The "right"? Those are artificial. You also speak as if there are absolute morals, but there is no evidence to support such a conclusion. If someone believes that suicide is alright and they are ready to do it, then that is exactly what they am going to do (regardless of whether or not other people think it's 'wrong'). I think it's a shame if they have children, but that is simply too bad.
Really? I went to public school and I turned out to be highly introverted. I just would rather not deal with people except in certain circumstances.
Also, homeschoolers, if they want, can socialize with people. You don't need to be locked in a building to do that. Not only that, but good social skills are typically not required, as far as I've seen. You just need skills (which is more important than meaningless social skills).
after having mastered dealing with bullies, idiots, know-it-alls
Except that this doesn't seem to be the case. Many people still seem to take mere words far too seriously.
I had the opposite experience. All of the kids at my high school were almost completely computer illiterate. Besides, doing this is far from being required.
So you expect the constitution to be applied literally?
How else should I expect it to be applied? On the whim of a potentially corrupt government? No thanks.
In that case I should be able to walk down any street in the US carrying a fully automatic M16 with a RPG hanging off my shoulder. After all the second admenment only specifies "arms".
Yeah, it does. Just don't kill anyone.
And you summarily dismiss and a valid law such as the prohibition of Slander just because you say so?
Not only is it my opinion, but the first amendment lists no exceptions. Also, your post that I replied to merely asked someone to give you examples of free speech being limited in the US. Even if you agree that people should be stopped for slander, that is still a limitation upon free speech.
Do you really think anything like this would be proposed or supported by either the government or the general public?
It's an analogy. What if it was? Why wouldn't you be against it? After all, you'd still, according to what you previously said, have free speech, since you could just go there if you wanted it. Which isn't correct at all, anyway. Since, if you're not in a free speech zone, you currently don't have free speech.
Any politician floating this type of BS would be crucified in matter of minutes.
Not if it only banned speech that the general public didn't care for. I'd like to say the same thing, but then I see things such as the patriot act, TSA (security theater), and DMCA, and I am forced to disagree.
Any attempt to do this in the US would be met with a citizen backlash that would make the conflicts in the middle east look like a pillow fight.
I wish I could say the same thing with as much confidence as you, but most citizens seem to only care about their own personal lives and would rather just avoid doing things that could anger those in positions of authority. I'm sure there's a limit, but that needn't be crossed in order for there to be a highly corrupt government (even though I'd say that our current one is already corrupt in many ways).
Freedom of speech is a guaranteed right however most people have forgotten that you must also take responsibility for the consequences of your free speech.
It can hardly be deemed "free speech" if someone punishes you for your speech. "Almost free" would be a more accurate name.
People themselves are the only danger. They're the ones acting upon the words, and if they do it foolishly, that is ultimately their own fault.
By definition the "free speech zones" is a place where you can practice freedom of speech.
It's a designated area where you can practice free speech. As far as I know, the first amendment never allows the government to decide when and where people have free speech.
Security was also a major concern because a large group of people congregating around the President or even someone running for President is hard to secure.
Then they might as well move everyone away from the president, since they're all clearly potential terrorists. Getting around this is easy: pretend to have no criticism of the president. What a pointless loss of free speech. "Security" just sounds like a terrible, convenient excuse.
Nobody was prevented from exercising their freedom of speech.
Would you say that we have free speech if the government got rid of free speech in all places except a single city in a single state, or something such as that? Same situation, only worse.
Name one instance where freedom of speech has been suppressed in the US.
Being sued for slander (and having that lawsuit enforced by the government) and free speech zones are a few examples that come to my mind. There's most likely more, and whether those are good or bad is subjective anyway. Certainly, I don't think it's as bad as some other places, though.
but burning it is a rejection of the nation, not merely of policies.
Burning cloth, how horrible! We should just stop them from expressing their opinion through a harmless action. Yeah. That is what a truly free country would do.
they might lack the maturity to realize porn is not what real sex is like.
The key word here is "might." Just like someone (likely a miniscule amount of people) "might" not be able to differentiate video games from reality. Really, how many people actually make this mistake? Difficult to answer. I think that number isn't large at all because I think most people, teenagers included, can differentiate between fiction (even if it appears real, like a movie) and reality.
I know a guy who's first girlfriend didn't shave her pubic hair. The first time he saw her naked, he was shocked and disgusted by the hair because in all the porn movies he saw, women were shaved.
It's called preference. He likely didn't dislike the hair just because it wasn't in pornography, but because it just wasn't his preference.
Well, you might get some malware if you're somewhat technologically inept, but if not, that probably won't happen. There are plenty of things you can do to prevent that from happening (reading comments, using a virus scanner, downloading from trusted sources, etc).
So... murder is accepted by the general populace to be moral and decent now? Really, how much worse can you get than murder and destruction? I don't understand the point of that little exception (especially since they're just games anyway).
Why does something have to cause catastrophic damage before people will try to stop it? The fact that the situation could be worse does not mean that the current situation is good or that it shouldn't be changed for the better.
We haven't had a terrorist attack in this country since the law came into effect.
Which could be for any number of reasons. Increased awareness, more focus in the middle east, increased security on the actual planes (not because of the TSA's security theater), etc.
Besides, I'd rather risk a terrorist attack than give up any of my constitutionally granted rights.
They don't need a new 'excuse' because it's not being used to monitor the porn you're downloading and I assure you the Government has bigger fish to fry.
And I don't want an excuse. No excuse will be good enough to convince me that they are doing a good thing by ignoring the fourth amendment (no matter what the supreme court rules, as they could easily be wrong).
Sure they may be snooping your traffic but the law says they can so any claims you make about it being a violation of your constitutional rights are useless.
The police are your avatar in the world of crime-fighting.
And? That doesn't mean that they never have hostile intent or make mistakes. The point of warrants and limiting their powers (and abilities) is to limit the chances of either happening.
You need to give them the ability to beat the criminals
They have more than enough power without having some ridiculous ability that invades my privacy. Privacy or power to the police with a great risk of corruption? I'd much rather have the former.
I'd much rather let criminals escape than have an innocent be treated as a criminal because of one policeman's agenda or mistake.
That's true. They can do it. But they should not be able to. They shouldn't even have the tools to do so as far as I'm concerned (to minimize the number of mistakes and malicious behavior, which can be hidden at times). That is the problem.
You could, but that wouldn't necessarily stop them. They might even alter the law later. I'd rather not ever give them this ability in the first place to minimize the risks. Sure, it might be more difficult to catch these 'criminals', but that is how it should be, in my opinion.
No, they didn't. But now an alternate option is available so that such things won't happen. If it becomes a problem then the phone can be taken away on an individual basis.
No, because a spouse is an adult who is presumably capable of understanding the complexities of social interaction.
Like with children, this isn't always necessarily true.
I'm having a hard time thinking of anything between spouses that would qualify as something needing discipline rather than something that is a difference of opinion.
Sometimes they get angry and do 'foolish' things. Even adults yell and break things when they are angry (even if it happens less). Often people are stubborn as well and refuse to see the 'error' of their ways (and insist that it is the other person's fault, even if they didn't resort to violent behavior).
Well, I guess I am limiting myself in a way. However, I believe it is for the best. What the constitution says (what they agreed upon or just wrote) is what is final. I'd rather not play guessing games.
Okay, I should have said that the Constitution does not forbid restrictions on free speech and that even the First Ammendment can't disallow all restrictions.
Again, I do not understand. From where do you get this information? Why can only some speech be restricted? I see nothing about that in the first amendment.
This is not a matter of how they please. It's a matter of, do we want an appropriate, existing law, applied here, or do we want to give a large community of distraught parents motivation to go to legislatures that are all too willing to pass stupid laws, clamoring for something stronger to protect their daughters.
So we should do these things merely to please people who might want 'stupid' laws written? No, we should just throw those out.
Would you really rather this kind of behavior end up classed in with hate crimes, so that it's no longer a misdemeanor, but a full felony? Unforunately, that's what the options are.
I'd rather take my chances and defend the first amendment.
But as far as the girls should learn to tough it up a bit, so should the guys.
The guy wasn't angry or sad about something, was he? He wasn't offended as far as I can tell. He was just doing something he thought was interesting. "Tough it up" essentially means "stop being so easily offended."
There are much less offensive ways to get a girl's attentions than judging her physical appearance
And obviously he doesn't prefer those methods and would rather have fun rating them based on physical appearance.
There are certain kinds of words which, when regeatedly and pushed to extremes, do go beyond mere words.
If the 'victim' lets them, yes.
Come on, get out of your idealized fantasy world and live in the real world, where words can, indeed, count.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you still have the right to commit suicide?
The "right"? Those are artificial. You also speak as if there are absolute morals, but there is no evidence to support such a conclusion. If someone believes that suicide is alright and they are ready to do it, then that is exactly what they am going to do (regardless of whether or not other people think it's 'wrong'). I think it's a shame if they have children, but that is simply too bad.
Really? I went to public school and I turned out to be highly introverted. I just would rather not deal with people except in certain circumstances.
Also, homeschoolers, if they want, can socialize with people. You don't need to be locked in a building to do that. Not only that, but good social skills are typically not required, as far as I've seen. You just need skills (which is more important than meaningless social skills).
after having mastered dealing with bullies, idiots, know-it-alls
Except that this doesn't seem to be the case. Many people still seem to take mere words far too seriously.
send them to high school with other children.
I had the opposite experience. All of the kids at my high school were almost completely computer illiterate. Besides, doing this is far from being required.
So you expect the constitution to be applied literally?
How else should I expect it to be applied? On the whim of a potentially corrupt government? No thanks.
In that case I should be able to walk down any street in the US carrying a fully automatic M16 with a RPG hanging off my shoulder. After all the second admenment only specifies "arms".
Yeah, it does. Just don't kill anyone.
And you summarily dismiss and a valid law such as the prohibition of Slander just because you say so?
Not only is it my opinion, but the first amendment lists no exceptions. Also, your post that I replied to merely asked someone to give you examples of free speech being limited in the US. Even if you agree that people should be stopped for slander, that is still a limitation upon free speech.
Do you really think anything like this would be proposed or supported by either the government or the general public?
It's an analogy. What if it was? Why wouldn't you be against it? After all, you'd still, according to what you previously said, have free speech, since you could just go there if you wanted it. Which isn't correct at all, anyway. Since, if you're not in a free speech zone, you currently don't have free speech.
Any politician floating this type of BS would be crucified in matter of minutes.
Not if it only banned speech that the general public didn't care for. I'd like to say the same thing, but then I see things such as the patriot act, TSA (security theater), and DMCA, and I am forced to disagree.
Any attempt to do this in the US would be met with a citizen backlash that would make the conflicts in the middle east look like a pillow fight.
I wish I could say the same thing with as much confidence as you, but most citizens seem to only care about their own personal lives and would rather just avoid doing things that could anger those in positions of authority. I'm sure there's a limit, but that needn't be crossed in order for there to be a highly corrupt government (even though I'd say that our current one is already corrupt in many ways).
Freedom of speech is a guaranteed right however most people have forgotten that you must also take responsibility for the consequences of your free speech.
It can hardly be deemed "free speech" if someone punishes you for your speech. "Almost free" would be a more accurate name.
The law against Slander is not a recent law
You didn't say it had to be, as far as I see.
and has been judged as a legitimate charge.
That doesn't mean that it is.
Freedom of speech has specific limits
Not in the first amendment, though.
speech creating danger for the people involved.
People themselves are the only danger. They're the ones acting upon the words, and if they do it foolishly, that is ultimately their own fault.
By definition the "free speech zones" is a place where you can practice freedom of speech.
It's a designated area where you can practice free speech. As far as I know, the first amendment never allows the government to decide when and where people have free speech.
Security was also a major concern because a large group of people congregating around the President or even someone running for President is hard to secure.
Then they might as well move everyone away from the president, since they're all clearly potential terrorists. Getting around this is easy: pretend to have no criticism of the president. What a pointless loss of free speech. "Security" just sounds like a terrible, convenient excuse.
Nobody was prevented from exercising their freedom of speech.
Would you say that we have free speech if the government got rid of free speech in all places except a single city in a single state, or something such as that? Same situation, only worse.
where failures can be fatal without a college education.
Failures can be fatal if you don't know what you're doing.
common sense
Common sense is funny in that it isn't always right.
Name one instance where freedom of speech has been suppressed in the US.
Being sued for slander (and having that lawsuit enforced by the government) and free speech zones are a few examples that come to my mind. There's most likely more, and whether those are good or bad is subjective anyway. Certainly, I don't think it's as bad as some other places, though.
but burning it is a rejection of the nation, not merely of policies.
Burning cloth, how horrible! We should just stop them from expressing their opinion through a harmless action. Yeah. That is what a truly free country would do.
they might lack the maturity to realize porn is not what real sex is like.
The key word here is "might." Just like someone (likely a miniscule amount of people) "might" not be able to differentiate video games from reality. Really, how many people actually make this mistake? Difficult to answer. I think that number isn't large at all because I think most people, teenagers included, can differentiate between fiction (even if it appears real, like a movie) and reality.
I know a guy who's first girlfriend didn't shave her pubic hair. The first time he saw her naked, he was shocked and disgusted by the hair because in all the porn movies he saw, women were shaved.
It's called preference. He likely didn't dislike the hair just because it wasn't in pornography, but because it just wasn't his preference.
Well, you might get some malware if you're somewhat technologically inept, but if not, that probably won't happen. There are plenty of things you can do to prevent that from happening (reading comments, using a virus scanner, downloading from trusted sources, etc).
clearly offensive
That isn't much better at all as it's also subjective.
literary/artistic
And these, too.
So... murder is accepted by the general populace to be moral and decent now? Really, how much worse can you get than murder and destruction? I don't understand the point of that little exception (especially since they're just games anyway).
They didn't handle this well, but that doesn't even close to justify what's been happening.
According to who? Is justification really needed when morals are likely merely opinions in the first place?
Why does something have to cause catastrophic damage before people will try to stop it? The fact that the situation could be worse does not mean that the current situation is good or that it shouldn't be changed for the better.
We haven't had a terrorist attack in this country since the law came into effect.
Which could be for any number of reasons. Increased awareness, more focus in the middle east, increased security on the actual planes (not because of the TSA's security theater), etc.
Besides, I'd rather risk a terrorist attack than give up any of my constitutionally granted rights.
They don't need a new 'excuse' because it's not being used to monitor the porn you're downloading and I assure you the Government has bigger fish to fry.
And I don't want an excuse. No excuse will be good enough to convince me that they are doing a good thing by ignoring the fourth amendment (no matter what the supreme court rules, as they could easily be wrong).
Sure they may be snooping your traffic but the law says they can so any claims you make about it being a violation of your constitutional rights are useless.
And the law can be wrong.
Some places have it worse. Therefore, this is okay.
The police are your avatar in the world of crime-fighting.
And? That doesn't mean that they never have hostile intent or make mistakes. The point of warrants and limiting their powers (and abilities) is to limit the chances of either happening.
You need to give them the ability to beat the criminals
They have more than enough power without having some ridiculous ability that invades my privacy. Privacy or power to the police with a great risk of corruption? I'd much rather have the former.
I'd much rather let criminals escape than have an innocent be treated as a criminal because of one policeman's agenda or mistake.
That's true. They can do it. But they should not be able to. They shouldn't even have the tools to do so as far as I'm concerned (to minimize the number of mistakes and malicious behavior, which can be hidden at times). That is the problem.
You could, but that wouldn't necessarily stop them. They might even alter the law later. I'd rather not ever give them this ability in the first place to minimize the risks. Sure, it might be more difficult to catch these 'criminals', but that is how it should be, in my opinion.
No, they didn't. But now an alternate option is available so that such things won't happen. If it becomes a problem then the phone can be taken away on an individual basis.
No, because a spouse is an adult who is presumably capable of understanding the complexities of social interaction.
Like with children, this isn't always necessarily true.
I'm having a hard time thinking of anything between spouses that would qualify as something needing discipline rather than something that is a difference of opinion.
Sometimes they get angry and do 'foolish' things. Even adults yell and break things when they are angry (even if it happens less). Often people are stubborn as well and refuse to see the 'error' of their ways (and insist that it is the other person's fault, even if they didn't resort to violent behavior).
Seriously? We'd better stop joking about everything, then. Some people might take us seriously!
Well, I guess I am limiting myself in a way. However, I believe it is for the best. What the constitution says (what they agreed upon or just wrote) is what is final. I'd rather not play guessing games.
Okay, I should have said that the Constitution does not forbid restrictions on free speech and that even the First Ammendment can't disallow all restrictions.
Again, I do not understand. From where do you get this information? Why can only some speech be restricted? I see nothing about that in the first amendment.
This is not a matter of how they please. It's a matter of, do we want an appropriate, existing law, applied here, or do we want to give a large community of distraught parents motivation to go to legislatures that are all too willing to pass stupid laws, clamoring for something stronger to protect their daughters.
So we should do these things merely to please people who might want 'stupid' laws written? No, we should just throw those out.
Would you really rather this kind of behavior end up classed in with hate crimes, so that it's no longer a misdemeanor, but a full felony? Unforunately, that's what the options are.
I'd rather take my chances and defend the first amendment.
But as far as the girls should learn to tough it up a bit, so should the guys.
The guy wasn't angry or sad about something, was he? He wasn't offended as far as I can tell. He was just doing something he thought was interesting. "Tough it up" essentially means "stop being so easily offended."
There are much less offensive ways to get a girl's attentions than judging her physical appearance
And obviously he doesn't prefer those methods and would rather have fun rating them based on physical appearance.
There are certain kinds of words which, when regeatedly and pushed to extremes, do go beyond mere words.
If the 'victim' lets them, yes.
Come on, get out of your idealized fantasy world and live in the real world, where words can, indeed, count.
So, I'm incorrect and you are correct?
Not silenced in the literal sense, obviously. It's more, "if you say something that someone doesn't like, you will be punished."