Count Dankula Discord Shut Down Again
Graham Linehan – the co-creator of sitcoms like Father Ted and The IT Crowd – was all over the papers at the weekend, talking about the censorious campaign being waged against him past trans activists.
Linehan has in recent years become a fleck of a political Twitter glory, and has taken up the trans-sceptical cause in particular. As he put it in a piece for the Mail on Sunday: 'I believe biological reality exists. I believe women are females. I believe everyone should be able to present themselves as they wish but that women's hard-won rights must not be compromised for the do good of men suffering trunk dysphoria.'
Well, The Guardian wouldn't have published information technology https://t.co/UCU1qJEDlf
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) February 9, 2020
And for this, he says, he has been frozen out by friends, lost commissions, and even plant himself having his collar felt by the law: in 2018 he was given a warning by West Yorkshire police for 'deadnaming' Stephanie Hayden, a trans activist, on Twitter.
Linehan says he has 'never seen annihilation like the authoritarianism on display' in the trans movement, which is peachy to shut downwardly argue and smear opponents. 'I think there'southward just a stink effectually me', he told The Lord's day Times: 'The stink of discrimination, you know, that has deliberately been created, by radical trans-rights activists. It has had a chilling effect.'
Linehan, like the trans-sceptical feminists he allies with, has indeed been treated appallingly. No one should get a visit from the police for saying something on Twitter. Nor should he be ostracised and lose piece of work for expressing what most people consider to be simple biological truth. But it'due south worth remembering that, when it comes to opposing absolutism and unhinged smear tactics, Linehan doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Merely have his response to the Count Dankula case, in which Scottish YouTuber Markus Meechan was convicted and fined for a comedy skit in which he taught his pug to do a Nazi salute. Despite it evidently beingness a joke, and the legal proceedings showing no evidence of Nazi leanings on the part of Meechan, Linehan was one of many who smeared him equally some kind of crypto-facist, accusing him of trying to 'sneak fascism and hatred in under the guise of irony'.
Linehan even tried to go Meechan's GoFundMe folio, which he was using to crowdfund an appeal, close down, telling the site that Meechan was trying 'to cash in on spreading detest oral communication by framing it as a joke':
Hey @gofundme are you guys aware of the details of this guy's case? He's using your site to cash in on spreading detest voice communication by framing it equally a joke. picture show.twitter.com/qMosLHrIGr
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) April 26, 2018
His censorious activities, of course, practice not disqualify Linehan from being defended by those of us who actually believe in free oral communication. As Brendan O'Neill put it on spiked at the fourth dimension of the deadnaming incident, 'It is the free-speech warrior's lot that he always finds himself defending tossers. Neo-fascists. Cross-burning white supremacists. Finger-wagging Islamists. Graham Linehan.'
But Linehan is at least an example to the remainder of us of why you lot need to be consistent in your defense force of free speech and reasoned fence. It's not so easy for Linehan to complain at present that people are unfairly smearing him in a bid to close him up, when that's exactly the sort of behaviour he himself has indulged in.
Sentinel spiked's documentary about the Count Dankula instance:
To enquire about republishing spiked's content, a right to reply or to asking a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.
Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/10/the-hypocrisy-of-graham-linehan/
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