I liked your funny! 
Wog is the UK version of wop.
You utter imbecile. I have no idea where you live but it’s not 21st century London, or even close.
Pathetic.
Nah, different etymology. Golliwog - African doll.
OHHH! I assumed “your mother’s a wig and your father’s a rapist” was a clever British insult.
Well, this guy would probably find it highly insulting to be called a “whig”.
From Fawlty Towers:
I could support putting him in the stocks for a few hours (the “go rape your dog” comment really was over the top), but nearly two months in jail for being an ignorant, offensive asshole?
If that kind of justice ever catches on over here, they’ll need a fleet of [del]paddy wagons[/del] [del]Black Marias[/del] police vans to haul off denizens of the Pit.
I’ve mostly seen people say the sentence was too much and that he shouldn’t even have been charged, but left to the slavering dogs of the internet who would definitely have made his life hell for a short while. I haven’t seen much sympathy for the nasty piece of work, though.
I doubt it would have gone to court if he hadn’t been talking about someone who’d very recently died, and if there weren’t already strenuous efforts to combat racism in football.
Speaking of things you can’t say on the Internet: you are not allowed to insult other users in this forum, or any SDMB forum other than The BBQ Pit. This is a formal warning not to do it again.
Muamba isn’t dead. It was pretty close for a while though.
Yes, sorry - thanks for the correction. My point stands.
Apparently the idiot is also likely to be licked out of uni for this (reasonably so - they have a duty of care to all their students), so he would have been punished even without jail time. It is a lot just for posting some offensive tweets.
I don’t understand why he was kicked out. How does “duty of care” apply in this situation?
Don’t get me wrong, the student’s comments were crass, offensive insults, undoubtably, but not “racist”, he didn’t express “a belief that one’s own race is superior”, as per the OED definition of “racism”. And were they worthy of *prison *time? A fine, maybe even a punch in the mouth when he’s trying to have a quiet drink in town, but what does prison time do, apart from play nicely to the Twatter gobshite mob?
One thing I’m pretty sure of, if this bloke wasn’t a racist when he went into prison, he’s certainly going to be one when he comes out. Way to go judge, another BNP voter for life!
If you are going to imprison someone for making such comments, it leaves the way open for others, maybe people like you, to be imprisoned for “hate crimes”.
Ever called someone a “redneck”? A racist comment right there, with sectarian overtones, Go To Jail. Told a joke about an Irishman? Racist - Go To Jail.
It wouldn’t be too long before being called an “imbecile” on a message board would mean I take some time off work with “stress” and call the police so the person who made the comment gets nicked. After all, such a comment is directing hatred against people with mental disability, isn’t it? That’s where the archaic term is derived from. I suffered from depression once, that means someone is directing hatred at MY mental state. Go To Jail.
What I’m saying is, pandering to the chattering mob, like the judge in this case did, will lead to YOUR freedoms being curtailed. All this case has done is to give people a charter to be offended, and to expect the culprit to be jailed. Not banned from a website, not shunned by his mates, not fined, but jailed.
It hasn’t stopped racism, nor will it, but next time you offend someone (ie. they perceive a “hate crime” has been committed against them, that’s all the police need - the perception actually enables the offence) it might be a Twatter mob baying for your blood.
Mark my words, there are people out there who would absolutely love to censor and regulate online message boards and social networks, and not just the extremist hate sites. Supporting this sentence plays right into their hands…
Is there a possibility of appeal? It seems ridiculous to me. If The Great Cornholio’s account is accurate it seems like judicial abuse.
Bollocks. I’ve heard the same assertions made about canada’s hate speech laws, and no significant misapplication.
This is the sort of absolutist nonsense that is engendered by quasi-religious feelings about paleo-legislation. It’s like saying you can’t legislate against littering or vandalism because how long before you’re in the dock for shedding hair or sidewalk attrition owing to perambulation?
That said, I tend to agree that the sentence is harsher than appropriate or realistic.
I think the harshness of the sentence may reflect his being seen as an educated young man who should know better, rather than an ignorant kid.
The Great Cornholio’s “account” is a right wing political rant, not an account. He’s channeling the Daily Mail pretty accurately, but he’s not presenting any kind of factual account.
Agreed. The specious reasoning whereby racial insults do not constitute racism, combined with ‘coloureds, sorry “blacks”’ indicates an underlying racist agenda.
That said, I find this sentence extremely troubling. His comments were hateful but do not appear to incite hatred. He shouldn’t have been charged with it. Nor should he have pled guilty. I do agree with The Great Cornholio that the judge’s sentence was insulated by a public and media mood. I doubt this would have passed without comment if the mood hadn’t been nearly overwhelmingly on Muamba’s side. It reminds me of some of the crazy sentences dished out post-Poll Tax riots and last summer’s London riots.
Perhaps to The Great Cornholio’s displeasure, though, if anyone (who doesn’t have a racist agenda) does mount a media campaign against the sentence it will be the chattering classes.
Even though I think this boy is scum, I hope there is an appeal. I dislike the growing infringement on freedom of speech that has been symptomatic of British governments, right and left, for around thirty years.
56 days is exceptionally harsh for this sort of offence, normally he’d be looking at a modest fine. Stacey’s problem is that Fabrice Muamba’s collapse caused a strong outpouring of sympathy in the UK, so there’s not many people who much care that he was probably over-charged and got a disproportionate sentence. He does have the right to automatically appeal his sentence to the Crown Court and I’m guessing that’s what he will do and though IANAL he probably stands a good chance of receiving a significantly reduced sentence.
The law on racial hatred and how it’s applied does make me uneasy, but also the wider law on public order in the UK and in particualr how it’s being applied at the moment makes me very uneasy.
Take the case of Azhar Ahmed who’s currently being prosecuted. Ahmed is a 19 year-old who made a completely valid poltical point (that despite the death of British servicement the real vicitms of the Afghan war were the Afghans) on facebook, adnittedly he didn’t piut his point across in the best way (but to me that’s neither here nor there). Originally he was charged under laws concerning racially aggravated public order offences, despite the fact that what he said had no racial content and when the police realized they were on to a loser with that chagre they found another set of legislation which to charge him under.