Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

VERY, VERY yes..

I would love to see that better defined. It allows a pretty big loophole for unjust prosecutions AND a way out for those who have done something wrong.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yeah... I don't mind the law in theory, but not in practice. I failed to communicate that, though, sorry.

The law in theory is nonsense and it can't be enforced. Plus, if you put your name and location on the net, I'm sure that some people will be smart enough to find your home address and email address and spam the living crap out of you...

If you don't like getting pestered on a bbs or some other form of communique, don't go there. Whatever happened to people knowing that they have free will?

Well... this is it... the final nail in the coffin of the first amendment...
just a couple of more taps and then they can lower it on to the ground.

Rest In Peace, dear friend.

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HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I love that, Pallor.. Tell me you're joking. It's not the end of the first amendmant in any way shape or form.
It died the day "political correctness" became the way to be..

The law has nothing to do with free speech, it's just about the cowards that hide behind the "anonymity" of the net to harass and gun people down.

The law sounds like it's too vaguely written. At some point today, I'm going to actually see if I can find the actual wording of the law, instead of relying on this article (obviously written with quite a bit of slant).

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

"Political Correctness" in theory only prevents incitement to hate which doesn't really count as "free speech". But with Pat Robertson on the air you can hardly claim to have any actually functioning.

The people who have a problem with P.C. are generally not in a minority, or people in a minority that are trying to hard to "bridge the gap" and really not getting anywhere.

I don't see why putting racist jokes on the air is an important right. However, being able to deal with people online in your own way, is.

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CLOCK

You know, there are people who would claim that harrassing someone anonymously would constitute hate speech. However, I doubt you'll agree with that, seeing as how you feel it's your right to do so..

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

No, harassing someone anonymously is not hate speech by any stretch of the definition. Hate speech has to be against some kind of a minority, making a harsh generalisation. You can't generalise one person.

The point about P.C. is that bigoted views often spread. Letting someone mouth off about gays being evil generally influecnes young kids and impressionables that their own suspicions may be true. Not to mention that it can really hurt people's feelings that these people are given such a podium when they have to struggle to be heard.

If you cut them off at the source, they slowly die off. This is one of the reaosns why the U.S. is socially behind Europe who have better protection against it.

If you really cared about minority rights, then you wouldn't be so dead set against P.C. It's one of the very few things we have in our favour at the moment.

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CLOCK

If you're harassing someone on the basis of their religion, race, their sexual orientation, or even political beliefs, that IS hate speech..

You refuse to recognize your double standard. A lot of the things you say can be taken as bigoted (things about Christians, conservatives, etc.. even if you're right, they're still kinda bigoted beliefs), but, you don't call yourself a bigot.

It's quite funny, actually..

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yeah you can. You can do it by imposing all your prejudices and generalisations of any group onto one individual who may or may not be within that group.

Anyhooo...... I think political correctness does nothing to defend minority rights. It's insincere - it's about pandering to the sensibilities of the righteous middle classes, rather than making a real change. Political correctness is basically about controlling language - and by controlling language the PC police think that they can control thought. Nothing in history tells me that that's a winning formula for making a great utopian society - quite the reverse, in fact (the Khmer Rouge, anyone?).



Are you sure about that? From what I've seen, hate groups in Europe have as much if not more free reign to spread their bile as in America. The Internet, as it stands now, is as unpoliced here as it is there.

Of course, European extremist groups know how to pander to European sensibilities better - and they know how to phrase their press statements just right - so as not to come off as being hate groups. Take our friends the National Front, and the Tigers, for instance.

You are so full of crap on this one. Has to be against a minority? Give me a break. So if someone's talking about how all the white people in America should be killed, that's not hate speech?



Exactly... the Nazi party is gaining some strength among the youth in Germany again, for example. Are you familiar with the Muslim riots in France? That was racially motivated.

But of course, if you're living in the middle of it, you can't possibly see it.

That's still making it against the minority, just targetting one person for it. Someone else of that minority wouldb e offended if they saw it. But, since it cant' spread if nobody else sees it, it's not as bad.



I've never seen P.C. do that, and you're using a slippery slope argument there as P.C. as we currently know it hasn't been done before in the past. i don't see the problem. In the UK anyway P.C. stops people from spreadign rubbish about minorities, and a lot of people WILL believe what they hear. It hasn't caused free speech to fall apart, so where is the problem?



I have not seen that in Europe in the least, and certianly most people i Know that have lived in both US and Europe would disagree with you. You do get them in the news on occasion



I Won't doubt that hate groups exist - but they've nowheren ear the power and influence they do in america. At least most people recognise them as what they are, whereas "family" groups get the pass.

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CLOCK

You mean like lahitoma?

But anyways, I don't think that being P.C. was the death of it... I think it was the first sign of progress towards it. I admit, it is much more polite to use "handicapped" instead of the word "cripple," and I think some P.C. terms are acceptable for use for the sake of politeness, but a lot of them are just far too constraining.



That's racism, so thusly it is hate speech.

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If your getting annoyed by someone on the internet, don't go on the internet. Duh.

I sort of agree, but then I sort of don't.

You shouldn't have to exclude yourself from the internet just because someone is being a jerk face, but if the person is that annoying, no one is making you pay attention or care about it.

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isnt lahimatoa NOT being a jerk to anyone?

also, if this is the end of Religion and Politics on the web, there is one thing i gotta say....

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Well said.

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Let me revise that, if you'd be so kind...

If you are annoyed by a particular website, don't go to that website. Don't let an authoritarian government tell you what you can and can't do.

I'm gonna go read some books that are on their "to burn" list and watch Fahrenheit 9-11.

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No, I was talking about the tactic of controlling language to control thought - which is the main tactic of political correctness, and which doesn't have a fantastic success rate historically.



The UK is also a country that imprisons so-called terrorism suspects without charge and without trial. But yeah, the UK has plenty of political correctness - when I was living there, I near enough got diabetes from how sugar-coated every aspect of thought and debate currently there was with the stuff. But its track-record for genuinely upholding human rights - as in, doing things rather than saying things........ questionable.

But I'm not surprised that people see PC as a positive thing either. And I'm not arguing against it, I'd just say that it's worth cutting through the crap and getting to the real agenda. Hiding extremist points of views under thick layers of PC doesn't make them go away. And PC is used by extremists of every kind to make their agenda more palatable (I'm using UKIP and Robert Kilroy-Silke as moderate examples here).

Political correctness controls the media(which is being controlled already regardless), not thought.



I've never seen someone with such insanely negative opinions of europe and it's rather sad(as much as I like you as a person abstract from your opinions) that you're one of the few europeans on here.

The U.K. is much better than the U.S. as of late, certainly. Under Tatcher it was a bit of a disaster, but I know tons of other transgenders who have moved over there and say everything is so much easier, and everyone is so much more tolerant. I think that's something imporant to take into account.



Actually - the thing with bigotry and conservative based views is if they don't spread to the next generation, they do go away, at least to a decent extent. The point isn't changing people's opinions, and never was - it's about stopping them from spreading so they'll be dramatically reduced in 10 to 30 years time.



Rarely ever though. P.C. is what protects people like me. Transsexuals have been the butt of just about every joke at some stage, and P.C. is the only thing stopping that view from spreading. In fact, if it wasn't P.C., my rights would be even worse than they are today. So I take direct offense to anyone who thinks P.C. is somehow "evil". It helps me a heck of a lot more than it hurts you.

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CLOCK

I take what you're saying, KR. Though I wouldn't personally call what you describe as "political correctness" - I'd call it the development of basic understanding and tolerence of other people's points of view. If our society behaved in a way that is hurtful to certain groups - and it's seen that this isn't deserved - most decent people will want to end this. And with that - and with a lot of effort - civil liberties are strengthened. That's not done by controlling language, imo, it's by appealling to people's better nature. And judging by how much more inclusive society has become, it's working..... Well, almost. But cohersion doesn't work and never has.

(BTW - Nah, I'm not anti-European. In fact, I work for the EU. I just see a lot of flaws with European political and cultural mechanics as it stands now. But that's a good thing, because if you can't see the flaws, you can't make things better. I don't really see the point of comparing Europe to America, where the cultural mechanics are entirely different. But yes, Europe is very inclusive of many different kinds of people. Though it also excludes a lot of people from their rights - the Romas, the Belmarsh detainees, etc. But that's not a fact to be bemoaned - it just takes effort to resolve.)

But toastpaint.

Thank you. Thats what I meant to say

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

Einoo, are you an only child?

That seemed like an "only-child tantrum" to me.

Man, this is the stupidest law I have ever seen

So it's ok to annoy people when you tell them your name? Ok, so then we'll have all of these 7 year olds giving out personal information "putting them at risk" (I put it in quotes because me tellign you my full name is harmless, but to many it's not, as you know.). I'll have to do some research on the complete first amendment, but I don't think this law is constitutional. Plus, what is annoy? Even if it's with the intent to annoy, how do you know if I am annoying you on purpose or not? This law is impossible to enforce, it creates mroe problems than it solves, and it's just gonna annoy people.

Hey, it's not completely his fault. Even if he veto'd it, it could still have passed.

HOLY COW I'M DEFENDING G.W. BUSH.

*dies*

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Yeah, this is pretty much the worst law ever made. IDIOTS![/napoleon]

Making people use their full names is not just a violation of privacy, but it's freakin' dangerous. We have enough trouble with identity theft as it is.

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yeah, and think of all the Children that will fall prey to Molesters because of this law..... its horrible... lets march all the way from california to Washington D.C., and when we get there, we can take over the white house..err...the senate... or just make our statements on the House of Representatives(sic)

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You're reading waaaay too much into this. All it means is that you cannot hide behind the internet to harass others..

You don't actually have to use your whole name to be online, and I don't know that it applies to those younger than 13 because of that whole internet privacy act thing that applies to kidlets.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Hunh. Do you ever think anything you don't say?

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

I was kinda wonderin' about that one, too...

I'm an only child*, and this doesn't make ME hate the president.

I'm guessing Einoo's post was sarcasm, at least I read it that way.


*well, actually, I have a step brother and step sisters, but I grew up an only child.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.