At another place, a lady from Turkey disagreed with something an American lady wrote, and said- I felt this was a unecessarily insulting to the other lady, and responded with - I had not intended to racially offend the Turkish lady but she took my response as a slur upon her nation. I duly apologised for giving offence, at the same time explaining that it was merely a figure of speech, and I was (with obvious lack of success) trying to be diplomatic. I was immediately set upon by a number of other members and accused of being both elitist, and racist. I regret having made passing reference to possible cultural practices in Turkey (especially as I have never been there,) but I still believe that people should not publicly call each other liars on these boards. The only exception to that might be made when two conditions clearly apply. The first being that the statement must have been empirically proven to be untrue. The second being incontrovertible evidence that the person concerned has deliberately made a statement in the full knowledge it is not fact. Even then, the burden of proof is much too high to be adequately addressed on a medium such as this. We do not know each other personally, and we have no way of knowing the extent of another poster's experience, nor the depth of his/her research into the matter under discussion. We can only estimate the balance of probability, and there is a significant possibility that we may have misunderstood something. But my principle point concerns civilised and constructive discussion, and I do not believe that gratuitously impolite accusations contribute much to that. Does anyone have a point of view regarding this situation in general?
Yes, in my experienced opinion on race relations, this was not a politically correct way to address an individual of a classified 'oppressed race', and therefore since political correctness was not used to appease the beligerent individual in question, it was handled in a racist way. The proper way would have been to empathize, with the turk muslim, because she was insulted by the other person in the topic, who dared question her knowledge of the third world customs, that the turk is obviously very knowledgeable of. So , the use of 'Liar' or 'You Lie' as we Americans even use in our political stages, is completely appropriate by the oppressed at topic here. Also of note, this highlights the difference between American socialists, or liberals, from European socialists, or liberals, in that all Americans respect free speech, especially the freedom to address another as a liar. However free speech has its limits, and though we may not be as restrictive as Europeans, if the other lady told the Muslim Turk, that she was a 'Liar', I would have aknowledged that as racism.
How do you come to define this Turkish woman as "oppressed" ? Upon what do you base that ? This exchange has this Turkish woman clearly being rude and insulting, and if anyone should apologize it is her. Leo2 should not have apologized for anything, and when he did, he opened up the door for these unscruplous miscreants to redefine the situation with him as the villain. This is quite typical of Muslims who don't accept cordiality from non-Muslims, and generally take it as weakness, and an opporunity to strike even harder. The correct approach woudl have been to slam the whole lot of them as hard as possible, with no mercy.
May I say that I appreciate the useful input of both of you - Liberalminority and Protectionist - but I am unsure whether the Turkish lady was Muslim or otherwise, and I am not sure that Turkey could be considered a third world society. I felt the American lady put her case forcefully, but politely, and did not deserve a response of "You are lying!" I would have made the same comments if it were the American lady who accused the Turkish lady of lying, it was, IMO, an unacceptably impolite response and there was no way the Turkish lady could know whether the American lady was deliberately telling an untruth, or may have been simply mistaken about the matter. I cannot agree that calling someone a liar under those circumstances constitutes freedom of speech. Irrespective of what Americans habitually do - to publicly impugn someone's character with no credible evidence is not an exercise in freedom.
You're welcome, my expertise on these matters is free for anyone to read here. However, a few discreptancies have arised from the new post, and will be addressed below. First the American lady shouldn't be offended by being called a liar, since Americans have tough skin, and since 'liar' is a term used regularly by our political leaders, maybe to Europeans with higher sensibilities, the term 'you lie' may come off as inflammatory. Secondly, all muslim states are third world, even in turk land, which although describes itself as a 'secular' state according to wikipedia, is also 99 percent muslim.. Therefore for obvious reasons, muslims and/or turks are entitled to the classifcation of 'oppressed', and affirmative action policies must apply in discussion with them, such as political correctness to save their sensibilities. Furthermore, the racist element comes in when discussing with an oppressed individual on their customs, muslims have been classified as oppressed for obvious reasons, and take insult when a superior westerner attempts to educate them on their pre-civilized ways. Not to mention, Turk land is in close proximity to middle eastern conflicts, such as Syria, and are taking in more refugees than their country could sustain with or without the new immigration, which further depreciates that third world state. In conclusion, Americans, respect free speech in its purest form, there is no need for this how you say 'credible evidence' to justify freedom of expression. We also go as far as to cater to the delicate sensitivity of the oppressed, through political correctness, as discussed above. This should also goes for England since they are a Second world country, compared to the United States which is the First world country, and can understand somewhat the responsibility we have, in the treatment of the oppressed in Third world countries...
