It's a similar issue
when the leader of the Nation of Islam isn't allowed to come to this country because of his well-publicised anti-semetic / homophobic views.

There are - hence the point of this QOTW - lots of laws which enforce certain elements of what we think of as PC.

So my feeling is that anyone should be allowed to talk subject to the law of the land. This would mitigate any risk of Nuremburg Rally-style incitements to racial hatred / racially-based attacks - and so restrict the BNP or whoever to make purely factual arguments to justify their position on race.

If outside the restrictions of the law we ban free speech, we are censoring outside the law and thus are no better than Zimbabwe for example or any country that denies freedom of speech.

If the members of the Union - or in fact, any group of intelligent people - can't listen to fallacious arguments and dismiss them as such, then something is going horribly wrong.

I hate the BNP and anything of that ilk - but denying them a platform if they keep to within legal limits is just grist to the mill of people who need to see themselves as persecuted as part of their insane creed. Any creed loves persecution as it makes them feel important and united. Deny them this, expose their shite to the oxygen of free thought and rational arguments, and it shrivels to the (thankfully, in the UK at any rate) insignificant place it does and should occupy.
( I_Was_Mordred, Tue 27 Nov 2007, 1:23, Reply)