This harness is uncomfortable – but necessary. I have had to be tethered to the ground this morning for fear that I might blast off into cyberspace – 3,000 feet and rising! Mr G, ever the practical man, feared the non-appearance of his dinner tonight….

The Right to Hate! The Right to Bluddy Hate? Who, in God’s name, has infringed your right to hate? You are free to hate anyone and anything you wish to. Hatred is a corrosive and non-productive activity best left to the brain dead, but if you wish to indulge – feel free, no one is stopping you ‘hating’.

But of course, you don’t actually mean the right to hate at all, do you? You are playing a deceitful game of semantics.

You mean Expressing The Right to Hate in the Form of Issuing Verbal Threats.

That is a completely different thing, and something that many people are against, but you turn your wish into ‘The Right to Hate’ and complain that a perfectly reasonable emotion is being denied to you. Classic tactics.

I dislike Yasmin Alibhai-Brown intensely. She winds me up. She whinges. She retreats behind her Muslim identity at the first sign of trouble. I am no fan of hers. I don’t support her retreat into a police complaint after Gareth Compton’s incitement to violence – but only because I believe it to be a waste of time that will only succeed in bringing out a crowd of knee jerk responses from people who claim that their ‘right to free speech’ is being denied them.

I sympathise with her reasons for that complaint totally. Utterly.

The blogosphere, for all its loud mouthed assertions that it embraces equality, makes the same mistake as the feminist movement. It simply ignores the biological evidence that men and women are different. They react to things differently, according to their levels of testosterone and oestrogen. You can try all you want to convince yourself that we are all just fingers on keyboards, but it is emotions that drive those fingers across those keyboards – and those emotions are not all equal.

Those with a high level of testosterone will feel comfortable with violence; they are capable of instigating it, replying to it, counter-acting it. Those without, will not. That simple fact will inevitably result in them becoming the victims of violence.

In the real world, the majority of women do have a low level of testosterone – notwithstanding that it rises as we grow older. I may turn into Mack the Knife yet. Sure, you can all point to the odd example that counteracts this generalisation. The battered husband, the female Mossad agent who would terrify Genghis Khan, the foul mouthed female Twitterer – but they are the exceptions.

Most women fear violence because they invariably have no physical choice other than to bow down before it.

That is why we have rape laws – or do you disagree with them too? Perhaps you think your testosterone should be free to express itself physically as well as verbally, however you damn well please? Or would you be horrified at that idea? Is it just behind an anonymous keyboard that it should be socially acceptable for you to issue your threats to those you hate rather than those you lust after?

Nor is it merely women who fear violence, whether physical or verbal. Many men are uncomfortable with it too. I suspect that some men embrace the Blogosphere precisely because in real life they are timid and unassuming, unable to physically joust with their fellow men in time honoured manner, but given a cloak of anonymity in the Blogosphere they can appear to be fearless Titans.

I started this blog because I believed, albeit from a Quaker vantage point, in the Libertarian movement. I had read of the Libertarian ideals extensively in the US, and they seemed to reflect my own beliefs in personal responsibility. I looked around the Blogosphere, expecting to find similar web sites in the UK. I discovered a collection of men ‘expressing their rage’. Swearing, ranting, and obsessed with homosexuality and lewd comments regarding female politicians. You could practically feel the vibrations as they beat their chests. Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! What big boys you are with your smallholdings and shotguns and ‘I can say anything I ***ing well want to’ hiding behind your usernames.

I’m not particularly knocking the ranty-sweary blogs, I can understand the need to let off steam in a society which has endured 13 years of Totalitarian control – I do question how much good it is intended to achieve, beyond a simple egotistical sense of relief. Particularly from the blogs that lie on the outer edge of Anarchic beliefs. You are complaining that you are being ‘forced’ to behave in a certain way – so you want to smash up society and force it to behave in another way? A fine Oxymoron if ever I read one.

A number of Libertarian blogs have packed up recently – as did I, albeit for different reasons. Some of them claim that they have ‘lost the rage’, some that they have ‘got a good job’ and cannot ‘put it at risk’ by blogging. That sounds suspiciously to me as though the only reason you were availing yourself of the finest advance in human communication was to use the keyboard equivalent of the back of the bike sheds, where little boys once gathered to assuage the rising hormones with a sneaky fag, a smutty conversation, a shared sexual revelation. Sheesh! Shame on you – and there was me thinking you wanted to help effect political change in the UK – but you can’t have done, you just wanted to let off steam.

You will never effect political change in the UK – or anywhere else – by alienating half of the voting public – women. Nor by turning your vehicle for change, the blogosphere, into a highly charged testosterone heavy environment, where people have to be prepared to receive death threats if you disagree with them, regardless of whether they are male or female.

I want to see Libertarian responses to the present government. Shouting at them from behind a keyboard is like taking an eyedropper to empty the ocean.

I want to see Libertarian blogs taking up the baton dropped by the main stream media. Saddleworth News is an excellent example, positively the best in depth reporting of the Phil Woolas scandal – and not a swear word in sight. I have no idea if he is a Libertarian, but that is what we should be modelling ourselves on, not screaming for the right to issue death threats to some daft MSM journalist. Libertarian blogs highlighting local injustices where people can step in to help make the government irrelevant. What I termed the ‘Blog Society’. Let government intervention wither and die. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

You all live in communities surrounded by real people, real injustices. Blog about them, invoke the community spirit of the Blogosphere, harness the expertise and energy of all those readers – do something practical with it; don’t waste it on futile demands to be allowed to issue death threats to those you don’t agree with.

That is precisely as futile as Yasmin believing that recourse to criminal law will ever stop people hating her. There is a difference between hating her and publicly calling for her death though.

*Dons tin hat and goes for long walk beside calm and tranquil river*.

Woodsy42 November 15, 2010 at 23:57

Goodness, there are so many issues here I’m not sure what to think.
Are
women less aggressive and men more likely to be violent? I suppose that’s the
stereotypical view and in a purely physical sense it is more often the case
that men are stronger (and perhaps see fewer subtle shades of right and wrong
so are more direct). But I’m not entirely convinced it’s all down to gender
and neither are all battles physical.
In the purely physical arena I can
well understand where Katabasis is coming from, often force is the easiest way
to prevent trouble. This is true in the playground where the potential victim
claims if the bully hurts him his big brother will get him, and it’s true in
international politics where the country says if you invade we’ll nuke you.
Male persuits in both cases I suppose. We all (I hope) stand up for our
friends and for honesty, that’s what people do, and it may be morally dubious
but superiour strength works.
In the case of Compton and Alibhai-Brown
however I’m not convinced that there is a physical element. He didn’t threaten
to do anything to her himself or directly dictate that anyone else should. Now
maybe the lack of direct threat that I perceive is because I’m male, and a
woman would hear it differently? Or maybe it’s simply a confidence thing,
anyone who was already in a low emotional state might find it threatening?
Maybe, but I’m still not exactly convinced.
The ‘unconvincing’ element for
me is the reference to stoning. No ordinary traditional English person would
suggest stoning as a life threatening act or punishment. Despite all the
horrendous things we have done to people, burning ‘witches’, hanging thieves,
drawing and quartering people for treason, we as a nation have no history of
stoning to death as a punishment. This is an Islamic form of punishment. So
what Compton was saying in a sense was that she deserved the punishment of her
own religion. So what I hear is an insult, to her personally and an insult to
Islamic practice, either might be justified or not, I’m not going there, but I
don’t hear a threat as such.
Is that a purely male view?

JuliaM November
16, 2010 at 07:24

“So what Compton was saying in a sense was that she deserved the
punishment of her own religion. “

No, he used the stoning reference because that was the subject of the
Radio 4 discussion that he was listening to. If the method of execution
under discussion had been firing squad or hanging, he’d have used those
terms instead.

Yazza is well aware of this.

electro-kevin
November 15, 2010 at 20:50

Of course you have the right to hate. Who would want to create windows into
people’s souls ?

But without the manners and intelligence to repress your true thoughts
you’re just a common chav.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 20:25

I have a confession to make. I’d not properly read the original remark
which prompted Anna’s piece.

Yes, I agee, it was always highly unlikely that Gareth Compton actually
meant what he said. And this would be a subject close to Anna’s heart for
reasons directly related to me!

What can I say, except that sometimes chains of events lead people to say
things that are ill-judged and uncalled for.

I guess you can’t legislate against everything and making the judgment
about where lines should be drawn is very difficult.

But yes. Whilst my differences with the libertarian philosophy per se
reman, I can’t really argue with anything Anna says in this piece about the
specific incident.

(Julia M)

“Beliefs and realities frequently do not coincide. Theo Van Gough did not
take death threats against him seriously.”

“I seem to recall that those were serious threats, made by serious people,
with serious form for carrying out those threats.

And they didn’t Tweet it”.

Having read the Gareth Compton comment properly, I agree, the comparison is
not valid.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 17:03

“I would argue that it was the passing of the apartheid laws that created
the intolerance that necessitated the current laws…..”

Yes!

Prevailing influences that shape the way people think and their attitudes
…

Laws is just one.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 16:52

Catosays

“Perhaps we could go back to basics here and ask if anyone seriously
believed that the tweet was made ‘with intent’.

Whether YAB honestly believed it..I very much doubt. She has merely used
such verbiage to jump on her well-used bandwagon.

Perhaps the tweet should not have been made but I really can’t see anyone
taking it with more than a shovelful of salt.”

Beliefs and realities frequently do not coincide. Theo Van Gough did not
take death threats against him seriously.

He ended up very dead.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 18:19

“Beliefs and realities frequently do not coincide. Theo Van Gough did
not take death threats against him seriously.”

I seem to recall that those were serious threats, made by serious people,
with serious form for carrying out those threats.

And they didn’t Tweet it.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 16:45

Ah!

“Hmmn, actually I said I understood her recourse to the law – since it was
there – but I also said that the law was ineffective. You can fine Paul
Chambers, but you wont change his thoughts on the matter.”

I stand corrected. You sympathise with her act (of reporting the threat)
but not with the law that enabled her to take it.

“You invoke the spirit of South Africa – yes apartheid is illegal now, do
you really believe that south Africa has suddenly become as fluffy
multi-racial society, that men who upheld the law that prevented a black man
from travelling ont he same bus as their daughter are suddenly welcoming said
black man as a potential suitor for their daughter?”

No, of course I don’t. But I do believe that South Africa is, now, a much
more tolerent society than, once, it was. I also believe that empy vessels (of
people with no, or indistictly formed, views, opinions and especially
prejudices) can be shaped, for good or ill, by the environments in which they
live. I think it entirely possible, for example, that if I had been born,
white and Aryian, in Nazi Germany, I would have believed the Nazi creed of the
superiority of the Aryian race. But because I was born in a later era and in a
country with very different values, my outlook is nothing like that. And
people, on the whole, tend to obey laws even that they disagree with. Within
the British BNP, with abhorent values, there is, nonetheless, intolerance of
attitutdes towards ethnic minorities not permitted by the British law. I’ve no
doubt that would change if they ever came to power, but as things stand, their
influence is less malign than, otherwise, it would be because the law keeps
them in check and keeps them a legal party.

Move on a generation (or, perhaps, two) and the lag-effect of laws passed
way back begins to take effect. Empty vessels born into a society with values
of tolerance, equality and fairness are likely to grow up to adopt them, with
a net effect of a fairer and more civilised society for all.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
16:58

I would argue that it was the passing of the apartheid laws that created
the intolerance that necessitated the current laws…..

Catosays November
15, 2010 at 16:44

Perhaps we could go back to basics here and ask if anyone seriously
believed that the tweet was made ‘with intent’.

Whether YAB honestly believed it..I very much doubt. She has merely used
such verbiage to jump on her well-used bandwagon.

Perhaps the tweet should not have been made but I really can’t see anyone
taking it with more than a shovelful of salt.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 15:13

“Seems to me this is another expression of the classic duality of the word
“freedom.” These discussions often ariseon any occasion when one person’s
exercise of the freedom *to do* something conflicts with another person’s wish
to enjoy freedom *from* something. My granddaughter wishes to exercise her
freedom to play her music loundly, I wish to enjoy my freedom from that
atrocious racket. We all wish for the freedom *to* speak completely freely,
but none of us would surrender the freedom *from* feeling threatened. Freedom
*to* – V – Freedom *from.*”

Hire a sound-proof room where your grand-daughter can play her music at any
decibel level she chooses without intruding on anyone else’s right to peace
and quiet.

Then, in a few years, she’ll be suing you for aiding and abetting the
creation of conditions leading to permanent and irreversible hearing-loss
…

PT November 15, 2010 at 14:51

Seems to me this is another expression of the classic duality of the word
“freedom.” These discussions often ariseon any occasion when one person’s
exercise of the freedom *to do* something conflicts with another person’s wish
to enjoy freedom *from* something. My granddaughter wishes to exercise her
freedom to play her music loundly, I wish to enjoy my freedom from that
atrocious racket. We all wish for the freedom *to* speak completely freely,
but none of us would surrender the freedom *from* feeling threatened. Freedom
*to* – V – Freedom *from.*
Simples.

Sarbanes Oxley
November 15, 2010 at 14:49

What truly troubles me with the blogosphere is the way it desensitives
discourse. If you went up to somebody in the street with people milling
around, and came out with a stream of foul mouthed invective and then
threatened to kill them, you deserve to be dragged off and locked up.

YAB is an irritating, arrogant self opininated whiner, I know this because
I have met her and had a coffee with her at the conference on modern liberty.
I disagreed with her world view, I counter argued it was not neccessary to
raise my voice, use profanities or threaten to kill her because I was in a
social arena and to do so was to demean both her and me.

YAB believes that she is very important, she is also very thin skinned.
Pomposity is easily pricked by ridicule not by threats of violence real or
imagined.

The internet does not allow the nuances of facial expression, the look in
the eye and weighing up the person in front of you.

So the Libertarian will always weigh up the balance between freedom and
personal responsibility. The tribal follower will kill, maim and destroy in
the name of the group mindlessly which is why I distrust the mob, the state
and organised religion. It requires you not to think just react to the
prevailing group think.

Hate is a waste of time energy and emotion.

Think back to Orwell’s 1984 and the daily ‘hate in’ check the snarling
twisted faces on a youtube clip if you have not seen the film or read the
book.

Tories hate socialists, socialists hate tories, I just think they are both
plain wrong, I don’t hate either.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 15:09

“YAB believes that she is very important, she is also very thin
skinned. Pomposity is easily pricked by ridicule not by threats of violence
real or imagined.”

Ridicule of her position is what Compton’s Tweet was. Think of how
it came about…

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
15:48

“Ridicule of her position is what Compton’s Tweet was.”

If that is the extent of his imagination when it comes to ridicule,
then I pity him.

JuliaM November 15, 2010 at 15:53

We can’t blame the chap for the paucity of his imagination, not throw
him to the wolves because it doesn’t meet our exacting requirements…

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
16:01

I think we can come to agreement on that Julia (phew!) – I don’t
think the law should be in place either!
Nor do I think he should
have made that Tweet in the first place.

Katabasis November
15, 2010 at 14:44

Anna, speaking as a man for whom violence has been pretty much a way of
life for thirteen years, I wanted to address some of the concerns you
raise.

I’m very mindful of the force differential between men and women and the
many affects this has on our mutual shared interactions (on and offline). I
have often explained this to male friends who are completely flummoxed by the
modern woman’s mating rituals; for example many men make the mistake of
assuming women aren’t as interested in sex – failing to understand that as
much of the reticence comes from deep seated concerns about physical safety as
it does from socially conditioned BS regarding male and female sexuality.

A lot of this confusion also comes from us having the notion of complete
equality continually drilled into us and I’m relieved to see you write that
there are important differences to be recognised and addressed.

The differential you correctly identify though isn’t all bad. When people
realised just how bad what you were on the receiving end of had become I
noticed a lot of chest thumping that circled around wanting to protect you.
Had you reported that any of these people were actually coming to visit you in
person I would have – sincerely – travelled across the country, across the
channel and to your house to offer my protection for as long as I could
practically afford to do so. I’m sure I would not have been the only one.

You can call it testosterone bravado if you want, it is what it is.

I would – whenever circumstances allow – gladly offer my help to anyone I
consider to be in a weak or vulnerable position. I, and my friends, have done
many times before. It is something I wish I could blog about – I know it would
inspire many others to look after their neighbor, metaphorically speaking. I
cannot speak of most of it because it is highly likely myself and others would
be arrested as a result, despite the fact that these actions were
unquestionably the ‘right’ thing to do. These people had no one else to turn
to.

Only one case I’m willing to mention – and that is because the police
showed absolutely zero interest in helping despite calls for help – was about
10 years ago, a couple of the more vulnerable left-wing activists in Sheffield
were being terrorised by a couple of “redwatch” people. They started receiving
threatening phone calls, emails even house visits. As you have no doubt
gathered, there is no love lost between myself and the left here, but it was
something I wasn’t willing to tolerate. I called in a few favours, found out
within a matter of days who was responsible and put what I’m only willing to
describe as a hard stop to it. Those activists haven’t been bothered since
(though unfortunately I have since become persona non grata again because I
thoroughly objected to them subsequently agitating for house visits for those
revealed to be on the BNP membership list. They didn’t take it too well when I
said I wouldn’t help at all to defend them (the lefties) as a result of any
backlash and would consider it well deserved, in particular because of their
outright hypocrisy).

So we may be brutes, but some of us realise that fact. And not all of us
are unthinking brutes. I use the dragon as my symbol because it symbolises –
to me – strength tempered with wisdom. And I believe we are at our best when
we are strong and that all of our best behaviours flow out from a position of
strength (in the sense of the Nietzschean ‘gift giving virtue’ of the
overflowing of self) – as a result I also think that those of us who are
strong in arm and in heart are duty and honour bound to most certainly help
those who are weaker in the former category, weak hearts (especially
consciously chosen) though don’t garner much sympathy from me however.

I only hide behind a cloak of mild anonymity (and it is mild, enough effort
can identify me, but it is enough to shield me from the lazy and
opportunistic) because my political views are often not compatible with the
jobs I generally hold and I often feel like a solider behind enemy lines. A
few more years and I’ll be able to come fully out into the open, but not
yet.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
15:46

Katabasis,
I think you deserve an award for the most clearly laid out
and well thought out response to any blogpost.
Beautifully put
Sir.
And I do thoroughly appreciate the magnificent support I received,
and you are quite right, that if it had come to any of those people carrying
out their threat to turn up on my doorstep, it is to Testosterone that I
would have turned, and ‘chest thumpers’ I would gladly have hidden behind.
but that is my point, we all have our stregnths and weaknesses – I can
appreciate your strength, all I am asking of people is that they appreciate
that this attitude of ‘if you can’t stand the heat get out the kitchen’
is/will drive those people who don’t have your strength away from the
blogosphere either as Bloggers or as readers and that is something I
deplore. The MSM has sadly let us down in terms of imparting information; we
have a new medium to impart information, why destroy it with ugly threats
and violence, libel and bullying?

Katabasis November 15, 2010 at 17:20

Why thank you Anna.

In certain ways I agree with you, however I think this is where we are
really obliged to engage in the kind of self-policing that would be
required in a genuinely Libertarian society – something which you have
contributed to admirably with this post.

honestbroker
November 15, 2010 at 14:43

Hmmm!

Unsure if I’m understanding you aright, here? Or if I’m understanding the
libertarian philosophy correctly? But as I understand it, the libertarian
ideal is that everyone should be free to do pretty much as they please just so
long as what they do does not harm or infringe upon the rights of another. Is
that the gist?

And Anna is arguing here, in defence of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, whom she
tells us she doesn’t, personally like, that she is entitled to the protection
of the law from death threats, and that those responsible for the death
threats should be held judicially accountable for their acts.

If that’s right, then this case highlights and underlines my biggest
problem with libertarianism. It’s obvious and unmistakable that to issue a
death threat against someone (even if idle!) is an infringement on the rights
of the person against whom it is directed, and may cause that person to live
in fear.

What about depression and the things that can cause it? To be cast as a
pariah in society is singularly unpleasant, and can certainly lead to
depression, or perhaps, even, suicide. These effects can be brought about by
hatred, alone. Neither threats nor direct actions are necessary to create the
conditions that cause them.

That, surely, is the justification for hate laws, isn’t it? And I dispute
Anna’s assertion that creating laws plays no part in combatting a propensity
of people to hate. There is the herd instinct that, left unchecked, can take
hold. Among the more ‘harmless’ degradations of Jews living in Nazi-occupied
countries during the war was that they would be forced to wear billboards on
their backs with insulting slogans written on them, such as ‘Jew pig’, so that
people could mock and jeer. No direct physical harm. Just the power of
degradation and insult.

Part of the creation of a civilised society is the laws that underpin them.
Another part is previaling attitudes and I think the one can strongly
influence the other. South Africa is no longer an arpartheid country, and
whilst, no doubt, there are still those living in that country who regret
that, there is, now, a much higher level of intolerance of racist attitudes
than, once there was. The country’s laws will have gone a long way to bringing
about that change.

My fundamental argument with libertarianism is that the boundaries of where
our propensity to harm others lie is much fuzzier and more indistinct than
proponents of the belief will allow.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 15:15

” South Africa is no longer an arpartheid country, and whilst, no
doubt, there are still those living in that country who regret that, there
is, now, a much higher level of intolerance of racist attitudes than, once
there was. “

Is there? And is that on BOTH sides?

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
15:38

“And Anna is arguing here, in defence of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, whom she
tells us she doesn’t, personally like, that she is entitled to the
protection of the law from death threats, and that those responsible for the
death threats should be held judicially accountable for their
acts.”
Hmmn, actually I said I understood her recourse to the law – since
it was there – but I also said that the law was ineffective. You can fine
Paul Chambers, but you wont change his thoughts on the matter. You invoke
the spirit of South Africa – yes apartheid is illegal now, do you really
believe that south Africa has suddenly become as fluffy multi-racial
society, that men who upheld the law that prevented a black man from
travelling ont he same bus as their daughter are suddenly welcoming said
black man as a potential suitor for their daughter?
Forcing people to
change their views, either through the law, or through bullying and threats,
is never going to change their minds. Reasoned arguement might, facts,
clearly laid out might, but force? Never.

ivan November 15, 2010 at 14:32

There is another possible reason all the swearing ranting blogs closing –
people just don’t want to read that sort of thing. As far as I’m concerned a
person that has to use swear words as much as possible has nothing of interest
to say unlike you Anna, where every word counts towards a sane, well thought
argument.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 15:14

They are an acquired taste, and I must admit, a nice cathartic rant can
help to blow the cobwebs away feom time to time…

But you wouldn’t want steak OR junk food 24/7/365. A nice varied diet is
to be encouraged in all things…

Span
Ows November 15, 2010 at 14:20

It seems male commentators haven’t arrrived yet…or are too scared! Well,
I’ll stick my head above the parapet.

What if someone had twittered (in exactly the same way, to a radio show
that YAB was on) “will someone shut that bitch up”, or “Tell her to go and
play on the outside lane of the M1″ or “Tell her to talk a long walk on a
short pier”…what would/should YABs reaction had been…any one of those phrases
could upset a daughter.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
15:59

“will someone shut that bitch up”
Do you not think that a series – a
twitterstorm even – of factual counter arguemnts would be more
effective?
You might feel better for that Twitter, but what does it
actually achieve beyond that?
Why do you imagine that the world should
listen to an ugly riposte any more than Yasmin?
I realise that Social
Media is important, I use Twitter – and every time I go on Twitter I groan
as I see the overnight filth from people, who’s ‘rogering’ who’s Mother – I
have to force myself to use it. Sometimes it feels like walking through a
field of cow pats. Yes, I can do it, but I’ll wager there are a lot of
people out there who might well read the blogs, be influenced by the idea of
a new politics, but who take one look at Twitter and say ‘Not for me’.

Span
Ows November 15, 2010 at 16:18

???!!!

I am asking what would/should YAB have done if the same guy had sent
one of the phrases I wrote. Do you think she would she have called the
police? Would the police have acted at all? I don’t use Twitter nor do I
insult anyone gratuitously …much…(except male politicians)…

Majic
November 15, 2010 at 14:19

*Note to self, never piss Ms Raccoon off*

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
15:39

Note to Majic: Most wise Sir, most wise.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 13:14

“I feel we are getting sidetracked here. My post was not concerned with
how ‘serious’ that threat was…”

Sadly, it is indeed the heart and crux of the matter. If people are allowed
to ignore the intent of the sender, and insist that it’s the receiver that
gets to determine that intent, we’re doomed. It’s what has led to many of our
problems with race hate laws. It’s not a road I want to see anyone else go
down.
“…whether we are really putting the Internet to its best use
fighting this particular fire.”

If not this one, which one?

” I just feel that to fight for the right to make threats on the
Internet is
futile and a waste of all our talents.”

I don’t feel that’s what we ARE fighting for, in these cases…

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 13:09

Yup, I’m well aware of that, and I appreciate that it may have coloured
your reaction. Its why we dont let distraught relative decide on
sentencing…

AND I’m aware that her daughter saw it.

But here’s the unpalatable truth. I don’t think much of someone who hides
behind her child any more than I do of someone who uses their sex or colour or
religion as a shield. And that is what she’s doing.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
13:15

– and I don’t actually care what she is doing, nor hr motives. I do care
that people are lobbying for the right for the Blogosphere to be a place of
bullying and intimidation on the back of her whinges.
I had hoped that
the blogosphere could amount to something better than that.

JuliaM November 15, 2010 at 13:49

It’s full of people. Why would it be?

There are conventions and social niceties still being worked out, as
the web develops. Witness ‘Twitterstorms’, or the way people support those
having troll problems (like yourself) or the way some groups (like 4chan)
go all out to combat censorship…

It’s a new medium. The old ways for speech and written communication
aren’t going to work and will need to adapt. I’m confident they will.

JuliaM November
15, 2010 at 12:19

“…don’t waste it on futile demands to be allowed to issue death threats
to those you don’t agree with.”

Who has done that? If he’d made a real death threat, don’t think ANYONE’D
be backing him. His Tweet was no more serious than Paul Chambers’ Tweet was a
serious attempt to issue a bomb threat to Robin Hood airport.

That’s the point of this. And she shouldnt get to hide behind the ‘oh, but
I’m a little woman and the big bad man said….’. She’s a journalist. She should
know better.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
12:26

NO! Julia – a thousand times No!
You may be big enough and tough
enough to cope with someone making threats towards you in your real name
that your children read – but not everyone is – male or female.
Why do
you want to create an environment that can only be survived by the
toughest?
Ooh, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the
kitchen?
Great, you have just created a kitchen that is exclusive to a
certain type of person instead of a mass communication tool!
Don’t we
have enough exclusive environments – the MSM for one – that we need to rule
this one out for mass readership?

JuliaM November 15, 2010 at 12:53

Anna, if he’d really been seriously sending a ‘death threat’ he’d have
done it through the post, through an anonymous emailer, via a brick
through her window at dead of night.

No-one, but no-one, sends serious death threats via Twitter! It’s a
public medium.

Anna
Raccoon November 15, 2010 at
12:59

Depends what you mean by serious – the intent of the sender or in the
eyes of the receiver?

I understand that her daughter read the comment? You are aware of my
recent circumstances. People do beleive what they read on the Internet,
they do take it seriously. If her daughter was scared to go out – and
bear in mind, she writes under her own name, then it is a threat to be
taken seriously.

I feel we are getting sidetracked here. My post was not concerned
with how ‘serious’ that threat was, nor whether there should be laws
against it or not – but whether we are really putting the Internet to
its best use fighting this particular fire.

There is a law in place (there probably shouldn’t be) Yasmin has used
it. It will be ineffective. I just feel that to fight for the right to
make threats on the Internet is futile and a waste of all our
talents.

Katabasis November 15, 2010 at 14:15

“There is a law in place (there probably shouldn’t be) Yasmin
has used it. It will be ineffective.”

But in the case of Paul Chambers it *was* effective, and this was
despite its supposed victim (Robin Hood airport) and the police
dismissing it as not credible.

Ian R Thorpe November 16, 2010 at 16:19

Julia,
Quite right – and people who intend to harm usually do not
waste time making threats.