A Political Thread pt. 2

[dirty harry]

I wouldn't mind betting that you are using these weird outlier cases that, upon further investigation, turn out to be BS

How is your speech impacted on a day to day basis?

I must admit, I am torn about hate speech laws, I can see merits to both sides of the argument. I generally feel immutable characteristics should be protected but I don't feel religion should be included as it's not an immutable characteristic.

Section 5 public order offences can be abused as well but generally are probably enforced ok

I use these outliers, but we are criminalising 3k people per year for speech crimes, 140k for hate crimes. These laws are vaguely worded and are open to perception, there are cases of gay men being convicted for calling straight people gay.

I'll give you a great example, I recently took 10 homeless teens to a Fearless workshop, the anonymous reporting tool for a safer society. Before the 2 hour session finished, an officer called the deliverer to let her know there had been 3 reports of hate crimes within the session. 2 of the kids 18+, reported each other, and 1 reported the deliverer for using the pronoun 'he' as she was a trans woman.

None of this was followed up on thankfully, but it was a terrifying insight into how police deal with words. The welsh government run constant ads imploring people to report each other, Scottish government posting posters of them watching the public etc and posting leaflets telling people in certain areas that they can be criminalised for pray too publicly in their own home.

There will always be outliers, and grey areas I get it, but at this rate a huge amount of the UK will be criminalised in the next few years.

A stat that always shocks people is:

Around 200k people per year are added to the criminal register, that's NEW people.

This is increasing year on year, and % of the population that has a criminal record has blown up to near 28%.

That's more than 1 in 4 people in the UK have a criminal record!!!

So what is the reason for this, has theft, assault, car crimes etc exploded, well not particularly. Hate crimes sit at 140k per year, and public order at 900k both massively increased in recent years.

We are criminalised as a society at a HIGHER % than the USA. Let that sink in for a sec...

 

[ChicagoKid]

My 9 year old nephew had to do a school shooting drill at his school in Pittsburgh though so swings and roundabouts.

Yes. It's a scourge on our society. My family owns a lot of guns. I love the 2nd amendment. It's challenging.

As I said previously, enforcing existing laws would go a long ways. But the federal and state agencies have repeatedly failed to coordinate.

 

[dirty harry]

Yes. It's a scourge on our society. My family owns a lot of guns. I love the 2nd amendment. It's challenging.

As I said previously, enforcing existing laws would go a long ways. But the federal and state agencies have repeatedly failed to coordinate.

I found out recently, a lot of 'school shooting' stats aren't much to do with the idea of a disgruntled child shooting up a school...

Brandishing a fire arm, at midnight within a hundred yards of a school for example would count as a school shooting.

Not that it's good, but it inflates the figures.

 

[dirty harry]

I think this is a fair question and you could also argue that America does a much better job at assimilating immigrants into American culture.

My take on thisnis different...

I don't share concern or fear of a large amount of Muslim immigration, it's just happened so quickly and so many it'll take a bit of time to become more liberal. I work with a lot of Muslim guys and girls, mostly 2nd gen, and freedom and equality seems to always win out, the extremes always confine themselves to specific areas, the same way bits all live in the same part of Benidorm, eat British food and drink beer, but ultimately they can't help themselves and get into a bit of tapas and sangria eventually...

Communities close ranks when they feel under pressure, they open their doors easier when welcomed.

 

[ChicagoKid]

I found out recently, a lot of 'school shooting' stats aren't much to do with the idea of a disgruntled child shooting up a school...

Brandishing a fire arm, at midnight within a hundred yards of a school for example would count as a school shooting.

Not that it's good, but it inflates the figures.

Yes 100 percent true. The FBI crime data used to be the gold standard. But then after the George Floyd incident and protests, several cities stopped reporting.

Here in Chicago, they don't report the data to the FBI and you can't trust it anyways because property crimes are ignored by the police so people don't waste the time filing a police report.

Your home was broken into but they didn't cause too much damage, don't mess with the police or insurance company, just replace the door/locks.

This is why Biden/Kamala shouting CRIME IS DOWN was laughed at, especially in minority communities.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Brandishing a fire arm, at midnight within a hundred yards of a school for example would count as a school shooting.
.

Really? Any link to that?

I know (or think I know I haven't checked) that mass shooting stats can be misinterpreted as any incident where 3 people have been shot is classed as a mass shooting but I've never heard anything about brandishing a weapon miles away from a school, not shooting or killing anyone, being classed as a school shooting.

Ultimately, though, I think most Americans are like @ChicagoKid they accept it's bad but are ultimately happy to have it as a trade off to keep their guns. It is very ingrained in their culture which is hard for us Europeans to understand.

 

[ncurd]

Aren't New Mexico, Texas and Arizona just extensions of Mexico anyway.

Mexicans sees those states like America sees Canada.

Slightly diffrent didn't they use to be part of Mexico?

 

[ChicagoKid]

Really? Any link to that?

I know (or think I know I haven't checked) that mass shooting stats can be misinterpreted as any incident where 3 people have been shot is classed as a mass shooting but I've never heard anything about brandishing a weapon miles away from a school, not shooting or killing anyone, being classed as a school shooting.

Ultimately, though, I think most Americans are like @ChicagoKid they accept it's bad but are ultimately happy to have it as a trade off to keep their guns. It is very ingrained in their culture which is hard for us Europeans to understand.

1000% accurate. It's the one thing I've had the hardest time discussing with Europeans. They simply don't understand our gun culture.

Ironically, biggest gun guy I know is a Brit born in Bournemouth. He became a citizen and has probably spent $150k on guns. He's insane lol.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

My take on thisnis different...

I don't share concern or fear of a large amount of Muslim immigration, it's just happened so quickly and so many it'll take a bit of time to become more liberal. I work with a lot of Muslim guys and girls, mostly 2nd gen, and freedom and equality seems to always win out, the extremes always confine themselves to specific areas, the same way bits all live in the same part of Benidorm, eat British food and drink beer, but ultimately they can't help themselves and get into a bit of tapas and sangria eventually...

Communities close ranks when they feel under pressure, they open their doors easier when welcomed.

Yeah, I'm from Birmingham and my family's from one of the poorest areas which has always had high levels of immigration, be it Irish, Indian/Pakistani, East African etc. - there's no real levels of segregation in that community despite the terrible reputation that the areas have (which is exacerbated by the ridiculous news reports)

it's just happened so quickly and so many it'll take a bit of time to become more liberal

I think this is a good point - immigration from these communities ramped up a lot in the last 50-80yrs or so

I bet if you went back 100-150yrs you'd have people saying the exact same things about segregated communities of Italians ("Little Italy"), Irish (places like Digbeth) and Chinese ("Chinatown"/"Chinese Quarter") as they say about parts of Birmingham etc. now

 

[McTallshort]

Ironically, biggest gun guy I know is a Brit born in Bournemouth. He became a citizen and has probably spent $150k on guns. He's insane lol.

Yeah I get that. I used to be a gun owner in the UK and I lived in the states would probably load up

 

[Saintjay]

Slightly diffrent didn't they use to be part of Mexico?

Yeah I'd rather like Mexico to start referring to it all as The Mexican state of Texas and trolling America to give them back.

gobernador del estado Trump or something. I have no idea if that Spanish is correct.

 

[Weldit]

The speed of which things changed is what understandably threw people on immigration I think. Even Labour said they got that wrong. I'm not really sure how they can solve it going forward as the infrastructure clearly can't support this many people.

 

[ncurd]

Yeah, I'm from Birmingham and my family's from one of the poorest areas which has always had high levels of immigration, be it Irish, Indian/Pakistani, East African etc. - there's no real levels of segregation in that community despite the terrible reputation that the areas have (which is exacerbated by the ridiculous news reports)


I think this is a good point - immigration from these communities ramped up a lot in the last 50-80yrs or so

I bet if you went back 100-150yrs you'd have people saying the exact same things about segregated communities of Italians ("Little Italy"), Irish (places like Digbeth) and Chinese ("Chinatown"/"Chinese Quarter") as they say about parts of Birmingham etc. now

Where I grew up wasn't that ethnically diverse to the extent of barely any Jewish people let alone other more 'colourful' backgrounds (Yeovil) most school years probably had 2-3 kids at best that weren't white British. I guess thats why the influx of Eastern Europeans had backlash there.

It was certainly a bit of a shock at University in SE London (Kingston) where it was radically more diverse.

My current work is way more diverse than other places I've worked in.

Alls good in that regard I've never come accross an issue unless India was playing Pakistan at Cricket in a student bar.

 

[mikebrownsauce1512]

Yeah I get that. I used to be a gun owner in the UK and I lived in the states would probably load up

If i lived in the states i would 100% load up

 

[ncurd]

The speed of which things changed is what understandably threw people on immigration I think. Even Labour said they got that wrong. I'm not really sure how they can solve it going forward as the infrastructure clearly can't support this many people.

This is due to chronic underfunding not the influx of people. Migration leads to us having more doctors, nurses, carers etc. per capita than if we had not have higher tax contributions etc etc etc.

We'd have the same problems without the immigration it just hasn't helped, the government and succeeding ones didn't plan to handle it.

 

[ncurd]

Plus the immigration issue is out the bottle. No government can get a handle on it because immigrant are net contributors decreasing it massively causes more problems as seen when we decided we didn't want labourers for fruit picking and other examples.

 

[Saintjay]

Slightly different take - having gone to senior school in Dunfermline. Then later living and working in North Wales.

Scotland was way higher on anti-english sentiment/abuse to myself and family. The welsh were a great bunch across the board.

 

[Weldit]

Plus the immigration issue is out the bottle. No government can get a handle on it because immigrant are net contributors decreasing it massively causes more problems as seen when we decided we didn't want labourers for fruit picking and other examples.

I've always been unsure on this. The numbers tend to only look at wealth brought in, not the overall image. Like, what services are they using? If they're at the doctors all the time etc, then is that factored in? Also, to what ends are they bringing wealth? Someone being a university teacher or doctor is not the same as a uber eats driver etc. I don't think we'll ever really know the full picture.

Regardless, the infrastructure isn't there as we all know.

 

[McTallshort]

I always get uncomfortable with immigration when people talk about bringing in Doctors from Africa and India to help the NHS. Pretty sure it should work the other way round and we shouldn't be robbing doctors from the 3rd world.

 

[mikebrownsauce1512]

https://www.bing.com/videos/rivervi...tb=1&msockid=71525e3e04d011f0bc8ca8d708cc6be5

This policy would work for me