Liam Neeson

[Donnywolf]

WTF was he thinking of ?
Even if he was telling the complete truth (I assume he would not make it up) - SURELY to god he should have kept that to himself ?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Just think how rabidly right-wing sociopathic you have to be for Piers Morgan to call you out as a rabidly right wing sociopath.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/piers-morgan-compares-liam-neeson-to-ku-klux-klan-after-racist-remarks-a4057491.html%3famp

[RobTheRover]

Good debate on BBC R5 this morning about people turning away from their heroes when subsequent improprieties and/or oddities are revealed.  Michael Jackson, Woody Allen, RKelly,  Roman Polanski, Tom Cruise, and now Qui-Gon Jinn himself all included.

[MachoMadness]

"So Liam, how was it working on your new blockbuster movie?"
"Let me tell you how I almost carried out a racially aggravated murder on a black man..."

Very, very strange. No telling how you'd react in that situation of course, but why would you share this on a press tour for some fluff action thriller?!

[RobTheRover]

"So Liam, how was it working on your new blockbuster movie?"
"Let me tell you how I almost carried out a racially aggravated murder on a black man..."

Very, very strange. No telling how you'd react in that situation of course, but why would you share this on a press tour for some fluff action thriller?!

I'm guessing a bit of macho madness took him over. 

The thing is :

a) is it a load of old bull to perpetuate his hard man of action movies image (he got the taken gig after tracking down Luc Besson in Singapore and telling him he was an amatuer boxer as well as an actor)?
b) if it was, would anyone ever be able to prove/disprove it?
c) Will he ever get work again if/when society is finished judging him?  Alternate viewpoints seem to range from its brave of him to talk about anger and revenge feelings and how it can manifest itself to make people contemplate dark acts, to shoot him now (or at least hit the mute button when Aslan comes onscreen in The Chronicles of Narnia on telly next christmas).
d) Should he be arrested and quizzed over intent to commit racially aggravated murder?

[Glyn_Wigley]

Substitute 'black' for 'Catholic' or 'Protestant' and I think it says more about the circumstances he grew up in in Northern Ireland than any racism. My fear is that things haven't changed enough there despite the last twenty years.

[drfchound]

The thing is, he didn’t commit the attack on a black man did he.
He was only saying how the attack on his friend made him feel.

A few years ago after my house was burgled I found out who had done it and was of a mind to go and sort him out, I even had a friend who was wanting to come with me to do it.

Just because I thought about it doesn’t make me a bad person , does it?

He was done by the police after a mysterious tip off by the way.

[MachoMadness]

"So Liam, how was it working on your new blockbuster movie?"
"Let me tell you how I almost carried out a racially aggravated murder on a black man..."

Very, very strange. No telling how you'd react in that situation of course, but why would you share this on a press tour for some fluff action thriller?!

I'm guessing a bit of macho madness took him over. 

The thing is :

a) is it a load of old bull to perpetuate his hard man of action movies image (he got the taken gig after tracking down Luc Besson in Singapore and telling him he was an amatuer boxer as well as an actor)?
b) if it was, would anyone ever be able to prove/disprove it?
c) Will he ever get work again if/when society is finished judging him?  Alternate viewpoints seem to range from its brave of him to talk about anger and revenge feelings and how it can manifest itself to make people contemplate dark acts, to shoot him now (or at least hit the mute button when Aslan comes onscreen in The Chronicles of Narnia on telly next christmas).
d) Should he be arrested and quizzed over intent to commit racially aggravated murder?

I suspect after the outrage cycle is over he will work again. I don't think he actually would've gone through with it or anything, and I don't think that was the point of his story, either. But, as someone who's worked with the media for decades, he surely must've known what would happen when he started his anecdote about wanting to murder random black people. It's even more bizarre that it's the guy who will forever be known as Oscar Schindler is saying this, too! Having said that, it's not on the level of what even someone like Mel Gibson did, and he's completely rehabilitated now.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound

You're talking about your response to a specific person who had wronged you.
Neeson's response was to an entire racial group. It's a troubling response to say the least.

[idler]

I'm not condoning it for a minute but I think that entire racial group exagerates a bit BST.
I would imagine that in his mind it was a youngish male with attitude that would fit the bill.
Even with the statement that he made or made up you wouldn't expect him to target a female, old or child.
It doesn't excuse his statement but is maybe nearer to his thoughts.

[drfchound]

Hound

You're talking about your response to a specific person who had wronged you.
Neeson's response was to an entire racial group. It's a troubling response to say the least.

Yes, my thoughts too were about burglars in general.

However he didn't do anything did he.

[i_ateallthepies]

Christ on a bike, if we're now to be condemned and reviled for our darkest houghts there won't be many in this world not needing to look over their shoulder.

[drfchound]

Christ on a bike, if we're now to be condemned and reviled for our darkest houghts there won't be many in this world not needing to look over their shoulder.

Echoing my thoughts.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound

You're talking about your response to a specific person who had wronged you.
Neeson's response was to an entire racial group. It's a troubling response to say the least.

Yes, my thoughts too were about burglars in general.

However he didn't do anything did he.

Apologies for misunderstanding but you did say that you were wanting to take out revenge on a specific individual, not on a vague group.

Even if you HAD been wanting to take out revenge on burglars in general, that still doesn't come into the same category as what Neeson said. It's surprising that this needs spelling out: he wanted to take revenge on a random person based on their skin colour because of what one person of that skin colour had done. Don't you see the problem here?

When my house was burgled by a scrote from Denaby, some years ago, the coppers told me who they thought it was but they couldn't catch him because he'd always fenced off the nickings. My first reaction was to chin the bas**rd if I saw him. A couple of weeks later, that lad burgled the house of someone who was a bit more proactive than me, and he ended up in hospital with fractured ribs. I'll confess, I wasn't unhappy with the outcome. But it never once dawned on me to take out revenge on a random kid from a random mining village. Not once.

Neeson is expecting us to have some understanding of him lumping all black men into one group who he thought (however much in passing) were deserving of having retribution visited on them. It's a bizarre response. Psychopathic, to be honest. I'm genuinely surprised that folk don't see how troubling that is.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way. If Neeson is to be believed, he wasn't just THINKING about revenge.

These are his exact words.

"I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be approached by somebody - I'm ashamed to say that - and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [uses air quotes with fingers] 'black bas**rd' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him."

If that's true, he is f**king deranged, a) to have done that and b) to think there was anything but trouble coming his way for saying he'd done it.

I suspect it's a glamourised version of the truth, he was over-egging the whole thing for publicity purposes for his film and it never dawned on him how it would be taken. In which case, he deserves the kicking he's getting for being so flippant with such a tinderbox subject.

Either way, he's a f**king idiot at best.

[MachoMadness]

Missing some of the context there BST. He also went on to say that after thinking about what he was doing, he became deeply ashamed and horrified of his own actions and he admits that what he did was wrong. He was trying to big up his new film which is apparently some sort of revenge thriller by pointing out the horrors people will carry out in the name of revenge, which is at best hopelessly tone-deaf and I'm staggered someone of his experience would say such a thing. However, I don't think he told that story in an attempt to justify what he did - in fact the full interview suggests he was trying to do the opposite, just in a f**king stupid way.

Idiot, yes. Detached from reality, yes. Sociopath, I don't think so.

[nightporter]

It was one hell of a Retirement Speech.

[NickDRFC]

Hound

You're talking about your response to a specific person who had wronged you.
Neeson's response was to an entire racial group. It's a troubling response to say the least.

Yes, my thoughts too were about burglars in general.

However he didn't do anything did he.

If your thoughts were about burglars in general, then the equivalent would be Neeson wanting vengeance on rapists. Which is a far more reasonable and far less disturbing comment than what he actually said.

[drfchound]

Yet again.....he didnt do anything.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes. He did.
Read what he said.

He went out with a cosh in his pocket hoping some "black bas**rd" would give him the excuse to kill them.

That's rather more than sitting at home making fists and saying what you'd do if ...

Fortunately, for Neeson, there's a vanishingly small percentage of "black bas**rds" who jump folk for no reason. That's what saved him from doing life.

[drfchound]

Yes. He did.
Read what he said.

He went out with a cosh in his pocket hoping some "black bas**rd" would give him the excuse to kill them.

That's rather more than sitting at home making fists and saying what you'd do if ...

Fortunately, for Neeson, there's a vanishingly small percentage of "black bas**rds" who jump folk for no reason. That's what saved him from doing life.

Yeah, he went out hoping for something to happen.
Nothing did, so he didnt do anything.



A bit like going out on the pull, hoping for some action but not getting lucky.
So you go home.

[BillyStubbsTears]

So you don't see the difference between being pissed off at a specific criminal and being pissed off by "black bas**rds" in general.

You don't see the difference between being angry over being wronged, and walking the streets with a cosh in your pocket hoping a random black bas**rd will jump you so you can kill him.

I guess we have different outlooks.

[drfchound]

So you don't see the difference between being pissed off at a specific criminal and being pissed off by "black bas**rds" in general.

You don't see the difference between being angry over being wronged, and walking the streets with a cosh in your pocket hoping a random black bas**rd will jump you so you can kill him.

I guess we have different outlooks.

......and maybe you aren’t seeing the difference between him saying he wanted to do something and actually doing something.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Of course I can see that difference.
But that's not what I'm talking about.

It's not a binary issue between being angry at a specific thing and murdering a random person because of their membership of a specific sub-set of humanity who have nowt in common but their ethnic background. There's all sorts of steps in between. Assuming Neeson is telling the truth, he went to the last step but one. That makes it qualitatively different for all sorts of reasons from being angry against the specific man who burgled your house.

Seems odd to have to point that out. I'd have thought it was bleeding obvious.

[Bentley Bullet]

Apparently, Liam Neeson's in trouble again after saying he could murder a Chinese.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wey-hey.
You want to watch it BB. They'll have you for butchering the idea of comedy.

[drfchound]

Of course I can see that difference.
But that's not what I'm talking about.

It's not a binary issue between being angry at a specific thing and murdering a random person because of their membership of a specific sub-set of humanity who have nowt in common but their ethnic background. There's all sorts of steps in between. Assuming Neeson is telling the truth, he went to the last step but one. That makes it qualitatively different for all sorts of reasons from being angry against the specific man who burgled your house.

Seems odd to have to point that out. I'd have thought it was bleeding obvious.

You said it yourself BST, If he was telling the truth!

There will be loads of people who have had dark thoughts but not carried them out.

Neeson hasn’t committed a crime, only (allegedly) thought about doing it.

Obviously he wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time if he did indeed do what he says he did but he also said that he feels ashamed now that he went down that road.

[RobTheRover]

Two words. Criminal intent.

There are tons of people who planned to do stuff but ended up getting busted first currently languishing in jails.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Precisely.

If he'd been thinking of burgling a black bas**rd's house and gone out with a crowbar, he'd have been "going equipped" and would have committed a crime.
I'm no expert on the law but I assume that going out with a weapon with an intent to use it is also a criminal action.

In neither case would he have been committing a crime if he'd say at home punching the arm of the sofa and thinking about doing that.

[rich1471]

The incedeint happened 40 years ago what he was talking about and he also said in his interview they could have been Irish, Chinese or of any race he would have reacted the same way , I'm not saying it's right but he just did not target one race of people.