Archive for category Political Correctness

The complexities of censorship

The last couple of days have witnessed three very different events that have led to calls for action to be taken against controversial individuals. The cases of Julian Assange, Frankie Boyle and Pastor Terry Jones share the common theme of censorship, and demonstrate the difficulty of deciding when censorship is justified.Censorship

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A Moral or an Amoral Decision?

It is being described by one paper as ‘a battle for the hearts and minds of middle England’, writes Stephen Clarke, and while it’s not clear that the current spat over M&S’s decision to sublet one of its disused premises to the American restaurant chain Hooters is worthy of such grandiose billing, it does raise some interesting questions about corporate responsibility.

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Licensed to Hug

On Monday, the BBC’s Panorama programme asked “are you a danger to kids?” to highlight the dramatic escalation of child protection measures, and the absurdity of Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks. This crucial issue is detailed in Civitas’ publication Licensed to Hug by Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow.

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Imposing Secularism in State Schools Isn’t Religious Neutrality, but Religious Persecution

‘Now there’s spiritual warfare and flesh and blood breaking down. Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground.’ So sang Bob Dylan.

I was put in mind of those lyrics by a recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

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Why the European Equal Treatment Directive is Creating an Offensive Environment

In last week’s positively surreal broadcast of BBC tv’s Question Time, deputy prime minister Jack Straw blathered on about how Parliament had boldly preserved freedom of expression in Britain by deliberately refraining from making Holocaust denial a crime. In yesterday’s Times,  Straw was joined by his cabinet colleague, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, blathering on about how wonderful for Britain is its membership of the EU and how Euro-sceptics should stop whinging and learn to love the wonderful new international power bloc that it will finally become after ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Meanwhile, the fundamental right of freedom of expression in this country is about to be severely curbed by a brand new directive from Brussels which has crept up on us all with all the customary stealth its edicts typically do.

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It’s time to shelve the Equality Bill

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an organisation armed to the teeth with legal powers to protect groups that claim to be victims of oppression, recently expressed fears that the recession will not only harm ethnic minorities but also some white people.
“It is clear,” he said, “that what defines disadvantage won’t be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups”.
Was he saying that we should help people when they need assistance, regardless of their colour? If so, he was spot on.
Continue at the Daily Telegraph Blog.

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