Man arrested after online rant against Liverpool and Hillsborough disaster victims

reply to post by Zcustosmorum


Looks like the profession "lawyer" is going be extremely safe and do extremely well in the next 50 years

reply to post by Rising Against


Let me get this straight. You are saddend by those defending free speech? What the dude said is outrageous and horrible, obviously. Where do you draw the line? Who decides what is and isn't "allowable" diatribes and when someone goes to prison for speaking? You seriously want people put in prison for saying things?

CJ

The guy is a lunatic...how the heck can the whole of Liverpool be at fault because his life is (obviously) a disaster. Why does he not just leave?

But no, he stays and expects everyone to fall in line with what he wants, and to be honest he does sound dangerous, if not to other people, then certainly to himself.

And I'm totally with Rising Against on this, and was quite shocked that people are sticking up for this guy and saying that he should be allowed to say what he wants...No, I disagree, especially when his hate filled rant is so vitriolic and aggressive (and of course inaccurate re his rant about Hillsborough, the police were to blame!) and then to reference Cumbria as well.

If we allow people to vent publicly like this then the whole of society would just break down in no time. No, it's good he was arrested, as much for his own sake as anyone else's.

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reply to Rising against

As long as there are human beings, there will be those who find the need to control another's actions through their version of what they deem an acceptable reality, regardless of how much of another's freedoms they trample on, including but not limited to slavery.

reply to post by ColoradoJens


Well, no, obviously not. If you're going to twist my words around, you will have to do better. I obviously am not saddened by the actual act of defending free speech. To say so is just silly and you yourself know that's obviously an incorrect statement too. You're just exaggerating. What I am saddened by however is the fact that this moron, for the actual act of spewing his moronic hate, is being defended. That's with that, people are defending nothing but hate.

I'll defend rightful speech to my grave. Fact. Those who actually know me here know this. But I'll never, repeat, I will never defend hate speech just because It's a form of speech, which seem to be the route some here are taking. No, we need to draw our lines people. We need to remember our morals for goodness sake.

Hate is hate. It has no place is society and no one should ever be looking to defend it. To see so many doing it, that's quite depressing.

reply to post by Rising Against



It's not a question of what he did was right or wrong, obviously what he said was wrong but shouldn't be illegal and carry an incarceration or prison sentence. If you have no freedom of speech you are slaves to the government. I'm appalled you would even find it justifiable for this man to be imprisoned for what he said. You sir are obviously following along the lines of tyranny and not freedom. This stuff is what leads to oppression of the people and not far away from complete control over the people by the government. Use your history folks these signs are from regimes of the past who's kingdoms were brutal, murderous, & even genocidal. People lived in fear not freedom. A person should never fear ones government because of what he says it should be vice versa the government should fear the people as the government is the servants of the people not the people the servants.

Originally posted by destination now
The guy is a lunatic...how the heck can the whole of Liverpool be at fault because his life is (obviously) a disaster. Why does he not just leave?

But no, he stays and expects everyone to fall in line with what he wants, and to be honest he does sound dangerous, if not to other people, then certainly to himself.

And I'm totally with Rising Against on this, and was quite shocked that people are sticking up for this guy and saying that he should be allowed to say what he wants...No, I disagree, especially when his hate filled rant is so vitriolic and aggressive (and of course inaccurate re his rant about Hillsborough, the police were to blame!) and then to reference Cumbria as well.

If we allow people to vent publicly like this then the whole of society would just break down in no time. No, it's good he was arrested, as much for his own sake as anyone else's.

I couldn't agree more DN. This guy is obviously deranged. Now that may not technically be illegal but threatening physical violence most certainly is.

I actually think he should be sectioned for everyone's safety. "Freedom Of Speech" comes with responsibility and should never be used to justify hate and violence.

reply to post by Keeper of Kheb


What a load of rubbish, that's just spouting about ideals for the sake of it. So you would be okay if a random stranger made a youtube video about your family saying that anyone who had already died, deserved to and the rest of them should be shot, just because they think they should be?

I'll bet I could cause enormous offence (and probably get banned) in one post here and all of the defendants of free speech at any cost would agree that I should be banned if it were themselves or their families I was referring to.

Hate speech is also part of free speech. I understand some may disagree, but get down from your high horse, your outrage is completely unwarranted. I dont think you realise that hate speech is allowed all over the world, in fact it is a modern and quite rare phenomenon to enforce laws against hate speech to any significant degree. Society would certainly not be any worse off without criminalising hate speech.

Also, this is an internet post we are talking about, nobody is being forced to listen to the guy. So why shouldnt we defend him? The real question is, why arent you defending his right to free speech?

reply to post by Rising Against


The real test in whether you really believe in free speech is if you're willing to defend someone's right to say something you don't agree with.

I think you've made it clear you don't actually believe in any sort of free speech which is quite sad.

reply to post by destination now

I'll bet I could cause enormous offence (and probably get banned) in one post here and all of the defendants of free speech at any cost would agree that I should be banned if it were themselves or their families I was referring to.

There is a world of difference between a ban and a legal action. Private site can ban you, however legal punishment just because you have hurt my feelings on ATS is unnacceptable. So youd lost your bet.

reply to post by Maslo


No, there is a big difference between hate speech and free speech. Imagine the chaos this one forum would descend into if hate speech was allowed?

I'd give you an example right now, but I would be (quite rightly) banned

It's a societal requirement that we all, to the best of our ability, respect each other in order to avoid the obvious outcomes of spewing venomous bile at each other, it would not be a pretty sight. Yes we all get angry at times, but if we went about shouting abuse at strangers in the street, your best hope would be to be arrested, because other than that you're going to end up in your local hospital or morgue

reply to post by Maslo


Hate speech is part of free speech? Technically, yeah, that's true, no doubt. But, so what? Shall we just allow hate to continue? Shall we be content with it in society and shall we openly accept it? No, of course we shouldn't, because It's as you just said.. hate speech. Hate should have no place here.

Like I said above, we shouldn't be just content with this kind of thing. If we want to eradicate hate, which I'm sure we all do and if not, why not, then we should challenge it. We should not openly allow it to continue and so on. Again, I feel myself being amazed at the amount of support in favor of hate.

reply to post by Rising Against


Ok, thanks for the clairification. I guess I am still wondering what "hate speech" entails and the severity of punishments that go with the different levels of hate. I can't say "believe in Jesus or you will rot in hell" in my workplace because free speech isn't protected in private corporate settings. If what this idiot said is ok within the confines of twitter why is it he was arrested? I've heard a lot of pastors in church telling me and others we are going to burn in eternal pain. I don't see them getting arrested. I've seen a lot of gay bashers saying homosexuals are the devil and deserve the worst punishments, including death. They don't get arrested. Why pick on some moron who's words show the world what kind of moron he really is?

CJ

reply to post by bates


A moot point..you are allowed to say what you think right now, Rising Against is a mod who clearly disagrees with you..yet your thread and posts remain...

reply to post by bates


Exaggeration and inaccuracies.

First off, I have defended someone's right to free speech which I've disagreed with. I've done it on ATS and in Real life too believe it or not. What I will not defend however, is the hate speech. I've made that more than clear so far. And your attempt to twist it around is failing.

Secondly, I do believe in free speech to a limit, again this is something I've said and repeatedly shown. My example used before was ATS. If there were no T&C's here, this would not be a site worth visiting. There's many examples out there proving this. If we apply the same to real life, the same occurs. Sadly, we need our limits.

I just will never defend hateful speech. Never.

reply to post by Rising Against

Shall we just allow hate to continue? Shall we be content with it in society and shall we openly accept it? No, of course we shouldn't, because It's as you just said.. hate speech.

We should certainly try to counter hate, but not by legal means. Hate speech is a human right, too. Also, hate is sometimes justified.

Again, I feel myself being amazed at the amount of support in favor of hate.

I dont support hate, I support free speech, those are entirely different concepts. Do you realize that you dont have to agree with something to support legal right to say it?

And again, I have to stress that this guy has made an online post, its not like he is shouting on a street. Nobody is even being forced to listen to him, so why dont those who are offended by him scroll a little further with their mouse? That would solve their problems..

Theres a big difference between expressing an opinion and hate ranting. While both are technically come under freedom of speech, they are obviously not the same.

Ones simply conveying a a point of view in a constructive but negative manner, the other is trying to make the party you disagree with, agitated and offended.

Maybe the disaster doesn't hit home enough for some people?

Replace it with any other terrible incident, 9/11, the recent school shooting etc and you'd see members crying for this guys head on a block.

Maybe we should leave the law out of it and let society deal with it? Wouldn't be long before this guys personal details are all over the net.

No i don't agree with that either, but you reap what you sow. In this day and age if you are so stupid to not know how quickly a single ignorant, hateful comment on the net can snowball.....we then i do believe you deserve to find out the hard way.

CX.

reply to post by Rising Against


It's not hate. The person in question appears to be having a bad time in life because of some people from Liverpool. He is angry and upset, he lashed out in a haze of hormones.

I do not believe that somebody should be arrested for having a bad day. And then making a video of it. And then uploading it.

What he said was not hate speech.

I agree with your stance that hate speech is not covered by free speech, but an off the cuff comment about Hillsborough by someone who appears to have just had his life crushed by a gang of scousers, intended to be offensive accompanied by a load of other insults is not hate speech.