OFF: Freeedom of Speech

[trev]

so when i described the destruction of parliament by rampaging skinhead
hordes in the fantasy song "skinheads in leningrad", if a rampaging horde
had actually attacked parliament, mistaking my fantasy for a literal
exhortation, i would have been banged up???
if this was a possibility, half the writers in the country would be in the
nick for threatening maggie thatchers well-being. she was, as you know,
actually attacked by the ira bombers in brighton.
how can you prove whether there was intent or not? i dont think you can.
there might have been real intent at the time of writing when artistic
passions were  up but which would have not lasted after the work was
finished and published. this was the case with "skinheads". when iwrote it,
the exhortation to violence was real to me, but as i generally condone non
violence whenever possible, in hindsight it was not.
ooer

trev

----- Original Message -----
From: "M Holmes" <fofp at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: OFF: Freeedom of Speech


> trev writes:
>
>> to confuse matters, how about introducing artistic license into the
>> debate?
>> there might be a predictable consequence sparked off by a work of art
>> which
>> inflames passions to act upon it's message.
>
> Such as the "Piss Christ" exhibit or even Hawkwind producing "Right to
> Decide"?
>
> It's only a problem if someone is inspired to do something illegal and
> then only if the artist can be regarded as inciting them to have done
> so.
>
> Thus someone saying "Let's burn all the infidels!" is problematic
> exercise of free speech because it could be reasonable to expect that
> where there are multiple halfwits listening, one of them might take
> these words as inspiration. Someone doing so as a result of a cartoon is
> less obviously forseeable as a predictable response.
>
> Let's say the BNP published a cartoon of what the Ku Klux Klan would
> have called a lynching though. If someone acted on that, a jury might
> convict under such a "reasonable man could forsee" law.
>
> It's the fact that there will always be borderline cases that means
> these things have to be left to a jury to decide.
>
> FoFP
>