Roan Atkinson is calling to repeal Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which bans any word or phrase that could be inferred as insulting. Atkinson stated that “If we want a robust society, we need more robust dialogue and that must include the right to insult or to offend. Because, as someone once said, the freedom to be inoffensive is no freedom at all.”
The news and public have lately been gripped by the disappearance of five-year-old April Jones from her hometown of Machynlleth, Wales. Amidst reports of Mark Bridger being arrested on charges of her murder was the story that 19-year-old Matthew Woods has been arrested and sentenced to 12 weeks’ prison time for “offensive” messages posted on Facebook.
Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 states that it is a crime to send messages that are “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” or are “intended to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”. In other words, the confusing and subjective issue of cyber-bullying has, for nigh on a decade, had bestowed upon it its own set of rules and regulations that try and ascertain when messages or jokes have gone too far. There’s a problem though: the offensiveness of anything is purely subjective. While we can all agree that messages that aim to incite violence or hatred towards another person or group should be punished, the difference is that these messages are expressly posted to cause harm or aggravation physically, whereas the crime committed by Woods highlights that people have different opinions on humour and what crosses the boundaries.
As society has become more liberal in recent decades, comedy that pushes the boundaries has become more prominent. I do not suppose that my former classmates making endless dead baby jokes should have been locked up for their tasteless sense of humour; these people did not kill babies or want to kill babies or even find it funny when babies died. The world of humour somehow exists almost as an entity to itself, where we can use laughter to try to make light of a situation or to try to overcome the pain of what it causes. While there are groups that campaign against Family Guy and its creator Seth MacFarlane, there are millions more who enjoy his comedy, regardless of how insensitive or offensive it may be. And from this we can see that comments are not all equal. For instance, a comment of ill taste directed to a particular audience, whether that be a friend or a room full of paying customers to a comedy club, is one thing, and that same comment delivered to the mother of April Jones is something else entirely. The former is trying to get a laugh out of people, the latter is, as the Communications Act states, “intended to cause annoyance”. It is the latter that is worthy of punishment.
The arrest and sentence of Matthew Woods raises the issue of just how much of a right to free speech we really have. Woods’ posts were made on his Facebook page, rather than an email sent directly to the family of April. It is therefore the cyber equivalent of a remark made to no one in particular, or a close friend, or a room full of paying attendees, rather than knocking on Jones’ mother’s door to make crude jokes. So if sentences can be handed out for that, should they not also be handed out to people making comments in ill taste in a setting outside of cyberspace?
There is no denying that Woods’ comments were insensitive, but this sentence has drawn a line in the sand that says “It’s ok to make these comments to your acquaintances, in a book, in a pub, on stage, in songs, but not online.” In a democratic society such as ours, it isn’t possible to live a life with no offence received. Whether it’s someone else’s faith, actions, language or humour, we can be offended by anything. This begs the question, “How can subjectivity be governed?” Typically the argument is simple: If you don’t like something, ignore it. Don’t buy the albums you don’t like, don’t go to the place of worship of a religion you don’t like, and don’t see the comedian that offends you. For the Internet, it’s as simple as don’t visit the websites with content you find offensive.
Indeed, Woods was apparently inspired to write his posts after visiting Sickipedia, a site that describes itself as “almost certainly the best online sick joke database in the world”. The sentence handed to Woods should surely extend to arresting the owners of the website too, as well as all the people involved in the offensive and depraved world of pornography, not to mention the X-Factor judges for relentlessly producing music that offends the ears and minds of all sane people.
Once we start to regulate subjective things like being offended, we must ask what next. Will it be as acceptable to be arrested for private emails between like-minded people if they contain “inappropriate” content? Will it be considered a hate crime to criticise another religion? Ultimately what needs to be remembered is that Woods made comments that were insensitive and sick, but not criminal in nature. There were no threats; he was not responsible for the girl’s disappearance, nor did he harm or abuse her. He did not make the comments directly to the family. The efforts of law enforcement should be focused on the person or people who are responsible for her disappearance or any harm caused to her.
Steve Hughes can have the last word on the subject of offence:
Recently, there have been a number of changes within the education establishment. The most prominent one is, obviously, the scrapping of GCSEs in favour of a new system. A lot of people don’t understand exactly what these changes are and what they mean for people. It’s partly because of misunderstanding and partly because of the vitriol that’s being thrown around by politicians at the moment. This article aims to clear all that up, though.
What Does it Mean?
Modular Exams
Take a look at modular exams and you will think that removing them is a good idea. Of course, why should students just get to redo their exams until they get the right mark? Surely that would be something like issuing a referendum until the right answer is given, oh wait! In principle, this is a good idea, but not in the way that they have decided to put it forward.
Little Jimmy is a model student. He hates PE, he gets beaten up by the big kids, yet ultimately he’s on course to run a multi-national company where he will earn more in a week than they earn in a lifetime. Now, little Jimmy has got his exams coming up. The problem is that his mother just died, he’s just recovering from heart surgery, and he’s got a cold. Hard life, eh? Well now he’s going to fail his exams because he’s not up to his normal standard through no fault of his own. That’s unfair.
What needs to happen is that modular exams need to be taken with limits on how many times they can be redone. How about this? Allow every student to take one exam each year. If a student fails their exam in year 10 then they can do it again in year 11. That’s fair. A one-year limit is sufficient enough to eliminate excessive retakes.
Tier System and Boundaries
There are no issues with the tier system change. It gives students control over what they do. It’s merely the combining together of the current tiers into one stronger paper. That’s not making things more difficult and it’s not unfair, that’s called streamlining.
Too many people are being given the top grades and the boundaries are in need of a desperate change. It’s not because the exams are necessarily getting easier, it’s because these quotas that the exam boards have to meet are getting bigger. The government wants a certain number of people to be getting a specific grade every year. Schools are being leaned on. Unsurprisingly, they go to the exam board that gives out the highest grades more often, and then the exam board is more successful. Great change.
A small note on difficulty, I believe that the difficulty moves with the boundaries so it’s all about increasing and decreasing the amount of students getting certain grades. Nothing special about that, it’s been done for years.
One Exam Board
Leading on from my previous point, schools are going to choose the easier exam board. The unpopular exam boards are going to make their exams easier to get more schools to choose from. And thus the cycle continues. It’s, as the papers say, a ‘race to the bottom’. I’ve never understood why there wasn’t one exam board to start with.
Or if you want to have multiple exam boards make them specialise. Allow no competition. AQA can handle History, WJEC can handle English, and Edexcel can handle Maths. What’s hard about that?
Is it Good?
In my opinion it is. It does have its flaws, but I think the main issue is that people fear change. Critics say that some students are going to suffer because of these changes. I would argue back, however, that some students are suffering now. No system can please everybody. Sooner or later you just have to put your foot down and admit that people will suffer. Deal with it.
Until 1961, attempting suicide in the UK was illegal and punishable by a fine or a short jail term. England was one of the last countries in Europe to decriminalise suicide, but the stigma remains in the minds of many, and I know from recent topical conversations that some people still believe suicide to be illegal, or just plain wrong. So, change happens slowly in Merrie Olde Englande, and confusion abounds.
In view of the outcome of Tony Nicklinson’s court case earlier this month, it seems that UK law is just as slow to change now as it was half a century ago. Why are our MPs and lawmakers so unwilling to discuss the notion of assisted suicide? For Tony, and for the other locked-in syndrome sufferer known only as ‘Martin’, the answer was obviously cowardice – politicians and judges both unwilling to confront real issues, such as the right to die when you are physically unable to take your own life. I would, however, like to add doctors to this short but telling list of the squeamish.
There is, understandably, fear that a change in the law would put vulnerable people at risk (disabled people who have no desire to die, for example), and perhaps images of naughty doctors creeping around care homes with syringes full of barbiturates did dance through the judges’ minds when they concluded that no doctor assisting non-terminally ill patients to die would be immune from prosecution. Of course new laws are vulnerable to abuse, but there is no reason why safeguards could not be implemented when legislating for assisted suicide. Just because you make something legal doesn’t mean you also make it easy. In the case of assisted suicide, the person seeking assistance should be assessed by several doctors independently and each case judged on its own merits with the maximum amount of information and professional advice available. It should be a lengthy process (at the very least, it isn’t one of those snap decisions that you’d be able to renege on at a later date), but the option should exist.
To a certain extent I can excuse the squeamishness of politicians and judges to deal with such an issue (perhaps because I have a lower opinion of them to begin with), but the Royal College of Physicians and the British Medical Association have keenly disappointed me with their views on assisted suicide. In the course of my research for this article I have found myself reading quote after quote in which doctors have asserted their duty to “look after” their patients and provide “good care” for them, but these are fluffy notions that do not entertain the idea that, for a very small minority of patients, death would be “in the patient’s best interests”. Ignoring this as an option is, in my opinion, the mark of a physician not doing their job properly. Perhaps some doctors have lost sight of the extent of the remit of their profession. Sometimes a situation becomes so intolerable for a person that it is not actually in their best interests to keep them alive.
How many times have you heard someone, speaking of a recently departed loved one, comment that their sadness at losing them is somewhat tempered by the knowledge that they are no longer suffering? Surely this is the more humane response – yet as a society we seem more attuned to the suffering of the family pet than a fellow human being. For how long have doctors been terminating pregnancies, switching off life support machines, engaging in passive euthanasia through DNR (“Do Not Resuscitate”) orders, and (in the case of veterinary doctors) putting animals down to end their suffering? Why do they have less problem ending the life of a being that cannot give its opinion on the matter than of one who can actually communicate their desire to die? It makes no sense. Where is the compassion for the human being who is suffering mentally, not just physically?
Despite the great increase in our understanding of mental illness, doctors still seem to prioritise health of the body over health of the mind. They are confident when dealing with conditions of all kinds from which a patient wishes to recover, and even respect a patient’s decision to refuse treatment, but when death is actively sought, they balk. The BMA’s reasons for continuing to oppose a change in the law on assisted suicide amount to little more than the protection of doctors against having to make tough moral decisions and to face up to what HPAD (Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying) calls the “clinical reality” – that however small the minority, there do exist patients who wish to end their lives but are unable to do so without outside help. Surely acting in the best interests of a patient should include choosing to assist in their wanted death rather than putting them into a position where, for example, they must resort to starving themselves as a means of ending their life.
We have to learn where to draw a line under our efforts to preserve human life. Do not take this statement out of context – doctors should always do their utmost to prevent death where death is not desired. But to preside over the death of a patient is not a failure or dereliction of duty when not even the patient believes in the worth of such efforts. We just need to make sure that any laws facilitating assisted suicide will never allow someone to “be murdered” without their express desire. And if there is consent, ought it even really to be called “murder”?
“The plain fact of the matter is drugs are incredibly addictive, they destroy lives”. So said Tory MP Louise Mensch, successful politician, bestselling author, mother-of-three, wife of Metallica manager Peter Mensch, and former Class A drug user whose dabbling with certain unnamed narcotics has clearly ruined her life. Yes. Ruined. So she’s quitting the low-down, dirty, hand-to-mouth insecurity of political life in the UK and moving to America with the family, where hopefully life will be easier, more tranquil(liser).
Oh, Menschy, why’d you have to go now? By removing yourself from British politics you’re wrenching the linchpin from my argument, to wit, that drug-taking, per se, does not actually ruin lives. I guess I’ll just have to find some other poor down-and-outs to pick on, like David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Alistair Darling, all of whom smoked cannabis in their youth. In fact, a few minutes’ fervent Googling turned up a plethora of drug-related confessions from within the many echelons of British politics – among all these successful, powerful, well-educated people. I particularly liked the views of Tim Yeo (with whom Mensch shares both a political party and alma mater), who is said to have enjoyed the experience of smoking cannabis and thinks that “it can have a much pleasanter experience than having too much to drink.”
I hope Mrs Mensch doesn’t think she’s going to get away from these more liberal views on drugs just by moving to America – a country whose current President famously said of smoking cannabis:
“I inhaled frequently… That was the point.”
And as for some of the others… Bush Jnr abused alcohol (and allegedly cocaine); Clinton admitted to having a couple of puffs on a joint whilst studying in England, but not inhaling or liking it (oh, blame the Brits for leading you astray, eh Willie?); Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg was more candid, even going so far as to say that he has enjoyed smoking marijuana in the past. Al Gore and Sarah Palin have both been ‘outed’ in biographies as former dope smokers (add cocaine use to that, in the case of Miss Alaska). This kind of name-dropping is not intended to shame those in the spotlight, but rather to highlight two things: firstly, that dabbling in recreational drugs is extremely common, and secondly, that doing so does not automatically condemn one to a life of petty crime and back-alley blowjobs.
I’m terribly sorry, Louise, but your “plain fact” of my first paragraph is anything but. Drugs can be addictive, and they can be a major factor in “destroying” lives (what a horrible little phrase), but neither one of these claims is absolute. It is, in fact, quite absurd to just lump all controlled drugs in together like that; are we expected to believe that alcohol and heroin are equally addictive, equally life-destroying? Morphine is Class A, but doctors use it to alleviate severe pain in their patients – may I therefore infer that it is the application of the drug, not the drug itself, that we ought to be controlling? Fast food can be just as detrimental to health when ingested to excess, and obesity can and does ruin the lives of those who suffer from it as well as impacting on the lives of those around them; are you intending to ban fat and sugar for all, too?
I’m sure you’ll recall that, about four years ago, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) presented its conclusions regarding the dangers of cannabis use – conclusions that resulted in the dismissal of the Council’s chairman Professor David Nutt and the resignations of several other members of the ACMD. The problem, in essence, was that the Council’s findings did not support current government policy; against the Council’s advice, cannabis was reclassified as a Class B controlled substance. A study published by Nutt et al. in The Lancet in November 2010 reiterated that, using the multicriteria decision analysis approach (which took into account personal harm, social harm etc.), alcohol is the most harmful substance. I’m using percentages here to represent the study’s arbitrary ‘points out of 100’ scoring system of overall harm: alcohol achieved 72% on this scale, with heroin and crack cocaine ranking second and third respectively at just over the 50% mark. Cannabis was ranked much lower at 20%, making it 6% less harmful than tobacco. Magic mushrooms, LSD and ecstasy can be found huddled at the far end of the chart, each with a score under 10%. I found the scores for LSD and mushrooms particularly interesting because, as well as being of only very slight risk to users, they were deemed to be of absolutely no risk to wider society – and yet both substances are currently Class A, which can get you up to seven years in prison and a hefty fine. Even more interesting is DirectGov’s explanation that drugs are categorised as Class A, B or C “according to how dangerous they are.” Hmm. That’s a lie, isn’t it?
But I digress. The plain fact, Louise, is that just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it should be prohibited by law. Or, as your fellow Question Time panel member John Lydon observed, “Just because you’ve had a bad time of it… Let us, as human beings, determine our own journey in life.” If you want to keep drugs illegal because of the damage they can do, you should also be fighting to make alcohol and cigarettes illegal, or you’re just being a hypocrite. If you want to allow people to make their own choices based on accurate information made available to them (and, perhaps, turn a tidy profit in tax), you’re going to have to legalise all drugs – or at least the ones proven to be no more damaging than tobacco, alcohol, and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. But you cannot simply rally against something because it has personally upset you at some point. Your personal experience is not the experience of others, and to legislate based on personal views is to deny experiences to other people. You cannot keep people safe by stopping them from doing any activities that carry any risk. We must defer to evidence, to cold hard facts, and then disseminate this information as clearly as possible, in order to adequately equip those who are determined to take such risks.
I recently came across the notion of “truthiness”, a term coined by American satirist Stephen Colbert (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report) to explain the increasingly popular, and increasingly worrying, trend toward decision-making based on gut feeling rather than facts. Mr Colbert had in mind certain politicians of his own country when he said this, but I can see a very similar trend in the UK. In the case of drug legislation, surely it makes more sense to classify substances according to the harm they do, rather than political agenda, or societal perception (which, let’s face it, is usually based on very little information and sensationalist negativism courtesy of the mainstream media)? If we base policy on evidence instead of opinion, how can there be any arguments?
If you’re a resident of the United Kingdom (or perhaps anywhere that isn’t the USA) you might have been aware of the Republican frontman’s undiplomatic doubts about Britain and its ability to host the Olympics, just a day before the Opening Ceremony was to begin. Far from being the end of the world, or even his campaign for that matter, the implications, reactions and reasons revolving this apparent ‘blunder’ say more about the alien world of American politics than possibly anything in recent memory. So the question is, if we’ve heard so much of his ‘gaffes’, why aren’t we declaring Obama the victor already?
First of all, it’s important to remember that despite the UK tabloid’s ferocious attacks, or the London Mayor’s mockery, the USA (and largely the world) has really struggled to give a shit. To put it into perspective, the man on his first campaign trip abroad couldn’t even get our country’s name right, calling it England – the virtual equivalent of calling the United States ‘Texas’. But why? Surely the man challenging the incumbent for the post of “Leader of the Free World” shouldn’t be pissing off its ‘greatest ally’ on his first trip to meet and greet? Breaking news, if anything – his Olympics ‘gaffe’ only made his journey to the White House an easier one. No, I’m not even joking. Take a look at the video below to see what I’m talking about, pay attention to the penultimate reason specifically.
To an average Brit, the denouncing of an ally’s Olympic opening ceremony tied with the inability to remember their name would almost run them out of town. Being perceived as unprofessional and incompetent, the British press and electorate would jump on them like a rabid dog. Granted, the video example is a little white trash, a little far-right and a little… well, bonkers (“we don’t know where he comes from” – try America). But in reality it says a sizable amount not just about American priorities, but staunch Republican values – y’know, the values that will probably see him carried into the White House. To hard-line Conservatives, this is America at its best – crass, proud and uncaring. The American right cares little for nitty-gritty foreign policy and the concerns of other sovereign nations, if anything their only priority is parading around American exceptionalism wherever they can, proving still that the United States is No.1, and more importantly always will be.
Perhaps unsurprisingly so, as this election (unlike those of the Bush era) will be the most distant from foreign policy there have been in recent memory. Struggling with a troubled economy, the already insular American public and media have become ever more focused on their domestic financial problems, healthcare controversy and gas prices (often a symbol of freedom in the vast landscape of the USA).
But if your first impressions of the American political landscape were an electorate tolerant (even accepting) of incompetence, you’re still not completely wrong.
Mitt Romney has proved himself to flip-flop on vital issues to the American public and his Conservative supporters, not just once, but time and time again. Vietnam, stem cell research, Reagan (something of a Conservative hero), abortion, ‘Obamacare’ (a system he originally instituted in his state of Massachusetts, now promising to repeal nationwide if he were to win), even small and apparently meaningless facts. At best, he has a memory disorder, at worst he’s a desperate unempathetic suit who’ll say just about anything to get in the White House. Just a quick reminder, this is the man who’ll control the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, have the strongest diplomatic clout and head the world’s only superpower. Question is, do the American public (more specifically the ones who’ll be voting for him) even know of his flip-flop endeavors? Chances not.
Unlike the UK, the United States has news coverage that quite obviously favours one political view over another. Fox, despite its ability to perpetuate an array of quality American films and entertainment around the globe, has possibly the most biased news network in the Western world. But unlike the rest of us, America simultaneously sees Fox as the second most trusted news network in the country whilst also being the top untrusted network too. This alone is a testament to just how divisive their news coverage is. Most revealing of all is the political affiliations of those who trusted, and those who did not trust the station.
A TV News Poll by Public Polling Policy revealed 72% of Conservatives trusted the Fox News coverage, while 82% of Liberals didn’t. And considering that Fox has been under the spotlight for allegations of conservative bias several times, it’s understandable why those who share the political slant of the coverage are those who favour the channel the most. Considering this, it is also understandable to see why those who are most likely to vote for Romney in 2012 are those who would be least likely to know about his ever-changing stance on important issues. Ironically, the Presidential Candidate for the Democratic party in 2004, John Kerry, was hounded for being an apparent flip flopper in his race against George W Bush. And more revealing still is how Fox News has absolutely no mention of Romney’s same crime. It’s easy to see how this withholding of information in order to make your chosen candidate appear the superior is the perfect breeding ground for an uninformed and unfair election – with the American electorate paying the biggest price for it.
I might find BBC News, Sky News, ITV News and all the rest slightly cold and stoic in comparison to their American counterparts. But in order to have a more intelligent and informed debate about who’ll lead my country in the years to come, I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of showmanship in my news coverage. And in order to truly understand the American political landscape, you must understand that Romney’s hopes of entering the White House rest largely on a ‘free’ press. A press free to say whatever the fuck it wants.
