The ongoing erosion of the freedom of speech
Now, I am not homophobic; I have a few friends, several of them very close and dear to me, who are gay or lesbian, and I get along with them just fine. I am writing about this bit, because the freedom of opinion (freedom as a whole) is very near to my heart. I am a strong advocate to it. (Hence, this and my personal blog.)
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My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
It seems that NBA star Tim Hardaway , is wrong in his opinion.
He said (In response to a question concerning 'what if' there was a fellow player who was gay),
"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team...And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."
Now, don't get me wrong, I disagree with Mr. Hardaway's comments.
However, are we to live in a society where we (the people of this society) cannot stand/tolerate opinions that are not "politically correct," and differ from mainstream opinion?
Okay, So he doesn't like gays, so what? It's his opinion, and he has the right to express it. (See: 1st Amendment, Bill of Rights. )
These same people who bash mr. Hardaway for being intolerant, are themselves being intolerant - of mr. Hardaway's opinion/belief.
I can bet you that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States of America, who share his sentiments, albeit most are forced into silence by our societal/national set of "right and wrong."
For years, we as a society have drifted further and further into the grasps of the monster called Political Correctness.
What next, we rid our nation of the freedom of thought, and shackle ourselves to a collective mind? Will we bind ourselves to what is inoffensive?(Said with absolute sarcasm, albeit being serious.) Is there no room for dissention?
Wait, lets not stop there, why not
Again I state the following: Are we to live in a PC "police state," held together by fear of being labelled as hateful, intolerant, etc...?
"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. " ~Rober Louis Stevenson
Personally, I say no, and while I respect all opinions, as Voltaire said:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Time and tide will tell whether we drift towards true, strong freedom of opinion/expression, or an egg shell.
Seed Newsvine
3 comments:
By posting this, are you not being intolerant of the people who disagree with this man's comments? Do these people not have the right to disagree with him, and to vocally declare so? Are we to shackle ourselves to a collective mind which believes we cannot disagree with comments we don't like?
Just something to think about.
Oh, and don't get me wrong. I too think he has the right to say what he wants. But I also think the ones who disagree with him have the right to say what they want too. In protecting freedom of speech, we cannot overcompensate by saying dissent of dissent isn't allowed. ;)
As a final note, care to explain how the hundreds of thousands of Americans who share Tim Hardaway's sentiments are "forced into silence" by our social set of right and wrong?
That point is null and void, as I didn’t express or declare that the people in question shouldn’t have said what they said. You speak of the opposite edge of a double bladed sword my friend.
Yes, they (those who disagreed with his comments) are entitled to their opinion. The point of this is to get people to think first, and spout off later. Discretion is the better part of valor, so to speak.
Example, A racist, openly declares his views, he gets "bashed." An atheist does the same, they get the same treatment, crucified. We all say that people are entitled to their opinion, and have the right to express it.
However, when it comes down to it, when an opinion is expressed, 9 times out of 10, tolerance fails.
We are not a tolerant nation, or a race, no matter how much we want to be, hope to be, or the like.
Besides, that is what i am saying.
That point is null and void, as I didn’t express or declare that the people in question shouldn’t have said what they said.
You implied it with the underlying tone of your article.
Read through it carefully. Notice that through the first half, you only mention Hardaway. You're ranting about something, defending him against something, but it's unclear what. Hey, he has the right to say what he wants — the First Amendment, remember? What are you on about? Whoever said anything different? This doesn't follow. Are you crazy or something? The tone being conveyed is, Hey, if you're gonna say he can't say this, shut up, he can say he doesn't like gay people if he wants, when no one has even said otherwise in the first place.
All of a sudden, out of the blue, you write this:
These same people who bash mr. Hardaway for being intolerant, are themselves being intolerant - of mr. Hardaway's opinion/belief.
Who are "these same people"? There are people bashing Hardaway? You were talking about bashers all along? Your mention of these bashers clinched and strengthened the tone.
After this, however, you continue to rant about how intolerant people can be, while giving no information as to who these bashers are. The fact that you're apparently ranting about theoretical bashers only helped reinforce the implication that people shouldn't have a problem with what Hardaway said. Your article, condensed, is thus: "Hardaway says he doesn't like gay people. Geez, you politically correct bashers are so intolerant." And the second sentence doesn't follow.
If you read the first paragraph in my comment carefully, you will notice that it's an emulation of your article's tone. You say that Hardaway has the right to say he doesn't like gay people. I retorted that people have the right to say they don't like Hardaway's comments. You read in between the lines and interpreted my comment as saying, You have no right to say that dissent of dissent is forbidden. In doing so, you have proven that your article has a similar underlying tone: You politically correct bashers have no right to say that Hardaway shouldn't have said what he said. Even if you didn't explicitly declare that the people who don't like Hardaway's comments shouldn't say so, you did imply it, intentionally or otherwise.
Your point is null and void because of this, and because these theoretical people who don't like Hardaway's comments — of whom you give no example, so it's painfully vague who or what you're even talking about — have not said that Hardaway shouldn't have said what he did either. My point still stands.
In case my comment has an unintended tone to it, I should make this clear: I'm not trying to tell you that you can't say this or that; I'm just attempting to demonstrate to you what your article implied to me, the reader.
But you know, maybe this is all supposed to be a simple, no-purpose rant to get stray feelings and other shit off your chest. Sometimes I feel like doing that too when I think a whole lot about something. It would explain why you're ranting about theoretical bashers. If this is the case, then I've probably only wasted my time on this. Haha.
One last point, on a new tangent:
Yes, they (those who disagreed with his comments) are entitled to their opinion. The point of this is to get people to think first, and spout off later. Discretion is the better part of valor, so to speak.
This is ironic. It doesn't seem like you had thought before you bashed. It seems you impulsively accused these theoretical bashers of being PC and wanting to shackle everyone to a collective mind. You make a straw man fallacy of it all by presenting it as another example of how we've "drifted further into the grasps of the monster called Political Correctness". When someone who is sympathetic to how rough gays have it in the world expresses his views on Hardaway's comments, you bash him as a PC monster. Tolerance fails. A vestige of your conservative upbringing, perhaps?
This is another reason I accused you of being intolerant of people who dislike Hardaway's comments. Because who else but a liberal-hating conservative normally says what you said? Even if you don't mean to come across as a liberal-hating conservative, if you use their rhetoric, you are inevitably and invariably going to sound like one.
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