Katie Hopkins accused of race hate by linking Pakistani men with sex abuse

[Red]

Are you in a position to divulge what the telegrams disclose? In general terms?

 

[mnb089mnb]

Can't take any more Diptels, Britain is already full!

 

[Alty]

Are you in a position to divulge what the telegrams disclose? In general terms?

Not really in terms of the work going on behind the scenes politically.

But in terms of the general situation, it's the lawlessness of Libya and the lack of any obvious solution to the multifaceted conflict that seems to be driving people to the border rather than an immediate threat to their life (in most cases).

 

[Red]

Lawlessness in terms of warlords and gangs holding sway? I use to be friends with a Libyan asylum seeker who came here. I lost contact with him before Gaddafi was toppled. I often wonder if he went back and if so what his situation is now.

 

[Red]

UN High Comissioner for Human Righta has put his view forward. Totally agree with him too

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/0...e-Hopkins-hate-speech-racist-Zeid-Hussein-Sun

 

[Captain Scumbag]

@Ian. Meant to reply a few times last week, but never quite found the time. So, first, forgive my tardiness.

Where is making the "no borders" case. Or any other pro-migrant case, with the reach of The Sun?

Many people of prominence (in politics, the media, entertainment, the arts) make a pro-migrant case. In public life, at least, it's actually much easier to make a pro-migrant argument than anything that could be construed as "anti-migrant".

True, considerably fewer make the no borders case, but that's possibly because it's a rather radical position that very, very, very few people subscribe to. For better or worse, most people in the first world don't want their country/continent to become a borderless free-for-all. However fractious and poisonous the immigration debate between 'progressives' and conservatives can get, for the most part it presupposes the existence of borders and consists of disagreements over the rules and controls in place. It's not a fundamental disagreement about whether we should have borders and accompanying rules/controls in the first place.

Now, I of course have no objection to people making the case, and the liberal pluralist in me would rather like to see programmes on outlets like the BBC and Channel 4 (who have a much greater burden of responsibility than The Sun when it comes to pluralism and providing a platform for minority points of view) making the case. But it's really for the people who passionately believe in such things to realise them, or to make their realisation more likely. Unfortunately many of them take the easier option of haranguing or attempting to censor people who think differently.

No platforming isn't censorship. Censorship is a top-down imposition. No platform is a bottom up, pluralistic demand. Makes all the difference.

The dimwits who reported her to the Police or talked of her being prosecuted are demanding the very kind of state-imposed and top-down censorship you talk of.

As for your point about no-platformers… From my quaint old-fashioned liberal point of view, yours is a clever-dick distinction without any meaningful difference. At their core, all no-platformers have an arrogant and ultimately quite misanthropic belief that views they find morally repugnant shouldn't be heard by anyone else. They are no different to Mary Whitehouse in that respect. They don't want to constructively challenge what they find uncomfortable or disagreeable. They want to silence it or limit its expression. Censorship.

By challenge, I mean assemble a lynch mob and politely put it to Katie Hopkins that she's to pipe down/retire from public life. I don't believe in free speech for bigots and think it's legitimate to suppress hate-speech. Like, there's shouldn't be laws against this stuff, but rather it should be done as part of our civic/moral duty to ensure that people can't come out with this sort of shite without consequences.

Okay.... Don't think you'd be quite so accepting if the EDL practiced their imagined "civic/moral duty" by forming a "lynch mob" and "politely" putting it to a prominent Muslim that he or she ought to "pipe down/retire from public life". Would you?

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

It would be repugnant either way, but I think I'd feel more comfortable about this piece were it an aberration. In reality it's just part of a wider tabloid culture of demonising and dehumanising immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers - the sheer number of lurid headlines you encounter is staggering, the language always unsympathetic, often vitriolic. It may be an industry in decline but the print media remains influential and retains the power to shape opinion. For many, the likes of The Mail and The Sun remains their primary news source, and the constant drip-drip of negative headlines fuels hostility towards a group of people devoid of both power and influence. I'm extremely sceptical of this idea that there are any pro-migrant voices out there that have anywhere near the same sort of reach.

I don't regard this as a police matter and, as I've already said, I really do prefer to ignore her nonsensical blather. But I do think it infuriating that newspaper groups don't take their social and ethical responsibilities seriously. It's sad that there was a petition calling for her removal; sad because the tabs are seemingly incapable of self-censorship and still think it acceptable to publish this sort of deliberately inflammatory, hate-filled tripe.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Where do you stand on press regulation now, then? Just curious.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Well seeing as you know that some of these people are fleeing for their lives and calling the people on the boats irresponsible then yes you did say something remotely like that. It's simple logic, try and follow it.

The trouble of course Red is that I didn't at any point call all of the people on the boats irresponsible. I mean it's commendable that you've at least tried to use logic, but it's not going to be much use if it's all based on a false premise.

I can't actually believe you think people dying en masse is trivial, regardless of the context or relativity of it and why the fuck you're gibbering about North Korea I don't know. How are the lives of the people who died in the sea of less value than those dying in N Korea?

On an individual basis? They're not. In the context of the wider issue though, a few hundred migrants dying in a dangerous but voluntary sea journey every now and again is nothing compared to millions of people born into slavery, brainwashing and forced famine, many of whom will end up in death camps to be experimented on, tortured, and killed en masse.

I realise that it's not an either/or scenario, but the idea that we're talking about this issue because human life matters so darn much to us is pure nonsense given what else is going on in the world.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

UN High Comissioner for Human Righta has put his view forward. Totally agree with him too

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/0...e-Hopkins-hate-speech-racist-Zeid-Hussein-Sun

"UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urges Britain not to respect Human Rights"

 

[silkyman]

Is he? Or is he asking whether the press have crossed the line between 'free speech' and something that would break the law.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Is he? Or is he asking whether the press have crossed the line between 'free speech' and something that would break the law.

There's isn't a line between free speech and something that might break the law in the UK, because our law doesn't really protect free speech in the first place. It's the same in most of Europe, especially France, ironically.

 

[Womble98]

Is Alty going to be the next Edward Snowden?

 

[Captain Scumbag]

^ Easier to imagine him being the sort the bungling civil servant who'd achieve fame by accidentally leaving the security codes for Trident on the Tube.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Directly after knocking back a few pints of Auld Austerity Ale in the Strangers' Bar...

Where do you stand on press regulation now, then? Just curious.

I thought Leveson's recommendations were broadly sensible. I don't have an awful lot of faith that they'll ever be fully implemented though.

 

[Red]

EG you said they were gambling with the lives of their families. You can try another game of weasel words semantics if you like, but we all know what you said equates with them being irresponsible.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

EG you said they were gambling with the lives of their families. You can try another game of weasel words semantics if you like, but we all know what you said equates with them being irresponsible.

No, you do, and as per usual, you're the only one confused. They gambled on a dangerous journey and lost. It's a statement of fact.

 

[Red]

We shouldn't feel responsible for people who gamble with the lives of their families you said. The mere fact that you think some of them left voluntarily demonstrates your ignorance of their situations.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

We shouldn't feel responsible for people who gamble with the lives of their families you said. The mere fact that you think some of them left voluntarily demonstrates your ignorance of their situations.

This assertion is based on... what, exactly? And left where?

 

[Red]

Left to get on a boat ,wherever it was moored before they set sail. Come on keep up

 

[Alty]

I think you two should accept you disagree rather than persist with this particular part of the argument.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Left to get on a boat ,wherever it was moored before they set sail. Come on keep up

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. If you genuinely believe that everyone getting on those boats either faces certain death if they don't, or that the have no other option, then calling that naive would be an understatement, it's more like pure self-delusion. Alty, who presumably knows more about this than both of us, has already told you as much.

 

[Red]

No, I don't genuinely believe that everyone getting on those boats faces certain death. Some of them do though and some are at extreme risk of being killed. To say that these people left voluntarily implies they had a choice which further implies that you believe staying and being killed or being at extreme risk of being killed or deciding to take your chances on the boat is any kind of choice. For those who were facing execution or being at risk of it I don't think it's gambling with with theirs and their families lives or an irresponsible act if they get in the boat.

We should be thankful we're not in the position these people are in when they feel compelled to risk their lives, but you carry on making your value judgements on people whose lives you know nothing about.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

No, I don't genuinely believe that everyone getting on those boats faces certain death. Some of them do though and some are at extreme risk of being killed.* To say that these people left voluntarily implies they had a choice which further implies that you believe staying and being killed or being at extreme risk of being killed or deciding to take your chances on the boat is any kind of choice. For those who were facing execution or being at risk of it I don't think it's gambling with with theirs and their families lives or an irresponsible act if they get in the boat.

But again, you're just creating another false dichotomy. A dangerous (and expensive) Mediterranean sea crossing is not the only way to leave Libya, and Europe is not the only safe destination. At worse I've painted in broad strokes and used language that doesn't quite cover the most extreme of life and death situations, but that still makes much more sense than using said cases as the rule instead of the exception. And if you don't think betting on an uncertain outcome like crossing the Mediterranean in a rickety boat to get to Europe is a gamble, then you don't know the meaning of the word.

We should be thankful we're not in the position these people are in when they feel compelled to risk their lives, but you carry on making your value judgements on people whose lives you know nothing about.

What value judgement have I made? I said we shouldn't be held responsible, not that their lives don't matter.

 

[Alty]

I should have added, btw, that Libyans are by no means the only people on these boats. Lots of them are refugees from Syria, others are economic migrants from elsewhere in North Africa. The situation in Libya is a driver for Libyans, but the breakdown of the state has also made it a good place for people from elsewhere to take a shot at making it to Europe without any interference.

 

[Red]

But again, you're just creating another false dichotomy. A dangerous (and expensive) Mediterranean sea crossing is not the only way to leave Libya, and Europe is not the only safe destination. At worse I've painted in broad strokes and used language that doesn't quite cover the most extreme of life and death situations, but that still makes much more sense than using said cases as the rule instead of the exception. And if you don't think betting on an uncertain outcome like crossing the Mediterranean in a rickety boat to get to Europe is a gamble, then you don't know the meaning of the word.



What value judgement have I made? I said we shouldn't be held responsible, not that their lives don't matter.

Not compared to North Koreans eh?

In your opinion what are the alternatives ways to leave Libya available to them and why don't they use them? Maybe they're very stupid for rejecting such alternative methods ways that don't involve them 'gambling' with the lives of their families.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Why do they choose the boats? Because they're looking for a better life, and the EU offers them much more than crossing the border into Algeria, Tunisia or Egypt would. Assuming they survive the journey.

 

[Red]

A refugee looking for a better life. The temerity of it is breathtaking.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

That sarcasm would be best directed at someone that had actually taken that position. Works OK as a distraction from the original point too though I suppose.

 

[Red]

That sarcasm would be best directed at someone that had actually taken that position. Works OK as a distraction from the original point too though I suppose.

The pretence you keep trying to maintain is getting very wearisome now EG. It'd be great if they were re-settled en masse in your town, on your street. Aggggghhh Muslims refugees on my street