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The Forum > Article Comments > Standing up against Nannies > Comments

Standing up against Nannies : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 10/3/2017

I can't say that I am an authority on Wicked camper vans, but I haven't seen any homophobic ones, or violent ones, or racist ones, or misogynist ones.

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I think people yearn for laws against everything because they don't have the moral fibre to deal with the nasties themselves. They have become too reliant on Big Brother to do everything for them.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 10 March 2017 8:24:15 AM
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The fact you a supposedly educated "Gentleman" is not offended by this entirely unnecessary offensive (I hate women) garbage, tells us more about you than the intellectual level of the moronic writer of juvenile toilet door crap, befitting an antisocial R sole, with an IQ roughly equal to the current ambient temperature!

This is not what passes for normal or reasonable in civil society. I was brought up in very poor circumstances with none the advantages enjoyed by you, yet, no matter how poor of depressing those circumstances became, I was raised to believe common courtesy and civility costs nothing!

Wicked van is just a billboard for borderline obscenity, and entirely bereft of any trace of humour.

I think the only way to stop this offensive crap, is if everyone with a still functioning cerebral cortex, rents their combi van from someone or anyone else! And the best response to visual garbage on wheels!

Unless you are likeminded and agree in your heart, with the ratbag sentiments expressed by the moronic writer? Hence you almost spirited defence?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 10 March 2017 8:34:22 AM
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Exactly right, Alan B. Rent your van from someone else, tell your granddaughter you don't like the message, write to the company but please keep the politicians out of it. We have to hold on to some responsibility for ourselves or we will have legislated away all our freedoms.
Posted by estelles, Friday, 10 March 2017 9:27:53 AM
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"This is not what passes for normal or reasonable in civil society. I was brought up in very poor circumstances with none of the advantages enjoyed by you, yet, no matter how poor of depressing those circumstances became, I was raised to believe common courtesy and civility costs nothing!" Couldn't agree more Alan B ! That is at the heart of this issue...and what is wrong anyhow with aspiring and encouraging a "civil" society? Problem is what is considered a "civil" society differs... the mention of the ACT's Shane Rattenbury reminds me of this ..the very same Shane Rattebbury who zombie -like, accepts The Greens policy that abortion is good enough for a woman.... but offensive "graffiti" not! I suppose abortion done nice and clean and out of sight is OK but dirty talk isn't? If Shane Rattenbury really cared about women, he would not have supported the draconian exclusion zones in the ACT preventing those who do care, from offering a last minute positive alternative to desperate women driven to having their babies killed. This is why The Greens will never be taken seriously...they have more respect for trees than human life! They have even been overtaken by Pauline Hanson's Party!
Posted by Denny, Friday, 10 March 2017 10:34:34 AM
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Allan and Denny,

Where would we be without the confected outrage of our blue rinsed moral police to protect us from aberrant thoughts

I look forward to seeing you shouting at teens to get their hair cut and pointing your zimmer frames at girls that have their skirts too short.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 10 March 2017 2:10:28 PM
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There are obvious winners in the Green Party mix of supporters; inner city dwellers collectively, where little of the natural environment is left alive, banded together by gays, bike riders and inner city property owners.

The outburst by the greens MLA Caroline le Couteur, is not surprising in view of the above.
Travelling to their inner city annex of Byron Bay, must be a terrorising and confronting experience. Travelling through 700 km of bush, bursting with Koala Bears, to arrive just before nightfall and in time to witness the backpacker element (the nueva homeless), bedding down for the night at beach front car parks, right across from her daughters hovel on the beach!

So,while she is in residence for the holiday, maybe she could erect some protest signs against the newly installed shark nets, and begin worrying about something worthwhile, and closer to home for her quasi environmental party!

And if she reads this, here is a list of real casualties the greens have given up on defending. The latest kill statistics of some of our most vulnerable marine species being sacrificed to the God of the surf board rider, in the name of safety. Is surfboard riding worth this marine life destruction...?

The first three month talley of far NSW north coast shark nets....

20 Near Threatened Cownose Rays
16 Endangered Great Hammerhead Sharks
6 Vulnerable and Protected Manta Rays
4 Endangered Mobula Rays
4 Vulnerable Ocellated Eagle Ray
2 Protected Bottlenose Dolphins
2 Endangered and Protected Green Turtles
2 Endangered and Protected Loggerhead Turtle
1 Vulnerable and Protected White Shark
1 Near Threatened Bull Shark
1 Near Threatened Blacktip Shark
1 Longtail Tuna

Get yourself down to ground level Caroline, is my suggestion to you. Pass on by the innocuous camper van!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 10 March 2017 2:28:53 PM
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Hmmm.... Well this IS interesting.
Where exactly do they drag up these mentalcases posing for leaders from?
So she's a member of the Greens who supports Safe Schools Coalition, and she's about what her grandaughter might read on a van.
Never mind she supports legislation that her Grade 4 daughter will come home talking about anal and oral like an expert....

http://www.actgreens.org.au/caroline-lecouteur-for-murrumbidgee
http://greens.org.au/tags/safe-schools-program

http://www.news.com.au/travel/australian-holidays/queensland/queensland-to-ban-sexist-slogans-on-campervans/news-story/b9aaaa769556023fde2d1bf6c3b2e1fb

Not sure 'Anything's a Dildo... If You're Brave Enough" is exactly appropriate for road vehicles.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 10 March 2017 4:24:01 PM
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What constitutes acceptable behaviour is completely subjective and prone to change. That does not mean that standards do not exist, or that any behaviour is acceptable. People do push the boundaries of acceptable taste, and sometimes they get pushed right back again by an outraged public. Wicked Campers is one such example. To the best of my knowledge, "Wicked campers" with their highly offensive (to most people) messages are thankfully already banned in NSW. I still remember my own shock at seeing the offensive message on a van in front of me, and I remember the outcry in the local media about this particular company. I am surprised that they are still operating in Queensland.

Don Aitken seems to think it is wrong to censor Wicked Campers, and he is trying unsuccessfully to liken it to a free speech issue. The freedom to comment upon any social or scientific topic is the foundation stone of a free society. Butt that does not mean that companies selling products can greatly overstep the bounds of acceptable behaviour by deliberately offending almost the entire Australian public in order to gain publicity and improve their bottom line. If we believed that, we would allow tobacco and alcohol companies to insert advertisements in children's magazines.

The family is the primary socialising unit of every advanced society and authorities do have a duty of care towards parents in their difficult task of imparting pro social values to their children. Any person who's IQ is above that of Don Aitken can understand that the message on the Wicked Campers" vans is calculated to offend and embarrass every parent or guardian driving a car full of little girls. it is because we can empathise with parents and child care givers that we agree with the Queensland Government's decision to ban the messages of "Wicked Campers.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 10 March 2017 4:46:04 PM
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glad that they are banned and we don't have to put up with the filfth in public. Still as Armchair points out I would much the sick perverted deceitful Greens back 'safe' schools dealt with in similar fashion.
Posted by runner, Friday, 10 March 2017 5:16:39 PM
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Hell LEGO, for a change I can't disagree with any of your post.

I know if in my father's day he saw something like the crap they put on these vans then he would have the driver out by the scruff of the neck and letting him know if he saw it again there would be hell to pay.

I kind of agree we have a nanny state operating, one where it is a lot more problematic to go head to head with someone over something designed to be deliberately offensive.

I have driven past someone with a whole bunch of text, some of it quite abusive, painted on the side of their van. Usually an individual with a grievance against a particular institution, often the court system, but I would be loathed to deprive him of the right to express his opinion.

However this is a company setting out to be deliberately offensive in order to make more money. Doesn't cut it I'm afraid. They are not only using and abusing our freedom of speech but taking advantage of laws discouraging direct action being taken against them by offended citizens.

Not that I am advocating anyone breaking the law but a can of black spray paint goes a long way.

In the end it is elitists like Shadow Minister who defend this crap, mainly because they want to be seen as ideologically pure. Well stuff em, I wouldn't want this in front of my kids and if some right wing, so called, libertarian wants to label me as anti-freedom of speech then so be it.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Friday, 10 March 2017 5:31:06 PM
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The 'problem' is that the vans poke fun at political correctness.

If it was anti establishment or better still, anti-men, or anti-WHITE, it would be quite ok, no problem at all, for the easily offended, virtue-signallers.

Simply amazing ho some would support and even applaud graffiti that disfigures private and public buildings and they call it art, but because Wicked invokes mild satire of their own frumpish, censorious political correctness, they completely off the rails and demand censorship, BANS.

As a matter of fact the vans are social comment and art.

“Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society.”
Theodore J. Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

This IS the age of censorship.
Posted by leoj, Friday, 10 March 2017 7:26:16 PM
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>I think people yearn for laws against everything because they don't have the moral fibre to deal with the nasties themselves. They have become too reliant on Big Brother to do everything for them.

This, they're basically just cowards who want to outsource their bullying to people with guns who can enforce their will.
Posted by Valley Guy, Friday, 10 March 2017 7:27:15 PM
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Would such messages on motor vehicles possibly cause a driver to lose concentration?
Roadside billboards as well?
Posted by Is Mise, Friday, 10 March 2017 10:16:55 PM
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People are entitled to crack smutty jokes as much as they like in private. When these jokes go into the public domain and are linked to profit, it becomes a socio-political issue. In this era of gender politics, these laddish campervan slogans have huge ramifications.

I recently posted a comment on the campervan issue on a current DV thread, and covered some of these slogans.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18852&page=0

I'll do a cut and paste of it here:

<<I quote:

‘Life sucks if your girlfriend doesn’t’

‘In every princess, there is a little slut who wants to try it just once.’

‘Fat chicks are harder to kidnap.’ (Whoah! Sinister!)

‘A wife: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done.’

‘I wouldn’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.’

Imagine if [feminists] launched a fleet of campervans with slogans like this [...]:

‘Life sucks if your boyfriend doesn’t.’

‘In every charming prince, there is a rapist who wants to try it just once.’

‘Fat guys are harder to knee in the balls.’

‘A husband: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the mortgage paid.’

‘I wouldn’t trust anything that leaves a wet patch in my bed, and expects me to wash the sheets.’

Nasty. Horrible. Vulgar. Man-hating. Yes, absolutely! Men would be rightly up in arms about this. The slogans would go viral as living proof that feminists are the man-hating scum of the earth. The law would crack down on this campervan filth with such speed, it would make the male ego spin.

But when this campervan filth is directed at women, it’s normalised as traditional laddish humour. Nothing to get upset about, folks. Boys will be boys.>>

This is the whole point. It's double-standard anti-nanny-state thinking to assume that this filth is acceptable humour because it's directed AT other men ABOUT women. But the reverse would be deemed totally unacceptable.

It's only children with immature brain development who need nannies.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 11 March 2017 3:40:54 AM
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The problem with the professionally offended left whingers is that they are logically deficient. They choose to be offended by statements that contain not one obscenity, but have sexual implications, however, are perfectly happy to accept obscenities on vans in other contexts because they approve of the motivations.

SteeleRedux is a prime example of this:

"I have driven past someone with a whole bunch of text, some of it quite abusive, painted on the side of their van. Usually an individual with a grievance against a particular institution, often the court system, but I would be loathed to deprive him of the right to express his opinion. However this is a company setting out to be deliberately offensive in order to make more money. Doesn't cut it"

Given that there are comedians who on public tv in prime time go far further, and that most of these prissy puritans have probably never seen a wicked camper, it is clear that this confected outrage is selective.

What's next for these censorious prudes? Banning T shirts?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 11 March 2017 5:04:28 AM
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The point I would make to the above posters who claim that censoring Wicked Campers is either left wing or right wing political correctness, is that it is neither. The fact that it was a Green MLA who proposed the ban would have to be the very first time that this organisation has done anything which crossed the political divide.

Right wing and left wing parents and grandparents, who are societies largest and usually most socially responsible members, deplore the idea that any commercial organisation can gain publicity by telling little boys that all girls are sluts, women should not be trusted, or that girls are expected to perform fellatio on their boyfriends. And it would not matter if that message degraded males instead of females.

Every civilised country grades movies into those suitable for children, adolescents, and adults. This is because intelligent people understand that adult concepts can be very harmful to children until the children are old enough to grasp that what passes for entertainment is often a parody or an exaggeration of real life. That children are being exposed to movies today which present criminality as fashionable, and that real men get even with a gun, a knife, or a box of matches, can be understood when we see that the fastest growing crime statistic in the USA today is juvenile gang related homicides.

The messages on Wicked Campers have no intrinsic artistic merit. They are simply a tool dreamed up by a greedy company that is meant to give them free publicity from deliberately offending the public at large. Unless we as a society unite to prevent this happening, it will become the new standard of commercial advertising. And once children see it everywhere on TV, movies, billboards, and campers, we can hardly blame the kids if they think that such values are normal.

Whenever we see kids today getting into serious trouble, we often ask "what did their parents teach them?". News Flash. The American Indians have a saying that is perfectly true. "It takes a whole tribe to teach children right from wrong."
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 11 March 2017 6:42:54 AM
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Hear, hear and well said Killarney! And Lego!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 11 March 2017 9:52:35 AM
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It is as though the Sixties protests against censorship and demand for free speech never happened.

Censorship of sex, 'what about the children?', was the toehold and lever for widespread and deep censorship that covered up monstrous abuses of power and allowed politicians and others to escape accountability.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 11 March 2017 10:25:01 AM
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Dear LEGO,

Again well said.

While most of us do get it many so called libertarians seem to be unable to distinguish between a person expressing their opinion and a company producing ultra-offensive sloganeering for profit.

If an individual under stress crying out against what he or she deems a gross injustice is offensive I think most people are prepared to cut them some slack believing they have a right to be heard.

For the company in question there are none of these factors.

It seems we are becoming infected by the notion that companies have rights of individual citizens, a right they are free to abuse for profit. They might have decided just that in the Citizens United case in the US but as yet we don't have to put up with it here. I fully support the Queensland laws and would like to see them extended to the rest of the country.

Or perhaps we could restrict these vans to only adult viewing hours.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Saturday, 11 March 2017 10:57:21 AM
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"Or perhaps we could restrict these vans to only adult viewing hours"

But you'd still object. And extend your offence and bans to all manner of other things.

Freedom of speech is precious. Political correctness is dismissive of it and aims to curtail it, for obvious reasons.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 11 March 2017 1:19:22 PM
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To Leoj

I am as passionate a defender of freedom of speech as any true progressive person on this site. But that does not mean that you, Leoj, have a right to shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre. I define freedom of speech as the right to comment upon any political, social, or scientific issue. And that is a freedom that Australians are losing at this point in time through multiculturalism and 18C. The media has the power to alter the values, attitudes and behaviours of entire populations, a fact that governments, both democratic and totalitarian, are fully aware of. It can sell products, set fashions, advance ideas, create heroes, endorse opinions, champion causes, incite rebellions, cause controversies, and arouse emotions.

The idea that advertising media or entertainment media has no effect on human behaviour is one which the advertising industry knows is false, and which the entertainment media knows is false. There was a time when liberal people like yourself could be relied upon to go into bat for the people against greedy corporations who sell products which they know affects children, and which does incalculable harm to your own society. But perhaps you are part of the industry which puts it's own self interest above that of the society it inhabits? Or is it just your idea that "progressive" people always defend the media's right to do anything?

Never before in history has a society been affected by this cultural greed. One third of families are now single parent, usually with a heroic mother trying to balance a job with raising kids and imparting pro social values to them. Then along comes "Wicked Campers" promoting a derogatory image of women on a public road. If you came home at night and found a person from 'Wicked Campers" telling your kids that girls are just sluts and that your daughters should suck their boyfriends dicks, you would grab the bastard by the collar and throw him right out off the house.

But if "Wicked Campers" do the same thing to other people's kids in public you defend them.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 11 March 2017 3:42:15 PM
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LEGO, "shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre"

That is a false comparison.

I agree with you that some of the messages on Wicked vans are vulgar and distasteful. However I also believe that young people can easily discriminate between cartoons and real life.

These are ordinary youthful travellers hiring the campers. I have met many on the road and usually asking about free camp sites -not my aim but I do like wild places, few of which remain.

While there is always a problem that some might be encouraged towards foolish risk-taking behaviour by the countercultural message, they already have access to similar and probably worse influences elsewhere in the public domain. For example, from the tattoo and body modification industry and on The Box.

The messages on the campers need to be assessed on a case by case basis. There is already an advertising council to do that. Grandstanding by politicians is not required.

The kids are only trying to be wicked, just shrug your shoulders and let them go. Most young people have a need to impress.

There is the odd sign that might go too far and that can be sorted as mentioned earlier.

You mentioned s18C - now there is an obscenity.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 11 March 2017 4:37:34 PM
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To Leoj.

Children can not differentiate between media messages and real life. Children believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, Gods, ghosts, and flying dragons, because adults tell them that these things exist, and they have no way of knowing any different.

People are not born with moral values. The values that you and everybody in Australia has internalised as correct behaviour, was inculcated into you over time by your parents, teachers, religious leaders, role model heroes, and the collective culture of your people. Children's guardians strive to instil in children social responsibility, respect for others, moral boundaries, and self control. Then along comes the entertainment and advertising industries who tell young people that vulgarity is cool, taking illegal drugs is OK, violent gangs of loutish thugs are glamourous people, girls are just sluts, it's manly to bash your "skanky ho", real men are violent men, spraying graffiti everywhere is cool, and acting like a complete idiot is fun.

The messages that Wicked Campers chose to present on a public street where children can see it are not the values which your parents wanted you to internalise when you were just a kid. Adults can look at vulgarity on TV screens, movies and nightclubs and regard it as a parody or an exaggeration of real life, and we can regard it as humorous. But we shield children from such media messages because what we see as adult humour children can see as a script on how they should behave.

That even small children are now being exposed to sexually explicit, vulgar and violent media is illustrated by a recent stories in my local newspaper. Child care workers in kindergartens are reporting that little girls are now being regularly sexually assaulted by little boys. And you want Wicked Campers to keep telling little boys that girls are just sluts who really want it?

Imagine yourself driving a car full of little girls and coming up behind a wicked camper van. The message would cause you both you and the little girls acute embarrassment.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 11 March 2017 9:23:06 PM
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leoj

‘It is as though the Sixties protests against censorship and demand for free speech never happened.’

We are no longer living in a moral climate that bans innocuous books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover or demands that married couples in films must sleep in twin beds.

The 1960s sexual revolution created a much more relaxed and liberal moral climate. The trouble is … those who profit from gratuitously ‘pushing boundaries’ (as they often like to call it) didn’t know how to stop and now the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.

Tell me … what about this Wicked Campers slogan: ‘Fat chicks are harder to kidnap.’

Would the families of Anita Cobby, Janine Balding, Ebony Simpson, Elizabeth Morse, the Truro victims, the Belangelo victims, Keyra Steinhardt … and many others appreciate this as a harmless expression of free speech?

Public domain jokes for profit about kidnapping women? Some things you just don’t joke about.

Freedom of speech is a right, but it’s also a responsibility. As with all rights, if it’s repeatedly abused, eventually it gets taken away.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 11 March 2017 11:31:34 PM
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LEGO,

I have seen the consequences of censorship in the guilt, poor decisions and harmed, stunted lives of people who were children in the years after WW2.

Interestingly, the focus is always on the girls and their sexuality where a 'bit of censorship' is contemplated.

I have often passed by Wicked campers when I had children in the car. I cannot recall any ever drawing attention to the signs let alone finding them vaguely interesting. They were good at finding those Maccas signs though.

Freedom of speech suits me because the messages (and deletions) can be challenged.
Posted by leoj, Sunday, 12 March 2017 12:05:10 AM
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Exactly right, Killarney.

Freedom of speech is not a moral absolute, Leoj. Valid restrictions have always applied and been agreed to by the public who can appreciate their necessity. These include libel, child pornography, the publication of state secrets, contempt of court, the glamourisation of suicide, and restrictions on advertising. Restricting Wicked Campers from advertising with extremely offensive messages is no more an example of totalitarian censorship, than preventing cigarette manufacturers from advertising their dangerously unhealthy and addictive product to kids.

I am glad that you mentioned 60's censorship, because unless you have been asleep at the wheel, you might have noticed the relaxation of censorship coincided with the steep rise of violent and mindless crime in Australia. (That and the liberalisation of our once very restrictive immigration laws.)

The sixties. When schoolboy cadets went to school on the bus with .303 rifles on their shoulders, but school massacres did not happen. When our suburbs and trains were not defaced with American style graffiti. When you could catch a train from Central to Liverpool and not see endless suburbs of houses with bars on every window. When kids did not kill kids. When teachers did not throw in their careers because they could not cope with out of control pupils. Six schools in Sydney now have permanent security guards.

What Killarney wrote is that we have swung from one extreme to the other. We now have media which panders to adolescents and teenagers who are at the most rebellious times of their lives, and it tells them that parental and official authority should be ignored, girls are sluts who really want it, women should be bashed, being a street thug is fashionable, taking drugs is OK, murdering teachers and fellow students is cool, and that real men are violent men who get even.

And when the consequences of these media messages to our young manifest themselves in appalling behaviour, Leoj wonders how it happened? Leoj asks "don't these kids know right from wrong?" Poorly socialised kids don't know right from wrong, Leoj, because our culture is sending them mixed messages.
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 12 March 2017 5:48:42 AM
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Why is it that Left whingers always want to control what other people say? But never apply the same standards to themselves.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sunday, 12 March 2017 9:31:30 AM
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<But never apply the same standards to themselves> Risible rubbish SM, and typical trotted out broad sweeping statement proffered, without a single shard of a scaric of a grain of evidence!

Name that recalcitrant left whinger and provide the evidence that proves the truth of what you claim and I'll sue for you and every other defender of the right to verbal the few genuinely decent caring posters putting a real name to their honestly held convictions, posting here.

As far as I know, free speech doesn't include the right to disingenuously label or simply verbal, or outright abuse those you disagree with.

The morality of a rutting feral alley cat fits well with the feral alley cat, but not a discriminating decent caring ADULT human being, willing to tolerate very reasonable boundaries, to protect the still unformed mind and attitudes of the innocent.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong I suppose, with gutter language or entirely unnecessary verbal garbage? Just that of the young minds it programs as normal! Or already in antisocial minds of the recalcitrant dimwits, who see no harm in it! Nor the abuse nor antisocial vilification that is integral to it.

And none of it even remotely necessary to protect the very tenets of genuine free speech! And caps that fit, the only ones needing to be worn, or allegedly offended by!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Sunday, 12 March 2017 11:34:40 AM
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Dear Alan.B,

I could be wrong but I venture SM is probably referring to me.

He wrote;

“Why is it that Left whingers always want to control what other people say? But never apply the same standards to themselves.”

Of course as a typical elitist, neo-con, ideologue he again conflates a corporation being deliberately offensive for profit with individual or artistic rights of free speech.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I have owned and operated a number of businesses over my journey and I am more than happy to have applied and will continue to apply the same standards I am advocating for in this instance.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Sunday, 12 March 2017 12:24:19 PM
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Alan B.,

You seem to have a propensity for rushing into print whenever I write something — you're often the first. But you seem to forget quickly wht you just read. Or you have one of those disorders.

What did I say? I quote: 'Would I write on my own car, let alone write stuff like that? No. Do I need to be protected against such writing? No. Am I offended, outraged or appalled? No. You just shrug, and ignore it. Life is too short.'

Like others here, and on my website, you seem to want Parliament to protect you from having to explain things to children. If you have children you should have already had to explain what is on television news. Unless, of course, you've banned that from your household. Grow up.
Posted by Don Aitkin, Sunday, 12 March 2017 1:36:24 PM
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‘Fat chicks are harder to kidnap.’

Well it could potentially be offensive to both larger women and/or people touched by kidnapping.
The problem with social justice is that suddenly there's these make-believe laws of how people should conduct themselves when in reality there's no law that says 'a person is immune from being offended'.

Take these jokes:
A woman noticed her husband standing on the bathroom scale, sucking in his stomach.
“Ha­­! That’s not going to help,” she said.
“Sure, it does,” he said. “It’s the only way I can see the numbers.”

Q. Did you hear about the kidnapping at school?
A. It’s ok, he woke up.

These are considered clean jokes, but overweight people or kidnap victims might still be quietly offended.
It could just as easily be said the jokes was sexist, because a woman was making fun of the man; and the kid napping was a 'he'.
So where do you draw the line?
If we don't truly have 'free' speech, (for those who don't understand the difference) then by default we instead have 'permitted' speech.

If you start dictating what is and isn't allowed eventually we all become hive minded slaves living in '1984'.
The liberal left seem to want this, to live like cogs in a highly regulated machine, and that is essentially the antihesis of everything liberal.

And therein lies our battle; those demanding not to be offended and who support the right of the state to dictate, regulate and decide everything for us, over those who want freedom, liberty and the right to decide for themselves.
In this way the so-called liberal progressive left and everything they stand for is one gigantic fraud.
A bunch of weakling crybabies living in their own emotional bubble-like safe spaces.

There's ALWAYS Pro's and Con's to EVERYTHING.
How can you be sure the humour doesn't serve humanity with a higher purpose?
Making fun of a fat person might help shame them into losing weight, and others into not becoming fat.
Making jokes about kidnapping might raise awareness about being more alert when alone and at night.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Sunday, 12 March 2017 1:46:33 PM
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Nothing that you claim as obvious is necessarily so Don! Nor have in any post on this thread, expressed any desire for parliament to legislate. I guess I've rattled your cage, or got under that hide bond leather that passes for skin, given your less than educated response is the juvenile verbal!

Followed by the completely gratuitous advice to grow up. Suggest you save for those folk who see you as some sort of impressive mental giant?

As opposed to a spokesperson for the planet killing fossil fuel industry? Which might just explain your apparent complete lack of empathy toward our children or any apparent concern for the world they inherit from us.

Being often first into print?

Well if an accurate assessment may be explained by several factors.

I've been disabled for some twenty plus years by a career ending serious spinal injury, that has been stabilized with bone grafts and metal reinforcing.

Meaning, I now have time on my hands and need to exercise the grey matter or watch as it atrophies. And I'm often an early riser with time on my hands! You have any problem with any of that?

And if I find your diabolically disingenuous defence of the fossil fuel industry completely obnoxious? It's because it is, in someone of your "alleged intellect" and acumen!

So the next time you tell someone to grow up, you superior arrogant fribbling sycophant, ( fossil fuel industry stooge?) Make sure it is directed at the ancient academic staring back from the mirror!

Somebody needs to speak for the next generation, given all you seem to do, is sell or trash their future?
Y'all have a nice day now y'hear.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Sunday, 12 March 2017 3:16:27 PM
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SR,

As you have clearly indicated double standards, I have no idea which standards you have applied to your businesses, as obscenities and offensive speech are judged on their political target.

As for the left whinge neo twat activists, I fart in their general direction.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sunday, 12 March 2017 5:43:12 PM
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If society allows someone to be offensive then society should allow a response, particularly a bunch of roses or even fives.
Posted by Is Mise, Sunday, 12 March 2017 6:33:13 PM
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Somewhat late, I had to think about this one.

I personally prefer to live in a society where one can go about in peace without having to encounter negative influences. I should be able to get from point A to point B, which is what roads are meant for, without anybody interfering and trying to imprint impressions in my mind. Closing one's eyes is not an option - not for the driver anyway, though I do at times close or cover one eye when encountering particularly disturbing messages on the road, then if it's on a car I might slow down or pull to the side while waiting for it to go (and if stationary, then I'm likely to try and look for alternate routes).

Ideally there should be no messages on cars. It's an inconsiderate bad thing to do. The only valid reason to mark a car is to help its owner to find it from a distance when parked among other cars, but this could be done effectively with say, plain strips of colour that carry no particular message.

My problem is, I cannot forbid others from harmful expressions without a morally-valid justification. What possibly could such a justification be?

1. Distracting drivers, being a safety issue.

But this could boomerang and rather than stop the offences, force the offended sensitive drivers off the road.

2. Roads are public property, so the public has a right to impose conditions there (else it would be trespassing).

That could work if the land on which roads go, truly/legitimately belonged to the state as a result of some kind of agreement between all the inhabitants of the land. However, no such agreement exists (and I doubt it could ever exist on such a large scale).

3. It's done by companies rather than by individuals.

Thank you SteeleRedux for your kind suggestion: indeed, companies are not sentient beings and thus have no inherent freedoms that must be preserved. Companies are artificial state-created entities, so that same state which created them may rightly also restrict them: Don't like it? then don't incorporate!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 12 March 2017 7:04:11 PM
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Confrontational ...

The vehicle artwork in question is confrontational. Graffiti is often confrontational, for an up to date example, suburban trains are a recent target of this. The gay Mardi Gras is deliberately confrontational by intent; transvestites are confrontational. Demonstrators are confrontational, deliberately confronting the sensitivities of authorities..(run over the bastards), was a call once.
Students confront teachers on a daily basis. On it goes through life.

The message on the van is not intended to convert you to any particular morality. If the message raises your blood pressure, it has achieved its aim.

Why?

That is the question. Why confront the general public with this type of outrageous graffiti?
The answer is simple. The vans are tailor-made to appeal to confrontational youth.
The same youthful examples of all our pasts. IT SELLS...

Should we fall for it? Should we tolerate the intrusion into our conservative sensitivities?

Not generally, no
How was confrontational public behaviour dealt with in the past?

Allow more flexibility for the police to not only monitor these intrusions, but support them when they make moral judgments on our own behalf.
That is the method that controlled confrontational behaviour in public, of all types in the past.
It seems to be missing in action!

It's a truism to brand some behaviours and the people that accompany those behaviours as "cop-bait".
Nothing seems to bait police in our modern world. They have been subdued by ....

"Political Correctness"
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 13 March 2017 7:17:42 AM
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To Diver Dan.

The fact that the public does have standards of behaviour has nothing to do with the nanny state, or political correctness. In western society, people may not walk around nude, although discreet nude beaches may exist. Urinating, defecating and having sex are all natural things which people do, but not in public.

Bikinis can be worn on the beach, but not in a church or a shopping centre. I actually witnessed two young girls about 15 years of age walk into the North Rocks shopping centre wearing nothing but bikinis. They didn't get more than 30 metres inside the front door before women started shouting at them to "get some clothed on!" I laughed as the girls made a hasty retreat.

On NSW State Rail there were once advertising posters asking the question in giant letters ERECTION PROBLEMS? These posters are no longer in extant, probably because of an outcry by the very public into who's faces this offensive question was being asked. I actually saw the consequences of this sign which for a few weeks graced a station underground wall at Sydney's Wynyard Station.

While going home from work, and wondering at what level of IQ the person had who approved this sign at a public station, I observed a very well dressed man with three well dressed little girls come up the station stairs. The girls were all about 10, probably his daughter and a couple of her friends on an outing with daddy. The four of them turned and were confronted by the sign which was right in their faces, 3 metres high and 5 metres long. The painfully embarrassed man then shepherded the little girls away from the offending sign.

People with children should not have to be confronted with that. I felt for the man and the little girls.

The protection of children from offensive and vulgar messages crosses the political divide. Parents and grandparents of both the Left and the Right persuasion would find common ground on that.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 13 March 2017 12:44:19 PM
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