In regards to the FREE-DUMB ball, I encourage people to seek out YouTube videos by the celebrated journalist, essayist and intellectual the late Christopher Hitchens and his pursuit of free enquiry.
So, it is particularly important in a democratic society to allow these people to have a voice and fifteen-minutes-of-fame because, through their own actions and rhetoric, larger society will judge them and come to an ultimate conclusion they are crackpots.
Though, it is often the case, many of these types of groups tend to implode after a while because there is rarely consensus amongst individuals. Indeed, their psychological makeup means they all want to be heard and lead = too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
Open-minded and responsible people will dismiss them as extremists, social and cultural pariahs deserving at best to be ignored, at worst, openly ridiculed.
For example, the Aussie Cossack and Craig Kelly are smarmy, fringe dwelling cretins whose only agenda is self-promotion and easy bucks. The former exemplifies these traits – dumb grin, heavy use of catchphrases that draw people in, and basically confrontational to those who don’t agree or show authority (Police, elected representatives), and panders to anyone that agrees with his views.
(I’ve seen that bloke with the medals somewhere before, but don’t know where. Could be wrong but I’m guessing he’s an ultra-right wing, ex-military type - many of those medals he wears are typically called TFC’s i.e. service medals they get just for being deployed somewhere or doing training. TFC = ‘Thanks For Coming’. So making out he and his wife are some kind of heroes because they ‘served’ diminishes real ‘heroes’. Being in the military is voluntary – it’s a job by choice. Also, the military has two branches: Arms and Services. Arms are the combat troops, Services support them. So he could've been anything from infantry, a cook, to a truck driver. We are not ‘Mericans who put every solider up on a pedestal as an exemplary person just because they wear a uniform!)
www.abc.net.au
