Hi RObert,

Just to get back to your comment:

" .... I support people being allowed to wear as little or as much as they want to the beach, I do though doubt that many on the conservative dress side of this view things that way (nor some on the other side)."

That's right, in a liberal, modern society, there is always a very wide range of behaviours, tastes, opinions etc. which are available, even though their fringes may not be approved by people on the opposite fringes. We vote different. We like different films, foods, drinks, recreations, political parties, life courses. 'Conservatives', as you suggest, can suck it up.

And so can the opportunist 'Left. In a major way, this diversity is a problem for political correctness: there is an approved way (what used to be called a 'respectable' way) of doing pretty much everything, and deviations should be discouraged, and the further away those deviations are from the approved Means (with SDs correspondingy short), the more vehemently they should be 'discouraged'.

But for the sake of an Open Society, as open and productive as possible, we need healthy disagreement and for that we need strong diversity of opinion AND arenas in which to express them, like OLO. There is no movement forward without disagreement, brain-storming, demands for evidence for rival opinions (and as much for our own).

We need to be able to say fearlessly, when someone presents a politically-correct opinion without feeling the need to back it up, prove it or kiss my hairy arse. He who asserts without evidence or rationale - effectively without reason - can be told to piss off without reason, and as rudely as that.

If one wants to persuade someone else of the validity of their point of view, they must present evidence, not just try to steamroll with the force of 'public opinion', 'accepted dogma', 'conventional opinion', or 'the majority view'. It's not the fifties any more :)

[TBC]

[continued]

Not even for the 'Left': come out and play, don't keep your views to yourself and just assume that 'good' people will believe it all chapter and verse, and to some revolutionist hell with the rest on the Day.

Any half-decent opinion, or point of view, or narrative, will have ample backing if one looks hard enough, while a dodgy or half-baked opinion will have either no real evidence or dodgy 'story' to back it up - and, crucially, it will lack some vital factor.

For example: in one supporting commentary for the Hindmarsh Island Secret Women's scam of twenty years ago, the image was highlighted of a peaceful 'meeting of the waters', of the Murray River and the Southern Ocean. But the narrative overlooked two factors: tides and river flow. Currently, with high river flow, the 'meeting of the waters' is somewhere out at sea. In drier times, the barrages hold back the sea water (and the tides), otherwise the 'meeting of the waters' would be fifty miles up the Murray.

Or take the Rabbit Proof Fence story: how come there was never any mention of it in the West Australian newspaper, at the fabled time, a fiercely anti-government, pro-Labor Party, newspaper: they had picked up no hints from rural papers, who in turn had picked up no tid-bits from Rabbit Department (perhaps several hundred) employees, knocking off each night at their local pub ? And nothing in the thousand-page Moseley Royal Commission 'on the Aborigines' held after the 1933 election which brought in a new Labor government (word-for-word on www.firstsources.info ) ?

So, in an Open Society,

(1) a very wide range of views, behaviours and preferences are freely available, or should be; and within that context,

(2) we all need to be on our guard against those who would restrict those precious attributes to an approved handful, or the One True Narrative;

(3) we should expect somebody to provide some evidence, some backing, for a strongly-held opinion, as they should us for ours.

Cheers,

Joe

To Loudmouth

Your points 1,2, and 3 are well made and I ( for what it is worth ) agree with you.

Chris

Very well put Joe.

Our world is going to undergo enormous and rapid change over the next 20-30 years. The one thing we can't risk is entrenched viewpoints and selfish interests preventing proper discussion.

Lego
I think it is time to move on as we look like two prop row forwards scraping on the ground when the ball, ref, and the other 28 players have moved on, so I will close with this comment.

If it helps you feel like you are entertaining others, by tossing in the odd insult and you feel the varsity of your argument is enhanced by sarcasm (the lowest form of whit) then please continue. From my other exchanges on this site, I think most have little interest in your attempts to embellish your point.

I have no interest in muzzling you or any other persons point of view. My departure from this site is like most who have already left, they have simply made their point. If you wish to see this as some kind of empirical victory, I have no problem with that.

You refer to me as an enemy of your people and civilization because I challenge your way of thinking. By that I assume you mean European Christians. What was drummed into me at school was the British Empire had been of benefit to the natives. What I learnt after school was that all the European Christian empires had done around the entire plant over the last 500 years was to destroy and butcher anything that got in the way of plunder. For that reason and that alone I find no pride in being labelled a white Christian.

If you want just one example then check out the exploits of Christopher Columbus, when he landed in the Caribbean. One Island that had an estimated population when he arrived of 3 million was deserted thirty years later.
Chris