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So, you mean any type of violence should be censored?

No, your answer to Claire was extremely vague.

I edit this to add last sentence. Sorry

AdvilPM is autistic. Let's make new people feel welcome before we flame them.

Magnus my avatar shortened would be DAD which is kinda weird, Go with Dent

re Orwell trust me we have had some vicious punchups in the past, from my perspective whilst I completely reject his general views on religion and systems of government I have a deep respect for him simply because he wants a peaceful and fair world. Just a shame that he is completely wrong about how to attain such a world

I'm not sure how to make this clearer. I don't want censorship of anything. Violent acts should be punished, speech never should. If I stab or shoot you, then criminal penalties follow. When I say violence, I refer to actual, physical violence. Killing people is illegal. Beating people up is illegal. Offending people is not.

I dont see how you can so easily remove provocation from this equation?

I believe both are damaging, physical and mental, but I believe physical abuse is also a form of psychological abuse anyway because of the intimidation and feeling helpless, my case was different, as a kid I used to get beaten up and sometimes they came up with just words, I didn't care about what they said at the time as long as they didn't beat me up, they could throw insults at me and I wouldn't react, in comparison one was awful and the other meaningless, for me, at least at the time. Heck, I wish words would still be meaningless for me, but growing up I lost that gift.

Because there is no purely objective basis on which to gauge that. Violence is obvious enough that decisions can be made with no ambiguity when you're dealing with that.

greenblue wrote:

My son is almost 3 and he doesn't talk. He is very pensive looking most of the time and I know he is smart. He is very intuitive and sensitive too. We have a non verbal way of communicating.
People keep pushing me to take him to speech therapy but I am so averse to it for reasons I can't articulate. I think language is just a symbolic way of taking in the world. Once you label something, it turns flat. Without language, the world becomes more 3 dimensional and magical almost. I often obsess about language. There aren't enough words to describe everything.

People don't have to call others names or hit them to affect their psyche. Just thinking bad thoughts is enough to damage a sensitive child. That's another reason why I am reluctant to take him to speech therapy, I don't want anyone looking down on him.

So by your rational it is ok to deliberately provoke violence through speech and only those that commit the violence should be charged ?

I thought this thread was about censorship or what should be censored and what shouldn't be censored. Not about what is and/or should be illegal and what is and/or should not be illegal.

Why are you changing the subject?

Same with Canada of course. Though we dont have it so codified. I dont know of any media that is banned.

When I worked at the bar I met a black American lady who summed it up. She felt that Canada had far better rights as far as speech and assembly. She was was from Los Angeles.

It was her first visit to Canada (she was heading to Alaska), and she was worried as anyone would be about hospitality in a foreign country. So she asked a friend. To paraphrase her statement to me:

"I asked her where it was safe for me to go. she said 'Girl, its Canada, you can go where ever you want'. No, i mean, what parts of town are safe(grande prairie), what streets are not safe for a black woman? 'Arent you listening? You can go where ever you like.' I know, I know, but like at night time, you know? 'Listen, this is Canada. Nobody cares what color you are. You wont get attacked for being black.'"

A bit of hyperbole from her friend, but not totally untrue.

My sister and I ended up in east LA when we visited(we dithered too long about exiting the freeway). If it had not been 2pm on a 105 f day, we might have actually seen someone. As it was, we were rather shocked at the Beirut like conditions there. Boarded up windows, destroyed cars. I've seen burned out cars, but never left beside brownstones with no glass.

Previous to that my brother and I drove through Coney Island, New York at 11pm on a saturday night. Again, wrecked cars, boarded windows. Even the worst part of Toronto keeps the streets clear, collects the garbage.

As I said, she was staying in the hotel above the bar I worked at. Bored, and mindful of what her friend said, she took a chance and came down to a club that was playing dance music, metal, rock, and (after she arrived) some rap. She came alone too.

From what she said, she was nervous as hell. You dont do that where she comes from. She met me, and I'm pale as a ghost, head shaved, blue eyes. I have doc martens. I am of german extraction. I'm sure she was big eyed when the Hells Angels came in and she didnt leave my side all night. She could have though. She was likely the only black in that bar.

I know damn well that if I tried to enter the sort of club she frequented back home, I would be persona non grata. At least.

So yes, she had much more freedom of assembly(and from it, freedom of speech) that she did back home. When you let some people get away with too much, average people dont feel safe doing average things.

Another friend I had, Maryanne, and I were sitting in a country bar(in Grande Prairie), called "The Corral". I looked at her and said "I feel out of place here." And she look hard at me, mouth agape.. and said "You feel uncomfortable? At least you are WHITE!"

Freedom of speech is moot if people are afraid to speak. Freedom of assembly is moot if people fear travel. Westboro Church doesnt protest funerals because they think it will affect society. They do it because they hope to scare people away, to prevent the celebration of the lives of those that WB does not approve of. They are bullies, and they use the laxity of American law to cause grief. This undermines freedom(of speech).

Thats called the nonverbal world. Its fascinating. Magical, I agree.


Me too! More about words than language. Sometimes I dream of words I have never heard, wake, and look them up.



Oh yes there are!

some random examples:

Pedinomite: a person that lives on a plain.
Ultra-crepidarian : one who criticizes above the shoe.
vindemy: the taking of honey from beehives.
eagre: a wave of unusual height.
gongoozler: one who stares at activity on a canal.
mammothrept: a spoiled girl raised by her grandmother.


You see, there really is a word for everything!

I can't remember words unless I use them. You must be good at the game, "balderdash".

I dream of words too! Or, I'll think of one out of the blue (a word I think I never heard) and look it up to find that it is so poignant to what I was thinking at the time. The origin of words is fascinating. I like to look up words I already know in the dictionary from time to time too. It expands the meaning.

I apologize for going off topic, but as someone who delights in words I am well aware that many words are so ambiguous that they are what might be called the slum of language. Words like natural, perfection, human, beauty, God, ugliness, evil, good, spiritual, etc. which are taken by many to have clear meanings for themselves but have no understanding that there are very wide differences amongst people as to their meanings. They are words favored by politicians and advertisers and other social scammers to cause major misunderstanding big trouble. Language in general is terribly sloppy and it takes real skill to be precise and the best of linguistics can cause all sorts of trouble. The Bible is a prime example of interpretation and reinterpretation ad infinitum to please any specific group of believers and cause all sorts of really dangerous trouble but any religious text has the same problems.

Agreed. wikipedia(at least) calls these weasel words and peacock words.

Magnus, Sometimes words repeat themselves endlessly in my head. For instance, one day, for a few hours, it was 'redacted'. If I listen to a song before bed, its in my head the next morning. Sometimes the whole next day. I dont find it unpleasant.

I wont go off topic again in this thread!

There is an inherent assumption that there is a relatively sane audience of some moral homogeneity but the world is comprised of many cultures and some vary considerably in outlook and sensitivity.The recent incident of a Danish cartoonist requiring protection because he indicated that the Muslim world produced more than its fair share of terrorist violence and the resulting violence caused the death of some participators in that violence was laid to his graphic comment. Religions in general are rather sensitive to rational comments on their dogmas and prominent figures like Christ and Mohamed since reason plays very little part in most of their beliefs and their only way of expressing disagreement is violence. How softly should people tiptoe around these irrationalities which themselves cause much misery in the world?