One can agree with most of what you say or contend?

Free speech nonetheless will only remain free if it includes a right to offend! Arguably the truth will invariably offend the bigoted or religious fanatics/flat earthers!?

I mean saying boo for sixpence, in some circumstances, could get your throat cut!

I very nearly had an eye taken out for cracking a harmless joke with a foreigner, who I once worked with, and was determined to be offended by anything English!

Thank God I'm a triple distilled Celt, (Irish Scot) I told him!

He found that extremely funny?

Moreover, one notes some are offended beyond belief, by a schoolgirl standing up for her right to an education; and just as an exercise in free speech, for which she paid for with a bullet to the brain!

The fact she survived proof positive of divine approval of her stated, but badly misrepresented female rights!

And only by those malcontent miscreants (Imran's constituents) who would withhold them, and by murdering/silencing innocents/spilling endless innocent blood!

Well if you can't bowl them out, and they refuse to retire, Imran!?
Rhrosty.

When it comes to the topic of 'Free speech', I wholeheartedly agree with what I heard Salmon Rushdie say the other night on TV, can't recall the progam's name at the moment. However I was taken by what he said about the concept of 'Free speech'..

"If you believe in free speech, then you believe in free speech that YOU DON'T LIKE"

Then he went on to say words to this effect (can't recall what he said exactly word for word) but he was implying.

'One can't expect the whole world to form to one's personal moral framework'

Sums up my own beliefs on this topic, only that Salmon said it so well, as he usually can...

Freedom of speech is under threat in Australia, and not just from the Left.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott does not really believe in freedom of speech - evidenced by his cowardly backdown on the PROMISE to remove Section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act.

There must be no resctriction on free speech if it is to mean anything at all.

I must be a able to say what I like about anyone or anything. Others must be able to disagree with me and say what they wish to say.

Freedom of speech should not be conditional, and it certainly is not the place of elected politicians to decide who can say what.

Increasingly authoritarian Australian politicians of all persuasions are slowly but surely inching towards controlling and restricting freedom of speech to suit their identity politics and their personal electoral needs. They arrogantly say that they have to protect certain people, denying that those certain people have the same ability to speak out (putting them down, actually) and debate, thereby eventually reaching the truth, which is the whole idea of freedom of speech.

Many Australian politicians no longer respond to written questions to them, or communications criticising them. This is not merely discourtesy (which it is, and we pay the legions of staff they have to handle such correspondence): it is a way of telling us that what we believe is not important to them They are not listening.

Dear Phanto,

Thinkabit just took some of the words out of my mouth.
(Thanks, Thinkabit!)

Anyone who is serious and intelligent uses logic over facts, but facts do not tell us how to live: first we have values, then we apply logic over facts in order to forward our values.

Facts are found in nature, values are not.

Even if we had no disagreements whatsoever about facts and made no logical errors, still we will arrive at different conclusions because our values are different.

You then seem to complain about your difficulties in making a society out of people with different values, why others refuse to cooperate with what for you seems obvious - perhaps you tried to swallow a bone too large?

"perhaps you tried to swallow a bone too large?"

That is a rather arrogant thing to say. It is obviously not too large for you so why would it be too large for me unless you considered yourself more capable than me.

Having persecuted blasphemers and other dissidents for a millennium when it had the upper hand, Christianity now discovers freedom of speech! Better late than never, and I trust it includes art and Charlie Hebdo.