We won’t know for sure about this case because of this out of court settlement. But I came across one of those gay sex-obsessed homophobes at a free speech discussion last year on pornography and art at the Barbican. So I understand what you mean: they are intensely irritating and obviously have, shall we say, “personal issues” with homosexuality rather than just ordinary distaste for it. But the police are the last people you would want to call on them. It just reinforces their paranoia (and probably adds a few more forbidden sexual fantasies to their dreams!).

This documents the libertarian perspective on political correctness in a little more detail than I am able to provide: http://www.candidlist.demon.co.uk/hampden/culturewar2.pdf

My guess is that the conversation with the council employee was slightly different from how they’re letting on - I can’t imagine anyone calling the police for saying “homosexuality is wrong”, but if they were a bit more invective-y and sex-obsessed (in the way that homophobic groups occasionally tend to do) then I could imagine a thin-skinned gay council-ist perceiving it as harrassment…

If the story is actually as the Christians say, then whoever called the police is stark raving mad.

That is a misconception of positive liberty, but one often used by authoritarians to justify illiberal interventions under the guise of liberalism.

Negative liberty deals with external threats to liberty, i.e. other people, what libertarians are most concerned be contained within the political realm.

Positive liberty deals with internal threats to liberty, i.e. an individuals capacity to make decisions autonomously.

The distinction is explained well in this Stanford article, note it is not an immediate passport to “group rights” to equality and respect (that has been smuggled in from other ideologies): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/

Of course, libertarians tend not to deal with either the problem of positive liberty. Perhaps not enough but it is not because we don’t have our own theory about how to provide it. It is because we tend to hold that the best way to create greater individual autonomy is within the sphere allowed by the rule of law and negative liberty. In other words, negative liberty is the pre-requisite of all other forms of liberty.

Sunny - I don’t usually read the Daily Mail. Try the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6205223.stm

I admit my other example looks dodgy and might be more to do with police overreach generally than political correctness specifically.

But hey, as John suggests: other people’s liberty, my arse. Perhaps left liberals reckon that people who think homosexuals are immoral “sort of” deserve to be hassled by the police.

Police Horse - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4606022.stm

Pensioners & Leaflets - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6205223.stm

Care to withdraw your previous comment?

Sometimes it is important to listen to what isn’t said as much as what is and thence draw conclusions without making judgemental pronouncements: if the BNP is elected to office and maintains the support of the electorate by not acting out of its bounds or outside of the law then it has, by definition and practice, made the transition away from being an incoherent reactionary force - which should then (and only then) be worthy of our applause (I would, however, be surprised if it their preferred electoral vehicle could survive this metamorphosis as a political force, based on their current list of candidates and the way they present themselves - tan suits, pleeease, will red armbands and moustaches be next?!).

It is both shocking and amusing for me to listen to the self-denying accusations projected and transfered by the half-correct on both sides of any argument - we all have our own prejudices and preferences; the human struggle is all about not letting these personal biases have any detrimental influence on our communal existence.

For liberals ‘thought crime’ is an unprovable misnomer - we judge deeds, and non-liberals know we are watching them, subjecting them to scrutiny and ready to defend our liberty.

Bloody hell, you really are clutching at straws aren’t you? First, don’t believe what the Daily Mail tells you. Secondly, what the law, is sometimes different to how policemen behave or what newspapers report. I thought you’d be a bit more intelligent to differentiate betyween the two.

So I stand by my original claim - political correctness has never been about using the law to silence ‘rudeness’, because no such laws exist. Get yourself a serious newspaper to read.

http://torytroll.blogspot.com/2008/05/richard-barnbrook-making-fascism-funny.html

Actually it can, depending on if you see liberty in the positive or negative sense. obviously you see it in the negative sense but most social/modern liberalshave seen liberty in a positive sense since the beggining of the 20th century. positive meaning the right not to be abused and feel equal, in the liberal sense means that freedom of speech which is harmful or offensive in any sense can in this light be regulated. not the i support the idea that no one should be able to speak badly of another person but speaking badly of another person just because theiy’re gay or have a different colour skin certainly interferes with positive rights.

Right wing political correctness, however, is extremely prevalent - from the ritual Eustonista call for mass denunciation of whomever has annoyed them this week to the smearing and denigration of people like Liberty or the Howard League who suggest that locking up more and more people might not be a sensible or effective justice policy. A moment’s thought should bring numerous other examples to mind. So powerful and pervasive is it, in fact, that it’s actually undifferentiable from mainstream political opinion, which has followed it for decades. In fact it’s possibly the most powerful ideology of our age.

In short: it’s much harder to get yourself heard suggesting heterodox left wing or liberal opinions than right wing ones. I call as my first witness every Daily Express front page of the last five years.

Even shorter: Richard Barnbrook is a clueless berk. Let’s hear more from him, let’s put his flaming torch of White nationalism to the 100% oxygen tank of publicity. I’d suggest standing back a bit at that point.

I fully agree with your article, namely that the “No Platform” tactic no longer serves its purpose and is now counter-productive. Needless and utterly undeserved martyrdom.

The fash need to be confronted head on. That said, when they do appear on programmes, they need a far harsher line of questioning then they’ve received of late. Nick Griffin has never been asked the straight question when he appears:-
“So Nick, did the Holocaust happen or not? Were six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime, or not? If you now believe they were, would you like to apologise for your previous continued denial of this fact?” I would LOVE to see him answer that one.

It depends what you now mean by a “verbal attack” because sometimes someone expressing an opinion will be viewed as a “verbal attack” by someone else. If it is a threat to harm, then it is covered under other laws. If it disrupts people as they go about their business, then it can be covered by other laws that do not deal with the content of someone’s speech or beliefs.

You suggest that people need the freedom to walk safely down the street as if that somehow competes with freedom of speech. Speech, unless it is being used to issue threats, does not infringe on people’s ability to walk anywhere. If you want people to be given the freedom to walk any street safely, you should have a closer look at the criminal justice system which continues to allow genuine violent criminals to walk the streets (see this just today: http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/couldnt-prosecute-satan/ ). That would do more good that inventing new categories of criminals, and arresting and locking people up just for expressing unpopular beliefs, on a stage or wherever else.

Additionally it’s as much a civil liberty to walk down the street and feel safe from attack as it is to be able to say whatever you like to anyone at any time.

I am assuming by “attack” you mean verbally since physical aggression is already illegal no matter what your reason for initiating it. If you believe people should be arrested for saying things that you or even the majority disapprove of, then your beliefs are authoritarian, rather than liberal. Which I suppose is fair enough - I happen to think that liberal societies are better places to live in as they waste less time “re-educating” people who are guilty of expressing opinions that the state disapproves of. It also allows people to disagree amicably, just as we are now. But you are welcome to your own opinion.

Decent people, right wing or not, would not dispute the value of using polite language. The reason people rally against political correctness is because of its pernicious impact on the law (in other words, on what grounds people can have their liberties deprived). This is what I think the core of political correctness is and it is why I am opposed to it.

It is for parallel reasons that I am opposed to drug criminalization (i.e. not because I approve of all drugs, but because I think the consequences of making them illegal is far worse than the consequences of the drugs themselves). I think introducing laws to regulate speech has far worse consequences than the impact of abusive and rude speech itself - which I think is best combated with scorn, contempt and alternative information rather than the criminal law. The only odd thing is that the “liberal-left” (who are good at pointing out civil liberties ordinariliy) seem to equivocate on this sort of question. To endorse regulations on speech, even of the politically correct kind, cannot be considered “liberal” in any meaningful sense.

He was issued with a fixed penalty for the traditional, if not entirely statutory, offence of “mocking a police officer”. There was no suggestion in the charge sheet or anywhere else that the penalty was homophobia-related.

“Two pensioners have been interrogated by the police for asking (just ASKING) the council if they could put some Christian leaflets out alongside some gay literature”

My arse they were.

Sunny - a man has been arrested in this country for saying that a horse was gay. Two pensioners have been interrogated by the police for asking (just ASKING) the council if they could put some Christian leaflets out alongside some gay literature (these are the examples that come to my mind). Now I know those laws were (probably) being misapplied but the fact that the new body of law allows for such overreach should demonstrate that it is now indeed being used to silence “rudeness” (as defined according to various group identities). It is not a strawman and I am not of the far-right.

Nina - “Political correctness does not imply that being rude should be illegal, limiting the abuse that one group can throw at another however does strike me as sensible”

You risk being inconsistent with yourself in this statement. Do you think people should be arrested for being (verbally) abusive or not? When you say “limiting the abuse”, do you mean by law, or by people choosing to be polite?