Civics The Value of Offence

Discussion in 'Freedom and Liberty' started by chelloveck, Oct 11, 2018.


  1. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    Liberty means little, if freedom from offence trumps freedom to offend and * to be offended. The same people who would ridicule Muslims for being outraged at their sacred cows being mocked, are often uber sensitive to their own sacred cows being mocked; and those who would snigger at 'liberal' 'snowflakes' being triggered, often enough react disproportionately aggrieved when their own sensibilities are triggered. If one feels offended, one ought reflect upon why that is so, and reflect upon whether one's feelings ought be so precious.



    Edit: * Strange as it may seem, but being offended is one measure of how free one is....freedom from offence is the velvet curtain which conceals the gilded cage one's own perceptions and thinking are constrained by. Legislating freedom from offence just adds more material to that curtain. Some are content with the limited view imposed by the curtain, others are actually unaware that there is an alternative view beyond the curtain.

    .
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
  2. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    chelloveck, I hope you have your safety glasses on because if the tribe takes your challenge the dung WILL be flung. You are deep into Roger Williams territory with liberty replacing religion. One definition of liberty, the power to do as one pleases, sound very simple, but if really practiced in the real world, allows Jeffery Dahmer to enjoy his freedom to molest and eat his victims if he so desires. Then when the usual statement comes, we didn't mean that free, where are the limits placed? Then you add offend, to transgress the moral or divine law, or to cause difficulty, discomfort, or injury, and you are well into the old argument on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. If there were some non tribal, non cultural, agreements on these simple questions, I would not have watched the US Senate yesterday vote to approve judges and members of the federal bureaucracy on a straight party line vote and totally ignore the question of the ability of the candidate. Once we allow the question of what offends into the debate, the snowflake, Moslem, all other views are just as correct and we end up throwing the baby out with the bath water or a nation state like Somalia. Most "civilized" nations have thru a process of elimination reached the conclusion that peace and harmony requires, tolerance of others, a unified population with common goals and objectives, or the use of force and a controlling elite to maintain an uneasy truce. In the USA our rapid cultural and racial changes have disrupted the old common goals and belief system and we are now in a period of change. Who or what system will endure is now very much in doubt.
     
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  3. oldman11

    oldman11 Monkey+++

    Very well said,thank you duane

     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
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  4. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    Chelloveck, I would direct your attention to your Mother, or Grandmother Country, England with "no constitution, no bill of rights", and where the people are suffering greatly under government tyranny caused no freedom of speech abuses, as well as people unable to protect themselves while crime and violence spirals up. We really do take offense at outside countries meddling with our internal affairs of state and elections. We are not Europe, UK, Russia, China, Australia, Mexico, Canada, or anywhere else, and all you outsiders are welcome to come visit and then go home. We are American and proud of it.
     
  5. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Not a fan of Christian Hypocrisy myself, given the history of manifest destiny. It is what it is though.
    101105-004-0C904BD9.
     
  6. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    In other news, I hear khaki is back! In the form of Terri,Bindi,and Robert Irwin!!!!!!!!!
    That Bindi turned out to be one pretty lil gal !!!
     
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  7. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @duane Well said! So much so, that I won't waste my time commenting further on this "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" rubbish which is exactly what it is, nothing more than liberal tripe with the only purpose to draw one into an argument/debate that cannot be won.

    @tacmotusn Also, well stated! The problem as I see it most of the rest of the world refuses to understand that things are changing in America because , due to economics, we cannot continue our generosity of the past concerning Foreign Aid, Defense, Trade, etc. and many nations are acting the same as spoil children now being deprived of what they consider to be what's due them, the status quo. America is changing and the rest of the world needs to get use to it. They can fall to the floor kicking their heels, throwing their little tantrum while screaming their hatred at us but it will have little effect in the end, and, at the worse, they might get paddled.

    @Thunder5Ranch "Not a fan of Christian Hypocrisy myself, given the history of manifest destiny. It is what it is though."
    I also am no fan of the Church as it seems too often, not always, but too often, their words and actions have nothing to do with God but solely for the church/religion as has been shown throughout history and even today. So, stealing bits from an old Mark Twain quote perhaps 'support God always and your church/religion when it deserves it.'
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
  8. Seepalaces

    Seepalaces Monkey+++

    I couldn't agree more. As far as Christianity is concerned, the Lord gave us liberty. He didn't make Adam and Eve automatons. He allowed them the ability to choose Him or to choose sin, in my opinion because you can't force humans to love you. If they don't choose independently, it isn't love, it's coercion.
    In my opinion Chel, I think you're actually a classical liberal. I think if you actually start considering more issues in terms of more and less government you'd find we land in the same place most of the time.
    We go right back to my original statement. I want racists to speak. I know their speech is offensive, but we'll never reason most people out of their idiot ideas if we don't talk about it. I also find that when atheists are trying to offend me, they are almost never prepared for me to push back. My faith isn't without foundation. If I can get atheists out of bumper sticker speak, we can usually have a fruitful discussion.
     
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  9. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    Oh, man, you are much too late for that advice, That already happens on a regular basis. There is no shortage of snowflakes in this place, and no shortage of tone police to mitigate the snowflakes' sense of feeling offended.

    I Am unfamiliar with Roger Williams, but will research him further...but liberty does not replace religion, it provides an environment where religious freedom and freedom of conscience can flourish....just that with a Constitution and Bill of Rights the American playing field is kept reasonably level so that none may have an unfair advantage over the others. One of the remarkable aspects of the US Bill of Rights is that it assures religious freedom, but for some religious folk that represents a limit on their power and authority to impose their own beliefs and values onto others who don't share those religious beliefs, hence the incidence of church / state separation litigation that keeps the courts well occupied.

    You have chosen one particular definition, when, in context, others are more apposite to freedom of belief and freedom of conscience...yes, freedom to do as one wishes might describe an extreme case such as Jeffery Dahmer's, but in human society there will always be some legal and social constraints upon what constitute illegal, immoral and unacceptable social behaviour...some are codified in formal laws, while others are informally expressed by enforced by social norms conveyed by societal mores and folkways Difference Between Folkways and Mores | Difference Between . There's a world of difference between a libertarian, and a libertine such as Dahmer.

    A good question: to what extent should offended 'feelings' be protected? and to what extent should the business of protecting people's 'feelings' be legislated and enforced? These issues are presently being examined by citizens of Eire in relation to their existing blasphemy laws. Civics - Fortunately the USA has the First Amendment, but in Ireland.... It is also an issue that is pertinent to our own, Survival Monkey community.

    Some 'moral' laws are enforced by the civil and criminal laws of sovereign states, but divine law? Secular governments in the USA are prohibited from entanglement with religion in enforcing the 'divine laws' of individual sects. There are many divinities: Whose divinity's' divine laws assume supremacy over others, and should they and their divine laws be protected by governments from criticism, under a shield of 'religious freedom' laws???

    Actually, that is not simply a dry academic theological speculation. One citizen causing actual harm, injury, or economic loss to another citizen is well covered by civil and criminal statute and common law remedies. As far as I can tell, I'm not sure that there is any legal remedy for feelings of displeasure, resentment, anger, outrage, or being butt hurt being experienced by an individual. However, some folks would like to legislate the protection of some people's feelings from being offended.

    I don't think the issue is that of defining and listing what is deemed offensive, and what is not deemed offensive....nor the relative quality, value or merit of one tribe's views over another's, that merit more or lesser protection from offence. I am just suggesting that a robust debate ought not stifled by tone policing,Tone policing - Wikipedia or being excessively precious in self censoring, or censoring others in order that some people's tender feelings aren't bruised.

    That is true, but eliminating people, and the expression of their beliefs ought not be the price of a society that 'enjoys' a kind of peace and harmony...the peace and harmony imposed upon the voluntarily, or involuntarily blinkered and bridled.

    I think you are describing the moral panic of one segment of the American nation fearing the loss of their common goals and belief systems, whilst having to accommodate the aspirational goals and belief systems of others: That has ever been the case in American history. The Norman Rockwell America Norman Rockwell and Race: Complicating Rockwell's Legacy - University Libraries of the pre 1960's is fast fading, and some find that extremely disturbing. Populist demagogues have latched onto those insecurities, and the desperate desire of some to relive a nostalgic golden age when they felt more comfortable with the social order that existed at that time. One notoriously thin skinned populist has been enthusiastically spruiking up the strengthening of defamation laws, which he, as a fabulously wealthy person with proportionally deep pockets, would be happy to use to stifle inconvenient and uncomfortable criticism. The Non disclosure agreement is another convenient tactic for the thin skinned to stifle public scandal and criticism, except of course when it isn't convenient. :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
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  10. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    I think you seem to have forgotten a part of your own great nation's heritage. We have a "Mother, or Grandmother Country" in common....just that Australia doesn't share a host of grandparent countries that were the genesis of the American nation. Our mother country gave Australia its keys to the antipodean beach house....while you Americans kicked your mother country out of the American colonial beach house and changed the locks. :ROFLMAO:

    I for one am happy that America is not Australia, and even happier still that Australia is not America, though there is disturbing evidence that Australia is catching the American disease of ostentatious faux patriotism. :eek:
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
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  11. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    Actually we Americans of USA, had several countries with colonies here in todays USA. The English were not even the first to explore here. Neither were the Norse Vikings. There seems to be plenty of proof by DNA Native Americans as well didn't start out here. More likely the NW Native Americans came across an ice bridge Kamchatka to Alaska. SW Native Americans from South America, Central America, Mexico, to SW region. SE Native Americans from South America via the Caribbean. Many Native Americans were quite nomadic and warlike as well. Slavery in some forms as well as wars existed as well long before White or Hispanic or Russian or Mediteranian peoples landed here an stayed. Mother (in the form of King George) and the politicians didn't just get moved out to a nursing home like a mentally and physically disabled person we were no longer able to care for. King George was a tyrant we fought a war with and kicked his ass out.
    .
    The point is: We the People formed our own Country, and Laws, and grew without that English Mother!
    We can do quite well without Foreign unwanted input to our laws and politics.
     
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  12. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Lets see now, The mother country established a penal colony in the state of Georgia, Having not enough room the mother country then populated Australia with dubious ruffians, Is that correct?
     
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  13. Witch Doctor 01

    Witch Doctor 01 Mojo Maker

    I tend to agree with @chelloveck, Basically those of us who were in the military whether liberal or conservative, all swore to protect the Constitution of this great country. The bill of rights gives all American's the freedom of speech, not just speech that you or I necessarily agree with, It gives us the freedom of religious thought or lack of it regardless of whether we chose to believe their tenants.

    Besides, the Irish in the "Old Country" have a saying...

    May those who love us, love us;
    And for those who don't love us,
    May God turn their hearts;
    And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
    May He turn their ankles,
    So we will know them by their limping!

    If we don't have the freedom to be offended how will we know why there are all of those folks out there limping...;)
     
  14. Andy the Aussie

    Andy the Aussie Monkey+++ Founding Member

    ..... nope you had a war of independence and they needed to find another place. First Fleet didn't arrive till 1788...last convicts were delivered around the late 1860s I believe. Free people made up the majority of the population however. That said...we are proud of all parts of our heritage, just like you are in the US, warts and all, it's what makes us...well...US... ;)
     
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