True free speech would include the freedom to say things that you and me find truly awful.
Also, you can lock me in a room and play Beanie Man records at me all day for a month and I can guarantee you I will not go out and shoot anyone. For that to happen the underlying problems have to be already there.
You see nothing hateful in “drown the faggot,” “burn the faggot” and “kill the faggot with a laser”? Really? What word would you use to describe the sentiment of lyrics calling for your violent and painful death? Loving? Compassionate?
Not being an expert on British law (and I suspect you’re not either) I can’t say with certainty that the guarantees of free speech in Great Britain trump the rights of those targeted by the lyrics. It’s irrelevant anyway, since Brighton is not seeking to ban through legal menas either the artists or their music. Encouraging a store not to sell music by particular performers is not a ban.
This is not a ban, regardless of your cutesie-pie attempts to dress it up as one with your coy single-quotes.
Where is the “hypocrisy”
I don’t think any of them should be banned. AFAIK, none of them have been banned in Brighton or anywhere else in Britain. Neither have these reggae performers, for you see, encouraging stores not to sell their records is in no way banning them.
It is possible to ban records in Britain - they fall under the remit of the Obscene Publications Act, and if they advocate specific criminal acts then they can be prosecuted (but, ironically, not banned) for incitement etc.
What has been happening to these dancehall acts is that they are finding it very hard to get promotion outside the (extensive) pirate radio network.
Local authority owned venues (very common outside london) won’t allow them to play at their venues and private promoters find it hard to get insurance for this kind of act (this has happened in the past to acts as diverse as The Sex Pistols and So Solid Crew). So the music is restricted, if not actually banned.
Also, if rap acts have managed to pursuade an entire generation of “yoofs” that being a criminal pimp is the acme of human achievement along with knocking up as may hos as possible and being too kool for skool, then these dancehall tosspots may well influence the same weed-addled teenagers that “poof-bashing” is as acceptable as wearing ridiculous trousers and chavtastic Elizabeth Duke bling.
Not if it’s Peter Tatchell or any other member of OutRage!, I don’t. Nothing in this thread is so offensive as the idea that people are listening to a man who has said to my personal knowledge that heterosexuals shouldn’t have any rights.
Incidentally, shouldn’t this be in the Pit?
Citey citey cite, please? All I can google up is this:
Doesn’t seem he’s saying us heteros shouldn’t have rights - quite the opposite.
You sure about this? Tatchell is a complete balloon, but I can’t imagine him saying something like this.
He does however completely bugger-up his cause every time he opens his mouth ot bothers some harmless old bishop.
I’m absolutely sure - though providing a cite will be rather difficult, I’m afraid, jjimm. You see, the statement was made by Tatchell to me in private conversation in October 1995, when he visited Aberdeen University to speak in a debate on gay adoption rights. I know one other person on the committee heard him say it, but I can’t recall who it was now and I’m no longer in touch with any of the Debater mob anyway.
I understand if you don’t want to take my unsupported word for it, but SFAIAC no matter what he says in public, what he said to me in private is what he really thinks. Fanatics like him don’t make U-turns.
I don’t think this thread is about art and entertainment, I think it’s a Great Debate on freedom of speech, and I’m moving it there.
Ah. So it’s OK to kill faggots, as long as it’s the right faggots being killed. Gotcha.
Can’t say as I’m as initmately familiar with Tatchell as you, but whatever his comment about heterosexuals not having rights I have to admire anyone who can throw a scare into the likes of President Mugabe.
Don’t see how this (though, if true, is very disappointing) is really relevant - the lyrics in question obviously don’t concern any specific gay person.
Evil Death, I know how frustrating it is to know something for definite, but not to be able to prove it. However, based on the fairly outrageous (pun intended) actions of OutRage in the UK during the 1980s, namely outing celebrities on fairly tenuous evidence, who had no influence on policy, and who were at worst only guilty of personal hypocrisy, in this case I’m prepared to take you at your word.
This is one of the reasons I admire him, despite his apparent extremism. He put himself in harm’s way, got knocked unconscious by Mugabe’s goons, and made a great political point.
So lets try change things around to gain some perspective,
Let’s imagine some country band from Birmingham Alabama coming up with some lyrics, oh I dunno, something like…
Alleged translation:
Hear this little negro who sings a slave song…
To kill this fool, to me that is no stress
Murder him fast, like Federal Express
OK, anybody want to defned the right of free speech here, no ? well shut the f*** up then!
Apologies to JohnBckWLD
You have the right to tell people to ‘shut the foque up’ - That’s not surpressing anyone’s freedom of speech or expression.
Members of Outrage! have the right to protest and scream bloody hell at any atists they deem hateful - That’s their right…and something I support.
But, no politician should vote to surpress any form of speech in a free society, even if that ban is ceremonial and non-binding.
As pointed out by PookahMacPhellimey:
I’ll take your country band example and raise you a Resistance records artist. (The same people that brought you the online video game known as Ethnic Cleansing. It’s hateful garbage, it’s in English and it can only be defined as racist and anti-semetic. But it’s not slander, it’s speech.
Albeit hate speech. Speech that may well provoke those who harbour anti-Semitic tendencies into ‘doing something about it’, when they otherwise might not have for fear of chatisment by society, but hey, its a free country right? We’ll do something about it when someone gets shot or knifed or maimed because of who they are, right?
So who here supports my right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater?
Frankly, yes, if the alternative is banning speech because it might possibly in some circumstance lead to something bad.
Do you support suppressing comments that the US/UK/some other country is evil and must be destroyed? After all, we’re in a War on Terror and such language could lead to violence.
I think it’s very easy to say something’s offensive and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to be said, but you need to consider the ramifications. I’d prefer not to give government the power to control speech because then it becomes just another political tool.
A more accurate issue is whether I support your right to post on a message board about yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. The point of the example of shouting fire in a crowded theater was to say that free speech is the rule but that there are exceptions (e.g., speech that creates a clear danger) and I don’t think anybody’s argued otherwise in this thread.
Posting “Fire” is unlikely to cause a stampede. Yelling it in the theatre is more likely.
Such as actually being beaten up or attacked or knifed or killed because you’re gay, or because your skin colour is different? Those are the very real ramifications of letting things like this be said without any sort of condemnation whatsoever. But I suppose in your world view, those of us who aren’t heterosexual caucasian males should just suck it up, cause we’re different, right? And we shouldn’t stop those who hate us saying insulting things about us, and advocating our murders, because well, its not your fault if someone acts on it.
Are you willing to discuss this in good faith? I’m honestly asking. I responded to your post and your very first response is to imply that I don’t care if non-heterosexual non-caucasians are killed.
I think this issue is very nuanced and am interested in discussing it, but if the response will be “you just hate everybody and want them to die” I don’t see much hope.
Way to go, Otto - you just implied that executing black murderers is racist.
It is not alright to hate people because they are gay. It is alright to hate them because they are assholes. I hate Tatchell because he is an asshole. Got it?
I’ll repeat, “Members of Outrage! have the right to protest and scream bloody hell at any atists they deem hateful - That’s their right…and something I support” Just don’t expect everyone to jump on you banned-wagon.
What else would you like to see censored? Are you nominating yourself to be the judge of whether art is:
Pornographic…or erotic?
Violent…or angst ridden?
Inciteful…or an off the cuff outburst?
Light hearted satire…or stern criticism?