steepholm

Useless buggers!

But why am I surprised? They've been useless buggers since their inception!

Edited Date: 2013-03-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

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I am at a loss to understand what you want to be done about it. This person has the right to say any awful thing she wants about anyone. The only thing that can be done about it is to ignore her. You surely aren't advocating censorship which,if it were imposed, would very quickly be turned against the liberal positions you support?

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Ah, but this is the UK and If 'this person' (Julie Burchill) were to say such things about Jews, Moslems, people of colour or gay people singular or plural, subeds would pull the article before publication if it ever got anywhere near. She got into serious trouble for some rabid anti Irish statements in an article quite recently.

What we (trans people) want is a level playing field where it is unreasonable that just one minority remains the butt of one hateful woman's transphobia and the ignorance of the print media- I've had forty years of this crap and it becomes a little tiresome after a while.

Remember that there would have been a case to answer even under these warped regulations if she'd gone after one trans person so how is insulting and demeaning a whole minority group to be perceived as any different?

The PCC know the rules- they simply refuse to follow them which is what you get when an organisation is left to police itself.

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In my view, is she wants to say that Hitler is a saint, and all of the Popish Irish ought to be thrown into the anti-christ's roasting oven, that's fine, I just won't read her blog. If, on the other hand, she were censored for that, I could be, if I said the US ought to have national health insurance, be denounced as a communist and treated in the same way. there are plenty of people who would want to see me thrown in jail for saying something like that, which is why we have freedom of speech. The price is we have to tolerate our elected officials saying that the theory of evolution is a lie form the pit of hell. The way to deal with it to to change the mind of the voters, not to shut him up.

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You can opt out of reading her blog, but the victims of transphobia can't opt out of being murdered. Her kind of demagoguery gets people beaten up, and worse.

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Do she use black magic to control these peoples' minds? I don't recall her advocating violence, anyway.

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The cartoons in Der Stürmer don't usually contain direct incitements to violence: nevertheless, that was their effect. You may wish to take issue with the existence of legislation against hate speech - I'm well aware that a case can be made against it - but if it exists, I can't see the justification for its not covering trans people as well as the other groups I've listed.

This post, however, was not about hate speech laws but about the PCC code, its general uselessness and the specific principle of offering redress to one person but not to many.

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SO this article was published in Der Stürmer now?

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Of course not (though in fact it used very similar rhetorical tactics to some of the Stürmer cartoons I've seen). I'm making the point that a publication doesn't need to say in so many words, "Persecute this group of people!", for that to be its intent, and its effect.

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This was not blogosphere stuff but an article in a supposedly 'Quality' newspaper and on their online version.

There are regulations (admittedly the media's own) which are supposed to prevent this sort of stuff.

The UK is not the US and so-called 'freedom of speech' is regulated here to prevent hatespeech and incitement to violence of the type espoused by your own dear Fred Phelps and others of his kind.

Edited Date: 2013-03-20 09:29 pm (UTC)

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So, you smear by association with Phelps for defending the core values of the enlightenment? I see.

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No, I state facts as I see them.

Phelps could not get away with what he gets aways with chez vous here.

If you see Phelps as an enlightenment figure, I feel there's nothing more sensible that I can say at this juncture.

Edited Date: 2013-03-21 07:46 am (UTC)

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The intent of your sneer was perfectly,a s obvious as my disapproval of Phelps. The Enlightenment ideal, as you also know, is that everyone has a right to speak his own mind, even if it is in opposition to your own thoughts.

You seem to be defending censorship when it benefits you, a perilous position.

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I don't think that is true. Hate speech on the grounds of race or religion is a crime.

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This person has the right to say any awful thing she wants about anyone.

Actually, not so. If she were to say equivalently offensive things against groups of people based on their colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, or sexual orientation, she would almost certainly fall foul of the laws on hate speech. Trans people are not protected by such laws.

The PCC is not a legal body, however, merely the industry's notoriously limp attempt at self-regulation, and a body of which the Observer (where her article appeared) is a signed-up member. Clause 12 of the PCC's code, which deals with discrimination, states:

i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

ii) Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

Since Burchill said these things about thousands of people rather than just one, she didn't break the code. I didn't for a moment expect that the PCC would find otherwise, but I in turn find the PCC to be fairly pathetic.

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The problem isn't that the law isn't being enforced against her, its that such an anti-democratic law exists at all.

Don't you see how ridiculous this is? Which is trans-genedered status? A sexual orientation or a mental disability? This is the kind of thing Aristophanes would be writing about today.

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Which is trans-genedered status? A sexual orientation or a mental disability?

Neither.

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Then its not covered by the regulations, then, is it? The whole thing is preposterous.

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It would be covered under gender.

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It's a physiological condition.

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tekalynn.livejournal.com

Clearly it's not ridiculous to those who have to live with transphobia every day.

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I don't think it is ridiculous at all.

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heleninwales.livejournal.com

The UK is not the US -- thank goodness! We have our laws and you have yours. We feel that the right NOT to be the target of hatE speech trumps the right to say what you like. It makes life much more pleasant for everyone.

There is no law to prevent you from criticising the government or political parties or people in power, so it's not anti-democratic. In fact I don't understand how democracy could possibly be improved by bullying those who find it difficult to defend themselves.

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It will be right up until the time they start defining hate speech as blaspheming against Allah.

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heleninwales.livejournal.com

For that to happen, the UK government would have to have a majority of Muslim MPs, which is vanishingly unlikely, so your slippery slope argument doesn't work. Actually, Allah is quite capable of looking after himself, but the current law does protect his followers from abuse, as it should.

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sheenaghpugh

The problem isn't that the law isn't being enforced against her, its that such an anti-democratic law exists at all.

There has never, anywhere, been total "freedom" to say just what you want, and quite right too. If you say something untrue about someone ("Fred Bloggs shags goats"), he can sue and make you retract it. If you post encouragement to the general public to attack or murder Fred, you might well end up in gaol. The problem here was that this particular uncivil and unpleasant old bat was encouraging hatred against a whole group of Freds and Fredas, who have no redress.

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Can you say non sequitur, Freda?

You can't do X, so I condemn you for Y,really?

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Can you say non sequitur, Freda?

I'd appreciate it if this debate could be kept civil, please.

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sheenaghpugh

Can you say non sequitur, Freda?

You can't do X, so I condemn you for Y,really?

Sorry, don't understand a word of that.

Edited Date: 2013-03-21 04:37 pm (UTC)

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lilliburlero.livejournal.com

Swift ftw.

Though I think it was important that the complaint was made, and the PCC made to rule on it, I can't see that the ruling could have been any different under the code as it exists--I didn't realise that rule 12 made explicit reference to "an individual", I thought it read "individuals" (which I think sounds like it might have given scope for a different ruling, but I'm no lawyer). If rule 12 has been used to censure racism or sexism rather than racist or sexist comments directed at a particular person, then we have to ask (noisily) why the same generous interpretation was disallowed in this case. But for me the problem always rested with the editors who let the piece go to print in the first place: if they couldn't see why it was unworthy, that speaks rather louder than any censure the PCC can hand out. Newspapers aren't Speakers' Corner or someone's blog; they're not organs of utter untrammelled free speech. They abide--or should--by editorial codes, and editors should rise above sixth form debating society ideas of freedom of speech and refuse to publish a piece which justifies hatred and serves no public interest.

Otherwise things haven't progressed since Swift's day, Swift ftw notwithstanding.

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I love "Verses on the Death of Dr Swift"! But no, I wasn't expecting the PCC to rule any differently - this has been used as a get-out clause on numerous occasions. Of course, the PCC code, which is enforced by the newspaper editors in order to bring newspaper editors to account, was also written by... the newspaper editors. (Shurely shome mishtake?)

I think there is a middle case between discriminating against an individual and discriminating against some abstract concept associated with an individual (e.g. homosexuality) - namely, when you discriminate against an identifiable group of people. Burchill wasn't for the most part inveighing against transsexuality as a concept, but she was saying a lot of defamatory things about trans people. I still can't see the justification for protecting one person but not many.

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She was belatedly censored by the Observer's editors and the article removed from their online site. but the cat was out of the bag by then.

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Indeed - and the article was swiftly republished in the Telegraph, with much hoo-hah about the sanctity of free speech and the right to offend (which didn't however extend to the commenters below the line, who were censored in droves).

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Tell me this. If you look up British law on hate speech, race is covered, sexual orientation, religion are covered, but there seems to be no legislation on the grounds of gender, so vile general ramblings against women, whether cis or trans, is not a crime. Am I right about that?

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Gosh, isn't it lucky we have a free press?

No lawyer I, but yes, I believe that's true. Gender is protected under the PCC code (insofar as anything is), but not under hate speech legislation.

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sheenaghpugh

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