bob turner wrote:
I agree - the "Roy" posts are way, way, way off base. But the cure for odious ideas is more speech, not censorship.
Sorry, the cure for odious ideas does not include blind tolerance of unbridled hate unleashed in flecks of spittle. Free speech does come with standards of behaviour defined by the owner of the venue (I'd properly throw a person out of my house), by the standards of behaviour established by ones peers in that venue ("pub rule"), and by rule of law, a huge body of law in America that establishes consequence for some forms of expression such as threat, libel, harrassment &c.
A Nazi can parade on the town square, but you can throw him off your lawn. A person can be thrown out a pub or a gents club or a library for disruptive behaviour. Harrass your ex and see if you don't get served a restraint. All are cases of socially established limits to unbridled "freedom of speech" civilisation accepts, embraces, and indeed defines.
As with all freedoms, with freedom of speech comes responsibility for how one exercises that freedom.
So, next will be that old internet troll's defence, "If you don't like what I say, don't read it." It's about time we call that one bollocks, too, as civilised people with just as much right to the internet. By the same logic, you slap your wife in public am I supposed to look the other way? Nope, done with that nonsensical argument, too, and the more civilised people who speak against it and take back the internet venue, the more it will become "social" media. The only other option is for the civilised to depart en masse and leave the venue in the ditch where it currently resides rather than accept life in the ditch is the new standard of social development.
A (Excuse me?) hobby forum I wouldn't want a sentient kid to read?
No, the cure for odious ideas is intelligent discourse amongst open minds and the courage to stand against those odious ideas.
A wise man also must accept that, by taking that stand, he might well be taking a Quixotic position, and indeed I must accept that. I'm waiting to see whether the owner will exercise his rights in the first case and toss him off the lawn. I fear by the excuses or silence proffered on the subject (the exception being Roger) that this behaviour does not violate the social norms of his peers (the pub case), and I don't want to be associated with this should it go just that little tiny bit further into the realm of legal "interest".
I'm tempted to mention how in recent history mass silence allowed more than one evil to arise to power, enslave and ensnare an otherwise civilised people, and proceed with the extermination of a select group within merely on the basis of the ideas that group held, the very thing the poster in question espouses.
So, I've made my stand, tilted my windmill, and discover there really are no allies. That said, hate has won a little victory again and I'm off.
Sadly, I'm not the first.
