How fortunate are you to live where you do?
Maybe your home is close to the countryside like mine? Or
maybe you live in a city close to amenities and entertainment centres?
I don't know where you are in the world but given what I
know about my readership I'd say that it's a pretty good bet that you're in
Europe or America. Perhaps even Hong Kong or Australia. Even if you live in a
really rough neighbourhood the chances are that you can walk the streets in
relative safety without the threat of being kidnapped by terrorists or detained
by the military. We're fortunate to live where we do. We have freedom to say or
write pretty much anything that we want to without reprisal. Unless, that is,
someone takes exception to our words.
I'm fat, grey and ugly. That's not an insult; it's a
statement of fact. I haven't taken any offense at those words or asked the
person who wrote them to unfriend me on Facebook. I especially haven't posted
any anonymous personal threats. Partly because it was me who wrote it but mostly because I'm
not that kind of guy. If someone says something about me that I don't like I
simply stop listening. I don't ask them to repeat it and I certainly don't read
any more of what they might post about me on social media sites. But others
might have. And others might have called the police, saying that someone was
spreading defamatory statements about them online. These days that seems to be
the crime of the age.
We do indeed live in a society that is pretty much without
censorship but we still have taboos. So-called hate crimes are climbing up that
list of subjects that we can't mention. So it's alright for me to say that I'm
fat, grey and ugly but if anyone else says it then I'll…
The rest of this blog
is censored in case someone, somewhere takes offence.
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