From Statues to Comedians

We have now gone from removing statues to banning comedy shows.

There is a very good piece "On banning Comedians" by David Herman on "The Article" website here.

I am reminded of a very good quote by Nick Cohen of which this whole silly business perfectly illustrates the truth:

"When society gives censors wide and vague powers they never confine themselves to deserving targets.

They are not snipers but machine-gunners.

Allow them to fire at will and they will hit everything that moves."

Comments

Jim said…
I have heard lots of things recently on it, it really is getting daft.

Little britain has been romoved from streaming services because matt lucas playin precious (a white man playing a black woman) is racist, but I dont understand why Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans playing the characters Brittany and Tiffany Wilson (two black men playing white women) in the comedy film White Chicks is not racist and the film is ok.

I dont understand Anthony Joshua being applauded by the BBC for saying "We need to be united in non-violent demonstration, show them where it hurts and abstain from spending your money in their shops and economies, and invest in black-owned businesses."

to me that reads the same as the jewish boycott signs in 1930s Germany.

9:35 pm
Anonymous said…
"When government gives Police wide and vague powers they never confine themselves to deserving targets. They are not snipers but machine-gunners."
9:00 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Part of the trouble is that nobody understands the rules anymore because they keep changing so fast.

Thomas Sowell once wrote - and obviously he was writing about the USA where the word "liberal" means left-wing - that if you have always believed that everyone should act by the same rules and be judged by the same standards that would be likely to get you labelled a radical sixty years ago, a liberal thirty years ago, and a racist today.

We are in danger of finding ourselves in the unfortunate situation where if an actor of one ethnic origin takes a role of a historical or literary character associated with a different ethnicity, you may be called racist for approving of this or racist for not approving of it depending on what the ethnicities concerned are.

As for the application of the "snipers and machine-gunners" quote to policing in general rather than censorship - I think that precise form of words is unfair to most British police officers, but giving the police or any other regulatory authority wide and vague powers should be avoided in any society wherever possible because it is likely to put those people given such powers into positions which are invidious and unfair for them as well as for the people they are responsible for policing.
10:05 am
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