Current Affairs Free Speech

[dholliday]

I really couldn't give a toss if anyone kneels or not. It's a free choice or at least it should be.
Just because you are a Christian you don't need to go to church everyday to prove it. Or do you?
Racism is abhorrent and evil.
But people shouldn't have to adhere to certain signals or behaviours just to
prove they are not racist.
If so, George Orwell didn't know half of it.

Actually have no idea what you're babbling on about here. You were saying something about people finding things to be offended at, does that not include grown men booing at kneeling footballers?

Ah well. Never mind.
It's a few blokes on footie forum not the WEF meeting in Davos is it now?

Tash is referring to the pressure footballers will feel to bend the knee, that if they don't they'll get a right bollocking...more than mere booing from the stadium. Maybe even lose sponsorships or their place in the team.

 

[dholliday]

We seem to have collectively forgotten the old adage about today’s newspaper being tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.

Just musing - maybe it’s because when news was predominantly acquired as printed on paper, it reminded people that it ultimately was just disposable trash. Now it’s digital and online forever, which gives it a false sense of importance.

This is all pretty tongue in cheek, by the way, but the vast majority of these culture war stories to me are as meaningless and throwaway as the daily star stories about a soap actor being spotted at the Stringfellows club.

instinctively want to believe this, as in we're inflating this guff to occupy our time due to the online medium making it easier to endlessly debate.

But maybe, in a kind of twisted self-fulfilling prophecy, we've not just inflated this guff to artificially-elevated importance, it's rising to real-world importance, transcending from the online-sphere to the real-world, made smoother as those two worlds become more interconnected with each other.

Every day there's a new 'culture war" issue, and both sides seem ever more eager to present these issues as one-sided as possible. Zooming-out, we create the hyper-partisan politics we now see today.

We've made these things important.

My lady reckons we do this as Western society is peaceful, well-fed, warm, culture-rich...we essentially lack real big problems...so we create them. Some innate need for conflict, an instinctive human drive, maybe.

The aliens can't come soon enough!

 

[Prevenger17]

Tash is referring to the pressure footballers will feel to bend the knee, that if they don't they'll get a right bollocking...more than mere booing from the stadium. Maybe even lose sponsorships or their place in the team.

What about scores of players and managers who have come out and said it means something to them and explained why they are doing it? Do they not matter?

 

[Amw79]

instinctively want to believe this, as in we're inflating this guff to occupy our time due to the online medium making it easier to endlessly debate.

But maybe, in a kind of twisted self-fulfilling prophecy, we've not just inflated this guff to artificially-elevated importance, it's rising to real-world importance, transcending from the online-sphere to the real-world, made smoother as those two worlds become more interconnected with each other.

Every day there's a new 'culture war" issue, and both sides seem ever more eager to present these issues as one-sided as possible. Zooming-out, we create the hyper-partisan politics we now see today.

We've made these things important.

My lady reckons we do this as Western society is peaceful, well-fed, warm, culture-rich...we essentially lack real big problems...so we create them. Some innate need for conflict, an instinctive human drive, maybe.

The aliens can't come soon enough!

There’s a lot in there. And I’ve had a drink. I’ll respond in due course.

 

[dead_soft]

That's literally what happened by their own admission, but no, not on its' own, but as I've said a few times it's death by a thousand stupid cuts - they all add up, they all become associated with a persistent ideology, and the Labour party get the blame and the Tories benefit. Hell, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with the Labour party in theory, but because of their strategy they are implicated by political position anyway due to the lurch to the extreme left under Corbyn.

Here's an unnamed Tory MP:

'The Labour Party is losing the plot. They can carry on banging on about all this stuff. The reality is most of the public are not with them on it. We are just agreeing with the public saying this is ridiculous.'

He's right. They are benefitting every time. If I was a Tory, rather than get annoyed I'd just do what they do - shake my head disapprovingly and express manufactured outrage while privately laughing about how the left eats itself. But I get annoyed, because the opposition should be credible, and Labour aren't.

Right so it’s the Labour Party’s fault that people who have no involvement with the Labour Party have done a really small thing that you’ve got upset by. Quite a reach to me but seems you’re set on that.

Interesting that you take that Tory MP as right rather than thinking that his party might be part of why this whole silly culture war continues.

 

[dholliday]

What about scores of players and managers who have come out and said it means something to them and explained why they are doing it? Do they not matter?

they do matter, and like Colin Kaepernick should feel free to make any symbolic gesture they wish. i disagree with the anti-Kaepernick crowd who feel he didn't have a right to symbolically protest.

tho' team-sports is a healer on its own, all these people coming together. it is its profound strength. from that perpective the continued obligation (and it will feel like an obligation to many) to bend the knee will feel like it's watering down team-sports' natural healing powers. it should be a choice like it is with other national teams.

then there's the debate about how connected this gesture is to the organisation Black Lives Matter, who are controversial to say the least.

There’s a lot in there. And I’ve had a drink. I’ll respond in due course.

i could do with one, my lad's not getting to sleep lol

i should add when i talk of "we" i mean really everyone collectively: the people taking offence, the ECB feeling the need to react dramatically, those criticising the perceived cancel culture, anyone who's writing paragraphs in this thread...the collective we.

 

[Tubey]

Right so it’s the Labour Party’s fault that people who have no involvement with the Labour Party have done a really small thing that you’ve got upset by. Quite a reach to me but seems you’re set on that.

Interesting that you take that Tory MP as right rather than thinking that his party might be part of why this whole silly culture war continues.

It's the Labour Party's fault they've aligned their political compass that way.

If they'd acted like Burnham today and called out stupid stuff as stupid, they wouldn't be associated by default.

As it stands, there's no explicit "Stupid Woke People Party", so instead the blame electorally defaults to them.

And again, you keep describing this as small, insignificant - and it would be, absolutely... if stuff of the same ilk didn't keep happening, day after day, over and over and over again.

 

[dead_soft]

It's the Labour Party's fault they've aligned their political compass that way.

If they'd acted like Burnham today and called out stupid stuff as stupid, they wouldn't be associated by default.

As it stands, there's no explicit "Stupid Woke People Party", so instead the blame electorally defaults to them.

And again, you keep describing this as small, insignificant - and it would be, absolutely... if stuff of the same ilk didn't keep happening, day after day, over and over and over again.

And if people like you didn’t keep getting offended by people deciding what they do and don’t like.

What Burnham did was politicking. I quite like him both personally and politically. I thought he played it wrong today but understand why he did.

You keep calling them Stupid and woke and whatever. At some point you’d hope you might listen to them but you’d rather keep getting offended and exaggerating what happened so you do you.

 

[Tubey]

they do matter, and like Colin Kaepernick should feel free to make any symbolic gesture they wish. i disagree with the anti-Kaepernick crowd who feel he didn't have a right to symbolically protest.

That's an interesting one - Kaepernick taking the knee.

Here was my take on that back in 2018.

As for Kaepernick, I don't get the fuss but it's very much an American thing. They are extreme nationalists by nature - everyone standing for the national anthem before a game at Goodison Park would be just about the weirdest thing ever.

So I won't comment on the extreme reactions, other than to say it is enlightening that people aren't just disagreeing with Kaepernick on social media; there's been an immediate, visceral racist reaction to him.

Which, of course, validates his position.

It was a powerful gesture when he did it, purely for anti-racist reasons. And I did and continue to support what he did. Any backlash to what he was doing was obviously purely based on race and extreme nationalism; there was no other reason to protest against what he was doing.

However, that gesture then became something else much bigger than one man. It became a gesture of support for Black Lives Matter - not the sentiment, the movement itself, the organisation.

After that, it's simply disingenuous to claim the gesture has nothing to do with BLM, especially when the players started taking the knee explicitly for BLM with the organisations logo on their shirts in the first instance.

So if I supported Kaepernick but don't support the players taking the knee now, how does that square with the crowd saying the reasons for booing taking the knee are 'disingenuous'?

 

[Tubey]

And if people like you didn’t keep getting offended by people deciding what they do and don’t like.

What Burnham did was politicking. I quite like him both personally and politically. I thought he played it wrong today but understand why he did.

You keep calling them Stupid and woke and whatever. At some point you’d hope you might listen to them but you’d rather keep getting offended and exaggerating what happened so you do you.

They removed a portrait of the Queen to make a safe space.

That's stupid. I will therefore call them stupid for doing it. They are stupid.

 

[dead_soft]

They removed a portrait of the Queen to make a safe space.

That's stupid. I will therefore call them stupid for doing it. They are stupid.

They didn’t though. And you’ve been told so, repeatedly, otherwise. They didn’t like the picture of the queen so removed it.
You can sya that’s them demanding a safe space but that’s reflecting on you.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

They removed a portrait of the Queen to make a safe space.

That's stupid. I will therefore call them stupid for doing it. They are stupid.

Of all the things happening, in the world, in the U.K., this is about as low down the list as possible of things to get infuriated about.

 

[Tubey]

They didn’t though. And you’ve been told so, repeatedly, otherwise. They didn’t like the picture of the queen so removed it.
You can sya that’s them demanding a safe space but that’s reflecting on you.

No they quite literally did do that. Here's the exact reasoning:

[To make] a welcoming, neutral place for all members regardless of background, demographic, or views.

The exact words of the people who did it.

The above is stupid.

 

[dead_soft]

No they quite literally did do that. Here's the exact reasoning:



The exact words of the people who did it.

The above is stupid.

At no point did they say safe space but you used it because you find it so infuriating but alright if you think creating a welcoming space is horrendous, you go for it.

 

[Tubey]

At no point did they say safe space but you used it because you find it so infuriating but alright if you think creating a welcoming space is horrendous, you go for it.

No, I think the idea that removing a picture of the Queen is somehow creating a 'welcoming space' is downright stupid. As the vast majority of people would.