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From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek
With a few free hours this evening (I took a taxi rather than the bus home from School Camp), I found myself with some reading time, and just loved reading Aunt Susie's recent Notes From The Attic: "The Magical Ones". In particular I like the part where she wrote:
While I agree with Aunt Susie, we all unfortunately know that Justice is often very slow in coming. One reason for this is that there are far too many 'ubiquitous silent majorities', and far too many 'activist minorities'. Recently in the Australian press it was reported that the majority of the good folk of Tasmania, (a country to the south of Australia - Oh - Sorry - an Australian state lying off the southeastern part of the mainland), consider that homosexuality is immoral. This piece of news was reported as that the good folk of that country (sorry - State) are 'homophobic'. I wrote in to the newspaper feedback column, expressing my disgust that a value judgement such as 'homosexuality is immoral' should be denounced as 'homophobia'. Naturally I upset some people, and copped a little flak as a homophobic hate mongering person, which is far from true. My point is that despite our 'so called' freedom of speech, we live in a world that has little free speech. Political correctness has made sure of that. So what is free speech? In the most recent article from HonestReporting.com, entitled "Under the Media Radar" the following statement is made. All Palestinian journalists, moreover, have been banned from covering internal Palestinian conflict or the PA security forces (violators face 'personal and legal consequences of their deeds'), and urged to celebrate Israel's Gaza 'retreat'. This clearly fails the all-important 'town square test' recently endorsed by Condoleeza Rice, citing Natan Sharansky: if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. And we cannot rest until every person living in a fear society has finally won their freedom. So free speech it seems, is the right to 'express views', without being fearful of reprisal. Notice, that it does not say that free speech is the right to promote violence, to attack individuals, or to speak only what is acceptable or politically correct. If the good people of Tasmania want to believe that Homosexuality is immoral, then that ought to be permissible, provided that they do not incite hatred or violence. On the other hand, activist groups should have a perfect right to voice their concerns, and push for acceptance within the community, provided that they likewise do not incite hatred or violence. And again likewise, two sides of community sharing diametrically opposed views, ought to be able to state their cases, without engaging in hatred or violence. Unfortunately, in this free democratic world, 'people of POWER' like to 'FORCE' their views, ways,laws, beliefs, customs and behaviours on everyone around them. Some resort to SMEAR campaigns while others resort to violence. Others however whilst demanding the right to be heard publicly, shamefully do everything in their power to prevent their counterparts from doing the same. And so it is that an Arab journalist might go to jail or be shot, if he reports an incident of Palestinian intra-organisational street fighting; a homosexual activist will make accusations of intolerance and discrimination against a person who in any way does not support the activist agenda; and a power group will resort to character assassination to silence an opponent. At the end of the day (if sweet talk fails), violence, whether verbal or physical, becomes the preferred tool of all those who would rule the roost. Sometimes people do not receive justice in this lifetime. Sometimes justice is a long time coming, but when it finally does come, it usually does so quite swiftly, unexpectedly, and with great certitude. Meanwhile, like Aunt Susie, I sit in my lofty heights (up there in China - over there in your case), away from the problems in the middle east; away from the activists in Australia (and America), and thankfully, away from the river of sewage that snakes its way through your magical town(s). R.P.Bendedek Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com Note: Because of the recent Server change, some links may not work. This file was amended September 2007.
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