I assume by drink driving you mean drunk driving. As I read your post you think that things which AREN'T considered socially unacceptable should result in a minimum of one year license suspension?
Drunk driving is already socially unacceptable. I don't think anything that is socially acceptable should be a crime or punishable and I don't think being socially unacceptable in itself qualifies as a crime.
I think we should go back to punishing people when they actually do something that harms someone and punishing them severely rather than punishing them for something that might increase their chances of harming someone.
You don't punish someone for driving. You do punish someone for hitting a pedestrian. Driving is voluntary, drinking is voluntary, banning driving would reduce car injuries more than banning drunk driving. If you are going to punish people because they MIGHT do something wrong why only the drunks?
Yes it is... at least if the 'whats next' is a logical progressive step. Sometimes the individual step is not bad enough to mount a solid objection in itself but the course it is part of is very evil. That is how we have moved from the system of mostly independent states with large personal freedom to the centralized police state we have now.
"If we require drivers licenses, what's next -- permits to walk on the sidewalk? No."
Allowing one DOES pave the way to the other. It is only a matter of time before someone presents that very argument. What seems ridiculous today won't seem ridiculous after a series of innocent steps that take us toward it incrementally.
Look at cameras on the streets. The idea would have been considered preposterous once. So it started with allowing people to be filmed by security cameras, then adding those cameras to public buildings, then to toll booths, then traffic lights, and finally street lamps. There are many places where we already have a UK style surveillance state in the US.
I'm sorry but your post rings of the reverse ideology they claim exists.
An intelligence manipulating things to prevent us from detecting the true origins of the universe is improbable so it isn't my view but just because I choose to act according to probability doesn't mean everyone else must. I play consistently with the probability in every game of chance but there are others who don't do so and you know what. Some of them even seem to win more often than I do.
Sometimes the probability is very very high in favor science. But I often wonder if it is as high as those who are deep into a subject believe it to be. If your measurement consistent with your prediction because your prediction is correct, or is it correct because you've built your instrumentation using the same foundational assumptions your prediction is based on?
As to whether plant species have been identified multiple times.. I don't know. I haven't even RTFA. But it is certainly possible, they are being identified by humans and even when the distinguishing criteria are pointed out to me they often seem arbitrary or aren't unique.
Frankly, the implications of the revelation have no bearing on whether it is true IMHO and I don't give a damn.
"you'd be surprised at how often Congress and the President, even Bush, has screwed me over along the way"
Another small point on this. Just because everything the politicians do is benefiting SOMEONE who is wealthy (generally themselves either through the layers of abstraction on their own wealth or through the wealthy people who are paying them to serve their specific interests), doesn't mean that it will benefit EVERYONE who is wealthy.
The net result is still a benefit of all the wealthy. The wealthy do not pay an equal proportion of tax relative to their income or their wealth. While they pay a greater portion of the tax than the middle class and the poor their income and wealth are far far more out of proportion. The wealth in our society is distributed in a way that causes the vast majority of our society to have nothing to pass on at all while the wealthy complain that they can't dodge all the taxes on the wealth they pass to their children (who have contributed nothing to society), never mind that the sums left are generally vastly more than the retirement funds of upper management in the working world.
The wealthy pay lower interest on loans, they pay less for almost everything they buy, they don't pay taxes on all their gross gains, and they hold 60% of all societies wealth while only constituting 10% of society (85% if you include the top 20%) with the top 1% having as much as the rest of the top 10% combined.
"But even though I worked my ass off to get where I am (running a software based service company that ran on my custom software), you'd be surprised at how often Congress and the President, even Bush, has screwed me over along the way."
No doubt you did. But your work isn't anymore valuable to society than the guy who pounds rocks 60hrs a week. You certainly didn't work harder than him. Maybe you are brighter, maybe not. I've done a fair bit of programming and if you can handle high school algebra you won't find anything more difficult in the coding world and low paid mechanics encounter that level of difficulty in their jobs.
No doubt your success is built upon the collective work of society in the form of public and private infrastructure.
In other words, you only have 24hrs in your day like everyone else. Yet despite not deserving more than any other hardworking adult (less since you stopped being productive at 45) you enjoy an a greater and out of proportion share of societies wealth/output. There is certainly no justification for a claim that you should be able to avoid paying a proportionate share back in the form of taxes.
"I've worked hard, but because I don't make as little as you, I'm limited in what I can keep or do with it in ways that, unless you've gotten into estate management and similar topics, wouldn't know about."
As it happens I have and you aren't limited in ways that someone with less wealth is not. The limits are the same. You simply have an inordinately large share of the wealth that belongs to our society.
The injustice is not that those who have more than their share of our wealth are expected to pay higher taxes or that there are limits on what they can stash in trusts and dodge estate taxes on. Or how the money put in trusts has to managed to dodge those taxes.
The injustice is that ANYTHING can be stashed in trusts to avoid taxes. You are allowed to incorporate and dodge liability while conducting your business and funnel all your expenses through your business so that the vast majority of the money you spend is before tax. If the less wealthy individuals could or knew how to do this then anyone making less than 50k/yr wouldn't have taxable income. But there are barriers to prevent the common man from 'cheating' by using the same tricks not the least of which are the various fees and minimums involved that don't scale to the sums.
The wealthy want to do away with the 'death tax' but you won't find sympathy here. The 'death tax' should be 100%. Your children already got enough of an unfair advantage from your wealth when growing up. Society should reclaim everything upon your death (or the death of your spouse, whichever comes last).
In otherwords you are pro hater, racist, gay basher, sexist, elitist, anything else that is obviously and blatantly bad that could be given a label?
Did you intentionally pick a bunch of labeled groups that pretty much everyone (amusingly, including most people described by them) agrees the world would be better off without? I doubt Nancy Pelosi or Rush Limbaugh would support any of those (aside from the rich, all politicians support the rich... being rich themselves)
I'm not left, right, or middle. I actually consider the facts and logic and if I've determined there is some need to form an opinion on a matter (if your opinion has no impact then why pick a side?) I rarely consider rights, lefts, and middles... There are exceptions. For instance, sometimes I find myself at an intersection and need to form an opinion on the most likely route to get me home.
"However, they Amazon is not impinging your freedom at all. You are not even a party to their decision or any of its consequences."
Amazon controls 90% of the book market. 90% of the book market is a party to the consequences of this decision.
How can you possibly claim that Amazon's officers have a right to censor their marketplace but their customers have no right to consider the ethics of that choice when deciding whether to continue using Amazon's services?
Has the idea of the free market gone so far now that if customers hold a company accountable for their actions by voting with their dollars and encouraging others to do so its considered infringing on the rights of the company?
The wealth of the country is not fixed. But the wealth of the world IS fixed. The world doesn't gain more natural resources. The only thing that is really variable is man hours.
I'm sorry but just because the average quality of life has improved doesn't make it okay for the minority to enjoy the majority of our nation's output while contributing the least to it.
The idea that manager or CEO hours are worth more than a laborers is a myth. There are only 24hrs in a day for each of us and manager isn't even an especially skilled position being a freeloader err... investor is an even less skilled position. Most of the top 5% aren't even doing the investing they just write the checks and collect the cream.
The top 5% may take credit for the labor of the other 95% but nothing would grind to a halt without them. We'd be better off feeding the freeloading bastards to the fishes and using their wealth to buy natural resources from other nations.
"Well, by this logic I could say that Pre WW2 Nazi-affiliated Libraries in Germany were entirely in their right to burn every book they didn't like. Their nation (their leaders were legally elected by their country),their rules. The same happened in Spain during Franco's regime, or with Mussolini in Italy."
In THEIR right or in THE right? There is a difference. Those sovereign nations absolutely had the right to do as they wish and nobody else had a right to stop them. Just because you don't think what someone is doing is right doesn't mean they don't have a right to do it.
Amazon doesn't have to succeed in preventing you from purchasing the book to be censoring. Succeeding in censoring the book from their own outlet is all that is required. Nothing in the definition requires they have authority over you, having authority over the marketplace is good enough.
A company cannot be an official. However, any authorized person at the company is one of the companies officials. They officiate over the Amazon marketplace and are supervising the conduct/morality of those shopping in the marketplace. Any author who doesn't abide by Amazon's morals will have their expression aka book, censored from the marketplace.
"It cheapens the very seriousness of the term "censorship" to use it in such an improper, and frivolous way.
There is absolutely nothing worthy of the term "censorship" anywhere in this story."
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
There is nothing implicit in the term that sets a bar for how great an offense it has to be to qualify as censorship or requires a public entity be doing the censoring (although Amazon is a publicly traded entity and its officers and owners enjoy legal protections a private business owner does not). Censorship is also not illegal.
Censorship requires speech or expression which a book certainly is. Your engine repair shop probably doesn't have anything that qualifies. But if the owner of the shop fired anyone who used profanity in the shop he would be engaging in censorship.
"If one is unhappy with their selection or practices they can simply buy elsehwere. Shocking concept, isn't it?"
So you are saying that simply buying elsewhere is the only recourse. One doesn't have the option of expressing their outrage at the shops practices, namely censorship, to others on a public message board so they too might refuse to do business with the shop if they disagree?
Additionally, does your local engine repair shop hold 90% of their market like Amazon? The actions of a monopoly are harder to avoid and farther reaching than the actions of a private entity.
It seems reasonable that if a general bookseller like Amazon starts censoring books they should be opening themselves to liability for the content of the books they continue to carry.
'First off, it's their store, and it should be their decision to sell or not sell any particular book.'
I don't see anyone saying they should be forced to do otherwise by government. Even if they did it would be because they using their monopoly (90% marketshare) to push a moral agenda not because a bookstore doesn't have a LEGAL right to censor books.
Just because its legal doesn't mean it isn't censorship and that people don't have a right to be pissed about that. Amazon is a common carrier for books, google is a common carrier for links. I'm not okay with google or Amazon censoring the search results. I find Amazon's case to be worse but this kind of behavior can definitely lead to me boycotting their product and encouraging others to do the same... LOUDLY.
'All the sooner, people will wake up to the fact that they don't really "own" that DRM-ridden content after all.'
I'd agree but I don't think it matters. I'm fully aware of it but I still have a kindle app loaded with books on my phone. The reason is simple. I can't pirate all the new content in the book world. There are too many titles, you can't find all the new releases or even anywhere close to most of them. If its a popular book you might score a copy in one of a dozen formats (which still might be DRM'd!) as early as a month after release.
If I have a problem with a hardware store I just go to a different hardware store (at least until the next time the other guy isn't competitive on what I want) but if I don't like my kindle book my only choice is another equally restrictive DRM laden device or a legal source with no major publishers content.
Actually, per the definition it isn't censorship. It isn't enough to suppress the expression. You have to be suppressing it because you find it objectionable.
Besides, if you don't express it in the first place you can't censor it. If you do express it, then that is the opposite of objecting to expressing it.
Censorship is not always bad either depending on your view. Censorship is an official using discrimination to exclude expression he finds objectionable (for a number of reasons, primarily moral, political, or military) from what he controls.
Discrimination is being selective about anything. Censorship is being selective about what expression or speech to spread. Discrimination doesn't actually require you to have authority, you can discriminate in your thoughts, Censorship requires authority over something external even if it is only your home. Discrimination can be selectivity for any reason, censorship requires your find (or want to appear to find) the material objectionable.
A companies official discriminates when they remove something being sold when it doesn't sell well. A companies official censors when they remove a book because they find the content objectionable or want to appear to.
"If the definition of 'official' is that general, it becomes both circular and meaningless."
That is an opinion, not a fact. There is nothing about censorship that requires its effects be far reaching, that is only your own personal bias on the definition. A parent is an official within a household and if they review the programming their child may watch they solidly engaging in censorship despite the reach going further than their door or even their own television.
'Amazon's decision carries no weight or effectiveness in the real world outside their own choice to sell or not sell something.'
Nothing in the definition requires it to. Amazon officials aren't censoring the hold world just the limited piece of it they have authority over. The FCC isn't censoring the whole world either, just the limited piece of it they have authority over.
Is the FCC's reach broader? The Amazon market holds 90% of the book market. But the scope of the censorship is not part of whether it is censorship or not.
The telling factor of censorship isn't who is doing it, or the scope of its impact, or how it is being done. The telling factor is WHY.
'1....suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. 2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.'
'other grounds' is indeed too broad to have meaning. Technically, anytime someone is selective about what information they include, or excludes information based on any set of criteria they are censoring. But the second definition and the first few examples give some context, 'other grounds' is obviously included as a catch all for other forms of pushing an agenda.
Fortunately, we don't have to speculate. The first item on the list AND the subject of definition #2 is the one that applies to the Amazon officials. They are censoring materials they find morally objectionable.
'And I repeat my goat porn test - every business is now a censor under your definition since they won't carry my book.'
I've already refuted your goat porn test in another post. If a business doesn't sell books or porn then the reason isn't because their officials find your book objectionable so we have eliminated the vast majority of businesses in accord with the definition. Those who do carry books and exclude your goat porn book because they find it morally objectionable are indeed engaging in censorship.
I think you'll find that the reality is that businesses aren't including your goat porn because an official with a greater scope which encompasses them is censoring the material. Bestiality is illegal... at least here in the US.
Most telling is not the definition per say but the example of an official:
"A company official responded to our request."
An official is a person. Amazon is a collection of people, as well as a marketplace run by the same. It has officials. Amazon can't censor something but its officials can.
"and B) Amazon isn't extracting portions (interestingly, a much better case can be made for Walmart, as a prior poster mentioned). "
From the definition:
'...for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable...'
The definition doesn't require anything to be extracted, only suppressed. The definition only requires the objectionable parts be suppressed it doesn't specify that nothing else can be suppressed or removed along with it. A censor could read a speech and burn it to suppress the parts he found objectionable and satisfy the definition... or he could remove an entire book from the market in order to suppress the parts of said book he found objectionable.
Amazon can't do anything. It is the executives aka officers aka officials at Amazon who are censoring messages in the Amazon marketplace.
An authority doesn't have to be part of government authority. The leader of your book club is engaging in censorship if they decide to remove objectionable materials from your club reading list.
"and they have no ability to suppress anyone's communication since there are many other avenues of selling books"
Nothing in the definition requires they suppress every avenue or that they be successful in suppressing any. Attempting to suppress even one channel is good enough. Amazon officials are censoring books from the Amazon marketplace (which is a big channel, encompassing 90% of the market but the magnitude isn't a requirement of the definition) because they find the material objectionable or want to appear to* (which is the real key to the definition, and the part you are excluding).
"If they are, then every business on Earth is also guilty of censorship since they won't sell my goat-porn picture book. "
No, only businesses that choose not to carry your book because it contains goat-porn AND find goat-porn objectionable. It isn't censorship for a car dealership not to carry your material based on content because they are simply in a different business and don't find the material objectionable.
*The MW definition doesn't include allowing for censoring for appearance sake but usage and not MW defines language. I doubt anyone would agree a minister burning Korans wouldn't be engaged in censorship simply because he is secretly Muslim pedophile.
If Amazon officials choose not to carry a product for any reason other than finding it objectionable or wanting to appear to they are not engaged in censorship or doing anything morally wrong.
Additionally, the product would need to be a form of speech or expression. Like a book for instance.
If the thing you made isn't an expression but a widget of some sort it can't be censorship to stop providing it. Its actually tough to censor yourself... even if you are it is probably in response to an external pressure that is the real censor.
You are trying to equate going out of their way to suppress certain goods with not going out of their way to carry goods. They are not the same thing.
Amazon officials aren't simply choosing not to carry books that don't sell. They are picking a message and publicly acting to suppress it. Are they doing it because they personally find the material objectionable? Probably. Are they doing it because they think Amazon being seen as an organization that is opposed to gay rape will increase profits and make them look good? Definitely. It doesn't really matter it is still censorship.
Are they morally obligated not to censor those products? Those of us who are opposed to censorship would say yes. Those who support the message they are censoring might also say yes. Those who oppose the message they are censoring but don't favor censorship might see it as a shade of gray, lesser of two evils.
Those who believe a business can do anything they please... aren't they the guys who usually say vote with your dollars? I see people who are outraged by the choices made by Amazon officials and trying to encourage people to vote against those choices with their dollars. Isn't that how it is supposed to work?
You might say that a business owner has every right not to hire blacks if he believes them to be lazy thieves. I actually tend to agree. But I also have the right to be outraged by it.
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I assume by drink driving you mean drunk driving. As I read your post you think that things which AREN'T considered socially unacceptable should result in a minimum of one year license suspension?
Drunk driving is already socially unacceptable. I don't think anything that is socially acceptable should be a crime or punishable and I don't think being socially unacceptable in itself qualifies as a crime.
I think we should go back to punishing people when they actually do something that harms someone and punishing them severely rather than punishing them for something that might increase their chances of harming someone.
You don't punish someone for driving. You do punish someone for hitting a pedestrian. Driving is voluntary, drinking is voluntary, banning driving would reduce car injuries more than banning drunk driving. If you are going to punish people because they MIGHT do something wrong why only the drunks?
"I just don't understand any legitimate concern to decline a breathalyzer test."
The same reason you should refuse to provide the police with any information. False positives.
"Hope those states have good lawyers. They're going to need them."
Or they could take the other route and refuse you permission to sue them.
""What's next?" is not an argument."
Yes it is... at least if the 'whats next' is a logical progressive step. Sometimes the individual step is not bad enough to mount a solid objection in itself but the course it is part of is very evil. That is how we have moved from the system of mostly independent states with large personal freedom to the centralized police state we have now.
"If we require drivers licenses, what's next -- permits to walk on the sidewalk? No."
Allowing one DOES pave the way to the other. It is only a matter of time before someone presents that very argument. What seems ridiculous today won't seem ridiculous after a series of innocent steps that take us toward it incrementally.
Look at cameras on the streets. The idea would have been considered preposterous once. So it started with allowing people to be filmed by security cameras, then adding those cameras to public buildings, then to toll booths, then traffic lights, and finally street lamps. There are many places where we already have a UK style surveillance state in the US.
I'm sorry but your post rings of the reverse ideology they claim exists.
An intelligence manipulating things to prevent us from detecting the true origins of the universe is improbable so it isn't my view but just because I choose to act according to probability doesn't mean everyone else must. I play consistently with the probability in every game of chance but there are others who don't do so and you know what. Some of them even seem to win more often than I do.
Sometimes the probability is very very high in favor science. But I often wonder if it is as high as those who are deep into a subject believe it to be. If your measurement consistent with your prediction because your prediction is correct, or is it correct because you've built your instrumentation using the same foundational assumptions your prediction is based on?
As to whether plant species have been identified multiple times.. I don't know. I haven't even RTFA. But it is certainly possible, they are being identified by humans and even when the distinguishing criteria are pointed out to me they often seem arbitrary or aren't unique.
Frankly, the implications of the revelation have no bearing on whether it is true IMHO and I don't give a damn.
"you'd be surprised at how often Congress and the President, even Bush, has screwed me over along the way"
Another small point on this. Just because everything the politicians do is benefiting SOMEONE who is wealthy (generally themselves either through the layers of abstraction on their own wealth or through the wealthy people who are paying them to serve their specific interests), doesn't mean that it will benefit EVERYONE who is wealthy.
The net result is still a benefit of all the wealthy. The wealthy do not pay an equal proportion of tax relative to their income or their wealth. While they pay a greater portion of the tax than the middle class and the poor their income and wealth are far far more out of proportion. The wealth in our society is distributed in a way that causes the vast majority of our society to have nothing to pass on at all while the wealthy complain that they can't dodge all the taxes on the wealth they pass to their children (who have contributed nothing to society), never mind that the sums left are generally vastly more than the retirement funds of upper management in the working world.
The wealthy pay lower interest on loans, they pay less for almost everything they buy, they don't pay taxes on all their gross gains, and they hold 60% of all societies wealth while only constituting 10% of society (85% if you include the top 20%) with the top 1% having as much as the rest of the top 10% combined.
"But even though I worked my ass off to get where I am (running a software based service company that ran on my custom software), you'd be surprised at how often Congress and the President, even Bush, has screwed me over along the way."
No doubt you did. But your work isn't anymore valuable to society than the guy who pounds rocks 60hrs a week. You certainly didn't work harder than him. Maybe you are brighter, maybe not. I've done a fair bit of programming and if you can handle high school algebra you won't find anything more difficult in the coding world and low paid mechanics encounter that level of difficulty in their jobs.
No doubt your success is built upon the collective work of society in the form of public and private infrastructure.
In other words, you only have 24hrs in your day like everyone else. Yet despite not deserving more than any other hardworking adult (less since you stopped being productive at 45) you enjoy an a greater and out of proportion share of societies wealth/output. There is certainly no justification for a claim that you should be able to avoid paying a proportionate share back in the form of taxes.
"I've worked hard, but because I don't make as little as you, I'm limited in what I can keep or do with it in ways that, unless you've gotten into estate management and similar topics, wouldn't know about."
As it happens I have and you aren't limited in ways that someone with less wealth is not. The limits are the same. You simply have an inordinately large share of the wealth that belongs to our society.
The injustice is not that those who have more than their share of our wealth are expected to pay higher taxes or that there are limits on what they can stash in trusts and dodge estate taxes on. Or how the money put in trusts has to managed to dodge those taxes.
The injustice is that ANYTHING can be stashed in trusts to avoid taxes. You are allowed to incorporate and dodge liability while conducting your business and funnel all your expenses through your business so that the vast majority of the money you spend is before tax. If the less wealthy individuals could or knew how to do this then anyone making less than 50k/yr wouldn't have taxable income. But there are barriers to prevent the common man from 'cheating' by using the same tricks not the least of which are the various fees and minimums involved that don't scale to the sums.
The wealthy want to do away with the 'death tax' but you won't find sympathy here. The 'death tax' should be 100%. Your children already got enough of an unfair advantage from your wealth when growing up. Society should reclaim everything upon your death (or the death of your spouse, whichever comes last).
In otherwords you are pro hater, racist, gay basher, sexist, elitist, anything else that is obviously and blatantly bad that could be given a label?
Did you intentionally pick a bunch of labeled groups that pretty much everyone (amusingly, including most people described by them) agrees the world would be better off without? I doubt Nancy Pelosi or Rush Limbaugh would support any of those (aside from the rich, all politicians support the rich... being rich themselves)
I'm not left, right, or middle. I actually consider the facts and logic and if I've determined there is some need to form an opinion on a matter (if your opinion has no impact then why pick a side?) I rarely consider rights, lefts, and middles... There are exceptions. For instance, sometimes I find myself at an intersection and need to form an opinion on the most likely route to get me home.
It's actually a fairly accurate description of anyone who uses the terms 'left' or 'right' to refer to people or their viewpoints.
"However, they Amazon is not impinging your freedom at all. You are not even a party to their decision or any of its consequences."
Amazon controls 90% of the book market. 90% of the book market is a party to the consequences of this decision.
How can you possibly claim that Amazon's officers have a right to censor their marketplace but their customers have no right to consider the ethics of that choice when deciding whether to continue using Amazon's services?
Has the idea of the free market gone so far now that if customers hold a company accountable for their actions by voting with their dollars and encouraging others to do so its considered infringing on the rights of the company?
The wealth of the country is not fixed. But the wealth of the world IS fixed. The world doesn't gain more natural resources. The only thing that is really variable is man hours.
I'm sorry but just because the average quality of life has improved doesn't make it okay for the minority to enjoy the majority of our nation's output while contributing the least to it.
The idea that manager or CEO hours are worth more than a laborers is a myth. There are only 24hrs in a day for each of us and manager isn't even an especially skilled position being a freeloader err... investor is an even less skilled position. Most of the top 5% aren't even doing the investing they just write the checks and collect the cream.
The top 5% may take credit for the labor of the other 95% but nothing would grind to a halt without them. We'd be better off feeding the freeloading bastards to the fishes and using their wealth to buy natural resources from other nations.
Amazon controls 90% of the market. If that isn't a monopoly I don't know what is.
"Well, by this logic I could say that Pre WW2 Nazi-affiliated Libraries in Germany were entirely in their right to burn every book they didn't like. Their nation (their leaders were legally elected by their country) ,their rules. The same happened in Spain during Franco's regime, or with Mussolini in Italy."
In THEIR right or in THE right? There is a difference. Those sovereign nations absolutely had the right to do as they wish and nobody else had a right to stop them. Just because you don't think what someone is doing is right doesn't mean they don't have a right to do it.
Amazon doesn't have to succeed in preventing you from purchasing the book to be censoring. Succeeding in censoring the book from their own outlet is all that is required. Nothing in the definition requires they have authority over you, having authority over the marketplace is good enough.
The second definition is the relevant one and you are simply incorrect about the use of the word official.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/official
A company cannot be an official. However, any authorized person at the company is one of the companies officials. They officiate over the Amazon marketplace and are supervising the conduct/morality of those shopping in the marketplace. Any author who doesn't abide by Amazon's morals will have their expression aka book, censored from the marketplace.
"It cheapens the very seriousness of the term "censorship" to use it in such an improper, and frivolous way.
There is absolutely nothing worthy of the term "censorship" anywhere in this story."
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
There is nothing implicit in the term that sets a bar for how great an offense it has to be to qualify as censorship or requires a public entity be doing the censoring (although Amazon is a publicly traded entity and its officers and owners enjoy legal protections a private business owner does not). Censorship is also not illegal.
Censorship requires speech or expression which a book certainly is. Your engine repair shop probably doesn't have anything that qualifies. But if the owner of the shop fired anyone who used profanity in the shop he would be engaging in censorship.
"If one is unhappy with their selection or practices they can simply buy elsehwere. Shocking concept, isn't it?"
So you are saying that simply buying elsewhere is the only recourse. One doesn't have the option of expressing their outrage at the shops practices, namely censorship, to others on a public message board so they too might refuse to do business with the shop if they disagree?
Additionally, does your local engine repair shop hold 90% of their market like Amazon? The actions of a monopoly are harder to avoid and farther reaching than the actions of a private entity.
It seems reasonable that if a general bookseller like Amazon starts censoring books they should be opening themselves to liability for the content of the books they continue to carry.
'First off, it's their store, and it should be their decision to sell or not sell any particular book.'
I don't see anyone saying they should be forced to do otherwise by government. Even if they did it would be because they using their monopoly (90% marketshare) to push a moral agenda not because a bookstore doesn't have a LEGAL right to censor books.
Just because its legal doesn't mean it isn't censorship and that people don't have a right to be pissed about that. Amazon is a common carrier for books, google is a common carrier for links. I'm not okay with google or Amazon censoring the search results. I find Amazon's case to be worse but this kind of behavior can definitely lead to me boycotting their product and encouraging others to do the same... LOUDLY.
'All the sooner, people will wake up to the fact that they don't really "own" that DRM-ridden content after all.'
I'd agree but I don't think it matters. I'm fully aware of it but I still have a kindle app loaded with books on my phone. The reason is simple. I can't pirate all the new content in the book world. There are too many titles, you can't find all the new releases or even anywhere close to most of them. If its a popular book you might score a copy in one of a dozen formats (which still might be DRM'd!) as early as a month after release.
If I have a problem with a hardware store I just go to a different hardware store (at least until the next time the other guy isn't competitive on what I want) but if I don't like my kindle book my only choice is another equally restrictive DRM laden device or a legal source with no major publishers content.
Actually, per the definition it isn't censorship. It isn't enough to suppress the expression. You have to be suppressing it because you find it objectionable.
Besides, if you don't express it in the first place you can't censor it. If you do express it, then that is the opposite of objecting to expressing it.
Censorship is not always bad either depending on your view. Censorship is an official using discrimination to exclude expression he finds objectionable (for a number of reasons, primarily moral, political, or military) from what he controls.
Discrimination is being selective about anything. Censorship is being selective about what expression or speech to spread. Discrimination doesn't actually require you to have authority, you can discriminate in your thoughts, Censorship requires authority over something external even if it is only your home. Discrimination can be selectivity for any reason, censorship requires your find (or want to appear to find) the material objectionable.
A companies official discriminates when they remove something being sold when it doesn't sell well. A companies official censors when they remove a book because they find the content objectionable or want to appear to.
"If the definition of 'official' is that general, it becomes both circular and meaningless."
That is an opinion, not a fact. There is nothing about censorship that requires its effects be far reaching, that is only your own personal bias on the definition. A parent is an official within a household and if they review the programming their child may watch they solidly engaging in censorship despite the reach going further than their door or even their own television.
'Amazon's decision carries no weight or effectiveness in the real world outside their own choice to sell or not sell something.'
Nothing in the definition requires it to. Amazon officials aren't censoring the hold world just the limited piece of it they have authority over. The FCC isn't censoring the whole world either, just the limited piece of it they have authority over.
Is the FCC's reach broader? The Amazon market holds 90% of the book market. But the scope of the censorship is not part of whether it is censorship or not.
The telling factor of censorship isn't who is doing it, or the scope of its impact, or how it is being done. The telling factor is WHY.
'1. ...suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.'
'other grounds' is indeed too broad to have meaning. Technically, anytime someone is selective about what information they include, or excludes information based on any set of criteria they are censoring. But the second definition and the first few examples give some context, 'other grounds' is obviously included as a catch all for other forms of pushing an agenda.
Fortunately, we don't have to speculate. The first item on the list AND the subject of definition #2 is the one that applies to the Amazon officials. They are censoring materials they find morally objectionable.
'And I repeat my goat porn test - every business is now a censor under your definition since they won't carry my book.'
I've already refuted your goat porn test in another post. If a business doesn't sell books or porn then the reason isn't because their officials find your book objectionable so we have eliminated the vast majority of businesses in accord with the definition. Those who do carry books and exclude your goat porn book because they find it morally objectionable are indeed engaging in censorship.
I think you'll find that the reality is that businesses aren't including your goat porn because an official with a greater scope which encompasses them is censoring the material. Bestiality is illegal... at least here in the US.
"def #1 because A) Amazon has no official capacity in any way"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/official
Most telling is not the definition per say but the example of an official:
"A company official responded to our request."
An official is a person. Amazon is a collection of people, as well as a marketplace run by the same. It has officials. Amazon can't censor something but its officials can.
"and B) Amazon isn't extracting portions (interestingly, a much better case can be made for Walmart, as a prior poster mentioned). "
From the definition:
'...for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable...'
The definition doesn't require anything to be extracted, only suppressed. The definition only requires the objectionable parts be suppressed it doesn't specify that nothing else can be suppressed or removed along with it. A censor could read a speech and burn it to suppress the parts he found objectionable and satisfy the definition... or he could remove an entire book from the market in order to suppress the parts of said book he found objectionable.
Amazon can't do anything. It is the executives aka officers aka officials at Amazon who are censoring messages in the Amazon marketplace.
An authority doesn't have to be part of government authority. The leader of your book club is engaging in censorship if they decide to remove objectionable materials from your club reading list.
"and they have no ability to suppress anyone's communication since there are many other avenues of selling books"
Nothing in the definition requires they suppress every avenue or that they be successful in suppressing any. Attempting to suppress even one channel is good enough. Amazon officials are censoring books from the Amazon marketplace (which is a big channel, encompassing 90% of the market but the magnitude isn't a requirement of the definition) because they find the material objectionable or want to appear to* (which is the real key to the definition, and the part you are excluding).
"If they are, then every business on Earth is also guilty of censorship since they won't sell my goat-porn picture book. "
No, only businesses that choose not to carry your book because it contains goat-porn AND find goat-porn objectionable. It isn't censorship for a car dealership not to carry your material based on content because they are simply in a different business and don't find the material objectionable.
*The MW definition doesn't include allowing for censoring for appearance sake but usage and not MW defines language. I doubt anyone would agree a minister burning Korans wouldn't be engaged in censorship simply because he is secretly Muslim pedophile.
If Amazon officials choose not to carry a product for any reason other than finding it objectionable or wanting to appear to they are not engaged in censorship or doing anything morally wrong.
Additionally, the product would need to be a form of speech or expression. Like a book for instance.
If the thing you made isn't an expression but a widget of some sort it can't be censorship to stop providing it. Its actually tough to censor yourself... even if you are it is probably in response to an external pressure that is the real censor.
You are trying to equate going out of their way to suppress certain goods with not going out of their way to carry goods. They are not the same thing.
Amazon officials aren't simply choosing not to carry books that don't sell. They are picking a message and publicly acting to suppress it. Are they doing it because they personally find the material objectionable? Probably. Are they doing it because they think Amazon being seen as an organization that is opposed to gay rape will increase profits and make them look good? Definitely. It doesn't really matter it is still censorship.
Are they morally obligated not to censor those products? Those of us who are opposed to censorship would say yes. Those who support the message they are censoring might also say yes. Those who oppose the message they are censoring but don't favor censorship might see it as a shade of gray, lesser of two evils.
Those who believe a business can do anything they please... aren't they the guys who usually say vote with your dollars? I see people who are outraged by the choices made by Amazon officials and trying to encourage people to vote against those choices with their dollars. Isn't that how it is supposed to work?
You might say that a business owner has every right not to hire blacks if he believes them to be lazy thieves. I actually tend to agree. But I also have the right to be outraged by it.