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NY Senators Want To Make Free Speech A Privilege
An anonymous reader writes "A group of four NY state senators have written a paper suggesting that free speech should be looked upon as a government granted privilege rather than a right. They're specifically concerned about cyberstalking and cyberbullying, and are introducing legislation to make both of those against the law. Among other troubling concepts, they argue that merely 'excluding' someone from a group is a form of cyberbullying."
by this attempt, and expect restitution for their callous behavior and pissing on the Bill of Rights.
Those god damn Republicans continuing to erode our rights like this, first Bush and the Patriot Act and now . . . what? They're Democrats? Oh, well then, carry on.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
why would you want to keep the holocaust deniers at bay by giving up the right of free speech?
are holocaust deniers that big a pest or is your free speech worth that little?
They spent World War II fighting the Nazis. Then they spent the Cold War fighting the Communists. Now they are becoming them. Fucking bastard asshole bags of shit. Hang'em high.
They wrote a paper that explains an opinion about an idea that is controversial and unpopular. It is exactly the kind of thing that the First Amendment was intended to protect.
Incidentally, there is no "right to revolt" in the Constitution. The concept is covered in the Declaration of Independence which, while culturally and politically significant, holds no legal weight.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they probably didn't campaign on an anti-Bill of Rights platform.
The quote given is taken completely out of context, infacT the report notes on the page previous that
The report has some fairly decently nuanced considerations and is being damned by a single, out of context quote. Hell read onto the next page if you like
HOLY SHIT, THEYRE CONSIDERING THE LAW AS IT'S WRITTEN AND APPLIED IN THE REAL WORLD, NOT MY IDEOLOGICAL BUNKER!!!!!
I believe Thomas Jefferson would argue that the "right to revolt" comes from nature, and does not need to be outlined in any legal document.
Just to drive it home, since the summary and article avoid it scrupulously, this is a Democratic party proposal from an 'Independent Democratic Conference'.
Not because I think the Republicans are any better, but people seem to need reminding that both major political parties hate the Bill of Rights and love short sighted dangerous 'fixes' for whatever they think today's social panic is.
Since revolution is fundamentally extralegal, that makes sense. It's also a fine illustration of the limitations of Law: it's meaningless in the face of sufficiently-commited violence.
Silent enim leges inter arma. -- Cicero
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
All the article links to is a report which is in all caps, and is very hard to read. Here's the official copy, as linked to by the NY State Senate. http://www.nysenate.gov/files/pdfs/final%20cyberbullying_report_september_2011_0.pdf
In Canada, we do not have free speech in absolute terms like our southern counterparts. The difference between us and what those senators are suggesting is that we have a Charter of Rights which protects us from any attempt of gov't approved censorship. It can be annoying at times, but it keeps the holocaust deniers at bay.
We actually have massive government-perpetrated censorship. So-called "human rights commissions", which are government bureaucracies, impose large fines, with no real legal recourse, on those targets (carefully chosen, of course) who violate the supposed rights of others not to be offended. As long as those others are members of the correct groups, of course.
I know a lot of people in general, and Slashdot readers in particular, won't/don't agree with many of Ezra Levant's positions, but he's done more to shine disinfecting sunlight on the HRCs than all the "civil liberties" groups in Canada combined. Googling his name and doing some reading will quickly show just how fragile supposed freedom of speech really is in Canada. That may be gradually changing, thankfully - there are movements afoot to remove or re-word Section 13 of the Human Rights Act so that just hurting someone's feelings is no longer an offense. In fact, Ezra just did a segment on his show about it: http://ezralevant.com/2011/10/free-speechs-only-hope.html.
The solution to Holocaust deniers is not to stifle everyone's freedom of speech. Let them say their piece, then let the rest of us refute, rebuke, and roundly mock.
Cultures who outlaw dickwads are at the mercy of those who define the term "dickwad." Wait until your favorite religion/race/affiliation/cereal-brand is a "hate crime."
The US has free speech so that no man may stifle another man's conscience.
They (the US) spent HALF the second world war fighting the Nazis, the other half selling them computers to help round up the jews. The gov of the US has a long history of helping bad men rule innocent people with an iron fist. The only thing new here is that they're doing it to YOU.
The culprits are:
Jeffrey Klein
Diane Savino
David Carlucci
David Valesky
They of a growing movement to end democracy. See, for example, North Carolina Governor Beverly Purdue's suggestion that federal elections be suspended. James Taranto provides other examples.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Cultures who outlaw dickwads are at the mercy of those who define the term "dickwad." Wait until your favorite religion/race/affiliation/cereal-brand is a "hate crime."
This is why, as a morally and theologically conservative Christian, I would describe myself as libertarian. The more power you give the government to enforce your views, the more power you give the government to use against you.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I suspect you weren't listening. It was pretty clear to me.
In a free society, you are free to do things. However, you are also responsible for the things you do (with freedom comes responsibility). Your implied concept that freedom must mean the abrogation of responsibility, then you're building the foundations of a lunatic asylum. There are already a whole slew of things that you're free to say, but reap the downside of (slander etc.).
I suspect the intention of "free speech" was to prevent the government repressing the people, not being able to speak out against tyranny and being forced to be mere silent pawns of the state (you know, kind of how the peasantry of England was at the time of the war of independence).
Instead, you now have abusive petty tyrants in the thousands who believe they have the absolute right to bully, demean and abuse people by way of words and expressions, and somehow, it's magically OK to do this because they're guaranteed freedom of speech, supposedly with no repercussion or consequence to their actions? This is definitely not the utopia imagined; more of a dystopia that wasn't even imagined back then. Actions have consequences.
The idea of freedom is you get to choose the consequences, good or bad. Same as you get the choice about whether to pick a potato from the fire with a toasting fork, or use your bare hand.
If people listen to the words, that's up to them. It gives you no real idea of their thoughts on it. As soon as they act on it, you know, and that's when you punish the illegal. However, incitement to crimes doesn't let you walk away free, as far as I believe.. Same as you'd be unhappy if someone kept threatening (in a serious way) to kill you, and asking people around to rough you up. Would you be happy that he was perfectly free to pursue this activity as 'just words' and fight for their freedom to say them? Or would you turn round and say "This guy's nuts, this is just plain dangerous and insane" and request that the cops do something?
Know what I'd do.. Request that this loon reap the consequences of their actions (speech is an action).
Sexual assault is a part of life. It's GOING to happen. It sucks, but that's how it is. The correct solution is for adults to help people learn how to deal with it, not find ways to make it illegal.
Right? Why not?
Cyberbullying is not exercising your right to call Tommy a jerk online. Its systematic harassment bordering if not jumping off into full on psychological torture.
It should be illegal along with all other forms of harassment, stalking, and so forth.
In so far as they would consider abolishing freedom of association: they are going against their oath to uphold The Constitution of the United States.
It suggests they don't consider their promise to the public when discussing or possibly deciding legislation. It suggests they think of themselves as rulers instead of public servants.
For example, if a corporation were to discuss defrauding the public as a way to solve a particular problem; people would generally be upset on finding out.
With a company you might have a choice whether to do business with them. But with government, since they have a monopoly on force (fines, prison, etc), everyone is subject and there is no other (safe) choice. People who don't have a choice about something they disagree with: well, they sometimes resort to more physical methods of argument
I don't advocating violence over something that's just being discussed: but it's perfectly reasonable why threats of violence would be a reaction in this instance.
Previous poster beat me to it, so here is another: thought crimes involving taboo subjects of the moment, like writing "child pornography" fiction, drawing "child pornography" cartoons or even just attempting to write a scholarly text on the subject, a work that disagrees with the official stance of the Holy Inquisition and which points out the psychotic attitude towards sex and minors in modern societies. People are in jail for this, and other "free speech we didn't like" crimes in the USA.
Writing a book that glorifies the aims of the current "enemies of the state", such as for example Al-Queda, is also likely to deprive you of your freedom, this time even bypassing the judicial system all-together and straight into some secret "detention centre" complete with "enhanced interrogation techniques" or should your book become too popular, simply executed without any due course whatsoever, something that has been demonstrated rather forcefully just a few days back.
ah the intelligent people who make the same broad cultural insinuations about said 'anti-intellectuals' (people who don't agree with their selectively biased quackery), while wearing said quackery as chips on their shoulders and clamoring for 'hate speech' style laws to shield them from criticism.
the left biased intelligentsia coming out of today's universities needs to learn that facts (all of them) and the resulting truth matters more than what they feel about it. true rapport doesn't come from shielding the truth whenever it hurts someone's feelings...whether it's a parent talking to a tweenager or a bunch of yale graduate politicians writing legislation. in fact, people who suffer selection bias based on feelings should not be considered especially intelligent or of good character.