In a free society, the police ought to have neither the powers nor the priorities to pursue people over "non-crime hate incidents". The bar to criminal offences relating to speech must be high indeed.
Thank you very much and as always very interesting and measured perspectives.
I hope to stress test a couple of items:
1) You write "these are the fault of politicians and police leaders, not rank and file officers who face impossible odds every single shift". Whilst I understand where you come from, curious what the view would be considering the negation of the superior officer defence in light of a moral alternative during the Nuremberg trials? Individual Liberty comes hand in hand with personal responsibility where we all have a choice.
2) The presumption with a crime is that there is a victim who's natural rights (life, liberty or property) have been infringed upon. Whilst speech can be unkind, vile etc - under what circumstances can speech infringe on ones natural rights?
3) Following on from point 2) where individuals are responsible for their actions, how is speech responsible for the actions of another? I don't see any holy scripture calling for murder but yet people have carried out these acts in the name of those scriptures and we have rightly held those individuals responsible not the scripture.
Hear, hear. The best antiseptic for offensive views is sunlight.
There is no incitement to racial hatred in the tweet (post). Merely an entirely reasonable observation about two tier policing imo.
Thank you very much and as always very interesting and measured perspectives.
I hope to stress test a couple of items:
1) You write "these are the fault of politicians and police leaders, not rank and file officers who face impossible odds every single shift". Whilst I understand where you come from, curious what the view would be considering the negation of the superior officer defence in light of a moral alternative during the Nuremberg trials? Individual Liberty comes hand in hand with personal responsibility where we all have a choice.
2) The presumption with a crime is that there is a victim who's natural rights (life, liberty or property) have been infringed upon. Whilst speech can be unkind, vile etc - under what circumstances can speech infringe on ones natural rights?
3) Following on from point 2) where individuals are responsible for their actions, how is speech responsible for the actions of another? I don't see any holy scripture calling for murder but yet people have carried out these acts in the name of those scriptures and we have rightly held those individuals responsible not the scripture.
Thanks Beau