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sissymaidlola -> RE: Free speech? (3/11/2006 4:12:13 PM)
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quote:
At what point does the right to free speech become the right to be defended when expressing an offensive viewpoint? Do you think the right to free speech should apply to everyone and everything no matter how offensive it is to the section of society their hatred is directed?. Do you think free speech should be tempered by other legislation such as in Austria where it is illegal to deny the holocaust or in Britain where inciting racial hatred can land people in the courts?.
WRT your stated opinion on the subject of First Amendment rights, you have to remember that the right to "free speech" cuts both ways. It enables some people to say some things that other individuals might personally find offensive, but those same individuals must learn to live with them because one day they may, too, find themselves espousing views that others find equally offensive. Many people find pornography offensive but it is protected and legal under the First Amendment, as long as it does NOT corrupt minors. Similarly, 99.9% of Americans would find the burning of the American flag distasteful but we must accept it because to pass a law to curb that would also stifle our own ability to criticize, or even express disgust at, other governments and political viewpoints in a similarly vehement manner (which someone in America is probably doing almost every second of every day, while American flag burning incidences are relatively rare). Personally, this sissy is happy with that tradeoff ... he doesn't like to see an American flag burnt but he also fully realizes that the law of the land that protects those that express themselves in that manner also protects his own rights to express himself via "big, pink, poofy fonts" [;)] in an alternative manner (which may be equally offensive to some as flag burning is to him).
You are treading a very slippery slope indeed with your stated opinion. What you are saying is that only people that agree with YOUR own opinions should be allowed to have freedom of speech. How free is that? Remember why you are here on CollarMe in the first place ... presumably because most vanilla people consider your own sexual proclivities so friggin' disgusting or freakish that you cannot mention them in front of them, or engage them in discussion on such topics. There are many people that feel that the promotion of sadism is evil and negative and should be made illegal in the same manner that sodomy still is in some U.S. states, or that Holocaust denial in Austria is illegal, or that the inciting of racial hatred in the U.K. has now been outlawed. But the question that you must ask yourself is, if we start redrawing the line in the sand, where do we stop? Should people that advocate the restriction of other people's views (no matter how stupid or hateful) like you just did be the next ones to be silenced in the next redraw of the line?
The easiest solution to that dilemma is to stay off of the slippery slope in the first place and not to permit the redrawing of any lines at all, which means allowing ALL speech to be free, not just the speech YOU agree with. You can't stop hatred and bigotry by legislating against it ... that simply forces it underground. America tried to stop the consumption of alcohol on the basis that that, too, is evil, but it flourished underground under Prohibition (and created a whole slew of other crimes such as rum-running / bootlegging). You can only stop stupid and nasty ideas from proliferating by educating people so that they are then able to apply their reasoning and immediately recognize that those ideas are anti-social and to consequently treat them with the contempt they deserve. If you don't like the ideas that were presented on that other thread then present a cogent argument against them that destroys their perpetrator's credibility like sissy has just done so with yours. Don't come whining your own form of bigotry - i.e., that people that have ideas contrary to your own should be legislated against - on a new thread.
The two pieces of legislation that you quote to defend your OP rant are two of the dumbest pieces of legislation that have been made, although sissy is sure they were both well intended. They are both emotional knee-jerk reactions to something that many at the time were/are upset about, but that still does not make those two pieces of law making "good legislation." Do you really feel that making Holocaust revisionism illegal will prevent others from practicing it, and more to the point, stop that line of thinking becoming the prevailing paradigm? If so, why hasn't it become the dominant historical viewpoint in this country where such revisionist ideas are not illegal?
You also cannot buy a copy of Mein Kampf in some European countries, but sissy was holding a copy of it in a bookshop only a few days ago. How come, since he and everyone else has open access to it, that we are not all now raving Nazis in the U.S.A.? Do you really think that making hate speech illegal in the U.K. a few years earlier than it was would have prevented the London Tube bombings from happening? Did incarcerating Japanese Americans during WW2 really achieve anything ... other than create an intense injustice amongst patriotic Americans (albeit of Nipponese origin) that could well have festered into an underground movement for revenge that would then have self-fulfilled all the worst fears that caused them to be rounded into concentration camps in the first place.
All you do when you try and legislate against ignorance and silliness in the fashion that you advocate is to open the door to others that come along afterwards to further tinker with our Constitutional Rights and take us further on down your slippery slope of "let's shoot all bigots" oxymoronic thinking.
`·.,¸¸,.·´¯"§§ _ sissy maid lola _ §§"¯`·.,¸¸,.·´
To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity. - Douglas Adams
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