Why yes, yes, climate change believers are all about the fascism and restriction of speech
(Wired UK) The UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee has recently delivered a report on the state of climate knowledge and communication in the country. Although it doesn’t spare the government from criticism, the report notes that most of the public looks to the BBC to provide authoritative coverage on science. The report concludes that in this case, the BBC’s news division is failing its readership and viewers. Rather than providing authoritative information, the BBC is succumbing to false balance, and its director of Editorial Policy and Standards gave testimony on science coverage that appears to be incoherent.
Warmists really do not like when Citizens are allowed to hear contradictory facts when it comes to “climate change”, as this undermines their political science and ability to dictate how Citizens will live their lives.
In the UK, the major political parties largely accept the scientific evidence for climate change; official skepticism is limited to a few parties on the conservative fringe. As such, the report starts with the acceptance of the conclusions reached by the majority of scientists: the Earth is warming, and humans are the main factor driving that warming.
Fascinating, especially the part where the elected officials haven’t given up their own fossil fueled lifestyles and gone “carbon neutral”.
The UK does not have the same press freedoms we have here in the US, yet the report is heavily upset that skeptics are given any time in the news.
“It is not clear to us,” the committee concluded, “how a ‘journalistic point of view’ which presumably emphasises accuracy, can be at odds with a scientific approach whose prime objective is the establishment of empirical fact.”
Yet, Warmists are expressly giving their point of view, quite often based on hysteria and scaremongering, not scientific fact. A prognostication using failed computer models is not science. Nor is constantly changing past data.
The committee also examined the country’s newspapers, where it found that most of the inaccuracies appeared in opinion columns rather than news pieces. But the two most frequently mentioned offenders, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, declined to send anyone to meet with the committee. Both papers sent written statements indicating that they counted on their readers to note which pieces were reporting and which were opinion, a stance that left the parliamentarians “very disappointed.”
Really, this is just a part of the Warmist campaign to shut down debate. Here in the US, many papers refuse to publish anything that goes against the “consensus”. In the UK, it is the government attempting to shut down debate.
And, certainty, what is debatable is the policies that result from or are proposed due to Warmists prognostications and (unscientific) reports.
The Mail and the Telegraph ? Aren’t they the ones you most often cite ?
Teach – I say give the deniers 3%
Just like the Holocaust deniers get
Just like the evolution deniers should get
Just like the idiots that deny the real age of the earth get
And Gov Jindal tried to use the power of the state to squelch criticism:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/8/5594766/moveon-org-jindal-billboard-lawsuit
Republicans in Alabama had a blogger incarcerated for 5 months for saying bad things about the former Gov’s son (and likely political candidate).
https://www.vocativ.com/tech/internet/accidental-first-amendment-martyr/
The post that led to Shuler’s imprisonment was about an alleged extramarital affair between Robert Riley Jr., the son of former Alabama governor, Republican Bob Riley, and a lobbyist named Liberty Duke.
As usual, Jeffery either willfully distorts the facts or cannot comprehend what he has read.
In the Jindal billboard case, Jindal had nothing to do with the lawsuit. It was filed by the Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne on behalf of the Office of Tourism for which Dardenne is responsible. Dardenne sued not under a any sort of speech suppression, but rather that MoveOn.org misappropriated the Office of Tourism’s logo and used it to make disparaging statements against Jindal which gave the false impression that the Office of Tourism was disagreeing with Jindal.
In other words, MoveOn lied but hey, Jeffery supports that.
The judge found that the billboard was political speech and therefore protected. No matter what, the lawsuit was not filed by Jindal and it had a good faith basis – that of protecting a copyrighted branding.
The second case is also misrepresented.
Shuler did write about an affair he alleged happened. The victims of his lie sued in court to have the damaging post removed as they were not involved and never have been. The post damaged their reputations and they sought to have Shuler barred from posting anything further which would damage their reputations.
In other words, this was not a political battle of ideology, but one of every day, common slander and libel.
Isn’t it interesting that people like Jeffery think that they should be able to lie but when it comes to something said about them, they want freedom of speech squelched because it is the truth and hurts their feelings?
You should know about lies… The Repub Rob Riley case is not a simple libel case.
The married son of the former Repub Governor of backward Alabama, and likely Republican candidate for Spencer Bachus’ House seat, was rumored to be knocking boots with a lobbyist, one Ms. Liberty Duke, by a blogger, Roger Shuler. You call that a lie, the Supreme Court calls it protected speech. Republican Riley was able to get a special judge appointed, a Riley crony named Claud Nielson, who immediately sealed all documents, including documents explaining how Nielson was appointed! Nielson then ordered Shuler in contempt and had him arrested. Shuler sat in jail for 5 months for calling a Republican an adulterer.
Do you really favor imprisoning bloggers who criticize public figures? Or do you only favor jailing bloggers who criticize Republicans? Shuler has been a thorn in the side of the ‘Bama GOP, calling them the “Dixie Mafia”.
Is this the sort of free press we can expect from conservatives?
Come back when you understand the issue.
Yeah, because I see them every day from you.
Actually it is, it is centered around a claim of defamation that one person was sleeping with another and that claim hurt their reputations.
Oh goody!
Jeffery just threw out a thousand years of jurisprudence in saying that libel and slander are protected speech! Oh happy day!
Not only that, but the Supreme Court said exactly the opposite of what you claim it does in Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, saying “it must be emphasized that malicious libel enjoys no constitutional protection in any context.”
However, you are confusing the issue here.
Shuler made a post on his blog that two people thought was libel. One sought relief from a judge. Are you for denying people the right not to be harmed by defamatory statements?
Shuler did not present any evidence in the trial that his accusation was true. A judge ordered him to remove the offending post and not write the same lie again.
The first action of removing the post is legal. The second action of prior restraint may not be.
When Shuler refused to remove the post and continued to make the same accusation, the plaintiffs sought to make the prior restraint injunction permanent.
In that trial, Shuler asserted that the Court had no jurisdiction over him and that he would not abide by any rulings it made. When Shuler refused to abide by the Court’s demand that he remove the defamatory post on the alleged affair, Shuler was put in jail for that refusal.
No one with a brain has a problem with the contempt of Court order for refusing to remove the post that harmed others. Being a blogger doesn’t give you the right to lie about people in a way that harms them.
The issue the ACLU has is the injunction that prevents Shuler from writing about the incident in the future. This is prior restraint may be unConstitutional, but it is not definitely unConstitutional. There are concerns that the order is broad and not specific enough and that is a worry.
Your assertion that Shuler is in jail for what he wrote because it criticizes Republicans is false. The post was untruthful and harmed two people. He was ordered to remove that post and refused to do so.
Unless you are for the continues spreading of lies (which you always do, so it seems that you are) Shuler’s actions were not protected speech.
Shuler is a nut and a vexatious litigant who clings to the First Amendment only when it suits his purpose. He supports Brett Kimberlin who has sought prior restraint injunctions from judges when the statements being made were true. In other words, despite your accusation that this is a case about evil Republicans seeking to shut down a blogger critical of them, it is not.
This is a case where a blogger lied and was told to remove a post containing that lie. The blogger refused to comply and continued to write about the lie.
The case gets national attention because of the “prior restraint” issue, not because of the original lie and not because people think Shuler should not be held in contempt for refusing to comply with a legal order.
So maybe you should read up on the case before you expose your ignorance any more than you already have.