What would a Europe without political correctness look like?

That makes no sense at all. Freedom of speech is a principal that remains necessary regardless of the 'value' of what's said. Even something has no value at all, so what? One might as well ban anything that isn't productive or insightful.

And anyone who values liberty should have a problem with Holocaust denial being illegal.

Reread my post. I'm not discussing the value of random, unspecified examples of free speech. I'm talking about freedom itself.

#1 According to a new Army manual, U.S. soldiers will now be instructed to avoid “any criticism of pedophilia” and to avoid criticizing “anything related to Islam”. The following is from a recent Judicial Watch article…

#2 The Obama administration has banned all U.S. government agencies from producing any training materials that link Islam with terrorism. In fact, the FBI has gone back and purged references to Islam and terrorism from hundreds of old documents.

#8 The University of Minnesota – Duluth (UMD) initiated an aggressive advertising campaign earlier this year that included online videos, billboards, and lectures that sought to raise awareness about “white privilege“.

#9 At one high school down in California, five students were sent home from school for wearing shirts that displayed the American flag on the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

#17 All over the country, the term “manhole” is being replaced with the terms “utility hole” or “maintenance hole”.

#20 All over America, liberal commentators are now suggesting that football has become “too violent” and “too dangerous” and that it needs to be substantially toned down. In fact, one liberal columnist for the Boston Globe is even proposing that football should be banned for anyone under the age of 14.


http://thetruthwins.com/archives/20-outrageous-examples-that-show-how-political-correctness-is-taking-over-america

Definitely not an objective source, of course, but it shows how PC can definitely be an issue. Besides, it is all linked in the article.

Likewise, I suggest you actually document yourself on what you're trying to defend. Try and have a look at the youtube channels Shoe0nHead and especially Thunderf00t and see there how PC can be poison.

I'm all for politeness and the end of racism, but dismissing the current trend in PC, (the bad, more extreme sort especially; not just the use of 'african american' rather than 'black' but that where proper facts are being ignored due to them being considered racist, even if true) which is becoming ever more prevalent, is very foolish and speaks of a lack of knowledge in the area.

If there still is relative poverty in the UK, for example, that doesn't mean the problem of racism should be ignored because relative poverty is subjectively more important. In the same way, even if PC might be of less importance to some than the diminishing of racism, it doesn't mean that PC should just be ignored. Although I'm sure we're on the same page with that.

Political correctness can easily reach a point, and I think already has in many countries in many areas of debate, where it becomes proper censorship, which has the knock on effects of facts not being taken into consideration because they are considered racist, again, despite them being true or at the very least thoroughly researched.

I think you don't exactly understand what people who are against PC think of when they say PC. You might have a different understanding of what PC is.

So what is your position - is free speech valuable or not? Bear in mind you can't now pick specific examples that aren't, as you would validate my initial statement.

Looking at it in a purely results-based manner, its value lies in the alleviation of state sanctioned violence towards an individual who is merely exercising a human right. Individuals in society benefit by avoiding jail time or having their rights impeached at the cost of potentially being offended, which is a far better trade-off.

I'm interested to hear your opinions, and arguments supporting them

Free speech is valuable for the results it produces. It is not intrinsically valuable.

My point is that saying 'PC bad 'cos free speech' is not an argument. You need to demonstrate why you get better results from allowing people to spout nonsense about the deaths of millions of people using arguments that have been proved false overwhelmingly time and time again. Holocaust denial's only purpose is to further racism against Jews and to validate the opinion of the monstrously bigoted. Germany, given it's history, is right to draw the line there.

Fyi, it's not illegal to stop some fragile flower getting 'offended' it's illegal to prevent Nazi-apologism allowing fascist, racist ideologies from gaining prominence once more. I consider preventing that to be the 'better result'.

We would have a more cohesive society, more forward thinking as discourse without restrictions is allowed.

The younger generations are so PC I worry what it will look like in 20 years.

All snow flakes who can't take being offended or tackling taboo subjects

Europe is fantastic. The EU is awful.

So pretty good.

Most people who complain about 'political correctness' just want to be openly bigoted without being judged. It's not a problem. There is still a rigorous and open exchange of ideas in Europe and the developed world. Real censorship and the effective abolition of opposing views can be found in China, to a lesser extent Russia and in parts of the less developed world.

How exactly is political correctness pervasive in Europe?
I mean, I can think of three topics which will be shut by political correctness, racial superiority and intelligence, the holocaust and women history and intelligence.
If there was no political correctness, you'd be able to talk about those things on television without fear of being fired. However, if you think about it, talking about those three things is not going to lead to anything but explicit and astounding offence and harm to women, other races and Jews. So it's not really worth it. Even with PC, you can still discuss those issues in books or specialised places.

Anything else is not really political correctness. Yea if you turn out to be homophobic people are likely to stay away from you, but that's because you hold a stupid opinion. Other than that, it's all "twitter wars", but who cares about people on twitter, or the professionally offended as I call them? Who cares what they think?

What do you think politically correct is? It seems to mean a different thing to everyone on this read.

To me it is just a form of polite self censorship. Everyone does this even Nigel Farage. It's called not being a dick.

Censorship.

It stops people saying what they want and therefore harms discourse.

End of story


Posted from TSR Mobile

So for you there is no need for censorship whatsoever in any scenario? Shouting bomb in an airport. An imam calling on gay people to be killed?

Bomb in an airport isn't anything to do with being pc that is an immediate threat to life.

An imam calling for gay people to be killed is fine. It allows for him to be seen for what he is and for discourse to challenge his followers.

Even so the examples you give are extreme.

Posted from TSR Mobile

People should be free to be as bigoted as they like without (legal) repercussions.

So you want limits to free speech as well then so it's not 'end of story'

And the bomb thing is not that far fetched at all (I was against this person going to jail by the way)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial

There are always grey areas, room for nuance.