Chap wrote:Fortigurn wrote:These people are enabled to continue their disinformation campaign by virtue of the various freedoms the political body grants them. If they're granted these freedoms of course they're going to use them. And given the way democracy works, they'll get plenty of political support from snivelling politicians who are grubbing for votes. I see this as the real problem. If these people were politically disenfranchised, they could rant and rave all they wanted like any one else on a soapbox in a park, but they wouldn't get anywhere.
Unfortunately they live in a country which enshrines inalienably their right to make life difficult for other people, who then complain that they are doing so.
Do I sense irony here?
None intended, that's for sure.
Come on - people can exercise their freedoms to propagandize for their point of view, even if a lot of us think their propaganda is misleading.
Why should they be permitted to propagandize in areas for which they have no responsibility?
I am prepared to put up with this, because:
(a) I get the freedom to put my point of view forward too, and to point out how and why my opponents' propaganda is misleading.
There's a difference between soapboxing in the park or handing out leaflets, and attempting to subvert educational curriculum materials. The former can be excused as exercising your right to speech, the latter is social conditioning, censorship, and in this case the completely unqualified attempting to brainwash the extremely vulnerable.
(b) The lesson of history is that attempts to limit the expression of points of view to those that are judged "reasonable" or "well-based" mostly leads to a worse situation than letting all the crazies and dumbasses just have their crazy dumbass say, and leaving it to politicians to bear the responsibility of whose votes they want to go out there and get.
This is not about limiting the expression of points of view to those that are judged 'reasonable' or 'well-based'. It's about the spheres in which people should be permitted to propagandize. Chanting 'Hare, Hare, Hare Krishna' in the street and wandering around with a bell is one thing. Demanding that educational curriculum material teaches 'Krishna Consciousness' as
fact is quite another.
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