Australian police to bill Milo $50k over protests

[Mormolyce]

50k aussie $ for global publicity, surely a bargain?

They're charging the organiser not Milo, and according to those reports there were about 50 Milo supporters there - not sure if that's indicative of the crowd size but unless those tickets were $1,000 a pop I'd say that would make this a losing venture for Penthouse.

Which bodes ill for future shit-stirring shitlord extravaganzas getting promoted by anyone.

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I didn't know that Australians were such a homophobic bunch of people, to be so riled up just because of one gay showing up to hold a speech.

Ahahahaha, nice try.

Want to see today's headline?



Parliament's final voting on gay marriage. Those opposed on the left :P

Though I freely admit it was very late coming.

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So if neo nazis riot over some far left speaker, that speaker will be fined?

It's possible that could happen here, but I don't imagine the bill would be very high because how much damage can three guys do?

[GreenGoldSharpie]

It's possible that could happen here, but I don't imagine the bill would be very high because how much damage can three guys do?

Three guys with zero chins who are probably easily winded?

$5?

[Radio]

Ahahahaha, nice try.

Want to see today's headline?

https://i.imgur.com/06xbDQf.jpg

Parliament's final voting on gay marriage. Those opposed on the left :P

Though I freely admit it was very late coming.

Damn, I was going to post the exact same thing.

[Torto]

He's not a Jew. There's plenty of gay Nazis. Sucking black dick doesn't mean you're not a Nazi. Fascists make plenty of mental dissonances.

Milo Yiannopoulos's mother (maternal grandmother) is Jewish, but he identifies as Catholic. He claims himself to be half Jew and mentions it frequently to piss off Nazi groups. He calls himself the "Gay, Jewish lover of Blacks" because he knows it pisses off the Left with their identity politics. Use whatever mental gymnastics you like to bend reality, but he is not racist and he is not a Nazi sympathiser.

[Spiffums]

They should have billed whoever owned the event location and hired the security.

[Mormolyce]

Milo Yiannopoulos's mother (maternal grandmother) is Jewish, but he identifies as Catholic. He claims himself to be half Jew and mentions it frequently to piss off Nazi groups. He calls himself the "Gay, Jewish lover of Blacks" because he knows it pisses off the Left with their identity politics. Use whatever mental gymnastics you like to bend reality, but he is not racist and he is not a Nazi sympathiser.

And Richard Spencer totally doesn't get along with neo-Nazis either, but funny thing, they both really enjoy a good heil.

The white supremacist movement employs multiple layers, each layer maintains a wafer thin guise of separation from the lower layers so as to have plausible deniability. You'd have to be especially gullible to fall for it. But hey, gullible is exactly their audience.

[BurningSkies2018]

Why should a person be billed because idiots trash a place out in riots? Whether or not the person giving speeches is right or wrong, he's not making people trash a place out. That cost needs to be taken away from people causing the violence.

[s_bushido]

Look, here I found the smoking gun!

Evil Libruls Attempt to Extort the Rams for Security Money!!! Such censorship!!!

[Deletedaccount1]

Why should a person be billed because idiots trash a place out in riots? Whether or not the person giving speeches is right or wrong, he's not making people trash a place out. That cost needs to be taken away from people causing the violence.

This is right.

[Post]

Apparently this is normal for Australia, which still makes it pretty dumb. Probably shouldn't reward people for rioting...

[tkioz]

Australia doesn't have free speech, at least not in the US sense. No Bill of Rights.

Technically true (the best kind of truth!) but for US readers who will no doubt go ga-ga over such a thing and 'muh freedom!' I'll explain as best I can.

We have freedom of political speech. It's been codified by High Court decisions and such, basically it boils down to the principle that you can't be arrested for your politics so long as you don't commit another crime (assault/trespass/etc) and don't advocate violence against others.

As for why we don't have a Bill of Rights... That's a tricky one, there have been attempts to get one going all the way back to Federation (where we practiced the time honoured Australian tradition of nicking the best bits from other constitutions when we wrote ours, thanks America! We left out the gun bit though.). There are valid arguments on both sides, some suggest without it we're at the mercy of political winds. The other side, and the side I'm on, argue that once you start defining rights, everything you leave out becomes a privilege and lots of stupid shit starts happening.

Of course that doesn't mean we don't have a lot of the American Bill of Rights in other legislation.

On the subject of Milo and his stupidity, honestly its a long held tradition that people who stir up shit pay for it. Hell the AFL and other major sporting codes help off set the police costs when they hold events.

[RapBreon]

I'm ok with this because;

1. Milo isn't stupid.

2. Milo knows what he's doing.

Ideally, I'd like to see everyone involved in transitioning from 'peaceful' to 'violent' appropriately reprimanded. Good luck with that though. However, Milo and the establishment that helped organise it were involved and had a pretty good understanding of potential outcomes.

Plus, 50k...AUD is like nothing to these people. The conversation will probably pay for it by itself.

[Aehl]

Um, you seem to be a little confused, the Victorian Police are charging the organisers (Damien Costas' Penthouse), who are Australian.

Doesnt matter. They will fight it in court anyway. And win.

[Super Kami Dende]

They're charging the organiser not Milo, and according to those reports there were about 50 Milo supporters there - not sure if that's indicative of the crowd size but unless those tickets were $1,000 a pop I'd say that would make this a losing venture for Penthouse.

Ahahaha What? There were 1000's in each city that went. It's why they needed to make 2-3 events for each city since the first ones sold out near instantly.

[dwarven]

I would imagine the fact that “milo takes it up the chuff” is of little interest to his detractors. I think it’s more his media whoreism and his pandering to the “despicables” that tends to get the knickers of the liberals in a twist.

You could step on the wrong leaf and get liberals in a twist these days.

[The One Percent]

It's possible that could happen here, but I don't imagine the bill would be very high because how much damage can three guys do?

Ah, I was under the impression that the neo nazi movement was massive.

[Stelio Kontos]

Ah, I was under the impression that the neo nazi movement was massive.

Their numbers depend upon the need of the person invoking them.

[Hiricine]

It sucks when you're a town and your police department has to pay for this stuff.

Still if the protesters are that violent they should be arrested and fined to pay for the costs.

[Slicer299]

This opens up an interesting precedent.

It's a precedent that already exists. Public universities constantly site security costs and concerns for illegal blocking non liberal speaker son campus. Demanding students pay tens of thousands of dollars to host a speaker the university doesn't like. In the US, it's against federal law for any public university to block speakers based on their political opinion or even because people find them "offensive". Yet universities do it every single day, it's why US Berkeley is facing a multi million dollar lawsuit for blocking Milo and Ann Coulter.

It's also a concept that's existed literally for centuries, it's called the heckler's veto. By causing a big enough disruption, people can keep people they dislike from speaking. Milo says a lot of offensive things, but that doesn't make the things he says on the issues any less true. And with all the "offensive" things he does say, people still have to make false statements and claims to try and justify the violence they use to try and shut him down. Violence is never OK, no matter what mean words someone says.

[digichi]

Just remember this is a difference between opposition and censorship. There is no crisis of free speech.

More people need to learn this.

Someone disagreeing with your opinion doesn't equal them trying to 'silence' you or being against 'free speech'. Silly argument.

Also, its obvious Milo likes to rile people up on purpose. When a lot of people show up it gets violent. Police then have to deal with it to calm it down, so dumb people don't murder each other. Nothing to do with free speech at all.