Who watches the Watchers?

I recently wrote about 21 year old Liam Stacey, a man who was arrested for making racist comments on Twitter. Well, he’s now been imprisoned for 56 days. To be fair to our current justice system, when politician Diane Abbott make racist remarks on Twitter, she too was arrested and thrown in prison for 56 days. Oh no wait, that didn’t happen in this universe – my mistake. She apologised without an arrest, trial or sentence.

Let’s remind ourselves what Abbott said: “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’“. Nice. A disgustingly generalised brush to tar all white people with an innate love of slavery and conquest.  These comments are horrifically offensive to me, not least because I despise slavery and racism, but here is a black woman (who seems to assume she has a right to comment as a supposed victim of racism simply because she is black) insulting all white people (simply because, as white people, they are supposed perpetrators of slavery and imperialism, simply because they are white.)

Why is one white man imprisoned for making racist remarks on Twitter about a black person, but a black person isn’t so much as arrested for making racist remarks about all white people on Twitter? And Diane Abbott has a history of making racist remarks! Why has she gotten away with it in the past? Why did she get away with it on Twitter? Would her comments have been met with jail-time if she was white making comments about blacks?

About Abbott’s comments, Met police said: “We reviewed the circumstances of the comments and having considered all of those circumstances and the information available to us, we do not believe a criminal offence has been committed.”  I agree. No criminal offence was committed – because voicing an opinion, no matter how stupid, no matter how wrong, no matter how evil, no matter how publically, is not a crime! (The only exception to this is slander, because you are not free to lie about someone else.) Why were Abbott’s comments not a criminal offence, but Liam Stacey’s were?

And of course at face value, and you can call me cynical, Diane Abbott is a black female politician, and Liam Stacey is a white male civilian – the demographic with probably the fewest “rights” in this country.

Of course there will be the “me-tooers” and politically-correct crowd, eager to high-five themselves that a free citizen who made racist remarks has gone to prison, blissfully ignoring the real issues going on around them: our freedoms and liberties are being eroded month after month, year after year, sometimes behind closed doors (like with the European Union) and sometimes right before our eyes amidst cheers of multiculturalism and zero-tolerance.

But the laughable irony here is one which is blatantly staring people in the face: they want zero-tolerance…but only for the things they don’t like. They want inappropriate speech to be banned, as long as they get to decide what is inappropriate. In short, everyone wants to play King and rule the kingdom. Am I saying that everything should be allowed? No. But the very idea of a free society, the thing we should all be most proud our species has voluntarily established, is the recognition that we can’t just get our own way by magic just by stamping our feet like spoilt brats. So we all agree to recognise the freedoms of each other to believe, say, speak and do whatever we want – with one common stipulation: don’t harm me and I won’t harm you. Sadly, in this pathetic celebrity-obsessed postmodern philosophically-bankrupt guilt-ridden eco-crazy mentally-stunted irresponsible socialist cesspool called the modern Western world, everybody thinks everyone else’s stuff is up for grabs to the one who shouts loudest; so everyone points the finger, everyone compares wallet sizes, everyone claims that “the other guy” is offending him, and the slightest disagreement means someone goes running to teacher. And teacher, oooh… teacher is only too happy to lay down the law. After all, he’s only dealing with children…

But then in the playground, who watches the Watchers?

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After thoughts: a friend made the statement “Freedom of speech does not cover incitement and obscenity”. Obviously I disagree with this. In fact, by definition freedom of speech should most certainly cover such things. Here is the Wikipedia article on freedom of speech in the UK based on current law. I must point out that am not challenging the criminalising of racist comments based on the current law, but that is precisely my point: the law regarding freedom of speech is phrased in such a way as to ban that which is deemed socially unacceptable. In this sense, the law is simply circular: “you are free to speak, unless it’s illegal”, which really means “you are free to say anything legally acceptable”, which just re-defines free speech to be that which is not illegal. In other words, if you say something which is now deemed illegal, it couldn’t have been “free” in the first place. So what then is free speech? Whatever the government decides it is.

There is a place for a restriction on speech by law but only when it is objectively shown to infringe the rights of another. Objective law isn’t based on the latest mood of society, referendum, moral outrage, an over-powered and bored police force, or a politician looking for votes.

Links: “What you can and can’t say on Twitter” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17530450