Friends of CwG Discussion Board

No. I find it easy at times to ignore untruths / half truths.



Sorry to nitpick, but I don't think it's offense, but more like annoyance. Talking too much is seen as not honoring dialogue and perhaps, at times, coming off as arrogant, or like you are on a soap box. How that issue comes up online still puzzles me. I mean, it's not like you can interrupt someone on a thread. And you can respond to whatever you want in a post, rather than tackle the whole thing.

But to be clear, as much as I feel pro free speech, I am in this thread referring to the situations that are public. As in spaces that are government owned and/or public common spots. On a site like this or Facebook, there's always that notion of "it's my house, and your free speech crap doesn't matter here." Admittedly, that took me a little while to learn online, but doesn't feel like something I don't get now. This site remains very tolerant IMO compared to most places, but I think we've observed here that not everything goes. And it's not like it's just from admin team. I mean, if you put someone on ignore, you are pretty much censoring another based entirely on your own choice. In a public place, offline, the equivalent action of ignoring would be akin to walking out of the area. Cause in that space, you don't have an inherent right to say who gets to speak to you / around you, and who doesn't.

Huh?! What untruth or half truth did I speak of?? I don't recall telling any lies.



This is why I am better online then in person, if I get asked a question I cannot respond quickly to things, though on the phone it's not so bad, as I feel less pressure so can still manage okay, but it's ten times easier online. Though yes, I have found that when I posted really REALLY long posts defending a particular position I had, I got more hostile reactions, oddly enough. Kind of like people are thinking subconsciously "how dare you defend that!" or something.



Oh, I used to do that to my in person friends back at school all the time. I guess I just got bored with what they were on about, so would go off and do my own thing (mainly looking for girls at the time, ha!). At university, lecturers used to get really annoyed when students would just decide to walk out on them. In a public space, although what you say is generally true, there are laws against certain types of things that you can and can't do in public. For instance, I don't know what the law is in America, but here in Australia if you go up to a person on the street and explicitly ask for spare change, you are breaking the law.

You might think this is unfair on a lot of people that are in difficult situations, but when you're doing it tough yourself, the last thing you need is to feel "guilted" (that's not a real word btw, but it should be) into giving someone some of your money. Now I don't mind helping the odd person in genuine need, I will listen to what the poor person has to say, but can you imagine how horrible it would be if you were going onto the street to listen to someone say "you're ten times better off then me, give me your change!" especially when you've done your time marching in dole lines, jumping through all the legal hoops you need to, to get mere scraps. If had my own house etc, sure. For the time being every cent counts I guess.

Back to the topic, I honestly believe that too much free speech would be wrong, because if you have people on the street preaching about a particular religion harassing people about it, well that would be a bit crazy. I think there's already a law against preachers taking things too far though, not sure. I suppose if a Christian or Muslim started preaching massive fear towards homosexuals for example, that led to their mob going around and bashing up gays, they could be charged with incite to riot.

So free speech in public is okay, but be sensible about it, and think about the consequences of any fear-mongering you spew out is what I say.