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Comment by JCattheATM

2 days ago

The problem is most Brits, at least on HN, seem to deny what is happening and/or support it. People being arrested for holding up blank signs at Charles' coronation was ridiculous and nothing like it has happened in the US, but anytime that's brought up they pivot to mass shootings in the US or some other whataboutism.

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JCattheATM

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tdeck  2 days ago

I was curious about the "blank sign" story because it's slightly different from what I remembered reading. As far as I can tell, this is the incident you're referring to:

    On 12 September, Charles addressed parliament as king for the first time. The Metropolitan police called in reinforcements in case of protests. Powlesland, who works nearby, walked from Parliament Square to Downing Street and back with his blank piece of paper. “Then a guy from Norfolk police came up and spoke to me, and that was the video that went viral.” Powlesland recorded the encounter on his phone. “He asked for my details, I asked why and he said, ‘I want to check you’re OK on the Police National Computer.’ I said, ‘I’ve not done anything wrong, so I’m not giving you them.’ I wanted to test it without getting arrested. So I asked, ‘If I wrote “Not my king” on the paper, would I get arrested?’ and he said, ‘Probably, because it would be a breach of the Public Order Act; it would be offensive.’” Was he right? Powlesland laughs. “No! Just having something someone else finds offensive is not a criminal offence because then pretty much anything could be.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/29/the-crowd-we...

iamnothere  2 days ago

I am convinced that a good bit of this is paid astroturfing and another segment is people who work in government or government contracting. Brits generally seem more open to government intrusion, it’s true, but in my experience they don’t go out of their way to defend things like this. It’s more of a passive acceptance.

  • JCattheATM  2 days ago

    I think tribalism is the simpler explanation. One of the worst offenders I saw was a guy on here who wrote one of the new generation shells written in go...went out of his way to say the US had the same behavior as the UK, arresting people holding a blank sign, except his evidence was the disproportionate shooting of black people by police. An entirely unrelated issue. The point was though he was flailing due to feeling defensive, and unable to take a step back and analyze the criticisms objectively. This is super common behavior in pretty much all countries, and I think it's a huge problem.

    • iamnothere  2 days ago

      True, now that you mention it I’ve seen the same sort of thing from people who are definitely not bots. Although, you can’t discount the possibility that they do some government or law enforcement work as a consultant. The full throated defense of police state tactics is unreal. (For what it’s worth, there are plenty of Americans who show up in Palantir/Flock threads doing the same thing, and I have the same suspicions there.)

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Nursie  2 days ago

Because it is massively exaggerated by those with an agenda to distract from the US.

But go on, tell me about how “free speech zones” are meaningfully different to this. You won’t be arrested so long as you stay in your zone down the street and round the corner and out of sight.

The UK has serious problems, but reading Americans catastrophising over this stuff as I have been for a couple of decades now is always incredible. Take the beam from your own eyes. And stop believing lies about the streets of London being a war zone.

  • JCattheATM  2 days ago

    > Because it is massively exaggerated by those with an agenda to distract from the US.

    I don't think there has to be any negative motive. I'm not from the US or the UK but have lived in both countries, so feel I can be somewhat objective. What's going on in both countries is disturbing to me, but they have differences with what they are doing.

    > But go on, tell me about how “free speech zones” are meaningfully different to this. You won’t be arrested so long as you stay in your zone down the street and round the corner and out of sight.

    That hasn't been a thing for a long time. There have been nationwide protests the last few days not restricted to any kind of 'free speech zone'.

    Consider what you are trying to defend: holding up a blank sign. Are you really OK with that? You really think that is reasonable?

    > The UK has serious problems, but reading Americans catastrophising over this stuff

    Pointing out a legitimate concern is not catastrophising anything.

    > And stop believing lies about the streets of London being a war zone.

    I never mentioned anything like that.

    • Nursie  2 days ago

      > That hasn't been a thing for a long time

      It’s still the law, was expanded under Obama and is used widely. It is used to control dissent at events where protest would be unsightly, much as the UK incident you brought up.

      > Consider what you are trying to defend:

      Consider that I didn’t defend it.

      7 replies →