freedom of speech

Soapbox: How “closed minds house their own prisons”, or the illiberality of liberalism…

Soapbox on June 22, 2015, 9:59 am

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From reader Dean Sterling Jones… I disagree with what you say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it – if by “fight” you mean “surrender,” by “death” you mean “live comfortably” and by “your right to say it” you mean “your right to shut the hell up.” Don’t bother reading the revised sentence back, it makes little sense. But you get the picture. For some, the right to freedom of speech means little more than “the …

“…there is no debate because there can be no debate”

Mick Fealty on April 22, 2015, 3:56 pm

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This from Belfast emigre Robert McLiam Wilson, via Henry McDonald: “I am feeling a touch of shame today. Cancelling such an event in the face of putative menace in a city that endured a 30-year torture of self-immolation seems worse than pusillanimous. Belfast? Seriously? This is not the city I remember. This cancellation says, with trumpeting clarity, that there is no debate because there can be no debate. There is a big boat that can’t be rocked.” He added: “Charlie …

“my offence at your satire of [thing I care about] is so great that you must be censored”

Mick Fealty on January 13, 2015, 11:39 am

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So, there’s official censorship (which these days, outside questions of national security) scarcely exists in the west. And then there’s unofficial censorship (you publish that and our advertisers/backers would be very displeased). There’s also whistleblowing (no one in the sector will ever work with you again), and there’s downright intimidation (I’ll put your lights out/windows in). All of these activities limit not only free speech but the very diversity and pluralism that real democracy (power to and from the people) …

Does #CharlieHebdo offer the rest of us a ‘teachable moment’ on the meaning of free speech?

Mick Fealty on January 12, 2015, 12:19 pm

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The terrible events in Paris this week have unleashed, amongst other things, a lot of good journalism, and some pretty decent responses from brother and sister cartoonists. So, here’s a quick round up of some of the best. – In the US the Je suis Charlie motif has been popular but highly moderated by an essentially liberal reponse to the graphicness of the cartoons themselves. David Brooks in the New York Times for instance… …this might be a teachable moment. …

A measured media response to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity

Kris Nixon (Belfast Barman) on January 7, 2015, 4:19 pm

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I utterly condemn the individuals who today attacked and killed innocent civilians at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris today. It is horrific and unprovoked and I would if the opportunity presented, would happily press the “on” button for their electric chairs. Also, I am an atheist. I would like you to keep that in mind please throughout this piece. You may have seen a lot of people calling for a response to the killings, printing the cartoon on the …

“the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned…”

Mick Fealty on June 2, 2014, 9:51 pm

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It’s worth remembering that Anna Lo presaged her first frustration with live in Northern Ireland by telling the Irish News, that “I’ve had enough of the inability of this society and its political leaders to escape from the past.” Now here’s Tom Kelly defining the real failure to respond amongst Northern Ireland’s broad political leadership, but particular an opportunity evidently unseen by the First Minister to live up to the title he so jealously guards. First the ‘offence’: What kind …