Also, just ban people talking in general. In fact, I'm annoyed by many things. Advertisements, for instance. Ban those too. Ban everything that annoys anyone! That's what it means to be pro-small government!
Most comments here seem to be opposed to slavery, but the majority of the public are in favor of it, so the Congress is just representing them in passing this.
Tyranny of the majority is a very, very bad thing. Banning something because it annoys people is a very, very bad thing. The law itself is bad because it infringes upon people's rights.
Ok, then how do you propose the airline handle things when a passenger violates their policy, if they don't have the ability to allow the air marshall to beat him and put him in cuffs?
Don't deal with those customers anymore. Let the airlines figure this out; I really don't care. What I'm opposed to is making disgusting laws like this where the government infringes upon people's rights (private property and free speech rights).
The courts could establish that the first amendment doesn't protect any speech at all and it wouldn't affect my opinions in the least. Maybe you should get some opinions of your own. Sad how "the land of the free" has so much mindless authority worship.
Yes, and I'm not impressed with their performance. Things like Free speech zones, the TSA, and unfettered border searches show they're not doing their jobs.
The things you mentioned have been abused time and time again when the government wants to do something that would otherwise be unconstitutional, but that doesn't make it right. The founders created these things for very specific purposes, not so the government has free reign over everything, including our fucking speech.
The First Amendment guarantees your right to express your opinions without fear of government reprisal, where the reprisal would be in response to the opinions and not to the act of speaking.
Then the government could just ban all manner of speech. In reality, free speech protests all speech and the first amendment makes *no such distinctions*. The fact that our government is violating the constitution doesn't mean that it isn't what it is, and your examples just demonstrate the government's seething hatred of our rights.
It's not that they can't be easily answered with absolute statements; it's that people have a fundamental misunderstandings of the constitution and people's rights.
Bullshit. That's the exact same reasoning they use for free speech zones. The entire country, and outside the country, is a free speech zone. They have zero constitutional authority to do such things.
the idea behind the first amendment is to prevent the government from muzzling dissent.
Free speech doesn't stop at protecting people who criticize their government, you know. The first amendment protects all sorts of speech.
Just not in the middle of the road. Not in the middle of a theatre. Not on an airplane.
Your reasoning is terrible, and it's clear that free speech means nothing to you.
Take your protest permits and your free speech zones and shove them up your fucking ass, fascist.
Ah, yes, the commerce clause. When something is otherwise unconstitutional, turn to that ambiguous piece of trash. I care more about the spirit than of the literal language, and I seriously don't think it's appropriate that the government has abused that clause to this degree.
Yet people tolerate the TSA, unfettered border searches, free speech zones, DUI checkpoints, stop-and-frisk, etc. All of those things affect people in the physical world, and yet nothing much is done about them. I would honestly like it if lots of people actually cared about freedom and the constitution, but that sadly does not seem to be the case.
No, I mean idiots who simply memorize information but do not understand it; the majority of people, in other words. I won't go through this again. It seems that people have absolutely no idea what education is, and when someone points this out, they're often falsely accused of saying that all memorization is bad, when in reality they're simply saying that rote memorization is almost always inappropriate, ineffective, and useless. Your solutions only serve to make people think education is all about memorization, thereby worsening the situation and creating a population fueled by ignorance.
Here are some better examples of denial and trivialization for you,
I see it in a few of those, but questioning the severity of the situation and the proposed solution isn't the same as denying a problem exists.
since you didn't pick up on the common dog-whistle of "modify the planes to be laser-proof instead!"
That sounds like a solution that takes the reality of the situation into account, rather than pretending that things like this will stop it. I don't know if it's a good solution, but the intent is there.
And would it take an unjust government to keep RC planes and unlit towers away from airliners, or just laser pointers?
It all depends on exactly what you meant. How would it threaten their hobby? What will the government do to threaten it?
What did he demonstrate for you? I see nowhere where he denied or trivialized any problem.
that threatens their hobby
It only threatens their hobby if they have an unjust government willing to employ collective punishment or paranoia to achieve whatever goal they wish to achieve.
Try to build a society where the government respects people's rights and watch it fail. Hint: We still haven't succeeded. I'm sure some racists felt that society would collapse if we started respecting the rights of blacks, too, but we all know that's nonsense.
And if we can build a society with things as disgusting as what I mentioned above, I seriously doubt society would collapse if people had a bit more freedom. At any rate, you can't see into the future, and I don't exactly hold your opinions in high regard anyway.
For the anti-surveillance advocates who are enjoying the rise of their viewpoint in the polls, consider this: a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil could easily tilt the polls the other way and land us in a worse surveillance state than we have now. Be careful what you ask for.
Probably always going to be true, and there really isn't much to be done. Funny how people in "the land of the free and the home of the brave" don't want to be free or brave if they believe not being those things will keep them safe.
Yes, how horrible it would be if some country was left behind and didn't violate the rights of its citizens in the same way as the other countries! Get with the times, guys!
There is a compromise somewhere between total freedom of speech
There is no compromise that I would be willing to accept. The same is true for the TSA, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, free speech zones, stop-and-frisk, and DUI checkpoints. I will not accept any compromises for those, either; they must all be eliminated, much like copyright and its ilk.
that society can function with.
The question is not and has never been whether or not society can function with these things. That is, after all, a pretty low bar to set.
Freedom of speech is not an absolute right as it must be tempered with the needs of society.
You say "must," but that is simply false.
Speech should be as free as it can be without causing harm to others.
Speech alone cannot harm anyone. If someone acts on another's speech, and their actions cause harm to people, then it is their actions that caused harm, and it is their fault. If someone decides not to hire you based on hearsay, then they are the ones at fault for not hiring you, not the ones spreading lies. If someone screams fire in a crowded theater and people panic and trample over one another, that is the fault of the ones who trampled others. Etc.
In the case of copyright the harm is economic.
Money that you never had was never yours to begin with, and isn't something you can lose. There is no harm.
And actually, in the case of copyright, the harm is related to people's free speech and private property rights, which, even if I accepted that free speech has limits (I don't.), would be far more important than maintaining monopolies over ideas for certain people.
Eventually we came to the conclusion that American schools teach you how to problem-solve on your feet while Asian schools teach you to regurgitate information.
Actually, both teach you to regurgitate information, and that's exactly what most people do.
I would say "everything cool" comes from America because of our superpower status; we can effectively attract a select few intellectuals. There are intelligent people, but they are very, very, very rare. Barely any truly outstanding information comes out of the products of America's public education system, and it can't, because all they do is learn how to regurgitate information.
It's not cynicism if you look at how math is taught in a grand majority of schools. There is no way that students are truly learning anything when most are just doing rote memorization exercises in various forms.
Nothing wrong with learning by rote.
That depends entirely on what you're talking about. If you're learning math equations by rote, you don't understand mathematics at all, which is an art form. There are very, very few things that need to be learned by rote. For most things, you should try to understand the 'why' and you will likely memorize it naturally, anyway. Sometimes it's necessary to memorize information, yes, but again, there are very few times you should be explicitly learning by rote.
Multiplication table is a good example.
*sigh* Actually, they're a terrible example. I never memorized multiplication tables, because I instead endeavored to actually understand the process of multiplication. Furthermore, if I see a result often, I will memorize it *naturally*. By forcing people to make a specific effort to memorize this useless garbage (and I would say that memorizing multiplication tables misses the point of mathematics and is quite useless), you give them the wrong idea of what mathematics is about and make it into something that is widely hated. Math is not about quickly performing random calculations or memorizing results; that's pure ignorance and is one of many things that shows that the school system is abysmal.
Irrelevant. You mentioned that nearly all countries forbid such things, as if that's relevant at all.
The reason we are so far off topic is that it seems that you are basing your opinion about copyright on your idea that there should be no limits on free speech.
The reason we are offtopic is because it was convenient for you to make it so.
If you're attempting to change my mind, I will say this: You will never make me despise freedom. I will not change my mind about free speech.
I never stated that you said you were an anarchist.
Nor did you need to, as your reasons for classifying me as such involved taking into account things I never said and misinterpreting what I did say.
Considering that copyright, trademark and patent laws (all which deal with intellectual property) are all capitalist ideas I think you are way off.
They're pretty far from the free market, but you neglected to take into account the next few parts.
Communists love labeling things
People love labeling things.
I don't think you will find any country in the world that does not have libel/slander, uttering threats, blackmail laws or others that are reasonable limits on freedom of speech.
I don't think they're "reasonable" at all. With that said, you also won't find any country in the world where the government does not infringe upon its citizens' freedoms in some way, shape, or form (the TSA in the US, for instance). Therefore, infringing upon people's freedoms is good, because most countries do it.
But then, all of this is wildly offtopic, now isn't it? Libel, slander, threats, and blackmail are all far different from copyright infringement, so one could want laws forbidding those things (not that I do) but still be opposed to copyright and be perfectly consistent.
For some reason, you changed the topic and started calling me an anarchist. Something I'd expect from a safety worshiper.
Yes there are standards in the curriculum, so a majority of people will at least have some baseline understanding of Algebra among other things.
That doesn't seem to be working out. Having a deep understanding of why something works is far different from just memorizing facts and patterns, which is what a grand majority of people do. Worse, they often forget those facts soon afterwords.
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Also, just ban people talking in general. In fact, I'm annoyed by many things. Advertisements, for instance. Ban those too. Ban everything that annoys anyone! That's what it means to be pro-small government!
Most comments here seem to be opposed to slavery, but the majority of the public are in favor of it, so the Congress is just representing them in passing this.
Tyranny of the majority is a very, very bad thing. Banning something because it annoys people is a very, very bad thing. The law itself is bad because it infringes upon people's rights.
Ok, then how do you propose the airline handle things when a passenger violates their policy, if they don't have the ability to allow the air marshall to beat him and put him in cuffs?
Don't deal with those customers anymore. Let the airlines figure this out; I really don't care. What I'm opposed to is making disgusting laws like this where the government infringes upon people's rights (private property and free speech rights).
The courts could establish that the first amendment doesn't protect any speech at all and it wouldn't affect my opinions in the least. Maybe you should get some opinions of your own. Sad how "the land of the free" has so much mindless authority worship.
Yes, and I'm not impressed with their performance. Things like Free speech zones, the TSA, and unfettered border searches show they're not doing their jobs.
The things you mentioned have been abused time and time again when the government wants to do something that would otherwise be unconstitutional, but that doesn't make it right. The founders created these things for very specific purposes, not so the government has free reign over everything, including our fucking speech.
The First Amendment guarantees your right to express your opinions without fear of government reprisal, where the reprisal would be in response to the opinions and not to the act of speaking.
Then the government could just ban all manner of speech. In reality, free speech protests all speech and the first amendment makes *no such distinctions*. The fact that our government is violating the constitution doesn't mean that it isn't what it is, and your examples just demonstrate the government's seething hatred of our rights.
It's not that they can't be easily answered with absolute statements; it's that people have a fundamental misunderstandings of the constitution and people's rights.
This is probably why people are demanding a law.
And they are wrong for doing so.
Bullshit. That's the exact same reasoning they use for free speech zones. The entire country, and outside the country, is a free speech zone. They have zero constitutional authority to do such things.
the idea behind the first amendment is to prevent the government from muzzling dissent.
Free speech doesn't stop at protecting people who criticize their government, you know. The first amendment protects all sorts of speech.
Just not in the middle of the road. Not in the middle of a theatre. Not on an airplane.
Your reasoning is terrible, and it's clear that free speech means nothing to you.
Take your protest permits and your free speech zones and shove them up your fucking ass, fascist.
Ah, yes, the commerce clause. When something is otherwise unconstitutional, turn to that ambiguous piece of trash. I care more about the spirit than of the literal language, and I seriously don't think it's appropriate that the government has abused that clause to this degree.
Yet people tolerate the TSA, unfettered border searches, free speech zones, DUI checkpoints, stop-and-frisk, etc. All of those things affect people in the physical world, and yet nothing much is done about them. I would honestly like it if lots of people actually cared about freedom and the constitution, but that sadly does not seem to be the case.
No, I mean idiots who simply memorize information but do not understand it; the majority of people, in other words. I won't go through this again. It seems that people have absolutely no idea what education is, and when someone points this out, they're often falsely accused of saying that all memorization is bad, when in reality they're simply saying that rote memorization is almost always inappropriate, ineffective, and useless. Your solutions only serve to make people think education is all about memorization, thereby worsening the situation and creating a population fueled by ignorance.
Here are some better examples of denial and trivialization for you,
I see it in a few of those, but questioning the severity of the situation and the proposed solution isn't the same as denying a problem exists.
since you didn't pick up on the common dog-whistle of "modify the planes to be laser-proof instead!"
That sounds like a solution that takes the reality of the situation into account, rather than pretending that things like this will stop it. I don't know if it's a good solution, but the intent is there.
And would it take an unjust government to keep RC planes and unlit towers away from airliners, or just laser pointers?
It all depends on exactly what you meant. How would it threaten their hobby? What will the government do to threaten it?
What did he demonstrate for you? I see nowhere where he denied or trivialized any problem.
that threatens their hobby
It only threatens their hobby if they have an unjust government willing to employ collective punishment or paranoia to achieve whatever goal they wish to achieve.
Try to build a society where the government respects people's rights and watch it fail. Hint: We still haven't succeeded. I'm sure some racists felt that society would collapse if we started respecting the rights of blacks, too, but we all know that's nonsense.
And if we can build a society with things as disgusting as what I mentioned above, I seriously doubt society would collapse if people had a bit more freedom. At any rate, you can't see into the future, and I don't exactly hold your opinions in high regard anyway.
Nominally, the purpose is to help catch counterfeiters
Which wouldn't justify such a thing even if it were effective.
For the anti-surveillance advocates who are enjoying the rise of their viewpoint in the polls, consider this: a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil could easily tilt the polls the other way and land us in a worse surveillance state than we have now. Be careful what you ask for.
Probably always going to be true, and there really isn't much to be done. Funny how people in "the land of the free and the home of the brave" don't want to be free or brave if they believe not being those things will keep them safe.
Mass surveillance infringes upon your fundamental and constitutional rights. To some people, that qualifies as a benefit.
Yes, how horrible it would be if some country was left behind and didn't violate the rights of its citizens in the same way as the other countries! Get with the times, guys!
There is a compromise somewhere between total freedom of speech
There is no compromise that I would be willing to accept. The same is true for the TSA, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, free speech zones, stop-and-frisk, and DUI checkpoints. I will not accept any compromises for those, either; they must all be eliminated, much like copyright and its ilk.
that society can function with.
The question is not and has never been whether or not society can function with these things. That is, after all, a pretty low bar to set.
Freedom of speech is not an absolute right as it must be tempered with the needs of society.
You say "must," but that is simply false.
Speech should be as free as it can be without causing harm to others.
Speech alone cannot harm anyone. If someone acts on another's speech, and their actions cause harm to people, then it is their actions that caused harm, and it is their fault. If someone decides not to hire you based on hearsay, then they are the ones at fault for not hiring you, not the ones spreading lies. If someone screams fire in a crowded theater and people panic and trample over one another, that is the fault of the ones who trampled others. Etc.
In the case of copyright the harm is economic.
Money that you never had was never yours to begin with, and isn't something you can lose. There is no harm.
And actually, in the case of copyright, the harm is related to people's free speech and private property rights, which, even if I accepted that free speech has limits (I don't.), would be far more important than maintaining monopolies over ideas for certain people.
Eventually we came to the conclusion that American schools teach you how to problem-solve on your feet while Asian schools teach you to regurgitate information.
Actually, both teach you to regurgitate information, and that's exactly what most people do.
I would say "everything cool" comes from America because of our superpower status; we can effectively attract a select few intellectuals. There are intelligent people, but they are very, very, very rare. Barely any truly outstanding information comes out of the products of America's public education system, and it can't, because all they do is learn how to regurgitate information.
You have stats for that or is it just cynicism?
It's not cynicism if you look at how math is taught in a grand majority of schools. There is no way that students are truly learning anything when most are just doing rote memorization exercises in various forms.
Nothing wrong with learning by rote.
That depends entirely on what you're talking about. If you're learning math equations by rote, you don't understand mathematics at all, which is an art form. There are very, very few things that need to be learned by rote. For most things, you should try to understand the 'why' and you will likely memorize it naturally, anyway. Sometimes it's necessary to memorize information, yes, but again, there are very few times you should be explicitly learning by rote.
Multiplication table is a good example.
*sigh* Actually, they're a terrible example. I never memorized multiplication tables, because I instead endeavored to actually understand the process of multiplication. Furthermore, if I see a result often, I will memorize it *naturally*. By forcing people to make a specific effort to memorize this useless garbage (and I would say that memorizing multiplication tables misses the point of mathematics and is quite useless), you give them the wrong idea of what mathematics is about and make it into something that is widely hated. Math is not about quickly performing random calculations or memorizing results; that's pure ignorance and is one of many things that shows that the school system is abysmal.
I am not saying all infringing laws are good.
Irrelevant. You mentioned that nearly all countries forbid such things, as if that's relevant at all.
The reason we are so far off topic is that it seems that you are basing your opinion about copyright on your idea that there should be no limits on free speech.
The reason we are offtopic is because it was convenient for you to make it so.
If you're attempting to change my mind, I will say this: You will never make me despise freedom. I will not change my mind about free speech.
I never stated that you said you were an anarchist.
Nor did you need to, as your reasons for classifying me as such involved taking into account things I never said and misinterpreting what I did say.
Considering that copyright, trademark and patent laws (all which deal with intellectual property) are all capitalist ideas I think you are way off.
They're pretty far from the free market, but you neglected to take into account the next few parts.
Communists love labeling things
People love labeling things.
I don't think you will find any country in the world that does not have libel/slander, uttering threats, blackmail laws or others that are reasonable limits on freedom of speech.
I don't think they're "reasonable" at all. With that said, you also won't find any country in the world where the government does not infringe upon its citizens' freedoms in some way, shape, or form (the TSA in the US, for instance). Therefore, infringing upon people's freedoms is good, because most countries do it.
But then, all of this is wildly offtopic, now isn't it? Libel, slander, threats, and blackmail are all far different from copyright infringement, so one could want laws forbidding those things (not that I do) but still be opposed to copyright and be perfectly consistent.
For some reason, you changed the topic and started calling me an anarchist. Something I'd expect from a safety worshiper.
There are limits on all freedoms.
There do not have to be.
Yes there are standards in the curriculum, so a majority of people will at least have some baseline understanding of Algebra among other things.
That doesn't seem to be working out. Having a deep understanding of why something works is far different from just memorizing facts and patterns, which is what a grand majority of people do. Worse, they often forget those facts soon afterwords.