Religion The Fucking Left

[Scouse]

Ok @Deebs - here's a safe space for this content

People being forced to resign because they once made jokes, weren't nice to everyone when they were pre-teens might be the controversy of the moment but the dawn of social media seems very much to have given the rabid left a platform to chase after people, make lists and then really affect people's lives because they've decided that the moral transgression of the hour has been violated. And increasingly this is being written into the "free west"'s laws - with the result that we're increasingly rapidly becoming less free.

This guy:

Grenfell Tower: Man accused of burning model to face retrial

Paul Bussetti will face a new trial after the High Court quashed his previous acquittal.

www.bbc.co.uk

Getting prosecuted - for a second time (despite being aquitted first time round, Labour and the rabid left decided to abolish double jeopardy because they kept not getting satisfying results in court that their OUTRAGE demanded) - because he made / filmed a fake grenfell tower burning and then posted it on youtube.

Now, it's a dick move and whether you find it funny or not (some part of me is mildly amused) is utterly down to you personally, but... Oh wait! No it isn't down to you.

It's officially prosecuteable. You can get a criminal record for this, previously, normal and predictable human behaviour (to play and poke fun of the worst situations life throws at us). But you're not allowed to think or feel these ways any more because of the fucking LEFT.

The left abolished double jeopardy because they didn't like the fact that juries might not agree with the ridiculous laws they pass and find people like this innocent regardless - so they passed a law giving them a second chance at securing convictions to make damn sure we all live in FEAR of stepping out of line of what they decide is socially acceptable.


This isn't Stalinist Russia, China under Mao etc. It's Blighty, 2021. The United States, the only place free speech is encodified - with laws that are ultimately repealable if there's enough popular support behind them. And it's all because we're a dumb knuckle-dragging species that doesn't consider principles and would rather look at each situation and the outrage it causes them.

I wouldn't bother posting this but there's a real pattern, massively intensifying, that I think leaves us all in increasing danger of becoming more like China and their despicable social capital system - by functional performance, rather than law.


Discuss? Meh. There's people on this forum that have expressed their admiration for China. I think we are in real trouble myself. And it's not necessarily the politicians who are bringing this about, but the woefully undereducated populations we live in doing it to ourselves.

In the meantime Paul Bussetti, who was cleared of posting the "grossly offensive" video in August two years ago is still being dragged through the courts, his name all over the news, his children I assume getting shit at school, his employers well aware of the flack they're taking - all because the left have criminalised his joke.


As much as I absolutely detest the Tories - and I really do - maybe that's why we don't want Labour back in?

 

[Tom]

I could be wrong but he was tried, acquitted, and at the appeal his acquittal was quashed. Which means that he's now being retried. Since his acquittal no longer stands, how can double jeopardy laws be anything to do with this?

 

[Scouse]

I could be wrong but he was tried, acquitted, and at the appeal his acquittal was quashed. Which means that he's now being retried. Since his acquittal no longer stands, how can double jeopardy laws be anything to do with this?

That's a fair point Tom. The thrust of the argument is about the fundamental principle of legislating against this sort of stuff. The guy is getting raked across the coals for this. And he's by no means alone - and it's not always in the courts either - the court of public opinion has been defended on this forum sort of as fair game.

It's not a good development IMO. And the CPS appealing after the original acquittal - I know they're there to uphold the law, but what a fucking law!

 

[Raven]

He is an obvious fully grown man, so not a case of someone doing something stupid to show off to their twitter mates at 18.

Plus, he is obviously a complete cock womble.

 

[Gwadien]

All I'm going to say is;

@Scouse you used to be called the commie here, now you've apparently abandoned your left wing views because you don't want to be associated with the new 'cancel culture, ultra woke' left.

That's convenient for those that you detest...

I know lots of left-wing people believe it or not, and they're always talking about traditional leftist policies, NEVER about cancel culture, or being ultra woke etc, I just think it's a tiny tiny minority on the 'left' but the representation of their views is blown massively out of proportion, because it's beneficial to non-left people...

This is just as hilarious as calling Corbyn a figure of cancel culture/wokeness.

 

[Overdriven]

You can still be left without being extreme left. Do people not know this?

But yes, this guy is a twat. I think the punishment is too high considering everything else that goes up online. The people who recorded it probably need a good slap too.

 

[Raven]

I am getting more left, the older I get. Ground down by the Tories I guess.

But the momentum cunts and the like can get in the sea.

Also, people getting "Cancelled for the deliberate spread of misinformation" is fine. Very few people get cancelled for an opinion.

The example given is nothing to do with politics.

 

[Scouse]

He is an obvious fully grown man, so not a case of someone doing something stupid to show off to their twitter mates at 18.

Plus, he is obviously a complete cock womble.

Totally agree with this. But there's a difference between being a cock womble and picking up a criminal record (and all that goes with it) for being a cock womble.

There's is no freedom if you're not free to be a bit of a twat and make awful comedy that most people won't ever find funny.

 

[Scouse]

@Scouse you used to be called the commie here, now you've apparently abandoned your left wing views

I was called the commie here by a section of the forum who actively seek to associate the pursuit of social justice and a fight for equality with ultra left wing idiocy as a means of not having to engage with the intellectual argument. Then others jumped on the bandwagon, because that's what humans are about.

I never held "left wing" views. I've explicitly rejected the left-right model as bullshit - but I entitled this thread "the fucking left" because nobody else seems to want to reject that model and pretty much everyone knows what I'm talking about when I bring it up.

But I've been consistent all along - I would like to see a just economic system, a just legal system, rehabilitation, proper spending on healthcare and free lifelong education for all - because we desparately need a massive resurgence of logical, rational, thought if we're going to not just survive as a species, but create a world that's worth living in.

I've also been consistent in that this cannot ever happen if we prohibit what people can think. If we legislate for what is acceptable on thought. The above cannot happen except hand-in-hand with real freedom of thought and speech.


You're opposed to that - so you've taken to chucking me on the pyre of "with me or against me" that 'the left' likes to keep burning. You don't give a shit that I want economic, social justice, universal healthcare, free education and a more level playing field for all of society - because I refuse to condemn people that the left are OUTRAGED by.

This is why labour is struggling. You've got a mass of natural allies - but you're so wrapped up in being morally outraged and wanting to ban people from being people - rather than lazer-focussing on economic and welfare reform - that you alienate the very people who could grant you some of that power.


I've not rejected all these things. I stand for actual freedom. Not state-prescribed nanny-freedom.

Unfortunately, younger people are more and more like you - and the world isn't becoming a "better place" for it.

 

[Wij]

Meanwhile the right is outlawing noisy protests and such but you choose to frame this as a left problem.

 

[Scouse]

Meanwhile the right is outlawing noisy protests and such but you choose to frame this as a left problem.

Absolutely not. I've had a big pop at exactly that on this very forum. And the Tories do have horrible form for this sort of thing.

However, they're two different things - the Tories want to ban protest, they don't really want to ban jokes. They're more along the lines of "think what you like, we'll stop you doing shit".

I think the very fact that so many of the British public are bought into the restrictions of freedom that we live under - especially the restrictions on thought - helps enable the Tories get away with that shit. Because we don't uphold the principle of the right to protest everything - but want to decide what we think is acceptable protesting (so we can hate on extinction rebellion, or train drivers (they get paid loads!) or the like) - then anything is fair game.

But for me it starts with freedom of thought and speech. If you don't stand fast by that principle - undermined primarily by 'the left' - then your house is built on sand...

 

[Embattle]

Quite frankly no one should get their knickers in a twist, both left and right have extremes and an ample supply of complete idiots and zealots.

The problem you have is besides them creating the most noise and waves they can harden the more moderate members in the opposite side.

 

[Aoami]

What has the CPS got to do with the left?

 

[Zarjazz]

As if two labels could represent any persons complete list of personal and political beliefs. No one is that simple. People laugh at astrology and rightly so and they have twelve!

 

[Scouse]

What has the CPS got to do with the left?

*sigh*

To add some bold and underline to the original emphasis:

And the CPS appealing after the original acquittal - I know they're there to uphold the law, but what a fucking law!

 

[Scouse]

As if two labels could represent any persons complete list of personal and political beliefs. No one is that simple. People laugh at astrology and rightly so and they have twelve!

100%.

However, if we continue to use left and right, despite protest, then it's "good enough" as a descriptor.

 

[Aoami]

*sigh*

To add some bold and underline to the original emphasis:

Yes, upholding a law introduced in 1988 by the government of the famously left wing *checks notes* Margaret Thatcher.

You sound like you've been red-pilled.

 

[Bodhi]

I really don't see this sort of thing as a Left / Right divide, it's the other one, Authoritarian / Libertarian. As already stated the right are getting just as bad with outlawing protest and getting some dude sacked from GB News for taking the knee - I'd put a pox on all their houses tbh.

Given the amount of people who consider themselves politically homeless at the moment there has to be an opening for a properly Liberal party. Sort of like the Lib Dems, but actually Liberal. And Democratic.

 

[Scouse]

Yes, upholding a law introduced in 1988 by the government of the famously left wing *checks notes* Margaret Thatcher.

Updated by Labour in 2001 to include electronic communications and then updated by Section 127 of the communications act 2003, under labour, that gave the CPS a role in policing speech on Social Media - when previously it wasn't part of their remit.

It doesn't fucking matter that I've said "the left" @Aoami. We're criminalising people because we no longer stand by Enlightenment Principles - the "I detest what you say but will fight to the death for your right to say it" principles that we built our societies on - and we're going backwards and hurting people in a very real way to no real end - no advancement of society.

What do we gain, as a society, for prosecuting a guy for making a shit joke on social media. What do we gain that makes the lengths we go to mandating what is "grossly offensive" to everyone, by law, and then prosecuting people?

 

[Aoami]

Updated by Labour in 2001 to include electronic communications and then updated by Section 127 of the communications act 2003, under labour, that gave the CPS a role in policing speech on Social Media - when previously it wasn't part of their remit.

It doesn't fucking matter that I've said "the left" @Aoami. We're criminalising people because we no longer stand by Enlightenment Principles - the "I detest what you say but will fight to the death for your right to say it" principles that we built our societies on - and we're going backwards and hurting people in a very real way to no real end - no advancement of society.

What do we gain, as a society, for prosecuting a guy for making a shit joke on social media. What do we gain that makes the lengths we go to mandating what is "grossly offensive" to everyone, by law, and then prosecuting people?

I agree with you to an extent, but why are you now saying its not about the left when you've called the thread "The Fucking Left", and in the olympics thread made a big point about it only being "The Left" who do this kind of thing? It puts you at "Old Man Yells At Cloud" level.

 

[Scouse]

I agree with you to an extent, but why are you now saying its not about the left when you've called the thread "The Fucking Left", and in the olympics thread made a big point about it only being "The Left" who do this kind of thing? It puts you at "Old Man Yells At Cloud" level.

Oh read the whole thread ffs. I'm not going to repeat everything has already been said very clearly just for your benefit.

 

[Aoami]

Oh read the whole thread ffs. I'm not going to repeat everything has already been said very clearly just for your benefit.

No. Admit you are wrong.

 

[Scouse]

No. Admit you are wrong.

About what, exactly?

The whole left/right thing has been covered in the thread. And the general thrust of it stands right. The changes into law, the undermining of free speech, the mandating of what society has to accept as "grossly offensive", the prosecutions, the witch hunts - the abandonment of the enlightenment principles that we have based our societies on - they're largely the province and brought about at the insistence of what we must (with caveats, given above) define as "the fucking left".

 

[Tom]

I think there's a line to be drawn somewhere between allowing hundreds of Nazis to goose step down a main road with someone at a megaphone shouting to burn the jews, and the daft cunt in this instance.

I don't know where it is though. Laws are set in this country mostly by established precedent, are they not? In which case, if this guy is found not guilty, mightn't his retrial be a good thing?

 

[DaGaffer]

I think there's a line to be drawn somewhere between allowing hundreds of Nazis to goose step down a main road with someone at a megaphone shouting to burn the jews, and the daft cunt in this instance.

I don't know where it is though. Laws are set in this country mostly by established precedent, are they not? In which case, if this guy is found not guilty, mightn't his retrial be a good thing?

Can't imagine why a retrial could be regarded as a good thing; if the prosecution couldn't get their shit together the first time around, why are they getting a second go? Is there compelling new evidence that's come to light? Reading the BBC article it doesn't seem that way.

 

[Scouse]

Can't imagine why a retrial could be regarded as a good thing; if the prosecution couldn't get their shit together the first time around, why are they getting a second go? Is there compelling new evidence that's come to light? Reading the BBC article it doesn't seem that way.

Agreed. And I'm still to see anyone even suggest a reasonable benefit to society from prosecuting people for this sort of stuff.

He's not burning effigies of jews in parliament square and inviting the planet to do the same - he burned a model of grenfell with cardboard people in a wildly inappropriate joke with his mates. But that's the thing about funnies - the best ones are often wildly inappropriate.

So, what do we gain by fucking this guy up, again? Especially as we've had to abandon our enlightenment principles to achieve the prosecution in the first place?

 

[SilverHood]

It's such a waste of time and resources. How much does a court case cost? Can't they go after fly tippers or other degenerates instead?

 

[Talivar]

 

[Talivar]

All of these threads descend into the same left vs right arguments yet the reality is both are extremes and both toxic for our society, there is plenty of room for left,center and right views without the extremities.

 

[Tom]

Can't imagine why a retrial could be regarded as a good thing; if the prosecution couldn't get their shit together the first time around, why are they getting a second go? Is there compelling new evidence that's come to light? Reading the BBC article it doesn't seem that way.

From what I read, the appeal judge determined that the trial judge erred. Since the first trial was in front of magistrates, and not a jury....