Sam Newman at it again!

[mateinone]

Firstly I apologise for misquoting you.

Newman, and others of his ilk, wouldn't know a debate if it bit him on the ar$e. He has no interest in debating, he has no interest in understanding anything in any depth, he has no interest in anything other than just gobbing off to anything he doesn't like. He is the first one to shoot down anyone who disagrees with him, with all manner of insults and dismissive cr@p.

Free speech is not equally distributed among the population - they are blatant power asymmetries that give people like him leverage that others don't have. Newman speaks from a position of privilege and status that affords him protection from any real punishment. Imagine if Lidia Thorpe came out and said we should all burn Australian flags and slow clap during the National Anthem ? There's a reason why hate speech is used predominately by protected groups like the one to which Newman belongs.

As i said, i am not going to protect Newman as a quality individual, but i am 100% supportive of his rights to make foolish and ignorant comments. i am and always have been against booing of players or anything really and i feel like the call to boo a ceremony is extremely distasteful, but .... People had the right to be stupid and (to a degree) ignorant.

Joe Rogan is a perfect example, i detest him, but i still want him to be able to have his podcasts, on the condition the talk doesn't cross into illegal areas.

We faced the same issues during the same sex marriage referendum, anyone who was against it was bigoted or homophobic... There was at least one publicised account of a girl (in Canberra i think) who was fired for posting on her own facebook that it was "okay to vote no" and that because of her religious beliefs she would in fact be voting no.. She didn't harass or belittle any group, but was fired and her boss posted that she would not allow anyone with such hateful opinions to work there (or something to that effect). That is the society we are heading towards and it is a major problem. That Sam Newman can be such a wanker, is just an example that we still have the right to voice non conformist opinions, even if (again) he is actually largely irrelevant and almost never has anything to say worth hearing.

In the case of the Welcome ceremony, i personally don't like it... Does this make me racist or is it only the people that boo it racist?? We have to stop pigeon holing people and listen to what they are saying, then disagree with their arguments.

Another example was Daisy Pearce vocally supporting not having a minute of silence after the queen died at AFLW games.. I thought the decision was atrocious (and should have seen government funding potentially pulled) and Daisy was completely wrong... but whilst Daisy has to have the right to be (imo) wrong, the competition had (and has) obligations it should have met.