RELIGION KILLS
Free Speech has been under assault by both Liberals and Conservatives in recent decades. There was a time when Liberals actively supported freedom of expression because they understood it was THE primary freedom from which all other freedoms flowed. The early figures from my own country’s history protected speech with the FIRST Amendment to the Constitution because they knew all too well that ideas that are considered taboo and offensive today might be considered essential truths by future generations.
The repulsive 1960s generation of American Liberals were all about Free Speech when THEIR ideas were the ones offending people. Once they considered themselves to be comfortably in the cultural, educational and political driver’s seat by the early 1990s they decided they wanted their own already outdated worldview enshrined in stone and presented as THE one true set of values.
They became the Political Correctness Police and anyone who offended their 1960s attitudes had to be silenced because – as they knew so well from their own experience – when controversial ideas are given the room to breathe they can often thrive. The totalitarian asses of the 1960s can’t bear the fact that younger people might have opinions that offend THEM as much as their opinions offended their parents’ generation.
SPIKED-Online.com is launching a FREE SPEECH NOW campaign in recognition of the fact that, all around the world similar assaults on Freedom of Expression are being made. If Muslims are offended they want the offensive material banned, if authoritarian regimes like the one in China are offended they want the offensive material banned, and on and on it goes. Considering that the more easily offended someone is the less intelligent they tend to be I find it amazing that Politically Correct censorship has thrived the way it has.
SPIKED-Online.com’s opening post in this campaign even quotes Spinoza’s wonderful line “Every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.” That still rings true because no matter what the hypersensitive fools who want to censor the rest of us find offensive NONE of them has the right to try to extinguish one single product of the human mind.
Here at Balladeer’s Blog I deal with these issues on a daily basis. Just about everything I write offends either left-wing fanatics or right-wing fanatics or religious fanatics. So, in the spirit of freedom of expression no matter whose delicate little sensibilities are offended (including – GASP – African- Americans) I will link to Spiked-Online.com’s post and would certainly encourage anyone else who creates in any way to join me in doing so. Tell the powers that be – no matter what their skin color or their blood-soaked religion – that you will NOT let them dictate to you what ideas and opinions you are free to express. CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE AT SPIKED – http://www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_article/let-everyone-think-what-he-likes-and-say-what-he-thinks#.Uz8mu4JghtT
Balladeer's Blog 