Nuance is dead.

That's it. You can go.

I'm joking.

I occasionally post on a forum. I'll say something innocuous like; "I quite like apples..." When I check back, some pedant will have asked what it is I have against oranges, or why I like to bully bananas. Then someone else will demand, "what's this fiend saying against fruit salads?" All of a sudden I'm a fruit-hating devil with vegetarians in my crosshairs. All I said was I didn't like apples.

(I know, as internet forums go - it sounds dull, it was an example. Also, I like apples, although not the eating of them by other people in my presence. But I digress...)

If in life, we had to add all sorts of random caveats to the things we say in order to let people know whether or not they should be offended, (because their default setting is very much switched to 'potentially always offended'), life will be very awkward.

And so it is with the Hate Crime Bill.

Normally I take my legal lead from @peatworrier, but I don't hang on his every word, so I'm not sure where he is with the Hate Crime Bill.

However, Roddy Dunlop is a QC, and PeatWorrier retweeted him. As we know, (ever since nuance died on it's arse), when you retweet someone, you align yourself absolutely with everything they've said, are saying, or will ever say - however heinous (or suited to the agenda of who you happen to be arguing with), until the heat death of the universe.

TL/DR version? I feel compelled to agree with Roddy Dunlop because PeatWorrer retweeted him, but I don't.

The issue with the Hate Crime Bill, to me anyway, is that it's deployment is dependent on the highly subjective existence of offence. Offence is a capricious thing, it cannot be made real in the black and white text of an act. Some people find it far too easily, and for reasons which have nothing to do with their delicate sensibilities.

I think Roddy Dunlop QC is looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope. It doesn't matter how well written, or what its intent is. What counts is what it will actually do. It seems to me, what that might be, is to empower pressure groups who can't get what they want with related, reasonable arguments, but might get it with the silencing of reasoned arguments against, and the threat of legal action off the back of faux offence.

You might think this wouldn't be allowed to happen - we have a Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service who will see that it doesn't do we not? Hmmm, I don't buy that either. There are all sorts of very serious problems that require another blog entirely, probably from someone like PeatWorrier, instead of me.

The thing about nuance is, it forces us to ask awkward, difficult questions - the answers to which, we may not like. (Seeing Jackie Baillie - an MSP I did not rate highly at all - ask awkward but intelligent questions of someone I rated far more highly, made me squirm). But it has to be done, because bone-headed stupidity only ever works in Hollywood films, not in the Holyrood Parliament.

We know this already, we learned it by the toll of a hundred thousand newspaper headlines about how shit Scottish independence would be. We even managed to get our heads round the nuance, we understood why they were shit. Now though, we reject the sources who opened our eyes, and angrily reject their information when they dare to present it.

When did we get so comfy yet so frit?

The irony is, we don't counter it with related, reasonable arguments, we seek to mute it with sometimes hysterical, faux offence, and we must assume eventually, the threat of legal action and gaol. At what point did it become acceptable to use Scotland's justice system as a tool to avoid debate and dispose of those who might oppose your position?

Wait now, you don't need to answer that.

Since offence is 100% subjective, all of us will end up treading on egg shells. All of us except those who control the prosecutions.

#Twatgate. Andrew Tickell (PeatWorrier's) finest moment. One hopes there is a statute of limitation on offence.