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Anorak News | Free Speech: Australia’s ABC fails to understand comically

Free Speech: Australia’s ABC fails to understand comically

by | 24th, July 2016

Thanks to Tim Blair for this wonderful moment in the debate over Free Speech and Me Speech. On Australia’s ABC idiots, the talk if on the “negative effects of free speech”.

Scott Stephens:

There’s something quite disturbing about our response to the events we’ve witnessed in places like Orlando or Nice. I’m hearing things being said that not that long ago would’ve been unthinkable …

It seems to me that we are going through a period in the west of a moral regression, and because of that I’m wondering whether we as moral agents can still be trusted with the privilege of freedom of speech. I think we’re at the point where we have to re-examine what we mean by that and if there is a deeper moral obligation that puts constraints on what we ought to be able to say in public.

Bloody hell.

Waleed Aly:

Certain speech and the proliferation of certain speech can have real world harms … it’s part of whipping up a mood that has seen people bashed and may well see more people bashed.

William Cavanaugh:

We tend to think of free speech as self expression—it’s just the expression of whatever it is on your mind, it’s the expression of the self whether or not the self is worthy of being expressed. So Donald Trump for example is congratulated for speaking his mind even if he doesn’t necessarily have a mind that’s worth speaking.

Shhh!



Posted: 24th, July 2016 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink