know, but I had to read it twice.)