11-26-2016, 03:02 PM
(11-26-2016, 12:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(11-25-2016, 04:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(11-25-2016, 04:32 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Sounds like the same attitude the brownshirts had.
Giving fascism another chance is as much a blunder as giving convicted serial killer Gary (Green River Killer) Ridgway another chance.
Would you have any problem if the fist were smashing the symbol of the Khmer Rouge or of Iraqi Ba'athism?
Of course I'd have a problem.
Why is it so foreign to some people these days that for free speech to exist, people have to be free to express points of view one disagrees with?
I think that the Germans are little less free because they can no longer say Sieg heil! or Heil Hitler!, put up a Nazi flag, use Nazi symbolism, make the Nazi salute, or deny the Holocaust. Even KKK activities in Germany are on the borderline of tolerance because of the similarities between Nazism and Ku Kluxism.
A hard fist smashing a hammer-and-sickle (you know what I associate that symbol with) would trouble me little. A hard fist smashing a Magen David would be much more problematic.
...I did have to deal with someone accusing me of being a homosexual child molester on the old site. My mother had just died of Parkinsonism, and I had much care-giving responsibility for her. I had to quit a job that I liked (substitute teaching) to take on those responsibilities that simply ground me down. That creep accused me of molesting boys. At the worst possible time in my life, I was accused of odious deeds that would keep me from holding a job that I did well and liked. There's hardly a stronger rush than influencing a child's life for the better. Child sexual abuse, something utterly unthinkable and inexcusable, would make that impossible.
I had no problem with the accusation of homosexuality. Even if it wasn't quite legal where I lived it was tolerated. Homosexuals were busted only if they did something that would be illegal if straight people did it -- especially molesting children. Now that I have a diagnosis of Asperger's, I can now say that I would rather be a homosexual than have Asperger's.
I became sympathetic about gay rights once I was gay-bashed. I saw the problem not that people might think me homosexual (I'm well described as a male lesbian -- men, yuck!) but instead that they think it acceptable to beat and humiliate gays. That did it! I was going to do everything possible to support the entry of gays and lesbians, people who have no more choice of being such than they have of their genetic material, into the mainstream so long as they act honorably. The creep figured that because I thought same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples were OK, I was for child molestation. No, I am on the same side on child molestation with mainstream gays and lesbians -- contemptuous abhorrence to the extent of wanting those perverts sent to prison for very long times.
Eventually he got taken down for such stuff. There are clear limitations to freedom of expression. Criminal speech, libel, slander, false advertising, disclosure of official secrets, child pornography, and in some places hate speech are not protected.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.