posted
Tonight, ABC did a special report of Freedom of Speech in the US, and how it's being whittled away under the guise of keeping people from being offended, and affording them a false sense of "protection." Actually pretty well balanced, for a report by a major media conglomerate.
Did anybody else watch it? Thoughts?
I was especially touched by the black gentleman who happened to be against affirmative action, and was shouted down on college campuses by both black and white students, without even being allowed to present his views, and while being called a racist. (Tell me please, how can you be racist against your OWN people??)
And it's interesting to note how people like these protestors, and others, when actually questioned about WHY they believed what they believed, resorted to chanting simple-to-memorize slogans louder and louder, and couldn't even discuss things with a reporter.
Me, I'd be giving them back one of my favorite retorts... "WEAK ARGUMENT! SHOUT LOUD! IT'S EASIER THAN THINKING!!"
And then somebody made a big deal about how some kid was able to make a papier-mache model of an atom bomb from info off the internet... SO??? This is a THREAT??? Where's a kid going to get enriched Plutonium?
Of course, as a librarian and a reader of oft-banned books, I have quite definite ideas about free speech.
Censorship of anything that does not present a clear and present danger to people (ie. "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, or giving military information [tech, troop movements and emplacements] away ) or comes from the nonconsensual suffering of other people (like porn of minors), or gives proprietary materials away without the writer's consent [copyright violation] is an insult to intelligence and a meaningless restriction on free speech. It is NOT information that harms, it is the choice of what to DO with it.
In other words... Words and books don't kill people, people kill people.
------------------ "Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi
posted
Oh, darn, that was on TONIGHT? I wanted to see that...
As for those protestors, it's really too bad when people are so stupid as to believe something without even thinking about it.
This does remind me of a movie that FX is making (and heavily advertizing) called "Deliberate Intent". If the commercials are accurate, then it's about a book that supposedly made a man kill a mother and child simply by virtue of being read. A lawyer tries to have this book outlawed. Can anyone tell me if that's the correct storyline or not? 'Cause if it is, I'll have to scream.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Amen, First. I don't think I can add anything, you've stated it so well..although I DO think there's another rant headed to the site soon because of it.
Every day, I wake up with the thoughts to go on a multistate killing spree. But I don't. Why? Because I have self-control. I realize that people are accountable. YES, my parents fucked me up big time. YES, I'm a caffeine addict. YES, I hate Limp Bizkit & the fucking "Thong Song." But I don't eradicate people & then blame it on them. I own my own shit.
Anyone ever see "PCU?" These spineless fucks remind me of the Causeheads. "What don't we EAT??" "MEAT!" Why don't we EAT it??" "It's MURDER!!" And then they throw paint. Fuck YOU, hippie bitch--I want my beef-fried chipped beef in beef gravy!
My friends & I are the most outspoken, complete, & utter BASTARDS you will ever find. We won't go out of our way to intentionally offend you, but we won't apologize for it, either. One day, I saw this girl walking past in the mall...& I turned to my friend Dave & said loud enough, "Remember the days when you could just grab any woman you wanted off the street, throw her over your shoulder, have your way with her as often as you wanted, & no one gave a shit?" He lost it, laughed so hard food came out his nose. The girl, however, turned to me & told me I was "an awful person" for supposedly "condoning rape" & that I should be basically be "re-educated" to treat women with respect. I told her that I DO treat women with respect, that I longed for the days when sly innuendos & direct propositioning were taken as what they were, & that while I still found her completely fuckable, I now had no desire to get to know her as a person because "we Jews have this genetic cringing from Nazis of any kind...& even though I'm only HALF-Jewish, I can't remember all the words to 'Deutschland Uber Alles.'"
The end run of all this is that hedonism in the name of diversity is what's going to kill us. I'm not saying that we should go back to the 50s, but there needs to be some sort of national law that states that we can SMACK someone for not using common sense. Just because you have a latent memory of Uncle Jeffy dicking you up the ass when you were 6 that resurfaced recently is no reason to make ME suffer when I say the only difference between acne & a priest is that acne doesn't come on a boy's face until he's 13 or 14. Suck it up & DEAL; not everyone is out to OPPRESS you, womynists & causeheads. Some of us just wanna throw a really rippin' bitchin' bash & get our willies wet.
------------------ "Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel
posted
"Tell me please, how can you be racist against your OWN people??"
If you grew up as a second-class citizen for the sole reason of your skin color, you might 1)hate all whites for doing this to you or 2)hate yourself for being black and therefore hate all blacks. I know this is an overgeneralization; not everyone turns out this way, and not everyone does it consciously. I HAVE heard of black men who hate blacks, and they are in the small minority. I, myself, for example, started to dislike the Chinese behavior (shared by other Asian countries to some degree) after having an American education. But my dislike extends from my full knowledge of Chinese culture and mind set, so that's quite the opposite of racism.
Oh, and I've also read an article about some Latino kids who also oppose Affirmative Action because they want to succeed on their own merits.
------------------ "See, for a Republican, a heart is like an appendix. It's nice to have it, but you don't really need it."
posted
Shik is rapidly becoming my favourite person around here. We start off with rights to free speech, and end up with priests coming on peoples faces. Not a standard progression, but an interesting one.
------------------ "I can't believe we're actually gonna meet Guru Lou. Everyone says he's the wisest man in the universe. He's sensitive, creative, has a great sense of humour, and he's a really smooth dancer. *giggles*" "You're confused Polly. We're not meeting Paul Newman." - Polly & Speedy; Samurai Pizza Cats
posted
Racism against your own color? I can see that. For example, some lower-class black people appear to hate the upper-class black people and often accuse them as being sell-outs and forgetting where they came from, thus hating all rich black people. Save for perhaps 'gansta rap' musicians whose songs IMHO seem to be about being in a gang shooting people up and that whole west-side east-side thing. I know this generalization can be overdramatized on TV, regardless, it still exists.
quote:First of Two... Censorship of anything that does not present a clear and present danger to people (ie. "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, or giving military information [tech, troop movements and emplacements] away )
I agree completely on that, freedom of speech was never meant to be absolute, then there's time/place/manner rule.
The one thing I am sick of is society blaming the media for all the faults in society itself. I got so fucking sick of hearing parents blame The Matrix or Doom for the school shootings. Almost as though claiming the child was fine till he saw the lobby scene in The Matrix (which was very cool btw) and then he suddendly snapped and decided to reenact it. It's my opinion that parents of such a child would sooner blame The Matrix instead of believing their child was...mentally disturbed to begin with. Because anyone with even the slightest amount of common sense can watch The Matrix or play Doom, relize it's all fantasy and not actually go out and do it in real life.
As for banning books from a school library, well that depends. Some books are obvisously not appropriate for an elementary school library. The only problem is, this isn't a world of common sense. Here in South Carolina parents were trying to get those Harry Potter books banned from all school library citing it had homosexual themes or whatever. One day while my sister was watching some show on the Disney channel it dealt with book banning, specifically Fahrenheit 451 (I think that's the book) because it involved book burning. This is the point where common sense is thrown out the window and idiocy comes in.
Finally, I'm with Shik in saying the level of PC'ness in society is pathetically unbelieveable.
::Congratulates self on [monger=FFFF00,FF0000]800th post[/monger]::
------------------ Thornbird: "I'm Major Robert Thornbird. And you are?" O'Neill: "Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise." This post sponsered in part by the Federation Starship Datalink
[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited August 07, 2000).]
posted
First: "a reader of oft-banned books", eh? Now you got me interested.
I don't have much to say. I hear many thruths here. But I feel I must qoute someone from a seemingly very irrelevant film.
"Smart people I like. Smart ASS I don't like."
I don't mean any of you, it's just a caution. I think you know what I'm thinking. There is no stationary enemy. We must shift the pose now and then. I don't know much but I know how easy it is to fall into polarization. Anger comes with a price. When you think you know something, really know, you preclude further growth.
Blah, blah, blah, I hope any of it made sense. Be careful, that's all. I know I will try, I have some things in my head, trying to gain support. How does it go again?
Turn your back at the devil and he crawls over it?
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