Yes, how dare this woman hate the man who raped and murdered her daughter.

What a bitch.

Well done for having the courage to expose her. I hope this is just the first in a line of articles in which you lecture the families of murder victims for not being as enlightened as your good self.

Although the comments may be somewhat insensitive, the point being made here is not that she doesn’t have the right to hold such views, but that “compassionate” doesn’t really describe them at all well, and once again, a politician twists the truth for the sake of some publicity. (Never!)

It’s a bit like the Private Eye cover a few weeks ago mocking Gordon Brown for doing that Piers Moron interview in which he talked about his dead baby. Was the cover extremely tasteless? Yes. Did it make a good point? Yes.

“I’d love to watch Sally Anne’s killer get the death penalty. I want to see him suffer until he is squealing like a pig.”

Yep – how dare anyone want to avenge the death of their own child. The man should be given an army of social workers and sent on adventure holidays until he’s “reformed” and fit to take his place back in the wonderfull caring, sharing, touchy-feely society that we all live in.

“It’s that kind of magnanimous, sensible, compassionate, non-vindictive approach to criminal justice which this country is crying out for”.

Yep – just let people do what they want and if it harms anyone it just proves that society should have been nicer to them. It’s prepostorous to expect anyone to take responsibility for their own actions, “it was society what dun it, guv at least that’s what my social worker says”.

yes, I know you are just trying to illustrate how she does not fit Johnson’s description of her, nor are her ideas a model for reform of the criminal justice system, but it’s easy to get the impression from the OP that you are sneering at her. Personally, when I read how she feels about her daughter’s killer, I think I’d probably feel the same way too. And I don’t see a great deal of merit in feeling “magnanimous” and “compassionate” towards child rapists and killers.

I’m not suggesting that we base the criminal justice system on the emotional response of crime victims.

“Although the comments may be somewhat insensitive, the point being made here is not that she doesn’t have the right to hold such views, but that “compassionate” doesn’t really describe them at all well”

Only if you think that compassion has to be for criminals and not for their victims.

Why would you think that?

Yep – sarcastic sneering at the parent of a murdered child, how on earth was this allowed to be posted ?

The desire of victims’ loved ones for revenge might well be considered natural, normal and acceptable, but they lose the right to having their views silently respected when their personal emotional responses are involved or invoked in public policy. The notion that offenders should be made to ’squeal like pigs’ because we want them to, is not an acceptable starting point for organising justice in our society.

“The notion that offenders should be made to ’squeal like pigs’ because we want them to, is not an acceptable starting point for organising justice in our society.”

Agreed, the hanging should be quick and painless.

http://badconscience.com/2010/04/01/how-a-little-more-cold-detachment-could-make-the-world-a-better-place/

I recommend Paul Sagar on this. The whole piece is pretty powerful and I hope he doesn’t mind me extracting the introduction:

When I was in my mid-to-late teens I got to know a guy named Haro. That wasn’t his “real” name; he was one of the prolific Merseyside graffiti writers, and that’s what he wrote. But I only ever knew him as Haro, and I don’t see why that should change. We weren’t strictly “friends”, more friends-of-friends. But around 2002-3 we hung out a fair amount, watched bands, got drunk and were generally a bit delinquent. We largely lost touch when I went to university.

A few years ago, as he was riding his bike home from work, three youths waited for Haro on a street corner. As he rode by they hit him across the head with a plank of wood. Having planned to steal his bike, when they found it damaged from his fall they abandoned it beneath his crumpled body.

Haro sustained terrible brain damage and died several days later in hospital.

The three boys were arrested and eventually brought to trial. Because they were young, and it couldn’t be proved they premeditated the crime or brought the plank of wood to perpetrate the assault, and because they left the bike instead of stealing it, the sentences they received were – it still seems to me – shockingly lenient. The youngest boy received no prison term, whilst the other two were expected to serve one to two years.

When I first heard this, it made me livid. Outraged. Overwhelmed with anger. They had murdered Haro, taken away his future and inflicted terrible pain on all who knew him. I believed they were effectively getting away with it. I still feel incredibly angry about this. Indeed, I can’t bring myself to Google the details as I don’t want to think about it much more.

But amidst my rage I realised – and have continued to realise – that there was nothing wrong with my feeling that way. Anger and hatred at those youths was entirely normal. That’s how well-functioning human beings should feel about those who kill, especially when the victims are people we know and like. But I also realised that for precisely those reasons decisions about law-making, criminal sentencing and (eventually) rehabilitation should not be made by me, or by anyone enmeshed in the kinds of powerful emotional tangles I felt and continue to feel.

The way I read this piece is that politicians should be trying to rise above this raw anger not harness it for electoral advantage.

Politicians know this and to cover their back they discuss it in terms of “compassion”, even though I doubt Mrs Bowman feels compassion for the bastard, and nor should she.

A functioning penal policy shouldn’t draw inspiration from the angry, it should be from evidence.

Is the OP trolling? I can’t see any point to this tasteless, sneering post except to give fodder to facile Daily Mail-type narratives of lefties’ purported lack of sympathy with victims of crime.

LO

Yes, that’s all very sensible. How the OP deals with Mrs Bowman’s feelings, less so.

@11

I think the OP has been edited down. I remember reading it last night at Sepictisle’s place and it seeming less harsh – less focussed on the mother. The “Really?” was certainly added after.

I’m at work so I can’t check that but the original is here: http://septicisle1.blogspot.com/2010/04/compassionate-campaigner-for-good.html

“The way I read this piece is that politicians should be trying to rise above this raw anger not harness it for electoral advantage.”

Why ? If people are angry about something why should politicians “rise above it” (whatever that actually means, I interpret it as meaning sanctimoniously ignoring it). Some people are angry about the Afgan war, should politicians rise above that too – who decides what they should “rise above” and what they shouldn’t ?

What I interpret the OP as doing is this;

Demonstrating a fashionable concern for criminals and the corresponding fashionable disdain for emotive victims

Using a child murder as a proxy for some nu labour in house squabble, probably because no one really gives a toss about it, and this is the only way to get it any attention

I notice the author has also failed to defend himself/clarify what is he is actually trying to do.

LO – ah, I see. Ta.

“The way I read this piece is that politicians should be trying to rise above this raw anger not harness it for electoral advantage.”

Are you saying a politician should be:

“…a kind of desiccated calculating-machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by indignation. If he sees suffering, privation or injustice, he must not allow it to move him, for that would be evidence of the lack of proper education or of absence of self-control. He must speak in calm and objective accents and talk about a dying child in the same way as he would about the pieces inside an internal combustion engine.”?

She’s not just a victim of crime, she’s also a prominent public campaigner for reforms of the criminal justice system, who is seeking to have the law changed in accordance with her views of how it should work. A such it seems perfectly reasonable to enquire exactly what her views on criminal justice are, and to debate them on their merits.

When those views turn out to combine medieval barabarism (public torture and executions) with modern totalitarianism (a universal DNA database), it seems entriely justifiable to expose them to, shall we say, a robust critique.

On a human level her views are perfectly understandable – of course they are. At the same time, in political terms they are grotesque and do not deserve to be given airtime.

Larry,

sure, my objection is merely about tone, how this “robust critique” is written – sarcasm about her finding it within herself to forgive. etc. Not clever, imho.

(although DNA database = totalitarianism? Really? But let’s not go there)

“When those views turn out to combine medieval barabarism (public torture and executions) with modern totalitarianism (a universal DNA database)”

Sorry? Are you trying to defend the sneers or add to them?

Personal insults are not an intelligent debating tactic at the best of times (although probably better than labelling policies you disagree with as “totalitarian”). When aimed at a member of the public (a member of the public who has entered the public debate, but a member of the public, nevertheless) they seem even worse.

But even that is not to get to the heart of the matter. The complaint is not simply that Linda Bowman was attacked in the OP. The complaint is that the OP attacked her for not being sufficiently forgiving about the man who raped and murdered her daughter. Do you not get why that is offensive? It’s not that Linda Bowman’s views should be beyond criticism, but I’d like to think her understandable anger would be. To attack her for what must be a pretty normal human reaction is, to say the least, distasteful and suggests a serious lack of compassion and empathy.

Sorry – I see a big difference between a) a personal desire for violent retribution – a perfectly normal human reaction, and b) a public campaign for a violent retributive justice system – a thoroughly awful idea which I see little reason to treat with kid gloves.

19)

The point is that the OP attacked her for a) as much, if not more, than for point b).

(By the way, is there such a thing as a non-violent, non-retributive justice system?)

I can understand the angry responses from some to this, because posting it here has taken it completely out of its original context. I wrote it as a follow-up to the original here from earlier in the week: http://www.septicisle.info/?q=/2010/04/racing-to-bottom-on-crime-and-dna.html Incidentally, I had no role in it being posted here, and personally think it shouldn’t have been.

The point was that while I have every sympathy for Mrs Bowman, that the death of her daughter is being used essentially to attack the Tories for their supposed softness on crime is exceptionally below the belt, especially when their claims that her killer wouldn’t have been caught under their DNA retention policy are so far from the truth. Their alliance with her also shows their desperation, as they simply don’t care that her other views are so completely out of sync with what their other policies on law and order are.

If Bowman wants to see the murderer of her daughter killed in such a way that he “squeals like a pig”, that’s fair enough, it’s an understandable, unexceptional reaction. What is less understandable is that politicians aren’t prepared to confront what are policies and views based almost entirely on emotion, pain and out of a thirst for vengeance, which the state can never be able sate in any case and which are never good motives on which to legislate. Surely the irony here is that if Mrs Bowman’s 10-point plan was to be introduced, we would almost certainly have both more victims and more miscarriages of justice; even if she has the very best of intentions, and we can understand why she believes it would make the country a better place, that doesn’t make it any more realistic or any less of an over-reaction. I expanded a bit on what I felt was the political tyranny of grief in this older post: http://www.septicisle.info/2008/01/political-tyranny-of-grief.html

While I wouldn’t put it as Larry quite did that her views shouldn’t be given air-time, to which they’re perfectly entitled, politicians should surely have the intellectual depth and strength to argue against such demands, and make clear why they don’t think such drastic measures are necessary. Instead, as their appearing alongside Bowman shows, they either don’t care or even think being associated with her might win them votes, even if they’re hardly likely to legislate along those lines. Even more evidence of how pathetic some have been in the face of it was when Bowman and others met Jack Straw who either nodded along dutifully while disagreeing privately or actively agreed with them: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/justice/article940274.ece

While politicians always should be allowed to be swayed by indignation and suffering, responding in such a way that suffering might be actively increased is surely the wrong way to go about it. The debate on crime and punishment is hardly the most detached at the best of times; further indulging in cheap populism for short term gain is just as crass as using a murder to attack the opposite political party.

Sorry, but even in the context of your previous post the OP still disturbs me.

I do take the point that the anger somebody feels at a criminal when they, or someone in their family, is a victim of their crime is emotional and not necessarily rational. However, your OP seemed equally irrational and angry. The only difference is that your contempt seemed to be aimed at the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of crime. The attitude that you cannot be swayed by the anger of those who are suffering but you can be influenced by self-indulgent anger at the people who dare disagree with you is, to my mind, incomprehensible and the tone of the OP unforgiveable.

All I can say is that wasn’t my intention at all.

I agree with the posters arguing that the OP is insensitively worded, but they seem to assume that is a sufficient critique (i.e. insensitively worded = must be wrong). Perhaps, despite flaws of style, the article is also essentially correct? What I take from the OP is:

1) Politicians should avoid being deceitful.
2) We shouldn’t base the aggregate justice policy which runs a nation on raw emotion. For whatever reason we developed higher brain functions, we should use them.

These points seem entirely sensible.

I think the problem is the word “compassionate”. Which literally means suffering with sympathy. “Passionate” (literally: suffering) would have been a better choice by Alan Johnson (if he must exploit grieving mothers)…

Agree with OP’s general thrust, although it does read a bit tastelessly.

The only difference is that your contempt seemed to be aimed at the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of crime.

It seemed clear to me that the anger was in response to the suggestion that the UK justice system should revert to the 12th century. And fair enough – it’s a rubbish idea. There’s something odd – and more than a little patronising – in the suggestion that dreadful policy suggestions should be treated with a sort of hushed reverence because they come from a victim of crime.

“It seemed clear to me that the anger was in response to the suggestion that the UK justice system should revert to the 12th century.”

(Even accepting that description of the issues as something other than an attempt to demonise opposing views) the point is, why is that anger somehow perfectly acceptable, but the anger of a mother about her murdered daughter beyond the political pale?

I’m not arguing it’s beyond the political pale. All I was attempting to do was show that there’s little evidence for Bowman’s compassion, even if Dixie deserves absolutely none. She’s fully entitled to her anger, it’s just not a good place from where to formulate rational policy. I do however think the death penalty is beyond the pale, which is something entirely separate.

I’ve said – twice – that the anger of a mother about her murdered daughter is perfectly normal, understandable, natural, etc. Obviously it is! But when that anger becomes crystallized as a national campaign to overhaul the justice system, that campaign needs to be thoroughly debated and criticised, not given a free ride.

You’re missing the point that this person is a public face of a campaign being pushed hard by the tabloids, and she’s now been partnered by the government. It’s hardly a matter of “let’s seek out a victim of crime and be mock her in her grief”. She’s there, in public, campaigning for certain policies – really, really awful ones.

“She’s fully entitled to her anger, it’s just not a good place from where to formulate rational policy”

Go back and read what you wrote. You didn’t attack her for being irrational, but for not forgiving her daughter’s murderer.

Seriously, go back and read it.

I’m a bit fed up with having it presented as a defence of rationality. You didn’t make some hard-headed rational argument that, with hindsight, perhaps failed to show sympathy. The utter lack of sympathy bordering on contempt was the heart of the post. If you didn’t mean to come across like this then fair enough, but “rationality” is no excuse, because rationality is the last thing displayed in the post.

“that campaign needs to be thoroughly debated and criticised, not given a free ride.”

Read what you are defending.

Does it attack only her campaign?

Or does it also attack her personally for her lack of forgiveness for her daughter’s murderer?

You go and read the constect in which she made that remark. It was in the course of promoting a political manifesto. The question put to her was “What do you think about bringing back the death penalty?” Then she gave the answer that “I’d love to watch Sally Anne’s killer get the death penalty. I want to see him suffer until he is squealing like a pig.”

She is not simply expressing her emotions here – she is making an explicit demand on the criminal justice system. She believes this is the type of justice to which she is entitled.

Well she isn’t.

@21

Sorry, I don’t care what you actually say as I prefer to fit all my opinions around a pre-determined narrative regardless of facts.

I’m not attacking her personally; I’m attacking the description of her as compassionate. If you want to take it as a personal attack on her for not forgiving the murderer of her daughter, fair enough, but it was not my intention whatsoever, even if it comes across like that; I would never expect someone to do so, and apologise quite freely if that isn’t sufficiently clear.

“She is not simply expressing her emotions here – she is making an explicit demand on the criminal justice system”

Then make a rational criticism of the policy she is asking for. Don’t make a personal attack on her lack of forgiveness.

Do you not get the problem here? The blog entry made a nasty personal attack. You cannot defend that by complaining that her political views are nasty and overly influenced by the personal. Do you not see the double standard here? Forgiveness for a rapist and murderer is being demanded, but forgiveness for having the “wrong” political views is not remotely forthcoming.

“I’m not attacking her personally;”

So you didn’t make a sarcastic comment about her failure to forgive her daughter’s killer?

That’s odd because one appeared in your post.

With regard to the use of DNA profiling to exonerate the innocent, a Kevin Reynolds appears to have commented on the Guardian editorial. Here is the story about how he was arrested for the murder of Sally Anne Bowman and indecent assault and robbery. The police had his DNA profile on file from a previous encounter. They held him for 34 hours and took his house apart. Kevin Reynolds is proof that the innocent do have something to fear.

I’m not demanding she forgives anyone. It’s just there is very little evidence to suggest there’s been compassion in any of the statements that she’s made, not just concerning the murder of her daughter but in the entirety of the campaign she was a part of, unless we’re working on the basis that you’ve got to be cruel to be kind. Wanting to watch the murderer of your daughter not just being killed but killed in such a way that he “squeals like a pig” hardly smacks of compassion, unless we’re feeling it for her personally, even if it’s a perfectly understandable demand for a bereaved mother to make, although one we cannot possibly fulfil. If saying that someone doesn’t seem compassionate on the basis of the comments they’ve made in the public domain is a personal attack, even if I didn’t make them in the best possible way but did so as part of a follow-on in which I had my tongue firmly in my cheek, then put me down as guilty.

“I’m not demanding she forgives anyone.”

Read what you wrote. You took the attitude, and are still taking the attitude, that as she hasn’t forgiven her daughter’s murderer she is not compassionate and you even used sarcasm to make the point. The implication that a compassionate person would forgive, is unmistakeable and utterly impossible to reconcile with your inability to forgive her for her political views.

If there’s one thing in comments threads that’s really, really tedious, it’s bores who think that continuing to pretend they don’t understand something which they clearly do understand very well is some kind of killer argument.

It isn’t – it’s bullshit of the most obvious kind. I say, give ‘em two attempts to come up with something resembling a point, and if they insist on continuing to kid on they don’t get it, stop responding.

40

I genuinely think they don’t understand.

@41 I wasn’t talking to them.

@40

It isn’t – it’s bullshit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGex0kLgNok

We’re just going round in circles here. I am not saying she has to forgive him to be considered compassionate; what I am saying is that there is nothing compassionate, in my view, yours might differ which I fully accept, about wanting to personally watch him being killed in such a way that makes him “squeal like a pig”. These are not conflicting statements. I fully understand why you’re taking the implication from the post that in order for her to be considered compassionate she has to forgive him; that’s fair enough, and because it was a follow-on with tongue firmly in cheek which didn’t make the point as well as I could have done it’s easy for that mistake to be made. It’s also nothing to do with not being able to forgive her political views; I simply disagree with them, and if you can’t make fun of such views by satirising them, however weakly and miserably as I do in the final paragraph, what exactly can you do?

42,

What would you like me to understand?

Surely, you are not going to condemn me for not accepting the “condemning somebody for a lack of forgiveness is arguing for rationality” line?

It’s an argument that just makes things worse. It suggests that the OP was not just insensitive, or inconsiderate, but that people here actually do find anger at murderers and rapists reprehensible, but anger at people who don’t share the same political views perfectly understandable.

“I am not saying she has to forgive him to be considered compassionate; ”

But you do. I mean quite blatantly. There really is no other interpretation of your “Mrs Bowman’s compassion is extraordinary, as shown by how she found it within herself to forgive the killer of her daughter” comment, is there?

Please try very hard to understand. Person A was described, by a government minister no less, as a “compassionate campaigner for good”. What person A campaigns for is her right to see people beeing tortured to death. There is a disturbing disconnect there. That is what the post was highlighting, and it was quite right to do so.

people here actually do find anger at murderers and rapists reprehensible, but anger at people who don’t share the same political views perfectly understandable

What astonishing cobblers.

“That is what the post was highlighting”

Unfortunately, the post chose to criticise this for not being forgiveness.

Can people please stop trying to justify a version of the OP that doesn’t make sarcastic comments about her lack of forgiveness? I don’t care about that imaginary version of the OP, it is what actually appeared at the start of the thread that I objected to.

The original context (on your blog) was exactly the same, word for word. And I would question this response

“is that politicians aren’t prepared to confront what are policies and views based almost entirely on emotion, pain and out of a thirst for vengeance, which the state can never be able sate in any case and which are never good motives on which to legislate”.

All laws are based to some extent on emotion. For example, if no one had an emotional response to murder then why would it be illegal ?
We live in a country where laws are enacted on that most trivial of emotions: “offence” and yet you claim emotion is not a basis for law making.

@ 50 Fair point, off to the pub. I think this is the first post I’ve seen on LC that has attracted flack from all political directions.

All laws are based to some extent on emotion. For example, if no one had an emotional response to murder then why would it be illegal ?

Um… because murder is an absolute interference with the victim’s liberty?

“… the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. … the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Nothing emotional about it.

“John Stuart Mill, On Liberty”

Well that’s a sound authority as long as there haven’t been any developments in political philosophy in the last 150 years.

oldandrew @53, indeed. But what’s your point?

@53: “Well that’s a sound authority as long as there haven’t been any developments in political philosophy in the last 150 years.”

Well, let’s see, there was Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay: Two Concepts of Liberty, which rather tended to celebrate Mill:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/twoconcepts.pdf

Btw here’s the link to JS Mill On Liberty:
http://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html

oldandrew: You’re right, what I’ve wrote is confusing. All the more reason why it shouldn’t have posted here. I was not intending to criticise her for not forgiving her daughter’s killer, but that’s what it looks like because I wasn’t clear enough and the leading sentence into the quote is sloppy. The whole thing should come with a disclaimer.

I’ve updated the original on my site making clear how the post should have been worded: http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2010/04/compassionate-campaigner-for-good.html

I don’t know how to comment on Obsolete, so I’ll say it here. The first rule of writing political stuff on the internet is this: never apologise, never back down.

@58

With all due respect, that’s utter bollocks. If someone makes a mistake/error of judgement and is shown to have done so in a fair manner then of course it’s only right that they should apologise and/or explain. Which to Septicisle’s credit he has done so. A shame more people/bloggers don’t follow his lead and just stick their heads in the sand/fingers in ears saying “nah nah I’m right you’re wrong can’t hear don’t want to!!1″ like so many children.

“The first rule of writing political stuff on the internet is this: never apologise, never back down.”

Didn’t Disraeli give similar advice: Never apologise. never explain?

As for me, I lost all respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury when he apologised for saying the Catholic Church had lost all credibility.

I think the message we’re meant to take away is ‘the personal is political, except when we think otherwise’.

If this article had appeared on Harry’s Place this morning, Flying Rodent and Larry Teabag would have have self-combusted at the breakfast table.

No, they wouldn’t, as both the Rodent and the Teabag have fairly advanced reading comprehension skills.

The first rule of writing political stuff on the internet is this: never apologise, never back down.

Considering the state of “political stuff on the internet” that may not be a rule worth following.

If this article had appeared on Harry’s Place this morning I wouldn’t have read it.

Should she forgive the killer of her daughter? Yes.

Should we judge her for being unable to forgive the killer of her daughter? No.

I do however take issue with politicians using people like this. It was wrong when David Cameron did it in the Gordon-Brown-has-bad-handwriting scandal, and it’s wrong now.

This is an incredibly pedantic point, but I would also argue that if it is her own grief that motivates her to side with victims, it isn’t technically “compassion”. That’s not a value judgement, it’s just saying “compassionate” is probably the wrong word.

It’s fair to attack Johnson for cynically exploiting a mother’s grief for political ends.

This wasn’t the way to go about it, though. The focus is entirely misplaced and it just seems disrespectful.

Not that oldandrew’s behaved much better – I’m always suspicious of the motives of people who behave sanctimoniously online.

Disappointing to see Septicisle backing down here.

If you want someone – anyone – to die for any reason other than to prevent a greater harm taking place (which is clearly not the case for Mark Dixie, who’s safely ensconced in a maximum security jail forever), then you are a flawed human being, however understandable your reactions.

If, instead of being ashamed of those desires, you broadcast them to the world with pride, then you are a terrible and evil person, and there’s nothing to ‘understand’.

Similarly, I feel some sympathy for paedophiles who struggle with their feelings, don’t abuse anyone, and accept that their desires and feelings are wrong. I’ve nothing but contempt, scorn and derision for groups like NAMBLA or PIE who claim that sex with children is fine because that’s what their feelings and desires tell them. Which is exactly the same moral position as Ms Bowman.

Screw her. She *is* a bad person, and *does* deserve everything she’s got here and more.

If this article had appeared on Harry’s Place this morning, Flying Rodent and Larry Teabag would have have self-combusted at the breakfast table.

This is entirely true – I would’ve fallen right off my seat in shock, because it implies the need for less punitive action rather than more and demands a vaguely sane reaction to criminal activity.

If I’d seen that at your website Brownie, I’d have assumed I was having an acid flashback to about 1999.

“If someone makes a mistake/error of judgement and is shown to have done so in a fair manner then of course it’s only right that they should apologise and/or explain. Which to Septicisle’s credit he has done so.”

Agreed. I’m happy with Septicisle’s more recent post and wish everyone I argue with was as willing to reflect.

“Not that oldandrew’s behaved much better – I’m always suspicious of the motives of people who behave sanctimoniously online.”

Oh for pity’s sake. Don’t you realise how sanctimonious that sounds?

That’s seventy comments worth of people pretending they don’t understand the point made now. As a connoisseur of watching people pretending they don’t understand things which they do in fact understand, I have to say that this has been a tour de force of people pretending they don’t know what people are talking about when in fact, they do actually know what people are talking about.

Bravo, you nutters, you.

“That’s seventy comments worth of people pretending they don’t understand the point made now.”

Are you reading a different thread to everyone else? I have seen people saying they understand when apparently they didn’t. I have seen people accusing other people of not understanding when clearly they do. What I have not seen is anyone claiming not to understand. It’s almost like you have what you think is a clever sounding criticism of a thread and you’ve decided to apply it regardless of whatever’s actually happening.

That’s seventy comments worth of people pretending they don’t understand the point made now

On the contrary, critics of this piece by Septicisle are well aware there is a wider socio-political context and, if you like, a point to the OP. The objections are to do with the fact that the post eschews the opportunity to discuss the campaign led by Bowman and is instead a spiteful and vindictive assault on her inability to find it in her heart to forgive the man who raped and murdered her daughter.

It really won’t do for you to continue to assert that people who think the post was ill-judged are pretending not to understand what Septicisle meant when he decided Bowman was a legitimate target for his sneering contempt. In fact, I feel it is *you* who is pretending not to understand that this is source of our objections rather than some reluctance to engage with the wider issues.

But if this really is the new FR blogging gold standard – it’s not the posts you write, but what you meant when you wrote them – then I look forward to its universal application across the blogosphere.

It really won’t do for you to continue to assert that people who think the post was ill-judged are pretending not to understand what Septicisle meant when he decided Bowman was a legitimate target for his sneering contempt.

Sure, and I’d agree entirely if SepticIsle hadn’t repeatedly clarified his point. The rational response is Well, in that case, I still feel that the tone was inappropriate and to then Foxtrot Oscar. Or, you could hang about whingeing and getting your panties in a bunch about how the awful liberalssess love to piss on victims for seventy-odd comments.

No doubt continued pearl-clutching and fainting is very entertaining, but it’s just more evidence – as if it were needed! – of the cult of victimhood as the bullshit warhead of the right wing ballbag. Such people are all over this thread like a pack of leg-humping terriers.

But if this really is the new FR blogging gold standard – it’s not the posts you write, but what you meant when you wrote them – then I look forward to its universal application across the blogosphere.

Such a rule would certainly be a Godsend for you, Brownie, since you spend hours trawling around the internet telling people what your headbanging mates really meant to say when they were fluffing a gaggle of angry lunatics with a shower of paranoid, wingnut horseshit.

Oh FFS. Sometimes someone writes something which is clumsily worded and the intended sentiment behind it gets lost, and people (understandably) misunderstand the point the writer is making. In a grown up world the writer apologises and explains the exact point he was trying to make, which Scepticisle has done, and readers accept this and don’t carry on bashing him for making an argument he was never intending to make in the first place.

I will also add that although the wording struck me as a bit odd at first it didn’t take too much thought to work out the point he was making. And he’s right.

“In a grown up world the writer apologises and explains the exact point he was trying to make, which Scepticisle has done, and readers accept this and don’t carry on bashing him for making an argument he was never intending to make in the first place.”

In case you hadn’t noticed it is the people *defending* septicisle’s peice who are still carrying on.

“peice”

sorry, I meant “piece”.

I will also add that although the wording struck me as a bit odd

“Odd”? Are you certain that’s the word you’re looking for, Andrew?

Mrs Bowman’s compassion is extraordinary, as shown by how she found it within herself to forgive the killer of her daughter:

“I’d love to watch Sally Anne’s killer get the death penalty. I want to see him suffer until he is squealing like a pig.”

It’s that kind of magnanimous, sensible, compassionate, non-vindictive approach to criminal justice which this country is crying out for.

Yes, how thoroughly “odd” that is.

I rather think “fucking disgraceful” might work better, but you stick with your “odd”.

I suppose “barbaric, vindictive witch” is just “really odd”?

Brownie – why have you put “barbaric, vindictive witch” in quote marks like it’s actually in the OP? Oh I forgot, it’s standard HP practise; “the most ungenerous reading possible mixed with a default assumption of bad faith”

Tosser.

Good lord, some commenters on this thread are tedious bores.

‘Your post was bad’

‘Yes I know, sorry’

‘But *do* you know? Do you? Do you?’

‘Yes, sorry’

‘That’s not good enough’

I miss the Daily Quail

82,

You must be reading another thread.

It is the people who are defending septicisle’s post that won’t let it drop:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/04/11/its-not-your-feelings-its-what-you-do-about-them/

I suspect that those who criticised it are happy with septicisle’s apology; I certainly am. It is the continuing efforts to say that it was fine (ever after septicisle has acknowledged that it wasn’t) that are keeping this going.

No, I have to say “fucking disgraceful” never occurred to me. Maybe I’m just a bit less quick to take offence than some people, at least when the writer concerned is someone whose pieces are normally entirely sensible and principled.

But if this really is the new FR blogging gold standard – it’s not the posts you write, but what you meant when you wrote them – then I look forward to its universal application across the blogosphere.

Actually Brownie – this is standard for you. You always want to debate and discuss articles how you interpret them than how the author intended. Isn’t that how HP writers usually behave when sneering at other bloggers? Now instead of doing it at your cesspit you’re trolling other blogs. We should perhaps be grateful.

Brownie – why have you put “barbaric, vindictive witch” in quote marks like it’s actually in the OP?

Er, there are two OPs on LC right now, one after the other, both discussing the exact same subject and both or which have prompted discussions about tone. “Barbaric, vindictive witch” is a direct quote* from the second OP. I’m curious to know whether, having found the tone of the first OP “odd”, Andrew’s sensibilities were more troubled by the second. It’s very simple.

What good is a pursuivant who cannot keep up?

*I know this line has since been modified.

Sunny, you’ve been on your high-horse about the standard of blogging at HP for some time now, so when tripe such as this OP and the even worse one that followed from John B appear on Liberal Conspiracy, it’s understandable you’d want to change the subject to me.

Brownie,

You confused me as well – I hadn’t read the second piece or seen the “barbaric vindictive witch” remark and my comments up to now were purely based on this thread.As it happens I don’t think think that remark is defensible and have made a comment to that effect.

As far as I can see Brownie, you invited ridicule by bringing your blog into it. Other than that, I have no problems with either of the posts other than some of the language used. If you miss the point of the posts and want to invent your own interpretations, and then attack others for not being able to defed your interpretation – don’t get precocious when ppl make fun of you

As far as I can see Brownie, you invited ridicule by bringing your blog into it. Other than that, I have no problems with either of the posts other than some of the language used. If you miss the point of the posts and want to invent your own interpretations, and then attack others for not being able to defed your interpretation – don’t get precocious when ppl make fun of you

Haha. Too funny, Sunny. Read the threads on both OPs and see what some of your regular commenters are saying (and at least one of LC’s co-editors).

Sometimes a LC post is a steaming pile of excrement even when someone from HP points out it’s a steaming pile of excrement.