Rowan Atkinson Speaks Against “Hate Speech Laws”

One of the most astonishing fruit of the modern political correctness mentality is the “hate speech” legislation here in the UK. This legislation, fairly ignored in the last years, has risen to (un)popularity after a series of cases in the last months, where a number of (temporary) arrests have been made for the most ridiculous things (“homophobic” tweets; tweeting “all soldiers should die”).

The problem is here that there are more and more people are ready to cry “hate” whenever you say something they don’t like (say: that they are abominable perverts; like faggots, lesbians and other perverts).

Those who know Atkinson a bit more than from Mr. Bean know he is a highly intelligent, well-spoken, perceptive individual very much sensitive to the elementary matter of freedom of expression.

I invite you to listen to the 9-minute speech of Mr Atkinson, who deals with the various aspects of the matter in a way that makes unnecessary for me to add much more.

Mr Atkinson sees the “right to insult or to offend” as a fundamental element of a free society, and shoots against the “outrage industry” and the pressure they put on the police (OK, it is wrong for the police to panic, but they should not have the possibility of panicking by arresting people in the first place).

Again, listen to Mr Atkinson speaking against the “new intolerance”.  It is a lesson in democracy and, I must say, in adulthood.

Whatever the Nazi professionals of the “outrage” may think.

Mundabor