Well said. John
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:39:59 +0100, Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree with Aaron on this. > > I'd go a bit further. If you believe in free speech you must defend > the right of people who are saying things you really don't want to > hear, and which may well be crackpot, offensive or plain stupid. For > one thing, it gets these people out into the open so you know who they > are, and who/what you might have to defend yourself against. > Subjecting our own opinions and ideas to attack means we strengthen > those that are of value, and discard those that aren't. This has been > one of the most powerful weapons in the triumph of democracy - it > grows stronger because it welcomes scrutiny and critical examination. > Compare this to totalitarian and theocratic regimes. > > Another aspect of free speech, which people often don't consider, is > our right to hear things and judge them for ourselves, and not to have > some nanny state or self-proclaimed authority decide what is and is > not good for our ears. We are adults, so we have the right to listen > to this sort of guff if we want to, and the right to believe it, or to > ignore it, or to mock it as we see fit. > > Defending free speech for others is how we defend free thinking for > ourselves. > > -- > Cheers, > Bob > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On >> Behalf Of Aaron Reynolds >> >> That's part of why it's so important to let people talk about this >> stuff -- you get specifics that you can examine and attempt >> to counter. >> > > > -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
