remember when we had freedom of speech?

do you remember those halcyon days of long ago when you could have an opinion of your own?
when you could openly say you didn't like someone without being branded a racist or a homophobe, when you could dislike a religion without being classed as racist, by someone who lacked the intelligence to know that a religion isn't a race. You could eat meat without being called a murderer, or be told you should be ashamed of yourself and MUST convert to Veganism.
In the UK we had programmes like, 'love thy neighbour' and 'in sickness and in health' , both of these featured black and white men who would call each other names like Sambo and white honki, and nobody rang the tv station to complain, because, if you actually watched it you'd realise that the black man usually had the last laugh. In fact there's another thing, you can't even call someone 'black' these days, they're a 'person of colour'. wtf is that all about? if something is black it's black, if it's white it's white, if it's any other colour then it's called coloured. we used to have golliwogs, and little enamel pin badges with golliwogs on them, they came free with labels off Robertsons Jam, you'd collect the labels off the jars, send them in and they'd send you a badge, kids used to collect them, there were lots of different ones, but no, they're racist now.
Nothing is fun anymore, everything has a way of being classed as some form of discrimination, call a woman 'love' it's discriminatory, back in my day it was just normal, hold a door open for a woman, that's sexist, in my day it was called good manners, the world has gone mad, if people are not accusing people of being racist or sexist then they are looking to sue someone. I remember when I was a lad, if you went to the park and fell out of a tree and broke your arm, you were in trouble, because, A) you were told not to climb trees, B) your mother had better things to do than spend ages in the hospital waiting for you to get it put in plaster, and C) Your dad was annoyed because he'd come home from work to find his dinner wasn't ready because your mum had been at the hospital all afternoon!
Now if a kid falls out of a tree and gets hurt the first thing the parents do is ring a solicitor to sue the council for negligence because they allowed a tree to grow in a park!
The world has gone mad!

 

Well spoken phil 1965,

During this shut down I took wife to the store, I remained in the car while she shopped. Setting there watching people one guy parked in the cross walk that was marked off for people to walk, another lady took the bags out of the cart, then just left the cart set in the parking area, in stead of returning the cart to the cart area.

 

nope, don't remember when we did. remember when more people wanted it then not though. remember when people had a whole lot less of it too.
not because of the government, but because that was the culture at the time. a culture people complaining about a sort of reverse freedom of speech are advocating returning to.
mostly who hadn't actually been born yet at the time.

i can remember when hate wasn't called freedom.
when some hate was taken for granted, but no one admitted hating peace or freedom,
though in retrospect it becomes obvious many did.

 

I am about Halfway between everything posted (and what will be posted ) about this subject !! Some things have gotten much better and some have gone too far too old to give (or have ) an opinion about it nowadays though

 

^^^ This.

 

Alf garnet was a bit racist......
(Uk tv)

But it’s humorous.

Is that isn’t what you find funny.
Go elsewhere.

It can be said in a hateful manner.
But it doesn’t have to be!

And it’s polite to hold a door, regardless of genitalia.

The tree bit is so true!
Typical mum!

 

except "they" are not "the left" but "the right", whining about the lessening of a tyranny they imagine to be benifitting themselves.
and "hate speach" is spech in support of hate. freedom does not equal getting away with making life more difficult for others, whether because they don't look like you, or what they choose to believe. freedom is when you don't have to indenture yourself to build. freedom was lost in the u.s. when the alien and sedition act began the regulating of immigration.
symbolic value never eliminated involuntary servatude either. it sugar coats it. not saying there are any economic ideologies that create freedom. freedom is what is there when you're by yourself.

 

Common sense has gone out the window, and all the modern 'thinkers' overthink everything so much that the freedom they believe they're promoting has become just the opposite. You can't even sneeze anymore without offending someone!

 

Freedom of Speech refers to the government attempting to control what you say. Is that happening in England? It's not happening in the States, though many believe it is.

What is happening is society is changing in such a way that the worth of individual experience and belief is growing in value, to the point that it has become part of our identity as a person. If you say or do something that threatens that identity, such as denigrate a person for, say their Jewish heritage, or for loving someone of the same sex, you can't be stopped by the government, but you will be socially sanctioned in your community for being an ass.

 

i can remember when people didn't whine about not having the "freedom" to rob the freedom of others.
when people weren't free to rob you of the freedom to think your own thoughts by constantly demanding your attention.
when you had freedom from the "speach" of everyone else.
i mean you still have the freedom to turn off the radio or the tv, but you're still not free from retarded drunken assholes walking by on the street halloring at the top of their voice about how everyone else having any kind of freedom at all, was robbing them of the 'freedom' to inflict tyranny and fascism on everyone else.

when people think the only freedom is what they personally individually have themselves, without regard to the freedom of anyone else, then no one has freedom really.
and that's why people have to protest about some people having more freedom then others.

so i remember when people's awareness didn't end at their own skin, when people realized their freedom was a fantasy without the equal freedom of people who didn't look like themselves.
now i don't remember a time when that was ever perfect, but i do remember when it was considered part of growing up, to realize this.

 

I think you nailed it. I have the freedom to say anything I like even if someone disagrees. This opens intelligent conversation and sometimes a change of mind without fear I lose my job, home or life. I'm at the age I don't care if you disagree with me, that's YOUR right.
So don't ask me to kneel and apologize because of the color of my skin,I cant help that.

 

I remember when we were free to call people who said racist things racist without them throwing a hissy-fit over it. If you're openly racist, deal with being called a racist. Don't throw a temper tantrum and cry about how your "rights" are being "infringed upon."

 

I agree as long as no matter what race you are if your a racist your a racist. I cant stand this if their black they cant be racist bull shit no matter your color

 

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

 

Well I'm back, been busy for a while but sorted now, to be honest I seem to have given up watching tv and am back reading again, I got fed up with everything that's happening. Free speech is dying and the idiots have taken over the asylum, where will it end!
Yahoo have done away with the comments bit after the news articles, apparently people were not playing nicely, everyone is running around scared of upsetting anyone and on top of that our government (uk) is making a total bollocks of this Covid thing, it really is quite depressing, I honestly believe they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, say one thing and do another, and Boris with his buzzwords, well that takes the cake.

 

I wish we could go back to the days where people kept political opinions to themselves. It's one thing to talk about it with your friends or family. But these days everyone with a tv or a facebook parrots article headlines like gospel to anyone who is nearby. I don't care what some random person said, I actually research and think on things before I just believe them.

I would much rather people go back to thinking it's impolite to talk about politics. Keep your uneducated opinions to yourself. You know?

 

i remember when people WANTED freedom of speach, passonately enough, to not blow it off with hate speach and biggotry.

 

Excellent thread Phil.
I think a lot of the problem nowadays is that everyone seems to just want to be offended and insulted and everything is just hate speech to them.
It seems to me that half the population of the UK could do with sense of humour transplants
Being a certain age I feel I have to be ever so careful now exactly what I say about anything as the Politically Correct WOKE Sexist lot appear to want to strangle almost every way of freely expressing ones self.

I was born in Liverpool which makes me a Scouser of course!
Now us Scousers do have a really good sense of humour and can make a laugh out of almost anything, and taking the gentle piss out of someone or anything at all is what we do.

Have to get on with other things now, but the below ‘joke’ covers it a bit.
But am I in trouble here?
Can I really refer to some people as whiney oversensitive pansies nowadays, or are the thought police coming to get me?

HELP!

 

I have never seen the double standard that exists in America today. One side thinks its fine for them to say anything they want, but not take any in return. I can't see this ending well, for either side.