The “Freedom of Speech” Debacle

I get many different thoughts, opinions and debates in my Facebook feed, some I agree with and others I might not. Some subjects are more provocative than others and you’ll always see debates on these issues. However, a statement cropped up in my feed today that triggered this rant for reasons I will explain later. First though, let’s have a look at the statement in question. 

Now lets look at what exactly is ‘freedom of speech’.

Article 19 states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. – United Nations Website http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

I have lots of opinions that some would disagree with, including this one. However, the UN’s article does not state mannerisms or limits to what you can say. Many people will hide behind their words if they are receiving outrage from what they said; often saying it’s their ‘freedom of speech’ as a scapegoat. People on the receiving end then say that ‘freedom of speech’ does not mean you can say offensive and derogatory things. It’s not a complicated matter, but ironically enough, people’s opinions on being able to have an opinion has skewed the notion of free speech almost to the point where we can longer say we have free speech in fear of offending someone.

So what’s the problem? Why should people get away with saying dehumanising things and get away with it under the guise of free speech? The reason is because it says in clear text that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression”. It does not say you can’t express racism or sexism. It does not say you can’t say derogatory things because of someone’s sexual orientation. It does not say you can’t oppose women’s rights. It’s pretty terrible isn’t it? So why doesn’t it do more to protect people from being subjected to some pretty nasty verbal torture? As soon as you start putting in rules about what you can’t say because it offends someone, where will we stop? It would read something like: “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression unless they are demeaning or offensive to someone based on their race, sex, gender…ect”. Sounds like a good idea, right? So why do people get protection only because of their race, sex or gender? People say nasty things about all sorts of people based on their poverty, political status or religion. Before long, we wouldn’t be able to say much about anything in order to ‘protect’ people. Protection through the loss of liberty leaves everyone silent.

I may be sounding like I want people to be allowed to bully and abuse, but really, I want to distinguish the difference between what is and is not allowed when it comes to freedom of speech. We have to stop talking about discrimination when we are talking about being offended. Freedom of speech only applies to verbal expression. Someone is NEVER allowed to cause any kind of physical harm, impede or discriminate against anyone based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Freedom of speech does give people the right to offend you, but the problem is that people take offence to all kinds of things. The reason why freedom of speech exists is because every action we do has the potential to offend someone. Even just being born might offend someone who believes the world is overpopulated. That’s how ridiculous the situation could get.

Now that we’ve discussed the difference between offending and discriminating against someone, let’s talk about how you can deal with someone who is being offensive with their ‘freedom of speech’. I’ve noticed some people have this mindset that someone who is being offensive is untouchable, because it’s their right to say their offensive things. In fact, it’s rather the opposite. You also are not allowed to cause any kind of physical harm, impede or discriminate against anyone because of their offensive opinions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t vocalise your opinions of them! There should be repercussions against people who have offensive or backwards opinions. When someone has opinions against people’s basic human rights, such as sexuality, they especially should face strong public backlash.

The point I’m trying to make here, is that ‘freedom of speech’ must be free for everyone. You can’t start adding rules, because then that’s not really freedom of speech is it? Yes, people are allowed to say horrible and offensive things about others, but that doesn’t mean people can’t fight back with their own opinions. In fact, I strongly believe that the only way to get rid of these offensive and oppressive opinions is to fight back and make a stand by expressing the opinions of those who are oppressed by them. An opinion for an opinion won’t leave the whole world blind.

Double Movie Feature: American Sniper (2014) / Warm Bodies (2013)

American Sniper is based off the story of Chris Kyle, a decorated member of the US SEALS and the most deadly sniper in US history. Played by Bradley Cooper and directed by Clint Eastwood; the exceptionally long movie (174 minutes) is a very dramatised sequence based off the autobiography written by Chris Kyle before his death in 2013.

Clint Eastwood certainly knows how to direct a good movie and Bradley Cooper played the role very well. It’s a harrowing and gritty story with some rather disturbing scenes, but as a war movie, it has to be taken with a few spoonfuls of salt. Many aspects of the movie are not reflections of the real events and the issue that audiences who haven’t read his book may be led to believe incorrect details is a real concern. For movie purposes, I understand the need to make the movie capture audience’s attention, but I felt more could have been done to distinguish between fact and fiction. It causes the movie to sway very hard towards being a propaganda piece.

Otherwise, the movie is actually very good and despite its marathon length it’s not difficult to sit through.

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Warm Bodies is a new spin on the modern zombie movie. With humans sheltering away behind massive walls, the zombies wander the city, but they are not as dead as we thought. They’re still alive in a dead kind of way, trying to find some sense of place in their new world. Still driven to eat people, a zombie named R departs for the city with a group of other zombies including his closest ‘friend’ played by Rob Corddry. When they attack a group of young scavengers, R sees a girl named Julie and falls in love. He protects her from the others and tries to find a way to make things work, craving the need to try and find his humanity again. Little does he know, the time they spend together is changing everything they know about the world.

On paper, Warm Bodies is probably one of the corniest movie ideas you could think of, but the movie is itself is so unique that it is now right up there with my favourites. It’s not a perfect movie by far, with some mediocre acting, superficial supporting characters and a few inconsistencies. However, the movie just lays on so much charm it becomes sickly sweet with optimism and romance. It’s well paced and was gripping all the way through, with a good lather of humour.

Akin to the quality of Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies brings new ‘life’ to the paranormal romantic zombie comedy genre. Did that exist before?

Pixel Puzzles: Japan (Game Review)

At least you can stop that stupid bamboo thing with the fish now. Just stick it right on in there.

Find a picture that seems somewhat Japanese, turn it into a jigsaw puzzle of between 60 to 200 pieces, put all the pieces in a pond with a fish, take relaxing music and put it on a short repeat, get one of those bamboo water features that clunks every few minutes as it fills with water and finally a mouse that does not click where you want it to. That’s Pixel Puzzles: Japan!

As a digital jigsaw puzzle game, it offers 19 puzzles for you to complete. The puzzles are decent pictures of varying difficulty. They scale between 60 to over 200 pieces in varying styles and shapes and can take anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours depending on the number of pieces and how difficult the picture is (especially the ‘Cherry blossom over water’ puzzle, OMG!).

 

'Cherry Blossom Over Water' - I want to burn this puzzle till the end of time.

That’s where I run out of anything good I want to/can say about this game. The puzzle pieces float around in a pond on the edge of puzzle. I think this was a good idea as it simulates digging in a box to find the pieces, but it was horribly executed. In the higher piece puzzles, the pieces are so small and numerous that it becomes exceedingly difficult to find the piece you want as they float around and behind other pieces. On top of that, the game is insistent on grabbing every piece but the one you want. The game doesn’t seem to know how the mouse works. If you pick up a wrong piece and drop it back in, it always reappears in the same spot in the pond, regardless of where you dropped it. This is bad for two reasons: the first is that the spawn spot gets horribly overcrowded with pieces fast; the second is when you drop a piece, it takes any other pieces it falls on with it. I don’t even know why this is a thing! You can keep pieces on the board as you need them, but without enough space it gets clogged up fast. This is single-handedly one of the most frustrating games I have ever played.

Aside from that, it’s a jigsaw puzzle game, there is nothing else to it. The music wears thin after a while and I ended up muting it and playing my own music instead. Everything it does, it does either ‘ok’ or horribly. I do not recommend this game unless you find real jigsaw puzzles too easy. There are plenty of other jigsaw puzzle programs online that are FAR better than this. Use the Google.

P.S. I have now resorted to doing an actual jigsaw puzzle on my table. I do have to say thanks to this game for driving me away from the computer for a bit.