On Wednesday 20 October 2004 1:40 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There's plenty of things to dislike Bush for: trouncing on our > constitutional rights, for one (Patriot Act, unlawful holding, etc),
Amen. And all of that can be done without engaging in ad-hominem attacks and hate speech. Indeed, I do so myself. > And thank God you can't. No, thank the Constitution for protecting our > liberties. Well, it can be argued that there is such a thing as a right to stupidity, which would certainly put the Idiot Fringe within their rights -- except that there STILL is no such thing as a right to engage in lying, defamation, slander and hate speech. > Criticism and suspicion of the government IS a citizen's duty. The > government must be held accountable to its citizens, NOT vice versa. This > is the whole reason the Constitution exists. Criticism, and even suspicion (within reason), yes. Lying, defamation, slander and hate speech are NOT a duty. Indeed, it can be argued that it is a citizen's duty to stand against such where ever one sees it. > Nearly any criticism can be considered "hate speech" Well, among the Left that is certainly true! They are very quick to denounce ANY criticism of their positions, no matter reasonable that criticism is, as "hate speech". But that doesn't make it true. Legitimate criticism does not descend to ad-hominem attacks, for instance. Legitimate criticism does not attribute ulterior motives to one's opposition. Legitimate criticism does not engage in lies, slander and straw men. All of the above, and more, ARE characteristics of hate speech. > , it's a useless word > tossed around by unconstructive people who can't intelligently comprehend > the other side's point of view. It's a cop-out. So, all of the gays and other Lefties who opposed the Religious Right's "no special rights" agenda a decade ago are "unconstructive people who can't intelligently comprehend" the Christians' point of view? (check your history; they used the phrase "hate speech" repeatedly in that campaign) You're painting with a pretty broad brush, my friend. Ken -- "I've tried to stay out of the Microsoft debate. If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over the end result is bad." -- Linus Torvalds _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
