{"id":738,"date":"2006-02-23T07:26:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-23T07:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/?p=738"},"modified":"2006-10-09T18:16:18","modified_gmt":"2006-10-09T10:16:18","slug":"736-of-reductio-ad-absurdum-and-selective-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=738","title":{"rendered":"[736] Of reductio ad absurdum<\/em> and selective free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of us Malaysians consider our government as the main bulwark towards greater free speech in this country. I thought so too until the Non Sequitur and New Straits Times (NST) controversy occured. As the issue unravels, it’s becoming clear that the principle hurdle towards free speech is not the government. Instead, it is the society itself; us.<\/p>\n

The more I look at it, the more convinced am I of the fact that Malaysians, even the urbanites that on the surface are for free speech, are unprogressive and illiberal wherever the ideal is concerned. Instead, they practice selective free speech, which is an act of hypocrisy. In this controversy, same people that chastise the government for blatant disrespect of free speech are calling for censorship of NST. It’s scary to see these people working to undermine free speech. A fifth column in the most unexpected vocal camp – bloggers like Jeff Ooi!<\/p>\n

Jeff Ooi is probably a free speech icon in Malaysian blogosphere. Worse, he seems to be jumping up and down seeing NST getting into trouble. It will be crucial to keep the whole episode in mind the next time Jeff Ooi get into trouble.<\/p>\n

While bloggers don’t represent the Malaysian society as a whole, it does give a glimpse of what’s happening. And while not all Malaysians are supporting actions against NST, it seems to me, a sizable numbers are.<\/p>\n

All I want to say is that, if we ourselves, Malaysians disrespect free speech and criticize other for disregarding free speech, then we shouldn’t blame the government for practicing censorship. We shouldn’t even get mad whenever the government practices it. After all, it’s we that elect the government into office. The government is an image of us, the people, the majority.<\/p>\n

The right thing to do in the name of free speech is to come to NST’s defense. No censorship whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Finally, in form of reductio ad absurdum<\/em>: if NST is guilty of publishing and republishing the strip, then Jeff Ooi is also guilty of republishing it<\/a>. If NST is being punished for publishing the strip, so should Jeff Ooi. Since Jeff Ooi supports action against NST, then Jeff Ooi must support actions against himself.<\/p>\n

Absurd? If yes, then there must be a flaw in reasoning somewhere. Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of us Malaysians consider our government as the main bulwark towards greater free speech in this country. I thought so too until the Non Sequitur and New Straits Times (NST) controversy occured. As the issue unravels, it’s becoming clear that the principle hurdle towards free speech is not the government. Instead, it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-politics-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}