UK Men Arrested For Anti-Semitic Tweets After Football Game 598
magic maverick writes "Reuters reports that three men were arrested for posting anti-Semitic comments on Twitter following the English Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United in October, police said on Friday. 'Two men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested on Thursday in London and in Wiltshire, while a 48-year-old man was arrested at his home in Canning Town in London last week on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. The investigation following the match on October 6 was triggered by complaints about tweets that referred to Hitler and the gas chambers.'
I guess it goes to show, you'd be stupid to use your real name or identifying details on Twitter. Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof)."
Re:Perhaps not (Score:3, Informative)
You, sir and or madame, are the worst kind of imbecile. Because as soon as you accept the notion that speech should be censored, you put someone else in the position of deciding which speech is to be censored.
Yes, that does mean you have to put up with all sort of racists, anti-semites, and plain old lunatics spewing anything they feel like. That's far better than ceding your rights.
Re:Perhaps not (Score:5, Informative)
Making "racism" illegal is no different that declaring thought crime. When the state can govern your speech and your thought, alls well, as long as you agree with the state.
Europe has some rather strict hate crime laws because of a certain incident that happened during the 30s and 40s.
It'd be nice if they had strong free speech laws, but their history has led them down a different path.
This was the offending tweet
Spurs are on their way to auschwitz
Hitler's gonna gas em again
We can't stop them
The yids from tottenham
The yids from white hart lane
There's also some other related tweets, but they link to pictures that are now gone.
Re:Posted by a typical American? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with you. I get quite irritated when people in the UK tell me we should emulate them in gun control laws, healthcare laws, or their habit of dropping random 'u's in words where they clearly don't belong. Courtesy requires I refrain from telling the UK how they ought pattern their free speech laws on our First Amendment.
It is enough to say that I am pleased to live where I do, and that I believe the evils of generally-unregulated free speech are far far outweighed by the good.
Re:Today Antisemitism Comes From The Left (Score:5, Informative)
In the United States, Antisemitism overwhelmingly comes from the political left [washingtonpost.com], both the Occupy Wall Street crowd and the victimhood identity politics left that regard Islamists and Palestinians as protected species.
This accusation is so utterly stupid that it requires a Jew smarter than me to answer it.
http://forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/Eli_OWS_greyscale-FINAL-greyscale-for-web.jpg [forward.com]
Re:Perhaps not (Score:5, Informative)
if you know anything of history you'll realize it's the Democrats who are the party of hate and bigotry.
Quick history lesson.
Up to the 1960s, the southern Democrats (the Dixiecrats), were the party that supported the Confederacy, Jim Crow, discrimination, etc. The northern Democrats were completely opposed, and they had big fights in the nominating conventions. The Republicans were also opposed.
When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which started us on the way to ending discrimination, he said that it would probably cost the Democratic Party the South.
He was right. Nixon adopted the "Southern Strategy" for the Republican party, which was to appeal to the racist southern whites. It was successful. They won elections, and racist Democrats went over to the Republican Party.
So the Democrats were the party of Southern racism. They are (imperfectly) not today. When they reformed, the Republicans eagerly took their place as the party of Southern racism, which is where they are today.
Yep, I'm not free to marry a little girl. (Score:0, Informative)
Yep, I'm not free to marry a little girl, even though I'd like too, even though my religion and various others (including old testament (read deuteronomy 22 28-29 in hebrew if you doubt relations with girl children is fine), muslim religion, vedic religion etc) say it's fine. Because you and your society say I am not free to take that action.
I hate your society but it has taken over all the world.
I wish I had a ring of free action to take you down fuks.
Re:Not a problem for long (Score:4, Informative)
That RT article is bogus. This [ons.gov.uk] shows that Islam rose 2% from 3% to 5% - in the same period, "no religion" rose 10% from 15% to 25%. Islam is still a tiny religion in the UK. The increase in non-UK born Christians was larger than the _total_ increase of Muslims. The decrease in UK born Christians is almost entirely because of the rise in "no religion".