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Comments
1. You are deulded if you think that this was about getting them to change their views.
2. You are also deluded if you think that their arguments cannot be exposed as weks. Unless, that is, you believe that the majority held view (like ours) has no foundation and is easily challenged.
Clearly you can otherwise no one would hold any views at all.
Whereas I see that as their greatest strength.
You want to choose where and when someone can exercise their right, I say that is censorship.
Indeed he does. But the whole point about free speech is that there should be no place where such rights should be withheld. Certainly not on the basis that it might upset someone else - especially if that person won't even attend the event.
A single denial of the right, at any time in any place, shows that this country does not tolerate opposing views and consequently it citizens do not have the right to free speech. It's a country of censorship.
If your invitation is decline on the basis of what you might say then it is an outrageous attack on free speech. If it denied on the basis that you have nothing of interest to debate then it isn't.
The very debate we are having here is the one which should be taking place at the OU.
However fascism/racism/nazism is a stand-alone case. It is an abomination that should and must not be allowed to contaminate the rest of us. It falls outside society and humanity and should be treated like the malignant tumour it is rather than just another opinion or belief. NOTHING else on earth compares with it. And that is why we can draw a line between fascism/racism/nazism and everything else and ensure the latter still enjoys from full freedom of speech.
It does not need to be a slippery slope if we were to restrict the one ideology which is separate and different to every other belief, and infinitely more harmful and repulsive.
Fascism, Nazism and racism are distinct phenomena in their own right. I'm afraid you've totally let your disgust of bigotry and xenophobia cloud your rational thinking on this one Aladdin.
I could argue equally as vehemently that paedophiles, or child-abusers in general, are the stand-alone case where a perpetrator shouldn't be allowed public forum, but i'd be wrong.
To force people to share a platform with the BNP or to allow them into a students space is itself an infringement of many other people's freedoms.
I think this has been thoroughly refuted earlier. What you're doing is deciding which platform i should be allowed to hear Irving/Griffin speak from - that's censorship and stifling of free speech, and it's wrong.
The notion that you are protecting people's fragile little minds from the big-bad-monster is incredibly patronising, and quite frankly, rather insulting.
Chosing which platform someone is able to espouse their filth is the political equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shout "na-na-na I can't hear you"
Since when was it civilised to deny someone the right to say what they thought - whnever they want to? How is censorship civilised?
Since when has anyone been "forced" to share a platform?
Why isn't it more odious to force people to conform to a certain viewpoint before being allowed a platform?
A very minor loss of total freedom of speech to a bunch of cunts who should count themselves lucky they don't end up hanging from lampposts is far a lesser evil that a society that allows fascists and nazis not only to spout their bile freely but actually to participate in mainstream activities and debate as if they were normal people and part of society.
There is no such thing as a minor loss.
Today it is people who spout racist shite. Tomorrow it's people who are anti-this Govt or anti-Iraq.
Freedom of speech is an absolute.