Droopy wrote:The first instance is in a very gray and dangerous area in a free, democratic society (forcing one to hire, work with - associate with - someone one does not like, for any reason, is walking a very thin and indistinct line, as to fundamental unalienable rights. It sounds really good, until the devil hiding in the details is scrutinized at a deeper level.
Inalienable rights for whom? So you think every employer should be able to say "only pretty women need apply. Old bags not wanted"? Or, "Darkies need not apply"?
You don't get it, do you?
Droopy wrote:The second example, a website that hurls insults and ad hominem attacks at my religion, is the province of a police state, at which point we part company
severely. A morally and politically legitimate government has no business protecting you from insults, abuse, or even what you may consider slander, if such claims are sincerely believed by the one hurling the attacks to be true. The bar for slander and liable are so high here precisely because the area in which slander and liable intersect personal opinion is so fuzzy. In your ideal society, anyone who upsets you emotionally can be sanctioned and punished by the force of the state.
No, that's very silly exaggeration, and it's not how the law works. I think I'll start a website on Droopy, reveal his real name, publish his banking details, where he lives, where he buys his grog, and as much as I can about his personal life. None of this need be true, however, as long as the public believes it.
You okay with that? Even when someone rocks your house? Or bullies your kids?
Droopy wrote:If they feel? Sorry, but I prefer America, where we can still vilify and lie about each other's religion on messege boards and in public debates without fearing civil or criminal prosecution for expressing our opinions (how on earth would you prove that I "lied' if I claimed that Mormons were "wife stealers" if I don't believe that I'm lying but that I'm telling the truth; that is, that I'm expressing my opinion. My opinion may be stupid, bigoted, and ridiculous, but to lie one must know one is lying, and to liable or slander, one must know one is maliciously claiming things he knows not to be true, or at least potentially not true. The point is, how do you tell the expression of an opinion, no matter how flagrantly obnoxious or wrong, from a willful attempt to defame?
See above. It's not too difficult to tell, most of the time. When someone pigeonholes a whole religion as terrorists or potential terrorists, Blind Freddy can see it's vilification. But some people still believe it, and it incites unwarranted prejudice.
Droopy wrote:Then Australia is dabbling with the features of a police state and those doing the dabbling have no respect for the concept of free speech. The answer to such speech, is still, at the end of the day, more free speech. Muslims who feel the need to be protected by the national nanny from such claims have no inherent right to complain at all. Let Muslim clerics and spokesmen defend themselves in the marketplace of ideas, but let's keep the cultural commissars and self anointed arbiters of cultural rectitude out of the proceedings. Those commissars are there to pick cultural winners and losers using the naked power of the state. I'll say it again those who are willing to transfer control of and responsibility for their speech from themselves and the open marketplace of ideas to the police powers of the political class and the judiciary deserve what they shall in time receive.
So you have no problem with a minority being abused by the majority? Are you aware that Muslim women in Australia have been spat on? To be fair, Australian women have also been called "whores" by some Muslim men.
And Droopy is fine with all of this, in the name of "free speech". It is ideas, thoughts, prejudices, often falsely implanted, that make people do these things. But Droopy is fine with Australian women being called "whores", and Muslim women being spat on, and "fags" being beaten up, all because of false stereotypes.
Way to go.
Droopy wrote:You are a totalitarian Ray; a little despot without any real power yourself, but cheering on those who do have it and wield it in your name in silencing dissent and criticism of aspects of your society which you support and accept. You believe in free speech for all, but then, it turns out that some speech is more free than other speech, and some members of Australian society are more equal than others (and in any case, the protection of Muslims there is, like that here, in Canada, and much of Western Europe, nothing but incipient western dhimmitude - the intellectual and moral disarmament of much of the western intelligentsia by the doctrine of multiculturalism, and its born of cultural self doubt and fear, not moral or cultural enlightenment).
Maybe you should start asking why other countries are going the same way as Australia. Maybe you're fine with Muslims being discriminated against, lied about, and subject to employment discrimination, in which they effectively become aliens in a so-called "democratic society", which is supposed to protect the Rights of
all. But you only want rights for yourself, without considering that others less powerful than
white males like yourself also need rights and protection from bullies like you.
Droopy wrote:The road to serfdom is a road, and it takes time. Its the very slow, incremental nature of the process that makes it so insidious.
It's not happening. Oh, voting is also compulsory in Australia. No vote, and you'll be fined. No doubt that's the nail in the coffin, as far as Droopy is concerned.
But we manage. I've voted both conservative and "liberal", but I think what we call conservative here you'd call "left wing". Compulsory contrbutions to universal health care is another sign that we are "Marxist", even though Hilary Clinton came here to make a serious study of the health care system, to see what could be improved in - America. I don't pay to go to a doctor, and I don't have to pay to have a hospital bed.
Communist Australia, Arise! :)