It’s just the internet. You guys take this stuff too seriously.

Bovver boy: (primarily UK) Another term for skinhead, specifically one who frequently seeks out enemies to beat down. Enemies are usually members of rival football firms or members of other youth subcultures. Bovver is a Cockney slang word literally meaning “bother”.

The ultra right disturb me just as much as the ultra left. Indeed, they are just different sides of the same coin. We will fight them on the beaches etc., etc. But I take your point about your house style and respect your right to operate your site as you choose. I’ll turn down the volume a bit when I pop in.

Let a thousand flowers bloom as a murderous tyrant once said.

Withdrawal gratefully accepted.

I really don’t think anyone reading this site would be likely to think that I was suggesting you were a “neo-nazi skin-head thug”. The (tentative) evaluation that the tag intended to convey was that you appear from the very limited material of yours that I’ve read to be someone who rather likes picking (non-physical) fights through the use of extravagant language and very hardline opinions e.g. your comment about the ABC etc on another thread here at Troppo. It’s a “take no prisoners”, highly adversarial style of argument that I think is quite well summarised by the label “bovver boy”. Nevertheless, if you object to it, I hereby withdraw it. I’m not interested in slanging matches, that isn’t the purpose of this blog. We reckon it’s possible to explore issues and learn much more about them through a more restrained sort of dialogue (even if some see it as “precious”). If my somewhat gratuitous labelling of you as a “bovver boy” causes you to feel an irresistible urge for a stoush, I apologise. Moreover, as you would see if you read back into Troppo archives, there are quite a few issues where I would probably agree with many aspects of your viewpoint. I’ve just reached a point in life where I no longer relish adversarial, testosterone-driven debates, in part because I don’t think they prove anything but mostly because I don’t have the energy and don’t gain any enjoyment or ego gratification from it.

Your reference to me as a “bovver boy” is quite outrageous. I made light of it when not knowing really what it meant. I expect your apology very soon given how much you don’t like lawsuits and all that.

Further, Google Inc., a very large and successful media company in fact publishes my site. There is no more deep pocket defendant in the world probably. As most bush lawyers should know, the Gutnick case makes the position very clear. It doesn’t matter whether you publish from California or Botswana, if it can be seen on an Australian PC screen then the publisher can be liable under Australian law.

And my exalted status as a bankrupted victim of Sol Lew started just a couple of months ago, meaning I have been publishing away non-bankruptly (new word for you) for quite some time without a single writ. Again, I say, because if you tell the truth you shouldn’t have too much to worry about on that front.

In your case, implying people are neo-nazi skin-head thugs might give quite a lot to be thinking about. Pot. Kettle. Black.

So I think my original point stands. Bloggers can take on controversial subjects, even call a spade an effin shovel but if they tell the truth as they know it and see it then all should be well.

Andrew

Of course, they might in fact have backed off when they realised you were bankrupt (at least according to Benjamin Cass on another thread) and therefore not a juicy target. And that might also account for your liking for litigation: if you ain’t got nothin’ you’ve got nothing to lose, as Saint Dylan once put it.

My ears were burning. I have just stumbled on this very interesting and most excellent blog so kudos to all involved, it’s the bomb.

As I love the smell of defamation in the morning I thought I’d comment on this.

Blogs are most certainly not defamation free zones and nor should they be. I remember explaining this on air to supposed lawyer the ABC’s Comrade Jon Faine and he eventually realised that – despite my right wing “bovver boy” (thank you Mister Parish) status – I might be right.

I have been operating an occasionally controversial and certainly frank blog for over a year and have been threatened with legal action a few times with only one clown (a federal MP) instructing lawyers to issue a threat on letterhead. They backed off when it was clear that I actually enjoy litigation and the public discussion of the issues raised. Why? For one good reason essentially. I tell the truth as best I understand it from either my own first-hand knowledge or a network of reliable insider sources that is probably with peer in the known galaxy. (I am also very modest)

Defamation suits are of course double-edged swords, while generally expensive and annoying to defend they also provide the defendant with an opportunity to present and to seek information about the subject matter at issue. I always thought this would be fun but – alas – no one has been willing to join in these festivities. Not one writ and over a thousand posts.

Oh well. I’ll keep trying.

Game on.

I’m not sure about Landeryou’s site, but a judge actually expressed the tentative view that Benjamin Cass’s statements about a liquidator appeared to be justified on the material before her!!! I blogged about it here, (and Cass himself has commented on the thread in the last few days). In other words, Cass’s statements may well not be defamatory because they attract the defence of truth. Thus it says nothing about whether blogs are “defamation law-free zones”. Manifestly they’re not if anyone ever bothered suing over a defamatory post or comment. People who think that a different legal regime applies to blogs than to the mainstream media, and who conduct their blogs on that assumption, may one day find out to their cost that they’re wrong, although uncertainties about whether a blogger is a juicy enough litigation target, not to mention the general easy-going ethos of the blogosphere, will no doubt continue to make such litigation unlikely. As I said, I have no doubt that Bird’s comments at Catallaxy about Nicholas and JQ were defamatory, and as a legally-qualified person I’m sure Jason is well aware of that fact (whatever he may profess for debating purposes). Jason is seemingly a rugged litigation risk-taker. I, on the other hand, have no intention of knowingly putting my assets at risk by allowing commenters like Bird and Cambria free rein (or any rein at all) at Club Troppo. Not only do they put me at unacceptable risk of defamation action, but I find their behaviour unpleasant and offensive in the extreme. Apparently Jason doesn’t, and good luck to him.

http://makemcveighpay.blogspot.com

Have a look at this one too!

http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com

I don’t recall any such derailment, Chris. He brought it onto the topic of freedom being intrinsically valuable versus freedom as a utilitarian value. This is a perennial philosophical topic and it was actually very astute of him to bring it up – if he didn’t some other libertarian would have eventually – and note that Sukrit eventually did and ended up siding with Bird on that one. There were a few one liners exchanged along the way but eventually it got back on track. You make the mistake of assuming people are easily distracted, Chris. If they don’t like a commenter they can ignore him. I guess I’m used to debating in more anarchic environments given my past experiences proto-blogging.

Birdy has never brought ‘race’ as such into it – you must be referring to the various times he comes up with the line ‘Can Asians think?’ when he tries to challenge me. That’s actually a clever allusion to this book of the same title by a Singaporean

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/int/2002/03/25/asians/index.html

It’s actually a clever barb and I’m not the least bit offended by it. Yours on the other hand, wasn’t clever.

As I said over there, some of the main posts at Catallaxy are stimulating. You wrote a great one about freedom about a month ago, which I recall Birdy derailed immediately by bringing your race into it. Anyway, I consume Catallaxy the same way some people consume Playboy. I am mainly there for the articles but sometimes I can’t resist looking at something dirty.

But rough polemical language like the stuff that many of the commenters indulge in is perfectly OK. Look if you can’t take it, then piss off and don’t read the blog. No great loss and your comments haven’t exactly been the most piercing no matter how high your own intellectual pretensions, we have better commenters around than you.

i like gruen, he’s one of the most thoughtful guys around…although sometimes his extreme reasonableness is offensive to people…

http://catallaxyfiles.com/index.php?p=1984&cp=1#comment-131618

And the term “Faggot” can be taken as a badge of pride as well, as we can see from Geoff’s evident lack of offense being taken. Though that’s no doubt not how Birdy intended it to be read.

But I’m interested in your point about defamation, Ken. Presumably the basis that someone like John or Nick might have a case (I say “like” because, as you say, I don’t want to intend to suggest that these gentlemen themselves would be inclined to take action without very good cause) would be on the basis that they have a professional reputation to defend which exists outside the blogosphere. But at what point does criticism blur into a defamatory reflection on someone’s professional competence? It seems to me that the way Birdy carries on is more akin to what used to be called when I was learning defamation law way back when at UQ “vulgar abuse” and thus not actionable. Forgetting about Birdy – what sort of claims made on a blog about someone would be actionable?

I’m asking in part because I’m also increasingly concerned about the legal risk that bloggers face.

you and your lot are just being precious as usual. I believe in my own rational self interest. If I thought anything was potentially defamatory I would have erased it long ago. Calling someone a ‘commie witch-hunter’ or a ‘phoney neoclassical’ or accusing Quiggin of ‘boosting Keynes’ is defamatory how? Birdy has been doing it all over the blogosphere. Everyone knows it’s hyperbole. There is nothing in the thread that would have a strong case. And I recall Chris was distubed about Birdy’s ‘threats’ which are of course just the right wing equivalent of that stock left wing line of ‘When the Revolution comes, the Imperialists will have their backs against the wall facing a firing squad’.

Nick is a nice guy but is overly precious and a bit of a snob who can’t stand a bit of vulgarian language. Troppo used to be as robust as Catallaxy – some polemical grandstanding is hardly defamatory and so what if it’s also playing the man as well as the ball? We do still get good debates going on substance as well as verbal jousting. So we scare off some delicate types like Chris. Big deal.

Chris Lloyd, fyi I know John and I like him. We were firing sallies at each other long before you came along. If he requested that I take something down because it was genuinely bothering him. I would oblige him.

We tried to send one from LP:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/14/inter-blog-wars-the-masculinity-connection/

Yes, more meta-blogging.

No idea what to make of this – what is it, big swinging d**k day in the blogosphere?
Tim Blair, linking to LP:
The nancies over at Ladyboy Pantywaist have taken a good hard look at this whole Islamic terrorism thing and decided that they really don’t…

Does anybody know if Panelbeaterbird at LP is one and the same?

Yep, one and the same. But we only very occasionally allow his comments through.

Yes it’s the same bloke. And yes, a blog proprietor is certainly potentially liable for a defamation committed by a commenter. Of course Jason knows that people like JQ and Nicholas are easy-going and have a sense of perspective on such things. But one of these days someone will decide that a commenter like Bird has gone too far and been irresponsibly encouraged (or not discouraged) by a host blogger and will decide to sue. Either Nicholas or JQ would certainly win a defamation action against both Bird and Jason, and there’s certainly an argument in my view that Jason tacitly encouraged him despite half-hearted comments about being “totally out of line” and “less than helpful”.

Patrick

Congratulations on the addition to the family and have a good trip. A blogpost from a Qantas Lounge somewhere in transit, perhaps?