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Careful what you say...
Oct. 11th, 2012 10:07 pmTwo stories in the news in the last few days have concerned me slightly.
This one:
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/2012-10-11/man-jailed-for-offensive-t-shirt-after-officer-deaths/
Is about a guy who wore a T-shirt that was offensive, following the death of two police officers.
He's got 8 months in prison. (ALthough, I believe 4 months for the offence, and 4 for
And this one here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/08/april-jones-matthew-woods-jailed
He made an obnoxious offensive joke about the missing - presumed abducted and murdered - 5 year old, April Jones.
These worry me. I don't wish to defend what they said - it was obnoxious, tasteless, unpleasant and probably distressing.
No, what worries me is that I'm not sure it should be a crime to be an odious gobshite.
There's one simple reason - because when you have a law that makes it illegal to say certain things - things that are 'judged to cause offense' - then you have to have someone who makes the final decision - this joke is crass but ok. That one crosses the line. This point of view is impolite. That one is criminal.
And put very simply - I can think of no one I would trust to make that decision. If you do it via 'popular opinion' then you're at risk of minority oppression - how many people would find it 'ok' to make an unpleasant comment about Jimmy Savile at the moment? Now, same question, but aimed at transexuals perhaps? Do you see where I'm going with this? There will always be minorities that - by virtue of who they are - are more 'popularly acceptable' to be offensive about.
If you have some other group being the 'taste police' then you've got a bigger risk - that of appointing a group that has bias built in because of who they are - look if you will at the demographics of the current members of parliament. How many are white, middle class, middle aged, male, and from a public school background? Would you say that's more than average from the population?
How about the judiciary? Does that not have the same problem?
I'm worried that very simply you cannot truly appreciate something that is outside your realm of experience. You cannot understand what it is like to be bullied or abused for who you are, if it's never happened to you. If you've never been fat, female, gay, transsexual, black, disabled, ill, raped, abused as a child, mentally unwell... then how can you be someone who passes judgement on 'offensive'?
This one:
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/2012-10-11/man-jailed-for-offensive-t-shirt-after-officer-deaths/
Is about a guy who wore a T-shirt that was offensive, following the death of two police officers.
He's got 8 months in prison. (ALthough, I believe 4 months for the offence, and 4 for
And this one here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/08/april-jones-matthew-woods-jailed
He made an obnoxious offensive joke about the missing - presumed abducted and murdered - 5 year old, April Jones.
These worry me. I don't wish to defend what they said - it was obnoxious, tasteless, unpleasant and probably distressing.
No, what worries me is that I'm not sure it should be a crime to be an odious gobshite.
There's one simple reason - because when you have a law that makes it illegal to say certain things - things that are 'judged to cause offense' - then you have to have someone who makes the final decision - this joke is crass but ok. That one crosses the line. This point of view is impolite. That one is criminal.
And put very simply - I can think of no one I would trust to make that decision. If you do it via 'popular opinion' then you're at risk of minority oppression - how many people would find it 'ok' to make an unpleasant comment about Jimmy Savile at the moment? Now, same question, but aimed at transexuals perhaps? Do you see where I'm going with this? There will always be minorities that - by virtue of who they are - are more 'popularly acceptable' to be offensive about.
If you have some other group being the 'taste police' then you've got a bigger risk - that of appointing a group that has bias built in because of who they are - look if you will at the demographics of the current members of parliament. How many are white, middle class, middle aged, male, and from a public school background? Would you say that's more than average from the population?
How about the judiciary? Does that not have the same problem?
I'm worried that very simply you cannot truly appreciate something that is outside your realm of experience. You cannot understand what it is like to be bullied or abused for who you are, if it's never happened to you. If you've never been fat, female, gay, transsexual, black, disabled, ill, raped, abused as a child, mentally unwell... then how can you be someone who passes judgement on 'offensive'?
