Begin the search for FREE SPEECH at the tourist information booth in front of Victoria Hall in downtown Cobourg. Festooned for the festivities of Canada Day, FREE SPEECH is reaffirmed to everyone who asks for directions.
One of the enticing characteristics of FREE SPEECH is that it is ‘unofficial’. That means The State is to abide by a big HANDS OFF. Remember that free speech is not a privilege free speech is a Right. For Poets it is more – it is a W/Rite. Poets are Poetic Licenced to carry 45 calibre metaphors and surface-to-sentence similes – licenced to skill until Poetic Justice prevails.
Zooming in – can you see his Right now?
Throughout the town, FREE SPEECH marked its turf on utility poles, available for any passerby or Freenik.
FREE SPEECH was provided to all public telephone stations, because genuine dialogue is facilitated with its generous usage.
It really shouldn’t need saying that FREE SPEECH is the raison d’etre of newspapers. Without it, the national/provincial/local community would eventually stagnate. FREE SPEECH is the oxygen of a living society.
Northumberland Today, formerly known as The Cobourg Daily Star, sheltered itself in the comfort of the community of cowards, when it declined to re-print the Danish cartoons of Muhammed in 2006. The Muslim anger that lead to murderous riots in several cities around the world was a cynical contrivance that duped the planetary news media. The Cobourg Daily Star editor, in an editorial asking, How Free Should We Be, (Feb 8/06) hung a transparently weak fig leaf over her smug righteousness, explaining why she refrained to reprint the cartoons thereby denying Cobourgers of their right to be informed of the cause of all the international fuss. The self-censorshit editor defended herself, claiming ““Freedom of speech and freedom of the press comes with a certain amount of responsibility.” That’s it. That "certain amount of responsibility" included rejecting this extremely offensive letter-to-the-editor in response.
What were those certain responsibilities? The mealy-mouthed editorial never bothered to mention a single one. The is a betrayal of FREE SPEECH by an element of the fifth column which boasts that it is the chief defender of FREE SPEECH. “Certain amount of responsibility” is Newspeak for Nicespeak, which is Nospeak at all.
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6 comments:
Oh yee of myopic vision; dollars are financing circumventing software; cyber-samizdat.
In a free society, good and bad play out for the minds and hearts.
In an unfree society only the bad prevails; there is no play, or only little play.
Your unadulturated myopia fails to see the significant difference. I have never asserted that there is never a down side to freedom. I have asserted that there is more upside to freedom than there is to unfreedom.
You are pathetically saguine to the benefits of freedom. You expect freedom / democracy to be perfect. I expect it to be better than unfreedom / undemocracy. I expect it to constantly improve and make net improvements to human life, and in that regard, it has not disappointed, indeed, it has left unfree societies/cultures licking rusted toilet seats.
The fact that you chronically find disppointment in freedom is your pathology, not mine.
I proselytize freedom, while you lament that it's not perfect. Once in a while, William, you should go into the bathroom, have a good cry, and come back out with some spine.
Two men are on their knees. They both lean forward to prostate themselves before the dictator. One man says to the other, "You have a reputation of being a freedom fighter -- why are you bowing down?"
He replies, "so I can see from different angles just where to shove my dagger."
There is no blindness to the downside as you assert.
1. Free speech can cause conflict
2. Free speech can resolve conflict
3. Unfree speech can cause conflict
4. Unfree speech never resolves conflict.
Lawyers, doctors, organizations of all kinds, have bad apples amongst them. The same for corporations.
Some of those same corporations that you list, use the money they obtain from China to make an more robust product for all of us, but also it is investing in the development of circumventing software with the sole purpose of subverting (circumventing) the firewalls.
I know of two of these projects that are being funded by the evil artificile corps. Selling some rope to China and using the money to develope a rope to hang them.
When I went to Eastern Europe, I paid for my months in there -- which means I was providing funds to the communist state. Yep, there I am, an anti-commie providing largesse to the commie state. Hypocrisy writ large. I had to take the accusation in a few circumstances because I could not reveal all of my activities at the time.
I was there to subvert. I was there to bring forbidden materiel and I was there to train dissidents and artsies how to smuggle stuff out. One does not publicize this, especially techniques of smuggling.
Some of those evil artificial corporations are doing things of which you are unaware. They have an arm's length (bamboo curtain) from the activity for deniability reasons, but it takes money, and they provide it via foundations and other devices. It is a tax write off, because why give it to governments that are too timid and hoity-toity moralistic (reflecting their electorate) to do dirty subversive work.
Without making any claim that the following describes any particular individual, I would like to try and alleviate Mr. Hayes' confusion.
My years of observing people have led me to conclude there are two kinds of humans; those who let emotion guide them, and those who apply reason.
The former never let facts stand in the way of their opinions, which is why they never change their minds and why they cannot be debated rationally.
For example, they are the kind of people who rail against teen pregnancy yet refuse to provide birth control to prevent it because it would be "morally wrong".
People who form their beliefs through rational thought and investigation can be very frustrating to the more volatile amongst us, who can become quite irate at the lack of emotion shown by the rational types who won't rise to the bait of the impassioned argument by responding in kind.
It is quite possible to debate and disagree with someone without calling their intelligence into question. People who resort to name calling just expose the irrational, emotional basis on which they operate, and their argument is diminished considerably by their petulance.
Personally I prefer the emotional type, as long as they agree with me! If not, they are spineless, clueless, and simply wrong.
My years of observing people have led me to conclude there are multitudes of kinds of humans.
Dr Alec Lucas, Head of English Dept, McGill University, wrote in the Introduction to my first book of poetry, Walking On The Greenhouse Roof, 1969:
He has gained and is gaining greater control of his imagery and syntax. Yet he is a poet of achievement as well as of promise. He writes with gusto and sincerity. His poems are characterized by an intensity that may owe something to the neo-romanticism of the age, but that owe most, directly to Keeler's own experiences in life. Gusto and intensity do not of course make art, but when they are combined, as in his poetry, with an unusual gift for creating images the results are striking. Even if the form breaks, the impression that the passionate involvement of the poet is at fault and not an inability to polish his lines. It is a "fortunate flaw" that manifests the strength of the poet's imagination, chafing as it does at the restraints placed upon it by the needs of form. Keeler's is no tame talent to be shackled without a struggle."
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