Whatever Happened to freedom of Speech?

billy the squid

Tha Gopher wrote:

Im sure if I selectively one of your longer posts it can be read as saying "up the KKK" 32 times, what exactly is your point? Wards family looked like a surly bunch.

My point is you are A)a hypocrite, and a liar. I will deal with the hypocracy first. You harken back to the good ol' days when people didn't attack other users, but in the same paragraph, express a desire to call people dickhead. Further down your post you refer to people who haven't even posted in this thread as "mildly retarded bullies" and "cúnts."

are you referring to me, or sparks or anyone else in that thread when you use the word cúnt? Let's have a look at what you said

Bit of a rant, i just despise these kunts with a vengence, mainly because they know they are wrong but persist in talking sh1te. "wah wah travellers are disproportionately crooks are they? Provide me the stats". They know full well that there are no stats, seeing as the justice system only provides figures on nationality, not "race". Real world life experience somehow counts for nothing with these people.

Ah yes, it seems you were referring to me as well as others, which brings me onto the liar part of my point.

You are a liar in that you claim to know what I know is wrong or right when in fact you do not. You are a liar when you claim no statistics on traveller related crime exist, when in fact a link which YOU posted in the above post shows that such statistics exist, they are in the posession of Amnesty international.

On the "disproportionate number of travellers in prison compared to settled community" matter, let me put this to you. There is a disproportionate number of black people in prison in the US compared to white people, does that give people in the US the right to be racist against black people?

My point was that these organisations spend their time telling us about the small minority causing the problem for the majority, yet they blindly stand up for a member of this "small minority" who was nothing but a cowardly thug. If they want the settled people to have a better opinion of them, why in the name of god are they standing up for this guy?

How big does a minority have to be before it becomes a big minority? whether a minority is big or small is open to interpretation. As for why they represent travellers, the same reason a defense lawyer represents his client i suppose, because that is their job to represent the rights of travellers.

My apologies for going off topic on this thread, but if I am going to be called a cúnt on an open thread, the least I ask is to be given the right of reply.

billy the squid

WizZard wrote:

Rock Climber

billy the squid wrote:

You are a liar in that you claim to know what I know is wrong or right when in fact you do not. You are a liar when you claim no statistics on traveller related crime exist, when in fact a link which YOU posted in the above post shows that such statistics exist, they are in the posession of Amnesty international.

I thought you couldnt be a liar if you believed something that is untrue.
Thats being mistaken and not being a liar.
Being a liar is very specefic to being deliberately misleading as opposed to being mistakenly misleading.
If you go after this poster for being a liar when he could just as easily just be either stupid or mistaken then he can accuse you of being a liar if he applies your standards of what a liar is to yourself.
After all you couldnt possibly know if he's stupid,mistaken or deliberately misleading just as much as he couldn't possibly know what he attempted to put across as fact in the post you quoted from him.
Thats shaky ground you are on with that particular one,I'd get off it if I was you.

You are on much firmer ground though hinting at the possibility of the poster being either stupid or mistaken as being your view for X,Y and Z reasons though and probably very firm ground with an accusation of hypocrisy given that giving out about swearing and then using swearing is hypocrisy.

Tha Gopher

billy the squid wrote:

My point is you are A)a hypocrite, and a liar. I will deal with the hypocracy first. You harken back to the good ol' days when people didn't attack other users, but in the same paragraph, express a desire to call people dickhead. Further down your post you refer to people who haven't even posted in this thread as "mildly retarded bullies" and "cúnts."

You are a liar in that you claim to know what I know is wrong or right when in fact you do not. You are a liar when you claim no statistics on traveller related crime exist, when in fact a link which YOU posted in the above post shows that such statistics exist, they are in the posession of Amnesty international.

On the "disproportionate number of travellers in prison compared to settled community" matter, let me put this to you. There is a disproportionate number of black people in prison in the US compared to white people, does that give people in the US the right to be racist against black people?

If you read my post you would see that I long for the days when one poster saying, lets say, "oh stfu you knob" wouldnt lead to a site ban. The bans for this type of thing only became common in the last 9 months or so, pretty much since the report button was introduced. Boards has lost its balls- if someone insults me, hell, I dont even know where the rat button is, Id just insult them back. Hell, Ive seen people insultyed by mods numerous times. I didnt directly call you a cnut. DeVore did once not long back (to someone else, iirc the poster was moaning about the speed of the site or something). WhiteWashMan edited my post to be an insult to myself. Did i care? Did i bollix The report button is like back in the day telling the teacher when a boy in the class hit you, rather than going back and clatterin him one in the jaw.

Secondly- I am not a liar. A few times before I googled for this info (as have many others Im sure after "quit this generalisation" crap being shoved against them) and, alas, back then we couldnt back up our horrendously racist opinions. Now we can back up our own life experiences with hard facts. An apology would surely be deserved, after all we were called liars and racists because we were making claims/spouting opinions that were unproven by nothing more than our eyes. Well theyre proven now, so would anyone like to admit they were wrong? Didnt think so.

re the US, its a totally different society. It has 300 million people and over 2 million prisoners. We have 4 million people and what, 2000- 3000 locked in jail? If we had the US rate we would have 30,000 people in prison. Here youve a few offences behind you before you get locked up. First time burglars, dealers, people up for assault, if its their first conviction theyll seldom if ever get prison. Compare that to the US- something like 80% of remand prisoners on Rikers arent there because theyre deemed a flight risk, theyre there because they couldnt afford their relatively large bail for minor offences. So you want to bring race into it do you? The US black population is 14%, and they constitute around 44% of prisoners http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/p03pr.htm (bearing in mind cocaine, crack and heroin being more available in the largely black US inner cities due to their proximity to ports/airports and where there are heavier drug law enforcements, rather than out in the sticks where the police are undermanned and the hillbillys like their crystal meth more than the oul white rock) . If Travellers were 14% of our population, they would be close on 60% of the prison population (judging by the x4 rate of incarceration). Now, there is a figure of little relevance completely pulled out of my arse, but hey, you are the one who for some reason decided to bring the US prison system into things.

However, back on the topic of free speech, the Nally thread is quite possibly the most pathetic load of one sided nonsense and lies I have ever seen on these boards, and there have been a fair few bollix threads over the years. Users banned until the only people left are a bunch of criminal apologists and one or two antis allowed to post to give the impression its a balanced debate (and it seems users who disagree with Sparks, Lurk Billy and maybe one other are only allowed to post for max two days before the mod tells them "Do not post in this thread again" and then allows more token opposition in for a few days for balance). I dont believe in sticking up for cowards who attack the elderly (saying Ward didnt have robbery in mind is like saying Saddam accidentally gassed the Kurds) be they traveller, settled, protestant or Arab. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Giblet

You just plain don't like it here do ya? Anyway, it wasn't like that 3 years ago, hell, it was barely like that 5 years ago. I think you were on a different message board.

amp

Tha Gopher wrote:

Im sure if I selectively one of your longer posts it can be read as saying "up the KKK" 32 times, what exactly is your point? Wards family looked like a surly bunch. The possible proof being his son being incarcerated and iirc his wife done for shoplifting in the time since the killing. My point was that these organisations spend their time telling us about the small minority causing the problem for the majority, yet they blindly stand up for a member of this "small minority" who was nothing but a cowardly thug. If they want the settled people to have a better opinion of them, why in the name of god are they standing up for this guy? Few cared when Dwayne Foster croaked it in a cell (apart from Sinn Fein, but they have an agenda when it comes to the Gardai). Few cared when those two guys were shot dead in the armed robbery in Lusk or wherever. So should we really care more for this guy? The fact is, I and many many others on these boards have seen anti social behaviour by travellers which would seem to indicate that theyre responsible for more than 1% if crimes (as would be the case proportionately by their amount in the population). I cant prove this, I dont know, maybe the census figures for the prisons will be broken down on ethnic lines, then we will see.

edit- actually, here i found it. Now please refrain from this nonsense of them being less prone to crime, and banning people who make comments suggesting this.

http://www.paveepoint.ie/pdf/MH_Sub_Dec03.pdf

Scroll to "Given there is a disproportionate number of members of the travelling community in Irish prisons compared to the majority population"

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15081307

2.8%. Whats that, 4 times their percentage of the population? So there you have it. Based on my largely negative dealings with them through the years, I always assumed that travellers were more prone to anti social behaviour than settled people. I have been criticised on boards for this "sweeping generalisation", as have scores of others with similiar experiences. I have now found studies backing this up. So there ya go.

Before you reply with the fact that something like 70% of Mountjoy inmates come from 6 Dublin postcodes (I cant recall the exact stat), yes, its true. Possibly my postcode is one of them. But you dont get many Dubs denying that there are large scale problems of anti social behaviour in certain areas.



But anyway, thats all fairly OT, Billys post basically side tracked me into a Humanities forum debate. As ive said before, even if the opinion is in my view ludicrous, people who disagree with me should be allowed to speak, I never said they shouldnt. Its when it gets to the point of throwing out bans to people for no good reason (it usually involves them re telling a story from life experience to which they cant provide a link) and letting the trolls win that it gets out of hand.

Yes, I agree with all of your marvelous and concrete evidencing. I remain convinced even more solidly than before. I feel the vervant urgency of your alarming missive. I feel it like I feel the love for our Lord Jesus who didn't die on the cross for any old ****er. He died for the middle and upper classes, those who have house prices to frit about. It's a well known fact which my friend sent to me in a pdf document that Travellers don't believe in Jesus which is why they should be treated with suspicion and loathing at every turn .

HERE'S TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH! GOD BLESS THE UNITED INTERNET STATES OF BOARDS! BUSH IN 2008!

bonkey

Tha Gopher wrote:

I long for the days when one poster saying, lets say, "oh stfu you knob" wouldnt lead to a site ban.

Whatever about a site ban, such attacks were never permitted on the Politics forum. In fact, recall banning someone for saying just the first half of that quote. Sparks, I think it was. probably in 2002 or 2003.

The bans for this type of thing only became common in the last 9 months or so, pretty much since the report button was introduced.

The report button has been there since I can remember. Definitely since the Politics forum started. That would be 4+ years. Which would be since before you (or your current incarnation, at least) joined boards.

Boards has lost its balls- if someone insults me, hell, I dont even know where the rat button is, Id just insult them back.

Boards hasn't lost it balls. A decision was made that such behaviour should be limited to a single forum (Thunderdome) so that the rest fo the forum could actually serve the people who wanted it for reasons other than to call someone names.

the Nally thread is quite possibly the most pathetic load of one sided nonsense and lies I have ever seen on these boards,

Then get your evidence together, and post a rebuttal. If its that weak, proving your point should be a simple exercise.

It seems, though, that your problem isn't that its so easy to debunk teh lies etc. but rather that its not tolerated when people debunk by replacing fact with insult and anecdote.

billy the squid

Tha Gopher wrote:

If you read my post you would see that I long for the days when one poster saying, lets say, "oh stfu you knob" wouldnt lead to a site ban. The bans for this type of thing only became common in the last 9 months or so, pretty much since the report button was introduced.

The report button has always been there as long as I have been here, even before they started using vBulletin if i am not mistaken. Could this count as another lie?[

Boards has lost its balls- if someone insults me, hell, I dont even know where the rat button is,

How would you know how long it is there then if you don't know where it is?

Id just insult them back. Hell, Ive seen people insultyed by mods numerous times. I didnt directly call you a cnut. DeVore did once not long back (to someone else, iirc the poster was moaning about the speed of the site or something). WhiteWashMan edited my post to be an insult to myself. Did i care? Did i bollix The report button is like back in the day telling the teacher when a boy in the class hit you, rather than going back and clatterin him one in the jaw.

Ah yes because telling the authorities about school bullying is so wrong!

Secondly- I am not a liar. A few times before I googled for this info (as have many others Im sure after "quit this generalisation" crap being shoved against them) and, alas, back then we couldnt back up our horrendously racist opinions. Now we can back up our own life experiences with hard facts. An apology would surely be deserved, after all we were called liars and racists because we were making claims/spouting opinions that were unproven by nothing more than our eyes. Well theyre proven now, so would anyone like to admit they were wrong? Didnt think so.

But you are still wrong my son, no one is disputing that crime rates amongst travellers is higher or lower in the travelling community than anywhere else, what is open to dispute is whether or not a majority or even a large minority (whatever counts as a large minority is still open to ones interpretation) are involved in crime.

re the US, its a totally different society. It has 300 million people and over 2 million prisoners. We have 4 million people and what, 2000- 3000 locked in jail? If we had the US rate we would have 30,000 people in prison. Here youve a few offences behind you before you get locked up. First time burglars, dealers, people up for assault, if its their first conviction theyll seldom if ever get prison. Compare that to the US- something like 80% of remand prisoners on Rikers arent there because theyre deemed a flight risk, theyre there because they couldnt afford their relatively large bail for minor offences. So you want to bring race into it do you? The US black population is 14%, and they constitute around 44% of prisoners http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/p03pr.htm (bearing in mind cocaine, crack and heroin being more available in the largely black US inner cities due to their proximity to ports/airports and where there are heavier drug law enforcements, rather than out in the sticks where the police are undermanned and the hillbillys like their crystal meth more than the oul white rock) . If Travellers were 14% of our population, they would be close on 60% of the prison population (judging by the x4 rate of incarceration). Now, there is a figure of little relevance completely pulled out of my arse, but hey, you are the one who for some reason decided to bring the US prison system into things.

I asked you, and I will ask again as your rant doesn't answer it, Does the fact that the rate of criminality is higher in the black population of the US than it is in the white population give people the right to discriminate against black people over there? the answer is No.

However, back on the topic of free speech, the Nally thread is quite possibly the most pathetic load of one sided nonsense and lies I have ever seen on these boards,

Actually there are many in the thread who I disagree with who are completely civil about their viewpoints, I think that your just pissed because you thought you could get away with making sweeping generalisations and get away with it...and didn't

and there have been a fair few bollix threads over the years. Users banned until the only people left are a bunch of criminal apologists and one or two antis allowed to post to give the impression its a balanced debate (and it seems users who disagree with Sparks, Lurk Billy and maybe one other are only allowed to post for max two days before the mod tells them "Do not post in this thread again"

Maybe you should read the posts posted by the individuals who have been told not to post again, or have been banned

Despite frequent use of the words Pikey, and knacker to describe travellers, and sertain users desire to iradicate the world of the traveller, the forst warning of a ban I could find was on Page 10 of the Nally thread, issued by Giblet to Lostexpectation for abuse of the report post facility, not for his views on the subject. If I remember correctly, many reported racial slurs went unchecked for the first 18 or so pages of the thread. so to claim that those with the same viewpoint as yourself are not getting the opportunity to air their views is in fact another lie.

and then allows more token opposition in for a few days for balance). I dont believe in sticking up for cowards who attack the elderly (saying Ward didnt have robbery in mind is like saying Saddam accidentally gassed the Kurds) be they traveller, settled, protestant or Arab. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I have nothing to be ashamed of mate. I am not the one who picked up a ban for breaking the rules.

Tha Gopher

billy the squid wrote:

But you are still wrong my son, no one is disputing that crime rates amongst travellers is higher or lower in the travelling community than anywhere else, what is open to dispute is whether or not a majority or even a large minority (whatever counts as a large minority is still open to ones interpretation) are involved in crime.

I asked you, and I will ask again as your rant doesn't answer it, Does the fact that the rate of criminality is higher in the black population of the US than it is in the white population give people the right to discriminate against black people over there? the answer is No.

Despite frequent use of the words Pikey, and knacker to describe travellers, and sertain users desire to iradicate the world of the traveller, the forst warning of a ban I could find was on Page 10 of the Nally thread, issued by Giblet to Lostexpectation for abuse of the report post facility, not for his views on the subject. If I remember correctly, many reported racial slurs went unchecked for the first 18 or so pages of the thread. so to claim that those with the same viewpoint as yourself are not getting the opportunity to air their views is in fact another lie.

I have nothing to be ashamed of mate. I am not the one who picked up a ban for breaking the rules.

No one is disputing? I could get you a list of names of people who have said people who assume theyre more prone to crime as talking crap. Now we have figures to back it up, so whos talking crap?

Re the US issue, last time I checked segregation laws that only went out in the late 60s have put the black community a bit down the ladder in terms of social standing. Not to mention crack cocaine being fed to poor communities from some rather dubious sources, but that has nothing to do with the travellers.

Also, the last time I checked travellers werent a different race, they were ethnic Irish people distuinguishable only by their fashion, accent, lifestyle, behaviour and often physical appearance. A bit like hippies, except if you mention "long haired weed smoking hippies driving old Volkswagen vans" on boards nobody seemingly takes offence.

And can you find the post where I mentioned the words pikeys/knackers in the Nally thread? I didnt break any rules apart from the unwritten ones- read the feckin charter.


Actually, i just have, some interesting ones there

Spamming
- Posts that are just complete nonsense will be deleted.

For some reason, claiming that repeat offenders were innocently on an old farmers property doesnt come under this defination of nonsense.


Making the natives restless
- This is a catch-all rule for general trolling, bitching and similar. Certain posters have an ability to piss off large quanties of regulars on here. If a moderator feels that said poster is doing this intentionally or is the cause of the mess, then the poster can and will be banned

Maybe I should have used the report button when I had a chance, as Sparks and Billys posts are surely bannable under this.


WhiteWashMan "i am including an additional 'common sense' rule. be sensible."

Get the DPP on the phone, we can prosecute on 3 counts at this rate. Talking nonsense, deliberately riling posters by talking such nonsense and a lack of common sense/cop on.


And as a final word, people who support 41 year old men who steal from the elderly are as bad as they are.

Giblet wrote:

You just plain don't like it here do ya?

Not anymore tbh, it used to be a grand laugh, but since about new years its gone a bit tits up. Granted Bonkey Politics always took a hard line on this, but AH in the days of Monty allowed some occasional heated debate. Now it just seems to have descended into a competition between some mods of who can lock or move the most threads today.

billy the squid

No one is disputing? I could get you a list of names of people who have said people who assume theyre more prone to crime as talking crap. Now we have figures to back it up, so whos talking crap?

Well maybe if you had considered finding your evidence before making sweeping generalisations and "asuming they're more more prone to crime," then you may still be in the forum now. Have you thought of that? If you cannot handle people calling you or anyone up on making assumptions without solid evidence then there is no point in even starting a discussion on a subject. It just results in a bunch of uninformed people patting each other on the back over something they know nothing about.

Re the US issue, last time I checked segregation laws that only went out in the late 60s have put the black community a bit down the ladder in terms of social standing. Not to mention crack cocaine being fed to poor communities from some rather dubious sources, but that has nothing to do with the travelle

You might have to rephrase that as I have no idea what your on about here.

Also, the last time I checked travellers werent a different race, they were ethnic Irish people distuinguishable only by their fashion, accent, lifestyle, behaviour and often physical appearance. A bit like hippies, except if you mention "long haired weed smoking hippies driving old Volkswagen vans" on boards nobody seemingly takes offence.

Do hippies have their own language? Do hippies have a common liniage and history? Do hippies see themselves as an ethnic minority? The answer to these questions is no. I ain't getting into this discussion here, maybe in a more appropriate forum.

And can you find the post where I mentioned the words pikeys/knackers in the Nally thread? I didnt break any rules apart from the unwritten ones- read the feckin charter.

You are lying again because I never said that you did. I referred to the first 20 pages of the thread in question. up until meldrew was banned for calling me a prick. I didn't find a single post in there from you and didnt even mention you.

Not anymore tbh, it used to be a grand laugh, but since about new years its gone a bit tits up. Granted Bonkey Politics always took a hard line on this, but AH in the days of Monty allowed some occasional heated debate. Now it just seems to have descended into a competition between some mods of who can lock or move the most threads today.

I don't have the ability to move or lock threads in after hours so you can't accuse me of that.

BlitzKrieg

*takes headache pill*

scojones

This thread makes me LOL all the way to the bathroom to puke.