Thank you for that very welcome and timely intermission, Yadda. 

I was about to self-censor any further reading of this exhausting and exhaustive micro-dissecting thread on Freedom when suddenly your macro-contribution sprung into view to provide me with just the right palliative relief that my sorely abused patience was screaming for. 

freediver wrote on Oct 10^th, 2015 at 8:56am:


So you think G agrees with you?

How has he been a proponent of self-censorship?

What do you think about censoring mean thoughts to be nice to people?

What do you think about laws in Singapore and Malaysia that criminalize racial and religious vilification?

What do you think of vilification laws at all?

What do  you think of state censorship?

Is the Australian Censorship Board an insidious threat to freedom of speech?

They once banned the Satanic Verses. Insidious?

And, last but not, least, should Muslims censor themselves to not talk about Islam, or just the parts with that Jew and his gold, Aisha, the 600 Jews killed in a day, and the threat to our Freeeeedom?

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Obviously not entirely, but he is going to significant effort to distance himself from it.

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By promoting self censorship.

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It makes me all warm and fuzzy.

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I don't know enough about them to comment.

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Yes.

freediver wrote on Oct 10^th, 2015 at 1:16pm:


Thanks, FD. You agree then that it's not very nice to tell people when you're angry at them, yes? Not all the time, anyway. You agree with the odd white-lie to keep people's spirits up and save the hassle of telling them what you really think, no? Feel free to expand on this point.

The vilification laws in Singapore and Malaysia are designed to hold together a society comprised of three main ethnic groups: Chinese, Malays and Indians. The Malays whittled some of these laws down under Mahatir, but racial vilification and the publishing of this is a serious crime, particularly in Singapore. Mind you, Lee Kwan Yew got away with it constantly, but that's just him. Unless you're the boss, the freedom to offend an ethnic or religious group is not taken as a human right in Singapore, and for good reason: power and ethnicity there is a delicate balance. Their history is filled with riots and uprisings, but perhaps more importantly for Singapore, strikes. Labour in Singapore is based on ethnicity. You don't want Tamil labourers, for example, walking off a construction site.

Racial vilification laws in Singapore are about keeping the machine running and making the trains run on time.

Civilisation has its discontents, no?

saying they were "tame" is neither here nor there.

And it certainly doesn't detract from the point that expressing the view that the cartoons were offensive and should not have been published - is not in any way undermining free speech. And moreover, thinking that refraining from saying it because of concerns of what the terrorist might make of it, is an appropriate way of standing up for free speech - is the height of irony and nothing less than a call for self-censorship.

freediver wrote on Oct 10^th, 2015 at 6:28pm:


About what?

It alienates Muslims. Which radicalises them. Which of course turns them into terrorists, which is offensive.

What has changed is that instead of Gandalf arguing they should not publish these cartoons because self censorship is a good thing, he is arguing they should not publish them because they are Muslims.

Karnal wrote on Oct 10^th, 2015 at 6:46pm:


It was the racial caricatures I was more worried about.

Regardless, its irrelevant to the point. It could be Mother Theresa expressing goodwill to humanity, it doesn't matter - if someone finds it offensive and inappropriate, they should be free to say so, and not be deterred from saying it by external pressures.