I guess I have to write a second post this week and I’d probably even have things to say in it, even if it’d be only another personal one.
Could say that I rather randomly looked her up last night and noticed quite surprisingly that Asya did reactivate her Facebook account at some point but blocked me, which I’m still completely at a loss over. Could also say I checked others as well while I was at it, finding out someone who did unblock me at some point, but we never were actually close and I no longer care, and also that Remus Cernea seems to have somehow recently gotten around to unblocking me from his Facebook page, after over two and a half years. Or I could mention that Monday it’ll be three weeks since I dropped off my new mouse to be repaired and two since I checked the site and saw that it was listed as repaired but formalities still need to be sorted out before it can be released, yet so far I got nothing from them, not even replies when I sent them messages Monday night and then again Thursday evening, though they said I’ll have it back in at most 15 days. Or I could write about how I’m getting along quite fine with this combination of Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 and Comodo Firewall 8, though I may have messed some things up and may need to reinstall the firewall to be on the safe side, probably when the antivirus trial will expire and I’ll switch to trying something else. Or I could also ramble at some length about how inadequate and over my head I feel when it comes to my continued involvement in activism, and how one of the known activists also blocked me on Facebook not long ago.
But I guess I at least mentioned all of that in that long paragraph, and that’s about how far I’m able, or at least how far I’m willing, to get at this point. It counts as a post, it’s already three times longer, four times longer by the end of this paragraph, and makes far more sense than anythng I can force myself to add to my story each day for months now, and I can finish and post it just before the day’s first Africa Cup of Nations match, so I guess it’ll have to do for now. Any other details, at some point between later and never, as usual.
Been watching the Africa Cup of Nations matches and I yet again have to wonder why doesn’t somebody do something to make this competition less of a chore for the important players and their clubs and more interesting for everyone as a result? I mean, there are more than enough highly skilled players that do or may play in the continent’s national teams, yet the result is always far below any expectations that should be entirely reasonable when you simply read the list of names, and this is due to a combination of reduced incentives, poor facilities, uncertain conditions, security concerns, relatively low number of supporters present and fact that it takes place at the start of the year, when some of those who play in major championships would actually have matches to play and the rest should be training for the second half of the season.
Since this is only meant to be a very quick post, I’m simply going to ask why isn’t something done about the issues that can be solved without necessarily needing to change the situation in the region as a whole? For example, couldn’t something be done about the schedule, either by finding ways to schedule the Africa Cup of Nations during the summer as well, in countries where this may be possible, or by enforcing at least a brief winter break on European championships while it’s taking place? Couldn’t the matter of who organizes it be settled according to the stability and security of the country in question, even if that will mean that only a few countries will be eligible? Or, even though this would rather defeat the purpose of an African competition, if no African country would seem likely to meet the conditions in some years, couldn’t it be organized in some southern European country, such as Spain or Portugal, possibly Italy, or maybe even Turkey or Greece? And couldn’t FIFA impose some caps on ticket prices that would take into account the widespread poverty in the region, and possibly also direct more of its funds towards both prize money for this competition and the improvement of African football infrastructure in general?
Sure, some of these things may be rather problematic and risk being met with some resistance, and that may be putting it mildly, but many would benefit from such improvements, and I’m not only talking about the locals. I mean, yes, a better chance to enjoy good matches and make use of improved infrastructure, starting from but not limited to that which is used specifically for football, plus of course, and more importantly, any potential positive impact on the overall security and stability situation in the region, will first and foremost impact those who live there and who often need any such help they can get, considering the difficulties they’re constantly facing, yet even the big clubs and the important football federations or associations may notice long-term benefits if the level of the competition would improve, including more talented local players getting a chance to shine and possibly get transferred and better exposure for said big clubs among local potential fans who aren’t that poor.
With this topic being so frequently brought up lately, including by some who are worse threats to it than those they claim to want to defend it from, I’ll just quickly state my position once again. I did it last week as well and this post isn’t exactly meant to be more detailed, but it is meant to deal with the matter itself, and also with some of the disappointing messages some of the activists I deal with have posted recently.
To make matters clear from the beginning, my position is that freedom of expression, in any form, needs to be pretty much unlimited when it comes to opinions, no matter how wrong, immoral, unethical, offensive, insulting, blasphemous, shocking, extremist or appalling others consider those opinions to be. In turn, said “others” obviously have the same right to express their opposition to said opinions, which will simply lead to a public debate, no matter how heated. And to clarify it even further, yes, this means I definitely extend freedom of expression not only to any kind of humor or lampooning, no matter how crude or harsh, but also to things like supporting harmful behaviors or discrimination, including actual hate speech, and have in the past spoken out against attempts to censor opinions that I myself vehemently opposed.
As I have stated in that previous post as well, if those opinions turn into actual actions, are used to create laws or regulations, or are otherwise imposed upon others, an entirely different set of rules applies, as that has nothing to do with one’s right to simply have and express an opinion. In addition, if a person claims that what they are expressing is a fact, not merely an opinion, then action may be taken against them if they persist in doing so after their claim is proven false, or obviously if it is proven that they knew it was false in the first place. But as long as it remains within the confines of expressing a personal opinion, there should be no real limits and all I can say to anyone bothered by this is that they should grow some thicker skin.
Obviously, that applies to those expressing such opinions in equal measure, since if anyone has the right to express any opinion, anyone who disagrees with it has the same right to express that opposition as well, including by calling it ridiculous or by saying those who believe it to be true are fucking morons or even need to die, for example. Nobody should have the right to kill or otherwise take action against another for an opinion any more than anyone should have the right to take action against another solely on the basis of their religion, sex, sexual orientation, race, nationality or any other such traits, but anyone who believes this should happen should be free to express said opinion and anybody else should be free to express theirs about it, and about them and their traits.
To add a personal example, I’ll remind you that my opinion is that human overpopulation is by far the world’s worst problem, having a child under the current circumstances is the worst single crime anyone may commit and no other major environmental or social issue may be solved without first drastically reducing the population, most preferably not by killing people or allowing them to die unnecessarily due to lack of access to needed resources or services, but by drastically limiting the number of births by any means necessary to the minimum needed to avoid a genetic bottleneck and carefully selecting those few who’d still be allowed to breed according to objective criteria meant to ensure the improvement of the human race without sacrificing diversity. Needless to say, expressing such a wildly unpopular opinion tends to be a bit of a problem, to put it mildly, and I have even been told that I need to be killed for it. However, I for one would never call for action to be taken against another for merely speaking out against this opinion of mine or against me for having it.
In fact, when I do end up detailing my view of what should be done when it comes to this, I even make sure to specify that even after the whole system required to solve this problem will be put in place and set in motion, people should still have every right to speak out and protest against it. The limit is obviously, as I keep saying, if it’ll go beyond expressing an opinion, as anybody trying to modify the laws in ways that’d make such a system less effective or less just, plus of course anyone trying to get around it and have unapproved children, should be dealt with most harshly, and I am known to use the phrase “get medieval on their ass” to describe what I mean by that, to be made an example to all who’d think of doing the same. But as long as it’s merely expressing an opinion, whether it’s done now when it’s the prevailing one or if it’ll be done in a hypothetical future when mine would be, there should be absolutely no restrictions or penalties… Just like I sure hope there won’t be for expressing mine.
But I was saying this was meant as a quick post and I got a bit carried away with it already despite not exactly saying anything new… Plus that I did bring up the overpopulation issue and, as it always happens, got even more carried away the moment I did that, so I’d better end this now, before I completely lose focus and switch topics.
The bottom line is that thoughts can’t be restricted, and definitely shouldn’t be even if this would be possible. And if people think, they should be able to express those thoughts completely freely as well, without fearing any reprisals other than others expressing their own in return. There can be no limits, no taboos, no censorship when it comes to this, and this is something that probably the large majority of those who claim to fight for rights and freedoms, including most of those who honestly believe they truly do so, still need to learn.
Yesterday I woke up at 8 AM, so after about two hours of sleep, and then spent nearly 12 hours wandering around the city, mainly looking for a few pieces of clothing. Of course, since this is me we’re talking about, I made quite a mess of it and, as far as what I intend to use as running clothes is concerned, came back with something that’s of rather poor quality and wasn’t discounted either, though at least it seems made in Romania, so I didn’t end up supporting some company exploiting workers who knows where. On the other hand, didn’t buy shoes at all, and messed up with the socks too, meaning to look for thick ones and ending up with the opposite since I didn’t get them from a large store and when the person selling them started talking to me I just grabbed something, paid and got out of there.
Did find some better prices for a few other things, but didn’t even take advantage of all of them since I decided against going back to one hypermarket at the end of the day just for that. As such, I’m quite sure I didn’t even make up for the money spent on the one-day metro card I bought in the morning, and since my purchases were only from two places it can’t exactly be said to have been necessary either, except perhaps to confirm a few things I had already been considering. One of them may prove useful in the future, but there was absolutely no reason to go back there now for it.
I guess I learned another route between two places and a way to identify where I am in a certain area as a result of “managing” to go the wrong way twice and figuring out how to fix the problem without actually going all the way back on one of these occasions. In addition, I learned that it may be better to get off the metro at a different stop if I want to go to a particular place again, but that this only applies during the day, as the significantly shorter walking distance doesn’t otherwise make up for the lack of lights and the presence of stray dogs. And I bumped into two people I know from protests, apparently accidentally finding out where one of them works as well, but that was simply awkward.
But this post was mainly written so I’ll finally have something posted here this week, so now that this is done I guess I’ll go back to playing The Witcher. Obviously didn’t yesterday, but so far I seem to still keep playing without even considering giving up again despite continuing to feel like I’m certain to mess things up whenever I do something, so I may even have a chance of finishing it. I’m only in chapter four, so it will still be a while either way, but it should be good enough for my initial goal of finishing it in the first half of spring.
Many have already pointed this out, some expressing and explaining it far better than I ever could, but I must also add my voice and state that, if we are to remember and learn one thing in the wake of the Paris attack, that lesson must come from the sacrifice of Ahmed Merabet, the Muslim police officer who died defending others’ right to ridicule his religion, his culture, his heritage, from those who wished to make them pay with their lives for it while claiming to share them.
If the world is to pick one martyr of free speech from those tragic moments, it must be this man, even more than the targets of the attack themselves. If we are to remember one lesson from that tragic day, it must be this: We all have the right to free thought and free speech, and to freedom of expression in general, and one only truly stands for those rights while protecting others who say that which they disagree with from those who wish to silence them. After all, everyone can fight for the right to express that which they agree with, but the true test is whether you’re able to still firmly support these principles when they are used in ways that inconvenience, bother or even downright infuriate you.
When thoughts and speech and other forms of expression turn to deeds, or to laws and regulations, entirely different rules apply, but as long as they do not… Well, there was that saying, usually, and wrongly, attributed to Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It’s something we must all keep reminding ourselves of, even those of us who are fighting for these freedoms, or at least like to think of ourselves as doing so.
