FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Common sense can be heard to beseech:
What has been done to freedom of speech?
Now the prisoner of opinion and offence
None of which makes very much sense.
Words chosen have to be - shall we say "foxy"
To avoid the wrath of the me-me orthodoxy,
Like the Hays Office that controlled what was seen
In days long gone on the cinema screen
When couples on a bed had their feet on the floor
To stop the censors cutting out what they saw.
Now, we are all on that bed it appears
Feet on the floor in fear of those shears
Desperate not to upset or offend -
It's enough to drive the sane round the bend!
.............................................................................
M.C. Newberry
Fri 10th Jul 2020 15:29
Anyone with perception of even a modest degree can understand
the difference between rabble-rousing rhetoric of a tub-thumping variety; also vitriolic personal slights -and legitimate questions and challenges to points of view
and attitudes of mind. We must be careful in the use of the term
"hate speech" since, without carefully considered impartiality, it
becomes possible to use it to exclude just about anything unsettling and uncomfortable.