...To Think Free Speech is Dead in the UK

[RockyBayEve]

After 3 free speech advocates American Brittany Pettibone, her Austrian boyfriend and Canadian journalist Lauren Southern are detained by UK border force, barred from speaking at Speakers Corner, deported or barred entry.

yes I do know my history thanks, I studied it at university.
sorry but this whole 'oh its just like Nazi Germany' is so ...predictable.
No it really isn't.

"So, you are saying that these people are responsible for brown people being killed? or being discriminated against at work?"

Yes - they've made it acceptable to be open about hating Muslims and immigrants and blaming them - as a group - for the problems this country is facing. They are contributing to a situation where people are increasingly encouraged feel that prejudice and discrimination is widely shared, socially acceptable and is morally justified.

yes I do know my history thanks, I studied it at university

Great. So you know that the camps came much later then. I am surprised that someone who studied history at university would come out with a statement about the camps opening up.

It doesn’t start with camps!

The ‘punish a muslim’ scheme offers points for pulling off women’s scarves, throwing acid at them and bombing mosques. The anti muslim sentiments are taking a very sinister.

Why is throwing acid at a woman in a hijab something to be celebrated and rewarded? What next? A concentration camp? It is chilling that there are people who would love for history to repeat itself, be it apartheid, holocaust or any other heinous event.

But the rise of the extreme right wing is happening. They are vocal, strongly and openly anti-immigrant (not just anti-immigration), and virulently anti-Islamic.

You're smug and complacent if you feel Europe is somehow forever now immune from the outbreaks of genocide and ethnic and religious violence that the rest of the world experiences on a regular basis.

sorry but this whole 'oh its just like Nazi Germany' is so ...predictable

Enemies of the People...Who said that?

Was it the Nazis? or the Daily Mail? Or Trump?

Not yet dead but possibly if one expresses an opinion they stand the risk of vile and abusive responses

" The first concentration camp was Dachau, established on March 20, 1933 in the southern German town of the same name (10 miles northwest of Munich). "

OK? so not 'much later' then if we are talking about Germany in the 1930s. Which rather predictably, we are....

They are still free to say what they want aren't they?

Of course it’s not okay! And of course those things should not be celebrated!

If you’re going to argue, though, that my being firmly on the side of freedom of thought and freedom of expression (with some limitations) means I agree with everything everyone says or thinks, then we will have to just agree to disagree.

"no not really. Have any camps been opened?"

Stage 4 of the 10 stages leading to genocide (from Genocide Watch)

"4. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. The majority group is taught to regard the other group as less than human, and even alien to their society. They are indoctrinated to believe that “We are better off without them.” The powerless group are equated with filth, impurity, and immorality."

And it's predictable because it's true, and because we've seen it all before.

that is interesting minifingerz..thank you.

OK? so not 'much later' then if we are talking about Germany in the 1930s. Which rather predictably, we are

Did you even read that wiki entry?

It was first used to hold political prisoners in 1933.

"Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and emigrants were sent to Dachau after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws which institutionalized racial discrimination. In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex capable of holding 6,000 prisoners. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938.[13] More political opponents, and over 11,000 German and Austrian Jews were sent to the camp after the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938. Sinti and Roma in the hundreds were sent to the camp in 1939, and over 13,000 prisoners were sent to the camp from Poland in 1940.[12][14]"

I wonder how easy it was to pass the Nuremburg Laws? What kind of environment was needed? How easy to create that environment?

And how easy to turn a blind eye because you didn't want to get involved. Because you were afraid of repercussions? Or because you weren't the kind of person that the Nazis persecuted?

You don’t have to go back to the Nazis or Stalin to see the damage giving a platform to extremism can do. We’ve seen terrorist attacks inspired by hate preachers. We’ve seen an MP murdered in the street. The right to free speech does not mean anyone can say anything without protest. It does not mean that should be given a public platform that normalises those views.

that is interesting minifingerz..thank you

If you studied history, that shouldn't be interesting.
That should be something you know. History teaches us that.

The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

yes I read it.
You said that the 'camps came much later' which patently was not true, as I have shown.
or do you mean it was only political prisoners at the beginning , so it was OK? or what?

no Kalapattar, I have not read that genocide description that Minifingerz quoted from, that is why I found it interesting....

The point she was making was that it started as one thing, that was somewhat more appealing to the masses, before it gradually evolved into the horror of the holocaust.

Freedom of expression is an EU rule, freedom of speech is American.

oh I thought she was saying there were no camps 'until much later'.

I don't know who these people are, but a quick look on google suggests they're "internet personalities". Plenty of selfies and tweets and social media presence, no doubt wrapped up in all of that breitbart/infowars/alt right nonsense that seems to go down a storm in the US. I think it's funny that we've decided to tell them to piss off, we're not that stupid and we've got more important things to deal with.

You said that the 'camps came much later' which patently was not true, as I have shown. or do you mean it was only political prisoners at the beginning , so it was OK? or what

The atmosphere needed for people like homosexuals, the disabled, emigrants, Gypsies and Jews needed to be cultivated. The propaganda, demonising, othering etc....all took time.

Political prisoners is one thing. But it took time for the atmosphere to be created for the other groups to go there.