Thursday 9 October 2014

Martin McKee Just Doesn't Get This Liberty Thing

The redhead has posted a fine filleting of Martin "bubblemug" McKee's most recent extremist cockwaffle in the BMJ, I can heartily recommend that you go read it.

However, I think it's useful to add that he also seems to have learning difficulties when it comes to  the concept of freedom of speech on Twitter.
For those who advocate for healthy public policies, social media are both a blessing and a curse. They offer a means of communicating instantly to large audiences. Yet they also offer the opportunity for those seeking to undermine public health to undermine you.
Yes, this is the very essence of freedom of speech Martin. You and your pals have the freedom to pump out your nonsensical garbage and promote it on social media, and those who disagree have the same freedom to object to it via the same medium. It's how freedom of speech works, it's a two way mechanism, d'you see?

If you don't understand that basic tenet of freely accessible social media, perhaps you shouldn't be on there.
Your words are taken out of context and twisted. You are insulted and abused on Twitter.
Completely different to McKee's approach, of course. He'd prefer to twist, insult and abuse in the integrity-free, paywalled, lefty tabloid BMJ.
Some seem to be deeply troubled individuals, who in the past might have spent their days on a soap box in the marketplace, holding forth to anyone who was prepared to listen to them.
Yes, and very useful those individuals in the past were too, I'm surprised committed socialist McKee is so dismissive.
The Chartist movement used Hyde Park as a point of assembly for workers' protests, but no permanent speaking location was established. The Reform League organised a massive demonstration in 1866 and then again in 1867, which compelled the government to extend the franchise to include most working-class men. 
Although many of its regular speakers are non-mainstream, Speakers' Corner was frequented by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell, C. L. R. James, Walter Rodney, Ben Tillett, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and William Morris. Its existence is frequently upheld as a demonstration of free speech, as anyone can turn up unannounced and talk on almost any subject, although always at the risk of being heckled by regulars. Lord Justice Sedley, in his decision regarding Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999), described Speakers' Corner as demonstrating "the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear." The ruling famously established in English case law that freedom of speech could not be limited to the inoffensive but extended also to "the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend to provoke violence", and that the right to free speech accorded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights also accorded the right to be offensive. Prior to the ruling, prohibited speech at Speakers' Corner included obscenity, blasphemy, insulting the queen, or inciting a breach of the peace.
In the late 19th century, for instance, a combination of park by-laws, use of the Highways Acts and use of venue licensing powers of the London County Council made it one of the few places where socialist speakers could meet and debate.
Once again, we "deeply troubled individuals" find ourselves firmly on the side of the angels - with history in our corner too - while McKee prefers to ally himself (accurately, as it goes) with those in the past who would bully, censor, disenfranchise, abuse human rights and deny political debate.

You can read the rest of his incoherent explanation of how - because a book was published in New Zealand - everyone who disagrees with him in the UK is paid by the tobacco industry here.


9 comments:

nisakiman said...

Yes, this is the very essence of freedom of speech Martin. You and your pals have the freedom to pump out your nonsensical garbage
and promote it on social media, and those who disagree have the same
freedom to object to it via the same medium. It's how freedom of speech
works, it's a two way mechanism, d'you see?


Ha! Nail squarely on head there, DP. But that's how they work, isn't it? I was reading earlier the 2010 F2C survey of under 25s on the smoking ban, and thought to myself at the time that I'd guess it would have been roundly ignored and discredited because F2C is an organisation that speaks out for smoker's rights. 'Big Tobacco shills' will no doubt have been the cry. And yet any survey commissioned by the avowedly anti-tobacco mob is considered to be just dandy, no bias at all, nooo.

It strikes a mixture of fear and incredulity in me that our legislators are so naive as to be taken in by all this crap when all they need to do is a little research combined with a modicum of critical thinking to see the realities of the situation. But they don't. They swallow it all, hook, line and sinker.

It doesn't bode well

Jeff Wood said...

My dear Dick

You will love this one. It is very short:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/opera-company-refuses-perform-carmen-due-concerns-about-smoking_810830.html

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Yes, seen that in dozens of places already, it's made Aussie anti-smokers even more of a global laughing stock. Glorious! :)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Indeed.

Talking of not boding well, this was my stand-out favourite part of his article.

"Some are clearly extreme libertarians, opposed to any role for the state and, especially, anything that gets in the way of the right of informed adults to engage in activities that are likely to kill them prematurely"



Surely, as long as adults are informed, they should be allowed to engage in whatever legal behaviour they choose in a free country, whether it is risky or not? Only amongst control freaks and fascists is this even vaguely contested.


It shows how debased our country has become that people who hold such extremist views as that from McKee are considered respectable by government. Perhaps that's why voter turnouts are so pathetic these days, I dunno. ;)

Ivan D said...

McKee is an intellectually challenged authoritarian The fact that we continue to be forced to pay for parasites such as he beggars belief. He is a failed medic who has profited from a lazy decadent society.

Michael J. McFadden said...

"the opportunity for those seeking to undermine public health to undermine you"


My, my, we seem to have made an impression. Marita Hefler, one of Chapman's Aussie minions, did a study about two years ago on the dangers of the "social media" to the Antis. I emailed her to ask for a copy and she said she'd be happy to send me one, while also asking a bit about me.


Well, as always, I replied honestly when asked... and she promptly stopped answering my emails. After a few more attempts I finally got a rather archly worded note about how she had "no desire" to be helpful to me in my work.


So much for science, eh?


- MJM

Antipholus Papps said...

Here in Vancouver, skiing is seen as a healthy pursuit. It seems to me to be a very high risk of injury or death for fleeting pleasure - just ask Liam Neeson - yet, when one climbs to the top of Grouse Mountain, one is presented with a kerosene torch and a sign saying 'No Smoking'.

truckerlyn said...

What is more dangerous than travelling our roads every day? The bad condition of most roads don't help but whether you are a driver, a motor cyclist, a cyclist or a pedestrian you risk your life each time you leave home!

The govt have only just acknowledgex the high risk of driving on country lanes! Seeing as most of them display a national speed limit sign it has taken them a bloody long time to realise that a single track, twisty road is dangerous! Yet they do not believe they are out of touch!

Thank God we now have at least one UKIP MP and hopefully we will get many more.

Rob Heyes said...

"Your words are taken out of context and twisted. You are insulted and abused on Twitter."


Bubblegum's problem is that his words are taken in context then he gets insulted and abused on Twitter because he's a cockwomble of the highest order. You'd think he'd be happy he'd at least reached the pinnacle in one field!