ALTRAV,

You say it can't be done? Whether it should be done or not is a separate issue, and to those who support anti-hate laws I hope they consider the possible outlook carefully. But can it be done? Very much so.

Look at the legal system and the justice system. Much of the point of it is to do two things. 1) Be a deterrent to crime. And 2) To restrain itself enough to be fair in it's judgements and punishments. The point of being fair to a criminal is one that marks several good qualities. It shows a respect for people on the basis of being human, it stifles the corruption to harm, imprison, or kill anyone a government leader has an issue with. And it also shows a kindness of fairness to those caught in harming the people. Criminal rights is the best example of love your enemy, because who can be more your enemy then the guy who murders, steals, and vandalizes. If love your enemy can be done for a criminal to a small extent, then it can be done for anyone else.

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A second example is in the business world in the long fought battle against sexism and sexual abuse in the work place. After a long battle already fought most places I see have as part of their business codes and rules a section on censoring verbal sexual abuse. The rules go further if the person does more then just talk in a degrading way to the other sex, or talk in a sexual way to an employee or coworker. Nonetheless it still takes the fight to censoring people while at the workplace. However if anyone shows they are sexist in one way or another (and just doesn't break any of the rules made), then that person can be considered the enemy to the women they work with. Love your enemy in this sense would still mean to show fairness and professionalism to the coworker, even if they are someone the woman doesn't want to be around. Going further then that doesn't mean that they forgive the guy for what he does, but might include helping him out if he's suffering a hard time. (For example, a death in the family, an accident that breaks an arm or leg, or just common struggles of being a parent if he is one).

Fairness across the board doesn't mean forgiveness. Nor does kindness in a person's struggle mean forgiveness of their wrongs. But they are an example of loving your enemy enough to be fair to them and not wish them any harm.

N_N.S, you cannot/must not legislate or dictate to people, if they feel so inclined to do/say something.
If someone feels the need to say something to someone, it is no ones business, especially for govt's to comment, let alone legislate to stop him from saying what he feels like saying.
If you can't see the huge flaw in that, I can't help you, you are missing a fundamental part of what it means to be 'truly' free.
We live in a democracy, which makes laws about a lot of things involving social expectations, but changing a persons DNA is not one of them.
We must keep in mind that if we refer to even something like the ten commandments, forget they are from a religious source for a moment and think of them as a set of rules some guy once produced as a guide for humankind to live by.
Nowhere does it say engage in hate speech.
The closest reference is, 'love thy neighbour'.
Even though one is tempted to tie the two in together, you can't as they both differ from each other.
You see emotions are intangible and manifest themselves naturally.
Each of us varies in our emotions and how we react in similar scenarios, so we cannot legislate or create a 'one size fits all', rule or laws.
We have laws which are meant to stop us from raping women, how's that going?
Women are still getting raped!
If we force people to not hate people, we are only forcing some other reaction from them, because they will not turn the other cheek if they cannot feel that way.

ALTRAV

I fully agree with you that it should not be the governments business to control what people say. However it seems like the world is going in the direction of what can and can't be said. Regardless if it's mandated by the government or not, businesses media and social media all have their versions of a witch hunts passed on what a person says. (And each has a different magnitude for how strong a witch hunt and punishments can be). The best we can do is either fight it all together and put legislative restrictions on what people can do as a reaction to what's said, (for government, business and personal reactions); such as legislative measures to say a company can go this far in disciplinary actions for one action and not as much for another action. However, that kind of legislative measure defeats the purpose of freedom just as much as PC restriction on what can and can't be said defeats what it means to be free.

On the other hand I do think there are some good rules to apply for people on what to say or do, that should not be enforced by the government, by companies, or by large mobs. Some rules are there that have a good justification for them, but none of them should be enforceable and punishable (aside from a parent saying to their kids they can or can't say something in their house).

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Dear Rivka (the author),

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Israel Folau's outburst reminds me of that phrase in William Penn's (the founder of Pennsylvania) book « Some fruits of solitude », 1693:

« If thou hast not conquer'd thy self in that which is thy own particular Weakness, thou hast no Title to Virtue, tho' thou art free of other Men's. For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality, an Atheist against Idolatry, a Tyrant against Rebellion, or a Lyer against Forgery, and a Drunkard against Intemperance, is for the Pot to call the Kettle black. »

The divine triumvirate – God the father, his only son Jesus of Nazareth and that spooky character known as Holy Ghost, who is purported to have inseminated (surreptitiously) a young married lady whose husband had not yet consumated their maariage – is an eclusively all-male divinity that, surprisingly, does not appear to be at all abhorrent to Israel Folau. He seems to think it's perfecly normal.

Loving and worshiping an exclusively all-male divinity is, apparently, not a problem for him. Strange, isn't it ? Particularly with a character like the spooky Holy Ghost hovering around. As that slippery shyster has already been up to some hanky-panky in the past, you never quite know what he might get up to.

But, when it's all said and done, perhaps our rugby player friend realizes it's all just a question of belief after all – nothing to do with reality.

Bit of a paradox, though, as you say.

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Left wing definitions.

"Freedom of speech.".....anything a left wing person says or writes about immigration, multiculturalism, and refugees.

"Hate speech".....anything a right wing person says or writes about immigration, multiculturalism, and refugees.