token
VIP Member
Posts: 766
Likes: 575
|
Post by token on Nov 1, 2016 7:49:39 GMT 10
A few things to say about this thread. 1. This thread shows 'freedom of speech' hasn't been lost and is quite healthy here haha. 2. Wow! what a digression from the OP into 'religion' and then onto 'in laws' lol. 3. I love freedom of speech so much that i will defend your right to tell me as a Christian that i and my book are both idiots, and to get stuffed if i try to tell you the Gospel of Salvation. I promise i wont try to sue you in court for hurting my feelings, and claiming you 'hate' me, and or wanting you and your family harmed, dead or locked in jail for the rest of your life, for your opinion. There are however plenty of groups that want such of Christians these days though . 4. You folk are aware as to why the Apostle Peter denied Christ 3 times aren't you? Yer he was still very upset with Christ because he healed his mother in law. Mat 8:14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. Mat 8:15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. Joke, joke!
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Nov 1, 2016 10:37:26 GMT 10
Freedom of speech is implied in this country [as found in a supreme court ruling] and yet there's laws against it, an amusing hypocrisy. Whilst I would very much use my right to free speech to argue and retort loonie ideas, actual racism and people who hate groups, I will also stand for people to have the right to say them, mostly because I could very well be wrong. In fact I welcome them, because the more they're exposed, the more debate, the more absurd crazy ideas become and the quicker they die. I don't subscribe to censoring, I find it an excuse to shut up often good argument, this has been essentially the case with the swaths of false allegations, attempts to silence positions, perhaps the most pertinent to my mind is the effect on culture of polices and political ideology has. The often conflated or false claims* such as 'racist' that stifle careful discussion, particularly troubling when strong evidence exists for a worsening of a countries lawlessness and so on.
*happy to have a debate on that in another thread if so desired, here it's merely an example of why it's important to have a conversation both for and against that position.
|
|
blueshoes
Senior Member
Posts: 608
Likes: 698
Location: Regional Dan-istan
|
Post by blueshoes on Nov 1, 2016 10:58:03 GMT 10
If you want to look at facts and numbers, look at muslim countries' rates of internal violence and border fights, vs non muslim countries.
Also culturally, I am told that Arabic as a language [used and learnt almost universally among muslims for religious reasons] actually gives you many more swearwords and a framework to get much angrier than the paltry selection we have in English - I wonder if this is related...?
To get back to the original topic, I have been watching what feels like a slow restriction of freedom of speech too. It gives me some hope that Wikipedia is still somewhat neutral by their insistence on sticking to facts, although I'm not sure how they go with terminology - e.g. using terms that opponents use for groups rather than a groups' own name or terminology.
It bothers me that all of the *aussie* daily or 24-hr-news-cycle news sites are all left wing (except maybe the Australian, which has a variety of both left and right commentators). If the only timely news article covering an event (e.g. a shooting outside a clinic, someone being sued, etc) is written from a left wing perspective, even people who disagree get used to using and reading language which is biased against conservative/right wing perspectives (e.g. "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life" or "gun toting redneck" instead of "licensed gun owner").
When people share right wing posts on Facebook - which, be honest, is where a large proportion of people interact online - they are often censored ("How dare you suggest that the science on ___ isn"t watertight!" *report post*) and this means that those conversations happen less and less. The 'echo chamber' of everyone-thinks-like-me gets worse when posts from non-likeminded people are increasingly blocked/filtered out. It doesn't help that it's a self esteem hit for most people when things they share get shot down and deleted, in a society where most peoples' self esteem is based on what they can do, their career or how their friends react to them rather than a family-based identity.
The lack of conservative media in Australia raises the issue that whoever controls language implicitly affects the conversations you're allowed to have around issues; George Orwell's 1984 discussed this and we talked a lot about it in high school philosophy. If you don't have the language/words to talk about something, you can't really think about it in a concrete way either. As an illustration, there are a couple of languages which only have three numbers - "one", "two" and "many" (more than two). How would you teach maths in such a language!?
|
|