Is this Cameron's Sepp Blatter moment?

[Lateralthinking1]

Some of you guys are comparing being a striker with being black, gay or Jewish.

Are you serious? Or have you just not engaged your brains before typing?

Contrasting. The Clarkson view supported by the law appears to be that hate isn't meant at all unless it is directed at specific groups when it is always really meant. For a start that is illogical.

Next, can we delve deeper into why hate against the groups in question became a crime? I'd be interested to hear from others but here are a few suggestions - to protect people, to be fair to them, to be inclusive, to be decent, to be civil, to prevent them from being placed in ever increasing vulnerability. All good stuff.

Funny then that the law would not protect against, say, cancer victims from "amusing jokes" and a state institution views lurid pot shots at those fighting against poverty in old age somewhere between great entertainment and a light faux pas. One looks back to the sixties when enlightenment was on the up and thinks of documentaries like "Cathy Come Home". People were upset and shocked by the realities that revealed. They were human. Men and women. Not bastards.

Now you get on a bus and half the people on it, both on the right and left, are culturally warped. Some wave flags they have been given for political correctness. Well, hip hooray. There is a kind of gas chamber Hitlerian attitude that accompanies that outlook in many. As long as they have treble ticked the necessary boxes, they can relegate all else to fodder. If any group is dispensible, it is surely that one. These people are things. I don't recognise them as people.

[Pilchardman]

So its ok to kick the little guy. as long as we are all jolly thick skinned about it all.

Not what I'm saying at all.

[barber olly]

Funny how all these wars are going hand in hand with economic meltdown. Pretty handy for certain people.

Has anyone really analysed the economic meltdown, who is threatening the economies of the west, countries are all in debt, but who do we owe this money to? Is the aim destabilisation of western democracies?

[teamsaint]

Not what I'm saying at all.

Ok. I misunderstood.I just don't like powerful people being offensive about less powerful people, at public expense.

[teamsaint]

Has anyone really analysed the economic meltdown, who is threatening the economies of the west, countries are all in debt, but who do we owe this money to? Is the aim destabilisation of western democracies?

There is a body of opinion that the economies of the west are being deliberately destabilised, in order to secure more far reaching super governments (check out the current fiscal union proposals), and as a cover for changing the governments of the middle east.
" democracy for Planet Earth, they roll it out like astroturf".....

[Simon B]

If Clarkson can say what he likes on television, people have a right to say they find it objectionable - which is, itself, a fact, not an opinion.

Agreed. That both sides of that equation are mutually dependent is a basic tenet of free speech, surely?

He offended a lot of people: a lot of people complained. Why is that a problem?

It isn't IMV, quite the opposite. Similarly to your first point, those questioning whether what he said was appropriate (and more worryingly, trying to assert that he shouldn't be allowed to in the first place) must equally permit their motives and the rational defendability of their stance to be dissected and challenged.

The basic issue with the "Clarkson problem" is that lots of people really loathe what he appears to stand for and espouses, and lots of other people find him entertaining. Some may even see him as a cheerleader for their world view. The anyone could take him seriously (either as a supporter or objector) is the bit I find alarming.

It should be irrelevant, but just to be clear, I'm no fan of his, and think much of what he says is pretty ridiculous. That's the point of him isn't it?

[Lateralthinking1]

Selective free speech as in "only if Simon thinks it is acceptable". Hence not for the woman on the tram etc. Nice one.

[Pilchardman]

Ok. I misunderstood.I just don't like powerful people being offensive about less powerful people, at public expense.

Who/what are we talking about now? I've lost track.

Is Clarkson a Tory caricature I'd be happy never to encounter ever again? Yes, of course. But is "I'm offended" sufficient argument to limit free speech? Certainly not. Not in that case, and not in any case. Remember the atheist bus adverts? ("There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.") Hundreds of religious people complained that they were "offended". That was enough, they thought, to have the adverts banned. Well it isn't.

[John Skelton]

Everyone's offended by everything these days, though. My views on religion are offensive, apparently. Therefore people like me shouldn't be allowed to broadcast that opinion.

We need to back off from this "being offended" idea. It's puerile.

What offends me (rather than 'I find it offensive') is the BBC's presentation of platform after platform for Clarkson and others like him to promote his / their own image / brand (and the greasy sycophancy of the two whatever they ares 'interviewing' him on 'The One Show'). It's like he's ... entitled to air his views on the BBC. No he isn't. He's nobody. Find someone who has something useful to say. He already has columns in The Sun and The Sun-Day Times.

But I do think it's important to keep a sense of perspective and of humour. So (a) it is absurd that so much attention and capacity for distraction has been given to Clarkson. And (b) I do think it would be quite funny if somebody decided to shoot him - the biter bit, like .

[Lateralthinking1]

.....The Premiership. A group of football supporters, tanked up, having a laugh. Shouts at the opposing fans - "you should be murdered in front of your kids".

Chances of staying in the ground - Nil.

Chances of being arrested for incitement - High.

Quote - The basic issue with the "Clarkson problem" is that lots of people really loathe what he appears to stand for

Edit - The basic issue with the "strikers' problem" is that lots of people really loathe what they appear to stand for

[french frank]

What offends me (rather than 'I find it offensive') is the BBC's presentation of platform after platform for Clarkson and others like him to promote his / their own image / brand (and the greasy sycophancy of the two whatever they ares 'interviewing' him on 'The One Show'). It's like he's ... entitled to air his views. No he isn't. He's nobody.

Just back from lunch where I was thinking ... it reminded me a little of the UK ambassador to Iran's comments on the attack on the embassy...

I've never watched the On Show (a typo, that! ) and I'm not sure what it's for. But (back to the embassy attack comment), I wondered what a motoring correspondent with a reputation for making outrageous comments was doing on a programme like that discussing a topical news item.

It was the 'tacit acquiescence' phrase that came to mind ...

[MrGongGong]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5CltsEN8DQ

nuff said

[Simon B]

Selective free speech as in "only if Simon thinks it is acceptable". Hence not for the woman on the tram etc. Nice one.

I agree with the observation that there's an underlying contradiction here - though it's unnecessary to make a cheap shot to point it out.

By common consent (hopefully) there are certain things that it has become considered beyond the pale to express. Moreover, illegal. On the face of it, the woman on the tram has quite clearly crossed that line. I didn't raise the possibility of mitigating circumstances as it's speculating about something which is for a proper investigation to determine.

Do you think it would be better if people were allowed to openly vent racist abuse against individuals, on the basis of their race? It's a serious question - it's possible to construct a coherent argument that they should be. It rather depends on the person on the receiving end being able to feel that the only person degraded by this is the perpetrator - all very well in the abstract, but a bit unlikely in practice.

[Lateralthinking1]

Quote - Do you think it would be better if people were allowed to openly vent racist abuse against individuals, on the basis of their race?

No.

Of course, Clarkson also has "lighthearted" form there too.

[Pilchardman]

What offends me (rather than 'I find it offensive') is the BBC's presentation of platform after platform for Clarkson and others like him

Well, yes, but I think that ship has sailed, Canute.*

I don't watch the One Show because it isn't aimed at me. Nor do I buy the Sun or the Sunday Times, although in that case it's more that I don't want to give News International my money. Although really I know the company I do give money to is just as bad, including in ways I haven't found out about yet.






*(This particular mixed metaphor was a favourite of my Grandad's, and I'm rather fond of it.)