Jessica23

There is no absolute right to free speech. I said this on page one of the thread. I don't defend it on *my* terms. I call out idiocy when it gets spewed across the internet and I can be bothered to challenge it. Your arguments are idiotic.

Did anyone else have trouble following my post? I thought it was pretty clear that being okay with causing offence to people you've never met because you've never met them and they're not your mother was nonsense. Perhaps I should have just said stupid?

Gosh, that IS simple. And there was me going to give you the benefit of the doubt and everything. And lo and behold, it was an argument based on nonsense and full of nonsense and fully nonsensical, in the pursuit of being able to make people (only non-blood relatives though! So it's FINE!) get upset. So admirable. Such wow.

If it's unimportant, why would you be gutted if you upset someone at work? Pick a stance and stick with it, otherwise poking you with the logic stick becomes even less fun.

Maybe cool it with the blanket statements about how the correct response to offense is 'so effing what' then? Just a thought.

So hard to have the BELIEFS that are so strong they cause all the OFFENDING. (violins in background)

colloquially it's known as 'self-obsessed Dawkins fanboy syndrome'* *It isn't, but it probably should be.

Do feel free to challenge and criticise me for it, if you can find a definition of sociopathic that doesn't include a very overt lack of interest in hurting other people.

Sociopathic, almost.

One of the most significant - just going out on a limb here - being to challenge people who are offensive within the bounds of the law.

But maybe it should be important when someone challenges you? Just a thought.

like, ykinmk, dude.

Sentenced to time in prison, no less.

You don't have a right to free speech. You have a right to break the law by speaking illegal stuff if you so choose. Is different. Look it up.

Well, you can be prosecuted for saying things that are illegal. So technically you can say them, but you don't have a right to say them without consequences. For the stuff that isn't illegal but is offensive, you might just get criticisised instead of prosecuted.

You don't have an inalienable right to say whatever you want. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Agreed. My latest nemesis is a Yorkshire terrier that's recently started walking in my local park - so aggressive that it goes nuts if it spots another dog 100m away. Someone told me it broke its lead and attacked a spaniel. It's not even muzzled. I'm now terrified that it'll attack mine and end up dead. Yay. I think the way to make it easier is walking very early (like, 5.30 - 6.30am), very late or very remote. Bigger spaces are easier and being prepared to change direction or otherwise avoid trouble helps. Oh, and constant vigilance. Because nothing says 'relaxing dog walk' like constant vigilance.

It's pretty clear that it didn't. The EDL didn't get near the war memorial that first weekend. Which is why they were reduced to throwing their so-called memorial bouquets at the anti-fascists.

Did you miss the memo? All flowers that have got within 20 feet of the EDL since Woolwich should be read as heavily invested with the symbolic weight of grieving for a dead solider none of them knew. Even and especially the bouquets that they chose, with a cavalier disregard for his memory, the memory of all dead soldiers, ever, and the very notion of common decency itself, to hurl at a crowd of protestors.

I was under the impression that the flowers in question had been thrown into the fountain by the EDL. They never made it anywhere near a war memorial.

Are you? Ok then. Perhaps something that your extensive life experience and reading for pleasure should have taught you along the way is that it's foolish to dismiss a whole area of knowledge because you didn't find it fun at school, though.

You don't need to study literature to enjoy reading books. But if you already like reading books and want to know more, you should study English literature.

Non-exhaustive list of the ways in which study of English literature might be useful in real life: 1. History. It's a good gateway for history. 2. Language. It teaches you how language works and achieves its effects. 3. Which in turn, will improve your skills at reading, writing, listening and speaking. Communicating more generally. 4. Communication skills are up there with the most important things you can ever learn. 5. They will improve every aspect of your life. No exaggeration. 6. Is that sufficient? I think it should be.

Make the other lefties like me? Good grief, man. I explicitly said what I said because I am bone-weary of being pulled apart on this forum for positions that are to me self-evident. And they're not self-evident because I'm an arrogant arsehole who believes my word is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They are self-evident because they're based on many, many years of thinking, writing, reading and teaching this stuff. I'm sure you'd agree with me that a lot of the people who post on here are mindless idiots and/or trolls. You are not one of them, which is why it's extra-specially wearying to be pulled apart by you. If you want to defend someone's right to argue the decline of British culture because they hate Islam, be my guest. But don't do it by nitpicking my original post, which suggested nothing more controversial than 'a bit context might help with that racism you've got going on there.' (Note for literalists: this is a sort of exaggeration of my original post, for rhetorical effect.) I don't avoid difficult conversations, or try and shut down debate on here. I call out crap when I see it, and 'decline in British culture', as a phrase, is a knee-jerk, tabloideseque bit of ignorance that it's a shame to see anyone try and defend. You want to debate the burqua, or Islamic extremism, or whatever - again, be my guest. But it needs to be specific. I do not, cannot and will not buy that anything practised by considerably less than 5% of the population is worth being cited as a decline in British culture, in whatever form it takes. To be particularly robust about it: how fragile do you think this culture is if a few burquas undermine it? It's laughable from multiple positions, not least the sense of perspective one.

Well, I've been studying it for nearly twenty years now and I think it's great! Maybe you had a bad teacher, or maybe it's just not your thing.