I'd suggest that if it's somebody "testing our capabilities," they're about to have most of the Third and perhaps elements of the Seventh Fleet (together, the bulk of the Pacific Fleet) crashing their party.
You must be right - I'm sure a single person can easily launch an SLBM by accident. In fact, just the other day, I dropped a fork on the kitchen floor, and most of Spain was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust the likes of which the world has never seen.
Your "the US Navy is staffed with nothing but bumbling idiots who can't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight" argument is more stupid than the "display of force" argument ever thought of being.
Re:If they are adult enough to use one of these ki
on
Pee On Your Phone STD Test
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"Many are too embarrassed to get tested."
Not "many are too embarrassed to get treated." And in fact, having a "diagnosis" of sorts to share with a doctor as a framework for the discussion will probably help them deal with the embarrassment.
Many people - at widely varying ages - are nervous about discussing things with their doctor, and most of it stems from fear of the unknown. "I have this burning feeling when I pee, but it's probably just irritation, and will go away, no need to bother the doctor about it."
Having a test that's convenient and private means that the people who don't want to bother the doctor with something that's "probably no big deal" can test themselves, and seek treatment if the test is positive; It can also be used by people who are normally "safe" but who experience a broken condom, or a regrettable lapse of judgement.
Arguing that there's no need, market, or benefit to this is stupid. If you had to go to the doctor every time you needed your blood pressure, blood sugar, or other things tested... how many people do you think would be walking around as hypertensive diabetics with advanced atherosclerosis until they keeled over from a massive coronary at age 55? I'm betting it'd be a lot higher if the tools for "home testing" weren't available.
I'm guessing if you use phrases like "dip your wick" and "jam this thing in a coochie," with a woman, you probably have done neither, and it's a reasonable bet that you probably never will.
Condoms break. They are not foolproof. Otherwise responsible people also get drunk, or high, or stupid, and do things which later cause them to think "WTF was I thinking??!!"
There are numerous reasons why people might choose to use a device like this.
Assuming that use of a condom makes you invincible is, perversely, an indicator of immature thinking and displays a fundamental lack of awareness of the risks inherent to any sexual behavior.
If you are writing software at any level, if you are writing important papers at any level, if you are doing anything rigorous, difficult, and requiring many revisions and updates over long periods of time:
You should be using version control of some sort.
Why would you NOT want the added ease & safety of knowing that even if you totally train wreck whatever you're working on, you can always roll it back to some recent version before you made those changes? Whether you implement it in a Dropbox-style "every time you save we take a snapshot" system, or a formal "checkout/checkin" system, you should be using it.
Version control, as a principle, and with a brief introduction to common systems such as git/mercurial/svn, should be foundational to any computer science or computer engineering degree program. Most programs have a couple "intro to CS" courses which teach actual programming, it shouldn't be that much of an additional burden to add a day or two of "version control systems" to that course.
That works too. The point I was making was mostly that I'm more interested in getting more productive usage out of the system over its multi-year lifetime than I am concerned with an extra few hours of assembly/disassembly/maintenance time during the life of the device. I'll happily pay a little extra to cover the extra hassle of assembly/disassembly if I get more power & functionality in a smaller footprint.
Good point. If someone getting paid minimum wage has to spend an extra hour breaking down my old laptop *once* for recycling, and I get an extra hour or two a day of productive IT work at much-more-than-minimum-wage out of it for three years of use... focusing on saving time at the breakdown point presents a skewed vision of the value of the time involved in manufacture, use, and disposal of the laptop.
Number of times I've had to crack open whichever laptop I've owned during the ~9 years I've owned one: 2. Once to replace a bad drive, once to upgrade RAM. Number of hours per work day I use my laptop: 8+, with an hour or two per day on weekends. I like that the gear is largely recyclable, but I'll easily pay an extra 50 bucks every few years to cover the extra time spent assembling/disassembling the laptop at manufacture & recycle time if it means I get a more powerful / less bulky / better battery-life unit for the three or more years I'll be using it for.
Until or unless you can do that, you don't have a leg to stand upon.
I already have cited examples, which you've conveniently ignored. Libel and slander are two very good ones. Let's say I decide to spread a bunch of lies about you:
"Fyngyrz' business uses sweatshops. He also beats his wife. You shouldn't patronize it."
Think if I could get away with saying that, it might cause damage to you, and your business? Think that the content of that speech might very well be damaging?
This is why we have libel and slander laws. And this is why they ARE constitutional. I have no right to wreck your life, freedom, and finances simply because I choose to exercise my right to free speech and tell a lie.
Right, because the Constitution is not the sum total of our legal system. Do you really think that the founders intended to give every citizen complete license to lie through their teeth and vilify each other with unfounded rumors?
One need not embrace every existing limit on free speech to concede that there ARE, and OUGHT TO BE, some limits on speech, and that those limits are both necessary to and permitted by the Constitution, which is all about *balancing* unchecked powers and authority.
Your right to bear arms doesn't give you the right to shoot anyone you please for any reason, does it? Or, does it give you the right to rob people, because "Shit, I have this gun, and you have lots of money, so...?"
Likewise, your right to free speech doesn't give you the right to harm other people through your speech, by inciting violence, by causing a panic, by slandering someone and ruining their business and personal relations.
So, simple question: Do you believe that slander and libel ought to be punishable under the law? If so, then you are agreeing that the First Amendment is not incompatible with restrictions on free speech.
If you disagree, and think that speech should be a case of anything goes, please explain how we will continue to function as a semi-sane society, when anything can be said by anybody, at anytime, with no consequences related to the veracity of the statements made? When I can wreck your business with just a few words to your customers; When I can hire someone to completely destroy your marriage by claiming that you slept with them with impunity; When I can put you out of a job, friendless, ostracized by your community by spreading rumors and lies about you - does my right to free speech give me a free license to do all this, and experience no punishment for doing so?
If you can agree that some limits are sensible, permitted by the constitution, and needed in order to provide a functional social fabric, then the discussion moves to "how much of a limit, and what are the circumstances where those limits apply?" If you cannot agree with that, then you are engaging in wishful thinking for some sort of 'free' society that has NEVER existed in the history of mankind, and will only ever exist in your mind as a vision of some sort of dysfunctional utopia where "free speech" trumps everything, including the rights of other people.
Perhaps not as precise as tablet/stylus/mouse work, but it might be a nice sketchbook that he could use with his non-dominant hand, or perhaps explore some other styles and modes of work.
Some of the art I've seen stories about people producing with an iPad and their fingers has been pretty impressive, I'm sure there's similar programs (or soon will be) for the Galaxy tab as well.
Great, so you agree that restrictions on free speech are both constitutional, and legitimate?
Scroll back up and see my original point. That's exactly what I said.
I never said that all of the restrictions we have today are justified, legitimate, or called for, I said that *some* restrictions MUST be allowed for.
You cannot say - with a straight face, and in good conscience - that "no restrictions" should be allowed, and that is what the person I *originally* responded to submitted as an opinion - that the First Amendment allowed for absolute zero restriction for any reason whatsoever, because of a ridiculously simple-minded and literal interpretation.
That is what I am arguing against, and if we agree that restrictions are allowed for, permissible, and even needed at times, then we have a rational basis for discussing what the extent of coverage should be of those restrictions.
Funny thing is, I would agree with your statement that "I'd err extremely far on the side of free speech." I think that's a very steep precedent to contravene, and it shouldn't be done lightly. But to suggest that it should NEVER be restricted is farcical, as trivial examples of slander and libel can demonstrate.
When the constitution says "don't do this", and the government says "oh, but we must", and then proceeds to do exactly that without resorting to article V (which is there to provide a legitimate path to any change they like, by the way), this is not a sign that things are ok. It is a huge red flag indicating corruption and usurpation. Ignore it at your peril.
You know what's funny? When the Constitution says "don't do this," and you ignore the entire common-law basis of the document, and pretend that a single line is the only thing that indicated any opinion on the matter that the Founders held, or the literally centuries of legal precedent that have developed around the notion of free speech.
You do not have a right to free speech when that free speech impedes on someone else's rights. Trying to assert that you do is ridiculous, naive, and frankly - that's far more of a red flag indicating despotism than the government saying "We are ensuring that your exercise of free speech doesn't infringe on other peoples' rights."
Filing a civil case is very different from getting your civil case before a judge, friend, and you know it.
Don't pretend you're so thick that you don't understand the difference between "frivolous lawsuits" and "legal penalties imposed under the law for violations of the law." Your "sue for being too ugly" is a frivolous lawsuit, and *would* be thrown out of court, because there is no law imposing penalties for "being ugly."
There are, however, civil laws imposing penalties for libel, slander, and other defamatory remarks. They are against the law: You do not have a "right" to make them, and in fact, you could be prosecuted and judged quite severely for doing so.
There can be no "right" to trample another person's rights, and this is why we have limits on the right to 'free speech'.
I'll have to think on how to frame my next question about the FA, as it says that "Congress shall make no law", and doesn't refer to states. Still confused, but less so - thanks.
Don't feel bad about that, this is the problem that a lot of - presumably American - slashdotters seem to have with it, and I daresay you're farther along than many of them are in at least being able to admit to confusion. They like to try and interpret the Constitution as if it's machine code, and it's anything but the precise 'specification' they wish to read it as.
There are multiple layers at work in the legal system: Federal constitution, federal law, state constitutions, state law, judicial interpretations of vague / unclear / broad laws, centuries of common-law precedent. Basically, when anything from a 'lower layer' conflicts with something in the layer above it, the general rule is that the topmost layer is 'the right way to do it'. There are exceptions, and uneven application of these principles, certainly, but this is the the way things are designed to work.
The Constitution sets out the judicial system, and basically states this right out, saying that the Constitution is the law of the land, and judges and other judicial officials are obligated to enforce it, even if federal or state laws, or a state constitution, conflicts with it. This is the basis of the judicial review power, where a judge may declare a law to be unconstitutional, and thus null & void, which has (again, naively) been argued against elsewhere in this post.
Any attempt to frame "free speech" in the sole context of the First Amendment is laughably naive, and this is why I've been arguing so forcefully about it here. The First Amendment is an important piece of the restrictions against limits on free speech, but we have a whole legal system with numerous laws and precedents which need to be taken into account alongside the First Amendment.
And balancing is what it generally boils down to: a person's right to 'free speech' necessarily ends where it begins to infringe on someone else's rights. I cannot destroy your reputation and your family and your business by smearing you ("using my free speech!"), and expect that there will be no repercussions for doing that. Speech can be quite damaging, and so the right to voice certain things must be balanced against the rights of other people to not have their lives destroyed by me spreading lies and rumors about them.
But I'm glad we've come to an agreement that you're wrong. The First Amendment offers no 'unlimited' right to free speech as you suggest, and it's fortunate for everybody that it doesn't.
I'm not sure what you're getting at - voting rights are determined at the State level, not Federal. Where the right to vote is mentioned in the constitution (Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24, and 26), they specifically lay out the conditions that may not be used to deny someone a vote:
14: If rights are denied by any criteria to those who are: citizens, age 21, resident of the state, then the portion of representatives is reduced proportionally. 15: Vote shall not be denied based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (e.g., slavery). 19: Vote may not be denied based on sex; 24: Vote may not be denied based on failure to pay taxes or failure to pay a 'poll tax' 26: Vote may not be denied to anybody 18 years or older on account of their age;
Now, as for my opinion and interpretation? Yes, I consider voting an expression of my views. No, I do not consider it covered by the "first amendment" because there are other criteria laying out the right to vote, and the First Amendment is a poor place to defend it.
The first amendment *is* transitive to the states, in that their laws and constitution may not *take away* the right expressly affirmed in the first amendment, or anything else elsewhere in the constitution of bill of rights. Where state laws and the constitution conflict, the constitution takes precedence, in other words.
As I said, I'm not sure what you're getting at with the question. Expand it a bit, and perhaps I can give a better answer.
Try to get it in your head that the term "no law" could not be more extremely precise.
And so "no law" includes no law restricting the speech of corporations, slanderous speech, language designed to incite violence or harm against another, and a host of other things which are very damaging, right?
Speech is "harmless" in much the same way that a gun is "harmless" unless you load it, point it at someone, and pull the trigger. The right to bear arms doesn't give you the right to rob convenience stores and take what you want from them. In much the same way, the right to free speech doesn't give you the right to slander someone and ruin their personal life and business on a whim. I don't know what junior high school playground you live in, but speech has never been, and never will be harmless, if misused.
If you want legal limits, you must codify them... LEGALLY
Okay, great, they're called defamation laws. Perhaps you'd like to look them up, they're in the civil code. Now that we've agreed that there are legal limits, and they've been codified, can we dispense with the stupidity of arguing that there are "no limits" on free speech, and "any limit on free speech is unconstitutional"?
If you were 1% the constitutional scholar you fancy yourself to be, you'd know that the founders understood the notion that any power, unchecked, was a dangerous thing. Thus they built into the constitution a set of checks and balances on the powers of the government. In a like manner, the "rights" of one person are not unlimited, and in fact, must be balanced against the rights of others. Your right to free speech ends when it begins actually *damaging* another person, or substantially endangering the lives and welfare of another person.
And under the law, damages include financial harm, but since I know you're such a stickler for LEGAL CODIFICATION, I'm sure you knew that already.
Because now I'm defending myself against physical assault.
You really are a very special sort of stupid, aren't you?
"losing your house" doesn't have to happen at the hands of a mob wielding torches and a pitchfork.
I slander you and ruin your business. You have no income, no money. The bank says, "You can't make your mortgage payment anymore? Too bad, we're seizing the house." And so, you have no house.
And in the meantime, your wife has left, and you're unemployed. You keep thinking that slander involves people forming a posse and running you out of town. It can be much softer, and insidious, than that.
And with free speech as you describe, you have no recourse. But if you shoot the person from the bank who repossesses your house, you'll go to jail, and possibly face the death penalty. My words have hurt you very badly, and damaged you very badly.
And this, you argue, is a good thing?
Nice try. I'm talking about the people who act better come up with the proof. The guy talking can say what he wants. You have to physically cause physical harm. Words cannot do that. Somebody has to pull the trigger. He would be the criminal, nobody else.
There are huge, gaping holes in this argument. "Acting against you" can simply be "I heard he diddles little boys, and so I'm not buying things from his store anymore, you shouldn't either - tell all your friends, too."
Since when is financial and personal ruin not "harming" you? If my words put you out on the street - friendless, penniless - will you still say "He has the right to free speech, he can say whatever vile and slanderous things about me he wants to say!"
Or will you *then* say, "Gee, maybe there should be some limits on what people are allowed to say without penalty."
Defamation as it relates to the Federal constitution is exclusively a civil matter. Were the police and FBI supposed to storm your home with a SWAT team because you appeared on a roast and said some mean things about David Hasselhoff? Was I supposed to not say mean and funny things in a venue where I'm asked to do so, and both David Hasselhoff and I have signed a contract saying "Let's film an hour of people saying mean and funny things about David Hasselhoff?"
I'm pretty sure at this point that you're just a troll - you've offered no opinions that bolster your points other than "There's this line in MASH that I thought was clever," and a schoolyard rhyme.
I'd say it's safe to conclude that your point has been shown to be foolish, and completely antithetical to the meaning and intent of the constitution. The first amendment does not give anyone an unlimited right to damage others with their speech, and so there must be some limits to what may and may not be said.
Then condemn the community. It is their obligation to verify.. otherwise they're nothing but a mob on a witch hunt.
And will that stop you from being unjustly damaged by my exercise of free speech? While the community is "verifying" things, you've lost your house, your family, your business, and whatever community standing you once had. Let's say it only lasts a year until all the charges are shown to be false, and everybody forgives & forgets that you were alleged to have done these things.
You've still lost a year of your life, and irreparable damage has been done to you. How does engaging in a war of words with your accuser change that? And who are you to demand that they must prove their accusations? You can't force people to be truthful when they speak, that'd be a limit on their freedom of speech, wouldn't it?
"Sticks and stones..." remember?
I see, so we've moved from MASH as our legal justification to schoolyard rhymes? Your case gets more and more tenuous.
Ready to abandon this silly crusade?
Silly crusade? I think I've amply demonstrated that your point that there "are no constitutional limits" on free speech is as fanciful and fallacious as the schoolyard rhymes you're relying on to bolster your "legal" argument: Sticks and stones will break your bones, and names *can* certainly hurt you.
This is why a civilized society has certain rules regarding the minimum standards of truthfulness someone must employ when calling names, and this is why the First Amendment does not protect your claimed "right" to harm other people with your speech.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd suggest that if it's somebody "testing our capabilities," they're about to have most of the Third and perhaps elements of the Seventh Fleet (together, the bulk of the Pacific Fleet) crashing their party.
You must be right - I'm sure a single person can easily launch an SLBM by accident. In fact, just the other day, I dropped a fork on the kitchen floor, and most of Spain was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust the likes of which the world has never seen.
Your "the US Navy is staffed with nothing but bumbling idiots who can't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight" argument is more stupid than the "display of force" argument ever thought of being.
"Many are too embarrassed to get tested."
Not "many are too embarrassed to get treated." And in fact, having a "diagnosis" of sorts to share with a doctor as a framework for the discussion will probably help them deal with the embarrassment.
Many people - at widely varying ages - are nervous about discussing things with their doctor, and most of it stems from fear of the unknown. "I have this burning feeling when I pee, but it's probably just irritation, and will go away, no need to bother the doctor about it."
Having a test that's convenient and private means that the people who don't want to bother the doctor with something that's "probably no big deal" can test themselves, and seek treatment if the test is positive; It can also be used by people who are normally "safe" but who experience a broken condom, or a regrettable lapse of judgement.
Arguing that there's no need, market, or benefit to this is stupid. If you had to go to the doctor every time you needed your blood pressure, blood sugar, or other things tested... how many people do you think would be walking around as hypertensive diabetics with advanced atherosclerosis until they keeled over from a massive coronary at age 55? I'm betting it'd be a lot higher if the tools for "home testing" weren't available.
I'm guessing if you use phrases like "dip your wick" and "jam this thing in a coochie," with a woman, you probably have done neither, and it's a reasonable bet that you probably never will.
Condoms break. They are not foolproof. Otherwise responsible people also get drunk, or high, or stupid, and do things which later cause them to think "WTF was I thinking??!!"
There are numerous reasons why people might choose to use a device like this.
Assuming that use of a condom makes you invincible is, perversely, an indicator of immature thinking and displays a fundamental lack of awareness of the risks inherent to any sexual behavior.
If you are writing software at any level, if you are writing important papers at any level, if you are doing anything rigorous, difficult, and requiring many revisions and updates over long periods of time:
You should be using version control of some sort.
Why would you NOT want the added ease & safety of knowing that even if you totally train wreck whatever you're working on, you can always roll it back to some recent version before you made those changes? Whether you implement it in a Dropbox-style "every time you save we take a snapshot" system, or a formal "checkout/checkin" system, you should be using it.
Version control, as a principle, and with a brief introduction to common systems such as git/mercurial/svn, should be foundational to any computer science or computer engineering degree program. Most programs have a couple "intro to CS" courses which teach actual programming, it shouldn't be that much of an additional burden to add a day or two of "version control systems" to that course.
Sorry, that's a 400-level course, not open for auditing.
That works too. The point I was making was mostly that I'm more interested in getting more productive usage out of the system over its multi-year lifetime than I am concerned with an extra few hours of assembly/disassembly/maintenance time during the life of the device. I'll happily pay a little extra to cover the extra hassle of assembly/disassembly if I get more power & functionality in a smaller footprint.
Good point. If someone getting paid minimum wage has to spend an extra hour breaking down my old laptop *once* for recycling, and I get an extra hour or two a day of productive IT work at much-more-than-minimum-wage out of it for three years of use... focusing on saving time at the breakdown point presents a skewed vision of the value of the time involved in manufacture, use, and disposal of the laptop.
Number of times I've had to crack open whichever laptop I've owned during the ~9 years I've owned one: 2. Once to replace a bad drive, once to upgrade RAM. Number of hours per work day I use my laptop: 8+, with an hour or two per day on weekends. I like that the gear is largely recyclable, but I'll easily pay an extra 50 bucks every few years to cover the extra time spent assembling/disassembling the laptop at manufacture & recycle time if it means I get a more powerful / less bulky / better battery-life unit for the three or more years I'll be using it for.
I already have cited examples, which you've conveniently ignored. Libel and slander are two very good ones. Let's say I decide to spread a bunch of lies about you:
"Fyngyrz' business uses sweatshops. He also beats his wife. You shouldn't patronize it."
Think if I could get away with saying that, it might cause damage to you, and your business? Think that the content of that speech might very well be damaging?
This is why we have libel and slander laws. And this is why they ARE constitutional. I have no right to wreck your life, freedom, and finances simply because I choose to exercise my right to free speech and tell a lie.
Right, because the Constitution is not the sum total of our legal system. Do you really think that the founders intended to give every citizen complete license to lie through their teeth and vilify each other with unfounded rumors?
One need not embrace every existing limit on free speech to concede that there ARE, and OUGHT TO BE, some limits on speech, and that those limits are both necessary to and permitted by the Constitution, which is all about *balancing* unchecked powers and authority.
Your right to bear arms doesn't give you the right to shoot anyone you please for any reason, does it? Or, does it give you the right to rob people, because "Shit, I have this gun, and you have lots of money, so...?"
Likewise, your right to free speech doesn't give you the right to harm other people through your speech, by inciting violence, by causing a panic, by slandering someone and ruining their business and personal relations.
So, simple question: Do you believe that slander and libel ought to be punishable under the law? If so, then you are agreeing that the First Amendment is not incompatible with restrictions on free speech.
If you disagree, and think that speech should be a case of anything goes, please explain how we will continue to function as a semi-sane society, when anything can be said by anybody, at anytime, with no consequences related to the veracity of the statements made? When I can wreck your business with just a few words to your customers; When I can hire someone to completely destroy your marriage by claiming that you slept with them with impunity; When I can put you out of a job, friendless, ostracized by your community by spreading rumors and lies about you - does my right to free speech give me a free license to do all this, and experience no punishment for doing so?
If you can agree that some limits are sensible, permitted by the constitution, and needed in order to provide a functional social fabric, then the discussion moves to "how much of a limit, and what are the circumstances where those limits apply?" If you cannot agree with that, then you are engaging in wishful thinking for some sort of 'free' society that has NEVER existed in the history of mankind, and will only ever exist in your mind as a vision of some sort of dysfunctional utopia where "free speech" trumps everything, including the rights of other people.
Perhaps not as precise as tablet/stylus/mouse work, but it might be a nice sketchbook that he could use with his non-dominant hand, or perhaps explore some other styles and modes of work.
Some of the art I've seen stories about people producing with an iPad and their fingers has been pretty impressive, I'm sure there's similar programs (or soon will be) for the Galaxy tab as well.
Great, so you agree that restrictions on free speech are both constitutional, and legitimate?
Scroll back up and see my original point. That's exactly what I said.
I never said that all of the restrictions we have today are justified, legitimate, or called for, I said that *some* restrictions MUST be allowed for.
You cannot say - with a straight face, and in good conscience - that "no restrictions" should be allowed, and that is what the person I *originally* responded to submitted as an opinion - that the First Amendment allowed for absolute zero restriction for any reason whatsoever, because of a ridiculously simple-minded and literal interpretation.
That is what I am arguing against, and if we agree that restrictions are allowed for, permissible, and even needed at times, then we have a rational basis for discussing what the extent of coverage should be of those restrictions.
Funny thing is, I would agree with your statement that "I'd err extremely far on the side of free speech." I think that's a very steep precedent to contravene, and it shouldn't be done lightly. But to suggest that it should NEVER be restricted is farcical, as trivial examples of slander and libel can demonstrate.
You know what's funny? When the Constitution says "don't do this," and you ignore the entire common-law basis of the document, and pretend that a single line is the only thing that indicated any opinion on the matter that the Founders held, or the literally centuries of legal precedent that have developed around the notion of free speech.
You do not have a right to free speech when that free speech impedes on someone else's rights. Trying to assert that you do is ridiculous, naive, and frankly - that's far more of a red flag indicating despotism than the government saying "We are ensuring that your exercise of free speech doesn't infringe on other peoples' rights."
Filing a civil case is very different from getting your civil case before a judge, friend, and you know it.
Don't pretend you're so thick that you don't understand the difference between "frivolous lawsuits" and "legal penalties imposed under the law for violations of the law." Your "sue for being too ugly" is a frivolous lawsuit, and *would* be thrown out of court, because there is no law imposing penalties for "being ugly."
There are, however, civil laws imposing penalties for libel, slander, and other defamatory remarks. They are against the law: You do not have a "right" to make them, and in fact, you could be prosecuted and judged quite severely for doing so.
There can be no "right" to trample another person's rights, and this is why we have limits on the right to 'free speech'.
It would behoove you to make a coherent point, somewhere in all this.
You've failed to do this.
Troll on, kid.
Don't feel bad about that, this is the problem that a lot of - presumably American - slashdotters seem to have with it, and I daresay you're farther along than many of them are in at least being able to admit to confusion. They like to try and interpret the Constitution as if it's machine code, and it's anything but the precise 'specification' they wish to read it as.
There are multiple layers at work in the legal system: Federal constitution, federal law, state constitutions, state law, judicial interpretations of vague / unclear / broad laws, centuries of common-law precedent. Basically, when anything from a 'lower layer' conflicts with something in the layer above it, the general rule is that the topmost layer is 'the right way to do it'. There are exceptions, and uneven application of these principles, certainly, but this is the the way things are designed to work.
The Constitution sets out the judicial system, and basically states this right out, saying that the Constitution is the law of the land, and judges and other judicial officials are obligated to enforce it, even if federal or state laws, or a state constitution, conflicts with it. This is the basis of the judicial review power, where a judge may declare a law to be unconstitutional, and thus null & void, which has (again, naively) been argued against elsewhere in this post.
Any attempt to frame "free speech" in the sole context of the First Amendment is laughably naive, and this is why I've been arguing so forcefully about it here. The First Amendment is an important piece of the restrictions against limits on free speech, but we have a whole legal system with numerous laws and precedents which need to be taken into account alongside the First Amendment.
And balancing is what it generally boils down to: a person's right to 'free speech' necessarily ends where it begins to infringe on someone else's rights. I cannot destroy your reputation and your family and your business by smearing you ("using my free speech!"), and expect that there will be no repercussions for doing that. Speech can be quite damaging, and so the right to voice certain things must be balanced against the rights of other people to not have their lives destroyed by me spreading lies and rumors about them.
You watch too much Hollywood pap, son.
The world isn't binary, and you're not Keanu Reeves fighting the Matrix.
You really are a monumental idiot.
But I'm glad we've come to an agreement that you're wrong. The First Amendment offers no 'unlimited' right to free speech as you suggest, and it's fortunate for everybody that it doesn't.
I'm glad you have seen the error of your ways.
Except that under the law, corporations are...
wait for it...
wait for it...
people.
I'm not sure what you're getting at - voting rights are determined at the State level, not Federal. Where the right to vote is mentioned in the constitution (Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24, and 26), they specifically lay out the conditions that may not be used to deny someone a vote:
14: If rights are denied by any criteria to those who are: citizens, age 21, resident of the state, then the portion of representatives is reduced proportionally.
15: Vote shall not be denied based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (e.g., slavery).
19: Vote may not be denied based on sex;
24: Vote may not be denied based on failure to pay taxes or failure to pay a 'poll tax'
26: Vote may not be denied to anybody 18 years or older on account of their age;
Now, as for my opinion and interpretation? Yes, I consider voting an expression of my views. No, I do not consider it covered by the "first amendment" because there are other criteria laying out the right to vote, and the First Amendment is a poor place to defend it.
The first amendment *is* transitive to the states, in that their laws and constitution may not *take away* the right expressly affirmed in the first amendment, or anything else elsewhere in the constitution of bill of rights. Where state laws and the constitution conflict, the constitution takes precedence, in other words.
As I said, I'm not sure what you're getting at with the question. Expand it a bit, and perhaps I can give a better answer.
And so "no law" includes no law restricting the speech of corporations, slanderous speech, language designed to incite violence or harm against another, and a host of other things which are very damaging, right?
Speech is "harmless" in much the same way that a gun is "harmless" unless you load it, point it at someone, and pull the trigger. The right to bear arms doesn't give you the right to rob convenience stores and take what you want from them. In much the same way, the right to free speech doesn't give you the right to slander someone and ruin their personal life and business on a whim. I don't know what junior high school playground you live in, but speech has never been, and never will be harmless, if misused.
Okay, great, they're called defamation laws. Perhaps you'd like to look them up, they're in the civil code. Now that we've agreed that there are legal limits, and they've been codified, can we dispense with the stupidity of arguing that there are "no limits" on free speech, and "any limit on free speech is unconstitutional"?
If you were 1% the constitutional scholar you fancy yourself to be, you'd know that the founders understood the notion that any power, unchecked, was a dangerous thing. Thus they built into the constitution a set of checks and balances on the powers of the government. In a like manner, the "rights" of one person are not unlimited, and in fact, must be balanced against the rights of others. Your right to free speech ends when it begins actually *damaging* another person, or substantially endangering the lives and welfare of another person.
And under the law, damages include financial harm, but since I know you're such a stickler for LEGAL CODIFICATION, I'm sure you knew that already.
You really are a very special sort of stupid, aren't you?
"losing your house" doesn't have to happen at the hands of a mob wielding torches and a pitchfork.
I slander you and ruin your business. You have no income, no money. The bank says, "You can't make your mortgage payment anymore? Too bad, we're seizing the house." And so, you have no house.
And in the meantime, your wife has left, and you're unemployed. You keep thinking that slander involves people forming a posse and running you out of town. It can be much softer, and insidious, than that.
And with free speech as you describe, you have no recourse. But if you shoot the person from the bank who repossesses your house, you'll go to jail, and possibly face the death penalty. My words have hurt you very badly, and damaged you very badly.
And this, you argue, is a good thing?
There are huge, gaping holes in this argument. "Acting against you" can simply be "I heard he diddles little boys, and so I'm not buying things from his store anymore, you shouldn't either - tell all your friends, too."
Since when is financial and personal ruin not "harming" you? If my words put you out on the street - friendless, penniless - will you still say "He has the right to free speech, he can say whatever vile and slanderous things about me he wants to say!"
Or will you *then* say, "Gee, maybe there should be some limits on what people are allowed to say without penalty."
How is that one-sided?
Defamation as it relates to the Federal constitution is exclusively a civil matter. Were the police and FBI supposed to storm your home with a SWAT team because you appeared on a roast and said some mean things about David Hasselhoff? Was I supposed to not say mean and funny things in a venue where I'm asked to do so, and both David Hasselhoff and I have signed a contract saying "Let's film an hour of people saying mean and funny things about David Hasselhoff?"
I'm pretty sure at this point that you're just a troll - you've offered no opinions that bolster your points other than "There's this line in MASH that I thought was clever," and a schoolyard rhyme.
I'd say it's safe to conclude that your point has been shown to be foolish, and completely antithetical to the meaning and intent of the constitution. The first amendment does not give anyone an unlimited right to damage others with their speech, and so there must be some limits to what may and may not be said.
And will that stop you from being unjustly damaged by my exercise of free speech? While the community is "verifying" things, you've lost your house, your family, your business, and whatever community standing you once had. Let's say it only lasts a year until all the charges are shown to be false, and everybody forgives & forgets that you were alleged to have done these things.
You've still lost a year of your life, and irreparable damage has been done to you. How does engaging in a war of words with your accuser change that? And who are you to demand that they must prove their accusations? You can't force people to be truthful when they speak, that'd be a limit on their freedom of speech, wouldn't it?
I see, so we've moved from MASH as our legal justification to schoolyard rhymes? Your case gets more and more tenuous.
Silly crusade? I think I've amply demonstrated that your point that there "are no constitutional limits" on free speech is as fanciful and fallacious as the schoolyard rhymes you're relying on to bolster your "legal" argument: Sticks and stones will break your bones, and names *can* certainly hurt you.
This is why a civilized society has certain rules regarding the minimum standards of truthfulness someone must employ when calling names, and this is why the First Amendment does not protect your claimed "right" to harm other people with your speech.