Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
There was a thread ridiculing him when it happened, and within this thread the guy is being universally panned (even if some agree with his acquittal) for his beliefs. He's been called a moron several times.
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I searched on his name and couldn't come up with the thread.
What I was getting at was that with freedom comes responsibility. And with the freedom of speech, we are given the responsibility of ensuring that we speak out strongly against such hate filled speech.
I remember Ernst Zundel using community cable TV to promote anti-Semitism and holocaust denials. He spent a lot of time and effort and resources and organizing into putting together his propaganda. Though I remember no efforts organized by you or I or any other everyday Canadians that put the effort into debunking him every time he was on community cable. And therein lies my problem - crackpots with crazy views seem to be able to find a forum for their misguided ideas. Are you willing to give up your time surfing on CP, or watching the Flames, etc... to invest in confronting hate speech?
The funny thing is that I *DID* have thoughts of doing exactly that (investing my own time into speaking out for the things I did believe in - ie I had actually started work on a documentary on GLT issues in my second year of university) and I borrowed $15,000 to put into videography gear to do my own projects. And then, to pay off that money, I needed a good job, and then more responsibilities came along and soon I had no time to put into my own projects.
So where was I going with this? I think my point is that if there are people out there spouting hate speech, we need to have at least an equal response of outrage against it. Sometimes we see it. Others, not so much.
For every guy pumping out pamphlets blaming AIDS on the Jews there are 10,000 people ignoring that that there is a guy pumping out pamphlets blaming AIDS on the Jews.