Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Thoreau said this more than one hundred and fifty years ago: I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto,—"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all."
And I agree. The government has no right what so ever to control public opinion. Instead, it's up to the gay community to voice their opinion. Actually, they've done it very well up until now, and as long as there are radicals and activists who aren't afraid to confront all that crap, the gay situation will improve. It really is within the means of anyone to take on homophobic legislation and social injustice without goverment assistance, and I'd rather see it done by individuals. Because that way there is no thought control or censorship! The power of people raising awareness and changing minds through methods like spraypainting walls, making/distributing posters and flyers, calling politicians, marching in the streets, and talking, discussing, debating on personal levels is far more powerful than an authoritarian gag-order. The ends do not, nor will they ever justify the means.

But I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Pat Robertson is no longer relevant to mainstream America anyway! Gay rights advocates appear on MTV, y'know, and the MTV propaganda system is an Orwellian wet dream.

This is an excellent quote. And so true. People do better when encouraged towards a certain goal, rather than forced towards it.



That is also true. I wouldn't even know who he was except for all the negative press he receives for his comments. If no one made a big deal out of it, he'd have far less influence.

I tend to agree on this. I know some people, actually a lot of my "outer-circle" friends, that will rebel against something they agree with, if it's forced on them. Of course, their general need to cause trouble is one of the many reasons why they're not in the very select group of "inner-circle" friends.

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Are you *listening* to me? This is the case in britian and it WORKS. And it's not so much government based, but controlled by an independant telecommunications organisation.

I'm really getting sick of this crap. You're entitled to your opinion but stop talking as if there's no chance it could work and it's so horrible and stupid when it's active and blatantly is NOT.

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CLOCK

You know, Rose, it's getting to the point that I read your posts and all I see are insults. I seem to remember that you usually have some rather valid points, but they're getting absolutely buried under the vitriol.

Nearly all your threads are attacks on activists, nearly every single one. There are some which aren't, like the google one, but could be considered very near it. But you seriously need to cut that out as it's making you look like a complete arse.

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CLOCK

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I did listen, but I still stand by my argument. This is the case in America, and it WORKED and still STILL WORKS today. Radical activism is the best method for minority rights! Without it, there would be no eight hour day, no universal sufferage, or no multiracial public facilities just to start out with the major ones.

That's a stupid way to turn things wrong. Homosexual acceptance is still *far* behind the U.K. It is not working as well as Britian.



But "Radical Activism" won't stop people like Pat Robertson was raising a new generation of homophobes.

If people don't get these values from T.V., which most americans seem to, they're going to quickly fade and nothing their parents tell them with be supported by what they see.

If you just leave it as both people having their say, yet the homophobes being the ones who are more socially accepted and the ones owning multi-million dollar companies, it's never going to be fair or balanced either way.

You still haven't provided a logical reason why this would be destined to fail. Understand that I don't truly *believe* in limiting speech, I simply think that the social situation in the U.S. is very dire and needs a leg up if it's going to achieve anything much within the next 100 years.

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CLOCK

First of all, the politics of hatred are from logical, so debate wouldn't work with someone fueled by irration inclination. Furthermore, I never said minor protection was destined to fail. I said it's less crititcally effective and more socially restrictive than activism. You've failed provided a logical reason supporting your conjecture that the next generation of Americans will be homophobic because the out-of-touch and irrelevant-to-youth-culture Pat Roberston has millions at his disposal, too.

Call it anecdotal, but as a teen and as someone who is good at eavesdropping, Robertson is far from influential in the eyes of the kids, even the ones with a conservative slant. The people who support Robertson are the ones who were already Evangelical Christians <i>before</i> they got in on all his lies. He isn't a missionary. He's just the voice of an alienated and constantly humiliated and ridiculed religious minority that has media access.

And like I said before, the most powerful and influential youth-oriented mass entertainment machines are in support of gay rights.

I'd like to ask you a question. How does silencing dissent (thus alienating those who care about individual freedom, the backbone of any civil rights movement) make any cause look beneficial to people?

Becuase Roberston is the tip of the iceberg, and like it or not, Robertson can still influnce our future - the younger generation. While most kids can tell deep down what is real and what isn't when it comes to the important things on TV - Roberston is potentially dangerous if a very young person watches his show as he IS real. There are plenty of people who are just as impressionable as that, too.

I don't believe in getting anal about it - people like Roberston aren't just expressing their opinion but actively encouraging people to "gang up" on homosexuality. I think that's the one time something should be done on it, as it crosses the realm between speech and action. If someone wants to personally say that they don't like gay people - I'm happy to let them be a complete idiot as long as they don't go nuts about it.

I believe there are certain things that will always be considered so harmful they are censored from TV - so why not this?

Again, it's a case of pick and choose.

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CLOCK

No. Not at all. Everyone deserves universal freedom of speech, despite how unpopular or ridiculous their opinions are. The picking and choosing should be relegated to whether or not one follows the speech of another.

And you didn't answer my question either!

You seem to believe in a humanity where the bulk of the population are just easily impressed followers, a "sheep class" if you will, who go with whoever has the strongest rhetoric from a "ruling class", and I think that's overly pessimistic and regressive thinking. Resigning to that kind of mindset allows for the sheep-like behavior to occur! People really can think for themselves, but first they have to refuse the gods and the masters. More government control over society will not work to achieve that.

As someone who goes to a extremely liberal school, where republocans are consistently penalized, I think freedom of speech is very important. People deserve to get out their opinion, no matter how you may disagree with it.

However, being a rather "unique" and outcasted person, I also believe that verbal abuse is something that should be taken more seriously.

What I believe Rose has been trying to say, is that hate speech isn't another form of getting your opinion about that happens to be something that's widely disagreed on, but a butload of factless propaganda meant to isolate and derogatize a certain group of people just because the speaker is prejeduce against them.

Do you why KKK mmebers burning crosses were prosecuted? Because that goes beyond freedom of speech; it was meant specifically to scare and drive out black people from white neighborhoods. That's just plain wrong.

I'm not saying every opinion that's based on completely inane facts shouldn't be heard. But there are certain people that are out there with the intention of verbally abusing someone. I really can't stand that, and there needs to be someway to regulate that sort of thing.

I guess the reason against a regulation of hate speech is that if it's one person deciding what goes and what stays, people are going to be angry on either side. If they put unedited episodes of One Piece on Toonami, anime fans would be happy, Moms wouldn't. If they aired completely and totally editted episodes of the first Yu-Gi-Oh series, little five-year-olds would be happy, anime fans wouldn't, and Moms would be concerned about there children watching more holographic, highly editted violence.

Still, there's a difference between Maddox and Hitler. Or to a lesser extent, George W. Bush and Jack Thompson.

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Toastpaint.

Here's an interesting example of the effects someone showed me. It's obvious but still:

"If you search for "Tiananmen" in the Chinese Google you get this:

http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen&hl=zh-CN

If you search for "Tiananmen" in any other version you get this:

http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen&hl=en

http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=tiananmen&hl=en

http://images.google.nl/images?q=tianan ... gen+zoeken

http://images.google.de/images?q=tiananmen&hl=de
"

Nobody has provided any reason to show it would be harmful past that it challenges their already existing values, still. But I am willing to admit it's not the most preferable course of action.

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CLOCK

That is scary. That is really scary. Are the other forms of Google blocked in China? More importantly, are the Chinese fully aware that this is happening?

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