From “Brickbats,” Reason, Feb 2006:
A book by a former Labour Party adviser claims British Prime Minister Tony Blair shouted “fucking Welsh” at the TV while watching his party’s poor showing in the 1999 elections for the Welsh Assembly. Welse police are now investigating whether Blair committed a hate crime.
Social progressivism—with it’s showy nods to “tolerance” and its attempts to legislate away thought crimes —have brought us to the brink of an Orwellian moment where essentially phatic speech, uttered at the spur of the moment, can now be criminalized by self-appointed speech police using legislation that is itself barely recognizable as the work of a liberal society. Worse, if this Welsh investigation is any indication of how the brave new world of thought restriction will work, accusation and hearsay evidence could be enough to put the accused on the defensive, and to demand s/he prove that the the accusation was not an instance of “hate speech.”
This kind of flimsy and insignificant “transgression” is, as I’ve been at pains to point out, the inevitable end to “hate speech” legislation, which is itself nothing more than an attempt to chill free speech and to will into being—against individual expression and the free exchange of ideas—a culture of political correctness that perpetuates victimhood and aims to control the parameters of “approved” speech.
It is the soft totalitarianism of the nannyist left (mirrored in attempts by some social conservatives to regulate “indecency” after having first defined it), and is anathema to individual freedom, and to the free exchange of ideas that has been the cornerstone of western liberalism.
Simply having to worry about how one’s words can be taken and spun into a potential criminal offense is enough to ensure a continued ethos in which communication takes place by way of a series of predictable, polished, empty soundbites. And when that happens, we will have by default officially entered into the era of the thought crime.
Would “Procreating Welsh!” have been a hate crime?
Ironically, I am speechless at this stupidity.
Perhaps moreso, this fills me with thoughts of mad, genocidal rage.
So the fucking Welsh police have nothing better to do?
TW: Maybe not, but I doubt it.
It is the soft totalitarianism of the nannyist left (mirrored in attempts by some social conservatives to regulate “indecency†after having first defined it), and is anathema to individual freedom, and to the free exchange of ideas that has been the cornerstone of western liberalism.
As opposed to this sort of totalitarianism?
And America takes another step towards fascism…
BECAUSE OF THE CYMRY!
Seriously, though – there’s actually statutory grounds for the Brits to do this? What are they going to go after next, Monty Python’s “Four Welshmen” sketch? A retroactive prosecution of Douglas Adams’ estate for suggesting that “Belgium” was the most obscene word in the galaxy?
Precisely the same thing, Piator. Well played!
Beautifully stated (except for the one typo).
Did the British Labour Party invent the Kool-Aid, or did our democrats export it to them?
Things like this really get my Irish up. I hope Tony gets off scot-free.
I thought One World Serfdom exports the Kool-aid, and is distributed through Europe?
“Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief…”
What’s all this then!?
There was a guy arrested in Ohio wearing a T-Shirt some years back that said “Fuck Michigan”. He went to trial and the Judge eventually acquitted him on the basis that he was physically incapable of completing the act or something like that.
Point being, that it isn’t the first incident of this nature.
Maybe Blair’s defense can rest on the population rate of Wales and the total consumption of birth control devices sold. I mean, if there is evidence that the Welsh are indeed fucking, then where is the slur?
You can call me a “fucking man” if you want, or even a “mother fucker” (lots of mothers).
While I do not support the extremes of political correctness—remembering that most countries in the world have laws against racism or racist organizations other than the US without our First Amendment doctrine—I find it the zenith of irony that someone who would yawn at the NSA data mining scheme, possibly snooping systematically on all international calls into or out of the US would complain of the ‘soft totalitarianism of the nannyist left.
I support the First Amendment doctrine of the US on this issue, which allows at law the existence even of the KKK. It is interesting that very few leftists and even fewer liberals seek to change that. (Hate crimes—like race-motivated assault are different. It is totally bogus to say that they are punishing “thought” in an unprecedented manner; in fact, criminal law is filled with distinctions of state of mind or mens rea, especially the many fine distinctions of murder law based on state of mind. It is one thing to engage in racist speech or thought—though both or noxious—and another to operationalize that speech into actions that harm other people. Like most American progressives, I am satisfied with that state of the law today.)
In Britain, incidentally, when I researched this subject for a paper, I found that most applications of their anti-racism laws were against black nationalist groups. That’s one good reason progressives are hesitant to give the state the power to define and punish racism, or other forms of bigotry, as crimes.
For the record, I also consider silly laws that say people can’t smoke in bars and nightclubs, often justified on the grounds of protecting the employees from second hand smoke. It is misplaced concern from the real issue of copperhead harassment, which should be confronted directly and stamped out completely.
I think Blair’s getting gypped.
I once yelled “FUCKING STUPID ASS REDNECKS!!!!”
at the tv while I was watching an episode of COPS. Am I guilty as well? I also yelled at my computer screen a couple of times a day, where do I turn myself in……..
Hmmm.
Yes but “Fuck the Jews” is always acceptable.
Hmmm.
We’ll know that blogs have come of age when there’s an ignore button on them.
Huh. The t-shirt guy must have been a Buckeye. A Spartan could complete the act.
Something about the fact that “Fucking Michigan” if taken literally, was impossible. Now, maybe every single inhabitant in Michigan might have been a possibility. Although I’ve lived there and there’s some pretty brawny Hetero’s in the UP that wouldn’t look too kindly on some pansy assed college boy trying to poke them in the ass.
I’ve always wanted to see an all-Welsh porn film called Cwm Queens.
rls-
It really hinges on whether we’re talking the entire State of or the University of.
Yeah, as I said, that description fits a Buckeye. Not a Spartan.
But if we are going to look at it literally, perhaps Tony Blair was making a promise to every Welshman. I’m not Welsh, but I’d let Tony Blair do me.
fwiw, Clint Eastwood has long been banned from travelling to the Land of Dylan Thomas for releasing the movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales”
I just love hearing people who think the government should be in charge of all our health care bitch about how inept the government is when it comes to the no-fly list.
Delicious.
Is “Death to America!!” hate speech? Piator?
Citizenship could be available. I know some Chinese who know some Russians who know some Brits that have an in with a cross dressing Welsh lawmaker who has some real kinky pictures of Tom Jones with two llamas. For a price you could be a Welsh citizen.
Think about it.
A whole thread about fucking Welshmen and not a single sheep joke?
TW: finally
Is Braveheart banned for:
1. The comment from Longshanks that “the trouble with Scotland is that it is full of Scots.”
2. Longshanks throws his son’s gay lover out the castle window.
Hate, man. Hate.
Thanks, rls. I may take you up on it.
In the meantime I’m going to do some research. I feel certain Tony Blair must have at some point screamed/promised “Fuck America!”.
And America takes another step towards fascism…
Yawn.
Yeah, we’ve been hearing about this for years. . .sort of a Leftist eschatology/theology of hope. Or, as Sister Aimee (a figure from another marginal religion) might have said–’Hitler is coming soon–get ready!’.
You really need a nice sandwich board adorned with scenes from the book of Daniel, PIATOR.
I’m Welsh and I resemble that remark
Paraphrasing a wise man: “Odd, isn’t it, how fascism is always descending on America and landing on Europe.”
I’m working out the equations to make this a Rovian plot.
Hyllybwrtn!!!
PIATOR,
I gather from the conversation that you are from New Zealand, and I’m curious what your stake is in US involvement in Iraq. It’s obvious you have quite a hatred built up for America, why? Are you a Muslim, waiting for the caphalit? Are you a communist? Tired of sitting on your sheep farm of an island watching America get all the lime light? Did your Daddy spank your naked ass while Mommy diddled herself to the star spangled banner? What gives?
Speaking power to truth…I like it. Truth really needs a bitchslap from good ol’ power. Oh, and I was also thinking about speaking truth to the powerless.
Yeah, because the government wasting an hour or two of a person’s time is one of the classic warning signs of fascism brewing. Can’t you wingnuts see what the DMV is leading us to for crying out loud?
And it just had to be because he’s been critical of Chimpy McTurkeyburton. I mean, with a name as distinctive as James Moore there’s no way he could have anything in common with anyone under investigation.
First they came for boarding passes over the internet and I said nothing because my print cartridge was low…
Lee, although he(?) wouldn’t present himself that way, PiatoR is a dead-boring, mainstream Euroleftist. The only reason he’s able to raise such a ruckus here is that we don’t encounter such in daily life much, and he has a strong enough stomach to find it amusing.
It is a postulate, on par with Euclid, among such folk that the United States is an imperialist, proto-fascist state. The nudge toward that was given by Soviet propaganda, especially from WWII to the demise of the USSR, but it didn’t take much nudging. The US was largely settled by rejectionists, people who didn’t think Europe and Europe’s leaders could find their ass with both hands and a 10KW searchlight, and wanted to try something new and/or different. That’s a fairly deadly insult, if you think about it for a bit, and the fact that we’ve succeeded to a large extent just drives the point home. They’re so cultured, so experienced. Surely we should hang on their every pronouncement, yield to their every suggestion.
And since we don’t, and not only succeed but do better than they do in almost every measurable respect, an explanation MUST BE FOUND—and it MUST be an explanation that shows them better, brighter, more sophisticated in every way.
That solution comes from Marxism. Note that in most ways it isn’t actually Marxist, but it’s easy to derive it from there.
It’s easy to distort Marxism to have it say that production is impossible—that nothing new can be made; that, specifically, wealth cannot be created, only distributed. It’s a fairly common model, popular with bureaucrats and academia because it relieves them of any obligation to produce. Nobody does that anyway, so they’re being principled and good by seeing to it that the distribution is fair, no?
It’s clear (from the European point of view) that a gang of low-class hewers of wood and drawers of water (that’s us), fit only to collect garbage, shovel shit, and grovel before our betters (that’s them), couldn’t produce anything of worth even if production were possible. It naturally follows from that that the reason we’re richer than they are is simple: we steal it. The notion that we might not only produce wealth but be willing to teach others to do so founders, to be crushed between the Scylla of distorted Marxism (production doesn’t happen) and the Charybdis of Euro-elite bigotry (if it did, those low-lifes couldn’t manage it). Thus buoyed, the Euroleftist goes about his days with a spring in his step, confident that one day Those People Will Get Their Comeuppance, and offering help and encouragement to those showing willingness to do the comeupping.
Such people can be amusing when one isn’t in their power. Their absolute imperviousness to any sort of reason, their utter obliviousness to any possible deficiency on their own part, their childlike delight in finding and parading isolated, out-of-context incidents to support their stereotypes, and their enthusiastic willingness to embrace any argument, no matter how vile or murderous the arguer may be, that puts the damned Americans “in their place”, is ultimately reminiscent of the Chihuahua determined to eat the postman alive. PiatoR is doing us a favor. If you intend to deal in any way, business or vacation, with Europeans, especially on their home ground, you’ll run into a lot of PiatoRs, and you need the practice.
Regards,
Ric
JWebb:Would “Procreating Welsh!” have been a hate crime?
Onli in some counties in Ireland, as I understand it.
Procreating Locke!
And that is a promise.
Obtuse, but that was an offer to bear your children because that was an excellent post.
Turing word “trying” as in: “Hey, cut me some slack. I’m trying.”
Ric – you nailed it. Phoenician also has issues about his/her native New Zealand still being a constitutional monarchy, not least since it shows up a certain lack of resolve on the part of Kiwis in not taking action to remedy this situation in over a century of their history. And of course, there’s the whole global significance of New Zealand thing – it’s gotta be a major bummer that except for one expatriate Kiwi director, the rest of the world gives your country very little recognition.
Ric,
Thanks for the enlightenment. So, to sum up, it’s an asshole!, what do you expect from it?!
As an aside, I was over at the Anchoress and she has an interesting post involving her school age sons theory explaining BDS. Check it out.
TW-I’m “trying” to understand…
Off topic, but has anyone else seen this? Because if true, it really puts the narrative Phoenician and company have been spinning for quite a while in some serious jeopardy:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp
Fucking French!
There. I said it. And I’m not taking it back.
Come an’ get me, you yellowed-bellied, pants-pissing, snail eating, let-them-burn-the-cars, surrender monkeys.
And cloudy said; I find it the zenith of irony that someone who would yawn at the NSA data mining scheme, possibly snooping systematically on all international calls into or out of the US would complain of the ‘soft totalitarianism of the nannyist left.
Yes, cloudy, it’s exactly the same thing.
A stunningly obvious direct correlation of two events if ever I saw it.
Fascist Rethuglican’s unrelenting, hate-inspired, racist-fed, counter-realAmerican Values crypto-marching destruction of the free speech rights of capitalist-victimized, Jew-oppressed, culturally misunderstood adherents of the “Religion of Peace” who only talk about killing infidels on a genocidal scale while being members of an organization that has formally declared war on the United States of America and its citizens; and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who allegedly is being investigated for an off-hand comment during a one-sided conversation with an electronic appliance, the direct result of which will create an irreversible and universally applicable chilling effect on any and all frustration-fueled speech for hundreds of years to come.
Yes, you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.
Why the rest of the world can’t see your irrefutable logic is completely beyond me.
Waitaminute, I thought we were already there. What happened? I demand a progress report!!!
I just love hearing people who think the government should be in charge of all our health care bitch about how inept the government is when it comes to the no-fly list.
I’ve yet to see any report of Canada refusing health care to anyone based on criticism of the government. I guess that for wingnuts, using state power designed for security purposes to harass political opponents is par for the course – as long as they’re part of the nomenclatura.
since when did ineptness translate to malice?
ZING! WHOOSH! That was the sound of that argument going over your head, Piator. You have obviously missed the correlation. If the gummint cannot properly maintain a “No Fly List” then how is it competent to manage the health care of an entire nation?
TW: lay – What if he had said “Laying Welsh”?
And I’m sure Canada does not refuse medical care to critics of the gummint, no one said they did. However, in their system, it is up to the individual to stay alive long enough to get the health care. Something about having to get in line for certain procedures. Might just be a Canuk thing, though I suspect it is endemic to all state run health care systems.
I’ve yet to see any evidence that the US refused anything based on criticism of the government. I guess for moonbats puffing a trivial inconvenience up into a claim of impending fascism to tar political opponents is par for the course – as long as they’re part of the nomenclatura.
The story you linked presents the reader with two possible choices:
A) The most powerful man in the world is risking disgrace and impeachment by misusing federal security resources so a political writer that 90% of the US has never even heard of has to show up at the airport a couple hours earlier than he’d like to.
or
B) Moore’s criticisms have nothing to do with his being on the no-fly list and something in his background happened to be flagged by a database that added him. I’d credit even you, PIATOR, with enough intellectual integrity to admit that there are likely quite a number of men in the world with a name like James Moore. This part may strain your imagination, but it’s possible that one ore two of those James Moores might not be quite as law abiding as crybaby Texas political writers are. Now maybe, just maybe Moore’s on the no fly list because he shares a very common name with a naughty man that should be on the no-fly list.
I hate to call names, PIATOR, but you have to be some kind of genetically-engineered super jackass to consider an insignificant writer with a very innocuous travel inconvenience to be evidence of creeping fascism.
According to a report on NPR that I heard on Thursday, there is an average 18 day wait for most simple diagnostic testing. This included such things as blood tests (lab results), CT scans and cancer screens.
Take your pick. I’m going with the Canadian politician.
SeanH, whether PiatoR is a jackass or not remains to be seen. This is a good point to get back toward the track of the thread, because the problem isn’t that PiatoR is a villain. The problem is that Euroleftists, and many if not most of the academic leftists we have here, don’t believe in or even understand the concept of “Free Speech”.
They have a concept under that name, and will vigorously defend it, but from our point of view it would more properly be called “permitted speech”, combined with an ethic that says that the range of permitted speech should be as broad as possible, and that certain classes of powerful people are exempt from some of the restrictions.
Try carrying a swastika around in Europe (unless of course it’s spray-painted across an American flag, in which case it’s droll). That’s outside the permitted range, and you’ll end up penalized. In fact, anything truly reminiscent of the Bad Old Days falls into that category, although most of it doesn’t (yet) have State penalties attached; that’s what the “hate speech” drive is about, to get them enacted.
When dealing with us they say wildly outrageous things and don’t get penalized. They react to this by thinking, “wow, I didn’t get in any real trouble over this, just bitching. I must be a member of the privileged class, able to say what I like regardless of restriction.” It feed their egos quite nicely.
You cannot, and must not, pay real attention to Europeans’ comments on American politics, especially about the extremes. Like Sam Clemens’s wife’s swearing, they have the words but the music eludes them. The reason they react to, e.g., Pat Robertson is that they assume that since he is allowed to speak, he must be privileged to do so, and therefore powerful. The same is true of the fulsome compliments for the more extreme Lefties, which I greatly fear have turned their heads.
Like Jeff, the political trend I hate worst in America today is the movement toward that attitude that’s clear in academia and beginning to be visible in the Press. Restricting racial and ethnic insults in the name of hurt feelings is a direct frontal assault on the American version of free speech, and I greatly fear that the people promoting such have no idea how the machine works and are simply sticking spanners in the gears when they don’t like the noise. What they’re most likely to do is cause the realization of their greatest fears in the name of defending against them.
Regards,
Ric
Just to put it in play, for accuracy’s sake, the government didn’t screw up in that “no-fly list” thing.
It was the airline that fucked up.
Totalitarianism, apparently, results from the inability of leftards to read the whole article.
In a world where we can all have free health care just by instructing the government to give it to us, and where we have the ability to eliminate racialism and cultural animosity by merely banning such speech in other words, in a world capable of being completely organized according to the will of subgroups of smart peopleâ€â€in such a world the common denominator can only be power, and every social outcome that occurs is intended. If all outcomes are intended, then obviously desirable outcomes are the result of good intentions, and undesirable outcomes can only be the product of someone’s malice.
In a deliberate world, an unintended societyâ€â€where each individual’s plans and desires collide unforeseeably with those of everyone else and result in outcomes unintended by anyoneâ€â€remains completely unimagined, if not unimaginable.
:peter
Welse police are now investigating whether Blair committed a hate crime.
Well for Christ’s sake.
Don’t they know? I would have thought that sort of thing would be intuitively obvious. Hate being so, like totally… hateful and all.
I’m just saying…
No, they just put them in legal jeopardy for criticizing gays.
…and besides, what do the fucking Welse care anyway?
They weren’t even the ones who were insulted.
“Then they came for the Welse, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Welse…”
The classic tee shirt says “Muck Fichigan” and is popular around other large midwestern universities. I’m not sure how that wording would hold up vis a vis the legal defense noted above.
Speaking of shirts, PIATOR (and Helen Clark) have convinced me to no longer wear my All Blacks* jersey. Though I may make an exception for the throwback one from the tour in 1905 when they won dozens of matches. Until the USA Eagles pick it up, it’s gonna be the Wallabees for me since the Aussies are our true allies.
*New Zealand national rugby team. Despite PIATOR’s example, there are still manly men in NZ.
TW = floor. As in sometimes PIATOR’s post make me roll on the floor in laighter—other times the sheer circle-jerketry of his “logic” is too painful to follow.
there is an average 18 day wait for most simple diagnostic testing. This included such things as blood tests (lab results), CT scans and cancer screens.
My father-in-law experienced some chestpains while driving and mother-in-law made him go directly to the nearest ER. Within 36 hours he had undergone a quad-by-pass and within two weeks he was standing in the receiving line at my wedding to his son.
In places with nationalized health care he would have been on a waiting list for months.
I say: Fuck the thought police.
As an aside, I just finished my new year’s tour of the Left Blogs, and am (as always), startled at the ignorant and banal posting that goes on there.
As bad as PIATOR is, I think we at PW should thank our lucky stars for such a well spoken troll. She may be a Euro-moonbat (from NZ no less!), but at least she can express her moonbatery without getting drool all over my PC.
Thanks, PIATOR. As long as you keep the drooling masses of Leftist posters away, I, for one, will welcome your posts. Not to mention the fact that you are fun to dump on.
Happy fuckin’ New Year, eveybody…
Piator,
I’m going to go out on a limb here, but can we all agree with the sentiment expressed above: “Fuck the thought police?”
I would rather hope that we can all go with that one without descending immediately in to partisan bickering.
Cheers,
BRD
What to policemen investigating hate speech do all day?
Anyone know?