To think Jo Brand should be allowed to joke about anything and everything?

[noleftturn]

I don't want to live in a world where we are all censored

He didn't have hundreds of thousands at the time he posted the pug though.

Which ia why his defence was "it was a joke for ny girlfriend " rather than that it was done for comic effect for an established audience.

He still shouldn't have been fined though. Doesn't mean he can't be criticised either.

I think people can joke about what they like. Unless it’s not an actual joke. I don’t think this was a joke. Her disdain of certain politicians has been evident since forever. Would she feel any bit of sympathy if one of them had been the target of an acid attack? I doubt it. I used to like her, but now she just comes across as a vile bitter human being.

Would she feel any bit of sympathy if one of them had been the target of an acid attack?
If it was a Tory mp I guess she wouldn’t feel any sympathy whatsoever. She’d probably be pleased.

And thats why some people should have come out and criticised it from the outset instead of bunkering down into "sides" and start shouting "But Farage, Boris" etc etc

I'm glad the police are taking now further action, it shouldn't have even got to that stage, but I doubt any lessons will be learnt from this and it will be trying to police humour again in a couple of months.

If some could put aside the identity politics. The fewer people arrested for harmless words, the better IMO.

*taking no further action...

Well I am censored for comments I might make online. There are laws against some comments that would count as free speech in some places. Incitement to violence is a crime, and Jo Brand's remarks were appalling.

If some could put aside the identity politics. The fewer people arrested for harmless words, the better IMO.

I could not agree more.

Except the point about sides was exactly that, its hypocritical to shout about Jo Brand whilst saying that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage ( and Milo Y, Tommy Robinson et al) can say what they like because od freedom of speech. No one has silenced these people, and there have been very few prosecutions for incidents and none of those who were prominently in the public eye.

No one has silenced these people,

Well that is true, it then nor has Jo Brand been actually ‘silenced’.
But mass objections to a person who has spoken or written anything that be conceived as hate speech are pretty effective.
Look at Salman Rushdie who had to live in hiding with full police protection at all times. The Satanic Verses resulted in a number of deaths at protests against it, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot at and seriously wounded, its Italian translator was stabbed and its Japanese translator was murdered.
Carol Thatcher lost her job as did Roger Scruton.
These people have been punished in varying degrees and publishers and editors will be very careful about what they publish - unless of course they are trying to trip someone up.

Carol Thatcher lost her job because she broke the terms and conditions of employment. That's not loss of freedom of speech.

In light of how womens rights; and the hard won gains of years gone by appear to be slowly slipping away daily, I think women need all the access to publicity they can get. Taken against that background, the groundswell against Jo Brand could be construed as sinister.

And given her position - "woman in public eye" - I still commend her appearance as guest host on HIGFY when she roundly pointed out the lazy sexism on both teams.

If you want the right to express your opinions to others freely you have to take the other end of the stick and accept you will sometimes hear things you don't like. That's generally the contract we've struck in society. As with all social contracts, there's some give and take - hence we have limited that freedom and accepted that limit. But the bottom line is - especially in England and Wales - something not illegal is permitted. It's that simple. With reference to Brexit (since it's been mentioned 58 times so far) then surely that is the core "sovereignty" that we are supposed to be preserving ? The English ideal that laws are proscriptive, not prescriptive.

Seems a lot of people quietly like the idea of the reverse. That we can only do what is permitted. And what is not permitted is forbidden (or verboten, or interdit .....).

Also I 'm a little disappointed that mere talk of acid throwing - where no one gets hurt - can somehow lead to more outrage than the UKs role in bombing and killing innocent women and children in far away countries (for example). I know which I am more upset, outraged, shocked, fuming over. And it's not Jo Brand making some remarks, ill advised or otherwise. But it's easier to froth in online forums than actually accept we are complicit in the deaths of innocent babies. Probably because the placenames are easier to spell.

Anyway, as you were.

Zipee

She lost her job because two people were offended and reported her to someone higher up.

She apologised and said it was a joke.

Can you see the similarity between the two?

Except she used a racial slur, and broke a bbc code of conduct regarding her employment.

I also often think "it was a joke" is an excuse used later. Brand can say it eas a joke as she was appearing on a comedy show in her role as comedian. Milo Yianopolous often uses that as an excuse when he's pulled up on something he's said.

She lost her job because two people were offended and reported her to someone higher up

Just the two?

She lost her job because she refused to apologise.

Zipee

I am not going to try and defend what was said.

But I am going to point out the similarities in response both by brand and thatcher.

Yet people defend one sighting free speech yet not the other.

So Thatcher in a private place but whilst at work.made a racial slur infront of colleagues. Brand in public in her role as a comedian made a joke. There are differences.

Zipee

You do love to minimise.

You can dance around the issues all you like but people found both offensive.

We can talk bout levels of offense, consequences of actions, but the hypocrisy is that brands supporters believe that she has a right to air her views whereas others don't.

Its easy to be a hypocrite when you are the one drawing the line.

Its not minimising, you are comparing two to stall different sets of circumstances.

The same comparison to brand is Franky Boyle, Carr and Nazi Pug guy etc making jokes.

With the latter, some people where very quick to criticise and "it's only a joke" was not accepted even though that was the first line of defense for brand, some even went further and said that jokes that offend some people should never be said (we are not talking about out and out racism/roy chubby brown style comedy here either) and should be sacked, even some supporting the fact that a life long socailist making an obvious joke with his pug should go to court and face potential jail time for "hate crimes"

There has been hypocrisy that has been noted generally online, but to be fair to Zipee, once she had stepped away from her "but what about farage" team sport analysis she did agree that no one should have been fined.

I would imagine the weaponisation of the police to language tone will still be prevalent for a while yet though.

Zipee

You either want free speech or you don't, there is no middle ground.

Your "I want free speech, but" is hypocrisy.

Zipee doesn't appear to have principles she clings to, just party allegiances. That's why she can't articulate let alone defend her position.

As a pp said, they should teach logic /argumentation from GSCE level.

If you want absolute freedom of speech you have to let everyone have it.

The problem is that some people seem to want it for certain individuals and not for others.

If we want it for all. Fine.

There are differences between Boyle and Brand and Churchill and Dankula though.

Two are established comedians doing it in public for comedic effect. One was done in private but while at work, the other claimwd as a joke by an unknown at the time blogger.

Nuance

Few people argue for absolute freedom of speech. It is generally modified by the harm principle- i.e. we should only restrict words that could do actual harm. Hence, encouraging someone fragile to kill themselves is beyond the pale, as is incitement to commit violence (Jo Brand's words come nowhere near this).