Perhaps its best you return to your talks of rubbishing Aboriginals and Dan Fitzpatrick.
P.A.L.E.
I only just got back from a community where Next G is not working so I only just read your post.
What on earth are you on about "rubbishing aboriginals & dan Fitzpatrick" ?
Give me just one example where I have rubbished anyone apart from those bureaucrats who deserve to be rubbished because that's all they are. Everything & I mean everything I state here is based on my personal experiences so I am at a loss where I went wrong. Or could it be that fact & truth are not acceptable to you. I don't want to start a rant here but as I said I'm at a loss at your post.

Vanilla - I had a response for you that was incisive, brilliant and would have argued you into an admiring silence. But the "Timed Out" poster came up again and wiped it, I'm totally incapable of being brilliant, incisive etc. etc. twice in a row, so you'll have to make do with this.

And I still stick my idea that we don't have the right gratuitously to go around hurting other peoples feelings for no better reason than it makes us feel better. I believe all rights and freedoms come with a caveat: they carry with them responsibilities. We have sexual freedom, for example - but we have the responsibility to ensure we don't use it to spread HIV, to bring unwanted children into the world, to emotionally blackmail others.

The right to free speech is the right to disagree, object and debate ideas that differ from our own. It is not, or so I believe, the right to rubbish people who have ideas that differ from our own.

I don't think it strengthens a person to cop a rubbishing - not because of the ideas/ideals they hold but because of the very person they are. Or their spouse or children are. I think that the strongest societies are those which strengthen through encouragement, teach respect for those who differ from the norm in thought and in lifestyle, and are unafraid to speak out.

And hey, maybe M.A's thighs were genetic?

Well put Romany!!

You know what?

I don't think that you two are disagreeing??

I think it is not the right way, instead to attack BOAZ_David's ideas to attack him. For me BOAZ_David is a respectable person, honest and good fighter for his ideas. We can agree or disagree with him, I disagree, but it is not the best way we behave to him. Over all we must respect the right for any person to express his/her ideas and protect his/her rights to express his/her ideas. When we do not use the right way for any person, in really we try to block him/her to express his/her ideas.
Let's control our behavior and show more respect and understanding to BOAZ_David, he deserve it.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I'm not sure what that has to do with political correctness Antonios?

However, might I suggest that you go to BOZO's post history and spend some time there. You will find post after post AFTER POST, that denigrates and vilifies others.

It is all very well to talk about attitudes TOWARD this man;- take a look at his consistent attitude to others;- and THAT is from someone who purports to be a Christian!!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Christianity a belief system that promotes 'goodwill to all men'?

Take a look and judge for yourself. You cannot seriously believe that this man is criticized for absolutely no reason? It is unfortunate that you comment on the reaction to this, and not the cause.

VERY unfortunate. He never misses an opportunity to attack, and you've handed him an opportunity to take the moral high ground yet again.

Romany,

Don't panic, you nearly always stun me into an admiring silence. On my initial post to you I was going to write "please don't take advantage of me just cause you're brainier than I am", but thought it might have seemed a little pathetic.

Having said that, I still don't agree. The sticking point for me is when things become law. The ethical landscape you paint - one where we only attack on issues and play fair and square - is absolutely a value system I subscribe to. (Or try to. Boazy and HRS often threaten my ethical equilibrium.) But it's too restrictive for me to want it enshrined in law.

There's also the sticky issue of defining a "rubbishing" as apposed to a rational argument contra. I want to say "God is bunkum, and Christianity and Islam are each as idiotic as the other." Someone who believes their silly book somehow constitutes historical truths could read my statement as a rubbishing, others wouldn't. This is why I believe racial vilification laws blow.

This is also why Amnesty International and PEN exist. Because some countries have sought to draw lines around what can and cannot be said.

I agree with your about our responsibilities, but only some can be enshrined in law. It is illegal to knowingly spread HIV, but it is not illegal, and nor should it be, to emotionally blackmail others. Immoral, but not illegal