look what i found

Hi Dean, nice to see a typically measured response from your good self

I'm not going to drag it out more, all I am saying was that I abhor our traditions and symbollery getting banned by council dicks and other white middle classes to give them something to do, instead of making something genuinely wonderful and useful, it seems all they can but do is this ridiculous bollux that makes themselves look utter wankers and fools of the highest order, for their idea that it lack of doing will mistakenly alienate a decisive minority. by the figures we are not multicultural, majority christian by a good margin, and such traditions in the strongest way ought not to be thrown away by such absolute idiotsm when the very people they are doing it for aren't bothered one iota.
Like I said, include all or none at all. Every religion equally. That was the message distilled, clear as I can make it.
Banning xmas trees names, effin wankers.
John, in love and buddha kindess, extreme pc is making them look twats in the extreme, not helping an inherent decent idea, so bloomin obvious to me.
dilligaf

 

Yes.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

Thank goodness for urbandictionary.com (not that i really gaf)

 

lcd

I was worried about you original post/signature because i thought you were a racist. you seem to be worried about the relativly comical extremities of a movement, call it what you will, designed mainly to foster understanding between people.


John

 

friends then?

 

re that Farnborough School banning happy birthday because one student is a Jehovahs Witness,well thats rubbish,yes they don't celebrate birthdays,simply becuase the bible tells you to celebrate only one birthday (you can guess whose),but they would not be offended in the slightest.Its just some jobsworth on the school who can't be arsed to think.

 

Hi Ian (Data),

I will just a little bit.

What traditions are these? What's getting banned? A lot of councils have not banned many things such as christmas. I'm not saying that there isn't examples of PC in excess but I questioning a number of examples which are fake, false or half true, like the examples in my other post.

A number of the problems are not with PC do gooders but with anti PC trouble stirrers.

As a member of an ethnic minority, what pisses me off is when people tell PC & anti PC stories which are not true. A lot of it is hearsay, scaremongering and stereotyping. The has been many times that someone has come up to me & trotted one out, as fact, one of these stories. A lot of times it from a 'mate of a mate'.

I think you are not understanding what multicultralism is. Being majority christian does not mean you are not multicultral. You are meaning multi faith. Only around 5.2% of the populatition is of a non christian religion. (23.2% are non religious or didn't state). Culture is not (always) governed by religion.

What traditions are these? Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti tradition. Some traditions disappear for many reasons, most are nothing to do with PC. Also just because some is old or traditional does not mean it is still relevent today.

A lot of this stuff is not out to eliminate christianity. You need to look at the full story. I have found very little evidence of people banning christianity or christmas.

The trouble with a lot of these sort of 'stories' is that they tend to have very little truth behind it, yet it serves to get those who resent multiculturalism or PCism foaming at the mouths.

SCIDB

 

Absolutely. Not believing the Daily Mail's "it's PC gone mad" stories is generally a good move, since it nearly always turns out that they're completely made up.

-- Ian

 

Unfortunately Ian, too many people actually believe everything they read. I've personally known people who argued that anything printed in a certain tabloid MUST be true because newspapers simply won't print anything which is untrue because they'd be sued.

 

The same could be said of the Daily Mail's "more Brussels EU madness" type stories. In fact, the same could be said of pretty much anything the Daily Mail prints.

Michael.

 

Isn't that precisely the point we're making?

People should think - because there's a fine line between acting in such a way as to offend ethnic, racial and religious minorities and behaving in an over-the-top and silly manner to ban something that would cause no offence whatsoever.

It does occur to me, however, that some posters seem to be adopting a rather different stance here than was adopted on the ('you should be allowed to say/write/broadcast whatever you like') 'Censorship with a blunt instrument.... ' thread.

 

steve,
i think that's a bit over the top really. freedom of artistic expression should be allowed however racist comments should not. it is a fine line however the play in question (afaict) did not make racist comments - it just made a fictional accusation that sikhs were subject to human frailties like the rest of humanity - the exact opposite of racism in fact. if i were to stretch the point i could say that those protesting were actually being racist by claiming that they were somehow 'above such things' and that such occurrancies could never take place in a gudwara.
my biggest objection towards pc is that it makes the false assumption that everyone is the same. we are not all the same we are all different and that is a good thing. if only people weren't afraid of those differencies and were polite about them we wouldn't need all this pc bullshit.
cheers


julian

 

I was thinking of the Iranian TV drama series depicting Israelis stealing the eyes of Palestinian children. This came later in the thread.

Would this be freedom of artistic expression or racist?

At the time I agreed with Uncle Ants that it shouldn't be banned if it was in the UK (assuming it wasn't on 'State sponsored TV', as in Iran). I'm not sure that I was right though.

 

ok perhaps i am overreacting, I have been touchy of late, perhaps it is largely made up stories in the media, if so they have a massive case to answer for, in fact, it woudln't surpirse me, they are all about fear and hate and bad feeling, I do recall tho' one instance of a 'christian' poster getting taken down for fear it may offend, yet a blind eye turned to a different faiths.
Like I said, you have to include ALL, sikh, muslim, christian, not elimiate symbols of one, I think the actions of these councils in banning xmas messages is reprehensible, I am talking about long standing traditions in this country getting banned for wrong ideas that they may offend. If hindus celebrate divali, that doesn't offend me, in fact I am very tolerant, each to there own, doesn't bother me, as long as ALL are free to do their own things.
I would think it just as stupid if muslim/hindu things were banned for fear of offending. Its their custom, they are free to do it. In fact its unfair/not right at all to deny anyone their customs.
Tha't's what I meant btw that we are not multicultural, not denying the reality of it, I genuinely like lots of cultures and stuff, but saying we are not SO much multicultural that fond/harmless traditions deserve to get banned for unfounded fear. By ther stats. you don't ban a majority, simple numbers.

 

as someone who doesn;t watch the news all that much i could be wrong here but when was the last piece of truly good news? i'm not talking about quirky 'and finally' crap. i'm talking about fall of the berlin wall or nelson mandella freed type stuff. i can;t think of anything this millenium that really compares - or am i being a grump here?
cheers


julian

 

It's a sad truth that bad news sells better than good news. Even so, sometimes media bias gets in the way of reporting the good stuff.

For example, in Afghanistan they recently had democratic elections - not perfect but a huge step in the right direction. Better still, the elected president has just appointed three women to his cabinet. Looking back at the oppression against women in the regime of the Taliban, that seems pretty amazing.

Karzai appoints three women to Afghan cabinet

In Iraq the media view is even more apparent. The attitude seems to be "I was against the war in the first place, so I'm f*cked if I'm going to support Iraq's democracy now". Still, if you want something a bit more upbeat, try the well known Iraq The Model or the recently started Liberal Iraqi blogs. Both are genuine Iraqi blogs.

It's difficult to pull anything positive out of this week's major event. Even so, here's a story (again from the evil Telegraph, I'm afraid), about a 10 year old girl who saved her family and about 100 others from the tsunami.

Girl, 10, used geography lesson to save lives


Hey, how about this piece:

Despite Christmas Setback, Hi-fi Buff on Course for Impressive Weight Loss

...Zero Gained?

Happy New Year, Julian.

 

Yes Steve,I agree it was the point you were making,but I wasn't generalising,I was making a specific point to correct a common misunderstanding about Jehovah Witnesses

 

Hi Ian,

When stories like this occur you do need to ask yourself if they are true or have some truth in them. You need to find the true story. In a lot of cases they are untrue. In any case, why are getting wound up by them? Remember, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Where are these examples that councils are banning christmas? What traditions are getting banned? There have been stories of many councils banning christmas, such as my local council Sheffield. lo and behold, there are christmas decorations, christmas trees, christmas fairs etc, etc.

Any changes in Christmas are mainly due to changes of interest not PC or offending ethnic minorities. A lot of things people do or did at christmas have very little to do with Christianity.The religous aspect of christmas has been taken over by partying, enjoyment & commercialism. A lot of so called christians are not very religous. They just like to dip their toes in to it when it suits. Just look at how many people don't go church or follow much of the christ teachings. You can't blame that on then PC brigade. Things go out of fashion, things change.

There is nothing stopping anyone going to church or celebrating the birth of christ. Here are two way how. The thing is most people don't want to.


http://www.curious.org.uk/realchristmas.htm

http://www.realchristmas.org/rebuild.asp?loc=http://www.realchristmas.org/asp/realchristmas/2111.asp

Again which traditions have been banned? It is very true that traditions have been banned. Things like badger baiting, dog fighting & lynching have been banned even though they were fond traditionsl for some people. There is good reasons for for it to happen. You got to look at traditions on their merits.

It would be interesting if you listed these fond/harmless traditions and we can see if they have been banned or not.


SCIDB

 

Lt Cdr Data thinks
'In fact its unfair/not right at all to deny anyone their customs.'
Like female circumcision, marriage at 12, multiple wives, or just the customs you don't mind?

Bob

 

bob,
i'd agree that FORCED female circumcision is barbaric and marriage at 12 are abhorrent (as neither are consensual) however if someone elects to be circumsised or to share their spouse with someone else why should society expend money and effort to stop them?
the answer is education, the idea being that people can make informed choices and go into these things with their eyes open. however the governments of the world are at present more interested in bombing the crap out of bits of rock and squabbling over the last dregs of the worlds fossil fuels to pay much attention to that.
cheers


julian