Anti-atheism billboards in Times Square and San Francisco

[longship]

32. It is all outreach. And ALL free speech.

Last edited Mon Oct 7, 2013, 08:39 PM - Edit history (1)

To openly profess offense is to not understand the purpose of the First Amendment.

The use of provocative speech goes back centuries -- millennia really. Try Clemens, Swift, Shakespeare, Galileo, Plato, Homer, etc. One even finds it the Hebrew Bible. If you want real provocation try Thomas Paine sometime.

Screaming offense is tantamount to saying that people have no right to say things. That is something I cannot accept.

Offended? Too fucking bad!

Jefferson and Madison understood that very, very clearly. And they wrote the thing, with the help of the US Congress, which adopted these principles, with near unanimity.

Alas. There are so many today who just don't get it. A free society cannot exist where people can be hushed merely because some people are offended.

I support all of these billboards and bus signs. Yes! Even those from Answers in Genesis.

My regards.

And on the calling women names issue. In case you haven't noticed there has been a fair amount of that going on recently, too. (I know you have, dear friend.) The slut shaming of Sandra Fluke was shameful. And there have been too numerous of other instances, even on the atheist Web, and even here on DU. I find them more than repulsive.

But I would no more claim that people don't have the right to say them than I would say that people could say that they are offensive. Claiming offense is free speech, too. I would not want to stifle that any more than I would the putatively offensive speech.

I find Ken Ham and misogyny (among other things) quite repulsive and offensive. But people have the right to express them publicly. In a way, it helps our cause. The more repulsive society finds these out dated ideas, the sooner they will fade. But when people make decisions on their beliefs, it's best to know where they stand. It won't help if there's a culture that says people don't have a right to say them.

So, I say (since this is a political site). Quoting Cenk Uygur, "Have at it, Hoss!" Speak the most offensive of your beliefs. Do it publicly so everybody knows and we can sort it all out.

That's why the right to offensive speech is just important as that about warm, fuzzy bunnies. And fortunately, it's why what's offensive has changed over the years as society has.

One of the contentious domain left seems to be religion. The reason is, unlike misogyny, no one religion has a claim to being the best social good... in spite that they ALL claim that very fact. That makes religion different. And I think we both know that it is.

Thanks.