Freedom of speech and protest

[McLovin]

Huh? I haven't ascribed any beliefs to you at all, merely debating points as you present them. As a point, perhaps you may have ascribed beliefs to me?

How about we just say we got our wires crossed somewhere.

MvLovin the world IS right and left, with a full spectrum in between, AND often with a high degree of overlap. For the record I class myself as more of a classical liberal rather than a conservative, with some concessions to social liberalism. Technically left of center, but I just consider the current iteration of leftism as a poison that will eventually destroy the west.

No the world is not right and left. You've just done a great job of explaining why it's not (I'm not being sarcastic when I say that either). In my experience "right" and "left" are terms used by people who sit at the far ends of the spectrum, and use them as pejoratives to describe those whom they disagree with. Maybe it's my own bias, but I roll my eyes at the mention of the left or the right, as though they are two monolithic groups in which everyone is at home in one or the other.

McLovin, you are entitled to your view.

The SSM activists and their bullying antics have been mentioned before.

Tink, as much as I disagree with you on most everything, I do respect that you play the ball not the man.

It seems to me that anytime someone makes a controversial remark (whatever their political beliefs) the knee jerk reaction is to claim that those who criticise them are called bullies. If Margaret Court wants to step into the bear pit of public opinion, and castigate a group of people, then she's going to need a thicker skin and expect some blow-back. Free speech cuts both ways.

 

[SirRumpole]

No the world is not right and left. You've just done a great job of explaining why it's not (I'm not being sarcastic when I say that either). In my experience "right" and "left" are terms used by people who sit at the far ends of the spectrum, and use them as pejoratives to describe those whom they disagree with. Maybe it's my own bias, but I roll my eyes at the mention of the left or the right, as though they are two monolithic groups in which everyone is at home in one or the other.

Well said. Most voters are smart enough not to fall for the Left/Right tripe, and will vote according to the most noble tradition of all...self interest.

 

[wayneL]

Okay, so we are saying that Corey Bernardi is not right wing, and Sarah Hansen Young is not left wing.

Roger that, George O. would be proud.

 

[McLovin]

Okay, so we are saying that Corey Bernardi is not right wing, and Sarah Hansen Young is not left wing.

Roger that, George O. would be proud.

So the evidence that the world is left and right is Bernardi and Hanson-Young.

Maybe I need to say this again...

In my experience "right" and "left" are terms used by people who sit at the far ends of the spectrum, and use them as pejoratives to describe those whom they disagree with.

I think your George Orwell analogy has long been beaten to death, Wayne.

 

[wayneL]

Orwell is apt.
But for a bit of fun :


 

[McLovin]

Orwell is apt.
But for a bit of fun :


See, I knew you understood.

 

[Tink]

Thanks, McLovin.

imv, we are all voices and a part of our country, and though we may agree or disagree, that is the reality.

 

[pixel]

It seems to me that anytime someone makes a controversial remark (whatever their political beliefs) the knee jerk reaction is to claim that those who criticise them are called bullies. If Margaret Court wants to step into the bear pit of public opinion, and castigate a group of people, then she's going to need a thicker skin and expect some blow-back. Free speech cuts both ways.

... and that, dear reader, is what's wrong with all debating in public:
People with an agenda love to dish it out, claim their own position is the only acceptable truth and everybody who differs is a heathen/ ultra/ leftie/ idiot, ...
And when the other side returns in kind, just with different pejoratives, they cry foul and play the innocent victim card.

There is IMHO only one way to solve the impasse and save $Billions of wasted time, money, and efforts of Courts, Jurisdiction, and supervising Committees:

• Tell people "you're free to speak (and write/ tweet) your mind"
• Tell people "if someone's opinion hurts your feelings, tough titties! Grow a pair, or stop reading/ listening. In other words: Get over it!"
• Only a single Law is required: "Anybody reacting to a perceived 'insult' with physical violence will spend 5 years in jail, preferably sharing a cell with a member of the opposite side of argument."

 

[Tisme]

... and that, dear reader, is what's wrong with all debating in public:
People with an agenda love to dish it out, claim their own position is the only acceptable truth and everybody who differs is a heathen/ ultra/ leftie/ idiot, ...
And when the other side returns in kind, just with different pejoratives, they cry foul and play the innocent victim card.

There is IMHO only one way to solve the impasse and save $Billions of wasted time, money, and efforts of Courts, Jurisdiction, and supervising Committees:

• Tell people "you're free to speak (and write/ tweet) your mind"
• Tell people "if someone's opinion hurts your feelings, tough titties! Grow a pair, or stop reading/ listening. In other words: Get over it!"
• Only a single Law is required: "Anybody reacting to a perceived 'insult' with physical violence will spend 5 years in jail, preferably sharing a cell with a member of the opposite side of argument."

Sticks and stones will break ........

 

[basilio]

Well looks like we don't need to "be nice" any more. Ditch civility, respect, consideration. Just say what we like, when we like, how we like.

And if "they" don't like it - well suck it up princess.

Are you folks serious with this xhit? Is our society going to improve with an open slather approach to deciding that all "xagheads" should be (humanely...) sent ...somewhere else. That "xites" are secretly ruling the world, taking over our businesses ect.
And as for those satanic xoofs. Clearly corrupting our dear little ones and have to equally taken care of..

Verbal abuse is assault. Since when do we accept verbal assaults on individuals and entire communities as righteous. Really ?

 

[orr]

Sticks and stones will break ........

mmmmm.. But whips and chains excite me.

(thanks Parko)

 

[wayneL]

Well looks like we don't need to "be nice" any more. Ditch civility, respect, consideration. Just say what we like, when we like, how we like.

And if "they" don't like it - well suck it up princess.

Are you folks serious with this xhit? Is our society going to improve with an open slather approach to deciding that all "xagheads" should be (humanely...) sent ...somewhere else. That "xites" are secretly ruling the world, taking over our businesses ect.
And as for those satanic xoofs. Clearly corrupting our dear little ones and have to equally taken care of..

Verbal abuse is assault. Since when do we accept verbal assaults on individuals and entire communities as righteous. Really ?

I don't see you being nice to Climate moderates or not communists bas.

Gooses and ganders(sic) etc

 

[basilio]

I don't see you being nice to Climate moderates or not communists bas.

Gooses and ganders(sic) etc

Actually.. I try... and sometimes when I reckon I have gone too far, I have apologised.

Maybe it's worth looking at the substance of what I was saying.
__________________________________________
( Climate moderates....hmnn )

 

[pixel]

Verbal abuse is assault

verbal abuse is only verbal abuse if the addressee accepts it as such.
Over recent decades, our kids have become increasingly sensitive and self-conscious, to the point that it only takes a sidelong glance or a frown to feel offended. Helicopter parents and cottonwool schools are IMHO equally to blame, egged-on, of course, by a fraternity of client-chasing Litigation Lawyers.

In the past, if a kid fell off the swing on a playground and grazed a knee, Mum took out the Dettol and a band aid and said "that'll teach you to be more careful next time."
Today, Mum rushes Little Precious to the ER, and while the nurse slaps a band aid on, Mum calls a Lawyer to find out for how much she can sue the City Council.

If an Italian kid got called "Ding", or a Greek teased as "Wog Boy", they didn't commit suicide, but shrugged it off as Tisme said: "Sticks and stones ..." If the teasing got out of hand, the teacher would call the Bully to order or to the Principal's office.

Discipline, respect, civility, manners - call it what you want - were indelible part of parental role model, school curriculum, and widely accepted. The few bullies that failed to "get it" were not treated as a protected minority, whose fragile little egos deserved the same consideration as everybody else's. They were ostracised. Pitied maybe, and sometimes called to order by well-meaning little old ladies that tried to "reform" them. In the main, however, discussions rarely became heated and personal to the point where self-centered argumentative old fools felt the need to accept verbal insults as assaults.

 

[basilio]

Verbal abuse is assault. Bas
verbal abuse is only verbal abuse if the addressee accepts it as such. Pixel

Are we on the same page here re. verbal abuse ? I can see your argument about helicopter parents and cotton wool schools (maybe..) I just don't get the idea that just abusing someone because they are Muslim, white, gay,beautiful, Jewish, black, retarded, a girl, old, fat, illiterate, whatever is a good look. The conversations in some of these threads seems to have moved to the position that people can only take offence. It sounds as if people are defending their right to say anything to or about another person and if they take offence well that is their problem. I won't buy that. I won't accept it.

The point of a civil society is just that. The underlying ethos is civility. An archaic, brutalised society where casual abuse is accepted is just a xhit place to be in - unless of course one is only on the giving side of abuse, never receives it and is pretty happy with that situation. Is that where we want to go ?

 

[wayneL]

It's a big, wide, fuzzy grey line fellas.

I was a Yank in 1970s Australia as a kid. I got physically beaten up because of it.

The knuckles of a few tossers hurt, names never did.

 

[SirRumpole]

I was a Yank in 1970s Australia as a kid. I got physically beaten up because of it.

Sorry that happened to you.

 

[basilio]

That was pretty ugly Wayne. I have too many uncomfortable memories of the 60's/70's to think we lived in a golden era of tolerance and mateship. Your experience was part of a bigger picture.
_______________________________________________________________________

I can remember schools that used the strap freely and with passion. And that was with primary kids. After our weekly spelling test Sister Borromeo would line up the students who made a mistake and administer a cut for each error. That was Grade 4.
Fights in the school yard that were never broken up by teachers because they just didn't (want to) see them. And you didn't dare complain because
1) Nothing serious happened to the bully
2) You copped it twice over for snitching

xoofs being routinely beaten and sometimes killed - because that's what you did to them. Women routinely sacked when they married. Can't have a married woman taking a mans' job can you ?

Young girls routinely gang raped and being too terrified to go to a police force and justice system that behaved like the teachers in schools who didn't want to see schoolyard fights.

Saturday afternoon VFL football and any aboriginal player was howled at by the crowd and other players for being black.
In 2017 we now realise that thousands of children in schools, churches, orphanages, care institutions were bashed and raped and again, no one ever saw anything. More practically no one wanted to and everyone was determined to keep their good name sacrosanct.

Perhaps the point of progress is recognising behaviour that is ugly, nasty, unfair and deciding to do something effective about it. I suggest that going back to a situation where casual abuse of people is ok is just going back to the bad old days.

 

[pixel]

The point of a civil society is just that. The underlying ethos is civility.

Bas,
that's precisely what I meant to explain. When we started to focus on each individual's fragile ego and feelgood, which is the objective of helicopter parenting and cottonwool schooling, we've also ditched basic courtesy, civil behaviour, and respect for others.
Had those basic rules remained in place, there won't be much verbal abuse to speak of, and what little were occurring would run off the duck's back. If a verbal bully gets back in kind, rather than hearing his victim call for Mummy, he quickly loses interest.

So, growing a thicker skin is easier in a civil society.

 

[pixel]

xoofs being routinely beaten and sometimes killed - because that's what you did to them. Women routinely sacked when they married. Can't have a married woman taking a mans' job can you ?

Bas,
Deprivation of liberty, sexual and physical assault of children as well as unconsenting adults should always have been a crime. And if people in position of authority had been listening to reports of such crimes and acted responsibly in their roles, the society in which you appear to have grown up might also have been a more humane one.

However, the things you describe have little, if anything, to do with freedom of speech. They were a sign of failed education and an uncivilised mob mentality. You can legislate against rape and murder, and every civilised society has done so. If such crimes were not reported and followed up with a conviction, officials turning a blind eye ought to be treated like common criminals and accessories. In spots - e.g. Royal Commission into Child Abuse - that seems to start happening now. Better late than never.