Why wasn’t I told? 25 Jan 2008 A passing reference to Language Log has introduced me to an excellent blog. For instance, this well-balanced post on hate speech. Why didn’t someone notify me of it before? Administrative
Administrative Update 18 Jun 2013 As readers may have noticed, I have been pretty inactive here lately. This is because I have been finishing a book and sending it off to the publishers, which was achieved about 8 hours ago. The book is titled The Nature of Classification, and it will come out from Palgrave Macmillan…. Read More
Administrative The Bastards are emerging 17 Jul 2010 We have now had three posts on Opinionated Bastards . Lorax on grant funding, Mike Haubrich on why religion and science are incompatible on an inductive inference, and now Eamon Knight on why pedophile priests and women priests are equivalent in the eyes of the Vatican. Stay tuned for more… Read More
Administrative Home again 3 Aug 2007 So I’m home from Ish, and the front part of my brain is giddy and tired while the rest has just shut down. I don’t travel well, I’m afraid. One thing that I came back fired up over are the unfinished projects I have running. So I intend to finish… Read More
Language log is a great blog, but that’s not one of their better posts (anything by Mark Lieberman is great, though Pullum is usually excellent too). The only problem here is the excessive zeal and officiousness of the British police. Two local (to me) examples: Oxfordshire police charged a student with hate speech after he said to a policeman “do you realize your horse is gay?” And more recently, when someone threw a water bottle to a protestor sitting in a tree, the police charged him with littering. In both cases the courts threw out the cases and money was wasted.
That’s what happens when you’ve hired too many police in the name of political expediency, and now they’re looking for something to do to justify their existence. Apparently it happens on the left as well as the right (for the right, “security” is the buzzword, rather than hate-speech.)
I suppose that I simply assumed that, as one of the cool intellectual bloggers, you already knew about Language Log. In any event, glad you found it.
Jeff, note in the 2 examples I gave if there was an agenda it was certainly not left-wing. In both cases (including the one using hate speech legislation) the target were environmental protestors. I suspect it is the police using a handy tool to do their master’s bidding, not their promotion of a left-wing agenda.
Jeff, note in the 2 examples I gave if there was an agenda it was certainly not left-wing. In both cases (including the one using hate speech legislation) the target were environmental protestors. I suspect it is the police using a handy tool to do their master’s bidding, not their promotion of a left-wing agenda.
Neil, it’s the not the target but the source that I was considering. Maybe I’m wrong, but I see the British government as being somewhat to the left of the USA’s. I also don’t see them as actively promoting a left wing agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them need to look like they’re doing something. I may be wrong in associating “security” with the right, though. I’ve heard the security in Britain is very tight – tracking everyone and their cars wherever they go, etc.
Jeff, *all* Western governments, probably all other properly elected governments, are to the left of the US govt. In any case, the decision to prosecute is not up to the govt: it is a police and DPP matter. Neither are conceivably left-wing.