Whatever happened to free speech?

Paul Grange's offensive t-shirt

There is a man called Paul Grange who visited a local public house sporting a t-shirt with the words "HILLSBOROUGH Gods way of helping RENTOKILL". [article in Belfast Telegraph] This caused a twitter storm and gained much media attention.  What I am seeing on Facebook is a lot of derision and disgust.  What is a little disturbing is the demonization of the man.  But even that seems within the bounds of free expression.  What seems dubious is to harass and threaten the man.  Understandable; it is, after all, a pretty ignorant, cruel and very provocative attitude to advertise on your t-shirt.

What bothers me most is the way this issue is used as a distraction from the instigators of the root problem.  Our political system needs tearing down and that's where the focus of attention should be.  Allowing the vicious, oppressive, authoritarian elite to "bring to justice" one individual, one misguided, indoctrinated pawn of the system, as if that gives them some credibility should ring alarm bells in all right minded and right hearted people.  The whole Hillsborough affair was about the insidious, deceitful, manipulative, malevolent authoritarian hierarchy literally getting away with murder.

What did happen to free speech?  It seems the frightened sheep will bustle around the hideous punitive teacher, jeering and feigning indignation in an attempt to garnish favour, whilst teacher satisfies their bloodlust by making an example of the offender.  It's like Salome's proxy request for John the Baptist's head on a plate to satisfy some other unrelated guilt.

Of course I am courting controversy to raise this issue and to question and even condemn the extreme vilification and calls for punitive "justice" of Paul Grange.  The man has a right to express his opinion.  It seems the landlord dealt with the situation quite admirably.  He was polite and asked the man to leave the pub.

I find the hue and cry seriously disturbing.  One might hate the sentiment expressed on this guys shirt but he has a right to an opinion and no one has to vote for him.  Instead, it seems, people will gain relief at his condemnation by the authority of the law and will soon be voting for politicians who are the inception, the enactment, the manifestation of the crimes that were committed at Hillsborough.  But our political system is far far worse than Hillsborough.  Our government with all its corruption is currently in the act of stealing all the resources from the people of this country, literally subjugating and enslaving them, whilst entertaining themselves driving the world to a nuclear war which may well destroy the entirety of humanity.

I know it is complex and a little difficult to handle but this issue, being so prominent in the main stream media and in the consciousness of the population, is actually a hysterical act of victim blaming and a frightening distraction from the real evils afoot.  It is, maybe inadvertently, supporting the oppressors.  It is exactly what the oligarchs want, predict, need, and foster.

Why would anyone waste time on this guy?  In a local context if I saw him I would probably tell him what I thought of the sentiment.  He might head-butt me; he looks stronger and more energetic than me.  I might end up in the Accident and Emergency department of the local hospital waiting for five hours for an overworked underfunded medical service (deliberately deprived by the authorities now being called upon) to give me a stitch or two and a pain killer.

I have to give Paul Grange credit for feeling so oppressed himself that against significant social pressure and conditioning he makes such a deliberately provocative statement by way of asserting his own sense of pride and dignity.  He's daring anyone to criticise him.  Well they did and the shit hit the fan and that is reasonable.  But what really scares me the most is how this feeds into the social and cultural conditioning of this nation.  By vilifying this man to such an extreme and effectively calling on the authorities (the known warped and corrupt authorities) to act against him the people are acting out the same insanity as David Cameron can verbally make explicit on the world stage of the United Nations [Cameron's 2014 UN speech] when he said "We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism we need to deal with all forms of extremism – not just violent extremism."  He went on to say "Of course there are some who will argue that this is not compatible with free speech and intellectual inquiry."  It is a very dangerous road to travel to try to silence people who are frustrated and do not accept the current consensus, the  official line, or simply don't hold the same pleasant views as yourself.  People need to express their views and if they take offensive and harmful action that is the time to intervene.

How do people call on the authority that for years vilified the Hillsborough fans to serve justice on one jerk that prints an offensive message on his t-shirt?  Those authorities are currently supporting the rape and pillage of this country by something far worse than a global Mafia style elite.  But they, in the guise of puppet politicians, will lie to you and you will vote for them.  At least Paul Grange had the guts to state his position.  But the politicians won't state their position because their intention is to sidle up to you and stab you in the back.

It is a philosophical minefield but I am currently still of the opinion that words should be met with words and not punitive action.  In my opinion the views expressed on Paul Grange's shirt are despicable and saying so should be enough.  If people want to get indignant and even hysterical and want action taken then I wish they would aim their anger up the fucking line at the hideous power structure that is destroying this country and the entire world.