The letter from G. Tod Slone (“Always the fundamental flaw,” Monday Nov. 25) compels me to write in response.
Slone contends there is a fatal flaw in Martha Muzychka’s Nov. 13 column about Don Cherry and free speech (Free speech doesn’t mean you can say anything you want without consequences”).
The fatal flaw, as he sees it, is when Muzychka states: “(Don Cherry’s) comments hurt a lot of people.”
Fixated on his concept of free speech, Slone concludes any such determination should be based on “factual evidence.” Is not the factual evidence before us? Anyone interested who looks at the clip of Cherry’s comments can see it for themselves.
Slone goes on to suggest the test of the matter ought to be a debate. I take it he means a formal debate with a resolution and speakers, pro and con. I must say, the prospect of such an event fills me with a feeling of foreboding. What would the resolution be? Imagine the people participating being required to take sides and defend their positions. Things would need to be said that would be more than hurtful — they would be hateful.
It may be that Cherry’s comments did not break our hate speech laws, but there can be no doubt, as Muzychka wrote, they were hurtful to a lot of people. Though, not everybody and, apparently, they were not hurtful to Slone.
As for free speech, any cold cod knows there has been almost too much written and spoken about the issue since it happened.
What’s to debate?
Bob Oxley,
St. John’s
RELATED:
LETTER: Always the fundamental flaw
MARTHA MUZYCHKA: Free speech doesn’t mean you can say anything you want without consequences
