Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Ed Nilges
Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
In Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, using women's bodies to market
products was illegal.
Nicholas Montserrat once wrote, "we have no rights, only
responsibilities."
Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
levitated.
The preeminent man of letters Dr. Samuel Johnson thundered in 1776
against the American colonists, referring to the irony of "cries for
liberty coming from the drivers of Negroes."
These thoughts crossed my mind when I heard of the recent Supreme Court
decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
Scott.
The Supreme Court did not even consider the point Stanley Fish made in
his "No such thing" article. This is that there is NO clearcut decision
between speech and action and as such the real slippery slope is not
between banning Hustler and the establishment of Nazi-style censorship.
No, the slippery slope is between APPROVING acts that deliberately and
maliciously tread the (fuzzy) boundary between speech and action, and
allowing all sorts of hateful acts, including (for example) Penthouse
Magazine's description of the fellating abilities of a real person.
It is fashionable, in America's elite law schools, to be "tough-minded"
about any sort of legal theory, to merely go through the motions and
avoid the law professor's wrath in order to secure a meal ticket, a
Juris Doctorate. It is therefore understandable that the Supreme Court
is beginning to contain people who (apart from being hypocrites of the
worst sort, such as the eminent Mr. Justice "who put the pubic hair in
my Coke can" Thomas) do not even know the law. The common law has long
recognized that assault (offering to hit someone) is much the same as
battery (actually striking someone) but they did not have the legal
imagination necessary to see how this applied to the fuzzy distinction
between "speech" and "action."
This legal imagination would also be legal creativity enough to
describe, in simple and clear terms, what sort of speech is indeed
speech and NOT disguised action. But men who have spent their
professional lives fantasizing impotently about their subordinates are
drained of creativity (as is a woman who has spent her life acquiring a
fortune and ignoring the problems of ordinary working women.) So at
best the minority could only concur with Justice Scalia, sending legal
draftsmen back to their drawing boards while people's lives are
destroyed.
I find it very difficult to believe that today's proponents of free
speech are all that interested in free speech. Years ago, Playboy's
director of data processing came to Encyclopaedia Britannica to direct
computing activities at that Chicago publisher. In conversation with
one of the "troops", in actuality a highly intelligent man who had been
a physician in his native Cuba, this manager told him (in response to a
sentence that began "I think") "you are not paid to think." This
response is typical from the Hugh Hefners, Larry Flynts and Bob
Gucciones of the world, who devil a doubt will APPLAUD the recent
decision. For these men are not interested at all in freedom, only in
making a buck out of fear and hatred of women.
Similarly, I find it difficult to believe that cross-burners are
interested in freedom.
A while back, I ignored the received wisdom of a racist society (to the
effect that French philosophy was confusion encapsulated) and started to
read Foucault and Derrida. One illuminating idea of Foucault was that
power is "capillary." That is, instead of being a matter of a maximum
leader facing a powerless populace (an image beloved by the lovers of
so-called "freedom"), power is exercised in the structures of ordinary
daily life. Susan Brownmiller, in her book Men, Women and Rape,
describes how ordinary men use the threat of rape to keep women in line
and thus perpetuate vast schemes of domination (that destroy both
ordinary men and ordinary women, and keep the Bob Gucciones of the world
in gold chains.) The Supreme Court decision is part of a series of
decisions that enable this process to continue, unchecked by local
ordnances against hate speech and much pornography. The men who drove
Negroes in 1776 must be permitted to vent their spleen in 1992.
The decision will also protect members of an outfit known as the
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Ran by a maximum leader named Bob
Avikian, the RCP is a fellow-traveler with the Sendero Luminoso (Shining
Path) group of ultra-Left terrorists in Peru. The RCP burned a flag in
'88, triggering a Supreme Court decision that such activity was ALSO
protected speech. That is, an evil system must of necessity create its
antibody, having ignored all other voices, and in dark moments I am
climbing the Andes in imagination, in search of the Shining Path OUT of
this mess.
--
Edward G. Nilges
"And the ship, the black freighter"
James Meritt
>These thoughts crossed my mind when I heard of the recent Supreme Court
>decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
>such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
>along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
Out of curiosity, did you read the law that they declared unconstitutional?
You may be amused that Sister Soulfry's presentation would have been illegal
under it...
Jon S. Wood
>decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
>such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
>along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
>
>Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
>Scott.
>
Wonderful, St. Paul Mn is my home town. Mn was my home but I had lived
there most of my life. This law passed by the city councel is typical
of Mn governments that continue to assume to know what is best for
me. Back to the ruling. Cross burning by teenagers or adults or
young adults (17 & 19 yr olds in the St. Paul case) is hideous and
represents only about 2% of the population. (2% who may believe
that cross burning is acceptable). We have laws against trespassing,
burning without a permit, assault, etc. The law was intended to
increase sentences for /HATE/ inflicted crimes.
Let's picture a scene in St. Paul at an establishment on Payne Ave
appropriately called the "PAYNE RELIEVER". Two drunk men begin
argueing (not uncommon at the PAYNE) over spilled milk (beer).
One of the idiots is white, the other idiot is black. Words have
not solved their differences and it naturally progresses to fists.
[drunk, argue, fists...] OK The black guy stomps the hell out of the
white guy because the white guy (little, big mouth and drunk) thinks
like a little mouthy drunk and thinks he is going to show whose boss....
The cops arrive, minutes after the bouncer (sober generally) tosses
the two out on their hinders adding insult to injury and the patrons
go back to watching the 15 (oops) year old working off her panties
on the stage (behind glass because in St. Paul gosh darn it, we are
going to regulate this business and stop this nasty dirty stuff
somehow so why not put up glass between the dancer and the patrons
who stuff "washingtons" between the "paynes" of glass for her
tips.... This ordinance was written and passed by the same intelligent
bunch who championed the hate crime bill). The cops haul em off
never to be heard from for awhile, both receive misdemeaners...
disorderly conduct. "NEXT," says Ramsey County Judge Wilson.
Next day. Same story. But the only difference is the white guy
beats the hell out of a black guy and yells "nigger" in the process.
White guy gets misdemeaner and additional HATE sentence.
Next day. Same story, but this time it is two black gals as apposed
to guys. (See feminists, gals and guys are interchangable and mean
they are just regular working stiffs. For the Princeton crowd, look
up the words "working" and "people" in your Webster). This time
words flying around the room are "nigger", "bitch" and a slew of
quite normal speech expected from two adversaries under these
conditions. One of the women gets the best of the other, (typical
outcome but not always) and both receive misdemeaner charges but
NO hate violations. (of course those privy to the conversation,
especially the account bartender Jesse relayed to the regulars the
next day about how the fight started, something about whose
boyfriend belonged to who....)
Now, are the black women less of a victim than the black man? Is the
the white guy and the black women equal victims?
We don't need senseless, mindless trivial legistlation. We need
common sense. We don't need racists acts. We don't need fighten'.
We don't need titty bars. We don't want 15 year olds workin' em.
And all the LIBERAL DO GOOD THOUGHTLESS legistlation in the world
isn't going to make the system and our society any better when they
clutter the 'system' (community) with manure.
Next week the city councel will be debating whether or not honkey
constitutes a racist word while the bus strike enters it's 37th day....
>
>--
>Edward G. Nilges
>
>"And the ship, the black freighter"
Jon Wood -
Just a thought.
J. E. Shum
In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU>, egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>
> Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
> Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
> levitated.
It is my understanding that Ms. Pring's name was NOT mentioned
in the FICTIONAL story in the magazine. Despite that the court
found in her favor in a civil suit for alleged damages to her
reputation.
--
<j...@mitre.org>
/Andre Marrou Nancy Lord \
VOTE LIBERTARIAN < for for > VOTE LIBERTARIAN
\ President Vice-President/
Heiner Biesel
>Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
>"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
>In Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, using women's bodies to market
>products was illegal.
>Nicholas Montserrat once wrote, "we have no rights, only
>responsibilities."
>Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
>Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
>levitated.
>The preeminent man of letters Dr. Samuel Johnson thundered in 1776
>against the American colonists, referring to the irony of "cries for
>liberty coming from the drivers of Negroes."
>These thoughts crossed my mind when I heard of the recent Supreme Court
>decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
>such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
>along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
>Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
>Scott.
>The Supreme Court did not even consider the point Stanley Fish made in
>his "No such thing" article. This is that there is NO clearcut decision
>between speech and action and as such the real slippery slope is not
>between banning Hustler and the establishment of Nazi-style censorship.
The law, unlike enterprises such as science, must make clear and unambiguous
rulings in areas where ambiguity abounds. There are no moral laws to
be discovered, but rather legal guidelines for behavior to be formulated.
More importantly, law is bound by its own history, its prior formulations
and rulings. The general tendency - a pernicious one in my view - is to
formulate ever more detailed and specific laws and regulations, something
that the Minneapolis ordinance certainly attempted. The Supreme Court
fortunately rejected these gradualist attempts to classify ever more
ethically ambiguous acts as criminal, by reference to the constitution.
May God preserve us from more such attempts to help us all to "get along"
by defining in ever more detail what is legal and what is not. How, pray
tell, does providing the means to bring suit, or giving a policeman more
grounds for a lawful arrest, make us better citizens?
The avalanche of legislation of the last 30 years, much of it well
intentioned, consists primarily of detailed descriptions of what is
prohibited, not what is permitted. In view of this I applaud the
Supreme Court decision.
But you write well, a welcome contribution.
Regards,
Heiner bie...@thrall.sim.es.com
Pete Hartman
the powers that be, in all their unbridled
hypocrisy and corruption, to declare that
speech against the president was "hate speech"
and thereby worthy of punishment?
PLEASE have some sense of PROPORTION in
what constitutes speech and action. Certainly
comments in Penthouse about Miss Wyoming's ability
to give head are inappropriate and childish, but
most reasonable adults are capable of understanding
that distinction, just as clearly as you claim these
justices should be able to distinguish between "hate speech"
and "normal speech".
Get of the Politically Correct Bandwagon and try to do some
critical thought for yourself.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
jello is cheaper than horses!
Bronis Vidugiris
)
)Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
)"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
A cute digression, but actually there is something that is commonly
understood to be free speech. This is a principle that speech should not
generally have its content be regulated by law, without compelling reasons.
<various examples of the problems with free speech omitted>
And, that is not the worst of it. Many evils have happend because of
free speech - the Holocaust is only one of many.
There's only one thing to say for free speech - the alternatives, in
the long run, are all worse.
For the evils of speech and hateful ideas with much popular support happen
anyway, as the majority will not pass or enforce regulations against these
ideas.
It is only the minority, unpopular ideas that speak against the status quo
that will be banned.
I applaud the Supreme Court's decision.
Ed Nilges
>So how long do you think it would take
>the powers that be, in all their unbridled
>hypocrisy and corruption, to declare that
>speech against the president was "hate speech"
>and thereby worthy of punishment?
The text of the Minnesota law specifically identified groups rather than
officeholders and individuals, and it was drafted in a legal context.
This legal context recognizes that certain groups can be identified for
the purpose of redress of past unfavorable treatment.
Your argument is the tired argument of the slippery slope. You want to
show that if we legislate against one clearly identifiable kind of
speech (which in reality is a form of hateful action similar to an
assault which does not touch its victim), then we'll be on a slippery
slope towards a Fascist society.
Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at the
bottom of this slippery slope (eg., Fascism has been brought about
already, partly by convincing people to defend "freedoms" that enslave),
the real slippery slope is between criticising hate speech law and
criticising ALL law, and assenting instead to the will of the stronger.
I just checked, and the "stronger" are the multinational corporations.
>
>PLEASE have some sense of PROPORTION in
>what constitutes speech and action. Certainly
>comments in Penthouse about Miss Wyoming's ability
>to give head are inappropriate and childish, but
>most reasonable adults are capable of understanding
>that distinction, just as clearly as you claim these
>justices should be able to distinguish between "hate speech"
>and "normal speech".
Wellandgood. I'm a reasonable adult with teenage boys. I don't choose
to have Bob Guccione's "speech" (in actuality a form of assault on
women, motivated by private gain) at my local deli, and I don't choose
to listen to the guy bleat and moan about his rights, especially if I
have no such right when toiling away in the bowels of a megacorporation..
Part of the very essence of freedom is, to put it brutally, to be able
in limited and democratic ways to give your opinions some force by
enacting laws against other peoples' behavior when you in good faith
find that behavior hurtful. This is a complex thought. Too bad;
everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. And if you
deny it, then you've denied the ENTIRE basis of law. For ALL laws limit
behavior; indeed, all laws trespass to some degree on that sacred cow,
the right of consenting adults in private.
>
>Get of the Politically Correct Bandwagon and try to do some
>critical thought for yourself.
I submit that you've bought-into the real Political Correctness and you
need to "get of [sic]" same. The real Political Correctness is to be
alienated, hip and negative; to cite "freedoms" which are in actuality
no more than the will of the stronger (the employer over the employee,
the man over the woman, even in "politically correct" gay circles, the
macho man over the drag queen). For out of this the men who you and your ilk
profess to hate (yet somehow manage to elect, over and over again) have
for years manufactured your consent.
Ed Nilges
>In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>)
>)
>)Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
>)"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
>
>A cute digression, but actually there is something that is commonly
>understood to be free speech. This is a principle that speech should not
>generally have its content be regulated by law, without compelling reasons.
There was no intent on Stanley Fish's part to be cute, only to
deconstruct a bogus boundary.
If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
(speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
physical abuse. Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
engineer take years to heal. But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
right to "free speech."
And how much longer before we decide that laws against physical battery
are sacrificed to this misunderstood right? Performance artists have
already explored the boundary between speech and action in this area;
Survival Research Labs in San Francisco has staged postmodern demolition
derbies that audience members must release from liability before
viewing, since SRL cannot guarantee their safety against automated
monsters that SRL has programmed to stomp, to breath fire, and to
destroy. Is not SRL engaged in protected speech? We've already ignored
the difference between assault and battery in this area, sacrificing
laws against assault to freedom of "speech"; battery will soon follow.
>
><various examples of the problems with free speech omitted>
>
>And, that is not the worst of it. Many evils have happend because of
>free speech - the Holocaust is only one of many.
>
>There's only one thing to say for free speech - the alternatives, in
>the long run, are all worse.
Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
sounds refreshing. I submit that you have never experienced the
alternatives.
>
>It is only the minority, unpopular ideas that speak against the status quo
>that will be banned.
What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn. And
although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
person being silenced by another:
"Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and
that's all."
"Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
care about bits and bytes."
"Petey should learn to be quiet in school and not talk back to
his teacher."
"That bitch better stop complaining about the radiation levels
in this plant or she's dead meat. I'll shoot her myself."
"Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a
team and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck
that. I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
James Meritt
>The text of the Minnesota law specifically identified groups rather than
>officeholders and individuals, and it was drafted in a legal context.
>This legal context recognizes that certain groups can be identified for
>the purpose of redress of past unfavorable treatment.
I don't believe that is exactly the case. I believe that the St. Paul,
Minnesota, Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, prohibits the display of a
symbol which one knows or has reason to know ``arouses anger, alarm or
resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.''
Which does not seem to address redress, but concerns the subjective
reaction of the listener. Hence, the freedom of speach of one person
would be limited by the subjective interpretation of the listener, given
the lack of an objective determination of anger, alarm, or resentment.
Reasonably enough, this was what was overthrown. Soulfry had as much
a right (In my opinion) to say what she wanted as long as she didn't
harm someone as a KKK at a rally on their farm. In both cases, however,
when they cross the line to "inciting a riot", tresspassing, vandalism,
or similar objective determinations they are NOT within their rights.
Which is what the Supreme Court said. Nail the idiot cross burner for
tresspassing, vandalism, arson, and air polution. Don't punish HIM
for what YOU feel. Punish him for what he DID.
Rob Dobson
>>In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>)
>>)
>
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
>speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
come again?? The SC was EXPLICIT in saying that the actions in ST Paul
violated many existing valid laws. The local ordinance, however, is
unconstitutional.
>
>Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
>(speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
>physical abuse. Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
>caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
>engineer take years to heal. But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
>decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
>right to "free speech."
WRONG WRONG WRONG. The SC has never said that a workplace cannot
regulate speech. Workplace regulations are different than laws. If
someone called a co-worker "nigger" or "bitch" Id fire him/her before
she could blink. However, if this person want to have a swastika on his/her
house, more power to 'em. I just wont be there to help when an angry mob
attacks him/her......
>>And how much longer before we decide that laws against physical battery
>are sacrificed to this misunderstood right?
OH PLEASE. Even the most hard-boiled, privatize the schools Libertarian
would not support legalizing assault. i dont believe the SC, or for that
matter anyone of the net, has advocated legalizing assault as free speech.
Lets TRY to be reasonable here.
>>>And, that is not the worst of it. Many evils have happend because of
>>free speech - the Holocaust is only one of many.
Let me get this straight--restriction of speech would have PREVENTED the
rise of fascism in Europe? Explain.
>
>Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
>sounds refreshing.
Perhaps you should move there.
>
>>
>>It is only the minority, unpopular ideas that speak against the status quo
>>that will be banned.
>
>What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
>candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
>What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
>(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
>deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn. And
>although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
>not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
1. This paragraph seems to support the SC decision--since unpopular ideas
already face such opposition, why do we need more laws to silence them?
2. H Ross Perot and Jerry Brown are hardly good examples of those who
have been unfairly squelched. Better examples would be the Indiana prisoner
who was moved to solitary and had his parole rejected (despite a flawless
behavior record in prison) for telling the media he sold pot to Dan Qauyle.
In fact, IMHO, Perot and Brown both got much more media attention than they
deserve. Perot still is--articles about him appeared both on the front page
AND the style section of yesterdays (6/24) WASHINGTON POST. Hardly being
silenced.
>
> "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and
> that's all."
>
> "Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
> We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
> it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
> discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
> care about bits and bytes."
>
> "Petey should learn to be quiet in school and not talk back to
> his teacher."
>
> "That bitch better stop complaining about the radiation levels
> in this plant or she's dead meat. I'll shoot her myself."
>
> "Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a
> team and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck
> that. I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
>
>
>
>
>
In what way are any of these quotes relevant to the recent SC decision?
-Rob
James Meritt
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
>speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
Strawman argument. Assault, tresspassing, arson,.... already exist
and are punishable. Try again.
Ed Nilges
>In article <1992Jun26.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>The text of the Minnesota law specifically identified groups rather than
>>officeholders and individuals, and it was drafted in a legal context.
>>This legal context recognizes that certain groups can be identified for
>>the purpose of redress of past unfavorable treatment.
>
>I don't believe that is exactly the case. I believe that the St. Paul,
>Minnesota, Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, prohibits the display of a
>symbol which one knows or has reason to know ``arouses anger, alarm or
>resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.''
You're right. The reason why the law failed to survive the Supreme
Court was because Catherine MacKinnon CONCEALED her true motives (I
applaud her true motives; I decry her concealment of same.)
MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
sexism are white male inventions. She elected to get this law past
rather than one that would better express her true beliefs because she
believes that "politics is the art of the possible."
She never read Bertrand Russell: "when will people learn the ruggedness
of truth?"
If you pass a law banning an ill-defined "bias", then you have opened
yourself up to attack based on your incoherence. What need have we of
laws attacking "bias" if "bias" is merely bad behavior between two
people of differing races/sexes? We already HAVE laws on the books
banning such bad behavior. Check under "assault and battery."
No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
The legal context in which MacKinnon works exists and it is valid. Yet
she concealed it and as a result she is going down in defeat. I am weary
of realpolitics that do this and instead I turned to the prophetic voice
of a conceptual artist, whose "painting" consists of gnomic
inscriptions. Jenny Holzer inscribed (in "Laments", Dia Art Foundation,
1990):
THE TRUTH IS THAT PEOPLE ARE PUSHED AROUND BY TWO MEN INTO
PATTERNS THAT PLEASE THEM. THESE PATTERNS SAY OH NO NO NO
BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO WRITE SYMBOLS. YOU MUST DO THE
RIGHT ACTS WITH YOUR BODY.
Rob Dobson
by the way, folks, the name is Sister Souljah.
>long as she didnt harm someone as a KKK at a rally on their farm.
-r
Greg Hennessy
#and are punishable. Try again.
I do note that the arguement against the St. Paul law could also be
used against fighting words.
Why is it ok to ban fighting words, but not burn cross burning for
purposes of intimidation?
--
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
Internet: gs...@virginia.edu
UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w
Matthias Neeracher
>>In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>)
>>)
>>)Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
>>)"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
>>
>>A cute digression, but actually there is something that is commonly
>>understood to be free speech. This is a principle that speech should not
>>generally have its content be regulated by law, without compelling reasons.
>
>There was no intent on Stanley Fish's part to be cute, only to
>deconstruct a bogus boundary.
>
>If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
>speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
Does this mean you would advocate making flag burning unconstitutional ?
Matthias
Carl M. Kadie
[...]
>Why is it ok to ban fighting words, but not burn cross burning for
>purposes of intimidation?
[...]
The theory is that bans of fighting words stop "likely, imminent,
lawless action".
- Carl
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
law/cohen-v-california.1
=================
Definition of "fighting words"; why no right not to be offended
The definition of fighting words from _Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_
and then _Cohen v. California_. Also, says quotes the Supreme Court
saying that there is no universal right to not hear offensive
expression.
=================
law/rav-v-st-paul.1
=================
The Supreme Court's _R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul_ decision about hate crimes.
The Court overturned St. Paul's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, which
prohibits the display of a symbol which one knows or has reason to
know "arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of
race, color, creed, religion or gender."
Included: summary, majority opinion, 3 concurring opinions.
=================
law/schenck-v-united-states
=================
An excerpt from the "shouting fire in a theatre" Supreme Court
decision. Says that words that create a clear and present danger of
bringing about substantive evils can be prohibited. (Also see
_Brandenberg v. Ohio_ for details the "likely to produce imminent
lawless action" test.)
=================
law/brandenberg-v-ohio
=================
In e-mail, a correspondent expressed the view that there was no right
to speech that advocated violence. This response is based on U.S. law.
It is a summary of the ACLU's Bill of Rights Briefing Paper #10:
Freedom of Expression. The Supreme Court's standard is that speech may
not be suppressed or punished unless it is intended to produce
'imminent lawless action' and it is 'likely to produce such action.'
=================
=================
These documents are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method)
and by email. To get the files via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/law/cohen-v-california.1
pub/academic/law/rav-v-st-paul.1
pub/academic/law/schenck-v-united-states
pub/academic/law/brandenberg-v-ohio
To get the files by email, send email to archive...@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/law cohen-v-california.1
send acad-freedom/law rav-v-st-paul.1
send acad-freedom/law schenck-v-united-states
send acad-freedom/law brandenberg-v-ohio
--
Carl Kadie -- ka...@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
James Meritt
>In article <1992Jun26....@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>>In article <1992Jun26.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>The text of the Minnesota law specifically identified groups rather than
>>>officeholders and individuals, and it was drafted in a legal context.
>>>This legal context recognizes that certain groups can be identified for
>>>the purpose of redress of past unfavorable treatment.
>>
>>I don't believe that is exactly the case. I believe that the St. Paul,
>>Minnesota, Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, prohibits the display of a
>>symbol which one knows or has reason to know ``arouses anger, alarm or
>>resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.''
>
>You're right.
Thank you.
>The reason why the law failed to survive the Supreme
>Court was because Catherine MacKinnon CONCEALED her true motives (I
>applaud her true motives; I decry her concealment of same.)
And how do you know her "true" motives, given that you acknowledge that she
practices the art of concealment?
>If you pass a law banning an ill-defined "bias", then you have opened
>yourself up to attack based on your incoherence. What need have we of
>laws attacking "bias" if "bias" is merely bad behavior between two
>people of differing races/sexes? We already HAVE laws on the books
>banning such bad behavior. Check under "assault and battery."
Bingo!
>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
We have them. See "US Tax System", "US Welfare System",....
Or is what you want something as YOU would arbitrarily draw the line?
Sorry, but I don't care for what you would impose any more than any
other dictator. I've noticed the success of such systems as you apear
to be advocating. Socialism and communism don't have the greatest
survival record of late. We've seen how well nationalization of private
resources (those property owners you mention) and selecting specific
racial/gender groups for different treatment (South Africa, Moslem arabic
nations,...) work. No thank you.
James Meritt
>In article <1992Jun26....@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix
>(James Meritt) writes:
>#Strawman argument. Assault, tresspassing, arson,.... already exist
>#and are punishable. Try again.
>
>I do note that the arguement against the St. Paul law could also be
>used against fighting words.
And in many states it is imited to "fighting words" (whatever that means)
>Why is it ok to ban fighting words, but not burn cross burning for
>purposes of intimidation?
Beats me. Ask someone who thinks "fighting words" should be illegal.
Ron Dippold
>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>sexism are white male inventions.
Might be hard to recognize when all she'd have to do is look at
history to see that white males hardly have a monopoly on either.
>She never read Bertrand Russell: "when will people learn the ruggedness
>of truth?"
She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
This is just pitiful racism. I'm white and male, but hardly powerful.
You might tell the minorities and women here who "outrank" me, outearn
me, and own property that I'm actually more powerful than I am.
>The legal context in which MacKinnon works exists and it is valid. Yet
>she concealed it and as a result she is going down in defeat.
If she hadn't concealed it it never would have made it in the first
place.
--
Quasars shift red, Hot stars burn blue, Space is warped, And so are you.
Bronis Vidugiris
)>A cute digression, but actually there is something that is commonly
)>understood to be free speech. This is a principle that speech should not
)>generally have its content be regulated by law, without compelling reasons.
)
)There was no intent on Stanley Fish's part to be cute, only to
)deconstruct a bogus boundary.
)
)If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
)crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
)speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
Sorry, this just isn't true. Nobody is advocating legalizing pistol-whipping
grandmothers. The extension of speech to basically symbolic acts that
are not literal spoken words, such as cross-burnings or posters, has a lot
of precedent. I don't see any slippery slope problems here - the only
'slippery slope' problems I see are the other way, such as defining obscene
telephone calls as 'actions'.
)Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
)(speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
)physical abuse. Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
)caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
)engineer take years to heal. But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
)decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
)right to "free speech."
Speech and ideas are probably the most potentially dangerous things on
the planet, actually. However, they do not lend themselves to being
regulated by law. Laws cannot stop a husband from insulting a wife, or
a wife from insulting a husband. (The scars can run just as deep the
other way.) A great deal of experience has shown that laws regulating speech
are a lot more trouble than they are worth, and are usually enforced in a
biased way to boot. The enforcement of bias by law is *very* destructive,
IMO.
The best defense against a hurtful idea is another idea. The law cannot
protect the husband (or the wife) against the hateful speech of their
spouse - that is something that the spouse must do with their own words,
their own thoughts. What the law can and should do (but may be falling
down on) is to protect the right of spouses to not be physically attacked.
And even this basic level of protection can probably only be realistically
obtained for separated spouses - the law cannot hide in the kitchen to
observe and prevent all violence, but it *should* be able to protect a spouse
who decides to leave an abusive relationship. It turns out that it
currently doesn't even work all that well for this, alas, but that's another
story. But *that* is where the focus of the law should lie.
)What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
)candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
)What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
)(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
)deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn. And
)although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
)not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
Minority, unpouplar ideas will, by definition, be held by few people
and unpopular, at least initially. They will, however, be more common with
free speech than without. One example of a minority, unpopular idea that
eventually achieved wide acceptance was the idea that the earth moves around
the sun, rather than the other way around.
)We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
)by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
)person being silenced by another:
) "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and
) that's all."
) "Petey should learn to be quiet in school and not talk back to
) his teacher."
)
) "That bitch better stop complaining about the radiation levels
) in this plant or she's dead meat. I'll shoot her myself."
If you will notice, in most or all of your examples it is authority or money
or power 'silencing' the people without authority or money or power.
However, the person who is being shut up *can* decide not to - they don't
*have* to shut up. There's a fairly clear threat at least implied in most of
these cases, but the threat doesn't always have to be obeyed, though there
may be consequences. The consequences currently don't involve the courts,
however. Wihtout freedom of speech, the consequences could well involve the
courts and the police - the "bitch" who doesn't stop complaining about
radiation levels could wind up in jail, all legal and proper, with no
recourse (unless she can single-handedly take on the entire society and
forment a revolution).
Curtis Fennell
|> Your argument is the tired argument of the slippery slope. You want to
|> show that if we legislate against one clearly identifiable kind of
|> speech (which in reality is a form of hateful action similar to an
|> assault which does not touch its victim), then we'll be on a slippery
|> slope towards a Fascist society.
Your argument falls apart on several counts. First of all, the
contention that "hate speech" is clearly identifiable. So called "hate
speech" is not universally identifiable, nor is it easily defined. It
also has a tendency to change forms from era to era and from location
to location.
The second place your argument falls apart is the claim that the
speech in question is, in fact, a form of hateful action similar to an
assault. If I were to burn a cross on your front lawn, that is
similar to an assault and there are laws in place to deal with such
actions. However, if I decide that I wish to burn a cross on my front
lawn, then that is merely an expression of my political and social
beliefs, whether they are offensive or not.
|> Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at the
|> bottom of this slippery slope (eg., Fascism has been brought about
|> already, partly by convincing people to defend "freedoms" that
|> enslave),
Ah, the "freedoms that enslave". Perhaps you would be so good as to
enlighten me as to what you mean by this phrase? Because, to me, this
phrase sounds like the old Soviet-Communist dogma, exhorting the
"masses" to eschew "illusionary" freedoms for the good of the society.
|> the real slippery slope is between criticising hate speech law and
|> criticising ALL law, and assenting instead to the will of the stronger.
|> I just checked, and the "stronger" are the multinational corporations.
One would think, by the tone of your argument, that you believe that
the multinational corporations are in favor of hate speech, cross
burnings and swastickas spray-painted on Synagogues. That somehow,
those events promote their nefarious plans for world domination.
|> >PLEASE have some sense of PROPORTION in
|> >what constitutes speech and action. Certainly
|> >comments in Penthouse about Miss Wyoming's ability
|> >to give head are inappropriate and childish, but
|> >most reasonable adults are capable of understanding
|> >that distinction, just as clearly as you claim these
|> >justices should be able to distinguish between "hate speech"
|> >and "normal speech".
|>
|> Wellandgood. I'm a reasonable adult with teenage boys. I don't choose
|> to have Bob Guccione's "speech" (in actuality a form of assault on
|> women, motivated by private gain) at my local deli, and I don't choose
|> to listen to the guy bleat and moan about his rights, especially if I
|> have no such right when toiling away in the bowels of a megacorporation..
It you do not choose to listen to Bob Guccione, then don't listen. He
does not enter your home and force you to buy his magazines, nor does
anyone else. If you find copies of Penthouse lying around your local
deli, then don't read them.
You, of course, do not "toil away in the bowels of a megacorporation".
But even if you did, you would have the same rights as Mr. Guccione to
found a newspaper or magazine and to publish whatever you want in it.
This is one of the things that the Supreme Court is defending by
striking down laws against the expression of free speech.
|> Part of the very essence of freedom is, to put it brutally, to be able
|> in limited and democratic ways to give your opinions some force by
|> enacting laws against other peoples' behavior when you in good faith
|> find that behavior hurtful. This is a complex thought. Too bad;
|> everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. And if you
|> deny it, then you've denied the ENTIRE basis of law. For ALL laws limit
|> behavior; indeed, all laws trespass to some degree on that sacred cow,
|> the right of consenting adults in private.
You are wrong. The first premise of any laws enacted in our society
is to safeguard the rights of the individual against the tyranny of
any other person, group or even society as a whole. These rights are
spelled out in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. Thus, the
basis of the law is NOT the protection of the people from hurtful
behavior, but rather the protection of our individual rights as
enumerated in the Constitution. And that is why the Supreme court can
strike down a law that has, as it's justification, the purpose of
preventing people from getting hurt, because the right of political
expression for all is considered more important than the hurt feelings
of some individuals.
The type of freedom practiced in the United States is a very difficult
kind of freedom. It requires that people put up with a lot of
offensive and often ridiculous kinds of speech every day in order to
enjoy the freedoms that we have.
--
============================================================
Curt Fennell [ "Get DOWN off that cross, honey! ]
ch...@gte.com [ Somebody needs the wood!" ]
============================================================
Curtis Fennell
|>
|> If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
|> crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
|> speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
If I choose to burn a cross on *my* lawn, that is a political
statement and a form of free speech. If I attempt to burn a cross on
your lawn, that too, may be a form of political expression. It is also
trespassing, vandalism, malicious mischief, arson and possible
breaking and entering, all of which are illegal already.
If, in the "crotch shot" reference you are referring clumsily to
"Penthouse" magazine, I should point out that NO ONE forces you to
purchase or read Penthouse.
The comment about pistol-whipping is ridiculous and requires no
further comment.
|> Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
|> (speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
|> physical abuse. Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
|> caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
|> engineer take years to heal.
Again, you overgeneralize in areas you evidently know little about.
Physical damage does not always heal (brain damage, paralysis, etc)
and emotional damage can and does heal, sometimes immediately.
Nevertheless, one cannot live without sustaining some emotional
"damage". This is the price one pays to live with our fellow human
beings.
|> But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
|> decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
|> right to "free speech."
This is, on the face of it, absurd. Laws against harassment on the
job already exist and are constitutional.
Nor does this decision give license to emotional abusers at home. The
law struck down dealt with public political expression, not private
abuse.
|> And how much longer before we decide that laws against physical battery
|> are sacrificed to this misunderstood right? Performance artists have
|> already explored the boundary between speech and action in this area;
|> Survival Research Labs in San Francisco has staged postmodern demolition
|> derbies that audience members must release from liability before
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> viewing, since SRL cannot guarantee their safety against automated
^^^^^^
|> monsters that SRL has programmed to stomp, to breath fire, and to
|> destroy. Is not SRL engaged in protected speech? We've already ignored
|> the difference between assault and battery in this area, sacrificing
|> laws against assault to freedom of "speech"; battery will soon follow.
The difference, of course, is that people viewing an SRL performance
are conciously choosing to participate in this form of
"entertainment". That is there right.
|> What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
|> candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the
|> media.
No, they destroyed themselves.
|> What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
|> (eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
|> deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn.
No, they stopped because they were peddaling hatred on the one hand
and demagoguery on the other.
|> And
|> although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
|> not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
Perhaps you think that a nationally covered press conference is
evidence that he is being "silenced", but I do not.
|> We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
|> by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
|> person being silenced by another:
And so we add another restriction to the pile? By banning another
form of speech that someone doesn't like? We should be trying to
remove impediments to free speech, not creating more.
Robert Sheaffer
>>
>> Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
>> Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
>> levitated.
>
phenomenon.
But I'm willing to be convinced!!!!! :)
--
Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - shea...@netcom.com
Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!
"Every psychic investigator of [the medium] Mrs. Piper was impressed
by her simplicity and honesty. It never occurred to them that no
charlatan ever achieves greatness by acting like a charlatan. No
professional spy acts like a spy. No card cheat behaves at the
table like a card cheat."
- Martin Gardner (writing in "Free Inquiry",
Spring, 1992)
Seth Breidbart
gs...@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>Why is it ok to ban fighting words, but not burn cross burning for
>purposes of intimidation?
It is not ok to ban fighting words; in fact, the ban only applies when
the words would cause an immediate altercation. If I screamed
something rude in your face, that would be fighting words
(prohibited). If I posted the same words on USENET, that would not be
fighting words, because your couldn't reasonably be expected to
immediately attack me (hell, you're not even in the same state I am.
That makes me very hard to hit) because of them.
Personally, I think fighting words should be permitted in all cases;
people who can't control their tempers are the problem.
Seth se...@fid.morgan.com
Seth Breidbart
>Stanley Fish at Duke University says (in the title of a recent article
>"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
That must be one of the longest titles around.
>In Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, using women's bodies to market
>products was illegal.
So they lacked freedom of commercial speech. They lacked lots of
other freedoms, too.
>Nicholas Montserrat once wrote, "we have no rights, only
>responsibilities."
In this country, we have both.
>Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
>Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
>levitated.
So? Was that considered complimentary or insulting by the person
described? If insulting, was there a lawsuit over it? What was the
outcome?
Many people have said many things. So what?
>These thoughts crossed my mind when I heard of the recent Supreme Court
>decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
>such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
>along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
It must really offend you that we're allowed to say things you don't
like.
>Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
>Scott.
How?
>No, the slippery slope is between APPROVING acts that deliberately and
>maliciously tread the (fuzzy) boundary between speech and action,
First, nobody APPROVED the acts. They just PERMITTED them. I don't
APPROVE of anything I've ever seen you post, but I think you have the
right to post it.
> and
>allowing all sorts of hateful acts, including (for example) Penthouse
>Magazine's description of the fellating abilities of a real person.
That would seem to me to be publication, which is a form of speech,
not action.
If I spray-paint my name on your wall, or I spray-paint a hate message
on your wall, in both cases the action is the same: vandalism to your
wall. The difference is meaning, hence speech.
> The common law has long
>recognized that assault (offering to hit someone) is much the same as
>battery (actually striking someone)
Which is why they have always been two different crimes, as in the
phrase (which I guess you are not familiar with) "assault and
battery".
> but they did not have the legal
>imagination necessary to see how this applied to the fuzzy distinction
>between "speech" and "action."
The law is not concerned with what you imagine.
>This legal imagination would also be legal creativity enough to
>describe, in simple and clear terms, what sort of speech is indeed
>speech and NOT disguised action.
Very simply: the difference is meaning. It's permissible to pass a
law limiting the decibel level of all noises made after 11 PM, even
though it bans some speeches, because (by not considering the meaning)
it doesn't prohibit speech per se.
>I find it very difficult to believe that today's proponents of free
>speech are all that interested in free speech.
Why should I care what you believe, or find difficult? I am a
proponent of free speech, who am all that interested in free speech.
There are many others of us. You are obviously opposed to free
speech.
> Years ago, Playboy's
>director of data processing came to Encyclopaedia Britannica to direct
>computing activities at that Chicago publisher. In conversation with
>one of the "troops", in actuality a highly intelligent man who had been
>a physician in his native Cuba, this manager told him (in response to a
>sentence that began "I think") "you are not paid to think." This
>response is typical from the Hugh Hefners, Larry Flynts and Bob
>Gucciones of the world, who devil a doubt will APPLAUD the recent
>decision.
Let's see now. A computing manager who once worked for Playboy made a
snide, rude comment to one of his subordinates in a subsequent job.
You reason from this that such a statement is typical of three
different people who didn't make it. I wonder what it has to do with
anything at all.
> For these men are not interested at all in freedom, only in
>making a buck out of fear and hatred of women.
It seems to me that they make their money out of attraction to women.
>Similarly, I find it difficult to believe that cross-burners are
>interested in freedom.
No they aren't. So what? I don't believe that you are interested in
freedom either, but I think you should still have it.
> Susan Brownmiller, in her book Men, Women and Rape,
>describes how ordinary men use the threat of rape to keep women in line
>and thus perpetuate vast schemes of domination (that destroy both
>ordinary men and ordinary women, and keep the Bob Gucciones of the world
>in gold chains.)
Did she accurately describe what you do? She didn't describe me or my
actions or beliefs at all.
> The Supreme Court decision is part of a series of
>decisions that enable this process to continue, unchecked by local
>ordnances against hate speech and much pornography. The men who drove
>Negroes in 1776 must be permitted to vent their spleen in 1992.
That's right. All people, no matter how obnoxious, are entitled to
free speech. That even applies to you.
>The decision will also protect members of an outfit known as the
>Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Ran by a maximum leader named Bob
>Avikian, the RCP is a fellow-traveler with the Sendero Luminoso (Shining
>Path) group of ultra-Left terrorists in Peru. The RCP burned a flag in
>'88, triggering a Supreme Court decision that such activity was ALSO
>protected speech. That is, an evil system must of necessity create its
>antibody, having ignored all other voices, and in dark moments I am
>climbing the Andes in imagination, in search of the Shining Path OUT of
>this mess.
Are you saying that you support this group? Why am I not surprised?
>The text of the Minnesota law specifically identified groups rather than
>officeholders and individuals, and it was drafted in a legal context.
>This legal context recognizes that certain groups can be identified for
>the purpose of redress of past unfavorable treatment.
Why should certain people be entitled to types of legal protection
that other people are not? I think everybody should be entitled to
equal protection by the law. Fortunately, so does the Constitution.
>Your argument is the tired argument of the slippery slope. You want to
>show that if we legislate against one clearly identifiable kind of
>speech (which in reality is a form of hateful action similar to an
>assault which does not touch its victim), then we'll be on a slippery
>slope towards a Fascist society.
No, if it is permissible to legislate against one clearly identifiable
form of speech, then it is permissible to legislate against other
clearly identifiable forms of speech. How long will it be until they
legislate against speaking against politicians (a clearly identifiable
form of speech)?
>Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at the
>bottom of this slippery slope
No, we still have freedom.
> (eg., Fascism has been brought about
>already, partly by convincing people to defend "freedoms" that enslave),
If you think what we have is Fascism, you have obviously never seen
anyplace that does. In a Fascist society, you would be thrown in jail
for suggesting that Danny-boy Quayle is an incompetent fool. Around
here you would only be considered redundant.
>the real slippery slope is between criticising hate speech law and
>criticising ALL law,
Yes, in the US you're allowed to criticise any law you like. That
goes along with free speech.
> and assenting instead to the will of the stronger.
You may assent to anything you like.
Your argument is about as good as saying "The real slippery slope is
between punishing some people for crimes and punishing all people for
crimes."
>Wellandgood. I'm a reasonable adult with teenage boys. I don't choose
>to have Bob Guccione's "speech" (in actuality a form of assault on
>women, motivated by private gain)
His speech is indeed motivated by commercial gain; so what? Is the
fact that your speech is motivated by political ideas supposed to get
you any special privileges? Who gets to decide the motivations of
other people's speech, anyway?
> at my local deli,
Fine. So choose a deli to patronize that doesn't display it. If you
don't own the deli, you have no right to control what may be said
there. Your choice is to vote with your feet.
> and I don't choose
>to listen to the guy bleat and moan about his rights, especially if I
>have no such right when toiling away in the bowels of a megacorporation..
So don't listen.
>Part of the very essence of freedom is, to put it brutally, to be able
>in limited and democratic ways to give your opinions some force by
>enacting laws against other peoples' behavior when you in good faith
>find that behavior hurtful.
Sorry, that is not freedom. Suppose I find the behavior of people of
other races to be hateful if it involves living in the same
neighborhood that I do. Suppose a majority of the people in my
neighborhood feel that way. Can we pass a law keeping those races
out? Or do you get to define what types of behavior may be considered
hateful? Who writes the limits, anyway?
> This is a complex thought. Too bad;
>everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
And that though is way too simple. You have described a system called
majoritarianism, which suffers from the tyranny of the majority.
> And if you
>deny it, then you've denied the ENTIRE basis of law. For ALL laws limit
>behavior; indeed, all laws trespass to some degree on that sacred cow,
>the right of consenting adults in private.
No, they don't. For instance, the law against running red lights
doesn't regulate any behavior that takes place in private, since it
doesn't apply anyplace other than public roads.
>If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
>speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
No; the DIFFERENCE between burning a cross on your lawn and burning a
broken wheelbarrow on your lawn is speech. Both of those also involve
action.
> We've already ignored
>the difference between assault and battery in this area, sacrificing
>laws against assault to freedom of "speech"; battery will soon follow.
Where did the laws against assault go? Is it the fact that people
voluntarily agreed to listen to some things? People are allowed to
volunteer to be hit, too. (Else boxing would be illegal.)
>Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
>sounds refreshing. I submit that you have never experienced the
>alternatives.
"Refreshing" isn't good enough for me to give up my rights. Not even
close.
>What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
>candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
The candidacy of Jerry Brown was mostly created by the media. The
media mostly ignored Agran; they may have refrained from creating him,
but they didn't destroy him.
>What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
>(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
>deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn. And
>although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
>not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
I think it's amazing the way you can read the minds of thousands of
other people, in order to be able to describe exactly why they chose
to take the actions they took. Furthermore, it's pretty hard to
silence somebody who is able and willing to spend hundreds of millions
of dollars (which he has) to advertise his views.
>We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
>by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
>person being silenced by another:
Just because everyone is always telling you to shut up doesn't make it
anywhere near the most common incident. Personally, I get invited out
more often than I get told to shut up.
> "Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
> We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
> it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
> discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
> care about bits and bytes."
Gee, it must be really awful to have to do what your employer tells
you to, and the way you're told. Fortunately, in this country, we
have the freedom to quit. I've done it.
> "Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a
> team and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck
> that. I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
Oh, and who are you quoting here? Is that supposed to be a real
person? Can you prove the quote, or should said person sue you the
same way Penthouse was sued?
>You're right. The reason why the law failed to survive the Supreme
>Court was because Catherine MacKinnon CONCEALED her true motives (I
>applaud her true motives; I decry her concealment of same.)
You mean if she had expressed her true motives the Supreme Court would
have ruled differently on the exact same law? Wow, you can not only
read people's minds to tell what they actually think, you can tell
what they would have though in hypothetical situations.
>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>sexism are white male inventions.
History makes the same mistake. Why don't you tell Koreans living in
Japan about how racism is a white invention? (Uh-oh, here we go again
with the "honorary white" bullshit.) If you prefer, why don't you go
look at how well members of various minority tribes have fared in most
African countries?
>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
In the company I used to work for, the president was a woman. She's
still there. I'm not. Do you want to argue over who had the power?
What about an oriental, female, property owner versus an Indian, male
employee? "Oh, you have 47 oppression-points, she has 53, so you
can't say anything she doesn't like."
>The legal context in which MacKinnon works exists and it is valid. Yet
>she concealed it and as a result she is going down in defeat.
Because it is garbage. If she concealed it so well, how do you know
all about it?
Seth se...@fid.morgan.com
Ed Nilges
>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>>sexism are white male inventions.
>
>Might be hard to recognize when all she'd have to do is look at
>history to see that white males hardly have a monopoly on either.
I suggest you take a look at history, son. Rather than just a catchall
term for incidents scattered throughout history, racism had a particular
origin and direction. It began in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth century and it was nothing more than the systematic
assertion, backed by military force, of the superiority of WHITE
European ways.
Similarly, sexism had a particular origin in Neolithic times and it was
a vector of fear and resentment running from men to women.
>
>
>>She never read Bertrand Russell: "when will people learn the ruggedness
>>of truth?"
>
>She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
>people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
Perhaps it is. We'd be denying much of the testimony of literature and
art (as manufactured by men) if we pretended that heterosexual sex was a
cuddly-nice thing.
Long ago when I was young, the predominant male ideology sanctified rape
in such scenes as that in GONE WITH THE WIND in which the "real man",
Rhett Butler, ravishes Scarlett O'Hara. Better literature (much of
Shakespeare) is about the ambivalence we have about sex and what must be
admitted is its violence. It was one of the follies of my generation to
idealize "the expense of spirit in a waste of shame."
Catherine MacKinnon is merely repeating what men used to say.
>
>
>>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
>
>This is just pitiful racism. I'm white and male, but hardly powerful.
That's your problem, mate. The reason why you lack (or feel you lack)
the power you feel you deserve is not BECAUSE of your
whiteness/maleness; all other things being equal, these properties gain
you power, whereas color/femalehood deprive you of power. You should
address what's deprived you of power; only then can you change things.
And what's deprived you of power is the fact that your society is being
deindustrialized, dismantled, and sent East by white men more powerful
than you.
At any rate, you are the envy of the world because you DO, in fact,
command much more of its resources than 99.9 percent of its inhabitants.
Whatever the morality of building a politics of gaining even more
goodies to pile on the goodies you have is bound to garner little
sympathy for you among the masses of the earth.
Bronis Vidugiris
)I do note that the arguement against the St. Paul law could also be
)used against fighting words.
)
)Why is it ok to ban fighting words, but not burn cross burning for
)purposes of intimidation?
Here's an exceprt from the UWM court decision which was posted to the net
a while ago which mentions 'fighting words'.
The points that seem most relevant are that fighting words must be directed
at an individual (not a group), and that they must be likely to cause
_immediate_ violence.
-----
The Supreme Court in Chapinsky set out the fighting words doctrine. The
Chapinsky Court stated:
There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the
prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any
Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the
libelous, and the insulting or "fighting' ' words--those which by their very
utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
Chaplinsky at 571-72 (emphasis added and footnotes omitted).
Thus, the Chaplinsly Court set out a two-part definition for fighting words:
(1) words which by their very utterance inflict injury and (2) words which by
their very utterance tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
...
Since Chaplinsky, the Supreme Court has narrowed and clarified the scope of
the fighting words doctrine in at least three ways. First, the Court has
limited the fighting words definition so that it now only includes its second
half. [FN4] Second, the Court has stated that in order for words to meet the
second half of the definition they must "naturally tend to provoke violent
resentment." Finally, the Court has held that fighting words must be "directed
at the person of the hearer."
*8 The Supreme Court has reduced the scope of fighting words to include
only words which tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. In Gooding
v. Wilson, the Supreme Court held that Georgia Code Ann. s 26-6303 was
overbroad because "the Georgia appellate decisions [had] not construed s 26-
6303 to be limited in application, as in Chapinsky, to words that 'have a
direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually,
the remark is addressed." ' 405 U.S. 518, 524 (1972). Thus, the Court held
that s 266303 was unconstitutional because it failed to meet the second half of
the fighting words doctrine.
Section 26-6303 provided: "Any person who shall, without provocation, use to
or of another, and in his presence ... opprobrious words or abusive language,
tending to cause a breach of the peace ... shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
Id. at 519. The Court examined the dictionary definitions of the terms
"opprobrious" and "abusive' ' and found that they have greater reach than
"fighting" words.
Robert Ashcroft
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
>speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
>
You misunderstand. As I understand it, all the court said was that
the punishment for a criminal act should not depend on whether you happened
to yell "nigger" while perfoming that act. There are plenty of laws that
deal with burning a cross on your lawn, e.g. trespass, arson, endangerment,
etc. Cross burning on someone else's lawn is already illegal under a number
of laws.
In 28 years of my life, no one has shoved a crotch shot in my face.
And there is a definite difference, under law, between physical attack and
free speech. Get real.
>Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
>sounds refreshing. I submit that you have never experienced the
>alternatives.
Over the past two centuries, various minority groups (and non-minorities,
such as women) have struggled to achieve parity in society. It is hard to
imagine that these groups would have achieved what they have without the
right to free speech. Free speech protects the weak. It is a fundamental
human right. Unfortunately free speech also allows various scum to
propagate all sorts of crap. But that's the price you pay.
>What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
>candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
>What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
>(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
>deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn. And
>although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
>not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
If Jerry Brown was "destroyed" by the media, it was because he was/is a bit
a of a loon. In fact Jerry Brown was able to do quite well for a loon because
he was adept at manipulating the media into providing him a lot of free
coverage.
Perot is being silenced? Que? I think not---the man's face is everywhere,
and he's barely started to spend his millions. As for not engaging in
dialog, well, whose fault is that? He hasn't answered many questions himself
yet.
Seth Breidbart
egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>I suggest you take a look at history, son. Rather than just a catchall
>term for incidents scattered throughout history, racism had a particular
>origin and direction. It began in the late seventeenth and early
>eighteenth century and it was nothing more than the systematic
>assertion, backed by military force, of the superiority of WHITE
>European ways.
What word would you use to describe the attitude of Japanese toward
Koreans 500 years earlier? Or of Romans towards barbarians (do you
even know how the word "barbarian" originated?) two millenia earlier?
Of course, if you define racism as "the belief that whites are better
than others" it's due to whites. If you define it, correctly, as "the
belief that one race is better than others", it began much longer ago
and almost every race is guilty of it.
>Similarly, sexism had a particular origin in Neolithic times and it was
>a vector of fear and resentment running from men to women.
In Neolithic times, men feared women? Now you're not only reading the
minds of living people, you're reading the minds of people very long
dead.
>>She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
>>people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
>Perhaps it is. We'd be denying much of the testimony of literature and
>art (as manufactured by men) if we pretended that heterosexual sex was a
>cuddly-nice thing.
Well, it often is the way I do it. Just because you can't, don't
attribute your failings to the rest of us.
>Long ago when I was young, the predominant male ideology sanctified rape
>in such scenes as that in GONE WITH THE WIND in which the "real man",
>Rhett Butler, ravishes Scarlett O'Hara.
>Catherine MacKinnon is merely repeating what men used to say.
I missed the part where someone said "all heterosexual sex is rape".
They may have said "some rape is acceptable sex"; I disagree with
them, but I don't use that to conclude that the two are the same.
>>This is just pitiful racism. I'm white and male, but hardly powerful.
>That's your problem, mate. The reason why you lack (or feel you lack)
>the power you feel you deserve
Uh, I missed the part where he said he feels he deserves power. All I
saw was that he said he lacks it.
>And what's deprived you of power is the fact that your society is being
>deindustrialized, dismantled, and sent East by white men more powerful
>than you.
What are you talking about? Precisely what is being dismantled and
sent East?
Seth se...@fid.morgan.com
Ron Dippold
>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>>>sexism are white male inventions.
>>
>>Might be hard to recognize when all she'd have to do is look at
>>history to see that white males hardly have a monopoly on either.
>I suggest you take a look at history, son. Rather than just a catchall
>term for incidents scattered throughout history, racism had a particular
>origin and direction. It began in the late seventeenth and early
Ahhhh... I see. You define racism only as "White racism against
blacks" and go from there. Cool. I declare racism now to be only
Japanese racism against Koreans, and we can now talk about racism
without bothing each other. This is really, really, sad.
>Similarly, sexism had a particular origin in Neolithic times and it was
>a vector of fear and resentment running from men to women.
Wow, and Cro-Magnons were caucasians?
>>She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
>>people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
>Perhaps it is. We'd be denying much of the testimony of literature and
>art (as manufactured by men) if we pretended that heterosexual sex was a
>cuddly-nice thing.
Ahahahahaha... No, this is just too good. Why don't you post to
alt.sex and ask all the (apparently) deluded females why they enjoy it?
>>>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>>>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>>>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>>>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
>>
>>This is just pitiful racism. I'm white and male, but hardly powerful.
>That's your problem, mate. The reason why you lack (or feel you lack)
And about those blacks and minorities I mentioned who are in better
shape than I am? Again, should I let them know that I'm more powerful
than them? You're generalizing by race again, like the racist you are.
>command much more of its resources than 99.9 percent of its inhabitants.
>Whatever the morality of building a politics of gaining even more
>goodies to pile on the goodies you have is bound to garner little
>sympathy for you among the masses of the earth.
Ooooh, I feel sooooo bad. I don't want their sympathy, any more than
the minorities who benefit the same way I do want and need their
sympathy.
--
It's good to know that if I behave strangely enough, society will take full
responsibility for me.
Robert Ashcroft
>[substantial rewriting of various histories omitted]
>I cannot credit Fascists with having "ideas." Call me a snob, call me
>not broadminded (ooooh) but I DENY such people what they DENY me and
>others. They deny, after all, thinking capability to people of other
>races, calling black people "mud people." With far more reason, I deny
>that these Fascists have "ideas." What they have are inchoate emotions
>and fears which are played-upon by greedy and selfish men.
You need say no more. You proclaim that you reduce yourself to the level
of the fascists, stalinists, maoists and others who deny the humanity of
their opponents.
You are no better than those fascists that you attack. If everyone reacted
like you, the fascists, stalinists, et al would have won a long time ago.
Go away, read some history and stop regurgitating your pap to the net.
RNA
(and please stay out of soc.women)
Tom Horsley
the way they ruled (I think the constitution is pretty unambiguous in the
vicinity of the 1st amendment, and in this case, the Supreme Court obviously
thought so too).
The really fascinating thing is this is the same court (pretty much) which
consistently upholds the "community standards" rulings for the censorship of
pornography.
I don't know what most people think of as more obscene, a man and a woman
making love, or cross burnings and swastikas being used to promote hate, but
we now have a clear indication of which one the Supreme Court justices think
is the most obscene...
--
======================================================================
domain: taho...@csd.harris.com USMail: Tom Horsley
uucp: ...!uunet!hcx1!tahorsley 511 Kingbird Circle
Delray Beach, FL 33444
+==== Censorship is the only form of Obscenity ======================+
| (Wait, I forgot government tobacco subsidies...) |
+====================================================================+
Stupendous Man
> These thoughts crossed my mind when I heard of the recent Supreme Court
> decision that Minneapolis' attempt to restrict hateful speech and other
> such attempts to help us all (in Rodney King's pathetic phrasing) "get
> along", including laws banning cross burnings, are unConstitutional.
Please read (or listen :) more carefully. The SC ruled that the laws
in question violated the first amendment. They further clarified the "hate
speech" issue by stating that there are ways to limit such behavoir without
torching the first amendment along the way.
> Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
> Scott.
Only if you misinterpret it.
> The Supreme Court did not even consider the point Stanley Fish made in
> his "No such thing" article. This is that there is NO clearcut decision
> between speech and action and as such the real slippery slope is not
> between banning Hustler and the establishment of Nazi-style censorship.
The SC has ruled many times that things like flag burning are opinion
and political speech, and thus protected. If certain actions are considered
likely to spark violence (cross burning) simply prosecute people with inciting
to violence or riot.
As one columnist put it, this is political correctness getting it's
just desserts.
> No, the slippery slope is between APPROVING acts that deliberately and
> maliciously tread the (fuzzy) boundary between speech and action, and
> allowing all sorts of hateful acts, including (for example) Penthouse
> Magazine's description of the fellating abilities of a real person.
Felletio flattery is hardly a hateful act. And as stated above, you
can outlaw crimes without outlawing the first amendment.
...
> my Coke can" Thomas) do not even know the law. The common law has long
> recognized that assault (offering to hit someone) is much the same as
> battery (actually striking someone) but they did not have the legal
> imagination necessary to see how this applied to the fuzzy distinction
> between "speech" and "action."
As you are trying to point out, speech and action are two different
things. Thus in order to stop actions that are harmful, one does not need to
ban speech.
Getting clearer?
...
> decision. For these men are not interested at all in freedom, only in
> making a buck out of fear and hatred of women.
Ahhh, so here is the root of Ed's objections. He doesn't like porn.
He wants it to be considered a "hate crime" and thus not subject to the first
amendment.
Too bad.
Of course that works in your favor when someone wants to consider the
<insert favorite book> hateful....
:)
Brett
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting CHA-CHING!
Better, Cheaper, Faster (Pick any two :)
Disclaimer: NOT!
Peter Chrzanowski
> You're right. The reason why the law failed to survive the Supreme
> Court was because Catherine MacKinnon CONCEALED her true motives (I
> applaud her true motives; I decry her concealment of same.)
Umm, I hate to be picky, but how did you find out what her motives were
if they were concealed?
>
> MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
> sexism are white male inventions.
Gee. Here I'd been thinking that just about every historical culture
had found some excuse to fear and hate people they considered different
from themselves, and that just about every historical culture had
significantly different expectations for men and women.
Are white males, like, uniquely evil?
J. S. Greenfield
>Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
>Scott.
Get a life.
--
J. S. Greenfield gre...@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here,
but my d*mn system wants a
*real* name!) "What's the difference between an orange?"
Gary Strand
this site doesn't get 'alt'.]
> Ed Nilges
> You enjoy (if indeed you are a workplace owner, or manager) a privilege of
> enforcing any notion of "speech" whatsoever.
Since you have claimed that "Holoclowns" must be silenced in order to pre-
serve freedom of speech, again I ask if you would approve of an employer
censoring a "Holoclown" employee.
You're stuck in a quandry, and refuse to acknowledge it. Also, you're back
to your old habit of projecting your psychological problems onto the rest
of the human race. Sorry, but the only loathing and disgust I see is that
of Ed Nilges towards himself. Leave the rest of us out of it.
--
Gary Strand Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
stra...@ncar.ucar.edu not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
Stupendous Man
> No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
> male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
> the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
> impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
Life is so much easier when you have a scapegoat to hang all of your
defeats and shortcomings on, isn't it?
If you had the power to outlaw white male landowners, would you?
Do you really think that would solve all of your problems?
Ed Nilges
>
>It is not ok to ban fighting words; in fact, the ban only applies when
>the words would cause an immediate altercation. If I screamed
>something rude in your face, that would be fighting words
>(prohibited). If I posted the same words on USENET, that would not be
>fighting words, because your couldn't reasonably be expected to
>immediately attack me (hell, you're not even in the same state I am.
>That makes me very hard to hit) because of them.
WRONG. "Fighting words" do not require the presence of the person
assaulted by them. Your argument is nonsense. In particular, your
argument could be used to defend the conduct of the high school dropout
in St. Paul who burned a cross on a black family's lawn, triggering the
SC case under discussion. For he burned the cross in cowardly fashion
and split.
But of course his conduct still constituted "fighting words" governed by
the common law of assault and the First Amendment did not apply to him.
What the SC rejected (wrongly, but it's a separate issue) was not
conduct but the text of a statute which, it claimed, was wrongly based
on the content of speech.
>
>Personally, I think fighting words should be permitted in all cases;
>people who can't control their tempers are the problem.
Women who can't control their tempers after being called "bitch" are the
problem?
Black people who can't control their tempers after being called "nigger"
are the problem?
Laid-off employees who can't control their tempers are the problem?
Should there be special reeducation camps for people who cannot control
their tempers?
Get a brain, get a heart, get a life.
>
Ed Nilges
>In article <1992Jun26.2...@Princeton.EDU>
>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>
>
>What word would you use to describe the attitude of Japanese toward
>Koreans 500 years earlier? Or of Romans towards barbarians (do you
>even know how the word "barbarian" originated?) two millenia earlier?
Yawn. These weary counterexamples have been dealt with before. It is
an anachronism to describe 500-year old Asian behavior as racist when
that bad behavior was simply the will of the stronger. Racism is
something MORE than the (common) belief that "us guys are better than
those bozos over the next hill."
As to your Roman example, it would again be an anachronism to describe
Roman behavior as racist. However, Rome was a text used by racists
beginning in the seventeenth century to assert their innate superiority
over nonwhites.
>
>Of course, if you define racism as "the belief that whites are better
>than others" it's due to whites. If you define it, correctly, as "the
>belief that one race is better than others", it began much longer ago
>and almost every race is guilty of it.
Which empties it of content. How convenient for us white men! For then
the argument of futility can be used; if racism is so endemic to human
life (and, pari passu, symmettrical bad behavior between the sexes is
also endemic) then it is futile to try to change either racism or
sexism. We may therefore abandon the projects of the Sixties and gorge
ourselves on what's left of the earth. When that's clapped-out, we may
in good conscience feed upon the weaker. Again, how convenient.
Words are developed by people for a purpose, and the notions of racism
and sexism were developed to NAME the bad behavior of the British in
India, of the French in Indo-China, of men in houses, and so forth and
so on. Your project is to CHANGE the meaning of words. This would be
okay if nonwhite and female struggles had been won, but when in my own
state of New Jersey racist white Republicans are campaigning to withdraw
language from the state Constitution guaranteeing decent education for
all, these struggles are not won.
>
>>Similarly, sexism had a particular origin in Neolithic times and it was
>>a vector of fear and resentment running from men to women.
>
>In Neolithic times, men feared women? Now you're not only reading the
>minds of living people, you're reading the minds of people very long
>dead.
You claim that ability for oldtime Japanese and Romans, I shall assert
my right to do so as well.
>
>>>She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
>>>people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
>
>>Perhaps it is. We'd be denying much of the testimony of literature and
>>art (as manufactured by men) if we pretended that heterosexual sex was a
>>cuddly-nice thing.
>
>Well, it often is the way I do it. Just because you can't, don't
>attribute your failings to the rest of us.
You display the very denial of which I speak. I'm obliged to you.
>
>>>This is just pitiful racism. I'm white and male, but hardly powerful.
>
>>That's your problem, mate. The reason why you lack (or feel you lack)
>>the power you feel you deserve
>
>Uh, I missed the part where he said he feels he deserves power. All I
>saw was that he said he lacks it.
Well, the favorite net.whine is to claim that one is a teddy bear who
has been deprived of male power by feminists, and to deny desire for that of which
one has been deprived. It'd be more honest to say that one would prefer
to live as a god, for it's so obvious that that is what you
net.youngsters want it's pathetic, and to begin from the fact that one
is not a god.
>
>>And what's deprived you of power is the fact that your society is being
>>deindustrialized, dismantled, and sent East by white men more powerful
>>than you.
>
>What are you talking about? Precisely what is being dismantled and
>sent East?
Are we out of it or what? The recession is turning from a "double
dipper" into a triple dipper, economic growth forecasts for the Nineties
are predicting rates similar to the 1930s, and this is because the
country is losing its industrial base.
Ed Nilges
>
>Ahhhh... I see. You define racism only as "White racism against
>blacks" and go from there. Cool. I declare racism now to be only
>Japanese racism against Koreans, and we can now talk about racism
>without bothing each other. This is really, really, sad.
Unfortunately, Ron, it's not that simple. The people (including Franz
Fanon et al.) who devised the term "racism" have certain rights over
that term and they did NOT invent the term to describe bad behavior
between the races. They invented the term to describe European and
North American bad behavior.
Similarly, Simone de Beauvoir did not use the term sexism to refer to
centuries old bad behavior between the sexes, but instead a vector of
oppression running from men to women.
>
>Ahahahahaha... No, this is just too good. Why don't you post to
>alt.sex and ask all the (apparently) deluded females why they enjoy it?
What, all two of them? Har.
>
>
Ed Nilges
>In article <1992Jun27.0...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>
>>[substantial rewriting of various histories omitted]
Well, excuse me. I must not have been around when they passed out the
standard, authorized Regular Guy view of history. Was that something
like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?
>
>>I cannot credit Fascists with having "ideas." Call me a snob, call me
>>not broadminded (ooooh) but I DENY such people what they DENY me and
>>others. They deny, after all, thinking capability to people of other
>>races, calling black people "mud people." With far more reason, I deny
>>that these Fascists have "ideas." What they have are inchoate emotions
>>and fears which are played-upon by greedy and selfish men.
>
>You need say no more. You proclaim that you reduce yourself to the level
>of the fascists, stalinists, maoists and others who deny the humanity of
>their opponents.
That's exactly wrong. For computers can arguably have ideas (I can
write a Lisp program to make a machine act as if it is a philosopher)
but emotions and fears are human. It's you who dehumanize the guy who
planted a burning cross on a lawn in St. Paul by crediting him with
ideas. For he was a high-school dropout and to credit him with adult
ideas debases people with REAL ideas. What Viktora needed was a
psychiatric social worker, and a father. What he got was nine bozos
(including a known sexual harrasser) telling him he has ideas.
>
>You are no better than those fascists that you attack. If everyone reacted
>like you, the fascists, stalinists, et al would have won a long time ago.
>Go away, read some history and stop regurgitating your pap to the net.
Sorry, I already saw your version of history (see above under Bill and
Ted.)
Chuck Lavazzi
>>people who can't control their tempers are the problem.
>
>Women who can't control their tempers after being called "bitch" are the
>problem?
>
>Black people who can't control their tempers after being called "nigger"
>are the problem?
>
>Laid-off employees who can't control their tempers are the problem?
or property rights of another citizen, the answer is yes.
If not, then the problem is simply a matter of some people behaving
rudely towards others. I hardly see how legislation is going to deal with
this problem.
>
>Should there be special reeducation camps for people who cannot control
>their tempers?
Where in the world did this come from? The one proposing
increases in State power here is you, not Seth. I should note, however, that
based on your earlier postings you would probably not oppose special
re-education camps for citizens who seem to posess racial and sexual attitudes
of which you don't approve. Especially if they're white and male.
>
>Get a brain, get a heart, get a life.
Irony. I love it. It is useful, however, to remember that most forms
of State oppression have their beginnings in sincere desires to right wrongs
and improve society as a whole. Marx and Lenin never set out to create a
massive bureuracracy or a vicious police state that would eventually collapse
of it's own weight, but that's precisely what happened.
Ed seems sincere in his desire to improve the world we live in. But
his solution involves allocating truly frightening amounts of power to a
government that already has far too much control over the most intimate
aspects of the lives of its citizens and far too little over the misbehavior
of its largest corporate "citizens".
The arrogant power of the State Drug Police and Morality Police is
bad enough. Let's not add the Politeness Police and Insult Police as well.
Let's not pretend that we can legislate away everything that's unpleasant
or cruel in this world.
Chuck
No .sig, no frills, no foolin'
--
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Kenn Barry
>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
Why have I never seen how simple it is? When two people are
swapping insults, one can find the victim by a point system! Of course,
there might be some arguments about suitable point values. Let's
imagine a nasty, down-in-the-gutter verbal brawl between X and Y. X is
Y's boss, so give points to Y; but X is a woman, Y a man, so points to
X, too. Oh, and X is a black woman, so even more points to X. But wait,
Y is half X's age, a mere student, so that's points for Y. And X is
wealthier, a homeowner and stockholder, definite capitalist, while Y is
near-broke. And did I mention Y is Asian-American? Or that X is legally
blind?
I'm afraid I'm getting confused; can you sort this one out for
me, Ed? I'm sure someone ought to be arrested, 'cause I heard a lot of
ageist, sexist, racist, purely _awful_ things being said by both
parties. But I can't quite work out the suitable point values to be
assigned, so I can't tell who the victim is.
- Nothing fails like success - Kenn Barry
----------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTRIC AVENUE: ba...@netcom.com
Tim Pierce
>>In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU>, egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>
>>> Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
>>> Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
>>> levitated.
>
> As a skeptic, I find it difficult to accept this claim of a paranormal
> phenomenon.
You're not a skeptic by any stretch of the imagination. You're a
crackpot. You are a solipsist of the highest order.
> But I'm willing to be convinced!!!!! :)
Not to mention being a juvenile buffoon.
--
____ Tim Pierce / "You mean there are TWO of you, Pierce?
\ / twpi...@amherst.edu / God help us all."
\/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / -- Major Charles Emerson Winchester III
J. S. Greenfield
>And, that is not the worst of it. Many evils have happend because of
>free speech - the Holocaust is only one of many.
Well, this is one of the more absurd things that I have heard blamed upon
free speech. Please demonstrate that the Holocaust was caused by free
speech.
>There's only one thing to say for free speech - the alternatives, in
>the long run, are all worse.
At least we agree on this much.
J. S. Greenfield
>the punishment for a criminal act should not depend on whether you happened
>to yell "nigger" while perfoming that act. There are plenty of laws that
>deal with burning a cross on your lawn, e.g. trespass, arson, endangerment,
>etc. Cross burning on someone else's lawn is already illegal under a number
>of laws.
Since this has come up again, I feel the need to point out that which is
obvious to me--but perhaps is not obvious to others.
Shouting "nigger" or some other slur during the commission of an act is
*by no means* a definitive indication of the *motivation* for a crime. An
individual could easily shout obnoxious slurs out of anger/frustration/etc.
Consider the contrived example of two people getting into an argument over
anything stupid (a bet, an accident, whatever) and one of them assaults
the other, during which he shouts a lot of names, including various racial/
religious/sexual slurs. In this case, the slurs most certainly do not
suggest that the assault was motivated by racial/religious/sexual hatred.
While this example may seem contrived, I have little doubt that there are
*many* occasions in which slurs may be used, but prejudice is not the
motivation for the crime. (In fact, the UWM case specifically referred to
such an example.)
Nicole M. Jackson
shot, beaten, and/or hated."
What is that?
Nicole
William December Starr
In article <1992Jun27....@Princeton.EDU>,
egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) said:
> What [Robert A.] Viktora needed was a psychiatric social worker,
> and a father. What he got was nine bozos (including a known
> sexual harrasser) telling him he has ideas.
"Known?" What does "known" mean, Ed? Known to whom, and known how?
(You're the big fan of deconstruction, Derrida, etc, Ed... I'm
curious to see what happens when you use those techniques on your
own statements.)
-- William December Starr <wds...@athena.mit.edu>
William December Starr
In article <1992Jun26.1...@Princeton.EDU>,
egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) said:
> We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common
> incident by far in our society, so common as to almost escape
> notice, is one person being silenced by another:
I'm curious about this notion, Ed. I've heard it before, from some
of the women (students and faculty) here at Northeastern Law, but
very little of it's ever made any sense to me, primarily because
most of the examples of it that I see don't contain any satisfactory
answer to the question "Well, if you think you're being silenced,
why don't you just speak up?" I see that you've supplied some
examples yourself:
> "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and that's
> all."
I don't see any silencing here. If the "honey" (presumably female,
presumably the wife) wants to speak up, what's stopping her?
> "Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
> We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
> it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
> discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
> care about bits and bytes."
I see silencing here only if you deny parties the right to enter in
contractual relationships in which party A agrees to accept party
B's dictates on certain matters in exchange for Party B's providing
party A with certain compensation (e.g. a salary).
I'm aware of the doctrine that such relationships are inherently
nonconsentual because they are derived from a gross power imbalance
between the parties. This position generally (I think) distills
into a condemnation of capitalism<*> as being inherently unfair,
<*>where "capitalism" in this context is a shorthand term for "any
system which is based on an unequal initial distribution of
resources/power, a currently unequal distribution of same, or
both."
coercive, etc. Maybe it is, but if so, those who advance this
position would do well to call an entrenchment tool a spade and get
to the heart of the matter rather than harping on one of the mere
symptoms of the problem.
> "Petey should learn to be quiet in school and not talk back to his
> teacher."
Yup, this is silencing (assuming, as is likely, that this
teacher-to-parent statement will be translated into a
parent-to-child commandment). It may or may not be a bad thing,
depending on the facts of the case. If the teacher is an
authoritarian dork and Petey's pointing it out to the class, then
the silencing is bad. If Petey is frequently disrupting the class,
and thereby depriving the other students of their equal access to
education, without good reason, then the silencing's probably a good
thing. (Remember, Ed, you're the one who supports the silencing of
the "Holoclowns.")
> "That bitch better stop complaining about the radiation levels in
> this plant or she's dead meat. I'll shoot her myself."
If this speech is ever translated into speech or action that's
directly intimidating to "that bitch" then it's silencing. It's
also what the law refers to as a "death threat" and is, I believe, a
prosecutable crime in every state. (I've never said that
"silencing" doesn't exist at all; I've just said that I don't see it
in many of the categories of examples that I've seen.)
> "Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a team
> and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck that.
> I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
Where's the "silencing" in this example? "I'm being silenced
because I'm afraid of what that other guy will say if I speak up"
doesn't sound very convincing to me... the fact that someone is
afraid or unwilling to stand up on his hind legs and assert his
right to freedom of expression does not, in my opinion, constitute
silencing or censorship of that person.
Christopher Morton
> If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech", if shoving a
> crotch shot in my face is now "speech", then ALL action is a form of
> speech, including pistol-whipping your grandmother.
Burning a cross on your OWN lawn IS speech. If it ISN'T, then I'd sure like
for you to explain how flag burning IS. Maybe you just support freedom to
speek things that you agree with. I don't agree with either. I'm not small
minded enough to try and ban either.
> Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
> (speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
> physical abuse. Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
> caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
> engineer take years to heal. But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
> decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
> right to "free speech."
Well, if you can show that the people burning the flags, crosses, bras, etc.
are FORCING people to live WITH them when they do these things, you might
have a case. Otherwise it's utterly irrelevant.
> And how much longer before we decide that laws against physical battery
> are sacrificed to this misunderstood right? Performance artists have
> already explored the boundary between speech and action in this area;
> Survival Research Labs in San Francisco has staged postmodern demolition
> derbies that audience members must release from liability before
> viewing, since SRL cannot guarantee their safety against automated
> monsters that SRL has programmed to stomp, to breath fire, and to
> destroy. Is not SRL engaged in protected speech? We've already ignored
> the difference between assault and battery in this area, sacrificing
> laws against assault to freedom of "speech"; battery will soon follow.
I hate to tell you this, but burning a cross on YOUR property is not done TOO
another. If it is, then I can just as easily claim that your flying a
Sandinista flag is an "assault" on me... unless once again, free speech is the
freedom for others to speak the way you want them to.
> Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
> sounds refreshing. I submit that you have never experienced the
> alternatives.
It's only refreshing if you feel that you have too much freedom and need to be
more tightly controlled. If I thought I needed that much supervision, I'd join
the Marines.
> >It is only the minority, unpopular ideas that speak against the status quo
> >that will be banned.
>
> What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
> candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
"Destroyed by the media", that's pretty funny. They weren't reported on with
the intensity that you demand. Of course were YOUR desires to be met, they
would have been CENSORED, without any weasel words about it.
> We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
> by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
> person being silenced by another:
>
>
> "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and
> that's all."
Thanks for saving me the trouble of trivializing your "argument". I see you've
done it for me.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well whose opinions did you THINK these were...?"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Morton
> Your argument is the tired argument of the slippery slope. You want to
> show that if we legislate against one clearly identifiable kind of
> speech (which in reality is a form of hateful action similar to an
> assault which does not touch its victim), then we'll be on a slippery
> slope towards a Fascist society.
Your argument is the tired argument of "It can't happen here". It CAN happen
here, and it only takes enough people like you and Jerry Falwell. What we have
here is how the political scale is a continuum. The ulta-left and the ulta-
right meet in the back... usually to plan somebody's demise. Who's demise are
YOU planning? And with WHOM are you planning it? Tom Metzger or Richard
Butler?
> Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at the
> bottom of this slippery slope (eg., Fascism has been brought about
> already, partly by convincing people to defend "freedoms" that enslave),
"Freedoms that enslave". That's cute. That could have come out of the mouth
of a Julius Streicher or an Andrei Vyshinsky. Hell, maybe it HAS. It came out
of YOUR mouth.
> the real slippery slope is between criticising hate speech law and
> criticising ALL law, and assenting instead to the will of the stronger.
> I just checked, and the "stronger" are the multinational corporations.
Is this some new variant of Turrette's Syndrome? The last I heard Pepsico
didn't burn a cross on ANYBODY'S lawn.
> Wellandgood. I'm a reasonable adult with teenage boys. I don't choose
> to have Bob Guccione's "speech" (in actuality a form of assault on
> women, motivated by private gain) at my local deli, and I don't choose
> to listen to the guy bleat and moan about his rights, especially if I
> have no such right when toiling away in the bowels of a megacorporation..
Once again we discover that freedom of speech is the freedom to parrot the
Nilges party line (tm) and that speech which Nilges disagrees with is REALLY
"assault". I'm trying to draw some distinction between you and Covenant, Arm
& Sword of the Lord, but I'll be damned if I can think of one.
> Part of the very essence of freedom is, to put it brutally, to be able
> in limited and democratic ways to give your opinions some force by
> enacting laws against other peoples' behavior when you in good faith
> find that behavior hurtful. This is a complex thought. Too bad;
And where did you get this definition of "freedom", "1984"? If in "good faith"
others find YOUR speech "hurtful" does that justify silencing YOU? No, I
didn't think so. You're the Great Helmsman, the Peerless Patriot, the Van
Halen of the Proletariat....
> everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. And if you
> deny it, then you've denied the ENTIRE basis of law. For ALL laws limit
> behavior; indeed, all laws trespass to some degree on that sacred cow,
> the right of consenting adults in private.
And some laws trespass that "sacred cow" to a greater extent than others.
You're right, we need a LOT more government interference in our private
affairs. Perhaps the FBI should tap your phone to ensure that you don't
say anything "hateful" to fascists, though why you'd say anything hateful
against yourself is a puzzling question.
Christopher Morton
> You're right. The reason why the law failed to survive the Supreme
> Court was because Catherine MacKinnon CONCEALED her true motives (I
> applaud her true motives; I decry her concealment of same.)
>
> MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
> sexism are white male inventions. She elected to get this law past
> rather than one that would better express her true beliefs because she
> believes that "politics is the art of the possible."
Indeed? A "White male invention"? Will you be informing the Chinese who
suppress the Tibetans, the Koreans who persecute Amerasians, and the Japanese
who oppress the Koreans, or should I? Alert the media....
> She never read Bertrand Russell: "when will people learn the ruggedness
> of truth?"
When will people learn to recognize bull-shit? I think your post is an
excellent practice exercise, though perhaps a bit too easy.
Ed Nilges
>
>In article <1992Jun25.1...@Princeton.EDU>, egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>
>> Bob Guccione's PENTHOUSE described a real person, Kim Pring (Miss
>> Wyoming) as able to give such excellent fellatio that the fellatee
>> levitated.
>
>in the FICTIONAL story in the magazine. Despite that the court
>found in her favor in a civil suit for alleged damages to her
>reputation.
The jury in the case found that Kim Pring was sufficiently
well-identified that people all over the country came to believe that
she was a loose woman. Her name was changed to Charlene (for loose and
immoral women must of necessity have working-class names.) However, she
was clearly identified as Miss Wyoming 1978. She was harrassed after
the article by various sickos who wanted to know "if it was true"and her
reputation was permanently damaged. Thinly-veiled fictions can still be
libel, and that is what the jury found.
J. S. Greenfield
>of freedom of speech is based on the (false) idea that you can sharply
>separate speech and action. You cannot.
It's funny, but for someone who has been so highly critical of b-cpu, every
thread into which Mr. Nilges enters becomes *very* similar in form to those
of b-cpu.
Mr. Nilges re-posts his remarks, generally couched in inflammatory and pompous
language, and lots of people angrily respond with a flurry of posts, which
in turn generate a flurry of responses from Mr. Nilges, and so on.
Yet in all the posts, absolutely no progress is made. Just like the b-cpu
threads, we have individuals simply re-arguing the same points over and
over, with no significant change.
Well, I am going to request that Mr. Nilges follow his own advice and move
his posts to an appropriate newsgroup such as alt.religion, alt.flame, or
perhaps alt.revisionism or alt.pompous.psuedo.intellectual.rantings.
If Mr. Nilges is unwilling to do this, then I will request that others simply
do as they have done with b-cpu. Avoid the frustration and temptation to
post in response to this nonsense--just place /egnilges/h:j into your kill
file, and then *don't respond* to Mr. Nilges' threads.
As with b-cpu, Mr. Nilges' posts can be easily avoided. It is all the
responses to his posts that clutter the net in a manner that is difficult to
avoid.
Ed Nilges
>
>Out of curiosity, did you read the law that they declared unconstitutional?
Yes.
>
>You may be amused that Sister Soulfry's presentation would have been illegal
>under it...
This is an untruth, for Sister Souljah's music was not made in St. Paul
and as such it was not covered by the law. Furthermore, there is a
clear difference between what an artist expresses to an audience and
what a high-school dropout expressed to specific victims who he
selected. The black family who found a burning cross on its lawn had no
choice in the matter, whereas you do not have to listen to Sister
Souljah. Souljah is more concerned with speaking to (and, of course,
making money from) black audiences who have rage that to me (speaking as
a white) is understandable, given the systematic ways in which black
people are harmed in a racist society.
Ed Nilges
>
>I'm curious about this notion, Ed. I've heard it before, from some
>of the women (students and faculty) here at Northeastern Law, but
>very little of it's ever made any sense to me, primarily because
>most of the examples of it that I see don't contain any satisfactory
>answer to the question "Well, if you think you're being silenced,
>why don't you just speak up?" I see that you've supplied some
>examples yourself:
>
>> "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and that's
>> all."
>
>I don't see any silencing here. If the "honey" (presumably female,
>presumably the wife) wants to speak up, what's stopping her?
>
silencer in and of itself. If, for example, the husband is normally
sweet-tempered but all of a sudden comes out with "shut up", the
difference between his normal behavior and "shut up" is a powerful and
intimidating message. The wife may be justified in interpreting such
rage as a prelude to an assault, or an assault itself.
It depends on the context.
>> "Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
>> We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
>> it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
>> discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
>> care about bits and bytes."
>
>I see silencing here only if you deny parties the right to enter in
>contractual relationships in which party A agrees to accept party
>B's dictates on certain matters in exchange for Party B's providing
>party A with certain compensation (e.g. a salary).
Perhaps in my fictional example Bronis (sorry, Bronis, but I am using
you as an example here) was hired one year before by XYZ Corporation as
a UNIX systems programmer. Perhaps, subsequent to this, Bronis'
supervisor was canned and a new team of IBM clones came on board.
Bronis' contract (I will be a competent unix person and you'll pay me
and treat me fairly) has been torn-up, unilaterally, by one side.
>
>I'm aware of the doctrine that such relationships are inherently
>nonconsentual because they are derived from a gross power imbalance
>between the parties. This position generally (I think) distills
>into a condemnation of capitalism<*> as being inherently unfair,
>
><*>where "capitalism" in this context is a shorthand term for "any
> system which is based on an unequal initial distribution of
> resources/power, a currently unequal distribution of same, or
> both."
Only in the United States, where deindustrialization and functional
illiteracy coexist side-by-side with a debased "ideological" capitalism
that is used more to close-off alternatives than to increase
productivity. I can certainly claim that Bronis' position with respect
to XYZ corporation is unbalanced without abandoning capitalism
altogether. For one thing, much of the applicable contract law was
developed for a capitalist society (19th century America) in which there
was a nigh-equal distribution of resources and power. For this reason,
it is not true that I must accept the current distribution as a law of
nature. Perhaps I can return society to a condition of greater
equality, a condition in which Bronis would not be automaticaly silenced
by threats to render his skill-set meaningless instantly, by dismantling
overlarge (and inefficient) concentrations of power and by increasing
corporate tax rates.
>thing. (Remember, Ed, you're the one who supports the silencing of
>the "Holoclowns.")
Not in your sense. To you, silencing is binary, a simple matter of
pulling the plug. If you read my posts on Holoclownery more carefully,
you'll see that I carefully analyzed ways in which Holoclown speech
drives out centrist political discussion and is therefore convenient to
those to whom politics is a threat. Yes, I would turn the "VOL" knob on
Holoclown speech to the left and damp down its volume. I would not be
anxious to see that they got a venue. This is different from pulling
the plug.
>
>If this speech is ever translated into speech or action that's
>directly intimidating to "that bitch" then it's silencing. It's
>also what the law refers to as a "death threat" and is, I believe, a
>prosecutable crime in every state. (I've never said that
>"silencing" doesn't exist at all; I've just said that I don't see it
>in many of the categories of examples that I've seen.)
But when "that bitch" brings charges, she (like Karen Silkwood and Kim
Pring) finds herself on trial. These kinds of death threats are made
all the time yet persons threatened are themselves intimidated into
silence. The laws on the books are insufficient, it appears, to prevent
them from being made.
>
>> "Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a team
>> and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck that.
>> I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
>
>Where's the "silencing" in this example? "I'm being silenced
>because I'm afraid of what that other guy will say if I speak up"
>doesn't sound very convincing to me... the fact that someone is
>afraid or unwilling to stand up on his hind legs and assert his
>right to freedom of expression does not, in my opinion, constitute
>silencing or censorship of that person.
Read Gerry Spence's book Trial by Fire for an analysist of the ways in
which the "public figure" doctrine has rendered decent people afraid of
entering politics and thereby becoming public figures, open to all sorts
of vile abuse. Quite frankly, whereas George Bush is a criminal, I fail
to see how my being able to subject him to scurrilous abuse will help me
to get him out of office. This is where I part company with Larry
Flynt.
Ed Nilges
Your confusion and inability to deal with complexity, although amusing,
is not an argument against a "point system", as you call it. People
appear to be able to deal with this level of complexity, and more, in
areas as disparate as handicapping horses at the racetrack and unix
internals. It is interesting that so many people want politics, in
contrast, to be a venue of absolute decidability and simplicity, and I
will note that this rage for simplicity has always characterised Fascist
governments: "ein Volk, ein Reich ein Fuhrer!"
The difference is plain. You regard opening-up avenues of (legal and
administrative) appeal based on historical disadvantage as a wearisome
complexity, and I do not. Years ago, my half-blind friend Pat was able
to buy an IBM Selectric typewriter for her schoolwork because of the
operation of a primitive "point system." Would you take her typewriter
away?
>
Kenn Barry
>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) said:
>
>> What [Robert A.] Viktora needed was a psychiatric social worker,
>> and a father. What he got was nine bozos (including a known
>> sexual harrasser) telling him he has ideas.
>
>"Known?" What does "known" mean, Ed? Known to whom, and known how?
C'mon, William, _you_ know. Remember Tailgunner Joe, the
McCarthy Era? Ed has merely adopted a technique of character
assassination from the late and unlamented senator.
Kayembee
N02...@tamvm1.tamu.edu
back. But sometimes people don't like it. When you stand up for yourself, or
what you believe in, some people will get angry. Others will respect you and
call you gutsy and heroic. The choice is yours.
Make no mistake, standing up for what yuo believe it isn't easy. Some people
have lost thier lives for it (MLK, Jesus of Nazareth, Bonhoffer). But those who
fight for what they believe in win in the long run.
Steve
N02...@tamvm1.tamu.edu
egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
> . . . . Much editing . . . .
>Read Gerry Spence's book Trial by Fire for an analysist of the ways in
>which the "public figure" doctrine has rendered decent people afraid of
>entering politics and thereby becoming public figures, open to all sorts
>of vile abuse.
I have never understood the idea that it should be more difficult to sue
a public figure for libel than a regular person. If everyone is equal before
the law, why should a public figure be any more or less easier/harder to sue
for libel? The "public figure" doctrine is specious.
Steve
Christopher Morton
> What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
> shot, beaten, and/or hated."
> What is that?
Fired: call a lawyer
Ridiculed: That's your job. Don't take any crap, and give as good as you get.
Shot: Buy a Glock 22. Find a women's self-defense group and learn how to use
it. Victimizers REALLY whine when the tables get turned.
Any person of any character will be hated by SOME evolutionary throwback.
Don't sweat it. Glocks run about $400.00 these days....
Greg Hennessy
(Carl M. Kadie) writes:
#The theory is that bans of fighting words stop "likely, imminent,
#lawless action".
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I can see that a ban on cross
burnings on someone elses property could be banned under this
guideline.
--
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
Internet: gs...@virginia.edu
UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w
Christopher Morton
> In article <1992Jun25.1...@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
> >
> >Out of curiosity, did you read the law that they declared unconstitutional?
>
> Yes.
> >
> >You may be amused that Sister Soulfry's presentation would have been illegal
> >under it...
>
> This is an untruth, for Sister Souljah's music was not made in St. Paul
> and as such it was not covered by the law. Furthermore, there is a
It's NOT an untruth. Did 2-Live Crew record "Nasty as they Want to be" in
Florida? Did that stop their prosecution? Your tunnel vision is showing.
> clear difference between what an artist expresses to an audience and
> what a high-school dropout expressed to specific victims who he
> selected. The black family who found a burning cross on its lawn had no
> choice in the matter, whereas you do not have to listen to Sister
> Souljah. Souljah is more concerned with speaking to (and, of course,
> making money from) black audiences who have rage that to me (speaking as
> a white) is understandable, given the systematic ways in which black
> people are harmed in a racist society.
What if everybody on the block is playing it? Do White people have to close
their house and soundproof it? Do they have to wear earplugs when they
venture outside?
Paul Wallich
On the contrary, the "public figure" doctrine is an absolute necessity
for political debate. Without it, people in the public eye, be they
politicians or actors or enormously successful sellers of used cars,
would be able to squelch any public criticism of their work simply by
suing anyone who spoke or wrote ill of them (indeed, the history of the
18th and 19th century is rife with same).
If I were to take out an ad in the New York Times saying, for example,
that Ed is a subnormal paranoid, I could be sued because a) the
statement is not provable by medical diagnosis and b) Ed is not a
public figure, so all he has to prove is that the statement is not
provably true and it has damaged him.
If, on the other hand, I take out a similar ad saying that George Bush
is a traitor to his country, I could probably not be sued successfully
because Bush is a public figure and has to prove actual malice or
reckless disregard of the facts in addition to damage to his reputation.
Without the "public figure" doctrine, anyone who publicized evidence of
malfeasance by elected or appointed officials would be subject under
the law to damage suits unless the official in question was eventually
convicted. For all I know, anybody who badmouthed an actor's performance
could be sued unless the play in question closed in the first week.
Now perhaps we want to make it easier for people with things to hide
to hold the public eye, but personally I don't think so.
paul
Ed Nilges
>As quoted from <ceHSgtu00...@andrew.cmu.edu> by "Nicole M. Jackson" <nj...@andrew.cmu.edu>:
>
>> What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
>> shot, beaten, and/or hated."
>> What is that?
>
>Fired: call a lawyer
In our law, you can be fired "for a good reason, for a bad reason, or no
reason at all." Your only hope is that your company will settle out of
court for some pathetic sum, since the law is not on your side.
Additionally, companies are requiring employees to sign reaffirmations
of the traditional law, further weakening your case.
>
>Ridiculed: That's your job. Don't take any crap, and give as good as you get.
Right, let's not discuss the radiation levels in this plant, let's
discuss why Ed is, or is not, a walnut brain, or whether Nicole is, or
is not, overly emotional.
>
>Shot: Buy a Glock 22. Find a women's self-defense group and learn how to use
>it. Victimizers REALLY whine when the tables get turned.
Well, pal, it's like this (as Bob Dylan would say):
Take that gun away from me
I can't use it any more
It's gettin' too dark, too dark to see
Feel I'm knocking on Heaven's door
Are you seriously recommending that if I get shot I drag my dying ass
down to the gun store? My word.
William December Starr
In article <1992Jun28.1...@Princeton.EDU>,
egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) said:
> > > Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at
> > > the bottom of this slippery slope (eg., Fascism has been
> > > brought about already, partly by convincing people to defend
> > > "freedoms" that enslave), [Ed Nilges]
> > "Freedoms that enslave". That's cute. That could have come out
> > of the mouth of a Julius Streicher or an Andrei Vyshinsky.
> > Hell, maybe it HAS. It came out of YOUR mouth. [Christopher
> > Morton]
> Christopher, as an ordinary slob, why must I be so concerned with
> OTHER people's right to freedom of speech? Why is it that, in our
> society, as soon as I begin vigorously defending a belief that I
> have, the response is not dialogue, but instead a strange demand
> that I be "broadminded?"
[* * *]
> ...these kneejerk defenses of the freedom of speech one sees so
> often in discussions like this. Just as I don't choose to
> unconsciously trumpet the merits of BMWs or Next Computers, I
> don't choose to support causes not necessarily my own.
> Don't get me wrong. I'll fight for my Constitutional right to
> freedom of speech. But I'll fight for it in the context of
> putting forth MY views. It's only if I became a powerful
> political figure that the Constitution would require me to start
> showing care for freedom of speech in the abstract, and you have
> my assurance that if I become President I won't act like Andrei
> Vyshinski.
Like a cool breeze blowing from an open sewer on a hot day, such
honesty about one's own selfishness and disregard for the rights of
others is simultaneously refreshing and sickening. My life's
too short and my time to valuable to waste it dealing with
self-defined jerks like this. Welcome to my killfiles, Mr. Nilges.
Ed Nilges
>In article <ceHSgtu00...@andrew.cmu.edu>
>"Nicole M. Jackson" <nj...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>
>>
>>What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
>>shot, beaten, and/or hated."
>>What is that?
>>
>>Nicole
>
> It's called living in a imperfect world. It's also a oppournity to fight
>back. But sometimes people don't like it. When you stand up for yourself, or
>what you believe in, some people will get angry. Others will respect you and
>call you gutsy and heroic. The choice is yours.
Some choice. Sure, as Seneca wrote, "who has learned how to die has
learned how not to be a slave." But one of our society's (increasingly
laughable) claims to greatness is that it attenuates the cruelty of
Seneca's choice to some degree; that it makes it easier not to be a
slave.
How can you continue a fight against unsafe working conditions if you're
fired? You're outta there. How can you fight against people taking
your water rights if you're shot? You're dead. Even ridicule is a way
of silencing you. As is so often demonstrated on this net, ridicule is
used when interlocuters do not understand or fear the message of the
person being ridiculed, like fearful children, soiling themselves.
Nicole identified, not moves in a dialogue between human beings, but
ways of silencing human beings. Lyotard has defined this silencing
(even something so relatively harmless as ridicule) as terrorism.
Ed Nilges
>
>On the contrary, the "public figure" doctrine is an absolute necessity
>for political debate. Without it, people in the public eye, be they
>politicians or actors or enormously successful sellers of used cars,
>would be able to squelch any public criticism of their work simply by
>suing anyone who spoke or wrote ill of them (indeed, the history of the
>18th and 19th century is rife with same).
In the time of the Stalin purge trials, the victims of the purges often
opened up the newspaper to find their "errors" denounced as well as
articles decrying their personal character. I can well imagine the
"public figure" doctrine causing political life to become neoStalinist
by causing any PRIVATE person, who goes on record as criticising an
established PUBLIC figure, to be immediately classified as a PUBLIC
person, thereby opened-up to the most vile form of abuse. This would
close off the public sphere to all but the most hardened and desparate
characters, characters much like Stalin and his henchmen. Now, how has
freedom been served by this?
Gerry Spence points-out that this has already begun to happen. Kim
Pring was symbolically raped for challenging Penthouse's magazine's
abuse of her good name in a "fictional" story; Karen Silkwood's good
name was likewise challenged by Kerr-McGee. I see it on this net. Many
students are made physically ill by what they see in some of the alt.
groups, and would never dare post their views for fear of the abuse that
would ensue.
Larry Flynt characterized Falwell as having sex with his mother. Yet
this did not stop Falwell's, and Reagan's depredations on the body
politic in the slightest.
Curtis Fennell
|> In article <1992Jun28.1...@Princeton.EDU>,
|> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) said:
|> > Christopher, as an ordinary slob, why must I be so concerned with
|> > OTHER people's right to freedom of speech? Why is it that, in our
|> > society, as soon as I begin vigorously defending a belief that I
|> > have, the response is not dialogue, but instead a strange demand
|> > that I be "broadminded?"
|>
|> [* * *]
|>
|> > freedom of speech. But I'll fight for it in the context of
|> > putting forth MY views. It's only if I became a powerful
|> > political figure that the Constitution would require me to start
|> > showing care for freedom of speech in the abstract, and you have
|> > my assurance that if I become President I won't act like Andrei
|> > Vyshinski.
|>
|> Like a cool breeze blowing from an open sewer on a hot day, such
|> honesty about one's own selfishness and disregard for the rights of
|> others is simultaneously refreshing and sickening. My life's
|> too short and my time to valuable to waste it dealing with
|> self-defined jerks like this. Welcome to my killfiles, Mr. Nilges.
|>
|> -- William December Starr <wds...@athena.mit.edu>
I couldn't have said it better, so I won't try. Goodbye, Mr. Nilges.
--
============================================================
Curt Fennell [ "Get DOWN off that cross, honey! ]
ch...@gte.com [ Somebody needs the wood!" ]
============================================================
Carl M. Kadie
>The theory is that bans of fighting words stop "likely, imminent,
>lawless action".
gs...@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I can see that a ban on cross
>burnings on someone elses property could be banned under this
>guideline.
Maybe it could, but the law in question:
1) banned much more than this (it banned burning a cross on your
own property)
2) was too selective on the basis of content about what it banned
(it did not ban, for example, burning a pink triangle, in a gay
person's yard.)
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- ka...@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Carl M. Kadie
>In article <1992Jun28.1...@Princeton.EDU>
>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
[...]
> I have never understood the idea that it should be more difficult to sue
>a public figure for libel than a regular person. If everyone is equal before
>the law, why should a public figure be any more or less easier/harder to sue
>for libel? The "public figure" doctrine is specious.
[...]
The theory is that the best want to fight lies is with the truth and
that public figures generally have enough access to media to defend
themselves.
The American theory is a reaction to the British theory. In Britain,
truth is not an absolute defense against "libel". Also, Public figures
have "bigger" reputations and better access to the courts. The effect
is that they get more protection against speech that hurts their
reputation than ordinary people.
J. S. Greenfield
>>>Read Gerry Spence's book Trial by Fire for an analysist of the ways in
>>>which the "public figure" doctrine has rendered decent people afraid of
>>>entering politics and thereby becoming public figures, open to all sorts
>>>of vile abuse.
>>
>>Good point!!!
>>I have never understood the idea that it should be more difficult to sue
>>a public figure for libel than a regular person. If everyone is equal before
>>the law, why should a public figure be any more or less easier/harder to sue
>>for libel? The "public figure" doctrine is specious.
>
>On the contrary, the "public figure" doctrine is an absolute necessity
>for political debate. Without it, people in the public eye, be they
>politicians or actors or enormously successful sellers of used cars,
>would be able to squelch any public criticism of their work simply by
>suing anyone who spoke or wrote ill of them (indeed, the history of the
>18th and 19th century is rife with same).
[remainder deleted]
There is another improtant reason why public figures should be held to a
different standard. The public, in general, has a much greater interest in
examining the behavior of politicians, for example, than of private
individuals.
When reports (rumors) of significant improprieties occur, then the public
has a right to question a politician regarding those alleged improprieties.
But remember, we are talking about unsubstantiated reports, which may turn
out to be *false*. Of course, the only way to find out whether they are
true or false is to investigate the reports, including, perhaps, asking the
politician and others to provide information regarding the allegations.
Take, for example, Ross Perot and his alleged comment that low-income
neighborhoods should be cordoned off and searched for drugs. There have
been persistent reports of this. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument,
that these reports were false, and in fact, Perot had never made such a
comment. Let's also suppose that, before it became known/accepted that
the reports were false, some ace reporter took it upon himself to ask Perot,
at a newsconference, whether or not he had made such a comment.
Now remember (in this argument), the rumor was false, but a reporter stated
the allegation publicly (at a press conference, in questioning Perot), and
now Perot is very upset that the press is playing dirty tricks to soil his
reputation.
So he takes the reporter to court, sues him and his paper for slander, and
under the "everybody gets treated the same" slander/libel laws, he wins a HUGE
settlement.
The ace reporter who asked the question gets fired, and is also broke.
At the next Perot press conference, what kind of questions are asked?
Clearly, if we are to have a functioning press that can examine and
investigate politicians, then there are going to *necessarily* be mistakes
made. The point of the public figure distinction is to say that, as long
as a reporter (or anyone) is making a bona fide attempt to air the truth,
and is *not* attempting to maliciously damage the public figure, then that
reporter can *not* be held responsible for any underserved damage that may
occur whena rumor turns out to be false.
It is the individual who *maliciously* starts a false rumor that must be held
accountable. (Though they are rarely found.) Obviously, others can be held
responsible if they spread rumors that they have very good reason to believe
are false.
Of course there are downsides. False information does get publicized at
times. The press can go crazy and start airing every piece of tabloid-style
dirty laundry. But I think it's pretty obvious that the alternative of
having a paralyzed press, would be far worse.
Since the public does not generally have a compelling interest in intimately
knowing the doings of private citizens, the press (and others) must exercise
much greater care in investigating improprieties on the part of those
individuals.
In addition, public figures have a much greater ability, than private
individuals, to refute false charges in the public eye, and therefore, defend
themselves against damage.
gordon prioreschi
>...convincing people to defend "freedoms" that enslave
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Holy shit. This guy's serious, too. Orwell would be proud.
-g
James Meritt
>In article <1992Jun27....@fid.morgan.com> se...@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>>In article <1992Jun26.2...@Princeton.EDU>
>>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>What word would you use to describe the attitude of Japanese toward
>>Koreans 500 years earlier? Or of Romans towards barbarians (do you
>>even know how the word "barbarian" originated?) two millenia earlier?
>
>Yawn. These weary counterexamples have been dealt with before. It is
>an anachronism to describe 500-year old Asian behavior as racist when
>that bad behavior was simply the will of the stronger. Racism is
>something MORE than the (common) belief that "us guys are better than
>those bozos over the next hill."
>
>As to your Roman example, it would again be an anachronism to describe
>Roman behavior as racist. However, Rome was a text used by racists
>beginning in the seventeenth century to assert their innate superiority
>over nonwhites.
You attach an unrealistic evaluation of your own world viewpoint. Face it:
they were just as real as you are, and you count LESS for their life than
they count towards influencing yours.
bad news follows: you are not the center of the universe.
Hymie!
>ka...@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>#Maybe it could, but the law in question:
># 1) banned much more than this (it banned burning a cross on your
># own property)
># 2) was too selective on the basis of content about what it banned
># (it did not ban, for example, burning a pink triangle, in a gay
># person's yard.)
>Carl, you have just criticized a law because 1) it was too broad, and
>2) it was too narrow.
>Nice Catch-22 you set up.
not really. there is no reason why a law can't be both too narrow and
too broad, especially when *different*parts* of the law are being
looked at. he didn't say that *one*point* was too broad and too narrow.
how about this: current alcohol laws are too broad and too narrow.
they are narrow by picking an arbitrary minimum age, and too broad in
allowing free access to the purchase of alcohol. is _this_ a catch 22?
--hymie
hymo...@cs.jhu.edu hy...@jhuvms.bitnet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Hennessy
# 1) banned much more than this (it banned burning a cross on your
# own property)
Yes, but the Minn SC narrowed the scope of the law.
# 2) was too selective on the basis of content about what it banned
# (it did not ban, for example, burning a pink triangle, in a gay
# person's yard.)
Carl, you have just criticized a law because 1) it was too broad, and
2) it was too narrow.
Nice Catch-22 you set up.
Christopher Morton
> Like a cool breeze blowing from an open sewer on a hot day, such
> honesty about one's own selfishness and disregard for the rights of
> others is simultaneously refreshing and sickening. My life's
> too short and my time to valuable to waste it dealing with
> self-defined jerks like this. Welcome to my killfiles, Mr. Nilges.
You ordinarily only see such contempt for liberty from the religious ultra-
right. Occasionally you hear it from the (pseudo-)religious ultra-left,
although they're usually too busy going for each others' throats to bother
appealing to the sane.
Perhaps he should spell his name N I H I L g e s....
Dave Eisen
>What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
>shot, beaten, and/or hated."
>What is that?
Fired. That's a tough one. If "what you are" is incompatible with
the job you are supposed to do, then of course you should be
fired. If it's irrelevant, then you shouldn't be.
But who should decide this? In general, I'd be willing to let
the person who is paying you to do your job decide whether
he/she wishes to continue paying you, recognizing of course
that some people are going to be screwed out of jobs unjustly
by employers. Of course, those who really *are* being screwed
can take their employer to court and try to convince a jury of
exactly that.
Ridiculed. That's to be expected. I'm certain that if you know
what "I really am," you'd ridicule me as well. Anybody who wishes
to go against another's sensibilities has to be willing to
endure ridicule from that person. If you can't take it, well
be a sheep like everybody else.
Shot. I believe death threats are illegal. If that's the only
type of silencing you're concerned about, you have little
reason to worry.
Beaten. Threats of violence are not usually allowed any more
than death threats are.
And hated. Again, something that should be expected. Hell, I
wouldn't be too surprised if you hate me just for writing
this post. That's life.
--
Dave Eisen dke...@leland.Stanford.EDU Sequoia Peripherals: (415) 967-5644
There's something in my library to offend everybody.
--- Washington Coalition Against Censorship
Paul Wallich
>In article <1992Jun29.0...@panix.com> p...@panix.com (Paul Wallich) writes:
>>On the contrary, the "public figure" doctrine is an absolute necessity
>>for political debate. Without it, people in the public eye, be they
>>politicians or actors or enormously successful sellers of used cars,
>>would be able to squelch any public criticism of their work simply by
>>suing anyone who spoke or wrote ill of them (indeed, the history of the
>>18th and 19th century is rife with same).
>In the time of the Stalin purge trials, the victims of the purges often
>opened up the newspaper to find their "errors" denounced as well as
>articles decrying their personal character. I can well imagine the
>"public figure" doctrine causing political life to become neoStalinist
>by causing any PRIVATE person, who goes on record as criticising an
>established PUBLIC figure, to be immediately classified as a PUBLIC
>person, thereby opened-up to the most vile form of abuse. This would
>close off the public sphere to all but the most hardened and desparate
>characters, characters much like Stalin and his henchmen. Now, how has
>freedom been served by this?
You can "well imagine" it, but it ain't so.
>Gerry Spence points-out that this has already begun to happen. Kim
>Pring was symbolically raped for challenging Penthouse's magazine's
>abuse of her good name in a "fictional" story; Karen Silkwood's good
>name was likewise challenged by Kerr-McGee. I see it on this net. Many
>students are made physically ill by what they see in some of the alt.
>groups, and would never dare post their views for fear of the abuse that
>would ensue.
All this is unfortunate, but it has virtually nothing to do with the
"public figure" doctrine in libel and slander. I strongly support the
right of private individuals to maintain their privacy -- especially
in the face of the surveillance society that we have now become. I also
long for a certain level of fundamental decency in public discourse,
especially wrt ad hominem arguments. But the public figure/private figure
distinction is irrelevant to that question -- all it means is that only
in the past few weeks have newspapers been legally free to refer to John
Gotti as a mafioso (because he is both not a public figure and has serious
lawyers).
paul
Bronis Vidugiris
)In article <1992Jun25....@lmpsbbs.mot.com> b...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
)
)>And, that is not the worst of it. Many evils have happend because of
)>free speech - the Holocaust is only one of many.
)
)Well, this is one of the more absurd things that I have heard blamed upon
)free speech. Please demonstrate that the Holocaust was caused by free
)speech.
Substitute something along the lines of 'might not have happened if
someone had muzzled Hitler using hate speech laws', which was my original
thought. If hate speech laws were passed AND were enforced (which does
seem unlikely, but possible), there are some evils such as the Holocaust
(IMO) that probably would not have happened.
Besides, no usenet discussion is complete without a mention of the Nazis :-)
)>There's only one thing to say for free speech - the alternatives, in
)>the long run, are all worse.
)
)At least we agree on this much.
Christopher Morton
> In article <1992Jun29....@NCoast.ORG> cm...@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton) writes:
> >As quoted from <ceHSgtu00...@andrew.cmu.edu> by "Nicole M. Jackson" <nj...@andrew.cmu.edu>:
> >
> >> What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
> >> shot, beaten, and/or hated."
> >> What is that?
> >
> >Fired: call a lawyer
>
> In our law, you can be fired "for a good reason, for a bad reason, or no
> reason at all." Your only hope is that your company will settle out of
> court for some pathetic sum, since the law is not on your side.
"Our" law? Which law is that? We must apparently now add employment law to
the [LONG] list of subjects of which you are ignorant. It depends upon which
state you live in... but to know that, you'd have to pay more attention to
law than propaganda, obviously an insurmountable task for some. Get a life,
but get some lawbooks first.
> Additionally, companies are requiring employees to sign reaffirmations
> of the traditional law, further weakening your case.
Mine doesn't. I'll bet MOST don't. Of course it wouldn't matter if they did,
especially in a state like New York. But then for you to understand that
would require you to know what an unconscionable agreement is. And that would
require a knowledge of fact vs. propaganda....
> >
> >Ridiculed: That's your job. Don't take any crap, and give as good as you get.
>
> Right, let's not discuss the radiation levels in this plant, let's
> discuss why Ed is, or is not, a walnut brain, or whether Nicole is, or
> is not, overly emotional.
In other words you don't have an answer, which is what I expected.
> >Shot: Buy a Glock 22. Find a women's self-defense group and learn how to use
> >it. Victimizers REALLY whine when the tables get turned.
>
> Well, pal, it's like this (as Bob Dylan would say):
>
>
> Take that gun away from me
> I can't use it any more
> It's gettin' too dark, too dark to see
> Feel I'm knocking on Heaven's door
I don't assume responsibility for your incapacity.
> Are you seriously recommending that if I get shot I drag my dying ass
> down to the gun store? My word.
Well, a person of human intelligence would infer that it's better to have it
FIRST and be willing to use it to prevent one's own demise. I of course know
better to automatically expect this level of sagacity....
Carl M. Kadie
[...]
>Carl, you have just criticized a law because 1) it was too broad, and
>2) it was too narrow.
Well, it was a very bad law. Also, this wasn't (just) my criticism. It
was the Court's criticism.
>Nice Catch-22 you set up.
It's not a Catch-22 since "broad" and "narrow" refer to different
parts of the law.
Here is an example of another law that would be too broad
(in once sense) and two narrow (in another sense): "It is
illegal to kill or think badly of a left-handed person."
It is too broad because the government doesn't have authority
to make thoughts illegal.
It is too narrow because the government shouldn't give unequal
protection to left- and right-handed people.
A revised law that would be neither too broad, nor too narrow would be
"It is illegal to kill a person."
Ron Dippold
>In article <rdippold.709605459@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>Ahhhh... I see. You define racism only as "White racism against
>>blacks" and go from there. Cool. I declare racism now to be only
>>Japanese racism against Koreans, and we can now talk about racism
>>without bothing each other. This is really, really, sad.
>Unfortunately, Ron, it's not that simple. The people (including Franz
>Fanon et al.) who devised the term "racism" have certain rights over
>that term and they did NOT invent the term to describe bad behavior
>between the races. They invented the term to describe European and
>North American bad behavior.
Even better! All definitions must go back to their original meanings,
all digressions will be punished for your own good. So it IS true.
You defined racism as only white on other racism, and then declared
that only whites were racists. Circularity of definition that a
fundie would take immense pride in.
>>Ahahahahaha... No, this is just too good. Why don't you post to
>>alt.sex and ask all the (apparently) deluded females why they enjoy it?
>What, all two of them? Har.
--
Among the damned, you are the chosen one.
Ron Dippold
>WRONG. "Fighting words" do not require the presence of the person
>assaulted by them. Your argument is nonsense. In particular, your
This is just getting ridiculous. Now fighting words don't have to be
said in someone's presence! The whole (weak) justification of the
"fighting word" laws is that the person on the recieving end may be so
weak of character than he won't be able to resist lashing out at his
tormentor right in front of him. Now, I could sit here and insult
your ancestry, and that would be fighting words and should be censored?
>argument could be used to defend the conduct of the high school dropout
>in St. Paul who burned a cross on a black family's lawn, triggering the
>SC case under discussion. For he burned the cross in cowardly fashion
>and split.
Opposition to something is not the same as support of its opposite.
>But of course his conduct still constituted "fighting words" governed by
>the common law of assault and the First Amendment did not apply to him.
Got it, now. You just define anything you don't like as fighting
words, and go from there. Give it the same death by overuse as racism
and homophobia.
>What the SC rejected (wrongly, but it's a separate issue) was not
>conduct but the text of a statute which, it claimed, was wrongly based
>on the content of speech.
>>Personally, I think fighting words should be permitted in all cases;
>>people who can't control their tempers are the problem.
>Women who can't control their tempers after being called "bitch" are the
>problem?
>Black people who can't control their tempers after being called "nigger"
>are the problem?
>Laid-off employees who can't control their tempers are the problem?
Yes, yes, and yes. Just as a white male who can't control his temper
after being called a "ugly gimp" if he has a birth defect, or a white
racist homophobic devil. Just as the Perot supporter who goes
ballistic if anyone implies that Ross may have once had an impure
thought. The majority of women, whites, men, and blacks can control
their temper in such situations.
>Should there be special reeducation camps for people who cannot control
>their tempers?
Only in a perfect liberal world. I'll just be happy to let them live
with the consequences of their own actions.
>Get a brain, get a heart, get a life.
If your heart would stop bleeding all over the place, you might get a
chance to find the other two.
--
Black is the Color of My Love's True Hair.
Christopher Morton
Orwell, Stalin, Hitler, Vyshinski, Goebbels, Yezhov, Streicher and Rosenberg.
Christopher Morton
> In article <1681411F...@tamvm1.tamu.edu> N02...@tamvm1.tamu.edu writes:
> >In article <ceHSgtu00...@andrew.cmu.edu>
> >"Nicole M. Jackson" <nj...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> >
> >>
> >>What about "If you even try to be what you are, you're fired, ridiculed,
> >>shot, beaten, and/or hated."
> >>What is that?
> >>
> >>Nicole
> >
> > It's called living in a imperfect world. It's also a oppournity to fight
> >back. But sometimes people don't like it. When you stand up for yourself, or
> >what you believe in, some people will get angry. Others will respect you and
> >call you gutsy and heroic. The choice is yours.
>
> Some choice. Sure, as Seneca wrote, "who has learned how to die has
> learned how not to be a slave." But one of our society's (increasingly
> laughable) claims to greatness is that it attenuates the cruelty of
> Seneca's choice to some degree; that it makes it easier not to be a
> slave.
The bottom line is that not everybody is nearly as eager to be enslaved as you
are. Of course just as you can redefine speech rights to be oppressive, you
can redefine slavery as freedom and vice versa, depending upon whether you're
being enslaved for the proper goal. That certainly appears to be your intent.
Pete Hartman
>Ed Nilges writes:
>>Certainly one of the most nasty decisions ever made. Up there with Dred
>>Scott.
>Get a life.
Wait, isn't that Hate Speech! AAAAAA! Call the Morality Cops!
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
You'll have that
Pete Hartman
>Apart from the fact that in many ways we've already arrived at the
>bottom of this slippery slope (eg., Fascism has been brought about
Really? How do you arrive at this conclusion? The only real fascism I
see around me is the state-enforced invasion of privacy in the name of
various moral causes like the "War on (Some) Drugs". Please indicate
what evidence you have for this alleged fascism you are talking about.
>Wellandgood. I'm a reasonable adult with teenage boys. I don't choose
>to have Bob Guccione's "speech" (in actuality a form of assault on
>women, motivated by private gain) at my local deli, and I don't choose
>to listen to the guy bleat and moan about his rights,
What business is it of yours? If you don't choose to deal with these
issues, don't go to that deli, walk away from (kill the thread of)
the person "bleating and moaning". Seems simple enough to me. For
you to enforce your own choice for yourself and your family on everyone
is ludicrous, not to mention "fascist" in its tendencies. Because the
only way to enforce your standards on others is with the power of the
state.
> especially if I
>have no such right when toiling away in the bowels of a megacorporation..
?? I tend to share your disdain for Corporations but I can't see
what your point is here.
>Part of the very essence of freedom is, to put it brutally, to be able
>in limited and democratic ways to give your opinions some force by
>enacting laws against other peoples' behavior when you in good faith
>find that behavior hurtful.
"good faith"? Can you cite any studies linking pornography and
the "evils" it "causes" in a CAUSAL manner? I don't think so.
I'd say it's pretty clear that in most cases the relationship between
porn and its evils is CORRELATIVE--and removing the porn would not
remove the evils.
> This is a complex thought. Too bad;
>everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. And if you
>deny it, then you've denied the ENTIRE basis of law. For ALL laws limit
>behavior; indeed, all laws trespass to some degree on that sacred cow,
>the right of consenting adults in private.
Really? I guess a murder victim consents then? That's just the most
obvious exception to your ideas. What laws do you think are necessary
that tread on the rights of consenting adults in private?
>>Get of the Politically Correct Bandwagon and try to do some
>>critical thought for yourself.
>I submit that you've bought-into the real Political Correctness and you
>need to "get of [sic]" same. The real Political Correctness is to be
>alienated, hip and negative; to cite "freedoms" which are in actuality
>no more than the will of the stronger (the employer over the employee,
>the man over the woman, even in "politically correct" gay circles, the
>macho man over the drag queen).
"alienated"? "hip"? Hahahahahahahaha. "He don't know me too well,
do he?"
Sarcastic, cynical, certainly. But far from any of that other
nonsense.
> For out of this the men who you and your ilk
>profess to hate (yet somehow manage to elect, over and over again) have
>for years manufactured your consent.
Yah. Right. I didn't vote for George Bush, how did I "manage to elect"
him?
Your prose is beautiful. Sadly, the content of said prose seems based
on some really odd concepts of what "Freedom" entails. The Freedom to
Be Moral and Good by Ed Nilges Standards is not free.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
I want to be Robin to Bush's Batman
Michael Friedman
}[Lots of arguments before, after and within this post left out.]
}}A crime is a crime is a crime. If I shot you in the head would it really
}}matter if I did it because you were black or gay or just in my way? And
}}how could you truly discover my intent?
}Our legal system regularly treats crimes differently based upon the motivation
}for the crime. A person who kills "in cold blood" for monetary gain is
}treated quite differently from someone who kills in a jealous rage, who in
}turn is treated quite differently from someone who kills in self-defense.
}(Note that greed, jealousy, and the desire to live are all perfectly
}legal in the absence of the commission of a crime.)
}You can argue that crimes should be judged solely on their effects (and not
}their motivations), but you had better be willing to support such a policy
}acroos-the-board (or develop a *principled* argument as to why there
}should be exceptions).
OK.
Really simple. Crimes motivated by racial hatred are, in a very real
sense, political. If we punish all politically motivated crimes
equally - in other words, we punish the racist who shoots Jesse
Jackson in the same way that we punish the non-racist who shoots the
Grand Dragon of the KKK then that's OK. On the other hand, if we
penalize certain political crimes more heavily than others based on
the political views motivating those crimes then the justice system is
taking sides based on politics, and that's bad.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman. I speak for myself and no one else.
Pete Hartman
>>)"there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too."
>>A cute digression, but actually there is something that is commonly
>>understood to be free speech. This is a principle that speech should not
>>generally have its content be regulated by law, without compelling reasons.
>There was no intent on Stanley Fish's part to be cute, only to
>deconstruct a bogus boundary.
>If burning a damn cross on your lawn is now "speech",
If I want to burn a damn cross on MY lawn, it's my business. If I want
to burn a damn cross on YOUR lawn, it's trespass, probably some form of
incitement, and also probably a danger to your property from fire.
I don't see how "speech" has to enter into why it is wrong.
> if shoving a
>crotch shot in my face is now "speech",
Oh PLEASE. What kind of ridiculous hyperbole is this, Ed? NO ONE
is shoving ANY crotch shot in your face, ANYWHERE.
>Writers on domestic abuse have long recognized that emotional abuse
>(speech) can be just as distressing, if not more distressing, than
>physical abuse.
Fine, it's abuse. Abuse is something directed against an individual,
not a group of people. How is it that you can claim that something
that is not individually directed and not forced upon an individual
can be considered abuse?
> Physical wounds (save death) heal; emotional wounds
>caused by telling a spouse that she's too stupid, say, to be a software
>engineer take years to heal.
If she's stupid enough to believe you, yes. Hah. Again--this is
directed at an individual, and hence is abuse; you have not demonstrated
that there is any other behaviour that can be considered abuse as
the word is commonly used.
> But now given the Supreme Court's idiot
>decision, emotional abusers at home and on the job can cite their sacred
>right to "free speech."
Really? I think it is clear that things directed at the individual can
still be considered abuse and prosecuted as such when appropriate.
>>There's only one thing to say for free speech - the alternatives, in
>>the long run, are all worse.
>Hmph? Nicaragua's law, against using women's bodies for advertising,
>sounds refreshing. I submit that you have never experienced the
>alternatives.
Nor have you. Explain how you have the knowledge that the poster you
were replying to is wrong, when you both are merely supposing from your
common base of experience. Or do you live in Nicaragua? Are you claiming
that Nicaragua is a more free society overall than the US? I think that
it is clear that it indeed is NOT.
>>It is only the minority, unpopular ideas that speak against the status quo
>>that will be banned.
>What currency do "minority, unpopular" ideas have in our society? The
>candidacies of Jerry Brown and Larry Agran were destroyed by the media.
>What little that David Duke and Pat Buchanan said that had validity
>(eg., that ordinary working people were frightened of
>deindustrialization) caused these men to be destroyed in turn.
Really? I thought it was the fact that people were afraid of their
"hate speech" type positions and didn't want to give them the power
to enforce their radical positions.
> And
>although I do not agree with much of what Perot says, he too is being,
>not answered or engaged in dialogue, but silenced.
He's not saying anything that isn't obvious ANYWAY.
>We trumpet the "freedom" of our society. Yet the most common incident
>by far in our society, so common as to almost escape notice, is one
>person being silenced by another:
Your examples, for the most part, really have no bearing on reality.
> "Honey, shut up about that move. We're going to do it, and
> that's all."
> "Bronis, discussion of our conversion from unix to MVS is over.
> We're going to do it because Corporate wants it and I don't like
> it any better than you, but I've had quite enough of your foolish
> discussion. Corporate has the Big Picture. Corporate doesn't
> care about bits and bytes."
These two in particular are ridiculous. You simply cannot force
individuals to pay any attention to communication they don't want to
hear.
To punish someone for a domestic argument (I guess all the times
my SO silences me don't count, eh?) is ludicrous. I guess the
woman in question is not free to leave the partnership? She's
chained by law to the man? Or at least I assume you must think
she is.
If a corporation wants to make bad decisions, and you strongly disagree
with the direction the company is taking, so be it. You don't like it,
leave. "But I have a family to support". Well, this is capitalism. If
you want some system where every worker has his say in the day-to-day
running of the company, you're going to have to invent another system.
> "Petey should learn to be quiet in school and not talk back to
> his teacher."
This is actually a tough call--absolute freedom of speech in this case
would allow "Petey" to disrupt the class, certainly something that is
not good. But of course, this, like all other restrictions, is frequently
abused to bully kids into being sheep.
> "That bitch better stop complaining about the radiation levels
> in this plant or she's dead meat. I'll shoot her myself."
1) the speech in question is not actionable, nor does it need to be.
2) the situation (radiation levels) IS or SHOULD BE actionable. There
should be some way for "that bitch" to register formal complaint in such
a way that it is investigated.
> "Perot calls us fools and liars. Mike, I want you to form a
> team and dig up all the dirt you can on him. Dialogue? Fuck
> that. I'm going to rip the bark off that little sucker."
Uh huh. That's the *only* reason *anyone* opposes Perot, right?
Think again. It's sure not why *I* oppose him; after all he hasn't
called me a fool or a liar, and I can generally sympathise with his view
of the media.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
and it seems your eternal reward is to hang out in heaven eternally bored
Christopher Morton
> In article <1992Jun29.0...@panix.com> p...@panix.com (Paul Wallich) writes:
> >
> >On the contrary, the "public figure" doctrine is an absolute necessity
> >for political debate. Without it, people in the public eye, be they
> >politicians or actors or enormously successful sellers of used cars,
> >would be able to squelch any public criticism of their work simply by
> >suing anyone who spoke or wrote ill of them (indeed, the history of the
> >18th and 19th century is rife with same).
>
> In the time of the Stalin purge trials, the victims of the purges often
> opened up the newspaper to find their "errors" denounced as well as
> articles decrying their personal character. I can well imagine the
> "public figure" doctrine causing political life to become neoStalinist
> by causing any PRIVATE person, who goes on record as criticising an
> established PUBLIC figure, to be immediately classified as a PUBLIC
> person, thereby opened-up to the most vile form of abuse. This would
> close off the public sphere to all but the most hardened and desparate
> characters, characters much like Stalin and his henchmen. Now, how has
> freedom been served by this?
Certainly sounds like what you have in mind, "freedoms that oppress" and all.
This seems to be a classic case of Stalinist projection on your part. But then
totalitarians usually steal a march on their opponents in the oppression biz.
Pete Hartman
>In article <1992Jun26....@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>>In article <1992Jun26.1...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>sexism are white male inventions.
Really?
I thought that all the "isms" were the inventions of those in power
versus those who are not. In this country, yes, most of those in
power are indeed white males. But laws that take a standpoint of
reversing the "isms" by instituting opposite "isms" will only
perpetuate the problem by reversing who is in power rather than
addressing the real issue of societal attitude change.
Just like laws against drug use don't stop drug use, laws against
racism will not stop racism. Education and changing the society
with the consent of the members of the society (rather than by law,
against their will, enforced by the almost always corruptable power
of the state) are the only lasting answers to the problems you decry.
>No, you need to draft a law that identifies the powerful (the white, the
>male, the property owner) and the powerless (the nonwhite, the nonmale,
>the employee.) A law that then limits the norm, which is expressed,
>impolitely, as "the shit flies downward."
The problem is, the law will be (semi) permanent. The state of power
very well may not be. Do you really believe that if such laws are passed
so that the powerless get the power they deserve, they will then reverse
the laws or remove them? I don't. That's not human nature as it stands
in our current society. Women, racial minorities, and employees as
groups are no more inherently "socially responsible" than white men.
As with all these groups, you have the truly good and responsible people,
who tend to be overwhelmed by the more common irresponsible people.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
Doubt everything. Find your own light.
Pete Hartman
>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>>MacKinnon got a law passed which failed to recognize that racism and
>>>sexism are white male inventions.
>>history to see that white males hardly have a monopoly on either.
>I suggest you take a look at history, son. Rather than just a catchall
>term for incidents scattered throughout history, racism had a particular
>origin and direction. It began in the late seventeenth and early
>eighteenth century and it was nothing more than the systematic
>assertion, backed by military force, of the superiority of WHITE
>European ways.
Funny thing is, I would say that the ONLY reason that WHITE European
ways have been the forefront here, is because of the LUCK of the
WHITE Europeans to gain an upper hand at a particular point in
history. If you IGNORE all history BEFORE the 17th century, your
point is somewhat valid. If you examine the preceding history, you will
see the exact same behaviour on a smaller scale enacted in Asia,
Africa, and South America. Slavery and societal dominance over
smaller "tribes" or groups have been the norm throughout human history,
and WHITE European history is *not* the majority of that.
The 17th century was a key time to gain the upper hand because
it was when the rest of the world was being exploited after
having been explored. But it is only by luck that the WHITE
Europeans you so despise happened to be the ones to do it.
>>>She never read Bertrand Russell: "when will people learn the ruggedness
>>>of truth?"
>>She remembers what happened the last time she told the truth, and let
>>people know that she considered heterosexual sex to be rape.
>Perhaps it is. We'd be denying much of the testimony of literature and
>art (as manufactured by men) if we pretended that heterosexual sex was a
>cuddly-nice thing.
Well, I can't speak for YOUR sex life, but heterosexual sex for me and
my girlfriend is a cuddly-nice thing. I don't see how anyone can claim
that it's rape despite the fact that both of us go out of our way to be
considerate to the other's needs and desires. I certainly have no interest
in coercing her to have sex with me.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure
Pete Hartman
>You misunderstand. My point is simply that the naive, libertarian view
>of freedom of speech is based on the (false) idea that you can sharply
>separate speech and action. You cannot.
Ok, I'll concede the point that you cannot in all cases simply and sharply
seperate speech and action, since speaking *is* itself an action.
Nonetheless, to advocate more restrictions on the individual will
solve NOTHING. How can you believe otherwise, unless you think
that all (or even most) people keep current with all laws in order
that they can always adhere to all of them? That simply is not
realistic.
> For the people that work for
>you, that do not own the tools of production, have no such privilege.
You sound suspiciously like you think that Communism could work.
It won't in this world. Most attempts in that direction have failed
miserably, because there simply is no way to force human nature, against
its will, to be selflessly giving.
>well as the suppressed rage which is at the root of your new-style,
>American, "freedom"-based Fascism, a rage which produced your
>contradictory offer to assault and to batter.)
Again you claim some mythical fascism based on "freedom". Seems to me
that fascism is defined in terms of the power of the state, isn't it?
>The fact that Libertarians are too stupid and cowardly to accept the
>absurd and vicious consequences of their beliefs does not mean that
>their beliefs are true;
Somehow it seems you are more concerned with your perception of
Libertarian beliefs, not their reality. Nor do you seem aware of the
fact that some of us support the concepts behind Libertarian ideals but
have not yet worked out how said concepts can realistically be
implemented. I agree with you that if our government were replaced
overnight tonight with a Libertarian system that a vast number of people
would be victimized. That does not mean that I should allow your
ideal system of state-imposed concepts to be put in place instead--there
is a middle road.
>>Let me get this straight--restriction of speech would have PREVENTED the
>>rise of fascism in Europe? Explain.
>Germany was forced at Versailles to accept a constitution modeled on
>United States principles rather than her own. This was in part done to
>avoid a Socialist revolution. The constitution was never accepted by
>the ordinary German, who viewed it as a tool by means of which
>"cosmopolitans" (typically people able to outsmart the ordinary German)
>got rich. They were thus alienated from their own Constitution and for
>this reason (not being entirely stupid) they used its freedoms to build
>Fascist parties.
And said parties proceeded to restrict speech even further, even after
they had completely abandoned the original constitution and any appearance
of adherence to the Versailles treaty. So what's your point?
>Certainly restriction of Hitler's speech and laws against symbolic
>"speech" that involved humiliating Jews would, if seriously enforced,
>have prevented Naziism, and certainly no dialogue was possible with
>Naziism.
Yet, by the same token, once Hitler came to power, he and those who
followed him felt (just as you certainly do) that they were right, and
that restricting the speech of the minorities who dissented would
prevent their "rightness" from being "subverted by evil". Not only is
this effectively the same as your reasoning, in practice it simply was not
true. The underground and its support from overseas clearly helped
significantly in defeating Hitler.
>>1. This paragraph seems to support the SC decision--since unpopular ideas
>>already face such opposition, why do we need more laws to silence them?
>I cannot credit Fascists with having "ideas." Call me a snob, call me
>not broadminded (ooooh) but I DENY such people what they DENY me and
>others.
That's a good answer (sarcasm mark). I don't give a damn about how
broadminded you are, but fighting fire with fire is a tactic that can
only work in limited arenas.
> They deny, after all, thinking capability to people of other
>races, calling black people "mud people." With far more reason, I deny
>that these Fascists have "ideas." What they have are inchoate emotions
>and fears which are played-upon by greedy and selfish men.
I see. You reduce the individual to a summary of a few of his/her
characteristics. This is in its own way just as dehumanizing when
the characteristics in question are (misguided) ideologies as when
they are skin colors or genders.
You are no better than those who you criticize, and you gain no moral
high ground by simply being in or championing the powerless.
>>In what way are any of these quotes relevant to the recent SC decision?
>They are examples of "capillary" denials of freedom of speech, of
>freedom in general, that are so common as to pass unnoticed. They give
>the lie to the idea that America is a paradise of freedom.
Who was the last libertarian (or other individual for that matter) who
you heard claim that America is a paradise of freedom?
The closest I've heard is that America is the most free country on the
planet, which says absolutely nothing about any ideal state of freedom.
> The SC
>decision will create the reverse of a "chilling effect" on such speech,
>for the supervisor who refers to the radiation complainer as a "bitch"
>will have no reason to think twice about demeaning her input based on
>her sex.
I suppose if she were to refer to him as a prick that would be ok,
since she's not in power, right?
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent;
that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard
to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus.
Pete Hartman
>>Personally, I think fighting words should be permitted in all cases;
>>people who can't control their tempers are the problem.
>Women who can't control their tempers after being called "bitch" are the
>problem?
>Black people who can't control their tempers after being called "nigger"
>are the problem?
>Laid-off employees who can't control their tempers are the problem?
There are more effective means of dealing with the problem. I suppose
that if John Doe gets laid off he's justified to go back to work with
a gun and blow away the management responsible?
>Should there be special reeducation camps for people who cannot control
>their tempers?
>
>Get a brain, get a heart, get a life.
Ahem. "Practice what you Preach"
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
plant ice, harvest wind
Pete Hartman
>In article <1992Jun27....@fid.morgan.com> se...@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>>egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>In article <rdippold.709585018@qualcom> rdip...@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>Koreans 500 years earlier? Or of Romans towards barbarians (do you
>>even know how the word "barbarian" originated?) two millenia earlier?
>Yawn. These weary counterexamples have been dealt with before. It is
>an anachronism to describe 500-year old Asian behavior as racist when
>that bad behavior was simply the will of the stronger.
And white european racism is NOT the will of the stronger? Right.
> Racism is
>something MORE than the (common) belief that "us guys are better than
>those bozos over the next hill."
What is that something MORE? Please explain.
>>Of course, if you define racism as "the belief that whites are better
>>than others" it's due to whites. If you define it, correctly, as "the
>>belief that one race is better than others", it began much longer ago
>>and almost every race is guilty of it.
>Which empties it of content. How convenient for us white men! For then
>the argument of futility can be used; if racism is so endemic to human
>life (and, pari passu, symmettrical bad behavior between the sexes is
>also endemic) then it is futile to try to change either racism or
>sexism.
Ah, but trying to change them by force is contradictory! Such a change
relies on power to work, and that very power is what creates the biases
that create the wrongs. You are applying force to itself, and thereby
trying to move the immovable with the irresistable, a classic paradox.
> We may therefore abandon the projects of the Sixties and gorge
>ourselves on what's left of the earth. When that's clapped-out, we may
>in good conscience feed upon the weaker. Again, how convenient.
Try education. Seriously TRY it. Don't work at it for a few scant years,
hoping to overcome the traits ingrained by centuries, and then give up
only to use a club to beat your ideas into those who disagree. Very
few and far between are the people (if indeed they exist) who can wield
the power of the state without being seduced into its dark side.
>Words are developed by people for a purpose, and the notions of racism
>and sexism were developed to NAME the bad behavior of the British in
>India, of the French in Indo-China, of men in houses, and so forth and
>so on. Your project is to CHANGE the meaning of words.
The only voice I hear arguing to change accepted meanings is yours.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
Don't make me mad. You wouldn't like me when I'm mad.
Bronis Vidugiris
)In article <70vll2...@netcom.com> ba...@netcom.com (Kenn Barry) writes:
)>
)> Why have I never seen how simple it is? When two people are
)>swapping insults, one can find the victim by a point system!
)Your confusion and inability to deal with complexity, although amusing,
)is not an argument against a "point system", as you call it. People
)appear to be able to deal with this level of complexity, and more, in
)areas as disparate as handicapping horses at the racetrack and unix
)internals. It is interesting that so many people want politics, in
)contrast, to be a venue of absolute decidability and simplicity, and I
)will note that this rage for simplicity has always characterised Fascist
)governments: "ein Volk, ein Reich ein Fuhrer!"
)
)The difference is plain. You regard opening-up avenues of (legal and
)administrative) appeal based on historical disadvantage as a wearisome
)complexity, and I do not. Years ago, my half-blind friend Pat was able
)to buy an IBM Selectric typewriter for her schoolwork because of the
)operation of a primitive "point system." Would you take her typewriter
)away?
The issue as I see it here is a very fundamental one - the issue is one
of equality under the law. If one believes that people should be treated
*by the law* regardless of race and gender, one must reject a system which
defines actions as illegal baced on a 'point system' of the gender or race
of the person comitting an act. If it's illegal to insult somebody, it
should be illegal regardless of the respective races of the insulter and
the insultee.
Equality under the law doesn't guarantee fair treatment - but I view it
as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for fairness. Your mileage
obviously varies.
The issue with the blind person is different in two respects. The first
respect is that it doesn't relate to law - the second issue is whether
'ableism' should also fall under the equal treatment doctrine. On the
whole, I would oppose a *law* that *required* people to give typewriters to
the blind at a low or regulated cost - I'd think this was inappropriate and
best left to private charitable actions.
Laws requiring wheelchair access for public buildings, though, do seem
appropriate and also meet the equal treatment test wrt. handicapped status.
Pete Hartman
[ deleted by Ed is his continuance of the claim that hetero sex is rape ]
>>Ahahahahaha... No, this is just too good. Why don't you post to
>>alt.sex and ask all the (apparently) deluded females why they enjoy it?
>What, all two of them? Har.
A devoted researcher I can tell.
Oddly enough, the women I've dated have all enjoyed sex. Except for the
first one, I'd say I have no basis to suspect that they were lying about
that, and I'll confess in the first case to being stupid, immature, and
insensetive, but not to being an institution to myself to oppress women.
I'd even be willing to confess to being insensetive at other times, but
then I have not yet met a person of either gender who can claim otherwise.
Certainly not Ed Nilges.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
That's right, remember there is a big difference
between kneeling down and bending over...
Pete Hartman
>>In article <1992Jun27.0...@Princeton.EDU> egni...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>I cannot credit Fascists with having "ideas." Call me a snob, call me
>>>not broadminded (ooooh) but I DENY such people what they DENY me and
>>>races, calling black people "mud people." With far more reason, I deny
>>>that these Fascists have "ideas." What they have are inchoate emotions
>>>and fears which are played-upon by greedy and selfish men.
>>of the fascists, stalinists, maoists and others who deny the humanity of
>>their opponents.
>That's exactly wrong. For computers can arguably have ideas (I can
>write a Lisp program to make a machine act as if it is a philosopher)
Really? Wow. I guess you are CS-StudBoy, since I can't say I know of
any other programmer who makes such claims. The closest I've seen have
been claims that they can write programs that give the appearance of
being a philosopher, yet somehow lack some essential spark that is
evident in a true philosopher.
>but emotions and fears are human. It's you who dehumanize the guy who
>planted a burning cross on a lawn in St. Paul by crediting him with
>ideas. For he was a high-school dropout and to credit him with adult
>ideas debases people with REAL ideas. What Viktora needed was a
>psychiatric social worker, and a father. What he got was nine bozos
>(including a known sexual harrasser) telling him he has ideas.
No worse than whoever told you that you had ideas, since it appears you
are only capable of regurgitating Politically Correct slogans and
justifications. But then I'm dehumanizing you. So sorry.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
Practical Ego Annihilation for the Zen Novice
1) bang head against wall in a steady shuffle rhythm for 8 hours