Is political correctness stifling debate?

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Sep 21, 2004
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These days we are outraged about ******* everything. See the yellow peril thread. Easter eggs are sold without 'Easter' marketing. Schools don't celebrate Christmas for fear of offending someone. I was a kid in the 1990s. If you didn't celebrate Christmas or Easter then you didn't celebrate them. The onus wasn't on everyone else to abandon cultural traditions for fear of someone's feelings getting hurt.

Stop watching tabloid rubbish designed to get you outraged. Easter eggs are still called easter eggs.

The yellow peril phrase is racist, and should not have been used.

What the #politicalcorrectnessgonemad (TM) crew all seem to have in common is an unease that Australia is becoming more diverse, and that is something they can not change.

If you criticise anyone that isn't a white, straight, middle class male for anything then someone, somewhere will get on their soapbox and drag race, sex, gender, sexuality, religion etc. into it. It's tiresome and absolutely stifles debate.

Hang on. You brought race, gender and sexuality in to it in the first sentence of your argument.
 
Sep 21, 2004
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This is about the level of contribution I'd expect from you, so there's no point responding to the post above:
Cool but "political correctness gone mad" is the new "Im not a racist, but...".

It's a lament by bigots that their bigotry is called for the social pathology that it is.
 

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kirsti

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Over 95% of sexual offences against children the assailant is a person in authority, ie; Father, Older Brother, Cousin, Uncle, school teacher, Priest, Sporting Coach etc.

People of a transgender background are a fraction of a percentage of potential sexual predictors to women and children.

I see in alot of the threads on Big Footy people make many uneducated posts on many subjects when perhaps listening and asking respectful questions may be a better way. If more people did this many more productive debates could take place.

The stereo typical paedophile the creepy guy the old school teacher, the guy in the trench coat etc is quite often not the case the assailant's physical appearance is in most cases the guy next door, the footy player, the Uncle etc.

A guy in a dress is not at all what a true transgender person is and I ask you do you believe you would have better luck as a sex offender dressed in a wig and a dress or would you have better luck as the school jock I suggest the later to be the case.

I am quite disturbed about some of the uneducated comments that have been posted directed at the transgender community.

As a grandparent of 6 a parent of 3 beautiful daughters and a women from a transgender background and a former Superintendent of Corrections, I do also hold fear and passion for the safety of all woman,children and all mankind.

If our gravest concern is having transgender laws established to clarify the the use of toilets by transgender people during and after gender transition, I suggest this is a good thing as it actually ensures that security is tightened and the safety of everyone is increased.

I would be more concerned that currently world wide we rely on a picture of a lady in a dress on the door of females toilets as the primary source of security, may I suggest this is a far greater fear for me than laws being established to formalise the legalities' of transgender people using public toilets.

I am happy to discuss the various stages of transition of a transgender person, such as myself as I believe education is the key to increasing knowledge, acceptance and understanding for all.
 
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Sep 15, 2011
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Yes, yes and yes.



This isn't it, though. In the 1990s it was OK (well, more accurately no one spoke up about it) to call Nicky Winmar or Chris Lewis a boong or an abo. Now it is not. That isn't political correctness, it's progress.

These days we are outraged about ******* everything. See the yellow peril thread. Easter eggs are sold without 'Easter' marketing. Schools don't celebrate Christmas for fear of offending someone. I was a kid in the 1990s. If you didn't celebrate Christmas or Easter then you didn't celebrate them. The onus wasn't on everyone else to abandon cultural traditions for fear of someone's feelings getting hurt.

If you criticise anyone that isn't a white, straight, middle class male for anything then someone, somewhere will get on their soapbox and drag race, sex, gender, sexuality, religion etc. into it. It's tiresome and absolutely stifles debate.
So, you're saying Australia doesn't celebrate Christmas or Easter anymore? Because that's not how I see it. More often than not, one individual makes a silly decision trying not to offend and bigots take that as evidence that our 'culture' has been completely destroyed.
 
May 5, 2006
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So, you're saying Australia doesn't celebrate Christmas or Easter anymore? Because that's not how I see it. More often than not, one individual makes a silly decision trying not to offend and bigots take that as evidence that our 'culture' has been completely destroyed.

Maybe political correctness isn't as big a problem as poor comprehension skills.

Australians still celebrate Christmas, I didn't suggest otherwise. But businesses, schools, govt depts still feel pressured to distance themselves from it.

Political correctness gone mad? See below:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...ectness-gone-mad/story-e6frg13u-1225961961931
 
Sep 15, 2011
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Maybe political correctness isn't as big a problem as poor comprehension skills.

Australians still celebrate Christmas, I didn't suggest otherwise. But businesses, schools, govt depts still feel pressured to distance themselves from it.

Political correctness gone mad? See below:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...ectness-gone-mad/story-e6frg13u-1225961961931
So, you had to go back half a decade to find an example that didn't qualify as individual stupidity. And your example was explained after the fact (I am familiar with the story you linked to). The problem is, people aren't very good at judging ethnicity. If you say someone is Sri Lankan or Indian of Pakistani, many people don't know the difference and that led to people not contacting police with information. Light or dark skinned is actually a much simpler description.
 
Sep 21, 2004
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Poor example.

Here's a better one that is more representative of the #politicalcorrectnessgonemad crew. It comes from a man who wants to ban muslims from the US, accuses women of being on their periods for questioning him and freely associates Mexicans with rape.

“I wrote something today that I think is very, very salient, very important and probably not politically correct, but I don’t care,”
 

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Sep 21, 2009
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Interesting conclusion to draw.

What does that have to do with political correctness?

Well, I believe you have a stronger view on certain subjects, but avoid fully revealing them, due to backlash from what you might perceive as political correctness gone mad.

Which means, if my assumption is true, that you might feel you're being held back from the freedom to fully express your opinion and feelings on women.

Which would sway your view in this thread.
 
May 5, 2006
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So, you had to go back half a decade to find an example that didn't qualify as individual stupidity. And your example was explained after the fact (I am familiar with the story you linked to). The problem is, people aren't very good at judging ethnicity. If you say someone is Sri Lankan or Indian of Pakistani, many people don't know the difference and that led to people not contacting police with information. Light or dark skinned is actually a much simpler description.

It's one example that popped up on the first page of Google.

Light or dark skinned is a much simpler description, but the whole point of describing someone to aid identifying them is to be specific as possible. Man or woman is even simpler. Human simpler than that. Mammal simpler still.

A lot of Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani people look similar because the countries are right next to one another and people have moved about and bred over the course of history. Saying the bloke you saw looked 'probably Indian or Pakistani' or 'a bit like Kumar Sangakkara' is bit more useful than 'dark skinned'. But that's "racist".
 
Sep 21, 2004
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Which means, if my assumption is true, that you might feel you're being held back from the freedom to fully express your opinion and feelings on women..
Yep. There's always a sense with the #politicalcorrectnessgonemad mob that they feel they can't say what they really want to say.

It makes the more grounded amongst us wonder what it is that they really want to say :)
 
May 5, 2006
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What was that about Easter eggs not being called Easter eggs?

Really?

98be59c6da5d74d2db8c23f55717275d


I'm sure the word 'Easter' just fell off the packaging that people see in the shops. But everyone reads the Cadbury website intently.
 
Apr 7, 2012
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It will be interesting when a male who has transitioned, now wants to compete in women's sports, and in particular become a professional athlete. That will challenge a few people's beliefs.

What would happen if it were someone who could see he wasn't going to progress beyond middle of the range pro tennis player (say world 100 to 150), decided to take advantage of this situation...

So let me get this straight, you think a bunch of blokes. will undergo painful, mostly likely very expensive medical procedures, that take years to complete. Just to prolong a sporting career in a platform (women's tennis) the general population doesn't give a s**t about?
 
May 5, 2006
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Well, I believe you have a stronger view on certain subjects, but avoid fully revealing them, due to backlash from what you might perceive as political correctness gone mad.

Which means, if my assumption is true, that you might feel you're being held back from the freedom to fully express your opinion and feelings on women.

Which would sway your view in this thread.

Interesting. A bit non-specific, but interesting nonetheless. BigFooty is basically anonymous so one is theoretically free to express any opinion regardless how controversial. However, it's difficult to engage in intelligent debate on most topics without the thread being derailed. This board is comfortably the worst.

My views in this thread are based on my experience on this site and IRL, yes.

This is the sort of crap that you expect from people like Kidd Vicious:

some dude said:
Islam needs to be criticized in the same way any fascist ideology has been in the past.
Practicing Muslims should not be exempt from criticism as their views are offensive to many people.
Kidd Vicious said:
Nobody is saying you can't do it. But we reserve the right to label anyone who shares that opinion as racist and unintelligent.

From another thread...

Kidd Vicious said:
Anyone who uses the term SJW is a racist, sexist, homophobe.
 

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