Are there dangerous ideas?

[jakelafort]

Plus 1 Davis. Is that how you do it?

In any event it is first and last time i participate in that custom.

[Unseen]

Kristina wrote:

Why?

Referring to Anne Hathaway’s apology for playing a character in a classic kids story, what about such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which must trigger some people with spine deformations, and The Nigger of the Narcissus in these times when only blacks seem to be able to use the N word without offense?

What are we to do with books like those? Hide them? Burn them? Pretend they don’t exist? Apologize for them?

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, a few examples are as follows: laws against publishing pornography, laws against fraud

But don’t you see that neither example sensors. Both sanction offenders after the fact. No censorship takes place. No one has to submit their erotica or contracts to authorities to make sure they conform to the law and provide the government an opportunity to prevent the publication or fraud from occurring.

[—]

Unseen wrote:

Kristina wrote:

Why?

Referring to Anne Hathaway’s apology for playing a character in a classic kids story, what about such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which must trigger some people with spine deformations, and The Nigger of the Narcissus in these times when only blacks seem to be able to use the N word without offense? What are we to do with books like those? Hide them? Burn them? Pretend they don’t exist? Apologize for them?

She wasn’t apologizing for playing a character in a classic kids’ story. She was apologizing because the way they chose to depict her character unintentionally contributed to the marginalization real people face.

If someone has an issue with your other examples, they should raise them and Victor Hugo and Joseph Conrad can respond however they like (though I suspect the response will be rather predictable in both cases).

[jakelafort]

Okay Unseen i think you are referring to prior restraint. And from what i recall it is either not permitted or only permitted in limited circumstances. Thus all cases of prior restraint are censorship. Not all cases of censorship are prior restraint.

I am not familiar with pornography laws so i cant say if the work product has to be approved before being published. Certain contracts with the government require specific formats and are rejected failing that format.

[TheEncogitationer]

Jakelafort,

You wrote:

Encogitationer, do you want to protect invidious hate speech?

My position on “hate speech” or any other expression of ideas is summed up by Wafa Sultan:  “You can believe in stones, but don’t throw any at me.”

Al-Jazeera Wafa Sultan Discussion on Muslim Belief and The Clash of Civilizations    (3:41-3:45 is the pwn-age moment.)                                                       https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ISNpOkpcWqg

The Klan can wish for “colonization” of Africans all they want, and people can reply: “Why don’t you go back to Europe?”

But the moment they book a freighter ship and start going door-to-door for forced ticket-buyers, that is when the 9 MMs will and should come out.

Likewise, if Neo-Nazis say: “We wish Hitler finished what he started,” we can tell them: “The only time Hitler finished with Eva was in the bunker in 1945.”

But if they try something to make their wish come true, then we can send them to The Worm’s Valhalla.

If Westboro Baptist types parade their signs, we can say: “My glasses are off.  Does that say ‘God Hates FAQs?’ Well, God should skip the FAQs page and go to Terms and Conditions.”

But if they try burning their targets here on Earth, they might need a Ray Comfort banana up the pipe of their flamethrower, with and little arc-and-spark to start the real fun.

As always, it should be criminal and tyrannical acts, not mere thoughts or speech, that should be our focus.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Bad Autocorrect! Bad Skynet! No human biscuit!
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer.

[Glen D]

@Egognitati

” You are no “ignorant foreigner.”

Kind of you to say so. It’s all relative

In 35 years of international , once I left Australis it was as if my country did not exist. Why should it be otherwise? On the pacific rim with a tiny population (25 million) we are considered irrelevant to the northern hemisphere.

Australia has been under the influence of American economic and social imperialism since WW2 at least..  Australians today still love the US and  Americans. (we think the accent is cool)

I remember my mum coming into my bedroom in tears to tell me President Kennedy had been assassinated.

Add to that  life long love of [mainly American] film, TV, and literature, plus about 20 US cousins .Mum was born in Vancouver, most of her relatives moved to the US before WW2.

Add to that an interest in some American anthropologists

—and there you have a life long interest in the US***. Anything I’ve learned about the US seems to have been by osmosis.

 

***When  I visited the US I stayed with relatives, who treated me like visiting royalty.  A beautiful country where I was treated with kindness, respect and great hospitality by almost everyone I met . However, I wouldn’t live in the US on a bet.

 

[jakelafort]

Encogitationer, you are talkin pistachios and i am talkin rotten nuts.

You are greatly underselling the nature of hate speech and how it translates into more than hurt feelings. Think Nazi Germany and how incendiary the rhetoric and demonstrations against Jews. What if the government had prosecuted perpetrators of hate speech?

Think of any town USA when there were millions of KKK and Blacks were being railroaded for crimes they never committed and being lynched. What if the government protected its citizens and denied the KKK and others their constitutional rights of assembly and hate speech?

Think about Armenian citizens in Turkey. etc.

Do you think the free marketplace of ideas is an efficient way to protect the vulnerable? Is anything of value lost when we as a nation enact laws that protect the vulnerable and send a message of the value in all citizens not just the dominant groups? Speech is limited and prohibited in various circumstances. Why not here when there is so much to gain and so little to lose?

[TheEncogitationer]

Kristina,

And hate crime isn’t something you can just tag on to any offence. Typically it has to be an unlawful action that threatens, intimidates, harasses, injures or harms a person motivated by bias against a protected class/ characteristic. So a broken tail light does not qualify.

Actually, a broken tail light does jeopardize road safety, especially of law enforcers navigating around traffic.  This is why it is a citation offense and why an accompanying blasphemy and a perceived dirty look could be easily twisted into an anti-police “hate crime.”

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer.

[TheEncogitationer]

Glen D,

The love goes back from this U.S. Citizen to Australia.  Though I’ve never been, I love the cultural imports: “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” Olivia Newton-John, Men At Work, Paul Hogan, both as himself and as Crocodile Dundee.  A high school friend visited and had nothing but good to say about the people and land.

Some silly Country Music purists here said Olivia Newton-John wasn’t real Country, but I always loved her music whether she does Country or Pop/Rock. Last I seen, she’s still a pretty lady too.

I pity that you guys are required to vote.  Non-voting is at least a peaceful way of protesting when no one is suitable for office.  I guess one could still non-vote and take your lumps like Thoreau or King, but it is a pain.

I’m glad you liked your visit, but I also understand if you don’t want to live here too.  The U.S. has always had room to improve, but now it’s becoming unlike anything I recognize anymore…and there’s no spare U.S.A. to which U.S. Citizens can emigrate.

[—]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Kristina,

And hate crime isn’t something you can just tag on to any offence. Typically it has to be an unlawful action that threatens, intimidates, harasses, injures or harms a person motivated by bias against a protected class/ characteristic. So a broken tail light does not qualify.

Actually, a broken tail light does jeopardize road safety, especially of law enforcers navigating around traffic. This is why it is a citation offense and why an accompanying blasphemy and a perceived dirty look could be easily twisted into an anti-police “hate crime.”

No, it can’t, because a broken taillight isn’t targeting a police officer or police in general with some sort of anti-police-motivated action. Even if someone could somehow make that work–maybe they stickered ‘ACAB’ over the light rendering it useless, I would be shocked if there is a single US jurisdiction where that fits the definition of hate crime.

An officer can always attempt to twist something into an offence. It’s done with ‘obstruction’ and ‘resisting arrest’, no? That doesn’t mean they are correct.

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

Okay Unseen i think you are referring to prior restraint. And from what i recall it is either not permitted or only permitted in limited circumstances. Thus all cases of prior restraint are censorship. Not all cases of censorship are prior restraint. I am not familiar with pornography laws so i cant say if the work product has to be approved before being published. Certain contracts with the government require specific formats and are rejected failing that format.

When I was very young (I’m nearly 73), censorship usually took the form of the government stepping in to prevent the dissemination or further dissemination of “obscene” books, magazines, and photos. Except where materials were stopped and confiscated by Customs agents, even then enforcement took the form of prosecution after the fact. However, the courts have taken a breathtakingly broad stance on what is protected by free speech and very little is legally obscene anymore. The main exception being child pornography. If the authorities know where CP is being made, they will likely be able to get warrants for both a search and arrests. But this is one of those famous exceptions that prove the rule. In general, we don’t have censorship in the U.S. Not even The Anarchist Cookbook can be censored, and if that can’t be censored, very little is left that can other than CP.

As for your example of the government contract, that is simply management managing within the purview of their job description. When one talks about censorship, one can’t avoid what its purpose is, and no one concerned with freedom of speech and/or censorship is going to have a problem with a company or government agency having and enforcing standards. However, if, say, a technical writer put something into a document that was proprietary and could give away a competitive advantage, I suppose that would be an instance of a kind of censorship.

[TheEncogitationer]

Christ and Jake,

Christ, you are correct that law enforcement is not an immutable trait (unless Determinism is true, then everything we say and do is immutable.)   However, the law in Texas and other States still extends “hate crime” law protection to law enforcers.  And it is dangerous because potential witnesses and activists against legitimate police brutality can be prosecuted under the law and bad cops thus acquire a guaranteed, indefinite, immovable job security.  That is scary for all persons, regardless of immutable or mutable traits.

Jake, you are correct that “hate crime” law protections applied to law enforcers is pandering to the Right Wing (as well as law enforcement associations, lobbies, and public sector unions.)  And that pandering is a direct consequence of the previous “hate crime” laws proposed by Left Wing Identitarians.

If Left Wing Identitarians can propose to make punishments more severe for crimes against persons of “protected classes,” then it sets the precedent for Right Wingers to call for the same for their own favored “protected classes.”

The common denominator of both “hate crime” laws is that both target thoughts and motives rather than simply criminal acts against Life, Liberty, and Property, as well as make some “classes” of individuals more important than others to the legal system.

You simply cannot have “hate crime” laws and equal individual rights and equal justice before the law at the same time in the same society.

The best bet for all is to treat all crimes as acts by individuals against individuals and arrest, indict, convict, sentence, and punish them all equally, no matter what the real, imputed, or imagined motive.  Without that, rights and justice for no one is safe.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Punctuation missing

[jakelafort]

Unseen you are referring to prior restraint. And again i don’t want to refresh my recollection but i am pretty sure it has always been proscribed with limited exceptions. Yes that is a form of censorship but it is not how the first amendment is typically involved. Typically, the actor speaks. The government bans or limits the speech. Whatever the penalty or punishment for said speech the actor invokes her first amendment rights. Turns out there are many limitations on free speech. Your position on hate speech is consistent with the law of the land. I think it is dead wrong. Oh, and i have not perhaps stayed apprised of the most recent first amendment obscenity cases (Lemon i think) but the standard utilized is/was stupid. It involved community standards. Oh never mind…

[Unseen]

Kristina wrote:

Unseen wrote:

Kristina wrote:

Why?

Referring to Anne Hathaway’s apology for playing a character in a classic kids story, what about such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which must trigger some people with spine deformations, and The Nigger of the Narcissus in these times when only blacks seem to be able to use the N word without offense? What are we to do with books like those? Hide them? Burn them? Pretend they don’t exist? Apologize for them?

She wasn’t apologizing for playing a character in a classic kids’ story. She was apologizing because the way they chose to depict her character unintentionally contributed to the marginalization real people face. If someone has an issue with your other examples, they should raise them and Victor Hugo and Joseph Conrad can respond however they like (though I suspect the response will be rather predictable in both cases).

Nowadays, Kristina, people are so ready to be offended or triggered that it’s hard to go through a day without doing or saying something that might, even if only potentially, offend or trigger someone. To wit:

As for asking Victor Hugo and Joseph Conrad we don’t have them to ask. We just have two classic books that are sure to offend some people. But hey…what doesn’t anymore?

[Author]

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