A self-styled free speech activist
One more Guardian piece on Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin, this one from a month ago:
Ukip is expected to choose a controversial YouTube activist, who has been accused of triggering rape threats against a Labour MP, as a candidate if Britain takes part in the European elections, it has emerged.
A party selection process this weekend is likely to confirm the candidacy of Carl Benjamin, a self-styled free speech activist who has been banned from Twitter and some other platforms because of his views, Ukip sources said.
Carl Benjamin is not a “free speech activist.” That’s just a screen. It’s not “free speech activism” to spew misogynist venom at women and xenophobic venom at pesky foreigners. It’s just spewing venom.
Benjamin, who calls himself Sargon of Akkad after the ruler of a Mesopotamian empire, first became known for his anti-feminist commentary, and has also expressed controversial opinions on immigration, race and other issues.
In 2016 he tweeted “I wouldn’t even rape you” to the Labour MP Jess Phillips, in a message featuring the tag #feminismiscancer. Phillips said she subsequently received 600 rape threats.
Benjamin, who is among a trio of social media-based activists who joined Ukip last year, has previously used racially charged language, accusing alt-right critics during one live web interview of “acting like a bunch of niggers”. He added: “You think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another.”
Not free speech activism. Just common or garden shit-talking, bullying, race-baiting, bullying. Not free speech activism and not classical liberalism, either.
Not say Thales of Miletus, Democritus of Abdera, Archimedes of Samos or any number of other more admirable historical figures he might have been told about by someone or have seen pictures of on some TV program. No. He has to liken himself to (pretend he is) Sargon of Akkad. Straight out of play school.
Might as well be Adolf of Munich.
Omar – we know he wouldn’t want to be Hypatia of Alexandria; because that would make him a *gasp choke* woman.
I’m a self-styled Michelin-starred chef, but I doubt anyone is going to pay me hundreds just to cook for them.
I KEEP SAYING IT .
And I keep saying too many people are seduced by this sort of red herring free speech activism .
Every time some toxic troll is taken to account , or ejected off a private platform – which Facebook , for instance , IS – we get the “free speech “ lectures .
Well , look at the tolerance dichotomy. Too much tolerance means intolerance eventually wins .
Likewise, too much freezepeach means fair speech is drowned out .
If the freezepeach cats were prepared to be drowned out by the likes of holocaust deniers and Carl and his mates , then fair enough .
But they’re not , and they probably won’t realise it until the abuse of free speech eventually means no such thing exists , not for the little guy . Abuse they championed as though it was a zero sum game .
And I am a classic liberal , as any fule kno.
Iknklast @#2:
I guess if you want to make believe that you are Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin, you probably don’t even want to imagine yourself being born XX instead of XY.
From what I remember of my introduction to Ancient History, Sargon built an empire in the Fertile Crescent. At a guess, I would say he was a bit of a tyrant and egotist. But Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin quite possibly is just the opposite. It is possible (no, make that ‘probable’) that he was always getting sand kicked in his face at the beach, and retaliated Walter Mitty style: but totally in his own imagination. Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin Mitty possibly (no make that ‘probably’) keeps a harem inside his own head, with hefty Nubian eunuchs standing guard round the walls.
More possibilities and probabilities spring to mind. Maybe Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin by purely an accident of birth is one of those eunuchs himself. Coulda been that the Babylonian (no, make that Iraqi) medico doing a circumcision job on him had been out on a drunken spree the night before and his hands were shaking, and so he messed the job up a bit and cut off a bit more than 2+2=4skin, if you take my meaning.