I was watching a documentary a couple of days ago called 'Young, Nazi and Proud' which over the course of 18 months followed the story of the leader of its youth wing, (the Young British National Party). After watching it I began to weigh up the pros & cons of giving such people a voice.
Since hate literature is a hard case for supporters of liberal democratic theory, (it exposes a conflict between the two values - liberty and equality - which are most central to their political morality), the response to this dilemma on the part of most contemporary liberal theorists has been to come down, however reluctantly, on the side of free expression, thereby opposing any form of legal restriction on, or regulation of, hate literature. This orthodoxy has been especially strong in the United States, which remains the sole jurisdiction to offer near absolute legal protection to racist speech.
Last year the Council of Europe (COE) approved a "Convention on Cyber-crime," the first international treaty to address criminal law and procedural aspects of various types of criminal behavior directed against computer systems, networks or data and other types of similar misuse.
The Council of Europe's PC-RX committee has completed its final meeting, and has made public the most recent draft of the proposed additional protocol to the Cybercrime Convention regarding criminalization of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through computer networks - http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_affairs/Leg...#TopOfPage
Such a proposition would find favour with Richard Delgado. He is one of the proponents of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and contends that free speech has never been an absolute and unrestrained right, that clear precedent exists for limiting what people can say to and about each other. For example society already punishes words constituting sexual harassment, because these violate the norm of equality and equal treatment. Supporters of CRT argue for a system of free speech that takes into account nuance, context-sensitivity, and competing values such as human dignity and equal protection of the law. Free speech, in other words, presupposes equality. In their view, racist speech is different because it is the means by which society constructs a stigma-picture of disfavored groups. Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado offer the following definition:
Speech or conduct aimed at a group of historically disenfranchised people; speech that reviles, ridicules, or puts in an intensely negative light a person or group on account of who they are - this is what we are calling "racist speech" or "hate propaganda."
Their manifesto argues that "freedom" does not implicate a right to degrade and humiliate another human being.
It could be argued however that CRT's invite a regime so heavily policed as to be incompatible with democracy. Furthermore, some people argue that to suggest that equality must precede liberty is simply to jettison the latter without securing the former. They argue that supporters of CRT are completely unwilling to accept the view that democracy requires that ideas be battled, not banned. For example, underlying calls for the banning of hate sites is the notion that if people read hateful material they will necessarily accept it and act on it. It could be argued that this imparts speech with a power that it doesn't possess: the power to control your mind. Do you agree?
I believe that an effective answer over the long term will have to be found in developing the spirit and behaviour of civic society in everyday life. Permanent efforts to achieve this will have to take place in families, classrooms, lecture-halls, offices, factories - and media like the Internet. Through education, people should be trusted to draw the right conclusions about race for themselves.
if you had turned up sb crew, you'd have known!!!!!! but i'll tell you anyway......
too fucking good man, the guy puts on a proper show. at one point (during aerosoul) he stopped the sequencer and shouted "this next part of drum programming took me 2 months... so check it out" then dropped the tune back in.... i was fucking laughing so hard!!!! he kept speeding tunes up to like 200 bpm and then stopping it and shouting "dont ever do that! it sucks!" then dropped it back in at the original bpm.
highlight for me was when he played skullminded..... cant fucking believe he went in on the skull snaps break man.... just wait
for anyone out there who listens to a little more >>>
i am organising a new style of event in sunny Reading >>
the event will focus on psy trance and techno. But, equal importance will be placed on the visuals and decor! >
We will bring in dj's mainly from London and Reading to supply the sounds, and also 4 vj's from all ove the country.
The clubs walls will be covered in visuals, so when you are on the dance floor there will be 360 degree visuals (all this will be mixed live!!)
this type of event has not happend much in this country and we hope that we can carry on pushing the boundries of club environments to the limit > who knows what is round the corner!
the event details, dates, line up etc are within the link below!
if this is not your cup of tea, but you know someone who might be interested please pass this info on, as our promotion budget for this event is very low!!
cheers
see you around!
mark!
