It seems that you Americans think that speech isn't protected here at all, but it is! The difference is that we don't see it as an _absolute_ value, lots of people here think there are limits to what you can say.
Who gets to make the exceptions? If you protect the expression of political opinion "with exceptions", then you don't protect the expression of political opinion at all. First off, opinions that are popular with whoever makes the laws don't need to be protected. Even under feudalism, there is nothing stopping you from saying "The King is awesome!". Once you start making exceptions--well, everything that falls into society's "taboo hole" also becomes illegal. As time goes on, who knows what those exceptions will become? All "free speech with exceptions" accomplishes is simply upholding the status quo.
As I mentioned in another thread, America was devastated by a war, too. The southern states decided they wanted to maintain slavery, and that the federal government had no legal right to interfere in a state's internal affairs. They even decided that they had the legal right to secede from the United States. This, of course, led to the bloodiest war in American history. Yet incredibly, after that happened, no one thought we should ban people from saying things like, "slavery is okay", "states' rights are more important than federal power", or even, "we should secede from the Union". And, 140 years later, despite lots of people (although a diminishing number) running around saying these things, or openly sympathizing with the seceding states, the Civil War hasn't happened again.
We're gonna keep thinking we're superior because we actually have free speech. You can keep thinking you're superior because you don't start wars for no good reason, though, and at least this American will hang his head in shame in response to that and admit that there are some things that other countries are better at.
So the very same immature masses who need these laws to protect them from themselves are supposed to make those very same laws to begin with. You still haven't gotten anywhere, and by wasting my time giving me bad arguments about political philosophy you've pretty much obfuscated the entire issue, which is the censorship of certain categories of political speech.
Now that's just wasteful. You only need to exterminate one group in order to solve the problem. You think I'm joking but historically, that's how many wars end--one group exterminates the other, and there's no more war. Of course, there's always another group out there, and if you really like war, you can go and fight them too.
If, however, you "require" IE and try to use tricks (rather than checking the browser string) in order to ensure I'm using it, I'm going to say, "fuck your content". Content is important, but good content will not inspire people to leap over literally every barrier in their way.
So wait a second. You're for democracy, and yet you think people are "immature" and need rules imposed upon them. By whom? Mature people? But in a democracy, the people who make the rules are the very same people you condemn as "immature". Your ideas would only make sense if you also believed in a "mature" "upper class", so to speak, which could rule over the "immature" masses. Otherwise, these constraints themselves will be counterproductive, having been created haphazardly by the immature masses.
On the other hand, it can be said that people tend to act with the maturity they are entrusted with, Whether that theory is valid can be questioned, but how exactly is a society supposed to mature if people are not entrusted with the ability to do so?
Back to the main point, what is restricting hate speech supposed to accomplish, anyway? It's not like America's been overrun with neo-Nazis.
It most definitely is a political position if you favor genocide as a policy for some government to carry out. Just like war. Opinions do not have to be reasonable (going back to the gold standard) or moral (wanting the United States to torture terror suspects) in order to be political positions.
Censorship, hate-crime laws and speech restriction laws can be entirely valid, fair and appropriate. When they are, they should exist - no matter who doesn't like it.
Just because you want to silence a few nutcases doesn't make you the moral arbiter of what opinions people are allowed to express. World War II happened. Get over it. Our continent was destroyed by a war started by racist morons too, but we, at least, are mature enough as a society to discuss and judge people for their stated opinions without trying to silence them with jack-booted thugs.
The US is fairly lenient on defamation--defamatory speech is prohibited only when there is malice behind it, unlike Britain. Defamation and fraud are the misrepresentation of fact. Americans have (and passionately believe in) the freedom to express any political opinions--be it favoring the violent overthrow of the government, the extermination of Canadians, or even the idea that homosexuality is not okay with God. If you express these beliefs, the police won't come after you like they do in Europe. People just think you're a few bananas short of a fruit salad.
It's both. UW, MIT, Berkeley, UMaryland, and CMU are all competing for the upper echelon of computer science students just as much as computer science students are competing to get into these schools.
I read somewhere (don't have time to find a source) that football players are routinely tested for intelligence, as intelligence is important for things like memorizing playbooks and such. Quarterbacks and offensive linemen are usually the smartest players on the team. How this test correlates to IQ is a good question, but I suspect it correlates well.
Trying to reply to them. I drop words sometimes because I'm usually thinking several words ahead of where I'm typing. I could always go back and reread my posts before submitting, and I sometimes do. I just don't think idiots like you are worthy of my extending that much effort.
The first people on Mars will be the first people to fly through vast stretches of interplanetary space, the first people to deal with the risks of solar flares and cosmic radiation, the first people to make a controlled landing on Mars (automated Mars landings go wrong as often as they go right), and the first people to deal first-hand with Martian dust storms. Like it or not, these are all things you need experience with before you actually send a colony ship.
I know that's what you meant--my point was the exact opposite, that evidence of crimes should not only be protected from state censorship and restriction, but that the state should endeavor to make all such evidence easily available to all citizens. If there's a photo of me committing murder, the government should not only refrain from taking it down from your website--they should even post it on their website to allow citizens to review the evidence in my murder trial. Please try to comprehend replies before trying to them.
"Not worthy of protection"? The purpose of the government, among other things, is to investigate crimes. If we want a transparent government, shouldn't evidence of crimes (the same evidence the government keeps, even!) be kept available for public review? That's even more open than regular free speech protection.
But what if you want to play it on a device that doesn't support AAC?
If your device supports CD, then you can burn your AAC songs to CD and have no loss. If your device supports MP3 or WMA but not AAC, it's a pretty shitty device.
Would be taken as evidence that you killed someone. Honestly, the crime is in killing people and raping children, not in that you went and took pictures of it.
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Who gets to make the exceptions? If you protect the expression of political opinion "with exceptions", then you don't protect the expression of political opinion at all. First off, opinions that are popular with whoever makes the laws don't need to be protected. Even under feudalism, there is nothing stopping you from saying "The King is awesome!". Once you start making exceptions--well, everything that falls into society's "taboo hole" also becomes illegal. As time goes on, who knows what those exceptions will become? All "free speech with exceptions" accomplishes is simply upholding the status quo.
As I mentioned in another thread, America was devastated by a war, too. The southern states decided they wanted to maintain slavery, and that the federal government had no legal right to interfere in a state's internal affairs. They even decided that they had the legal right to secede from the United States. This, of course, led to the bloodiest war in American history. Yet incredibly, after that happened, no one thought we should ban people from saying things like, "slavery is okay", "states' rights are more important than federal power", or even, "we should secede from the Union". And, 140 years later, despite lots of people (although a diminishing number) running around saying these things, or openly sympathizing with the seceding states, the Civil War hasn't happened again.
We're gonna keep thinking we're superior because we actually have free speech. You can keep thinking you're superior because you don't start wars for no good reason, though, and at least this American will hang his head in shame in response to that and admit that there are some things that other countries are better at.
Embarrassingly enough, I think it was actually Steve Jobs that said that.
So the very same immature masses who need these laws to protect them from themselves are supposed to make those very same laws to begin with. You still haven't gotten anywhere, and by wasting my time giving me bad arguments about political philosophy you've pretty much obfuscated the entire issue, which is the censorship of certain categories of political speech.
Who the hell's supposed to make these absolutely immutable laws? Or interpret them?
Now that's just wasteful. You only need to exterminate one group in order to solve the problem. You think I'm joking but historically, that's how many wars end--one group exterminates the other, and there's no more war. Of course, there's always another group out there, and if you really like war, you can go and fight them too.
Well, if you consider code to have the same rights as human beings, maybe.
If, however, you "require" IE and try to use tricks (rather than checking the browser string) in order to ensure I'm using it, I'm going to say, "fuck your content". Content is important, but good content will not inspire people to leap over literally every barrier in their way.
So wait a second. You're for democracy, and yet you think people are "immature" and need rules imposed upon them. By whom? Mature people? But in a democracy, the people who make the rules are the very same people you condemn as "immature". Your ideas would only make sense if you also believed in a "mature" "upper class", so to speak, which could rule over the "immature" masses. Otherwise, these constraints themselves will be counterproductive, having been created haphazardly by the immature masses.
On the other hand, it can be said that people tend to act with the maturity they are entrusted with, Whether that theory is valid can be questioned, but how exactly is a society supposed to mature if people are not entrusted with the ability to do so?
Back to the main point, what is restricting hate speech supposed to accomplish, anyway? It's not like America's been overrun with neo-Nazis.
False advertising? Defamation? I'm interested to see how you'd justify these.
It most definitely is a political position if you favor genocide as a policy for some government to carry out. Just like war. Opinions do not have to be reasonable (going back to the gold standard) or moral (wanting the United States to torture terror suspects) in order to be political positions.
I wonder what would happen if someone used Pirate Bay to distribute a pirated PDF of white supremacist literature...
At least you can say "hateful" things about your government...for now.
Just because you want to silence a few nutcases doesn't make you the moral arbiter of what opinions people are allowed to express. World War II happened. Get over it. Our continent was destroyed by a war started by racist morons too, but we, at least, are mature enough as a society to discuss and judge people for their stated opinions without trying to silence them with jack-booted thugs.
The US is fairly lenient on defamation--defamatory speech is prohibited only when there is malice behind it, unlike Britain. Defamation and fraud are the misrepresentation of fact. Americans have (and passionately believe in) the freedom to express any political opinions--be it favoring the violent overthrow of the government, the extermination of Canadians, or even the idea that homosexuality is not okay with God. If you express these beliefs, the police won't come after you like they do in Europe. People just think you're a few bananas short of a fruit salad.
The advocacy of a political position does not fall into any of those categories.
If I actually mounted that argument your criticism would make sense.
It's both. UW, MIT, Berkeley, UMaryland, and CMU are all competing for the upper echelon of computer science students just as much as computer science students are competing to get into these schools.
I read somewhere (don't have time to find a source) that football players are routinely tested for intelligence, as intelligence is important for things like memorizing playbooks and such. Quarterbacks and offensive linemen are usually the smartest players on the team. How this test correlates to IQ is a good question, but I suspect it correlates well.
Trying to reply to them. I drop words sometimes because I'm usually thinking several words ahead of where I'm typing. I could always go back and reread my posts before submitting, and I sometimes do. I just don't think idiots like you are worthy of my extending that much effort.
The first people on Mars will be the first people to fly through vast stretches of interplanetary space, the first people to deal with the risks of solar flares and cosmic radiation, the first people to make a controlled landing on Mars (automated Mars landings go wrong as often as they go right), and the first people to deal first-hand with Martian dust storms. Like it or not, these are all things you need experience with before you actually send a colony ship.
I know that's what you meant--my point was the exact opposite, that evidence of crimes should not only be protected from state censorship and restriction, but that the state should endeavor to make all such evidence easily available to all citizens. If there's a photo of me committing murder, the government should not only refrain from taking it down from your website--they should even post it on their website to allow citizens to review the evidence in my murder trial. Please try to comprehend replies before trying to them.
"Not worthy of protection"? The purpose of the government, among other things, is to investigate crimes. If we want a transparent government, shouldn't evidence of crimes (the same evidence the government keeps, even!) be kept available for public review? That's even more open than regular free speech protection.
You have to be fairly far-sighted in order to hold an iPhone "at roughly arms length" in order to watch videos on it.
If your device supports CD, then you can burn your AAC songs to CD and have no loss. If your device supports MP3 or WMA but not AAC, it's a pretty shitty device.
Would be taken as evidence that you killed someone. Honestly, the crime is in killing people and raping children, not in that you went and took pictures of it.