Comments on: Free speech, T-shirts, Cartoons, and Everything

By: quixote

quixote — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:33:25 +0000

Mustafa, I’ve been out of town. Otherwise I’d have responded sooner.

I sympathize (a lot!) with your sense that you shouldn’t be faced with offensive expressions. That’s part of the whole point of the post. But my solution is different: I think we should all be given adequate warning of what’s “below the fold” so we can avoid it if we want.

I think I did that in the post. What’s coming up is supposed to be clear, and if one doesn’t want to see it, one skips it.

The solution you’re suggestion — to remove it — is exactly what I’m arguing leads to logical absurdity. If I can’t express anything others find offensive, then they can’t express anything I find offensive. And if I were to find everything they say offensive (just for instance…), then nobody could say anything. I don’t see that as a solution.

By: mustafa

mustafa — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:45:08 +0000

freedom of speech sometimes harms others and we are not free to harm others at all. if i went out to the road rotating a stick that harms others, am I free to do so? do any one accept this? the speech is a tool as well as the stick. Islam prohibited harming others with speech; Muaaz said to prophet Mohammed: are we accountable with what we’re saying? prophet Muhammed said: woe unto you Muaaz, is other thing capsizes people in the fire on their faces but what their tongues gained?

It is prohibited in Islam to show or make images for the prophet Muhammed.. if you could understand my talking please omit this image from this page..

By: Bill me

Bill me — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:02:03 +0000

It’s free speech so say what you want, but most of what you’re saying here is garbage. You state opinions like they are facts. You condemn others for the very thing you are doing.
And it’s free speech. So I’m not paying dime for you to spout off your drivel.

By: eliza garner

eliza garner — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:52:38 +0000

it’s great to live in a country where I’m free to be me and so is are you

By: Acid Test » Free speech, blogging, and trolls

Acid Test » Free speech, blogging, and trolls — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:50:06 +0000

[...] Freedom of speech necessarily includes the freedom to be heard. (I’ve carried on about this before.) That’s why apartheid-era South Africa’s banning laws were a suppression of free speech. Talking to yourself in a room by yourself is meaningless. But an excess of noise works just as well as isolation to drown a message. The great danger to free speech now is not silence. The danger is that by not censoring noise, we’re going to lose the signal that freedom of speech was intended to preserve. [...]