Wednesday 8 July 2009

They Really Don’t Like Competition, Do They…?

Yasmin is at it again; commenting on the case of the unsuccessful prosecution against Darryn Walker (which 'LfaT' covered so well last week), she’s not happy about the outcome:
The case was dropped and is celebrated as another important knock-back for censorship. Sadly I felt unable to join in with the good cheer.
There’s a shocker…
Something is deeply troubling about the validation given to Walker and those who think they have the right to say whatever they wish and excitedly share with others the thrills of extreme violence against women.
Yes, how dare they think they might have the right to say what they want! Don’t they realise that they aren’t journalists, just little people? The nerve!
The formidable Geoffrey Robertson QC (who rose to fame fighting the case brought against Oz) is very pleased indeed. Jo Glanville, editor of Index Against Censorship (an organisation I support but not blindly) righteously asserts: "The prosecution should not have been brought in the first place. Since the landmark obscenity cases of the 1960s and 1970s, writers have been protected so they can explore the extremes of human behaviour. This case posed a serious threat to that freedom."
Now, if champions of free speech like that were allied against my argument, I’d be shutting up and reflecting on how I might be wrong.

But the Yasmonster is paid by the word, obviously:
Hmmm. Is that so? So If Walker had written, say, the same fantasy but on the sexual torture of Anne Frank, would Index have backed him? Or if a wannabe Muslim fiction writer had done the same, would he have the right to "explore the extremes of human behaviour"? I hope the answer to both these hypothetical questions is No.
I hope it’s ‘Yes’.

Not because I’d want to read it, but because it’s not against the law to do so.
We all exercise judgements on what we say or don't say in public. You stop yourself because you don't want to hurt people, or to instigate a street brawl. There are laws that sacrifice freedom of speech for a greater good- harmony between races, public safety, social gentility and so on.
Some would say we’ve gone far, far too far down that road already…
Not everybody agrees on where the lines should be, but most know there are lines. These restraints belong to a pre-internet era and cannot contain or temper the limitlessness of the web. And yet we must, over the next few years, define the boundaries of what is acceptable in this brazen new world.
We must, must we? Says who?
Peter Tatchell tells me that lies are circulated about him and he receives constant threats. Polly Toynbee and others are subjected to mob fury for no good reason. Are we just supposed to put up with this behaviour because the web must be free?
So, don’t they have any comeback, due to the nature of the Internet?

Yes. They have the same comeback as anyone else:
In 2006, Ukip's Michael Keith won damages after joining a chatroom where anonymous postings smeared his character and in 2008 a CEO of a housing business got a large payout after a rival company carried out a malicious personal smear campaign against him.
See? We don’t need any further laws or restrictions. The system works for the Internet too.

But Yasmin still isn’t satisfied:
We don't yet have a really effective way of restraining material promoting racism, sexism, violence (except against children), homophobia, and other group hatreds. It must come if we are to make the best use of this amazing technology and not let it pull us down to a barbarism posing as freedom.
And obviously, the best way to ‘make use of this amazing technology’ is to let the State regulate and control it.

It’s worked for everything else, right?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

YAB - I really don't understand her purpose unless it is to raise my blood pressure just by seeing her name. The sheer amount of racial drivel and poison that pours from her is amazing, in that she gets paid to be so appalling. I'd never heard of her until the Question Time programme immediatley after '9/11' where she brazenly said, in front of the US Ambassador who was on the panel and an audience stuffed full of like minded jihadists, that the US had deserved it. Breathtaking!

Stan said...

"We don't yet have a really effective way of restraining material promoting racism, sexism, violence (except against children)"

Interesting - and wrong. Violence against and the abuse of children is featured heavily in mainstream programming on television. Indeed, currently running at prime time every night on BBC1 is a series devoted to the abuse of children - trailered pre-watershed with images of disturbed children screaming - but because it is fictional it is considered OK.

Sue said...

The woman is mental! She should get a proper job...

Perry Neeham said...

Great post, thank you for writing it.

Rob said...

"Polly Toynbee and others are subjected to mob fury for no good reason"

Bollocks. She is subjected to "mob fury" because she is a patronising, ignorant, hypocritical bourgeois socialist.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Fantasising about Anne Frank in a sexual way would be tasteless.

Acceptable would be pointing out that although she wrote a gripping book, the ending is rubbish, it just sort of stops. Or making jokes about sending her a drum-kit for a birthday present.

WV: nonohumo

Dangerouslysubversivedad said...

Offtopic, but I'd consider removing Voice of the Resistance of the old Blogroll if I were you. This morning's post is pure Moonbattery - Trutherism, the US Military will control the Internet, GM will kiiiiiiiiillll you etc etc. It's like a shopping list for the world's top Netballs.

Bill Quango MP said...

Good post.
What would be good is a Spartacus Douglas/Curtis battle to the death between Yasmin and Polly.
Loser gets to write leader columns for the daily Mail.

JuliaM said...

"The sheer amount of racial drivel and poison that pours from her is amazing, in that she gets paid to be so appalling. "

Why do they do that? She can be relied upon to bite the hand that feeds her every time..

"She is subjected to "mob fury" because she is a patronising, ignorant, hypocritical bourgeois socialist."

In the mind of YAB, that's no good reason!

""

JuliaM said...

"Or making jokes about sending her a drum-kit for a birthday present."

Wasn't it the Pia Zadora stage production where she was so awful in the role, when the Nazis came on stage, several of the audience stood up and shouted 'She's in the attic!'...?

"I'd consider removing Voice of the Resistance of the old Blogroll if I were you. This morning's post is pure Moonbattery - Trutherism, the US Military will control the Internet, GM will kiiiiiiiiillll you etc etc."

Haven't read that one yet, but it takes all sorts. And I'm sure if it's poorly written or badly thought-out, the commenters will rip it to shreds.

Nothing worse than a website heavily into groupthink!

"What would be good is a Spartacus Douglas/Curtis battle to the death between Yasmin and Polly."

Especially if you could sell tickets!

Rob said...

They breed them tough oop north:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8140857.stm

Jesus

JuliaM said...

Oh, for the love of...

"A Bolton shop-owner has been told he must take down a mannequin of a soldier - because it is giving local bank staff flashbacks of an armed robbery."

Do armed robbers now eschew the traditional stocking mask or balaclava in favour of Rambowear then?

That's almost as bad as this humourless git's response to a scarecrow on his patch with a fake radar gun...

Mark Wadsworth said...

In case you think my Anne Frank comments were in bad taste, here's JuliaM herself over at National Death Service.

JuliaM said...

:D