Bronywn and Paul are you interested in taking up the outcome/opportunity discussion on a new thread? I think it's a very interesting area but it's clearly off topic here.

R0bert

RObert

"Bronywn and Paul are you interested in taking up the outcome/opportunity discussion on a new thread? I think it's a very interesting area but it's clearly off topic here."

I actually think it goes to the heart of the Hanson debate so I don't see it as 'off topic' at all, but I appreciate the thought and I'm sure I'd join in if the discussion was continued elsewhere.

1/

CJ Morgan; if I don't respond to you, I give tacit confirmation for what you said. I will try to behave on my own thread, so I will tell you in the best way I can that I ask you to accept my word of honour that I did not start this thread because of our disagreement.
I ask you to believe that, and;-if you do, then you will realize that you have gone some way to proving my point. Don't you think it a little superior and arrogant to believe that I started a thread just to have a go at you?
It is THAT kind of attitude that seemed to drive the Hensonart issue.
One more thing. You might well have put up a plausible explanation for posting in the third person, but frankly, referring to me in the third person on a thread that I instigated is just not polite. It isn't.
(It has all had little to do with the Right or the Religious has it? It has been solely that you had to be right. Just that. Nothing else. )(Add: now inkblots!!)

BOZO; some of your comments re causing me any offence were rather kind, and I appreciate them, I really do...BUT, please don't take what I said as an endorsement of your philosophical/political views.
When you can prove beyond all doubt that it was totally 'socialists ' who were yelling obscenities at the Hanson followers;-I will listen.
I do not want to concentrate on either person, but I will say that during that period what I saw was a concerted,calculated attack by ALL sides of politics on a person that they saw as a real threat to their positions in the political landscape.

2/

I could not support Hanson, but I refused to attack her;-I just watched what happened. It proved only one thing to me and that is that the political status quo MUST be maintained at all costs. That cost is to every man/woman/child in this country.
It was that that burned me about the issue. Where was the democracy? AND.................where was the "Freedom of Speech" held so dear by so many........... (I'll get back to that one!)

R0bert;- Thanks for being the first respondent. You are right in what you say, regarding some very cutting responses. I will invoke two things here. Firstly, such remarks ('pedophile enabler') did not and would not come from myself,Bronwyn, Foxy, TammyJo. Yet these three posters were subjected to a pretty strong ridiculing because they chose to express their opinions;-and not alter those opinions. B/F/TJ expressed concerns; reservations;..and they were damn well vilified for it!
Secondly, the ratio of supporters v non-supporters ran at 3 to 1. It makes those condescending criticisms all the more bullying. Because that IS what it was.
Excepting you. That is a fact. Thank-you.
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Well now:........lets get to the Freedom of Speech issue. I'm surprised that I did not see what was so obvious when I started this thread!
Bronwyn, Foxy:- the issue you took with Hanson is entirely consistent with the issue you took with Henson!

Bronwyn, there IS no disagreement with me. As you indicated; how many people who argued so strongly for the freedom of speech/expression with regard to Henson............, were dead set AGAINST Hanson's right to freedom of speech/expression??

This FoS thing is a lot of bollocks! For me to say I do not believe in it, is to say that I believe in a locked down Police State. Yeah right!

3/

SO;.....it is the very restrictions on so-called FoS that underpin what is essentially the 'civilizing' of the human animal. We cannot do whatever we want. If we could, then we could murder etc., with impunity. Dammit all! We do not have FoS on OLO! By necessity we have to restrict volume/length of posts!

Why attack the negative?? views of Hensonart? We have the right to FoS.
Why attack the negative?? views of Hanson? We have the right to FoS.

Don't we?
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Thanks TJ, Foxy.

I'm away the noo'.

Bronywn if I understand it correctly Ginx is trying to talk about how the debates were conducted rather than the detail of the debate. There is a line in there somewhere which I don't always do well with but it seems to me that topic would be better served in it's own space. I'll try and draft up an opening post sometime in the near future unless you'd prefer to do the honors.

Cheers
R0bert