The last thing we need are laws to enforce good manners, however much we value civility.

Thanks for the post SL, is there a list of past topics, I like the one “That this house will not swim the English Channel” are there others like that?

Good on you for giving those unwashed limey sooks a jolly good bitchslapping! Reading about their carry-on, the first thing that popped into my head was how terribly common to become so emotional and irrational. Ask the history students, they will tell you it is very difficult to write a good essay about the war (WW2) in the east, without citing Irving as an authority. Irving is a traditional empiricist realist historian, not a slimey postmodernist. Thus, Irving is very easily tackled with the same methods.

I imagine that those “Independent Jewish Voices supporting Hamas” type organisations would have applauded Irving’s presence on campus.

Your stalker is quiet today and he promised.

Should the Oxford Union be liable to such a degree for the excessive cost of protection from these rioters? It’s ironic that an infamous society such as OU which always tackles contentious issues through open debate and discussion is portrayed in the press as being unconscionable for doing so and thereafter subject to a mob incited by the same press to act in such a ignorant fashion. Control the minds of the mob and increase your sales and/or advertising revenue I guess.

The country must be going to the dogs so everyone is barking mad!!

It is a great pity SL is in pommyland and not here

As for acceptable vs unacceptable speech: yes, of course there is socially acceptable and socially unacceptable speech. There are some moral norms and this is good. For example behaviour of some commenters on Catallaxy would fall into the latter category in any civilised real-life discussion (however on blogs norms are different). The key is that it is none of the government’s business, nothing more.

I don’t see the public policy issue. The world doesn’t owe the OU a living or perfectly provided services (which do not exist - people get robbed all the time). As Boris said, they took a risk, got some publicity and if they really want to, they can sue the protesters to recoup the money. And the fact that they are non-profit or a community organisation is neither here nor there.