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'Free Speech' Is Incompatible With A 'Multicultural' Societywww.zerohedge.com/political/australian-politician-admits-free-speech-incompatible-multicultural-society
171 sats \ 9 comments \ @siggy47 19 Mar Politics_And_Law
“I recognize and I fully said from the beginning, we don’t have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States, and the reason for that is that we want to hold together a multicultural community and have people live in peace,” said Minns.
At least Christina Maas has some sense:
“These laws will be used against dissenters. Against people who question government policies. Against critics of the ruling ideology,” she writes.
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36 sats \ 3 replies \ @StackerSports 20 Mar
This is the basic stance of most of the western political world unfortunately.
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20 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 20 Mar
Dammit wrong account again. I am so lost with this March Madness pool and picks and buy ins coming in. This is the third time today I was commenting from the wrong account. I really like the switch account feature but maybe it makes it too easy.
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40 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 20 Mar
haha is @StackerSports not allowed to have a opinion also? :D
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 20 Mar
No. The intern needs to stay in his lane. Haha
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36 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19 Mar
I strongly disagree.
It only seems incompatible because
  1. Young people are being taught at universities that speech is violence--and thus a violent response to disliked speech is justified.
  2. Many of the immigrants are coming from cultures that don't have a history of free speech, and thus haven't learned to live with it. But if you hold your ground, they will learn within a few generations to adapt to a free speech culture. Unfortunately, the universities are not teaching the new generations to adapt... see point 1.
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30 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 OP 20 Mar
Of course I agree. What strikes me, though, is that growing up in the US when I did just about everyone believed in free speech. I think of the ACLU Skokie case. It surprises me that free speech isn't a core value everywhere. I've been generally surprised about other English speaking countries and their seeming indifference towards it. Obviously people in the US value it less now too than they did 40 years ago.
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36 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 20 Mar
Yeah, and I wonder why people seem to care less about free speech now... I wonder if it's because they are actually exposed to more speech now than ever, especially speech they don't like.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @crenshaw 20 Mar
Define your idea of "free speech."
In it's idealized form "free speech" easy to defend but in reality no society has ever been able to protect it absolutely. There is a reason for that. Even in the U.S. there are practical limitations that protect people from things like threats and defamation. Are those limitations within bounds? It seems overly simplistic to me to defend "free speech" in such absolute terms when reality is just not that clean.
It's similar in some ways to the idea of a "free market". Has there ever been such a thing? Maybe something to strive for, yes, but in reality even a market benefits from some minimal regulation so there's a level playing field for everyone involved. An absolute "free market" can absolutely go wrong. Granted, regulation can definitely go too far and I don't claim to know where the lines should be. But to just fall on the side of "free" ideology and everyone else is wrong is no way to have a thoughtful debate.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 20 Mar
Of course, and I'm not saying I have any sort of "absolutist" positions on this.
But I am saying that I disagree with this Australian politician who seems to imply that the marginal free speech restriction is justifiable on the grounds of protecting multicultural harmony.
I think the narrative that's out there about needing to restrict speech to guard against disinformation and protect cultural sensibilities is wrong.
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