Now that dissent is patriotic, once again (instead of being racist and sexist), efforts to criminalize "hate speech" and the like should stop for a while. Internet freedom — at least, in the US — should be Ok for at least one generation.
Are we supposed to trust Tesla's own results of testing Tesla's product? Seriously? 98% is entirely too low in such circumstances, Saddam Hussein got 100%...
Sure. Because Kremlin says so... Except, they don't even claim that... It is all a product of hypotheses, suggestions, and unsubstantiated — usually anonymous — claims.
Meanwhile, a few facts about Clinton's recent past:
The only thing, that can be done to address the above accusations by your kind is down-modding them — facts are stubborn. So, apply some Vaseline, charge your Prius and head for Canada as you promised.
The Beautiful Wickedness finally had some water splashed on her, and us, the deplorable munchkins, are rejoicing.
It is not? When then-candidate Donald Trump criticized the tiny minority of Mexicans, which chooses to cross into the US illegally, he was denounced as racist...
Were you raising the same objection then? Could you post a link to it, if you did?
What is the "special benefit" to society of allowing false advertising?
Why should I "turn the question upside down"? Ours is a free country — what is not prohibited is allowed, not the other way around. For you to limit/ban an activity, you and/or other proponents of the ban have to present (good) reasons, not the other way around.
When the activity is speech, no such bans are legal for as long as the First Amendment remains unamended.
A 2/3rd majority in congress and the senate plus 38 state legislatures and they can just amend the constitution to allow them to make any adjustment they like.
Absolutely! And that is, indeed, how Prohibition was passed — and then repealed. That would be acceptable, but our ruling class has found constitutional amendments to be too difficult/messy since then... (Indeed, some Presidents don't bother even with laws, relying on executive orders instead.)
And so, that is not, how the laws you defend as not unconstitutional were passed — these are simply federal laws. Sometimes even less than that — regulations by the federal "agencies", themselves of dubious constitutionality.
the "meaningfulness" of the first amendment is represented by the fact that these cases are routinely decided by the supreme court.
No one wishes to go on record as "racist" — by defending the racists' rights to racist speech. That does not mean, the laws in question do not contradict the Constitution, just that no case has made it to the Supreme Court yet.
You called it a 'slippery slope'... the first amendment adds quite a bit of friction.
I gave you some examples of dangerous attacks on that friction. Sadly, college-students are at the forefronts of them — which means, in another 10 years, what you call "friction" is likely to become smooth/slippery (pick one depending on spin).
I'll take ineffective self government over abdicating the responsibility entirely.
Sure. Which brings us right back — efforts to fight racism via legislation have summarily failed to both a) bring about racial harmony; b) elevate the earlier-oppressed minority to observable equality.
The laws against perjury, intellectual property theft, etc. may stand, because they can be said to have been grandfathered-in, when the Amendment was written. But any further infringements on the Freedom of Speech should be rejected with derision.
A republic and a democracy can't abide them [false advertising claims -mi] being legal.
Why? It is not illegal to lie in most other circumstances, what's so especially damaging about false advertising? It is certainly annoying — and disgusting — but it poses no special threat...
Back to my question a few posts ago — is the First Amendment (the free speech part) meaningful at all in your opinion? Or is Congress allowed, contrary to what the Amendment states, to make speech-limiting laws as long as some excuse for that can be found? Your waxing argument about inevitability of compromises seems to suggest, a popular law can limit various kinds of speech — we could as well not have the Bill of Rights...
Or maybe humans just aren't capable of effective self government yet.
Does this imply, we'd be better off governed by a) aliens; b) AI; c) humans more equal than the rest of us?
I am willing to compromise and limit anti-discrimination laws to manual labor
I challenge anyone to come up with a moral/ethical justification for such laws, that would not also apply to our selecting friends and mating partners.
Why can an employer be harangued over having disproportionately many Whites, but a girl, who rejected four Blacks suitors and went out with an Asian, is not prosecuted?
Political speech mostly, and the expression of ideas are the most protected.
That's a very vague answer...
The sad reality is, once you accept even a seemingly innocuous infringement — such as, for example, that famous example of yelling "fire" (or "gun!") in a crowd, you start down a very steep and slippery slope. For example, Trump is — according to millions of Americans — a very dangerous man to this country, his election promising to be a disaster far more dangerous than a handful of deaths in a panicked crowd of any theater. He is also a racist, is not he? Ergo, Trump's speech, however political, should be curtailed, his followers suppressed. (Wait for AC follow-ups here expressing agreement with this sentence.)
Why its almost as if the authors didn't actually think the first amendment mean you could say anything you wanted anytime you wanted.
So, is anything protected by the Amendment, or is Congress really free to ban any speech it wants to — provided, some justification can be articulated?
An action was taken that affected others. It's not a 'thought crime'.
What made the action illegal is the thought held by the "perpetrators". That makes it a thought-crime.
limitations on making death threats
Perhaps unlike "grabbing pussy", credible death threats are assaults.
committing slander
Slander has been a tort (not a crime) since well before the First Amendment was written. It was never in conflict with the Bill of Rights.
leaking intelligence to foreign governments
People gaining legitimate access to such intelligence voluntarily give up the right to this speech.
yelling fire in a theater
Should not be illegal either.
printing bootleg copies of movies and selling them
About half of Slashdot feels, this is a bogus prohibition too... More importantly, the concept of "intellectual property" has been with us since the Constitution was written, its authors still alive.
perjury
Speech under oath is different. And, like the above, it has been since before the First Amendment was passed — never seen as conflicting with it by the contemporaries.
So is the first amendment is only the most important thing when it supports the thing you want to support?
Contrary to your suspicions, I am not a racist. Let's keep the present company outside of the conversation.
Would that be your right to be a racist and actively discriminate against other citizens?
Yes, racists are no less entitled to the Constitutional protections than the rest of us — please, make sure to explicitly state, whether or not you agree with this, in any follow-up.
It's only a freedom of speech issue if it is illegal to say certain things
It is much more than that. The 1964 law cited by TFA is used to tell Facebook, what they can and can not say — and to whom. It obviously abridges Facebook's freedom of speech. If we were to accept the general idea, that government may dictate, who speech can addressed to, we would allow the government to suppress speech altogether: there-there, you can still talk to yourself in the shower — that takes care of your First Amendment rights — but you can't say this and that to anyone else...
But, even by your standard, it is "illegal to say certain things" to some people, unless you also say the same things to others. Whether or not it is a manifestation of racism of Facebook and/or their advertisers, is irrelevant. Racists are no less protected by the Bill of Rights than the rest of us.
The much celebrated "civil rights" laws of the 60-ies have failed. It is time, they go the way of the similarly failed Prohibition.
The allegedly-violated itself obviously violates the First Amendment and is thus invalid.
It is both unconstitutional, which should be enough in theory, and ineffective in practice — quite obviously, the interracial relations in this country continue to stink despite (or because of?) our having a half-Black President.
Whatever it was we tried for over 50 years to achieve racial harmony, is not working. Let's stop sacrificing actual rights to it...
Google has been harassing me every I look: Youtube, my phone, my tablet -- "do you know where to vote?" "look up your polling place?" etc... etc... etc...
Simply put, responsible citizens do not need such help discharging their duties. We know, there is a vote, we know where it is. We've registered to vote long ago and made arrangements with baby-sitters etc. to visit the polls — or requested absentee ballots.
But such folks tend to vote Conservative (or should I say KKKon$ervative?), so, for the Illiberals to win, they need to prod the less responsible with signs, TV-commercials (ranging from "Chose or Lose" to "Vote or Die"). Such people need help registering to vote — and some even need to be reassured, they would not be prosecuted for voting illegally (a claim, Snopes bizarrely called "false").
Throughout human history, people have fought and died for the right to vote — world-wide. Whoever does not cherish that right already, should not be encouraged to take part in the country's governance.
Most states publish results as they are tabulated and recorded, providing these to media outlets.
Whatever most States do, it is enough for one (or two) of them to be sufficiently close to warrant a recount or a legal action, and the national results may be delayed by days and weeks.
Senator Reid — a Slashdot veteran? Why are you calling yourself "sh00z"?
While on the subject of Hatch Act, perhaps, you should look into John Podesta's BFF — who tipped her campaign before, and whose son joined the campaign openly — "investigating" Hillary Clinton?
Seriously, what does the quoted statement mean? By what standard and compared to what does Sweden "work well"? Even if we leave aside their recent problems related to mass immigration from different (if not incompatible cultures), how do we know it "works" and works not despite of, but thanks to Leftist policies? The country was spared the destruction during WW2 — it should be way ahead of France and Germany, for example, which were rather leveled... But it is not...
Oh, and its military is a joke — like those of most of Europe — and it would've been overrun by the USSR long ago, had it not been for the evil KKKapitalist Yankees...
Slashdot Mirror
Now that dissent is patriotic, once again (instead of being racist and sexist), efforts to criminalize "hate speech" and the like should stop for a while. Internet freedom — at least, in the US — should be Ok for at least one generation.
Why? It would seem, the technique can be used with a perfectly passive radio-receiver, which would not be (mis)taken for an access point at all.
BTW, are you covering your mouth, when you talk outside? Your words can be deciphered from far away by a lip-reading expert (or software). Supposedly, only 30-40% of English language can be "read" over the speaker's lips alone. That may be true for human lip-readers, but there is software, that claims 93.4% success rate. The attack described in TFA has only 68% accuracy... For now...
Are we supposed to trust Tesla's own results of testing Tesla's product? Seriously? 98% is entirely too low in such circumstances, Saddam Hussein got 100%...
Medicare administrators too, for example, would've liked us to think, the program loses only about 1% of its budget to "fraud, waste, and abuse" (better to claim the government being more efficient than KKKorporations) while the independent audits show figures of at least 6% (or even 10%).
Sure. Because Kremlin says so... Except, they don't even claim that... It is all a product of hypotheses, suggestions, and unsubstantiated — usually anonymous — claims.
Meanwhile, a few facts about Clinton's recent past:
The only thing, that can be done to address the above accusations by your kind is down-modding them — facts are stubborn. So, apply some Vaseline, charge your Prius and head for Canada as you promised.
The Beautiful Wickedness finally had some water splashed on her, and us, the deplorable munchkins, are rejoicing.
It is not? When then-candidate Donald Trump criticized the tiny minority of Mexicans, which chooses to cross into the US illegally, he was denounced as racist ...
Were you raising the same objection then? Could you post a link to it, if you did?
The long line of Priuses heading North causing traffic jams on the usually quiet border-crossings. Ah, if only...
BTW, why is not any one of these people talking about moving to Mexico? Racist much?..
After eight years of being racist, dissent is patriotic once again. Congratulations, America.
Why should I "turn the question upside down"? Ours is a free country — what is not prohibited is allowed, not the other way around. For you to limit/ban an activity, you and/or other proponents of the ban have to present (good) reasons, not the other way around.
When the activity is speech, no such bans are legal for as long as the First Amendment remains unamended.
Absolutely! And that is, indeed, how Prohibition was passed — and then repealed. That would be acceptable, but our ruling class has found constitutional amendments to be too difficult/messy since then... (Indeed, some Presidents don't bother even with laws, relying on executive orders instead.)
And so, that is not, how the laws you defend as not unconstitutional were passed — these are simply federal laws. Sometimes even less than that — regulations by the federal "agencies", themselves of dubious constitutionality.
No one wishes to go on record as "racist" — by defending the racists' rights to racist speech. That does not mean, the laws in question do not contradict the Constitution, just that no case has made it to the Supreme Court yet.
I gave you some examples of dangerous attacks on that friction. Sadly, college-students are at the forefronts of them — which means, in another 10 years, what you call "friction" is likely to become smooth/slippery (pick one depending on spin).
Sure. Which brings us right back — efforts to fight racism via legislation have summarily failed to both a) bring about racial harmony; b) elevate the earlier-oppressed minority to observable equality.
The laws against perjury, intellectual property theft, etc. may stand, because they can be said to have been grandfathered-in, when the Amendment was written. But any further infringements on the Freedom of Speech should be rejected with derision.
I know, where these laws came from. That does not answer my challenge regarding moral justification...
Why? It is not illegal to lie in most other circumstances, what's so especially damaging about false advertising? It is certainly annoying — and disgusting — but it poses no special threat...
Back to my question a few posts ago — is the First Amendment (the free speech part) meaningful at all in your opinion? Or is Congress allowed, contrary to what the Amendment states, to make speech-limiting laws as long as some excuse for that can be found? Your waxing argument about inevitability of compromises seems to suggest, a popular law can limit various kinds of speech — we could as well not have the Bill of Rights...
Does this imply, we'd be better off governed by a) aliens; b) AI; c) humans more equal than the rest of us?
I challenge anyone to come up with a moral/ethical justification for such laws, that would not also apply to our selecting friends and mating partners.
Why can an employer be harangued over having disproportionately many Whites, but a girl, who rejected four Blacks suitors and went out with an Asian, is not prosecuted?
That's a very vague answer...
The sad reality is, once you accept even a seemingly innocuous infringement — such as, for example, that famous example of yelling "fire" (or "gun!") in a crowd, you start down a very steep and slippery slope. For example, Trump is — according to millions of Americans — a very dangerous man to this country, his election promising to be a disaster far more dangerous than a handful of deaths in a panicked crowd of any theater. He is also a racist, is not he? Ergo, Trump's speech, however political, should be curtailed, his followers suppressed. (Wait for AC follow-ups here expressing agreement with this sentence.)
If you think, this is an unlikely and asinine scenario, you haven't been paying attention. There are articles and educated opinions out there already proposing a ban on "hate speech" in general (such as on this, supposedly "Liberal" web-site) and on pro-Trump speech in particular... Other perfectly respectable countries ban "hate speech" already — even that of politicians.
One should be extremely careful accepting new arguments for infringing more speech — and always seek to get rid of existing ones.
A Republic (and a Democracy) can survive such bogus claims being legal. They are a nuisance, but not a threat.
So, is anything protected by the Amendment, or is Congress really free to ban any speech it wants to — provided, some justification can be articulated?
What made the action illegal is the thought held by the "perpetrators". That makes it a thought-crime.
Perhaps unlike "grabbing pussy", credible death threats are assaults.
Slander has been a tort (not a crime) since well before the First Amendment was written. It was never in conflict with the Bill of Rights.
People gaining legitimate access to such intelligence voluntarily give up the right to this speech.
Should not be illegal either.
About half of Slashdot feels, this is a bogus prohibition too... More importantly, the concept of "intellectual property" has been with us since the Constitution was written, its authors still alive.
Speech under oath is different. And, like the above, it has been since before the First Amendment was passed — never seen as conflicting with it by the contemporaries.
Contrary to your suspicions, I am not a racist. Let's keep the present company outside of the conversation.
Yes, racists are no less entitled to the Constitutional protections than the rest of us — please, make sure to explicitly state, whether or not you agree with this, in any follow-up.
It is much more than that. The 1964 law cited by TFA is used to tell Facebook, what they can and can not say — and to whom. It obviously abridges Facebook's freedom of speech. If we were to accept the general idea, that government may dictate, who speech can addressed to, we would allow the government to suppress speech altogether: there-there, you can still talk to yourself in the shower — that takes care of your First Amendment rights — but you can't say this and that to anyone else...
But, even by your standard, it is "illegal to say certain things" to some people, unless you also say the same things to others. Whether or not it is a manifestation of racism of Facebook and/or their advertisers, is irrelevant. Racists are no less protected by the Bill of Rights than the rest of us.
The much celebrated "civil rights" laws of the 60-ies have failed. It is time, they go the way of the similarly failed Prohibition.
The allegedly-violated itself obviously violates the First Amendment and is thus invalid.
It is both unconstitutional, which should be enough in theory, and ineffective in practice — quite obviously, the interracial relations in this country continue to stink despite (or because of?) our having a half-Black President.
Whatever it was we tried for over 50 years to achieve racial harmony, is not working. Let's stop sacrificing actual rights to it...
Simply put, responsible citizens do not need such help discharging their duties. We know, there is a vote, we know where it is. We've registered to vote long ago and made arrangements with baby-sitters etc. to visit the polls — or requested absentee ballots.
But such folks tend to vote Conservative (or should I say KKKon$ervative?), so, for the Illiberals to win, they need to prod the less responsible with signs, TV-commercials (ranging from "Chose or Lose" to "Vote or Die"). Such people need help registering to vote — and some even need to be reassured, they would not be prosecuted for voting illegally (a claim, Snopes bizarrely called "false").
Throughout human history, people have fought and died for the right to vote — world-wide. Whoever does not cherish that right already, should not be encouraged to take part in the country's governance.
Whatever most States do, it is enough for one (or two) of them to be sufficiently close to warrant a recount or a legal action, and the national results may be delayed by days and weeks.
Unless, of course, the fix is so in, even any of the above eventualities will not matter. Given Google's being deeply and solidly in tank with one of the candidates, this may be more probable than is healthy for the democratic process...
That's not saying much. In fact, this says so little as to be meaningless — the overwhelming majority of topics are non-controversial at all.
But, if you look at the history of Margaret Sanger's page, for example, the number of times "Reverting" and "Undoing" are mentioned is rather high...
But it was all Trump's fault, because he invited the Russians to hack it. (After it was already hacked.)
Putin is the kind of guy, who would've never done anything so unwholesome without an invitation, of course.
Senator Reid — a Slashdot veteran? Why are you calling yourself "sh00z"?
While on the subject of Hatch Act, perhaps, you should look into John Podesta's BFF — who tipped her campaign before, and whose son joined the campaign openly — "investigating" Hillary Clinton?
Keep you irrelevant comments to yourself, asshole. Talk civil or fuck off.
Bernie Sanders on Slashdot? Wow...
Seriously, what does the quoted statement mean? By what standard and compared to what does Sweden "work well"? Even if we leave aside their recent problems related to mass immigration from different (if not incompatible cultures), how do we know it "works" and works not despite of, but thanks to Leftist policies? The country was spared the destruction during WW2 — it should be way ahead of France and Germany, for example, which were rather leveled... But it is not...
Oh, and its military is a joke — like those of most of Europe — and it would've been overrun by the USSR long ago, had it not been for the evil KKKapitalist Yankees...
"Works" my tail.
And you know this from pings "emanating" from a Russian bank?.. Right...
Funny, how you choose to ignore, what I posted and attack instead, what I did not. Strawman much?