# Brit Dopers: Is your country really that uptight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221 "2013-07-22T18:10:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/41 "2013-07-30T07:58:58Z")
Is this the same UK which has topless glamour models on page three of at least one nationally distributed newspaper? ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/42 "2013-07-30T08:07:00Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Is this the same UK which has topless glamour models on page three of at least one nationally distributed newspaper? Didn’t even read two sentences into the OP did’ja? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/43 "2013-07-30T08:28:57Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > Didn’t even read two sentences into the OP did’ja? Of course I did. I was registering my surprise, as the OP did, at the disconnect between a Moral Panic™ over Naked People On The Internet™ when at a national newspaper unashamedly has topless glamour models in it. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/44 "2013-07-30T09:17:44Z")
^ You could almost smell a \*realpolitick \*rat, couldn’t ya. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/45 "2013-07-30T11:08:51Z")
The latest wheeze is to ban sites that show rape. Rape is hard enough to prove in court. Who is going to decide if the ‘rape’ depicted is role play or a criminal offence? I repeat, these are dog whistle politics. Little will actually change. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/46 "2013-08-03T21:11:53Z")
At the moment we have something called ‘The Silly Season’ for stories in the press. The UK has rather a lot of newspapers and during the summer months there is a dearth of political news. It is a time for posturing statements that are really part of the dialogue between the politicians and their own supporters. In this case Cameron is throwing a bone to chew on keep the right wing of his party from defecting to the UKIP party at the Conservative Party conference in September. There will be a string of these sorts of stories through the summer. We have another row going on right now about immigration, where the government is trying to act tough to steal the thunder of their critics on the right. We are quite accustom to this sort of bollocks in the UK, it is part of the political circus. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/47 "2013-08-04T01:31:16Z")
So it sounds from the responses that this is Cameron gavel thumping. Does he have the authority to push this through, or will it die before it has any chance of… _(my god, I’m realizing I know nothing about UK lawmaking)._ ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/48 "2013-08-04T01:42:07Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > What I haven’t seen is how is porn going to be defined - and by whom? The old joke about not being able to google Scunthorpe is a good example. Heh. Don’t forget the US Supreme Court Justice who famously said of “obscenity” “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” I think it was Potter Stewart, but I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/49 "2013-08-04T10:24:53Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Don’t forget the US Supreme Court Justice who famously said of “obscenity” “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” > > I think it was Potter Stewart, but I could be wrong. It was Stewart in _Jacobellis v Ohio_. This is what he precisely said: > [@](#): > > …under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it… ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/50 "2013-08-04T12:15:07Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > What I haven’t seen is how is porn going to be defined - and by whom? The old joke about not being able to google Scunthorpe is a good example. Not that it entirely answers the question, but I think the idea is to simply have ISPs use their pre-existing adult filters by default, rather than customers having to turn them on. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/51 "2013-08-04T12:45:30Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > So it sounds from the responses that this is Cameron gavel thumping. > > Does he have the authority to push this through, or will it die before it has any chance of… _(my god, I’m realizing I know nothing about UK lawmaking)._ Yes, if he really wants this he can push it through. Actually, if he just wants it a little bit, he can and probably will push it through. Most votes in parliament are strictly along party lines, with no-one or almost no-one breaking ranks, and you only need a simple majority to get something passed. Cameron controls the majority, so… Also, although we are proud of having free speech in Britain, we aer not as “fundamentalist” about it as Americans tend to be. We are able to distinguish between which sorts of speech are essential to the defence of freedom, and which are not. I doubt many people think that porn is. The Liberal Party (in Britain this is the center party) with whom his Conservative Party is in coalition _could_ stop it if they really wanted, but it is extremely unlikely that they would do so. It is not that it is going to be popular, exactly, but now it has been put forward, it will be difficult for a politician who wants to be elected again to publicly oppose it. If it does get stopped, it would most likely be in the House of Lords. The one good thing about the House of Lords, is that they don’t have to be always whoring for votes, and so can, and occasionally do, do the thing that is right, or sensible, but unpopular. The Commons _can_ override the Lords, but it is a big hassle for both houses, and rarely happens in practice. If the Lords know that the Commons really wants something to pass they normally will not bother to oppose it, but I doubt that is true in this case. Since it is all for show anyway, if the Lords stopped the bill’s passage, the Commons would probably drop the idea. On the other hand, given that Lords tend to be socially conservative, I don’t think it is very likely that most of them would oppose the bill. They might amend it a bit. Anyway, what Cameron seems to be proposing is not all that horrible really. It just means that one have to contact your ISP to get the block removed. Also, I have heard (though I am not sure if it is right) that the block will only be set on by default on new ISP accounts, and that existing ones will not be affected. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/52 "2013-08-04T15:42:23Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Cameron controls the majority, so… No he doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/53 "2013-08-04T17:41:38Z")
> [@](#): > > So it sounds from the responses that this is Cameron gavel thumping. > > Does he have the authority to push this through, or will it die before it has any chance of… (my god, I’m realizing I know nothing about UK lawmaking). > Reply With Quote He can have a law drawn up, which would have to go through the parlimentary process of law making, during which it would debated by MPs and scrutinised by committees. How far it gets in that process is open to question. Looking at his speech, the amount of legislation he is committing to quite small: bringing the rest of the UK into line with Scotland that has a law that makes illegal ‘rape porn’. That would probably have been done anyway. The rest of it is cajouling ISPs, search engines and mobile phone operators to play their part in protecting children from pornography. By which he means that they should pick up the bill for some sort of filtering scheme. > **[The internet and pornography: Prime Minister calls for action](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-internet-and-pornography-prime-minister-calls-for-action)** > > David Cameron made a speech about cracking down on online pornography and making the internet safer for children on 22 July 2013. Cameron here is championing the cause of parents who worry about what their children see on the Internet. He is also referring to a couple of recent cases of child murder where it was suggested that pornography might have influenced those responsible. These sort of cases are highly emotive and politicians are obliged to respond to public concern and the moral panic associated with them. This is Cameron taking a leadership role and his approach is to throw the issue over the fence and challenge big ISPs, Telcos and Google/Twitter to come up with a solution. He says he will make it easier for the Police and government agencies to monitor indecent images of children and he will pass just one law, what was probably going through anyway. Cameron presents himself as a concerned family man, worried about children and the Internet during the school summer holidays. This is a fairly bulletproof position to take and he is not committing himself to much in the way of controversial laws. More, he is chiding Big business to filter the internet to make it safe. If they get it wrong, he is in the clear and it is for them to pick up the bill. This guy was formerly in Public Relations, he is a slick operator. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/54 "2013-09-01T05:22:27Z")
Gender feminists have been working with social conservatives over the largely manufactured issue of “human trafficking” in countries all over the world, it’s only natural that they should have combined to move on to censoring “pornography.” Separately they cannot get much done, but together they form a powerful coalition, and have succeeded in creating moral panics over human trafficking in many countries, including the US. Moving to pornography is a natural for them, they use the moral panic created by their overblown human trafficking narrative to weaken resistance to censorship. They always start off with censoring child porn, then they move to rape porn, and if possible, to porn porn. If you don’t fight them now, you gonna have much worse censorship issues to deal with down the road. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/55 "2013-09-01T09:20:10Z")
The feminist-conservative coalition didn’t move on from trafficking to porn, it moved on from porn to trafficking. Radical feminists and conservatives were working hand in hand to censor porn at least as far back as the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/56 "2013-09-01T09:26:38Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > No he doesn’t. What are you saying, the Lib Dems aren’t under his thumb? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/57 "2013-09-01T10:05:41Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Crazy. Whats the UK cumming to? Soon, just the lingerie section in the Argos catalogue. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/58 "2013-09-01T11:52:37Z")
UK Feminist are fond of importing ideas from Sweden, a country that seems to be largely run by social workers who like nice family oriented communities and social problems neatly hidden away or swept over the border. I am sure Julian Assuange of Wikileaks rues the day he ever set foot in the country. UK Social conservatives are usually go on junkets to the USA where they fantasise about 3-strikes legislation, workfare and bigger prisons for illegal immigrants. They agree on some things. The campaign to tackle the trafficking of women to work as sex slaves is an example. It has all the right ingredients: oppression of women, immigration controls at the border, crime prevention. The fact that there is very little hard evidence of the scale of the problem, does not mean that what there is cannot be extrapolated to appear as a huge issue, dealt with by assertive action at the border by kick-ass politicians. I don’t doubt there are genuine cases. I have grave doubts about the posturing and headline and the sincerlty of this unholy alliance and the initiatives these these strange bedfellows make. There are few political scams quite as cynical as to highlight and exaggerate a problem about which little is known into a moral cause. Pass laws or directives to deal with the problem and then proclaim a popular victory when further research reveals that the problem is greatly reduced. Not so much real politics dealing with difficult social ills, more of a popular circus for the tabloid reading public who are addicted to sensational headlines. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/59 "2013-09-01T14:24:54Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > The feminist-conservative coalition didn’t move on from trafficking to porn, it moved on from porn to trafficking. Radical feminists and conservatives were working hand in hand to censor porn at least as far back as the 1980s. You’re right, except that the porn campaign in the US by the feminist/conservative coalition was mostly an abject failure, and they retreated from it, and there was a lull in activity in the 90s. It was the rise of the moral panic over trafficking, especially of underage women, in the 2000s that revived the coalition. Now they are moving back into porn from trafficking, with their goal as always being to restrict and control human sexuality. It’s very possible they will be more successful this time, as they have really made progress using the trafficking meme. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221/60 "2013-09-01T15:46:31Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > UK Feminist are fond of importing ideas from Sweden, a country that seems to be largely run by social workers who like nice family oriented communities and social problems neatly hidden away or swept over the border. I am sure Julian Assuange of Wikileaks rues the day he ever set foot in the country. > > UK Social conservatives are usually go on junkets to the USA where they fantasise about 3-strikes legislation, workfare and bigger prisons for illegal immigrants. > > They agree on some things. > > The campaign to tackle the trafficking of women to work as sex slaves is an example. > > It has all the right ingredients: oppression of women, immigration controls at the border, crime prevention. The fact that there is very little hard evidence of the scale of the problem, does not mean that what there is cannot be extrapolated to appear as a huge issue, dealt with by assertive action at the border by kick-ass politicians. > > I don’t doubt there are genuine cases. I have grave doubts about the posturing and headline and the sincerlty of this unholy alliance and the initiatives these these strange bedfellows make. > > There are few political scams quite as cynical as to highlight and exaggerate a problem about which little is known into a moral cause. Pass laws or directives to deal with the problem and then proclaim a popular victory when further research reveals that the problem is greatly reduced. > > Not so much real politics dealing with difficult social ills, more of a popular circus for the tabloid reading public who are addicted to sensational headlines. You’re not the only one who blames the Swedes, Maggie MacNeil’s[The Honest Courtesan blog](http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/) cites the Swedes as a baleful influence in Europe and around the world, [here’s her column](http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/the-swedish-cult/) describing Sweden as an object lesson in how wrong things can go when gender feminists (MacNeil calls them “neofeminists”) develop power within government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-dopers-is-your-country-really-that-uptight/664221.md?page=4)