To be appalled that Piers Morgan has said something I agree with?

[twattymctwatterson]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/piers-morgan-ewan-mcgregor-accuse-paedophile-loving-hypocrite-good-morning-britain-no-show-t2-a7543911.html

Don't get me wrong, Morgan is an utter twunt and his rant about the Woman's March was vile... BUT, McGregor wasn't taking such a principled stance when he was working with/singing the praises of the man who raped and sodomised a child. He's a hypocrite.

Putting my tin hat on now!

most left wingerss are dangerous fucking totalitarians

Now your just being silly.

They could all start a Catural Revolution?

Nope - struggling to top Chairman Miaow

Now your just being silly.

No I'm not. Have a look back at the rise of the Nazis. Attacking the homes and businesses of their opponents. Threatening them. Spreading false rumours. Censoring or attempting to censor media which does not concur with their world view. Disrupting meetings of their political opponents often violently. Attacking dissenters and silencing criticism. Identifying, policing and harrassing those who do not adhere to their dogma. Citizens denounced each other for not conforming to the authorities, workplaces, societies and they were shunned by their communities and peers.

Basically they were past masters at 'you can't say that' culture.

Ditto the second 'reds under the bed' scare where citizens again denounced each other and people deemed too left wings were driven out of jobs and blackballed from employment and shunned by their communities and peers. Many were investigated and branded guilty of 'unamerican' activities on spurious grounds.

And obviously in the USSR dissenters were massively persecuted and censorship was rife.

And in Apartheid era SA dissenters were imprisoned, censored and intimidated.

We're at a relatively thin end of the wedge at the moment, but the left is lobbying more and more for that wedge to get thicker and thicker. Prominent examples I can think of is Tim Hunt being essentially forced to resign from his post at UCL when they refused to support him after (false) accusations of sexism were made against him. The campaign to have Laura Kuenssnerg sacked for apart sexism and misogyny because she doesn't give Corbyn the glowing praise he apparently deserves.

The frankly deplorable trend of 'no platforming' at Universities has brown shirts written all over it.

But the typical left wing response to this is 'Aaaah, but we are wrong and they are right'. But every single damn organisation in history that's done the same thing has been convinced they have a right to do it because they are inherently in the right.

My general rule of thumb is that if a movement feels that to succeed it has to silence, smear and intimidate it's opponents rather than convincing people they are right through persuasion despite arguments to the contrary they probably have a piss poor argument in the first place.

This is why we remember Martin Luther King and Gandhi is heroes but not Stalin or Mussolini.

Well, of the four examples you gave there, the Nazis, McCarthyists and National Party in SA were of the right.
I completely disagree with the harassment of Kuenssberg, by the way.
Where is the hysteria against Gina Miller coming from? The right wing press of course. The same ones that lambast our independent judiciary. The same press that whips up the simpleminded foot soldiers of the extreme right into a frenzy, that end in death threats and the murder of a Labour MP. Anna Soubry is also getting death threats from right wing nutters.
You're presenting the actions of the NUS as in some way equivalent to the current triumph of the right. Trump and the Brexiteers will do far more damage than a few students.

The frankly deplorable trend of 'no platforming' at Universities has brown shirts written all over it.

Lol. If you think that the Nazis came to power by refusing to share platforms with their opponents, then you're truly away with the fairies.

But the typical left wing response to this is 'Aaaah, but we are wrong and they are right'. But every single damn organisation in history that's done the same thing has been convinced they have a right to do it because they are inherently in the right.

This paragraph makes no sense

"The day there's a march against Hilary, her victim blaming, support of a rapist, corruption and pay to play pocket lining THEN I will take them seriously."

Eh?

As megatherium says, the march was prompted by a misogynistic man gaining power to implement his anti-women policies (as per the abortion funding withdrawal already signed).

If you want to suggest a March against someone now a private citizen, why not March against bill himself, rather than Hillary ?

Step away from Breitbart, Bill

bill you've completely lost me. What is your definition of 'the left'? I would say the Nazis were more to the right surely.

I don't want to second guess here, but some on the right argue that the Nazis were more of the left than the right. The Federation of Conservative Students used to maintain this position.
There was a socialist, Strasserite, strand to early National Socialism. Hitler had them shot, they were purged by 1935. Fascism's appeal to the bourgeois elements of society, their maintainance of capitalism once they gained power, their strong allegiance to the idea of nationhood and race above all other; 'blood and soil'. Their ideological hatred of communism. They were firmly on the extreme right.

Polanski's victim forgave him I think, didn't she say she wished everyone would forget it?

I think a lot of people have some not sympathy but perhaps understanding because of his horrific life experiences. Your mother dying in Auschwitz, seeing your father arrested by the Nazis, existing alone as a 7 year old Jewish kid on the run in 1940s Poland, your pregnant wife being murdered. It isn't an excuse, of course it isn't, but I think some people maybe feel it is understandable that he is a bit screwed up.

I don't know if I've ever seen any of his films other than Rosemary's Baby so I haven't got an opinion of if he's a genius but I do think he is probably a very damaged man.

Woody Allen was also one of Polanski's sympathisers when he was arrested in Switzerland (he was later released as they couldn't extradite him back to the US to serve his sentence).
McGregor didn't just work with Polanski (after he was found guilty and admitted raping a child), he spoke out in support of him.
He said he was "shocked and saddened" when Polanski was arrested in Zurich.
He got off though and was not sent back to the USA to serve his time.

He is 83 now and won't go to prison. He paid his victim off (eventually) and has got off with it. He can't return to the US as will be sent to prison, but he is loaded and living in luxury in Switzerland.

Even offenders who are deemed to not have capacity get punished for raping children - if it's not prison, the face being detained in a secure hospital.

Polanski is living in luxury, makes Hollywood movies and have the luvvies fawn over him.

I have no idea if his victim has forgiven him - still wouldn't defend him if she has.

She hasn't forgiven him as such but has said she doesn't see any point in him being punished any further as he apologised and spent some time in jail when he was originally arrested. Poor woman may have been exasperated at being asked about it and wants it dropped.

Which of course doesn't admonish him.

It could be worse, it could have been Donald trump.

eh?

Lois, I read she had forgiven him. She gave interviews when she wrote a book and said she exchanged friendly e mails with him. She said she thought what he did was wrong but didn't think he should be sent to jail.

It was widely reported a few years ago.

PickledCauliflower, not defending him. Explaining why some people may feel some understanding for a damaged man.

Wasnt her mother involved in the set up,of it?

God I hope her mother wasn't. How horrific would that be.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_case

Long story short.

Mother agreed to her DD actings as a model. During one of the shoots the assaults happened. He denied all 5 charges. In a plea bargain all the charges were dropped, including rape and sodomy, and he accepted a guilty plea for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

He then fled the country when it became clear that rather than probation, he would get a short jail term and then deportation.

Well she's a bigger woman than I am for forgiving him but hopefully she's found some peace. Horrendous thing to go through.

Pyong, other victims have come forward since. And as part of the case several dubious photos of Polanski with other underage girls were submitted to the judge and were being looked into. There is a distinct possibility that Polanski fled because he knew there was a strong likelihood of further charges and more victims coming forward.

The victims who have come forward since were linked to Polanski and gave very plausible stories including locations Polanski frequented and people he associated with. And not high profile locations and people that could have been creamed off the press.

Lol. If you think that the Nazis came to power by refusing to share platforms with their opponents, then you're truly away with the fairies.

No platforming isn't refusing to share a platform it's denying a platform. Do you have any idea how the Nazis behaved towards Communists, Socialists, Trade Unionists or artists and authors who they deemed as subversive? Even before they gained power they would stop them speaking, break up their meetings, intimidate venues so they were too scared to host meetings. Destroying books and art of those they disapproved of and scaring others into not stocking or displaying them? Smearing opponents with false allegations. Forcing opponents out of jobs and harrassing their employers. Using intimidation to silence opponents and criticism and curtail freedom of speech through fear.

The way a large majority of the left behave towards those who step out of line from their orthodoxy is very, very similar.

bill you've completely lost me. What is your definition of 'the left'? I would say the Nazis were more to the right surely.

I'm not making any comment on whether the Nazis were left or right wing because it's a complicated question I'm not getting into. But what I am saying is that the tactics today's left use against their opponents have a hell of a lot in common with Nazi tactics pre-1933. Who knows if they would go further? Post Brexit there was an awful lot of talk on the left about disenfranchising groups who tend not to support them like the working classes.

This paragraph makes no sense

I'll try and explain it more simply then. Every group in history which has acted as an oppressive force which has silenced their opponents, denied their right to hold different views and sometimes even exist have believed that they have a right to do that because their views are inherently right so no opposition should be tolerated. And their opposition are painted as inherently bad and evil who need stamping out and their views oppressing to protect the views of the repressing group who believe that they alone hold the correct and right views. The left does that today and justifies its attacks on opponents by portraying themselves as inherently 'good' and 'correct' which gives them a right to attack those who dissent from them.

If you point out that their tactics are similar to previous repressive organisations the response is always 'Ah, but they were very wrong and we, however are completely right'.

But every single one of those regimes believed the same thing when they were repressing their opponents - that they were right and they held the ultimate truth so their oppression was justified.

But it never bloody is. If the only way you can promote your ideology is by silencing your opposition that's because it's a pretty shit ideology and you'll never be able to convince enough people to support it if you have even a halfway decent opposition.