freedom of speech

I see so often people complaining about "freedom of speech" being violated where they really don't understand that "freedom of speech" doesn't come without consequences. Just ask the FHRITP guy.

But I see now that Granby has made it illegal to insult a police officer online. Maybe I'm now the guy that doesn't understand "freedom of speech"? Sure the penalty is not quite so severe as in North Korea (aircraft gun firing squad), but the principle is the same - insult the beloved leader (or in Granby's case, a cop) and the government will punish you.

http://montrealgazette.com/news/loca...officer-online

The sad part of this, we now have to legislate good manners and courtesy.

It is tough, you want people to have freedom but if someone were to say the FHRITP thing to your daughter then you should have the legal freedom to punch him in the mouth without an assault charge.

There are consequences to your actions, in this day and age nothing is private, whatever you say or do can come back to haunt you.

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Originally Posted by DGearyFTE

The sad part of this, we now have to legislate good manners and courtesy.

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When you remove the basis for morality from society, then you find yourself in the position where you have to try to legislate it. And you can't legislate morality.

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Originally Posted by Fox

It is tough, you want people to have freedom but if someone were to say the FHRITP thing to your daughter then you should have the legal freedom to punch him in the mouth without an assault charge.

There are consequences to your actions, in this day and age nothing is private, whatever you say or do can come back to haunt you.

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Are you saying no to freedom of speech and yes to vigilante justice?

I agree its not appropriate to make unprovoked disrespectful comments to anyone, but I am not sure that answer is allowing people to go around punching people because they perceived something said to them or someone nearby as offensive.

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Originally Posted by B Wilson

Are you saying no to freedom of speech and yes to vigilante justice?

I agree its not appropriate to make unprovoked disrespectful comments to anyone, but I am not sure that answer is allowing people to go around punching people because they perceived something said to them or someone nearby as offensive.

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I am saying that if someone were to speak to your daughter like this you as a father would want to hit them. Legally based on freedom of speech they can say anything they want to your daughter, degrade her all they want but you cannot do a thing to them because if you touch them it would be assault.

I am all for freedom of speech but I don't believe you should have the right to do so without consequence, you can say whatever you want but if you get fired or banned for degrading someone that is not a violation of freedom of speech.

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Originally Posted by werner.reiche

When you remove the basis for morality from society, then you find yourself in the position where you have to try to legislate it. And you can't legislate morality.

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Nope, you can't legislate morality, or intelligence. Can anyone say "robotic nation."

Have you seen the movie Idiocracy. At one point I thought it was a joke. I'm rethinking that today.

Freedom of speech is fundamental to a free society - having the right to say anything does have it's consequences but they are worth it - lately there has been a push to limit speech and the way it is done is to call certain phases as hate speech - take the N word - if you call some guy the N word they jump all over you - the same goes for other phases and words when referring to certain groups - that is dangerous because the list keeps getting bigger and pretty soon you can't speak freely - you won't be able to criticize the government in power - if some jerk says something offensive to your daughter or wife the best thing to do is ignore the jerk and just smile as you walk away - that probably gets the jerk madder than if you responded by belting the guy - I know it might be hard to do that but no sense in getting into trouble over some lowlife -