The Real PapaBear

It would be very unfair and unsporting to change the rules at the last minute and would make a mockery of the entire competition. On the other hand, it's my only hope of climbing the table. I say we change the rules at the last minute.

Side tracked? It's central to your argument. I think we're all agreed that the N word is entirely unacceptable for us to use. And yet, we'll happily listen to rap music by black artists where every second word seems to be the N word. If white artists outside the rap scene (and 90% within it) used it, the roof fall in on them. Maybe you should write to 50 Cent and let him know that it's unacceptbale for him to use the term

You seem to be doing a fine job of inventing stuff for me to say and then cleverly disproving the stuff you've just invented. I'll let you get on with it.

You mean like the word n*gger is an acceptable word for black people to use but not white people?

To answer your three points, whilst ignoring your childish jibe: 1. As a derogatory term for Rangers and the fans, it's always been 'acceptable' however unpleasant. 2. If you say so. I have never heard it used in that way. 3. No, because anyone calling a Hearts fan a hun is using the word as a sectarian insult. Do you now begin to see the complexity of this? The easiest solution is the one reached by the SNP, a blanket ban on them all but to pretend that both terms were historically always as bad as each other is either ignorance or hypocricy.

See, if you hadn't put that first part in, I'd be agreeing with most of what you write. Outside of academic studies of Irish history I have never, and I mean never, heard the F word used in a non-sectarian context. Hun, as you say, covers the range from familial footballing contempt to naked sectarian bigotry and its use is much more difficult to identify as being sectarian at any given time. I do suspect, however, that had sectarianism been O'Hara's motivation, he would have joined the Labour party (remember them?) rather than the SNP Whether it harms the SNPs reputation outside of the Rangers bubble is open to debate after last night's astonishing result.

The problem here is not hypocricy on my part, but rather willful ignorance and false outrage on yours - and by *you* I mean everyone who spouts this nonsense about the H & F words being equivalent. The F word was always a term of religious and cultural abuse. The H word was not and has only recently become unacceptable. Barca's dog-with-a-bone harping on about the legislation is utterly irrelevant since the use of Hun did not have religious or cultural conotations in the vast majority of instances it was used. To pretend that it did is just self-delusion. When any one of you can explain how my Jambo son-in-law (Protestant), Motherwell business partner (protestant) or a variety of friends and relatives of both persuasions and many teams can call me a Hun in a way that is sectarian, I'll re-visit the subject.

You're suggesting that sectarianism only started in 2011? and that a word has to be enshrined in statute? Really?

This for me is the decisive factor. No team has ever been faced with such defensive tactics so often and yet time after time he beats them. For me it's 1. Messi 2. Zidane 3. Maradona

very good decision and statement. Gets it right up the suits but stays on the right side of the law. i'm starting to think the guys in charge know what they are doing

He was secretely filmed standing among a group of players, with Neil Mcann immediately over his right shoulder, singing "up to our knees in f!!nian blood" - that's why he had to go. There is nothing wrong with singing The Sash and if you seriously think fe!!nian was "just another insult", then we must have grown up in very different places.

Findlay resigned, or was forced to resign, because the use of the F word was never acceptable and was always sectarian - unlike the word Hun which has only become so recently. Nothing retrospective here.

I don't have the time or inclination to play stupid games; make your point or get off the potty.

Rubbish from start to finish. The SNP refused to accept that the use in this instance at that time was intended in a sectarian manner. Since the law was passed banning the word - a law passed by the SNP, by the way - things have changed and everybody knows that the use of the word today is unacceptable. Show me one instance of an SNP officual using the word Hun since 2011.

Now, *that* is a very good and well made point.

Stop being ridiculous and get to the point.

oh, but I am reading them properly. Once again, it's yourself who seems to be confused; this time between 'punishment' and 'prosecution'. My original sentence : "If not, why should O'Hara be punished for his comments which, while stupid, were legal?" Your quote : "However I dont think anyone is seriously expecting O'Hara to be prosecuted -" People, yourself included, have been calling for the SNP to punish O'hara by expelling or suspending him - although failing to make a case for retrospective punishment. Of course no one in their right minds is calling for him to be prosecuted, and I never suggested they were - which is why I have used the term 'punishment' and not 'prosecution'.

The principle presumably being that you can be punished retrospectively if the law changes?

no because, for the 100th time, what he said was not an offense when he said it. Others have dodged the question, so I'll try my luck with you. Should you be criminalised for drink driving because you have driven with an alcohol blood level higher than that which was intoduced a couple of months ago? If not, why should O'Hara be punished for his comments which, while stupid, were legal?

Never takes you very long to resort to personal insults, does it? What you have posted is a review document of the workings of some legislation. The document has nothing whatsoever to do with O'Hara nor with the instance of the character who was charged for religiously aggravated breach of the peace. You claim that he was charged with religious agrravation simply for wearing a t-shirt with the word Hun on it. Utter nonsense, of course. Find out what the charge actually was and what he was actually charged with doing and saying, then get back to me.

What you've posted is of no relevance to this case.

this took place a year after O'hara used the term. The laws covering what would now be an offence were not in place at the time and to compare the actions of a Timmy ned out actively looking for trouble with a twitter post is weak. O'hara wasn't prosecuted because he committed no offense: How hard is that to grasp?

post 52, point 4.

post 52, point 4. Look guys, there's half a dozen of you. Do me a favour and read my replies to the others - it'll save me repeating the same stuff again and again. Scotland is just about the most inclusive society on the face of the planet and citing a couple of eejits on twitter as some sort of proof that it isn't , is just ridiculous.

Only if you fail to read it properly.