Is political correctness slowly taking away our freedom of speech?

Question

We can't hardly say or do much any more without worrying about who will be offended.

Answer 1

yes yes yes! everyone is getting extra senstive and insecure. its madness. but at the same time, we need to respect others. the word "ho" shouldn't be used to call anyone out of their name


to the four aholes who gave me a thumbs down, put it where the sun dont shine. (thats my freedom of speech)

Answer 2

Yes it is detracting from our freedom of speach and it always has. People being offended is nothing new. Cursing and blasphemy are some of the older terms used before we came up with 'political corectness'. People get a bee in their bonnet over words because THEY have issues, not the people who say words to express their veiws, though some people in the world have negative veiws and always will. In my youth we had Indians, not aboriginals, my Father was a son of a DP ( Displaced person), and black people were often refered to as ******* with no negative connotations attached. Some people said such words with a negative bite to them and people made these words taboo. Now the negative influences of the world use different words so we ban those and have to make up new ones to mean exactly the same thing. These word games are tireing, and I wish the retentive would get stressed enough to go extinct. Then the decent people can maybe just continue to not care what the negative people think or say becaquse they really do not matter in their opinions anyways, and language can stop changing so much, and websters can keep up better.

Answer 3

When they want to censor the media and attack free speech, they have someone say the "N" word on air - It also shifts attention away from the mistakes taking place in Washington - its all a side show to distract us and take our attention away from major news stories taking place.

Also the Government is now trying to control and take away the internet by claiming they are "Protecting the Children". Since when did a political blog hurt a child? When in reality the internet is a source of free speech and a great money making tool. When you consider how much in taxes the Government loses to internet sales the picture becomes quite clear. They also want us all in the dark on political issues. They want to take away our sources of public real time connections like blogs and message boards, because when you have millions reading and writing about their failures we sway elections and it really hurts them.

Example: Yahoo shuts down the message boards shortly after the November election results. One issue on the boards was based on Bush and the Iraq War, and when they shut it down it had about 3,000,000 posts on just that issue alone.

They know that they can't hide anything. Stories that would have only lasted a couple of days or hours now last for days or weeks on boards and blogs. They can't hide anymore, so they are trying to take away all our avenues of truth.

Its a joke and this is just two major issues. They are not fooling anyone!

Answer 4

YES.

It seems people have trouble discerning, jokes and humor from damaging and destructive behavior and speech.

For example, what Michael Richards did was clearly a hurtful rant whereas Don Imus had a really bad misstep taken out of context and blown up into false hype by Al Sharpton and the media.

People have trouble seeing the difference between the two. which worries me.

Answer 5

Sticks and stones can break my bones
but names can never hurt me.

We used to sing that as kids, but adults seem to have forgotten it today. Words only have power when you yourself give them power. If you do not let words offend you, then they have no power to offend and people will stop using them. But the more fuss that is made about words, the more power they will continue to have.

The N-word, like the F-word, has become so overused by the very people who should be offended by it, that it has lost all of the power it once had. It is similar to the way that the gay community has adopted words that were once intended as insults and de-powered them.

Answer 6

It started slowly but is following a geometric progression where eventually, the federal government will determine what is correct speech.

Then, watch out for bullets flying.

We are headed for an internal shooting conflict in America.

Answer 7

That shows no indication of political correctness taking away free speech. That's you censoring yourself due to a fear of offending. If you weren't afraid to offend you'd still be as free as ever. You can't say that you censoring yourself diminishes your freedom, you chose it yourself.

Answer 8

No, in fact the intention of the first amendment is to safeguard speech that might be considered offensive. This doesn't mean people won't be offended by what you say, but you are guaranteed a right to say it, and people are guaranteed a right to disagree with you in public.

Free speech works both ways.

Free speech is also the mechanism by which ideas in society are changed. When people first spoke out against slavery that was considered unpopular and disloyal speech; but by repeating that message freely over the years, they won support for their view.

Free speech is alive, well, and essential to our society.

Answer 9

Yes it is. We are too worried about offending people.

Answer 10

Absolutely. When you have to stop and think "Oh crap, is this gonna piss somebody off?", it's infrigning on your right to speak your mind. And God knows that if somebody does sue you, they automatically win because what judge isn't going to be PC?

Answer 11

yes
it is out of control. People should be carefull what they say but should have the right to see. When London schools had to sing Ba Ba GREEN Sheep that was the begining of the end