We will not let people who spread poison and hate....

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

I don't know why, but there is something that quite disturbs me about that expession. It makes me feel uneasy and I don't quite know what it means.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Whilst I agree with your sentiment, alas we don't live in a unified and coherent country. At a basic level, our good old friend Marx wrote a book that divided the community into two groups and used some quite emotive language. Then we have relegious division between our own versions of christian beliefs... exploited to the full by the some relegious leaders.

Of late (the last 60 years) we have had quite large scale population movement involving people who look different by the simple fact of their skin tone yet who are, underneath pretty much the same as everyone. After all we all have to sleep, eat, shit and make babies.

There should be no reason for division yet is seems to persist. Why then do people tend to identify a difference and separate themselves from each other around that difference? Genuine question.

Here then comes the dichotomy. If you tell someone they are not allowed to do something, they are quite likely to do it, even if only to thumb a nose at authority.Tell people they must embrace someone they percieve as slightly different and they are likely to react against you. How do we stop people spreading division and distrust, without trying to dictate what they can think?

Solve that and we may move forward.

[supersoftcuddlytoys]

It disturbs me too OP. It's one of the Liberal Left’s codewords for ‘I hate free speech’.

[thecatfromjapan]

Loving your rhetorical strategies:

1. Start a thread questioning a request to end hate language in mainstream politics, to halt the co-option of the mianstream by hate politics.
   

1. Identify a call to reclaim the mainstream with the exclusion of (certain - mainly hate-) speech within political life at all.
   

1. Identify a call for the detoxification of the mainstream with an attack on democracy.
   

1. Use as instances of 'extremism' lots of issues which have been interrogated by the Left.
   

1. You get to problematise a call for the de-toxification of mainstream politics whilst subtly identifying hate politics with the Left.
   

Nice.

Slippery.

You know, I think the resistance to hate speech entering the political mainstream isn't going to prevent the interrogation of those particular issues.

And, yes, Ego is spot on that the fundamental manouevre identified with the toxifying of the political mainstream has been dehumanisation - the denial of being to some humans - which is dangerous in the mainstream.

It's simply a call for the mainstream to leave the politics of hate to the lunatic fringe - where it rightly belongs. For mainstream politicians to stop lending the hate-mongers a veneer of respectability.

Despite what recent politics suggests, the majority of the UK electorate are sickened by all this hate. We want the mainstream to stop pandering to the extremist haters.

[thecatfromjapan]

It's not censorship to ask mainstream politicians and mainstream political platforms to let the hate-filled few go back to preaching their hate in the corners of political life.

[CoolforKittyCats]

The question of the moment. And not one that is easily answered.

I think part of the problem is that people don't listen much.

You may not agree with their view but at least listen to their point.

Too often as soon as people don't agree or like what they hear the debate gets closed

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Cat...
you give me credit for something I am not trying to do..
Yes slippery, intended.... no.
More like be careful what you ask for, you may not like what you get.

I am thinking aloud. .. and not entirely comfortable with where I am getting to.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Ego,
picking up your last paragraph of the quote... nail head...

Calling people racists will not make them change their minds. Nor will it help.

[PausingFlatly]

I've also had a quote going round in my head since Orlando, from Bill Clinton after the assassination attempt on US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords:

"anything any of us says falls on the unhinged and the hinged alike"

Thoughtful article about that attack, which seems only too relevant: The Mob, Violence, and Lone Gunmen.
"Loughner isn’t a singular case, he is an actor in a landscape, a landscape that grows increasingly hostile towards [target of choice], one which is amplified by the power of technology. The power of the internet has yielded not smart mobs, but really really dangerous ones."

[supersoftcuddlytoys]

Who decides? The law decides, who else? Calls for violence are illegal – rightly so. Everything else is fair. Including what's stupid and wrong, this must be allowed and put out there to debate. Because it cuts both ways.

The Muslim cleric preaching to hundreds of men. That any woman going out in public not covered up, is asking to be raped and is no better than 'uncovered meat'? (I didn't make that up btw) Ought to be arrested. What is that other than hate? The talk radio show host recommending rescue boat crews crews to ignore people from capsized vessels struggling for life in the sea - should be arrested also. Common sense, non-political judgement has to come into it.

[supersoftcuddlytoys]

Oh dear, this is all sounding like some awful, social studies lecture now.. I'm so done with all that.... Sorry - not interested.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

My DP used to work with a chap from Iran. One day when the Ayatollahs were at their height, he took the family out for a pic-nic.. They drove into the desert.. (There is a hell of of desert in Iran). When the car ran out of fuel, they got out and walked. Two years later they fetched up in England and he managed to get a job where DP met him at a local health authority in the admin department.

He was so grateful of the help this country gave him.

[Cosmiccreepers203]

I don't think it is too much of a stretch to ask adults to debate intelligently and respectfully. It's about not de-humanising the people who disagree with you. People who do this are giving themselves permission to treat the group who oppose them as animals.

Why is it so hard to disagree with someone but not make them an enemy? I think the message from all the tributes to Jo Cox is that we need to end the politics of fear.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Cosmic,
In answer to your question, I suspect it is because it takes a lot of courage and maturity to be able to do what you ask.. As Ego says, there are voices not being heard... Probably those who feel the same as SoftToys but who don't have the ability with words...

Pity that SoftToys left the debate as I think they (note gender neutral just in case) made a very useful contribution...

[Cosmiccreepers203]

That's the thing. Once you start using phrases like 'loony left', or start comparing people to Hilter, you're no longer debating openly but seeking to derail a discussion with overly emotive rhetoric.
I don't see a problem with asking people to debate in a more reasoned and measured manner. I don't think anyone is saying no to free speech. They're just asking people to think about the way they phrase their argument.

For example: it is fine to say that you are pro-Brexit because you are concerned about the impact of immigration. It is inflammatory and deeply wrong to say that immigrants are bad people and if we don't leave Europe our freedom, children and lives will be in danger. Be against immigration. That is fair enough. Just don't uses racist, bigoted, inflammatory language to make your point.
An opinion doesn't have to be phrased offensively or with hatred or malice to make the point.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Again I agree but I am not sure how to address some pretty thorny issues. The Calderdale convictions this morning, together with those in Rochdale as well as the Cologne problems seem to point at a divergence of culture between freedom of individual choice and a more prescriptivist culture that seeks to denigrate those who do not conform to its prescriptions.

Sadly, such events show there is a foundation of truth to say that young women are in danger in areas where there is a large number of people who's culture is entwined with notions that a respectable woman is always covered up and that a woman who shows any skin is a prostitute.

As always it is a matter of how to use measured language to separate emotion from recognising a problem.

[BeakyMinder]

The Calderdale convictions this morning, together with those in Rochdale as well as the Cologne problems

The word convictions is a reminder that our justice system is capable of tackling these problems. Rochdale was a wake-up call - cultural relativism is on its way out.

[Roonerspism]

The "Cologne problems" wee exactly that. No one knew what to do, so they were denied and brushed away.

The huge issues remain. Debate am be intelligent and sensible. But liberalism means we are no longer able to.

It is this that fuels the far right and it is a huge huge pity

[BeakyMinder]

No, there's no debate at all, it's just swept under the carpet, as the many lengthy Mumsnet threads on this topic testify