Amina Sopwith

And that seems to work differently too, depending which side you happen to be on! I don't follow what you're saying here. Can you elaborate?

I'm not a lawyer or legal expert but this is my understanding. It's illegal to incite racial hatred or violence, certainly in a public place. A private conversation between two individuals at someone's house is unlikely to qualify unless they actually are conspiring to bring harm to Jews or black people or whatever, and then it's a different crime. Two people in a private residence talking about how much they hate Jews aren't committing a crime, but if they take it to Speakers' Corner then yes, they can expect to get their collars felt. I'm quite happy with this. Racism is insidious. The thought process behind it is rarely as facile as "I hate x people, I think they should all die". Even if it is, very few people are quite so stupid as to put it that way. I am really not worried about some kind of blanket gag over everyone if we explicitly outlaw the exceptionally simplistic and hateful stuff that nobody is actually saying anyway. The Daily Mail, for example, can't come right out and say that Meghan Markle isn't fit to join the royals because she's mixed race, but it can make various references to her mother being "straight outta Compton", emphasising the crime rate there and comparing this to "leafy Kensington suburbs", or it can make lingering reference to her "exotic DNA" against "thin blue Windsor blood" and remind us of how pale-skinned and fair haired the princes are. And, of course, it can constantly run stories that present her in the worst possible light while brown-tonguing the Duchess of Cambridge as an icon of grace and the "Jewel of the East" after a trip to Asia. (Now, at least. I remember when she was Waity Katy and they were sneering at her because her mother was once a cabin crew member and her family runs a party supplies business. No, I don't know what the problem is with either of those things. I guess new money? You know, that they earned themselves like some scummy low lives? I don't know.) Can this be outlawed? Well, no. And it's not. But I really don't buy this idea that by forbidding the Mail from saying outright that Meghan is too black to be worthy of royal life, we are somehow gagging forces for good and repressing freedom. Minority people didn't exactly do better in the days when it was acceptable to incite hatred against them, and today's racism isn't that simplistic anyway. I simply do not believe that we are repressing freedom by enabling black, Jewish, gay, trans or whatever people to be able to go about their daily lives without being confronted by overt and naked calls for their persecution. The idea is nonsensical to me. As for political correctness, I've worked in mega-PC environments and I've never heard any of these stupid terms that got made up to try to discredit the idea that we shouldn't talk about people as though they're scum. No, you don't have to say "vertically challenged" or "horizontally empowered" or whatever. How ridiculous. I've never heard any such bollocks anywhere except from the mouth of a bigot. (Although actually I think they're talking out of their bums when they pull this nonsense? Certainly that's where they keep their heads.) You are asked to use terms such as "people with dementia", "wheelchair user" and "with a learning disability". I bet most people can't even think what terms those are intended to replace, so absolutely normal and sensible are these ones.

I hope my posts have made it clear that I've no disrespect for the faith, indeed I like the sound of it more than several others. The spells for sale in my local area just made me chuckle a bit.

To be honest, if a person actually said that black lives don't matter, that's clearly hate speech and could be construed as inciting racial hatred and violence, which is illegal in the UK at least. I suppose someone could make a philosophical argument about why it's important but I really wouldn't give a monkey's if that person goes to prison and I wouldn't campaign for their release.

Well they shouldn't be stoned for it, but they certainly are a racist and homophobic pig and people should be allowed to say that too.

I would imagine a lot of people had done!

Note from the artist: "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express." ETA: It's xkcd, obviously.

Somehow I don't think that's the kind they want you to wear at the supermarket. It clearly isn't going to catch any droplets.

I've been to a few festivals and outdoor events with a strong Wiccan or pagan influence. They seem like nice people, the focus on earth and nature is attractive and I'm not aware of any mass persecutions carried out in its name.

This actually inspired me to do some research on witches and so on. Apparently there are some in my local area and they'll perform love spells for me at £25 a pop. Wealth spells are a bit dearer, which actually makes sense.

I would disagree. LL can make the final call for these purposes.

Passed wind.

Resolving racism is a perfectly legitimate use of the AR system and very much a real issue.

I don't know much about Wicca, so I'm very open to correction. My understanding is that its followers believe an energy runs through everything on earth, including people, and the "spells" are about channelling that energy, perhaps through visualisation and meditation, for desirable outcomes rather than hocus-pocus, laws-of-physics-impossible stuff. Actually I thought they usually spelled it "magick" to differentiate it from that.

Moon river.

Theory test.

To Autumn.

There are quite a few threads online about ridiculous substitutions people have been getting in their online shopping.

Expelliarmus!

I don't think it started on this thread...later on if I get the time, I'll go through the one that apparently has the story. Maybe this is what I get for hardly ever venturing out of the General Discussion section.

As a parent, when my son gets difficult, I always think of what my own father would have done, and then do the exact opposite.

You'll probably do better over here. Don't worry about the name, men are welcome.

Head girl.

Shot dead.

Saved document.