Well.... His point is well taken though.
For example - Every year on Woodward Avenue, there's protesters against abortion and at the time the gay marriage debate.
They can protest all they want within their legal limits...but when it turns to assembly of an openly disturbing group, then action can take place but only if reported.
What confuses the hell out of me is how one old fart drives his little rusted out truck with billboards of cut off baby heads and dead baby bodies on large billboards and rides down woodward avenue with it.
If they won't allow kids to see blood/guts in a movie theatre, how the hell are they allowing it on the streets where 18 miles worth of wall to wall people are viewing this??
I totally agree this group had to go as it was promoting hate and discontent, but what about the rest of the world we live in and have no control over?
You learn to live with the fact that you have no control over the thoughts and opinions of others. If you expect them to tolerate your beliefs, then you have to tolerate theirs.
Cinema films are only rated voluntarily. The MPAA is not a government body and has no legal enforcement authority. A film producer is free to bypass the MPAA entirely and several notable films have though it is very difficult to get film distributors to touch an unrated film.
It wouldn't bother me in the least. I'd think they were idiots for doing it, especially considering the nanny-state mentality of those policing this place, but I'd otherwise pay it no mind.
The point of distinction, in my opinion, exists where expression becomes action. Expressing hatred in and of itself, while certainly ugly, is not something I consider to be worthy of suppression. Once the rhetoric becomes incitement to act, the line has been crossed and sanctions should follow.
For example, I have no problem with the FB group that prompted this thread and its hatred of people who look like fags. I find it remarkably ignorant, but things like this serve as little badges people wear that say to me, "I'm not someone you want to have any association with."
In contrast, there was at least one group on FB or some other site that was in the news for setting up a "Kick a Ginger" day, which several moronic followers actually did.
Suppression of expression is almost never a good thing, and should never be applied without the most clear necessity.
I agree completely. I think censorship is even more dangerous than hate speech. We have been warned about this time and again by some of the wisest people in the world and I tend to side with them. Censorship serves to inadvertently reinforce the very argument it seeks to quash by promoting the idea that there are no better ideas than the ones being censored. It says, "we can't defend against what you're saying so will just stop you from saying it." That forces hate speech groups underground where they can accurately and truthfully state that they're being censored. And what do people want to read or see most? Censored stuff.
That is the point. We are talking about homosexual prejudice, it's on a scale that surpasses any stupid behaviour of the ignorant. There are very intelligent but bigotted people out there who without the lgbt community protected as a minority group would be undoubtedly inciting hatred and perhaps even violence by excercising their 'right' to free speech.
Incite to violence and expressing hatred are two different things. One is protected under US law, the other is not. Things are different in the UK as there is no law protecting freedom of speech so you have more gray areas than we do. Empirically however, I think that anything short of incite to violence should be protected as freedom of expression. The right to free speech does not mean, "You're free to express speech which only we agree with." In fact, that kind of speech needs the least protection. The speech that needs the most protection is that which expresses the most unpopular and shocking ideas.
You either have to accept that some issues require for the benefit of many to be dissassociated for good reason or that we concern ourselves unnecessarily with the idea that we are in some way being harmed by not actively being able to attack others lifestyles or beliefs. It does'nt make sense for the latter to be the case.
Perhaps it doesn't but doesn't censorship do the same thing? Censors are attacking others lifestyles and beliefs by actively trying to silence those who disagree with them. In this case, the reverse to the norm has happened.
I imagine you take equality issues to be far too literal in your application of them. If you support the rights of those that do not deserve them (that is the stance you take when you defend the rights of bigots using protection law to justify their behaviour) then you are taking the stick out of the carrot and stick approach to social order and yet you cry that LPSG mods (and Facebook) are being nanny-like? Hypocricy
Who are you to decide what is taken too far? Who deserves respect of rights and who doesn't? At some point people who thought you didn't deserve any rights at all stopped trying to prevent you from having them and decided to respect your rights. Now you have legal protection for your sexual orientation and the right to marry. I daresay the great majority of people at one point thought you didn't deserve any such rights at all but, happily, they decided to respect your rights.
Exchange between Sir Thomas More and his son-in-law from
A Man For All Seasons:
Roper: So now you'd give the devil benefit of law.
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the law was down and the devil turned round on you where would you hide? Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.'
its not silencing. its reporting a violation of the ToC of another website. would you be against reporting homophobic people on LPSG?
A website is free to host whatever it wants as a private entity. Facebook is under no legal obligation to permit or deny any particular speech because of this. If that group is a violation of their ToS then it is. I have no problem with Facebook deciding what to do what they want with their own property.
What I do not care for is the intolerant mob mentality that forced the group to be shut down. It's as bad as having a pro-gay group being shut-down by the same mechanism.
And no, I've never reported homophobic speech at LPSG. I think it better to try to convince people of the error of their thinking than to tell them they have no right to be respected. Disenfranchisement is the mother of violence.
Yep it's gone. :wink: There's a difference between freedom of speech and starting a group to incite hatred.
Not under US law, which is what governs Facebook. Again, Facebook as a private business is free to decide what it wants, but incite of hatred is legally protected in the US. Incite to violence is not. This means that if you want to advocate al Qaeda's mission (if not its plans) or operate like Fred Phelps, you're free to do so. In the free and open forum of ideas, nearly anything is permitted and should be so as to allow the greatest latitude of debate and discussion. We are not children and as much as we might find it distressing how easily some people are swayed by illogical or simplistic arguments, we have to respect each other's capacity to think for ourselves.
Perhaps, HG, except it isn't. It's called legitimate mobilization of protest in self-defense.
Unless you would prefer we start an alternative group on Facebook called We Hate People Who Hate People Who Look [correctly or incorrectly] Gay [which we do not believe to be a bad thing].
Again, I resort to John Stuart Mill:
[FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.[/FONT]- On Liberty
Haha, quite true, but I never wear pink (or salmon) either.
Too bad. You'd look good in pink. Seriously.
