Saturday 12 March 2022

Treason, the gallows and free speech

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Facebook and Twitter should allow anyone to say anything unless obscene and leave policing to the police. Why shouldn't I say I wish we (British) had hanged George Washington? That loyal remark got hidden on both sites. And after all he is a dead, white, male slave-owner.

But the policy of "error has no rights" which the Catholic Church no longer teaches still obtains on social media.

I have said I wish we'd hanged Begin and Shamir (when they were terrorists in the Stern Gang murdering our soldiers, I meant, not when they were Israeli Prime Ministers), but actually I have never believed on balance in capital punishment, though at one time I did for treason.

I was mistaken. As Churchill said, grass grows on the battlefield but never on the scaffold. The execution of Casement and the Dublin Easter rising men was a terrible mistake.

Odd to think I can remember the only one not executed, De Valera, when in old age he was Irish President.

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? 
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

Probably hanging the American rebels would have made then martyrs. Indentured labour for life would have been better, and sweetly ironic for slave-owners, except they'd have escaped and continued the fight.

1 comment:

  1. Certainly NOT my opinions - but, yes, you have a right to express your beliefs.

    ReplyDelete