Free Speech

He also comes over as being on the side of Fascists in general, saying that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima 'when the war was over'.

When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the war was still raging in Asia, and people were dying in their tens of thousands every week, many of them of hunger, due to the economic collapse overseen by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Cross post @lechiffre55 !

Do we have the journalists and presenters nowadays who could do this? I wonder sometimes.

I cannot help but think if Mosley was still alive and the BBC had him on again today it would go something like this:

Inshallah, welcome my friend. Tell us about what the dirty Jews have been up to.....

How the mighty have fallen.

The Mosley interview shows that free speech can be had, provided you have someone to place it in context.

In using his free speech, Mosley exposes himself as an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathiser and Holocaust denier - by letting him speak and keeping context in place, Frost cleverly let the old bigot show himself for what he really was.

Perhaps a good starting point is to make a distinction between situations where there is scope for challenge and reply between equals, and situations where there is a power imbalance and an assumption of authority.

A teacher promoting racist ideas in class is at an advantage over the children, both because the teacher is the one who is supposed to know what's what, and because they can make life very difficult for dissenters.

A discussion or debate, on TV or YouTube or in the flesh - between people with opposing views is fine even if the views are obnoxious, so long as it isn't conducted in a way that skews the outcome (biased chairing, audience packed with one side's supporters etc). Operation let them speak and get their arse handed to them in public. All good.

I'm a bit wary about the policing of people's personal social media in order to use it against them at work. Where do you draw the line? "I wouldn't want my kids taught by a racist" sounds reasonable; at least racism is definitely contrary to equality law. But what about "I wouldn't want my kids taught by somebody Far Right" ... "by anybody right wing" ... by a Tory voter"....? Bearing in mind that if the political wind changes, but it's still acceptable to police social media, that could become "by a Communist"... "by a loony Leftie"... " by anyone who votes Labour."

Luckily we don't have free speech in the UK, so it's nothing to worry about.

Hurrah for the blackshirts !

(Yes, it was NTNOCN - because I am old enough to not only remember Oswald Mosely shuffling off his mortal coil, but my DMs thoughts on what an odious man he was.)

I'm not an absolute free speech advocate. When I was young in N. Ireland I naively thought people would stop following Ian Paisley as the truth about him and his cronies came out. if anything he got more followers

@SerendipityJane
Jeeze they look so young, and less well cushioned there.
That was Not The 9 O'Clock news yes?

That's exactly the right approach. Mockery. There's nothing more inflated egos hate than mockery and derision.
I was shocked by those newspaper quotes they read out.

A while back a friend of mine linked this to me via social media.
It's an Interview on the BBC from 1967 where David Frost interviews Oswald Mosley in front of a live studio audience. It's a remarkable piece of history.

I knew Oswald Mosley was "bad", brown shirts, etc.. but I didn't really know anything about him at all. Watching the interview gave me a huge amount of insight in understanding why I'd been told he was bad. People can tell you things, but there's nothing as informative as seeing it for yourself.

I'll link the interview below. If like me you knew nothing about him, it really does explain what an absolute dangerous nut case he was. He's sat in the studio being interviewed by Frost, the audience are holding his feet to the fire. Bear in mind this was the BBC in the 1960s, by the standards of the time this interview was practically a riot in the studio. At 29.29 in the video below, they show footage during the interview of Mosley speaking. It's jaw dropping. People get called Nazis all the time today, but that footage at 29.29, yeah that's when you get to call someon a Nazi and it's not hyperbole.

To link this back to your post @SwirlyGates
By seeing this interview I properly understood how bad Mosley really was. It wasn't just people saying it, I saw for myself. This is why we need free speech. I can see people being uncomfortable about watching Mosley, being uncomfortable about others choosing to watch Mosley being interviewed. But for me it was very important, and I now understand something I didn't before.
Free speech is important. It lets us see for ourselves what the other person said, how they said it, why they said it, and make our own minds up.
If some idiot wants to speak out to prove how much of an idiots he is, let him, record it, preserve it, let everyone see. Keep it for history so people in the future can see for themselves. It's really important that we know what these people think.

In the modern context of this forum we have Project Let Them Speak. It's the same thing. Let everyone know just exactly what these people think, say, and the violence and intimidation they use to try and force their way. I want everyone to see it. It doesn't reflect well on them.

If anyone wants to watch it, link here. If you don't want to watch the whole thing skip to 29.29 and you'll understand everything you need to know about who Oswald Mosley was.

I think context is everything when it comes to free speech. I think, as a general principle, people should be allowed to express racist views. It's not something that should be against the law. On the other hand, I don't think a teacher should be allowed to express racist views in the classroom. I'd also have strong reservations about a teacher expressing racist views anywhere, including social media. After all, do you want a racist teaching kids?

I think there are a number of very grey areas, though.