Current Affairs Free Speech

[Alan Whittle]

Social media has played a huge part in making issues black and white, and it allows partisan loons to mobilise and give a false sense of significance and plenty will take the path of least resistance and then the circle continues.

The internet initially only enabled “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” before being almost overwhelmed by complete falsehoods. Ubiquitous social media in parallel with the financial crisis which put paid to the myth of each generation being better off financially than the one before has led to anger, resentment and conspiracy theory overload.
Couple this with the notion of individual rights deemed to exist without individual responsibilities and here we are. We live in the age of unreason. Truth is simply the version of events that suits our own narrative most comfortably. We are the hyper connected Weimar Republic.

 

[RAFUH]

It's no coincidence after being accused of being a misogynist organisation because of the fit birds threat that we stepped up efforts to make @RAFUH a mod.

Fitting typo, Boss lol

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Fitting typo, Boss lol

Maybe that's my subconsciousness sneaking out...

 

[Charro]

It’s ok to be offended. That seems to have been lost in all this.

If somebody is offended they should always feel able to air their views, and people should always feel able to disagree with them.

It doesn’t always have to be snowflake this, woke that, omg cancel culture. Responding to people with those words does nothing to progress the debate.

Obviously, you’ll always have people who are overly sensitive and there is a lot of virtue signalling going on these days but I think that’s just a consequence of social media and being able to access opinions from thousands of people on a daily basis.

 

[Zezti]

Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence

 

[StreetEndBlue]

I think some people are happy with free speech as long as they're hearing things they want to hear, but when they hear the other side, the toys come flying out the pram.

Personally, I can't stand the far left or the far right so give both a wide berth wherever they are espousing their 'views'.

 

[longers]

Wokist is the new SJW, another comically overhyped enemy created by the right in order to play the victim at every possible opportunity. It’s impossible to take anyone who uses the term seriously... huge red flag for someone being a drippy little Tory bell end. Cancel culture is a load of overhyped bollocks ever as well.

Cracks me up that in a global pandemic, with wealth inequality continuing to rise along with global warming the rights biggest concern in the world is wokists, free speech and cancel culture. Funny how they only ever care about free speech when it effects the right, never hear them pipe up when a lefty gets booted off Twitter.

For the most part It’s all pathetic/disingenuous victim playing BS.

 

[Kurt.]

Get arrested for saying you're english these days

Fantastic news

 

[Kurt.]

It's no coincidence after being accused of being a misogynist organisation because of the fit birds threat that we stepped up efforts to make @RAFUH a mod.

I honestly thought it was because we’d become very ‘Gingerist’ on here

 

[ClausThomsen]

The thing is that society has legitimised these nutters.

For example, if a woman gets a letter for a smear saying 'women aged 16-64 need to book an appointment' (my other half just has), I could - easily - complain about the use of the word 'women' used in that context, start a social media campaign and get thousands of people complaining about inherent NHS transphobia. Because you don't need to have a uterus to be a woman of course - that's the narrative now. It should be 'all persons with a uterus aged 16-64' naturally.

Formerly, doing something like this would be the work of a lunatic, but now this is happening all the time.

We live in an age where there is a debate around Trans people and if someone identifies as a man but has a cervix then receiving a letter that doesn't recognise that may feel exclusionary or come across as not taking your identity seriously. And in a society where such people are often marginalised, victimised and straight up persecuted then to see that language on official paper may be upsetting or just annoying - I don't know for sure but I don't find it too difficult to understand or empathise.

The easy solution is to take that on board and modify the use of language - it's really not difficult.

But the "Arrested for being English" brigade seem to delight in being up in arms about it and start throwing Ifs and Coulds around as they theorise about going to hell in a handcart. Very rarely are they willing to straight up say "Trans people are nutters and lunatics" but are often very loose with derogatory terms for mental illness when discussing transphobia.

That's not to say you're transphobic or insensitive to mental illness @Tubey but once you notice how often any discussion of trans people is casually linked with terms such as nutter or lunatic it's very striking and if I were trans or was close to somebody who was it'd definitely be upsetting.

Of course there are people who will see something insensitive or poorly phrased and go all out on the attack in complete over-reaction but that is human nature and is not the hallmark of any one particular group or viewpoint.

 

[ClausThomsen]

This creates extremism. In the past, people disagreed but they debated and generally accepted if they won or lost the argument. We don't do that anymore - there's no debate, no shades of grey, everything is black and white, right or wrong, and people are willing to die on their own collective hills for their cause, all the time, reason be damned.

And it is extraordinarily dangerous.

That simply isn't true. Obstinacy and an unwillingness to back down from the most illogical intrenched position due to personal pride or prejudice has always been a strong feature of the human condition.

 

[Tubey]

We live in an age where there is a debate around Trans people and if someone identifies as a man but has a cervix then receiving a letter that doesn't recognise that may feel exclusionary or come across as not taking your identity seriously. And in a society where such people are often marginalised, victimised and straight up persecuted then to see that language on official paper may be upsetting or just annoying - I don't know for sure but I don't find it too difficult to understand or empathise.

The easy solution is to take that on board and modify the use of language - it's really not difficult.

But the "Arrested for being English" brigade seem to delight in being up in arms about it and start throwing Ifs and Coulds around as they theorise about going to hell in a handcart. Very rarely are they willing to straight up say "Trans people are nutters and lunatics" but are often very loose with derogatory terms for mental illness when discussing transphobia.

That's not to say you're transphobic or insensitive to mental illness @Tubey but once you notice how often any discussion of trans people is casually linked with terms such as nutter or lunatic it's very striking and if I were trans or was close to somebody who was it'd definitely be upsetting.

Of course there are people who will see something insensitive or poorly phrased and go all out on the attack in complete over-reaction but that is human nature and is not the hallmark of any one particular group or viewpoint.

Thanks for proving my point really.

 

[Tubey]

That simply isn't true. Obstinacy and an unwillingness to back down from the most illogical intrenched position due to personal pride or prejudice has always been a strong feature of the human condition.

It didn't happen to anywhere near the same degree as we see now since the advent of social media.

You didn't see Bill Clinton win an election result in millions of insane cultists forming the Bush version of QAnon. People no longer accept being wrong at all, or even on the defeated side; it's a different animal.

 

[ClausThomsen]

Thanks for proving my point really.

Not sure I understand.

Are you saying I'm a nutter or what I posted is the ramblings of a madman?
Or are you saying any discussion about the use of language in terms of trans people should be entirely dismissed?

We live in a society where people have the legal right to change their gender. Therefore it is possible for someone who considers themselves to be a man to be legally recognised as a man but also have a cervix.

My post wasn't about the rights and wrongs of the Gender Recognition Act. It's about whether a letter from an institution should recognise that and reflect it in their language. Personally I think they should - it's not difficult to do.

 

[Tubey]

Not sure I understand.

Are you saying I'm a nutter or what I posted is the ramblings of a madman?
Or are you saying any discussion about the use of language in terms of trans people should be entirely dismissed?

We live in a society where people have the legal right to change their gender. Therefore it is possible for someone who considers themselves to be a man to be legally recognised as a man but also have a cervix.

My post wasn't about the rights and wrongs of the Gender Recognition Act. It's about whether a letter from an institution should recognise that and reflect it in their language. Personally I think they should - it's not difficult to do.

A woman is an adult female human being. Females are distinguished by the production of gametes. They are the definitions.

What you are describing, however, is a trans woman. A letter from the NHS for a smear test to 'women' does not need to change its' vocabulary because the identifier 'trans woman' already exists.

Indeed, your suggestion would actually be pretending transgender people as well as biological sex doesn't exist. It's the same as saying I should say 'across the world' instead of 'around the world' to accommodate the delusions of a flat earther.

So yes, I actually think you're quite barmy for that position, and you validated my whole point by posting it.