Phanto, while appreciating the motives that prompted your contribution, I am constrained to call into question your resort to a kind of naive generalisation that marks your opinions.

You write; "Who is to be the judge of which ideas cannot be expressed in speech? It is an impossible thing to decide because it is so subjective...." Yet you plunge headlong into a dissertation that purports to accomplish what you have already declared to be impossible by advocating a certain view that has as its principal support some generalisations that do violence to historical fact. The decision is difficult and by default must be somewhat arbitrary but not impossible. A majority consensus is the best that can be expected. there will always be some courageous people who will occupy the office of deciding for us. Diversity among opinion-holders will ensure there will never be 100% agreement.

You write; "There is no proof that allowing someone to speak causes harm." It depends largely on whether one agrees with the opinions of the speaker or not. When Mohandas Gandhi led the Indian people to independence he was the agency of his own death as well as the death of several millions of his countrymen. He was an astute politician and had considerable familiarity with modern history. There can be no doubt he knew the divisiveness he would cause in Indian society. That a greater good may have emerged from the chaos has no bearing on the exercise of free speech as such. Cont......

On the other side of the coin, let us take Adolph Hitler as an example. An orator of considerable power who convinced practically an entire nation to overlook, disregard, agree with and/or promote and perpetrate some of the most unspeakable acts of genocide and slaughter in modern history, in any historical age perhaps. Human history, to a significant extent, is the story of such individuals and the consequences of their profligate oratory.

You write; "No one can make you do what you do not want to do." In both above cases people were coerced by the unlimited powers of mob violence or by the threat of awful punishment by an extremely totalitarian regime to do many things they did not want to do. Your assertion here is quite without merit. Offering a few examples of some who suffered mortally for their dedication is of no real value. It is a fact of life and of society that ordinary people will commit terrible acts to benefit themselves at others' expense, to do what was normally in violation of their values. The news media report examples almost every day.

To criticise further is unnecessary as the examples I have provided illustrate my point re naive generalisation. A greater familiarity with history would probably have stayed your hand from such transgression.

John Slater has written a very reasonable and intelligent article on the subject of who should be prevented from entering Australia, on the grounds of public good and free speech. His most important point is that "it is tricky to see where intolerance starts and ends."

Moral values are often a compromise, and a where any of them start and end is often a matter of perspective. Moral values are never absolute, but they are still very important. They are the glue that keeps societies together. Moral values are the generally agreed upon values which are the basis of the laws which we are obliged to obey. Within communities, there may be wide differences of opinions as to what those moral values should be. But western societies are the better for having robust debates on these matters, which is the primary reason why free speech is the foundation stone of our civilisation. In the battle for ideas, may the best one win.

But there are problems with that noble concept. Freedom of speech is not an absolute. Restrictions on freedom of speech which most people in society have good reason to agree with, include libel, child pornography, publishing extracts banned in the Official Secrets Act, "How to" manuals giving direct instruction on how to commit serious criminal acts, and any media inciting inter communal violence. (Behead those who insult the Prophet).

Now, just what constitutes these values are themselves subject to interpretation, and where the boundaries start and finish a matter of judgement. But some values are most definitely within the scope of those values which we as a society generally agree that we do not want promoted for the public good.

Geert Weelders is a Dutch politician who quite correctly points out the dangers to western society of unrestricted Muslim immigration. He is not advocating violence, he could even be seen as preventing violence by pointing out that Isalm is a very violent ideology, and that Muslims are a danger to the peaceful evolution of western society.

Continued

Continued

There is nothing wrong with being opposed to abortion, provided that you do not advocate violence towards medical staff who perform these procedures. Mr Newman has never done that. But when it comes to "entertainers" like "Tyler the Creator" making money by openly advocating violence towards women, that is another matter.

Rap music is notorious for advocating every anti social value from shop lifting, extreme violence with weapons, killing police officers, killing white people, rape (including one "song" by white rap artist "MM" in which he "sings" a "song" about the joys of raping his mother), disrespect for women, illegal drug abuse, criminal gang behaviour, and extreme violence towards women. Do we as a society want such values promoted to our youngest generation through youth media? I think that the overwhelming majority opinion would be "No!" Because if we do tolerate it, we can hardly be surprised when our youngest generation get confused by the mixed messages that society is giving them, and they respond by getting into serious trouble. Which, I might point out, is already happening. Juvenile gang killings is now the fastest growing US crime statistic. In Australia, kids are now killing kids.

The entertainment media is today producing pop songs, video clips, movies and TV programs glamouriing serious criminal behaviour. It is depicting violent criminals and drug traffickers as admirable people with strong characters who lead adventurous and exciting lives. The consequenes of our societies continuing to allow this, is that poorly socialised people with low intelligence who possess weak characters will see these criminals as role models for what they aspire to be. It is hardly necessary to point out that rap music in particular appeals to the most violent minorities who are already renowned for getting into serious trouble. Black and aboriginal women already suffer homicide rates several times higher than their white sisters.

Preventing "Tyler the Creator" from entering Australia to promote serious violence towards women looks to me to be a sensible idea

Phanto,
When I said "What is the danger in going along with something stupid because its PC?" I wasnt talking about free speech.
I was talking about allowing undesirables to immigrate here.

Pogi:

“To criticise further is unnecessary as the examples I have provided illustrate my point re naive generalisation. A greater familiarity with history would probably have stayed your hand from such transgression.”

Why do you feel the need to describe my generalisation as naive? Just describing it as a generalisation is perfectly sufficient for what you argued. Did you feel the need to put me down in some way because you were insecure about your views?

Why do you feel the need to tell me that I am not familiar with history? Not as familiar as you – is that what you mean? That is very patronising. I could be a professor of modern history for all you know and still have the opinions that I expressed. They may be wrong but having knowledge is no guarantee to being right. I am entitled to express my opinions about the current topic no matter how misguided they are. I do not have to be familiar with everything I express an opinion on.

If you do not agree with me then you are entitled to say why but if I am obviously not familiar with history then why would you waste your time replying to my post? If my generalisations are naive then why bother responding?

It seems to me that you would not need to try and put me down or patronise me if you were secure in your opinions so there is no point in responding to your arguments until you are really sure of what you think.