If somebody does shoot one of them who wants to help me organize a trip to picket at his funeral? May I suggest that we adopt "God hates jackasses" as our motto?
But the "Hate Speech" made the Germans believe that the problems they had was not their fault.
No, he made some Germans believe that. Not everybody in Germany was a committed Nazi nor did everybody in Germany believe Hitler's ideology. In any case I'm skeptical of someone that condemns Hitler while simultaneously saying that we need the state to protect us from people like him. I don't need the state to protect me from people like him -- I'm quite capable of deciding for myself that they are wacko nutjobs.
This is how "Hate Speech" can be used to manipulated the week minds.
Yes, speech can be used to manipulate those with weak minds. So what? The trade-off of giving the Government the power to regulate the content of speech is simply not worth it.
On the other, this is coming from a Bush apologist.
What have I ever said that makes you think I'm a Bush apologist? I spent the last eight years bitching about the excesses and sheer stupidity of his Presidency. I can count on one hand the number of things that Bush did that I agreed with. Why must people automatically assume that anybody who is opposed to Obama is a closet Bush fan?
If you are blaming Hitler's rise to power on free speech then I'd say it's you who needs to watch the story again. Hitler could come to the modern day United States and rant and rave all he wants and wouldn't be regarded as anything more than a historical footnote. Hitler came to power because the Weimar Republic was crippled by the Great Depression. He came to power because German banknotes were so worthless that people were burning them to keep warm. He came to power because the entire country was humiliated by the Allies after they lost WW1.
Left or right doesn't matter. When "Hate Speech" is allowed people die.
You are a leftist. Only leftists think that our rights need to be curtailed because people might die or get hurt. Newsflash: Freedom isn't free, as the saying goes. I would rather have my rights intact than have absolute protection from all sources of danger, thank you very much.
But if you put up a noose, you're threatening to lynch someone.
No, I'm hanging a noose. If I hang a noose and say "bring me that nigger over there!" then I'm threatening to lynch someone. Merely hanging a noose is not a threat. I find it ironic that many people on the left would passionately defend those who burn our flag while condemning those who would hang a noose in the middle of a protest. A noose is merely a symbol and absent some other threatening gesture it should not be illegal to use one as a prop during a protest. It's a disgusting gesture meant to invoke a primal reaction but I wouldn't regard it as a threat on it's own.
People still get lynched, though it is becoming rarer.
This won't be a popular opinion but lynching would never have been the problem it was if the targeted population hadn't been deprived of it's right to keep and bear arms as a result of racially motivated gun control laws. Would you go into a community and drag someone out of his house to lynch him if you knew all of his neighbors had shotguns and were willing to use them?
The Canadian system seems to work okay, although somewhat bloated. The primary issue here now is a shortage of doctors. The reason being that there is so much money to be made south of the border that it would be crazy to stay if you're in it for the cash.
Thank you for agreeing with me:)
There's no reason someone should end up 4000 dollars in debt just to set and wrap a broken arm. It's nuts!
What makes you think Government is the only way to address this?
Being harassed by the local police, federal agents, the secret service, etc is perfectly OK
That's not what I said. The parent said the FBI has been "harassing" people. I asked for proof of this. You failed to provide it. End of story.
The articles that you referenced don't even suggest that people have been "harassed" by other agencies. Being arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave a private event when asked is not harassment. Harassment suggests that agents of the Government have been following these people/investigating them/making their lives a living hell after the fact. Has that happened?
What about the people in the audience who wanted to hear the speaker and whom couldn't because of their classmates that can't stand an opposing point of view?
We have laws against libel and slander for that. We don't need the state deciding what's "hate" speech.
That's exactly right. If I say "operagost touches little children" it's slander and you can sue me. If I say "operagost is a [insert racial epithet here]" that's just me being a dumbass. It doesn't harm you in any way and only serves to make me look like a complete moron. Why does the Government need to get involved here?
People at this very moment are screaming that socializing health insurance will destroy the American health care system... which is actually just a bunch of hugely profitable HMOs deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.
There's a bit more to the American health care system than HMOs. Of course you wouldn't know that because you've bought into the notion that the insurance companies are the biggest problem with our system. They are a factor but there are numerous other issues at play and the current "reform" bills do nothing to address them.
Socializing health insurance will destroy our health care system. The only way to bring down costs in a socialized system is to either reduce the payments made to hospitals and doctors (which will drive the best and the brightest out of medicine and into other fields) or ration the care that is provided to the patients. Option #1 is the option that medicare is currently taking. Medicare reimbursements oftentimes don't even cover the cost of the treatment provided -- so the provider can either eat the loss or make it up by charging more to people who have private insurance or pay out of pocket. Is it any wonder that many Doctors are now refusing to take new medicare patients?
College campuses are notorious for that. They either engage in outright censorship (try organizing a students for concealed carry protest on your local campus and see how the campus powers-that-be respond) or they just drown you out when they don't agree with you. Rather hypocritical of a group that usually claims to value free speech and liberty so much, isn't it?
I'm surprised nobody has put one of those SOBs in the hospital yet. I would never condone the government taking away their right to free speech but I can't exactly say that I wouldn't be inclined to beat the ever living shit out of one of them if they pulled that stunt at my kids funeral.
It is a very slippery slope when defining what is hate-speech, and what is just parlance/slang. Even though my above statements could be construed as ignorant or hurtful, they can only be classified as hate-speech if they are delivered with the intent to hurt.
What the fuck is so harmful about speech delivered with the "intent to hurt"? Are people really so thin-skinned that they need protection from being called bad names? Please tell me that I'm not the only one that's sick of this politically correct nonsense.
Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI
Citation needed.
Repugs
Repugs? Tell us what you really think of 33% of your fellow citizens.
Anti-hate speach legislation, while ill-founded, at least had at its heart the idea to stop the traditional practice of inflaming the mob's anger so as to go out and lynch minorities.
It seems unlikely that AT&T would move GSM to 1900 MHz
Well, they are doing it. And who cares that a 3G phone would solve the problem? They have enough spectrum in 850mhz to run both. There's no compelling reason to degrade the service of the 2G customers.
Switching to WCDMA is advantageous in rural environments. Standard GSM will simply not operate more than 21 mi away from the base station due to timing issues.
That limitation doesn't matter unless you live in Kansas. In the rolling hills of the East or mountains of the West you are never going to get more than 21 miles away from the base station and still maintain a clear enough line of sight to communicate over that distance.
Couple that with things like their VZW navigator not working wherever there's coverage...
VZ Navigator sucks for a lot of reasons, the biggest one being that it's utterly useless unless you have a car charger -- it drains your battery in no time. I think the not working with no coverage bit though is a technological limitation. aGPS relies on the network to get a precise fix on your location -- no network, no location fix. Your phone also lacks the memory to download maps of the whole country and gets them in real time as you travel.
I don't think the Confederate cause was just or moral. I just don't think I could condemn the people who were involved as easily as you could. I honestly don't know what I would do if my home state tried to leave the Union. If our cause was just then I'd probably be one of the first ones to pick up a rifle. Even if it wasn't I'd still have an awfully hard time bearing arms against my home -- that's asking a lot of a human being.
Tough situation to be in no matter how you look at it.
Q: Simple, change the gravitational constant of the universe.
Geordi: What?
Q: Change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid
Geordi: Redefine gravity?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?
Q: You just do it!
Data: I think what Geordi is trying to say is that redefining the gravitational constant of the universe is beyond our technological ability.
Q: Oh.
1900mhz has rain fade? For real or does that have more to do with their cheap deployments? I've deployed outdoor wireless networks at 2400mhz that don't have any issues with rain fade. The only time I've seen issues with rain fade is when you can't get a clear LOS and have to deal with foliage or other obstructions.
I don't understand why they can't leave a few channels on 850mhz for voice services. I understand the desire to use some of it for data but you'd think they'd have enough to go around, particularly since they were allowed to shut down the old AMPS network. 850 is a life saver for people in rural areas or structures that block out 1900.
do something stupid like leave the old hardline on the tower and use that instead of running new waveguide for the 1900 install.
That's pretty pathetic. They really do that? I knew they were cheap but not that cheap. Ugh, Verizon looks better and better all the time. Say what you will about them but they do seem to invest a lot of money into their network and I've never had issues with it. The crippled phones and crappy customer service are another issue entirely of course....
You know who I really miss? T-Mobile. They don't have the same footprint as AT&T or Verizon but when they decide to build out in an area they do it right. In the areas that they have service their network is competitive with Verizon and way better than AT&T. It's even more impressive when you consider the fact that their whole network is 1900mhz and they usually manage to have the same indoor coverage (in my experience anyway, YMMV) as Verizon or AT&T.
Verizon owns Upstate NY, unfortunately. Even in the areas where AT&T works they seem to have capacity and quality issues -- which is strange because they usually have as much (more in some markets) spectrum as Verizon does.
AT&T has also pulled some crap that leaves existing customers high and dry. TDMA customers would go to bed one night with four bars of signal and wake up the next morning in a dead zone without warning. They are even pulling the same crap with their GSM network -- in many markets they've moved GSM services from 850mhz to 1900mhz to free up spectrum for data services. This is fine and dandy in a dense urban environment -- but in a rural environment the longer range/increased penetration of 850mhz matters a lot more. Because of this you might go to bed having a working cell phone in your house and wake up with a paperweight that only works if you go outdoors. Think they'll let you out of your contract when this happens? Fat chance.
I loathe Verizon's customer service and arrogance but they've never pulled anything like this.
As I noted, not everyone has such an extreme view of freedom of expression.
Irrelevant.
I'm not suggesting stifling the politically correct, but I suggest that stifling some of the dangerous is ok.
What happens when our fearless political leaders aren't as reasonable as you? We've got pandering politicians who are willing to attack video games if they think it will help them win re-election. You actually think they should have the power to regulate speech and decide that's "dangerous" or "reasonable"? Are you insane?
In most European countries, the moderate limits to freedom of expression are sensible and work well
No, they aren't sensible. They are grounded in fear.
Their abuse of the legal system and use of spies to infiltrate governments that have investigated these things threaten society.
People/organizations who repeatedly abuse the legal system can be denied access to it. Infiltrating the Government is already a crime. Neither of those things relates to free speech, which is the topic of this discussion. If I want to stand on a street corner and tell anyone who will listen that disembodied alien souls are the source of our unhappiness and psychiatrists are the devil incarnate who the hell are you to muzzle me?
I despise Scientology and the KKK but I'll be marching right alongside them if my Government ever attempts to silence them.
And yes, to a certain extent we do need to be protected from them, not like a bunch of children, but rather like a bunch of humans. We have seen times in history when people have been captivated by the ideas of these groups. Would you deny history?
So what? Freedom isn't free as the saying goes. I can't condone any policy that would muzzle the freedom of expression just because the majority finds the content of that expression to be dangerous or politically incorrect. If you can silence the klansman you can silence anybody.
Apart from Scientologists, I would not muzzle any of those groups.
Slashdot Mirror
If somebody does shoot one of them who wants to help me organize a trip to picket at his funeral? May I suggest that we adopt "God hates jackasses" as our motto?
But the "Hate Speech" made the Germans believe that the problems they had was not their fault.
No, he made some Germans believe that. Not everybody in Germany was a committed Nazi nor did everybody in Germany believe Hitler's ideology. In any case I'm skeptical of someone that condemns Hitler while simultaneously saying that we need the state to protect us from people like him. I don't need the state to protect me from people like him -- I'm quite capable of deciding for myself that they are wacko nutjobs.
This is how "Hate Speech" can be used to manipulated the week minds.
Yes, speech can be used to manipulate those with weak minds. So what? The trade-off of giving the Government the power to regulate the content of speech is simply not worth it.
On the other, this is coming from a Bush apologist.
What have I ever said that makes you think I'm a Bush apologist? I spent the last eight years bitching about the excesses and sheer stupidity of his Presidency. I can count on one hand the number of things that Bush did that I agreed with. Why must people automatically assume that anybody who is opposed to Obama is a closet Bush fan?
If you are blaming Hitler's rise to power on free speech then I'd say it's you who needs to watch the story again. Hitler could come to the modern day United States and rant and rave all he wants and wouldn't be regarded as anything more than a historical footnote. Hitler came to power because the Weimar Republic was crippled by the Great Depression. He came to power because German banknotes were so worthless that people were burning them to keep warm. He came to power because the entire country was humiliated by the Allies after they lost WW1.
Left or right doesn't matter. When "Hate Speech" is allowed people die.
You are a leftist. Only leftists think that our rights need to be curtailed because people might die or get hurt. Newsflash: Freedom isn't free, as the saying goes. I would rather have my rights intact than have absolute protection from all sources of danger, thank you very much.
But if you put up a noose, you're threatening to lynch someone.
No, I'm hanging a noose. If I hang a noose and say "bring me that nigger over there!" then I'm threatening to lynch someone. Merely hanging a noose is not a threat. I find it ironic that many people on the left would passionately defend those who burn our flag while condemning those who would hang a noose in the middle of a protest. A noose is merely a symbol and absent some other threatening gesture it should not be illegal to use one as a prop during a protest. It's a disgusting gesture meant to invoke a primal reaction but I wouldn't regard it as a threat on it's own.
People still get lynched, though it is becoming rarer.
This won't be a popular opinion but lynching would never have been the problem it was if the targeted population hadn't been deprived of it's right to keep and bear arms as a result of racially motivated gun control laws. Would you go into a community and drag someone out of his house to lynch him if you knew all of his neighbors had shotguns and were willing to use them?
People are sheep and can be turned into murderers in a couple of years
You must be a leftist if you have that little faith in humanity.
This is why we should never allow any form of violence.
What does violence have to do with free speech?
The Canadian system seems to work okay, although somewhat bloated. The primary issue here now is a shortage of doctors. The reason being that there is so much money to be made south of the border that it would be crazy to stay if you're in it for the cash.
Thank you for agreeing with me :)
There's no reason someone should end up 4000 dollars in debt just to set and wrap a broken arm. It's nuts!
What makes you think Government is the only way to address this?
Being harassed by the local police, federal agents, the secret service, etc is perfectly OK
That's not what I said. The parent said the FBI has been "harassing" people. I asked for proof of this. You failed to provide it. End of story.
The articles that you referenced don't even suggest that people have been "harassed" by other agencies. Being arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave a private event when asked is not harassment. Harassment suggests that agents of the Government have been following these people/investigating them/making their lives a living hell after the fact. Has that happened?
What about the people in the audience who wanted to hear the speaker and whom couldn't because of their classmates that can't stand an opposing point of view?
We have laws against libel and slander for that. We don't need the state deciding what's "hate" speech.
That's exactly right. If I say "operagost touches little children" it's slander and you can sue me. If I say "operagost is a [insert racial epithet here]" that's just me being a dumbass. It doesn't harm you in any way and only serves to make me look like a complete moron. Why does the Government need to get involved here?
People at this very moment are screaming that socializing health insurance will destroy the American health care system... which is actually just a bunch of hugely profitable HMOs deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.
There's a bit more to the American health care system than HMOs. Of course you wouldn't know that because you've bought into the notion that the insurance companies are the biggest problem with our system. They are a factor but there are numerous other issues at play and the current "reform" bills do nothing to address them.
Socializing health insurance will destroy our health care system. The only way to bring down costs in a socialized system is to either reduce the payments made to hospitals and doctors (which will drive the best and the brightest out of medicine and into other fields) or ration the care that is provided to the patients. Option #1 is the option that medicare is currently taking. Medicare reimbursements oftentimes don't even cover the cost of the treatment provided -- so the provider can either eat the loss or make it up by charging more to people who have private insurance or pay out of pocket. Is it any wonder that many Doctors are now refusing to take new medicare patients?
Fail. Not a single one of those articles you linked even mentions the FBI, let alone says that people were "harassed" by them.
College campuses are notorious for that. They either engage in outright censorship (try organizing a students for concealed carry protest on your local campus and see how the campus powers-that-be respond) or they just drown you out when they don't agree with you. Rather hypocritical of a group that usually claims to value free speech and liberty so much, isn't it?
I'm surprised nobody has put one of those SOBs in the hospital yet. I would never condone the government taking away their right to free speech but I can't exactly say that I wouldn't be inclined to beat the ever living shit out of one of them if they pulled that stunt at my kids funeral.
It is a very slippery slope when defining what is hate-speech, and what is just parlance/slang. Even though my above statements could be construed as ignorant or hurtful, they can only be classified as hate-speech if they are delivered with the intent to hurt.
What the fuck is so harmful about speech delivered with the "intent to hurt"? Are people really so thin-skinned that they need protection from being called bad names? Please tell me that I'm not the only one that's sick of this politically correct nonsense.
Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
That shouldn't mean you get to outlaw it though.
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI
Citation needed.
Repugs
Repugs? Tell us what you really think of 33% of your fellow citizens.
Anti-hate speach legislation, while ill-founded, at least had at its heart the idea to stop the traditional practice of inflaming the mob's anger so as to go out and lynch minorities.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It seems unlikely that AT&T would move GSM to 1900 MHz
Well, they are doing it. And who cares that a 3G phone would solve the problem? They have enough spectrum in 850mhz to run both. There's no compelling reason to degrade the service of the 2G customers.
Switching to WCDMA is advantageous in rural environments. Standard GSM will simply not operate more than 21 mi away from the base station due to timing issues.
That limitation doesn't matter unless you live in Kansas. In the rolling hills of the East or mountains of the West you are never going to get more than 21 miles away from the base station and still maintain a clear enough line of sight to communicate over that distance.
Couple that with things like their VZW navigator not working wherever there's coverage...
VZ Navigator sucks for a lot of reasons, the biggest one being that it's utterly useless unless you have a car charger -- it drains your battery in no time. I think the not working with no coverage bit though is a technological limitation. aGPS relies on the network to get a precise fix on your location -- no network, no location fix. Your phone also lacks the memory to download maps of the whole country and gets them in real time as you travel.
I don't think the Confederate cause was just or moral. I just don't think I could condemn the people who were involved as easily as you could. I honestly don't know what I would do if my home state tried to leave the Union. If our cause was just then I'd probably be one of the first ones to pick up a rifle. Even if it wasn't I'd still have an awfully hard time bearing arms against my home -- that's asking a lot of a human being.
Tough situation to be in no matter how you look at it.
Q: Simple, change the gravitational constant of the universe.
Geordi: What?
Q: Change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid
Geordi: Redefine gravity?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?
Q: You just do it!
Data: I think what Geordi is trying to say is that redefining the gravitational constant of the universe is beyond our technological ability.
Q: Oh.
1900mhz has rain fade? For real or does that have more to do with their cheap deployments? I've deployed outdoor wireless networks at 2400mhz that don't have any issues with rain fade. The only time I've seen issues with rain fade is when you can't get a clear LOS and have to deal with foliage or other obstructions.
I don't understand why they can't leave a few channels on 850mhz for voice services. I understand the desire to use some of it for data but you'd think they'd have enough to go around, particularly since they were allowed to shut down the old AMPS network. 850 is a life saver for people in rural areas or structures that block out 1900.
do something stupid like leave the old hardline on the tower and use that instead of running new waveguide for the 1900 install.
That's pretty pathetic. They really do that? I knew they were cheap but not that cheap. Ugh, Verizon looks better and better all the time. Say what you will about them but they do seem to invest a lot of money into their network and I've never had issues with it. The crippled phones and crappy customer service are another issue entirely of course....
You know who I really miss? T-Mobile. They don't have the same footprint as AT&T or Verizon but when they decide to build out in an area they do it right. In the areas that they have service their network is competitive with Verizon and way better than AT&T. It's even more impressive when you consider the fact that their whole network is 1900mhz and they usually manage to have the same indoor coverage (in my experience anyway, YMMV) as Verizon or AT&T.
Verizon owns Upstate NY, unfortunately. Even in the areas where AT&T works they seem to have capacity and quality issues -- which is strange because they usually have as much (more in some markets) spectrum as Verizon does.
AT&T has also pulled some crap that leaves existing customers high and dry. TDMA customers would go to bed one night with four bars of signal and wake up the next morning in a dead zone without warning. They are even pulling the same crap with their GSM network -- in many markets they've moved GSM services from 850mhz to 1900mhz to free up spectrum for data services. This is fine and dandy in a dense urban environment -- but in a rural environment the longer range/increased penetration of 850mhz matters a lot more. Because of this you might go to bed having a working cell phone in your house and wake up with a paperweight that only works if you go outdoors. Think they'll let you out of your contract when this happens? Fat chance.
I loathe Verizon's customer service and arrogance but they've never pulled anything like this.
As I noted, not everyone has such an extreme view of freedom of expression.
Irrelevant.
I'm not suggesting stifling the politically correct, but I suggest that stifling some of the dangerous is ok.
What happens when our fearless political leaders aren't as reasonable as you? We've got pandering politicians who are willing to attack video games if they think it will help them win re-election. You actually think they should have the power to regulate speech and decide that's "dangerous" or "reasonable"? Are you insane?
In most European countries, the moderate limits to freedom of expression are sensible and work well
No, they aren't sensible. They are grounded in fear.
Their abuse of the legal system and use of spies to infiltrate governments that have investigated these things threaten society.
People/organizations who repeatedly abuse the legal system can be denied access to it. Infiltrating the Government is already a crime. Neither of those things relates to free speech, which is the topic of this discussion. If I want to stand on a street corner and tell anyone who will listen that disembodied alien souls are the source of our unhappiness and psychiatrists are the devil incarnate who the hell are you to muzzle me?
I despise Scientology and the KKK but I'll be marching right alongside them if my Government ever attempts to silence them.
Who gets to decide what our laws are in general?
Lobbyists?
And yes, to a certain extent we do need to be protected from them, not like a bunch of children, but rather like a bunch of humans. We have seen times in history when people have been captivated by the ideas of these groups. Would you deny history?
So what? Freedom isn't free as the saying goes. I can't condone any policy that would muzzle the freedom of expression just because the majority finds the content of that expression to be dangerous or politically incorrect. If you can silence the klansman you can silence anybody.
Apart from Scientologists, I would not muzzle any of those groups.
Why do the Scientologists need to be muzzled?