Jonathan Pie: "Free Speech Police" video

[SPOFS]

m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=REaaC8y4GR8

Pie is a comedian and social commentator. In this video, he touches on the Graham Linehan case and makes several good points about free speech.

Wow! Good for him. It's so serious, it's not even comedy.

Good. Now a man's noticed the pattern maybe someone'll do something about it.

I love him, i didn't know about the other stuff he talked about,that is really scary. WE are in a police state.

Yeah, I'm gonna look up some of the other cases he mentioned. Was a teenager really put in jail for re-posting a joke about MM?

Yeah, I'm gonna look up some of the other cases he mentioned.

The bloke with the Nazi dog is particularly irritating because he explains the joke at the start of the video, so no-one could be under the impression he was genuinely trying to promote fascism. Here is Pie's thoughts on that one:

Love him. So glad he has made this video.

I'm not keen on him. Some of the stuff he does is good but then he does other things like that interview where he claimed misogyny is nowhere near as pervasive as women think it is. Thanks for that insight Mr Straight White Man...

Wow, it really does show that we have to defend ALL free speech as a principle, doesn't it? Even the things we don't agree with. Bloody annoying tho, when the police are so stretched and not investigating basic crimes, that they can waste their time on nonesense like this!

@SamanthaBrique

I agree. I didn't like his wage gap video, but in general he's pretty spot on.

Pye is rightand the trans thing is of course ridiculous, but Glinner is a virtue-seeking arsehole of the worst kind. Glinner went after Count Dankula with all guns blazing after that Nazi pug joke. Pursued him on over social media, applauded and celebrated his arrest on the grounds of “hate speech” and even tried to shut down Dank’s legal funding campaign. Apparently freedom of speech only applies when it’s officially sanctioned by the god of comedy Graham Linehan. He has played his own part in helping to create this repulsive atmosphere of repressing free speech, and now it has come back to bite him on the arse. As horrific as all this is, there is a massive element of schaudenfraude to this. See what happens when you abandon your free speech principles in the name of easy popularity, Graham?

Glinner went after Count Dankula with all guns blazing after that Nazi pug joke. Pursued him on over social media, applauded and celebrated his arrest on the grounds of “hate speech” and even tried to shut down Dank’s legal funding campaign.

That's certainly interesting, I wonder whether Glinner would admit he was wrong having been reported to the police for 'giving offence' himself?

Thing is, Dankula took the piss out of the gassing of Jews. When I first heard of it I wasn't so worried- thinking this was an extreme case, and it must have been more than just one joke. It's only the use of the law to silence people in the last year or so that has made me realise how bad it is for any joke to be a crime.

It can be hard to defend the freedoms of those whose actions we find abhorrent. Plenty on FWR had fairly illiberal views on what should be done to combat misogyny a few years ago and might have a very different view now.

I'm prepared to give Glinner, and anyone else changes their mind, the benefit of the doubt.

Ace. Always to the point.

I love Jonathan Pie, he was brought to my attention by my teenager when he was maybe 16, 17. Which leads me to the thought that Pie's videos are watched by the age group that are pretty vulnerable to the transagenda. More power to his elbow!

Really agree with you hilbobaggins I think this was the point of the Brendan O Neil Spiked article defending Glinner?
I know nothing really about the Dankula case, but I agree with the remarks in this video about the police cautions and your point on the current climate - 'phobic', 'abuse', 'hate speech' - bandied about and thrown at anyone not espousing a particular set of principles. This applies to all shades on the political spectrum too, as I don't think anyone can say that it's just certain view points who are trying to stifle discussion and shame people out of voicing opinions.
I noticed Jess Phillips tweeted her dismay about the Wellcome 'womxn' debacle saying "as if internet dissent now replaces public policy". It does seem that this is the age we are living in now.

Dankula has made a video saying that Glinner has the right to say anything he wants to say. (He was also smirking fit to burst about what’s happened to Glinner.). Dankula completely gets freedom of speech and genuinely supports everybody’s right to say anything they wish, no matter how objectionable. Glinner doesn't - or at least he didn’t. I’ll be interested to see what he says next.

Glinner has been great on trans issues but he was an arsehole over Dankula. He didn’t just support the conviction - he protested against his right to appeal.

I don’t think we are in a position in 2018 to pick and choose who’s free speech to support, so long as it doesn’t include imminent calls to violence.

I hate it that the fight for free speech - in the UK at least - has fallen to the Sp!ked crew. The Spectaror and the Mail might be on our side on the trans issue but they are not free speech champions universally.

I think it would be interesting to see how many people who have supported censorship in the past but have now fallen foul of it have fundamentally reconsidered their position and how many still support censorship but think they have been unfairly targeted.

Yes. Spiked, and Brendan o’Neil particularly, is fantastic on the subject of free speech. It’s people like Brendan, Dankula, Sargon of Akkad and Jordan Peterson who have really caught my attention in the last 2 years because of their stance on free speech and it has really opened my eyes to the danger of seeking to control language and speech. Politically I am at sea because they’re Brexiteer UKIP type people (well maybe not Peterson) but that matters less than the free speech issue in my opinion. And because of them I have come a long way in trying to understand that different perspective.

What I find very interesting is the fact that these are the people my 15 year old nephew and his friends are also watching. My nephew is able to describe in a very articulate way why the Nazi pug joke is important, and he even contributed to Dankula’s legal fund. It makes me think that the backlash is coming.

How could Glinner protest Dankula’s right to appeal?? How could he in any way think that was appropriate? That’s absolutely disgusting. I distinctly remember scenes from Father Ted that riffed on Hitler and made Nazi jokes. Fuck you Glinner.

What I find very interesting is the fact that these are the people my 15 year old nephew and his friends are also watching.

My 17 year old is hugely into the Joe Rogan podcasts, I'm sure they are familiar with a lot of the free speech issues via this. When I look at him and his friends I can't help but think their generation are going to view things differently to the one before them. My hunch is they are going to be liberal but not especially left leaning (if that makes sense).

A purely anecdotal small sample I realise.

Liberal but not left-leaning sounds great to me OvaHere.

This is good. Not necessarily to my taste but nails the free speech issue, and at a time when police are telling people to let burglars apprenhended in one’s home go free, the waste of resources is also topical.

‘Pye’ speaks to a different crowd to O’Neil. Similar age groups, different parts of the political compass.

Linehan has clearly been inconsistent, but life is a learning curve and every day is a school day.

Most of us started out as transallies, after all.

I got the impression that Linehan was also trying to persuade other comedians not to support Dankula, leaving Pie and the small number of comedians who spoke in support of his right to make an offensive joke out on a limb.

Dankular is not my cup of tea - those ear lobes! - but that case shows up how weak our right to free speech is, and what a mess the law is. No one reported the video. The police found it and went looking for some Jewish people to be offended. Similar situation in the case of the teenager who posted rap lyrics. If Dankula had hired a theatre and performed with the pug on stage it would have been legal. I hadn't heard about the MM joke case. It's horrendous. Our free speech is just what's left when all the mish mash of laws have done their thing, and what's left is getting smaller.

I have been surprised that the usual pro free speech people haven't picked up the issues with the 'debate' on the GRA. There have been some major breaches of the basic principle. Eg. I'm surprised not to have seen it mentioned by the bloke behind the godless spellchecker. I think its because the GRA issue has been playing out within feminism. There is almost no overlap between feminism and the pro free speech people (whatever you would call them). Hilbobagins above listed Spiked, Peterson, etc as important on this issue - those people often take an anti-feminist stance. But we need those people to recognise the problems that are happening here.

Tom Walker who plays Pie gave a good long interview to Krishnan Guru Murthy. Its on YouTube. He said that the left have abandoned free speech and left it to the right/alt right types, and that is really bad. He's right.

Maybe we need a Feminists For Free Speech alliance.

I was watching or listening or reading something recently (and I can’t remember where, it’s really bugging me!) that they were saying that ‘the young’ don't bother with the news any more, the get their political insights about the state of the country from comedians these days.

This thread seems to provide evidence that it’s definitely a trend - and one to be exploited...

And at the same time even the once-edgy comedians such as Sarah Silverman are wary of getting on the wrong side of the woke.