Wall Of Speech is banned in China

It's not as if the Wall Of Speech is the hub of anti-Chinese propaganda in the West, but for some strange reason (unknown to me) WoS has effectively been banned in China. No one in China can visit or view this site.

To find out if your own site is available to be viewed in China simply take this test that I discovered over at the heavyweight Conservative blogger Elle Seymour .

If anyone has any ideas as to why WoS in banned in China, I would surely like to hear it.

Defending your ideas

Okay, why is academic freedom important? Because in order to think, in order to exercise your freedom, you need to be educated – and in order for people to be educated they need to have the freedom to consider a very wide range of ideas, to have their own preconceptions questioned, and questioned vigorously. They have to learn how to tolerate ideas that are really abhorrent to them. They need to learn the difference between ideas and actions. They need to learn that people can have very different ideas, and they can debate them without coming to blows.

You know, in our world today, one way you can stop people from coming to blows about their conflicting ideas is by teaching them how to argue, and teaching them not to be afraid of argument. There’s an important difference between being embarrassed or feeling intellectually or emotionally wounded because you’re at the losing end of an argument, and actually being physically assaulted. I think it’s incredibly important for students to learn how to argue, and to learn how to appreciate and even enjoy argument.

Wendy Kaminer on academic freedom.

Flag burning? Why not, it's a free country

The Guardian reported that the British police want to see the burning of flags at demonstrations in the UK outlawed. Indeed, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Len Duvall argued that people;

"have the right to [demonstrate] but they must do so peacefully and without causing undue offence."

The Labour MP Shahid Malik also supports the police proposal; he added that these 'appear to be sensible proposals which I believe all sensible people, irrespective of religion or race, will support'.

Well, I'm sorry, but the police and Shahid Malik are talking complete and utter nonsense. For a start, the proposal is a blatant restriction on our right to free speech. I personally don't go around burning flags at demonstrations, but in a free society if other people want to do such things, why can't they?

Whether we like it or not, flag burning is a form of political speech. If the police, or anyone else for that matter finds it offensive, then that's just tough. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where the police determine how offensive a demonstration may be.

I militantly agree with Brendan O’Neill’s assessment of this issue, it's bad enough that free speech is under attack, on top of that, the police want to restrict our right to be offensive at demonstrations too - well, as O'Neill rightfully argued, they can just f**k right off.