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American media thinks it's "absurd" and "totalitarian" to arrest someone that is advocating for punching certain people in the balls simply for being in a locat

by ben_w 1y ago

American media thinks it's "absurd" and "totalitarian" to arrest someone that is advocating for punching certain people in the balls simply for being in a location? Sincere question for the Americans here, because these journalists are far too alien in their mindset for me: if someone was tweeting an equivalent statement about journalists, something along the lines of "anyone who identifies themselves as a journalist in a Republican space is automatically committing an act of violence, if you find one you should call the police and if that doesn't work, you should kick them in the balls", would these media still support the right to say that? The only "absurd" part of this situation is that many of the people he's advocating real violence against literally don't have the body part he's advocating punching.

mdp2021 1y ago
> American media thinks it's Ill framed. > simply for being in a location Again ill framed. > would these media still support the right Difficult to reply to this in light of actual cases, some even recent in terms of hours, mentioning which would be potentially inflammatory here (I don't shy away from "we need to know this", but there has to be an "intellectual curiosity" context). > The only "absurd" part of this situation You are both diminishing the specifics and their context: for example the quality of the written law, that Andrew Doyle¹ in a parallel article calls «hopelessly subjective notion» (and «The Communications Act further prohibits words that cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”»), with the burden practical and theoretical, possible source of arbitrary judgement, put on the system («Freedom of Information requests by The Times revealed that over 12,000 people are arrested each year for offensive comments posted online». Just preceeded by «We have seen journalists visited by police for wrongthink; citizens imprisoned for posting memes; prosecutions for controversial Halloween costumes; teenagers convicted and jailed for offensive jokes»). ¹ https://unherd.com/2025/09/the-shameful-arrest-of-graham-linehan/ https://unherd.com/2025/09/the-shameful-arrest-of-graham-lin...

by ben_w 1y ago

mdp2021 1y ago

> American media thinks it's Ill framed. > simply for being in a location Again ill framed. > would these media still support the right Difficult to reply to this in light of actual cases, some even recent in terms of hours, mentioning which would be potentially inflammatory here (I don't shy away from "we need to know this", but there has to be an "intellectual curiosity" context). > The only "absurd" part of this situation You are both diminishing the specifics and their context: for example the quality of the written law, that Andrew Doyle¹ in a parallel article calls «hopelessly subjective notion» (and «The Communications Act further prohibits words that cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”»), with the burden practical and theoretical, possible source of arbitrary judgement, put on the system («Freedom of Information requests by The Times revealed that over 12,000 people are arrested each year for offensive comments posted online». Just preceeded by «We have seen journalists visited by police for wrongthink; citizens imprisoned for posting memes; prosecutions for controversial Halloween costumes; teenagers convicted and jailed for offensive jokes»). ¹ https://unherd.com/2025/09/the-shameful-arrest-of-graham-linehan/ https://unherd.com/2025/09/the-shameful-arrest-of-graham-lin...