Will You Give Up Your Rights?

Police have made a second arrest in the April Jones disappearance/murder investigation. Unfortunately, their actions didn’t really have anything to do with finding the 5 year old or getting any closer to the truth about what happened to her one week ago.

Lancashire police arrested Matthew Wood on Saturday after he posted to his Facebook account what has been described as an offensive comment about April and Madeleine McCann. We don’t know what he had to say because the lamestream media and Court feel that it’s far too offensive for our delicate ears and eyes to witness.

Wood appeared at Chorley Magistrates’ Court on Monday and was sentenced to prison for 12 weeks after he admitted making what he described as a joke. Joke or no, offensive or inappropriate, the real crime is that in this so-called tolerant society there doesn’t appear to be any room for someone to exercise their God-given right to express themselves, when what they have to say may offend someone else.

Wood bottled his opportunity to defend his right to free speech and in doing so he chipped away at the rights of everyone else in society. He could have stood his ground and clawed back a small portion of that which we once had, but instead his knees buckled at prospect of personal inconvenience.

Since when was it deemed that I don’t have the right to offend my fellow citizens? When did I get the right not to be offended? When did we as a free society become so thin-skinned as to be unable to read or hear or watch and then ignore that which we don’t agree with?

I believe Wood’s comments should be celebrated if only as an illustration of what we don’t agree with and collectively ignore with pleasure. There isn’t a day that goes by when I am not offended by something someone else says or writes, but I somehow manage to get on with my life without seeking their prosecution.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states that:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

The United Kingdom voted in favour of and the Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948.

As a comparison, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This right includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas, but allows restrictions for:

— interests of national security
— territorial integrity or public safety
— prevention of disorder or crime
— protection of health or morals
— protection of the reputation or the rights of others
— preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence
— maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary

But recently we have witnessed authorities in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe prosecuting citizens and EU Nationals who exercise this right; particularly online via Facebook and Twitter despite the fact that none of the restrictions listed above would appear to have been violated.

That having been said, I would add that some of these restrictions seem to trample upon my individual rights. The restriction to free speech, for example, in aid of the "protection of health or morals" appears subjective to me. Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. But whose morals are we protecting?

For this reason Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has more relevance in my opinion. It requires that we all practice tolerance in order to benefit from our own right to free expression.

In 1995 The American President, a film starring Michael Douglas, gave us the following quote:

"You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"

Although the movie refers to the American system of free speech, I think it still has relevance for the United Kingdom and for Europe if the citizens of these lands will continue to believe and tell others that they enjoy freedom and practice tolerance.

Will you permit others to express themselves? Will you give up your rights?

If you participate in preventing the former the later will surely follow. If you prevent others from exercising their right to free speech, to write that which you find offensive, your censorship and self-censorship is as certain as death and taxes and that is what I find offensive.

http://www.wirenews.co/op-ed/uk/5095/will-you-give-up-your-rights