dear NST: denying the right to free speech to whom?!
Oh, man, the conclusions drawn are priceless: if you should not say X, the right to say X, Y and Z should be denied to you. Did you get that part? I’m referring to the NST article “Up to no good” over here. Basically if you “peddle racial and religious prejudice”, said peddler should be denied the right to free speech. I’m not even paraphrasing, it’s all there:
Indeed, there is a strong case not to extend the right of free speech to those who peddle racial and religious hatred.
Note: we could all say that we’ve got to look at the context of the statement made, that is with regard the right of inciters of religious and racial prejudice to incite religious and racial prejudice with their posts. Let’s just savour the distinction for a while, shall we? And then when we’re done, let’s savour the quoted bit up there. Scared yet? No?
Well, what can I say…if I hate Gnostics and rail against them, I should be denied the right to free speech completely. I should be silenced, no matter the content or quality of what else I might say.
And this follows from an earlier bit here:
Since the bloggers appear to have reason to believe that “good man” was up to no good with his provocative remarks, they have every right to take issue not only with what “good man” said but also with the right to say it.
From castigating “good man” for his words, we move suddenly to the proposal to actively deny “good man” his right to say inciteful things. This in itself is unwarranted: there are laws to deal with “good man’s” outburts. Sue him, imprison him or castigate him according to the strictures of the content code, etc.
But denying him his right to say inciteful things is only one unwarranted step to the next unwarranted step brought to its logical conclusion: if I should deny A the right to speak about race / religion in an inciteful manner, by the same logic, I should deny A the right to speak about anything since “good man” is now nothing more than a one-dimensional racist or religious inciter.
:) what a ‘brave, new world’ in which we live, ya?
