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What a Waleed! With an Aly like this guy who needs enemies

Tim Blair | The Daily Telegraph (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/) | 24 July 2016

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/oh-really-waleed-aly-blames-free-speech-not-terror/news-story/b19f897a52040d34dbc9f53bb9f310fc (https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjF6-OUvI_OAhWLGJQKHdfhD5oQqQIIIDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailytelegraph.com.au%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Foh-really-waleed-aly-blames-free-speech-not-terror%2Fnews-story%2Fb19f897a52040d34dbc9f53bb9f310fc&usg=AFQjCNGWwKWzJx2Wv3eWsSJ8yxaofCIPbQ&sig2=8dtYT8DqnDJpPxmAjetT3Q)

Extract: OUR intellectual superiors have raised the alarm. Worried by how all of us terrible oiks are responding to murderous Islamic terrorism, they've declared there should be limits to what we say about murderous Islamic terrorism.


Following what co-host Waleed Aly described as "one of the heaviest weeks we've lived through in a long time", the ABC's Minefield radio program last Thursday "took a hard look at the negative effects of 'free speech'." (http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/07/22/4505316.htm)

Waleed's co-presenter Scott Stephens' (editor of the ABC's Religion and Ethics (http://www.abc.net.au/religion/) website) concern included speeches made at last week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland from the parents of children killed by illegal immigrants. "The whole point of it was to demonise a particular group," Stephens claimed.

"The whole point of it is to do a certain violence against the dignity of fellow citizens and fellow human beings."

As opposed, I guess, to the actual deadly violence committed by terrorists and illegals, which appear for Stephens to rank below the horrifying use of words. "We've been hearing about calls for a ban on Muslim immigration," he fretted, referring to television presenter Sonia Kruger's recent remarks.

Stephens offered this thundering conclusion:

"I'm wondering whether we as moral agents can still be trusted with the privilege of freedom of speech. I think we're at the point where we have to re-examine what we mean by that and if there is a deeper moral obligation that puts constraints on what we ought to be able to say in public.."

Listeners then heard from Aly himself. "Certain speech and the proliferation of certain speech can have real world harms," the Gold Logie winner said. "It's part of whipping up a mood that has seen people bashed and may well see more people bashed."

In fact, certain speech and the proliferation of certain speech can cause real world deaths. Much of that speech comes from the Koran, which has been whipping up quite a mood of late in Syria and northern Iraq.

We've also seen a little Koran-inspired mood whipping locally. Recall the violent Sydney riot of 2012, where signs reading "behead all those who insult the prophet" were prominent.

One year after that riot, and immediately following the Boston Marathon bombing – which he absurdly suggested may have been committed by "self-styled American patriots" – Aly wrote: "Terrorism is a perpetual irritant, and that while it is tragic and emotionally lacerating, it kills relatively few people and is not any kind of existential threat."

Quote from: Waleed AlyWaleed Aly

Nobody holds that freedom of speech is absolute - nobody. There's no society on Earth that has ever done that as far as I'm aware ... limits on it have always been there.

When we talk about free speech we're not talking about the absence of moral constraints, what we're really talking about is the absence of legal constraints. They're different things. As a lawyer I need to insist that they're different things-the law is not the same as morality.

I think it's when those two things are conflated that you run into all sorts of repressive legal and political systems. I'm certainly prepared to go some distance in saying that We as human beings, as moral agents, need to be sensitive to the moral obligations that exist on us in conduct just as they exist on us in speech.

Certain speech and the proliferation of certain speech can have real world harms ... it's part of whipping up a mood that has seen people bashed and may well see more people bashed.

From What are the Moral Limits of Free Speech?
ABC Religion and Ethics (http://www.abc.net.au/religion/)
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/07/22/4505316.htm

The victims in Orlando and Nice might disagree. Too bad their freedom of speech has been permanently revoked.

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