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Freedom of Speech


HydrogenBond

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Does political correctness violate freedom of speech?

___Inasmuch as one is a matter of law & the other a matter of culture, there is not any technical "violation" as I see it. Political correctness is no more or less a social trend than the length of skirts; say & wear what you want & risk the usual praise or ridicule. :doh:

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Obviously anything that limits what an individual says is exactly censorship and violates one freedom of speech in the most fundamental sense. Yet as a whole we have place a price on specific types of speech. You can say waht you want, but there may be ramifications to the statement (such as libel suits).

 

As Turtle noted, PC-ness fluctuates with the times. What amazes me is how very shallow a lot of these PC sentiments actually are. I recently saw a polical figure(Aide to DC Mayor Marion Barry....who got re-elected after getting busted smoking crack :doh: ) catching a bunch of flak (and eventually having to step down) for using the word niggardly (which means cheap or stingy and has no etemological conection to the derogatory term nigger). Shall we stop being able to honk our horns because it is too much like honky? Can I no longer have cheese and crackers? I guess I can't get my bathroom spic and span anymore either... Maybe we'll just have toads instead of frogs from now on.

 

IMO much of the PC ideals come from indivduals trying to whitewash variances between people and cultures by applying bland meaningless euphemisms as opposed to identifying the basic characteristic that do bind us.

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political correctness doesn't violate freedom of speech. There is no law that says "Thou shalt not use the 'N' word" or any other form of hateful or degrading speech. You can say what you want, but be prepared to take the consequences of what you say from others who disagree with you. It's their freedom of expression to flip you the bird, or to boycott your business when you say something they don't like.

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Does political correctness violate freedom of speech?

"What made America great? It was spics and niggers and wops and kikes with noses as long as your arm," Firesign Theatre. And micks and chinks and japs and frogs and bohunks and roundheads and squareheads and squidjiggers and cajuns and wogs and... but not the poor or the stupid.

 

Anything government does government does badly at tremendous expense. Get Mrs. Grundy's huge hairy scarred fist out of your panties. Learn how to play the dozens and bloody stop whining.

 

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19960903

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozens

http://www.online-magazine.com/snaps.htm

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/bibliogs/dozens.html

 

"Yo' momma so fat she jump in the air an' get stuck." That's a nice summary of jackbooted State compassion, except for the blood.

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If anyone ever watch edAll in the Family, which can still be found in reruns, the character Archie Bunker was a biggot who was funny yet harmless. He helped teach a generation how to laugh at bigotry and/or not be so sensitive to it. It was leading a social change that attempted to break down the walls between us with laughter.

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Archie Bunker was sure a hilarious character! Of course, as you say HB, he wasn't there to teach bigotry but to the opposite aim.

 

What's wrong with PC?

 

Answer: exaggeration! It's perfectly right to be PC, it's perfectly right not to discriminate, but witchhunts are something better left to the times of the Inquisition. I didn't find it PC at all for OJ and MJ to get innocent verdicts.

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I wonder what would have been better, a not guilty verdict for OJ when he is actually guilty and he walks a free man but everyone treats him as guilty, or a guilty verdict, he goes to prison, eats up tons of tax payer dollars for appeals and there are riots in the streets and even more of a racial divide.

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Firesign Theater was a group of comedians that made absolutly hillarious albums (those large usually black discs with grooves upon them that played by rotating them on a turntable and placing a needle attached to an arm on the machine into the afforementioned grooves) many years ago. ;) They're somewhere between Cheech&Chong and Monty Python with a little Crumb comics and Mad magazine thrown in. ;)

 

"Georgie Tirebiter he's a spy and a girl delighter ... porgy fire fighter he's a student like yooooooooooou" :(

 

"Watch out for that entrenching tool!" :Waldo:

 

"Oh boy groatcakes again heavy on the thirty weight" :hyper:

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