Political correctness = humanity towards others?

[moopere]

Originally Posted by acascianelli

[snip to sig in question]

"My will decides." ~ Adolf Hitler.


follow up message:

Originally Posted by dannemil
Ubuntu is supposed to be a welcoming and inclusive site. I believe in free speech, but as a Jew I find this quote incredibly offensive. I don't see why we even need to bring his poisonous views into a discussion of Ubuntu and Linux. Until now I've felt great about this community and the help that it provides, but imagine my shock when I read this quote by of one of history's worst murderer's. Whoever is moderating this forum should not tolerate such posts.


My followup to the above:

Originally Posted by moopere
You are joking right? You must be.

Are you trying to tell us here that the mere mention of this man's name, and perhaps a quote or two offends you? Should we also ban any statements by say Stalin, Amin, Hussein, Bush etc?

The thing with history is that you are bound to repeat it if you don't learn from it - learning from history as far as I can understand can't be done by pretending that certain things didn't happen or that certain individuals (or countries) didn't act in certain ways.

Racial/religious vilification is one thing, quoting innocuous historical statements is another (ever heard of free speech?) Perhaps a variation on the fiction "1984" where history is rewrittten to suit the present would be more to your liking and less likely to offend?

Cheers,
Craig


A couple of other posts sneak through before Azz (supermoderator) asks for discussion to be moved from the originating thread to a new thread as seen below :


I was just going to congratulate the members of the thread for not letting this derail the discussion....

Anyway, the issue is resolved. The code of conduct says to be respectful towards others and quoting that name, while not agaist any laws, is disrespectful to some and so I censored it.

This is a biggie, so if someone feels they need more than to just PM me to complain, we can open a thread about it in the forums discussion section. Use my name in the title, if you want.

So, on this thread, this issue is closed. Let's continue the topic at hand.


My response to Azz

"This is a biggie" (says Azz above)

You bet Azz, its huge.

I respect your decision to ask for closure of this subject on the other thread because it was a red herring introduced by Dannemil and was going to quite probably disrupt an otherwise useful thread. Sometimes moderators have to make a call, and you can't satisfy everyone in so doing.

Its a "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't" scenario for which I have some sympathy, however, in a global forum, not one limited to the USA or to Israel, its probably not helpful to pander to people with sensitivities that are just unrealistic (precisely because of the global nature of this forum).

Was it the words quoted or the actual act of mentioning Hitler's name that caused the spark? As in my reply to Dannemil, should we all be somewhat sensitive to all the 'great satan's of our time? Stalin wasn't a very nice man, Amin certainly saw to the end of many Ugandans, Pinochet ruled Chile without a lot of empathy it seems.

This statement:

"The world is more peaceful as a result of Saddam Hussein not being in power"

Seems harmless enough until you realise it is a quote from George W Bush

"The world is more peaceful as a result of Saddam Hussein not being in power." ~ GW Bush Monterrey, Mexico, Jan. 12, 2004

The added commentary from http://www.dubyaspeak.com/ is fitting:

-- Yeah, it's amazing how peaceful the world is now

This could well be seen as offensive my many in the Arab world, or people who love peace in general. Should I be offended by any post with a sig attributable to GW Bush?

Anyway, I should be commending you on not banning or 'having words' with acascianelli the poster with the sig which started all this.

In my own way I'm now guilty of overreacting to Dannemil's overreaction to acascianelli

I look forward to a similar even handed response to anyone who finds offense at any sig attributable to anyone else who might be an 'offensive person' to them .

Cheers,
Craig

[XDevHald]

It is fully offensive and should be removed. I will not go into replying a long post in this as it's not necessary not worth the time as in short words "It's not tolerated nor accepted in this forum"

Thank You!

[Unregistered]

It is fully offensive and should be removed. I will not go into replying a long post in this as it's not necessary not worth the time as in short words "It's not tolerated nor accepted in this forum"

Thank You!

Steve, have you considered that a statement like yours above denying free speech, with no argument at all is like saying 'because I say it let it be so' or, another way to say that might be:

"My will decides."

Sort of makes you think doesn't it?

I really don't understand the responses to this and the original thread at all, almost all of them have been a pretty simple statement like above, which makes me think that most folks find offense in anything Hitler said or was reputed to have said. You know, he probably also said some things like "that was a nice piece of pie mum", and "can someone pass me another roll of toiletpaper" ....

Now, in my own mind (or reality, take your pick), free speech ends where racial/religous vilification starts, but we're not talking about that here, for example, if I say now "My will decides." and attribute it to myself like this:


"My will decides." ~ Craig

Would anyone take offense? If not, and I can't see how anyone could, why do innocuous statements that just happen to be attributed to famous historical figures offend?

Can anyone offer me an intellectual argument here? Or am I doomed to responses like "it just is"?

Cheers,
Craig

[moopere]

Oh damn, I see that I managed to post the above as 'unregistered user' - its me though.

Cheers,
Craig

[XDevHald]

In other words moopere, I was not going to bloat myself into a 4-6 paragraph of my thoughts on it. I don't need to express myself to show how I feel. The way I said it was short and simple. Freedom of speech is fine, but I don't see any point for "Myself" to prove a freedom of speech, I'm sorry if this pisses anyone off but I don't have to open my mouth to make everyone happy on my wording to show I am with this or against it.

To be honest, I am against the quote and don't like it at all. I'm leaving it at that, and no other words.

Thank You

[KiwiNZ]

moopere you are correct the words mentioned in the Hitler quote in themselves are not offensive . In fact "My will decides" could be said by any leader from a President to a Parent talking to a child .

It is the man himself that is the problem. Hitler has his equals in evil throughout history . However it has to be recognised that no person brings more emotion than Hitler. He is recent ,his affects are still felt by those living .I can personally attest to that .
His actions caused approx 30 million deaths . That equates to a lot of feeling, and rightly so .
I believe that anyone quoting Hitler is doing so knowing the affect that it will have and it is for that reason I would delete them .

As for the arguement of freedom of speech... With that freedom comes responsibility , the responsibility to use that freedom in a mature and sensible way taking into account the community that one lives in. So again quoting Hitler on a multi national , multicultural forum such as this is not exercising freedom of speech in a responsible manner . So again I would delete such posts.

[Unregistered]

As for the arguement of freedom of speech... With that freedom comes responsibility

And, of course, the logical way to have folks assume that responsibility is to outright deny them any ability to act (or not act) as individuals...

God, first thread I read in six months and I'm instantly reminded the many ways in which this place sucks.

Go ahead, delete that, too.

[matthew]

This reminds me of Usenet discussions in the 1990's and Godwin's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Frankly, Hitler was an evil, vile man who did atrocious things. The mere mention of his name ends all probablilty of sane and intelligent discussion continuing as the breakdown of all social interaction will be (nearly) immediate.

So, do I think the quote or even the mention of the name really violates the code of conduct? No. But any reference to Hitler will stop all discussion immediately regardless of the original topic.

For that reason I propose that there be no official reprimands issued or that sort of thing, but I also propose that we choose to use quotes that will prompt thought without provoking flamewars...in other words, I wouldn't censor you, but I would kindly request that you censor yourself or not be surprised when all hell breaks loose around you and your actual, valid input and points are ignored.

Final thought: from an artistic standpoint, if you were trying to provoke thought like a poet or performance artist might, the quote would be useful. That is something that is a bit beyond the scope and intent of these forums, though, so you probably want to save such thoughtful provokation for a more appropriate venue.

peace

[Unregistered]

This reminds me of Usenet discussions in the 1990's and Godwin's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Frankly, Hitler was an evil, vile man who did atrocious things. The mere mention of his name ends all probablilty of sane and intelligent discussion continuing as the breakdown of all social interaction will be (nearly) immediate.

So, do I think the quote or even the mention of the name really violates the code of conduct? No. But any reference to Hitler will stop all discussion immediately regardless of the original topic.

For that reason I propose that there be no official reprimands issued or that sort of thing, but I also propose that we choose to use quotes that will prompt thought without provoking flamewars...in other words, I wouldn't censor you, but I would kindly request that you censor yourself or not be surprised when all hell breaks loose around you and your actual, valid input and points are ignored.

Final thought: from an artistic standpoint, if you were trying to provoke thought like a poet or performance artist might, the quote would be useful. That is something that is a bit beyond the scope and intent of these forums, though, so you probably want to save such thoughtful provokation for a more appropriate venue.

peace

This is a good post IMHO. In particular, it seems to me that this bit:

"The mere mention of his name ends all probablilty of sane and intelligent discussion continuing as the breakdown of all social interaction will be (nearly) immediate."

Is the thoughtful response that I was looking for and didn't really see when I wrote my own responses to the originial thread.

I'm a pretty tolerant guy, but in a weird sort of way, I am intolerant of intolerant people (ha!, make sense of that if you can). However, I take the point that this is not a forum thats based, or needs to be based, on the tolerance of people to obvious social/historical pin pricks.

I sure hope that those folks who see red at the mere mention of the name of Hitler also find themselves suitably outraged when they see names like Alexander (the great!), Ghengis Khan, Bonaparte, bin Laden, Bush, etc etc.

Thanks for the post,
Craig

[moopere]

This is a good post IMHO. In particular, it seems to me that this bit:

"The mere mention of his name ends all probablilty of sane and intelligent discussion continuing as the breakdown of all social interaction will be (nearly) immediate."

Is the thoughtful response that I was looking for and didn't really see when I wrote my own responses to the originial thread.

I'm a pretty tolerant guy, but in a weird sort of way, I am intolerant of intolerant people (ha!, make sense of that if you can). However, I take the point that this is not a forum thats based, or needs to be based, on the tolerance of people to obvious social/historical pin pricks.

I sure hope that those folks who see red at the mere mention of the name of Hitler also find themselves suitably outraged when they see names like Alexander (the great!), Ghengis Khan, Bonaparte, bin Laden, Bush, etc etc.

Thanks for the post,
Craig

Damn I did it again, posted as 'unregistered'. Has something changed on the forums? Didn't it used to be essential to log in before you could post?

Anyway - I don't want to appear to be posting anonymously on this subject, please attribute the above to me.

Cheers,
Craig