Aye, she covers pretty much everything. Says the most offensive thing she can think of... gets a reaction... keeps saying it... gets more reactions. Ends up being C5 star. Thankfully it wont mean ****all cause 75% of the public know she is an absolute tw@t.

Phew.

I respect your opinion but out of interest where do you get this 75% figure from. I have noticed you have used it a few times now.

Just an estimate really in all honesty. C5 BB is small beans unfortunately. The wider public will still hate her, same as Jim, same as Denise etc.

I still love it though

I appreciate your honesty. I do think that it is more likely that 75% could not care less about Katie either way.

I don't know about liking her for no reason. I've decided that I like Keith and I can tell you why. So I don't understand why many KH supporters say she tells the truth then go all vague and clam up on me when I ask what truth. I think if you are going to speak up for someone controversial then you should probably have the balls to own it or is it simply because she is anti Perez and in your view Perez is a fate worse than her other views?

I say all this with the exception of Jack who I don't agree with but feel he explained his position very well so I respect his view.

I expected her to win from day 1, the thing that's riled me the most is that all these clowns have aligned themselves with her thinking that will make them popular.

Michelle was my favourite on opening night, then all she is Hopkins little b*tch. Shame.

The "Truth" thing is a little odd I agree, mainly as it is so subjective. I don't think anyone can speak the truth as such. Maybe if they believe something themselves but then the truth would vary from person to person and you could never really say that someone was speaking the truth as you could not be them.

It is a strange, almost redundant word imo.

I thinks Katie H is a great lady and whether she is right or wrong i admire her for saying what nobody else will

To answer your question. I would say that I like Hopkins. To give you some background about me, I didn't know the history of a single person in the house at the beginning of the show. In fact, I had only heard of two housemates...Patsy (because I watched Lethal Weapon) and Perez (who I thought was a harmless fashion blogger...boy was I wrong!!!!).

No, I absolutely don't think Hopkins is infallible and I absolutely disagree with a lot of her view points (in fact some of them disgust me). However, I do like Hopkins, in the house, because;

1. She doesn't pretend to take a moral high ground...she says what she believes and, right or wrong, makes no excuses for it.
2. She is not offended or rattled by any criticism by any of the housemates...she can take as good as she gets.
3. When Perez went mental the first few days and made the housemates extremely uncomfortable, everyone else was too timid/scared to deal with him...she stepped up and had the balls to stand up to him, when no one else did. It calmed him down, but she took the brunt of it and is still paying for it now, while the other housemates who dislike Perez hid behind her.
4. Her interactions with Alicia...while I don't agree with how rude she was to her, in the end she forced Alicia to be stronger...and...instead of being angry when Alicia finally stood up to her and rightfully called her a gob ****e...Hopkins not only didn't get angry, but she gave Alicia her full respect for doing so.

Good reasons, ones I all agree with.

I respect your point of view and you explained it very well tough I can't agree with your support of her for myself based on some of the things she says because they seem spiteful/controversial for the sake of it. I think that free speech is entirely different to making public statements that serve no purpose but to be nasty about certain groups of people. Of course she has the right to say what she wants but does she have the right to villify people publicly. Isn't saying ginger babies are hard to love a very fine line away from saying the same thing about black babies? And what do those kinds of free speech achieve except to make people feel inferior or uncomfortable in their own skin. You can't diet away ginger hair. So while I can accept your point of view I can't help feel the meat of your stance is misguided. I am not sure you are standing up for her right to be heard or her right to be cruel because you view that as part of her right to be heard.

I can also respect your point of view though I don't agree with it. I think she has a lot of influence on the others and I don't like how they are starting to gang up on Cheggers whose only crime seems to be being a nice man. She picked on Alicia and now she is picking on Cheggers. There is starting to be a lot of eye rolling when walks past or speaks, to me that isnt being a straight talker, thats being nasty for the sake of it. She does take the moral high ground, she thinks she is right.

I do think this is a very interesting conversation to have with those willing to answer the questions I posed.

I totally agree with you on the Cheggers point. He is a sweetheart and I hate how Hopkins goads him to speak out and pretty much stresses him out. I also hated how Perez added fuel to the fire by instigating the fight between Cheggers and Hopkins. Then pretends he's his biggest supporter just so he could try to win another ally against Hopkins. Both Hopkins and Perez are trying to get him to jump off the fence and join them. I wish they would just leave the poor man alone. At his age, he's earned his dues. If he wants to be Switzerland, good on him!!!!

:thumbs:

Well done. It is not often that i see a post such as this on here.

Please bare with me but I am going to try and answer your question as best I can. I will be quoting a large amount of text but I hope to explain my position to the best of my very limited ability. I guess the answer to your last sentence is, both. I see the right to offend or be cruel (this is where we may not be able to ever agree) as intrinsically part of the right of free speech. I hope to below quote will be able to explain better than I can.

You are here: Home / Archives / The right to offend: crucial to free speech
The right to offend: crucial to free speech
I contend we all should have the right to offend. Why?

I bet you're wondering why I just said that.

The right to offend. It's a contentious proposition. Almost nobody enjoys being offended, whether in private or in public. So why should we have a right to offend? What's so defensible about that?

Imagine someone coming to your house and shooting you as you exit from the front door, just because you said something that someone else didn't like.

Hey, it has happened before. And if you're a blogger, I bet you've already offended someone with your writings. Hopefully you haven't gotten death threats yet (I have).

Now, most of us would agree that the hypothetical shooter is dead wrong in shooting you. But why is he wrong, and why do we think that? Doesn't he have a right to punish people who offend him and his sensitivities?

Let's find out why he doesn't.

So why should we tolerate offensive speech?
Salman Rushdie said it well:

The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted. A fundamental decision needs to be made: do we want to live in a free society or not? Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other’s positions. (But they don’t shoot.)
The right to offend is not about humor. It's not about anarchy. It's not about what I feel like doing, without consequences. Believe it or not, it's about defending the right to tell the truth -- which is necessary for progress of society.

The right to say these things is called freedom of speech, and is one of the cornerstones of a free society.

Throughout human history, we've had a lot of "inconvenient" truths, and saying them out loud have cost the lives of countless martyrs. Modern society is no different, with the concession that today it's less likely -- but still possible -- to be killed by saying something offensive.

Moreover, this right extends beyond the mere possibility of stating verifiable truths. Since we express what we think in countless ways (such as humor, offensive statements, ironic quips), you need to have a right to say things in these ways as well.

Furthermore, what the majority of society may understand as being "true" is constantly being proven wrong. That's why we must have a right to say things that others will regard as blatantly wrong, even if these things are offensive.

And that's why I have the right to say ******* are funny, God doesn't exist, and one of my exes is a lie manufacturing machine. Whether they are true or not, and, more importantly, regardless if I offend you or not.

I have the right to ridicule your religion, your beliefs, your ideas, and even you. Yes, you read that right.

The counterpart: the right to be offended
Evidently, if we're to gain (or, more appropriately, preserve) this right, we need to have the right to be offended. Call it eye for an eye if you want; I'll call it tolerance.

What does it mean? It means that, if I say something that offends you, you can only respond with speech. You cannot retaliate with your fists, a knife, or a bullet. Why? Because you've accepted (or, more likely, forced by society into accepting) that you have a right to offend as well, and you are also granted protection against your integrity.

Read again: you may not take the matter in your own hands. This is a recognized fact of modern society law: If I insult you publicly, you cannot shoot me or beat me up. Not unless you like going to prison.

(However, if you try to hit me, I am entitled to use the same force to stop you. But that's a subject for a different post.)

That's absolute tolerance.

But absolute tolerance doesn't work in the real world
Naturally, that doesn't exactly work in a world where words have different leverage depending on their source. Something written about me in a newspaper will carry a bit more weight than what I've written on this blog.

Thus, lies created to ruin someone's life need to be forbidden. Modern society law comes to the rescue to draw a line between what's acceptable and what isn't.

So where do we draw the line?

We draw the line on the character of the speech. The line is drawn where speech turns from just offensive into libellous.

Most of you would be surprised to learn that, in matters of speech, offensive is not equal to libellous. Key to determining if speech is libellous are two factors:

Said speech contains a significant amount of unfalsifiable statements -- lies, and accusations that cannot be positively proved.
Said speech is designed expressly with the intent to harm someone's reputation. For example, when a reasonable person is expected to believe the speech to be true.
In all fairness, this rule does not apply here in Ecuador, but the civilized world does apply this rule.
Both assertions must be satisfied before judging speech to be libellous. Your feelings about you being offended do not matter at all when judging speech.

In effect:

if a statement is true, then it is not libellous
if a statement is hardly likely to be believed, it's not libellous
if a statement wasn't made with the purpose to harm someone, it's not libellous
For example: let's suppose I call you a ****ing bitch. If what I said is hardly likely to be believed, or it's true (because, uhm, you collect money for sex), then I have the right to say that. (Fortunately) Thanks to this, most insults are protected speech, whether you like it or not.

But if:

I called you gay,
you were reasonably gay-mannered,
I have a grudge against you,
I said the statement in a manner that negatively affects what lots of other people think about you,
I couldn't prove that statement, and
you really wanted to put me in prison
I could end up in the arms of my future cellmate.

So, can I threaten someone with death?
No. That is not kosher.

OK, the "kosher" joke was pushing it. But you cannot threaten someone with physical injury or death.

Different types of speech are afforded different levels of protection. It just so happens that death threats are a type of speech that is outlawed -- we've already seen other types of forbidden speech. In the scale of "useful speech", death threats rank at the bottom, and there's nothing defensible about them.

Thus, it's a crime and it's expressly not protected by free speech because a death threat inflicts direct, grave emotional distress in a person. Moreover, death threats are, by modern judicial standards, expressly outlawed and categorized as a serious crime, right there with theft, because it usually is used to prevent others from exercising their right to free speech. Yes, we forbid certain types of speech to let other, more productive types of speech flourish.

Now, you may be thinking: Hey, but just yesterday you called me a *****, and that inflicted emotional distress on me. If you were distressed at that, I suggest you reevaluate how thick your proverbial skin is, because you got nothin' on the people who have received death threats. After all, there might be something productive about me calling you a *****.

And that's what free speech is about
Remember this. The next time someone offends you, you don't get to call "mommy" when someone offends you. You have to shut up, put up and respond in kind. And you better develop thick skin, because offenses are a part of everyday's life.

And sure, there are animals out there who will feel offended by you and think they're entitled to payback in blood.

But that's why we have guns.




Apologies if some of the could have been edited down but it is getting late and my battery is running out.

Bloody hell Jack.

To shorten it. One could say, **** off and if the other person does not like it. Say **** off again.

1 - aka "tells it like it is" = nobody gives a ****... keep it shut once in a while you megalomaniac

2 - she only picks on the easy targets. When faced hard up with Nadia she left. All she had to offer was little snide whispers.

3- peresz was being annoying, she didnt fucing take a stand... she told everyone to isolate a person... posh bullying little bitch

4 - oh, i suppose its ok then... apart from calling her simple who has 1 brain cell... dont talk ****e

5 - I'm posh and doing this for school fees (bull****) why are you using money for your disabled son?

She is a ****ing prick

That was a loooong read :idc: ...whewww...but well worth it. Good points and I totally agree.

Very true, thats how Stephen Fry puts it. :laugh:

I guess I'm saying that without the right to offend the right of free speech does not exist.

Or better put.

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie

I was going to add a 6th but I need a pee

My battery is running low too! I understand what you are saying and quoting. I suppose what I ought to have said is while I accept the right to offend in free speech I am not sure I accept that it is appropriate to use it in all instances. Just because you can doesn't mean you always should.

I say all this from a stance of not personally being easily offended. I have no religion for anyone to upset me over, personal taunts are pretty pointless etc etc. I simply don't like spite for its own sake.

Hmm it probably wasn't wise to quote the whole thing! Great debate. Is your degree in law?

you have upset my religion, "dont****ingquotethatffs"

So, you owe me a drink