Zack Polanski and the guillotine

[Everanewbie]

AIBU to be sceptical that much will be done about Zack Polanski's tweet of an image of man wearing a t-shirt depicting a guillotine and the words "making plans for Nigel"?

Now I am not in favour of prosecuting people for words, and I don't want ZP sent to prison. But I would like to see this level of hate stop.

And I am finding the left to be extremely hypocritical with the violent rhetoric while simultaneously celebrating the arrest of Lucy Connelly and Graham Linehan?

So the bad thing isn’t disgusting t-shirts encouraging the murder of NF, or the promotion of this image by a mainstream political opponent, or the daily death threats (backed up by the murder of a colleague) but the pretext for NF to act in an election in a manner you disapprove of?

This is like the people who hear of an Islamic terror attack and their first reaction is not to worry about the victims and the fear, but the backlash against Muslims.

Clearly not many people here are fans of history.

18th century political cartoons were seriously vicious. A guillotine on a T-Shirt would have been considered tame in the extreme

Here's some guillotine earrings - duplicates of ones that were sold during the French revolution. I can only hope that the enterprising jewellers made sets to collect. I wonder if you could be stopped to have your thinking checked if you wore them in public ?

My very right leaning acquaintance thought that George Floyd deserved to be killed by the police.

Rules don't apply to them.

Different story if your labour though innit.
2 words
Ricky
Jones

@SilenceInside and @BuffaloCauliflower

Not challenging but do you have a link to ZP apology pls?

I am only asking as the way this was reported on the news this morning was, ZP deleted the image and said he didn't condone, but specifically refused to apologise as he hadn't generated the image.

Has he subsequently apologised for sharing it?

Two words : jury trial.

Luckily we’re not in Revolutionary France then really.

Hmm. Not a single left wing person I know thought that was funny or in any way good news. Just like no reasonable right wing person thought it was great that Jo Cox got murdered. You will find scum on both sides if the political divide who think like that. But if you choose to be friends with scum, that says more about you than it does about the average person on the left.

Of course of people at the time also didn't know they were in revolutionary France either.

However are you saying that we need to be far more sensitive than in those times ? Or that they were actually a bunch of snowflakes, and would have fainted at the cut of our political discourse ?

Or nothing at all ?

Ricky Jones was a jury trial, though, wasn’t it? And he pleaded not guilty. Lucy Connelly pleaded guilty. Hence the different outcomes. That’s a question for the legal system.

And I don’t think it is all that relevant to what Zack Polanski has done, because - again - Zack Polanski didn’t write the post.

I don’t defend gullitone imagery from
anyone. But I wouldn’t dream of defending anyone calling for politicians to be shot either.

I really strongly believe our political system would be better if it were less vicious, less divisive, less knee jerk angry.

But some of the incredibly bad faith arguments on this thread make that feel fairly hopeless.

Can’t say I gave it much more thought than what I wrote and rolling my eyes tbh

I believe there are limits to free speech so I also believe it’s appropriate for the police to look at this. Especially given the context of the recent horrific murder of AW.

NF went to the US congress to complain we are living in a police state over the LC case. Reform ‘campaign to change the law’ when it’s a right wing person but ‘want the law applied consistently’ when it’s someone they don’t like. Ok then. Extreme mental gymnastics needed to frame this as anything other than hypocrisy.

Maybe the jury should have gone to spec savers

Yes, that is absolutely fine, the hypocrites.

Maybe they should. Juries don't always make the decisions we might expect. But that's both the risk and the advantage of choosing trial by jury. If LC had done so, she might have been found not guilty.

Yes, SNP MP Kirsten Oswald and SNP MSP Kaukab Stewart were pictured grinning in front of a sign that said 'decapitate terfs'. I didn't realise at the time that Stewart McDonald MP and Alison Thewliss MP (both SNP) were also pictured in front of it. They claim they didn't see it because it was behind them but I don't believe that all four failed to notice it. They just thought it was OK.

https://news.sky.com/story/scottish-politicians-and-jk-rowling-voice-anger-over-decapitate-terfs-sign-at-pro-trans-rally-in-glasgow-12793544

Just a couple of weeks ago there was a protest outside Hackney town hall where TRAs repeatedly stabbed an effigy of Andy Burnham. Green councillors were in attendance and some addressed the crowd. This was a small rally outside a town hall. They can't have not seen the effigy stabbing. They say they're not responsible for what other people do at a protest but it's not a good look, especially as the TRA were handing out leaflets encouraging people to join the green party.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/90b8043b-0dd7-45d0-a873-dacad5c0f227?shareToken=7a1e49748fd3768b962a4b6a955060c4&ver=article

I know there are equally dreadful people on the right. I want it all to stop.

Ah George Floyd, that paragon of virtue 😉

Ah Charlie Kirk, that paragon of virtue 🙄

Thanks to this furore, I've had this ear worm all sodding day:

I’m left leaning and I found it horrific - don’t tar everyone with the same brush.

Haha me too 😅

Didn't hear about Charlie pointing a gun at the abdomen of a heavily pregnant woman.
Must have missed that bit

Non- that’s not true. He likened the extreme full burkha headdress to a letterbox.

No fan of BJ, but I don’t like wilful misinterpretation.

And my DIL is a Muslim.

Well said. Scummy people are scummy people and they are on both sides of the political spectrum.

But it’s vital that moderate people call them out every time.

So do you agree with my acquaintance that be deserved to be killed?