Man gets scentenced to 70 days in prison for burning a Koran

You do however find that people now, take too much advantage of "free speech" and "it's a free country." People go around saying what they want and expect to incur no penalty, which, in most cases, I agree with.

 

It also gives a platform for the actions. Actions like this should be ignored and then people will realise doing them wont get the attention. But they should not be illegal.

 

I didn't quite word it well enough methinks.
I don't mind people doing distasteful things in general, it's when it's done to deliberately offend someone else, thats not cool.

 

Exactly. If you pick and choose what is and isn't acceptable, or where you can and can't exercise free speech, then it isn't free is it. What's offensive to one individual or group isn't necessarily going to bother another, and as I said in my earlier post there's no reason that anyone should care anyway.

Things piss me off from time to time and I'll moan about them down the pub or something, but I don't go out throwing stones or burning books because of them. How does doing exactly the thing you're supposedly opposed to solve anything?

An act like burning a book is designed to provoke a response, there's no other purpose to it, so the best defence is not to react. Doing so renders such acts impotent.

I couldn't care less if people burn poppies, bibles, flags, or effigies of the thundercats. The only power those acts have is the power people give to them.

As I said already, the punishment in this case should be for theft and criminal damage, nothing more. The only other crimes he's guilty of are ignorance and idiocy. Labelling things like this as hate crimes is just rolling out the carpet for fascism.

 

Whats wrong with taking too much advantage of it? Its there to be taken advantage of, thats the whole point!

 

So you're fine with people actually preaching racial hatred, and preach violent messages, to say members of the black community, or be allowed to mock jews for the Holocaust, and preach Hitler towards them and how great he was?

 

I think 'taking advantage of' is being interpreted differently by each other.
Freedom of speech is there to be used.
However it is not there so people can be deliberately be abusive, offensive and provocative to others.
I'm fairly sure it was meant so that if people had valid points, they could be heard, so governments couldn't smother opposition etc.

 

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

~ E.B. Hall
​

There are numerous examples of free speech being used to spread hate. A contemporary, and particularly vile, example is the Westboro Baptist Church.

Hopefully nobody here condones what they do or say, but the fact is they do have a right to say it, regardless of how hateful and misguided it might be.

As soon as you impose limits on free speech for extreme cases, like those you've identified, free speech is gone. It's all or nothing, and I for one would rather have a few idiots waste their breath preaching hate than I would live in an oppressive world (like we don't already...) where my voice is suppressed.

 

It's not what they say that I have a problem with (well, I mean it is, but it's their right to say it)
Its how/where/when they say it
Picketing a soldiers funeral is just wrong, I couldn't care less about free speech, I'm by no means pro military, but going to a funeral and proclaiming that the soldier deserved it, is wrong. (using wbc as an example, but going to anyones funeral and abusing them/saying it's good that they're dead is still wrong)
You saying you're cool with that?

 

He stole it so yea he should serve/pay a fine. But if it was just because he burned a koran then his rights as a citizen were violated

 

Don't you see that if you dictate those things then it's no longer free speech?

Picketing any funeral is wrong, yes.

We should all care about it, because it's fast becoming a thing of the past.

Nor am I...

Not at all, what I'm saying is as soon as you legislate directly against them saying that then you're killing free speech, and ultimately that would do more harm than good.

As far as I recall there is legislation in the US now that prohibits protests within a given distance of a funeral, and the Westboro Baptist Church isn't even allowed into the UK because of their actions elsewhere (inciting hatred against various groups and communities).

I do agree that there should be some kind of distinction, as you say, between speech and action, but you have to be very careful when you start censoring things because it quickly spirals out of control.

While it's easy to justify censorship when you're dealing with the extremes, you have to remember that what affects them will affect everyone else too, and where do you draw the line? If you say they can't say what they think because it upsets people, and you make that law, then nobody can say what they think any more, because of one small group. Who does that help in the long run? As I have said already, actions that are designed to provoke are futile if we don't allow ourselves to be provoked.

 

We never had, nor will we ever have true free speech.
There are limits, and yes I agree, as we being to impose more and more, it loses its value.

While you say just don't be provoked, I don't think anyone can say that until it's them who've been directly abused/provoked.

Obviously I'm not the person who should be saying what's ok and what crosses the line.
Merely saying that in my opinion, something like publicly burning/destroying something for no other reason than to provoke/abuse someone else is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.
It's abusing the right to free speech, so many of whom fought so hard to get.
You don't have to agree with me (obviously ), but thats just how I feel about the matter, and I know that it's incredibly difficult to police, but in principle it's how I feel it should be.

 

Although I defend freedom of action, I do think that total stupidity leaves you with little complaint. Was it a just decision, to imprison him? Probably not, technically. But the guy's clearly a moron. Burning a book per se is pretty dumb; burning as good a book as the Qur'an is even dumber; doing so in public, well, frankly you get what you deserve.

I don't care about the utilitarian withertos of who might've hurt who, why this might've been a bad idea. That, to me, is irrelevant. It's a hopelessly stupid act in itself, so regardless of principled theoretical arguments, I just don't feel sorry for the ******. I believe in freedom of expression, but I just don't care about this particular guy's rights. He's abusing them.

 

Would he have received anything more than a fine, if he had stolen and burned a book on evolution, or physics, or something which was actually useful?

Equality: -1
Fear: +1

 

What starts as a debate, develops into shouting, develops into pushing and shoving, develops into punches being thrown, develops into people taking sides, develops into people using weapons, develops into someone dies, develops into outrage, develops into rioting, develops into civil war ...

I know, a bit far fetched, but the reason why our freedom is not really all that free is to protect the rest of us from diseases called intolerance, ignorance and fear, that can spread and cause havoc.

We are free to burn books. We are even free to burn religious books. But we know that by doing so it causes a reaction in the group we have targeted. Therefore we are inciting ... therefore we are wrong. Therefore we go to jail, do not pass go. That goes for muslims, far-right, atheists, catholics, jews, sikhs, extremists, soldiers ...

But, we still need the right to be able to voice our REAL concerns about the things that matter. And this is where things start to blur and where we feel our freedoms get eroded. Stopping certain people doing one thing then stops the rest of us doing another - or can be used against us - like our terrorism laws. Imagine if we all had two buttons on a pad, one for 'yes' and one for 'no'. And using these buttons we could vote on all the questions of the day. So when the question came up 'Should we allow people to burn Korans?' No. 'Should there be a punishment for burning a Koran?' Yes. To help make these decisions lobbyists would give a talk about what the questions meant and why people should vote a certain way, all the facts given would have to be truthful. I'm fairly sure given that MOST people are actually decent and humane enough to understand right from wrong that a system like this would work. I think we'd be happier because we wouldn't have people in charge with their own agendas like cash rewards etc ...

Too early in the morning. Need my second cup of tea before I've woken up properly.

 

Not at all far-fetched. Look at gang issues in London at the moment. Or Israel/Palestine.

The first paragraph is true... I mean, I take freedom of speech literally and I speak my mind and have a very dark humour, therefor everyone is fair game for jokes. Be it jokes about Jew's hording money, the White man keeping a fool down etc... (I'm white by the way) but none of it is intended on racist/prejudice... humour is designed to make sure everyone is fair game with me...

ANNNYWAY.

Poppy - Social Stigma
Ko'ran - Religious Document

One will incur the wrath of "hate crime" the other wont. Simple really. The dick decided to steal and burn a religious document like some kind of fundermentalist witch-hunting fruitbasket and got exactly whats coming to him.

 

What I wanted to say said but phrased better.

 

People may think a murder and rapist deserves to be hung drawn and quartered for things he has done but in a civilized society we don't make laws because of what we think people deserve.

No one here is condoning what he does or the wbc but do they deserve to have the weight of the law on them because they have objectionable opinions. The issue is where you draw the line with what people can do. If you impose a line the use of one word or small differences in the level of supposed offence becomes the issue and it shouldn't be that way.

Rights are not based on whether we think a person deserves them. They stay the same regardless of how much a of jackass a person maybe.

 

Crminal Damage can get you 3 months easy so he got off lightly considering theft was involved, aside from the fact he should be jailed for being an arse.

What he burnt, in legal terms, is somewhat moot.

 

But that is not fair, why should religion get special status over any other secular opinions. As said this brings the issue up of where you draw the line. What if I create my own religion based on spaghetti monsters near Jupiter and write a holy book. One of my ex-followers burns it, now if my religion isn't "officially sanction" will that not be classed as a hate crime. My followers and I are deeply offended but to us it is a holy book and should be classed as hate. Yet it is not officially recognized but the pain is the same. Same if I was a devoted follower of Darwin or any other belief held deeply. Yet no hate crime would be put in place. If it’s going to be in place then anyone burning any book in public that anyone feels strongly about should be a hate crime. Neither religion nor secularism should get a leg up over the other because the supposed offence caused to them.

Basically for this to be a hate crime then a group Muslims burning a poppy needs to be, or a group of Muslims holding up placards condemning secular society or anyone with any strong message against what anyone believes. It is impossible to draw the line of offence at this level for a generalised action. For individual affronts eg being personally rude to some and use racist words is different as an individual is the victim rather than an amorphous group.