General News Thread

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, ALC Fox said:

This could be such an important thing. He's pushing the envelope again. Crossing another line. In the same interview he conceded that he does need to abide by international law. But he's sewn the seed that may enable him not to. He's already done it with invading Venezuela and kidnapping Maduro. But if nobody bats an eyelid when he says something and immediately backtracks on it, he'll keep pushing it and he will begin to do that thing with regularity.

 

Ditto regarding the cancellation of the midterm elections in November 2026. He's 'joked' about cancelling them. Don't be surprised if he tries it. Don't be surprised if protests on the streets give him the excuse to justify his authoritarianism, painting 'the radical left' and 'foreign invaders' as those responsible.

This is a key part of understanding what's going on imo. People like him seeking to abuse power often dress up such abuses of power before they happen in a sea of "humour" and bluffs.

 

I'm not sure why anyone shouldn't take the man, and everything he says he's going to do, seriously until proven otherwise at this point. 

[Voll Blau]

20 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Under the NCHI laws, people were being visited by the police for making jokes, being slightly rude to others in online disputes and expressing mainstream views. The only criteria for the police to get involved was for somebody to report they were 'offended' by something somebody else had said or written. Inevitably, this was exploited by campaigners seeking to harass those they disagreed with. It became an ungovernable mess that took up loads of police time and resulted in ordinary people being arrested when they done nothing wrong. Thankfully that insane period seems to be over.

 

What Lucy Connolly wrote was appalling and completely inexcusable. But it should not be the business of the state to police and punish people's emotions. Incitement to violence is rightly illegal, but 'inciting hatred', which Connolly was convicted for, is much more nebulous and hard to pin down. It basically invites the authorities to intervene in the realm of thought and emotion, and personally I wouldn't trust any politician, police officer or judge to hold that kind of power.

 

19 minutes ago, danny. said:

Connolly wasn’t urging anything. Dishonest revisionism. 

"Set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care." Pretty clear to me.

 

Cerainly more than a "nasty tweet", as we're being falsely told on this thread you can get three years in the slamner for. As I say, a newspaper editor would go to jail for publishing that to an audience of the size her post reached.

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, Sampson said:

It’s fair that governments don’t really know how to deal with social media. Like I’m a liberal who believes we absolutely should live in a free speech society and people make blue jokes to their friends in private all the time, there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m not an evolutionary biologist but I bet there’s some social bonding reasons behind it.
 

Thing is as much as it’s easy to say “just don’t post it publicly” or “yes but you should be aware of the consequences” it isn’t that easy, it’s very easy just to like something or post something while your brain is on autopilot and you’re not thinking it through, because you never (rightly) had to face these consequences jokingly with mates in the past and for most people this technology has come up in living memory when those brain chemistry patterns and cultural patterns have been formed.

 

The bigger problem though is that social media is probably the most addictive drug ever created by humans and was literally the smartest technology* humans have created to force people’s attention to it and not take their eyeballs off it to the point where people feel physically compulsed to check their phone every 5 minutes and post or google everything they think. So I don’t think it’s easy at all to tell someone just to not post, I think for some it’s harder than stopping quitting smoking. That’s how the technology is designed.

Also, there’s loads of psychology experiments showing because we feel like we’re anonymous online people say things they’ll never do in real life, even though we aren’t really anonymous and that inevitably leads to misreadings or misunderstandings of people’s genuine personalities - the classic is there’s so many people we’d argue with online that we’d be great friends with if we met them in real life.
 

I do though totally understand the argument that people listen to what is written on social media so writing things on inciting violence needs to be clamped down too.

 

But it is a bit scary now that Big Brother doesn’t need to watch you because people’s autopilot thoughts are kind of out there already on social media posts and their google searches (and now ChatGPT questions).

 

I don’t know what the answer is, no one knows where the balance is. The scary thing for me is just that a major cause of the 30 Years War was the Catholic Church not being able to deal with the new mass communication system of the printing press. And a major cause of Workd War II was governments not being able to deal with the new mass communication system of the radio. I think social media has undoubtedly played a sizeable role in destabilising our world order the past decade or so, where it ends or how we deal with it I hope we don’t have to have a massive war like the previous 2 mentioned to help us decide. 

 

* I say was because obviously now we have AI which is magnitudes many more times as powerful.

Astute. 

 

There doesn't appear to be any good answer right now. The Chinese have an answer, but it's not necessarily good. 

[leicsmac]

Fox News emphasising the point that Renee Good was dating a woman and had a child from a previous marriage. 

 

Obvious implication being that she's no real loss to society.

[danny.]

General musing. Why are people so interested (I am guilty of this too from time to time) about things going on thousands of miles away. We have plenty of our own problems, and while some things may affect the international stage, many do not, yet as a nation we seem obsessed with the USA and the middle east.

[kenny]

8 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

"Set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care." Pretty clear to me.

 

Cerainly more than a "nasty tweet", as we're being falsely told on this thread you can get three years in the slamner for. As I say, a newspaper editor would go to jail for publishing that to an audience of the size her post reached.

I think a solicitor would have made more on the fact that she said she didn't care what people did, rather than phrasing it as I think you all should set fire to hotels.

 

I'm not necessarily against this getting 3 years as long as other crimes that are similar, or Indeed more damaging to the public are dealt with in a similar fashion.

[danny.]

1 minute ago, kenny said:

I think a solicitor would have made more on the fact that she said she didn't care what people did, rather than phrasing it as I think you all should set fire to hotels.

 

I'm not necessarily against this getting 3 years as long as other crimes that are similar, or Indeed more damaging to the public are dealt with in a similar fashion.

Exactly.
 

"Do X for all I care" is not equivalent to "I urge people to do X".

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, danny. said:

General musing. Why are people so interested (I am guilty of this too from time to time) about things going on thousands of miles away. We have plenty of our own problems, and while some things may affect the international stage, many do not, yet as a nation we seem obsessed with the USA and the middle east.

Possibly because some people need an international cause celebre to attach themselves to. 

 

But also because others know, rather too well, that the world is getting smaller, it's interconnected, and more and more often such events can and do end up affecting everyone. 

 

The UK and the people in it simply can't just ignore what's going on elsewhere, in spite of the problems it has within its own borders, because often the two are linked and that linkage isn't going to go away - if anything, it will only get stronger. 

[kenny]

2 minutes ago, danny. said:

Exactly.
 

"Do X for all I care" is not equivalent to "I urge people to do X".

The other odd case, was Lineham being arrested. He is an Irish national, writing tweets on X whilst in the USA. 

 

Does this mean I can't slate Saudi Arabia on Foxestalk from the UK without falling foul of their individual laws?

[danny.]

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

Possibly because some people need an international cause celebre to attach themselves to. 

 

But also because others know, rather too well, that the world is getting smaller, it's interconnected, and more and more often such events can and do end up affecting everyone. 

 

The UK and the people in it simply can't just ignore what's going on elsewhere, in spite of the problems it has within its own borders, because often the two are linked and that linkage isn't going to go away - if anything, it will only get stronger. 

We do, though, the UK obsesses over Palestine, we even have huge amounts of people advocating for the release of terrorists involved with the assault with a sledge hammer on a police officer "because Palestine". At the same time we literally don't give a passing thought to: the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria (>2m displaced and killed), Sudanese civil war (>10m displaced, ~20m starving), DRC conflict (7m displaced, 25m starving, huge disease outbreaks), Myanmar coup and civil bar (90k deaths, villages regularly burned), ISIS insurgency in Sahel (3m displayed), widespread gang violence in Haiti (1.5m displaced, 6m starving, child recruitment), Yemen, etc etc I could go on.

[bovril]

Going back to the discussion on previous pages, our culture is superior when it comes to protecting women?

 

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/serial-rapist-metropolitan-police-officer-allowed-join-force-5HjdQNh_2/

[danny.]

18 minutes ago, bovril said:

Going back to the discussion on previous pages, our culture is superior when it comes to protecting women?

 

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/serial-rapist-metropolitan-police-officer-allowed-join-force-5HjdQNh_2/

"PC Mitchell was jailed for life and sentenced to serve at least 13 years after he was found guilty of kidnapping and rape."

Doesn't sound like our culture accepted his behaviour as OK, jail for life is a good measure for such awful crimes.

 

As a reminder on some other cultures, three quick examples: some execute women for the crime of being raped; some allow rape trades, for example if someone rapes your sister you can rape theirs to call things even; some burn women alive when their husband die. All equal to a culture with a justice system that punishes misogynistic crimes? According to some on this thread - yes.

[Spudulike]

23 minutes ago, danny. said:

We do, though, the UK obsesses over Palestine, we even have huge amounts of people advocating for the release of terrorists involved with the assault with a sledge hammer on a police officer "because Palestine". At the same time we literally don't give a passing thought to: the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria (>2m displaced and killed), Sudanese civil war (>10m displaced, ~20m starving), DRC conflict (7m displaced, 25m starving, huge disease outbreaks), Myanmar coup and civil bar (90k deaths, villages regularly burned), ISIS insurgency in Sahel (3m displayed), widespread gang violence in Haiti (1.5m displaced, 6m starving, child recruitment), Yemen, etc etc I could go on.

It seems the Gaza conflict has one different element involved. We all know what that is. It's been affecting the left for years.

[danny.]

2 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

It seems the Gaza conflict has one different element involved. We all know what that is. It's been affecting the left for years.

See also: Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.

[leicsmac]

27 minutes ago, danny. said:

We do, though, the UK obsesses over Palestine, we even have huge amounts of people advocating for the release of terrorists involved with the assault with a sledge hammer on a police officer "because Palestine". At the same time we literally don't give a passing thought to: the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria (>2m displaced and killed), Sudanese civil war (>10m displaced, ~20m starving), DRC conflict (7m displaced, 25m starving, huge disease outbreaks), Myanmar coup and civil bar (90k deaths, villages regularly burned), ISIS insurgency in Sahel (3m displayed), widespread gang violence in Haiti (1.5m displaced, 6m starving, child recruitment), Yemen, etc etc I could go on.

You'll get no disagreement from me regarding people seemingly arbitrarily picking one humanitarian crisis over another, that's a matter of record. Either all of them are important or none are. 

 

The point is that the UK (and other nations) ignore such crises at their peril, because such problems do end up affecting everywhere directly or indirectly, and that's only going to get more apparently as the world gets smaller and vital resources diminish due to greed, ignorance or malice displayed by some powerful human beings. 

[Tommy G]

28 minutes ago, bovril said:

Going back to the discussion on previous pages, our culture is superior when it comes to protecting women?

 

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/serial-rapist-metropolitan-police-officer-allowed-join-force-5HjdQNh_2/

I think the less said about the Met the better given their shortcomings - at risk of a ban aswell with this kind of topic so I’ll keep my mouth shut!

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

It seems the Gaza conflict has one different element involved. We all know what that is. It's been affecting the left for years.

If this is what I think it is, such sentiments are hardly just a "left" phenomenon. 

 

And, on topic, it's rather absurd to me that such crises are subject to traditional political compassing anyway. 

 

Either you want to preserve human (and other life) and the future, or you don't. That's the real compass. 

[Leicesterpool]

No matter whenever this country gets snow we never prepared, there's instant panic.

[bovril]

12 minutes ago, danny. said:

"PC Mitchell was jailed for life and sentenced to serve at least 13 years after he was found guilty of kidnapping and rape."

Doesn't sound like our culture accepted his behaviour as OK, jail for life is a good measure for such awful crimes.

 

As a reminder on some other cultures, three quick examples: some execute women for the crime of being raped; some allow rape trades, for example if someone rapes your sister you can rape theirs to call things even; some burn women alive when their husband die. All equal to a culture with a justice system that punishes misogynistic crimes? According to some on this thread - yes.

There seems to be a culture of throwing women under the bus in the name of diversity in the UK.

 

I dont think we should pat ourselves on the back just because we're better than e.g Pakistan.

[Zear0]

Glad to see X are taking the strongest possible action on their service of being able to make illegal material by limiting the ability to paid users...

 

Why stop it when you can just monetise it? 

[Spudulike]

18 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

If this is what I think it is, such sentiments are hardly just a "left" phenomenon. 

 

And, on topic, it's rather absurd to me that such crises are subject to traditional political compassing anyway. 

 

Either you want to preserve human (and other life) and the future, or you don't. That's the real compass. 

Antisemitism has cast a dark sinister shadow over the Labour party and the left for decades. It was out in the open during the Corbyn leadership and Starmer had to remove many members when he took over. Not sure if it's been eradicated but is still rife among left leaning celebs.

 

Preserving life is the real compass, agreed, but it seems for some that only a conflict involving a certain race is worth protesting about in often vile ways.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Antisemitism has cast a dark sinister shadow over the Labour party and the left for decades. It was out in the open during the Corbyn leadership and Starmer had to remove many members when he took over. Not sure if it's been eradicated but is still rife among left leaning celebs.

 

Preserving life is the real compass, agreed, but it seems for some that only a conflict involving a certain race is worth protesting about in often vile ways.

I'm trying to remember, was it lefties shouting "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville in 2017? (Which resulted in the death of another woman.) Or coming up with the consistent stereotypical conspiracy theories all over social media? Was it also them who made the wholesale elimination of that demographic national policy and carried it out on an industrial scale?

 

Please don't frame this as a single section problem. It's not and it's dishonest to try. 

 

WRT the second paragraph, let me know when those rallying against the ones who are selective in their protests actually care about much beyond short term self interest and that of their "tribe". Again, this is hardly a unique to one demographic problem. 

[Spudulike]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I'm trying to remember, was it lefties shouting "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville in 2017? (Which resulted in the death of another woman.) Or coming up with the consistent stereotypical conspiracy theories all over social media? Was it also them who made the wholesale elimination of that demographic national policy and carried it out on an industrial scale?

 

Please don't frame this as a single section problem. It's not and it's dishonest to try. 

 

WRT the second paragraph, let me know when those rallying against the ones who are selective in their protests actually care about much beyond short term self interest and that of their "tribe". Again, this is hardly a unique to one demographic problem. 

I didn't reference Charlottesville or anything connected with US politics. I'm talking about the Labour parties antisemetic issues and those marching on our UK streets with their vile chants, banners and committing crime in the name of a middle east conflict. You know what? I might even support them if they weren't so selective (without the disgusting stuff and crime, obvs).

[FrankieADZ]

amazing how some were celebrating charlie kirk getting shot and killed for his views/free speech

yet are up in arms etc about a woman who tried to run over/interfere with an ICE operation 

 

and then the other week they was having a "no kings protest" yet are up in arms about Trump taking Maduro out of Venezuelan, 

 

like jesus christ give it up

 

like everything you say and do nowadays offends someone, like brother sent me to mars cant be arsed with this

 

 

Edited 9 January by FrankieADZ

[danny.]

1 minute ago, FrankieADZ said:

amazing how some were celebrating charlie kirk getting shot and killed for his views/free speech

yet are up in arms etc about a woman who tried to run over/interfere with an ICE operation 

 

and then the other week they was having a "no kings protest" yet are up in arms about Trump taking Maduro out of Venezuelan, 

I said this earlier and was mocked and everything deleted by mods. Good luck!