Aristotle on political correctness
25 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: Aristotle, political correctness
A word to left-wing students – Pat Condell
22 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: Pat Condell, political correctness, UK politics
Choosing to be offended – Pat Condell
21 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, economics of religion, liberalism Tags: Pat Condell, political correctness
George Orwell on free speech
08 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
#truth http://t.co/9Oe6dqFXOP—
Learn Liberty (@LearnLiberty) December 05, 2014
Reason for UKIP’s success?
23 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
Britain is a world leader in exporting creeps » Nick Cohen
05 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, politics Tags: Jihadist, Nick Cohen, political correctness
The British recruits who have joined Isis are not exceptions. They flourish in a culture in which it is so commonplace to offer support to authoritarian regimes and movements that few bother to condemn it.
Free speech ought to mean the freedom to challenge and criticise in all except the most tightly defined circumstances. Instead in Britain tolerance has become indifference; a lazy desire to live in our comfortable bubbles.
The dominant culture views vigorous criticism as rude or insensitive – or, to use that popular and completely meaningless school-prefect putdown, “inappropriate.” More often that not, criticism is taken down and used as evidence of the critic’s failings, his or her obsessions and phobias.
We cannot be bothered to challenge fanatics. We say we don’t want to ‘force our views on others’ – as if argument were physical coercion. And if those others leave England to enslave Kurdish women, or applaud kleptomaniac dictators, we are not responsible. We never concerned ourselves with their affairs, nor argued with them for a moment.
Many poisonous plants have bloomed in this dank climate.
via Britain is a world leader in exporting creeps » Spectator Blogs.
Celebrating diversity – Pat Condell
02 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: Pat Condell, political correctness, The Age of Enlightenment
There’s no racist like a liberal racist – Pat Condell
01 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: Leftover Left, Pat Condell, political correctness, progressives
![Some people's idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage. - Winston Churchill](https://i0.wp.com/izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-some-people-s-idea-of-free-speech-is-that-they-are-free-to-say-what-they-like-but-if-anyone-says-winston-churchill-326376.jpg)
Hate speech is still speech, and much of hate speech is the gauche expression of everyday ideas
12 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, law and economics, liberalism Tags: free speech, hate speech, political correctness, trigger warning
A lot of polite political conversation is, on close inspection, hate speech but expressed with the manners your mother taught you. Well-brought up children can get their ideas across with just as much bite as the uncouth without going potty mouthed.
Now let’s think of religion: leaving to one side the hateful things religions say about each other, according to them religious types, we non-believers are supposed to burn in the Devil’s own private furnace. As I recall, Baptists believe that the Pope is the Antichrist and the mass is idolatry.
In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. the blogosphere forms into information cocoons and echo chambers. People can avoid the news and opinions they don’t want to hear.
The politically correct are often among the most uncouth. Some of the worst things said about Sarah Palin in 2008 cannot be repeated on a blog hoping to be safe to view at work.
Marxist ideologies even worse: it should have a trigger warning over the entire field because of a hurtful things it says about capitalists and their motivation.
Scorn, ridicule and satire is as welcome as a bee sting and is always controversial to some and continuously goes beyond the bounds of good taste and conventional manners. Scorn, ridicule and satire often shock people into reconsidering their world view.
In a court case about a particularly vile cartoon in Hustler about Jerry Falwell, the United States Supreme Court said:
Debate on public issues will not be uninhibited if the speaker must run the risk that it will be proved in court that he spoke out of hatred; even if he did speak out of hatred, utterances honestly believed contribute to the free interchange of ideas and the ascertainment of truth…
The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on exploitation of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events – an exploitation often calculated to injure the feelings of the subject of the portrayal.
A good example of using shock value to make a point is the Ohio strip club that held a topless counter-protest outside a church they were attempting to shut down.
The target of their counter-protest was a church that spent the last nine years protesting outside their club seeking to shut it down. You must admire both side’s determination.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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