Dreams Are Ten-A-Penny

I learned a new phrase yesterday: gish gallop.  It means to present your argument in a debate in such a manner as firing off points at a tangent, often over your opponent's points.  Kind of a smoke-and-mirrors device, or as I said to the friend who explained this, 'Peeing down someone's leg and telling them it's raining.'  I also learned an interesting thing in our constitution regarding free speech, and that being we have a few provisos to enable us to 'protect ... public health...'.  The abridgement and ellipses are mine.  I am embarrassed that I, a woman of sturdy legal background, had this pointed out to me by a physiotherapist.  She's also another writer in my town, and that's how I know her. How we got discussing this is via an online petition to not have Dr Sherri Tenpenny come from the US to give a talk.  She is an anti-vaxxer.  IMHO, this makes her something of a fruitloop.  I have had my children vaccinated, and in my younger days when travelling, I would toddle off to the doctor for the recommended vaccinations pertaining to whatever country I was planning to visit.  I put up with those jabs, and chowed down on foul tasting quinine tablets to stave off malaria.  To this day, I cannot understand how anybody can willingly drink tonic water.  It is fiendishly bitter.  Anyway, I'm not signing the petition.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I don't particularly want the woman to come here at all, but where do you draw the line?  I've seen online petitions to not have rappers allowed visas owing to what are perceived to be misogynistic lyrical content in the oeuvre, but again, if you don't like the music, don't go to the concert.  Yes, I continue in my steadfast refusal to sign online petitions of this manner because I think they fly in the face of free speech.  And as it turns out, we have a few little provisos on ours, and the interest of public health one could be this woman's undoing, if there is a move to revoke or disprove her visa.  And I must say, from a legal standpoint, I will be agog.  I pointed out that perhaps some informed people could present a counter argument at the seminar, and then my friend said she will likely gish gallop.  So I learned a new phrase.  If her visa is refused, then what is to stop a presentation via a video hook-up anyway?  In any event, it's not like the principles pertaining to Euclidean geometric equations apply here.  It's simple: if you don't like what the person ahs to say, then don't bloody rock up to the seminar.