Jenny’s Pennies

One of the things that truly makes my blood boil, is when people say:

“I think [x], but you are not allowed to say that in Sweden.”

x usually = “gays are unnatural and shouldn’t be allowed to marry/have children/show affection in public”
or
“muslims shouldn’t be allowed to build mosques in Sweden, we are a Christian country”
or
“we have too many immigrants here, we can’t save the whole world”
or
“a woman’s place is a as a nurturer and caregiver to children, equality has gone too far”
or
…well, you get the idea.

First of all, you just said it, that thing that you are “not allowed to say”. And you have newspapers, and churches, and organizations, and marches, and websites, and political parties, and TV-channels, and letters to the editor that say exactly that, that thing that you are “not allowed to say”.
(I could provide links for all of those, but I refuse to give them any traffic. And I don’t want to ruin a perfectly nice Friday evening by having to look at their vile and hateful stuff. But if you’re curious, there’s www.info14.com, www.nd.se, www.varldenidag.se, www.patriot.nu, www.livetsord.se, www.bibeltemplet.net, www…. and so on.)

So don’t tell me you’re “not allowed” to believe what you believe. Don’t tell me you’re some kind of martyr in the struggle against “political correctness”. Don’t tell me you’re oppressed.

Arguing against you is not stifling your freedom of speech. Saying that you are wrong is not stifling your freedom of speech.
Neither is pointing out your misinformation, your logical fallacies, your straw-men arguments, and your blatant lies.
Freedom of speech does not mean that you can speak uncontradicted and unchallenged.

PS. That goes for the comments section here as well (if there ever will be any). DS.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Freedom of speech, Jenny rants and rages, Stupidity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.