That’s bogus. If I have never been in jail in my life, then there can be no truthful evidence of me ever being in jail, can there ? So any independant scrutiny checking into government records and Snopes-ing around would debunk the whole thing. Reality is not make-believe and made-up. Fox News may think it is, but…yeah :).
And, really, that’s what happens in a libel suit - the plaintiff challenges the declaration of the defendant and essentially tells him to put up or shut up (at a great expense of time and money). Which is really so much time and effort wasted over bullshit. Coming back to real life from the hypotheticals for a second, how do *you *deal with people spouting bullshit ? On the Dope, or in Real Life, there’s really only two options : crucify them, or ignore them and get on with your life. What are you gonna do, sue somebody for Pitting you ? Nah, slander and libel lawsuits are not for, nor used by average citizen. More on that later.
Sure. And loses my respect all the same. Didn’t my boss/fiancée/landlord catch a PSA on peer pressure back in high school ?
As opposed to the great deal of time, effort and money sunk in a libel lawsuit, appeal, counter suit and general legal morass ?
What does a libel cost, really ?
Like I said, libel suits are not for regular joes, but for people who have a stake in their own image. Public figures - politicians, movie stars, media personnalities of all kind. And all of them could sue anyone who speals ill of them, or make fun of them. But only a few of them do. The rest of the public figures either laugh at their mudslingers, the best laugh with them, but mostly they just ignore them, because slander comes with the territory. Can’t rise above the crowd without drawing fingers from the crowd.
What does concern me, however, is that high profile personnalities can (and do) use libel laws or the threat of a libel lawsuit to silence their detractors : even if the proposed “slander” is 100% true, who wants to deal with the hassle of a “litigious motherfucker”, as Penn&Teller would put it ?
Interresting point, but I’m not sure it’s justified. Obviously, libel and slander suits do happen, so the laws don’t negate the possibility of slander, or even perceived slander (I’m thinking of the O’Reilly/Franken kerfluffle here). And I’m not certain slander would happen any more if it were perfectly legal - let’s face it, it’s a pretty vile tactic and not one most people would resort to. Accusing one’s opponent of slander, however… yeah. Anyhow, I’d be interested to see actual metrics and stats on this.
Besides, it’s not like anti-slander laws do away with vile lies, they just force the liars to be cautious about what they say, or rather about the *way *they say what they say. The sentiment is still there, and the message still goes through plain as day - it’s just hidden under a veneer of civility, deniability and misdirection. Very thin veneer, in the case of Ann Coulter ;). Same goes for misleading ads : “hey, it’s not our fault if you read the slogan we carefully worded to make you think that (erroneous) way about our product ! It was all there in the blurb written in Swahili size 2 behind the advert, it’s all 100% legit”. My bony ass.
Yes, and then again, no
On the one hand, I think with every right comes a responsibility. You have the right to free speech, but it comes with the responsibility to use it in an ethical way. In a nutshell : don’t troll real life. Ideally, you should have the right to deliberately and maliciously lie, but never choose to do so. I do realize, however, that some individuals wouldn’t. Hence, the supposed necessity of libel laws.
However, I am MORE concerned about the misuse and abuse of libel and slander laws. I must admit I don’t know the status of those in the UK, or in the US, but here in France, as an example, our own Dear Leader managed to have a 19 year old kid sent to jail for four months hard time. His crime ? Yelling “Fuck you, you son of a bitch !” as Sarkozy (then Minister of Justice) walked by the crowd, amidst a chorus of similar protests. That sound reasonnable to you ?
A “pamphleteer” and friend of mine went through a “procès pour injure” (lawsuit for insult. I’m not making this up.) and got sentenced to a 12.000 francs fine for having written “Jean Marie Le Pen = assclown*” in a published work. In the US, of course, there’s the high profile case of Larry Flynt, who got prosecuted for an obviously satirical piece attacking Jerry Falwell within the pages of Penthouse. And so on, and so forth. So yeah, to me, they’re much more of a coercion tool to silence opposition and dissent than protection for individuals.
And I’m more afraid of that than the nebulous menace of a public smear campaign against little ol’ me.
(* “Jean Marie Le Pen = enculé”, lit. JMLP takes it up the ass. Yup, it’s crude, but that was kind of the point.)
In which year of law school do they teach you to read what you are actually commenting on, in which I mentioned the defenses that area available in slander and libel charges vary around the world?
So you can quote a citation on defamation in Florida, so what? Is that somehow persuasive proof counter to what I said counselor?
I think that nations whose laws are based on the Napoleonic Code also group defamation in with slander and libel- this seems to be the root of our disagreement. Am I reading your position correctly? I do not believe that “diffamation” (is this the term French courts use?) and libel/slander have identical meanings. You seem to be talking mostly about insults or character defamation, rather than what would be considered libel or slander in most English speaking legal systems. I agree that insults should be entirely legal.
I was going to include your original quotes, but the response was much too long- I have tried to summarize our positions in the order you gave them (bolded). I apologize if I misread any of your arguments; I’m just trying to condense them to save space.
Re: being able to independently verify life events:
How many people are going to do independent research if a newspaper says you were in jail? How many other papers would, rather than rely on AP or Reuters (for example)? And what’s to stop corrupt reporters/government officials from falsifying records if they have something to gain from your downfall?
What I was really saying is that, in an environment where public lying has no penalty, each newspaper is free to make up its own version of the ‘truth’ and readers generally just go with whatever paper matches their worldview/ethic group/etc. Spend a few hours reading through papers from Francophone Africa and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. The best of these papers are biased; the worst are laughable propaganda vehicles. Well, not laughable to their intended audience.
Re: “Reality is not make-believe”
Make-believe is reality for a large number of people, as you helpfully pointed out. And if you think Fox News is biased, there are plenty worse in other parts of the world (where libel laws are lax-nonexistent). I think that Fox skirts libel/slander laws as closely as they can- would the situation be improved if libel/slander laws were repealed?
Re: the financial cost of libel suits:
If the case has no merit, and the justice system is functional, it should never see the inside of a courtroom. In most justice systems I am aware of, the loser will pay court costs. Is ‘putting up or shutting up’ a bad thing? Actually, the best part about good libel and slander laws is that they shouldn’t need to be enforced that often. If journalists learn about them in school, they are usually pretty careful to avoid ‘legal morasses’ that will eventually bite them on the behind.
Re: How do I deal with BS?
Depends on if it affects me; if it’s causing financial and personal hardship, then ignoring it should not be my only option.
Re “What are you gonna do, sue somebody for Pitting you ?”
Reductio ad absurdum; insults are not slanderous (or libelous, since this would be a written forum). To sue, in most legal systems, the plaintiff must have actually been damaged.
Re: libel lawsuits not used by average people
No, because there is no need for them to be; most western cultures have internalized the concept that you can’t simply spout disprovable lies. Legal recourse is the final step in this system (well, I suppose there’s always physical violence, if you want to go that far). Much of the world isn’t so lucky.
Re: “If you’ve never been to jail in your life, and independent checking would prove it, then anyone who prints otherwise would be libeling you, right?”
Uh, yeah. That’s the idea. Are you saying that journalists should be able to lie with impunity or are exempt from basic fact-checking?
Re: public figures can sue those who mock or speak ill of them
This is incorrect under the definitions of libel and slander in use in every jurisdiction I know of. To be libelous, the statement must be provably untrue (If anyone knows of an English-speaking jurisdiction where this is not the case, please let me know). I can make fun or speak ill of anyone without committing libel or slander. If I make malicious accusations for which I have no evidence, I have committed libel/slander.
Re: libel and slander laws do not prevent libel and slander suits
To the best of my knowledge, very few laws exist that have never been violated. That doesn’t mean that they are bad laws.
Re: slander might not be more common if it were legal
In an ideal world, it wouldn’t happen at all. What do you think Fox News would sound like if the U.S. repealed all libel and slander laws? And that’s just one example.
Re: Accusing one’s opponent of slander
Well, falsely and maliciously accusing someone of slander is, in itself, slander.
Re: Slander does not prevent lies
It does do away with outright lies, or at least the provable ones. And one’s opinion (sentiment) can’t be considered true or false. Anyone can say “I don’t like so-and-so”, but it crosses a line when you falsely say “So-and-so committed x crime”. And false advertisers are successfully prosecuted fairly frequently.
**Re: “On the one hand, I think with every right comes a responsibility. You have the right to free speech, but it comes with the responsibility to use it in an ethical way. In a nutshell : don’t troll real life. Ideally, you should have the right to deliberately and maliciously lie, but never choose to do so. I do realize, however, that some individuals wouldn’t. Hence, the supposed necessity of libel laws.”**I’d agree with this entire statement except the word supposed.
Re: 19 year old in jail for insulting Sarkozy
As I mentioned earlier, this is not slander as defined in English-speaking law. People do this all the time to the U.S. President without penalty. This would be more of an anti-obscenity or anti-defamation law, which I agree is foolish and unreasonable.
Re: Friend gets 12,000 Franc fine for insult to Jean Marie Le Pen
Again, this sounds more like defamation, rather than libel. Again, I’ve heard far worse things about U.S. and U.K. politicians without penalty. Or was the court asking your friend to prove that JMLP did, in fact, ‘take it up the ass’ (with the proviso that he would be acquitted if he could produce evidence)?
Re: Jerry Falwell vs. Larry Flynt
Unless I’m mistaken, that case cemented the right to satirically ridicule public figures in the U.S. Most U.S. courts (including the Supreme Court) have traditionally sided with makers of satire and parody- standards for proving libel have generally been pretty tight.
Re: these laws are more for coercion than protection
I would say that this is a problem with the courts and the ways the laws are interpreted in France than any inherent wrongness is having laws against lying. I generally don’t think that I benefit from laws against assault or murder, but I probably benefit every time I cut someone off in traffic. Laws against libel and slander are similar
Re: “And I’m more afraid of that than the nebulous menace of a public smear campaign against little ol’ me.”
And I’ve seen people libeled (in nations with poor/lax laws) with results that make a 12,000 Franc fine look pretty tame. People who have had to hire guards for their houses lest they be attacked by ignorant ‘news’ consumers. And these have usually been quite modest people- not public figures. And their accusers? No acknowledgment of wrongdoing; not even a retraction or an apology, much less compensation. It’s not as nebulous a menace as you might think.
OK. I guess I’ll bite. Do you believe there should be NO limits on speech (including child pornography)? If so, under what rationality do you believe it is acceptable to harm others with speech, but not with other actions (assuming you agree with the the right/fist/nose thought).
So, in your mind, it is the intent of the videographer that matters when taking the video, that determines whether it is protected or not? If a child molester only created the film with no intent to distribute it, it’s protected speech? Intriguing thought. Generally, the distinction I draw is the content of the speech, not whether or not it was made for the purpose of showing it. What’s the rationale for that distinction?
And here is where we disagree. Myself, and thankfully a great portion of society and the Supreme Court, agree that speech CAN harm others. Child pornography, libel, slander, FIRE!, etc., are all examples of speech that does harm others.
Ummm, how about a newspaper printing classified information? Or a person who, by themselves, sees troop movements or figures out who is a spy, and publishes it to the enemy?
Speech can, and does, harm others. You’ve been provided with examples showing that exact point. A person suffers a harm because of libel or slander. A spy is killed because a newspaper printed his identity. A horrific crime against a child is perpetuated on film. People are trampled to death trying to escape a crowded theater. These are all examples, provided earlier, of concrete harms suffered because of “speech”. And they are all examples of when that speech can be limited. Rights are simply not absolute.
Yes, I am indeed conflation them. However, they are easy to conflate, because the distinction seems hazy to me : if I were to call X a quote motherfucker unquote, I would be in fact making an untrue statement that clearly intents to debase my client and made him suffer from intense personnal, emotional harm and… you get the idea.
However, I can stick to honest to Og libel if I have to.
And how many news media are going to keep selling paper and airspace, how many governments are going to be re-elected when proven to have engaged in deliberate misdirection or faulty fact-checking ? People, as a rule, don’t like being lied to, Senator Clin… I mean, Knightrider :).
I’m sorry, you lost me there for a minute, are we still talking about a hypothetical where there would be no slander laws ?
I think so, yes. Again, if they were to engage in outright… that is, *more *outright lies, they would be booed off the stage by any right thinking citizen, partisanship be damned. They’d be digging their own grave.
As does anyone who wishes to be taken seriously, yet deals in ad hominem rather than actual arguments.
Tell that to the dry cleaners getting sued for millions of dollars over a lost pair of pants. OK, extreme (and funny) case, but you get my point : thousands of frivolous cases do see the inside of a courtroom, and there is a entire social group that could be described as professional plaintiffs, suing anyone over anything, however slight. Winning millions over a ludicrous lawsuit is the new American Dream.
See above. Hell, see the aforementionned O’Reilly/Franken kerfluffle. O’Reilly sued Al Franken, not about the actual words he had written about O’Reilly, which we demonstrably true, but above the cover of the book that juxtaposed the word “LIAR” with a picture of O’Reilly.
Now, O’Reilly and his backers did essentially get laughed out of courts - but the case, laughable on its face, still went to trial, still cost everyone involved a lot of time and money etc…, and was a pretty transparent attemps to retaliate against Franken calling Fox on their bullshit. Only they couldn’t got at it directly, so… yeah.
Nonsense. People’s behavior isn’t dictated by the local laws. What you’re saying is in essence equivalent to saying “if we legalize gay marriage, everybody’s going to start gay marrying ! The heterosexual marriage will be doooooomed !”. Besides, like I said, regular joes like you and me aren’t likely to sue the guy who goes around whispering behind our backs for libel - so it’s not like it’s the Damocles sword of a lawsuit that keeps evil gossip at bay.
People tend towards honesty because the actual, non-legal consequences of a caught lie are 99% of the time more negative than the truth, however damning it may be. At least, that’s how I roll, and I courteously assume so does the majority of my fellow monkeys. Honesty has time and again been proven to be the best long term policy.
As I said earlier, there’s no such thing as lying with impunity. I don’t think newspapers today print corrections of previous mistakes or retractions of erroneous statements solely out of fear of The Law. Journalistic integrity isn’t just a talking point : it exists in the real world. I done seen it.
Adressed above. X is *still *a motherfucker, by the way. And Obama’s still a Muslim ;). Which is not just a silly joke, either, it does make a point : individuals did write e-mails stating that Obama was a Muslim during the election season. So much so that IIRC 19% of Americans believed it to be true. Do you think the Obama campaign should have sent bloodhounds on the trail of the e-mail writers and sued their pants off to publicly prove them wrong, or that what they did (adress it a few times jokingly, but mostly ignore it) was the best way to handle it ?
Not what I’m saying - I wondered what the difference between social behaviour between countries that do have libel laws and countries who don’t is, if any. Or laxer vs. more stringent ones, perhaps. But of course, it’s a difficult subject to study, since most (all ?) Western countries do have libel laws.
My opinion is that they don’t make much of a difference : as we agree, free speech is, in theory, more tightly regulated in France than in the US. In practice, however, I’d say our public speech is as free as yours. Maybe even more so, 'cause we would *never *let a half-glimpsed tittie bring our media to a screeching halt :D.
Honestly ? I don’t think they would change a thing. It’s the standard MO of that kind of media (left AND right) : skirting the vilest crap without touching it, then draping oneself in virtue when called on it. I’ve watched Le Pen build a political career out of it. The guy makes Holocaust jokes in public speeches with a wink and a nod for chrissakes ! You have to see it to believe it, I swear.
Yay, another long, drawn out and costly lawsuit hogging court time !
Which is sorta my point. The same thing is in effect being said, only one skirts libel and the other one is. I don’t think it makes much of a difference re. the quality of public speech or the reliability of news outlets & news pundits. X is still a motherfucker, btw. He fucked his own mother. And that’s a crime in every State, sir !
I dunno if false advertising is a free speech issue though. I’d put that in fair trade regulations. Advertising isn’t stating facts or voicing an opinion, and it is almost by definition 99% bullshit anyway.
Batteries not included in this statement. Statement not to scale. Statement may be factually different upon purchase. Feral bobcat may be shipped instead of purchased statement.
The thing is, people do it all the time to French politicians as well. Nobody gives a fuck - but Sarkozy made his fascist little point : I can, and I will (which is ironic, when he himself broadbrushed a large part of the French population as “scum” (racaille). But that’s another story. In other news : shameless assholes the same across borders, news at 11 :))
Ha ! No. Although that would have been an interesting trial to say the least :). And, again, the same and worse things are said and written about other French politicians without penalty either. But some assholes will, because bullying is a legitimate tactic for some. And frankly, again, I’m more concerned about legal bullying than the possibility of someone’s lies causing me financial or physical tort in and of themselves, which I’m not convinced is real in the first place.
But the point is : the case still went to court upon court. The lawsuit took ages and went through every circuit. Doesn’t the US Supreme Court have better, more important things to determine rather than the question of whether or not Jerry Falwell had carnal knowledge of his mother ?
Besides, your statement that “most U.S. courts side with the makers of satire” isn’t really encouraging, is it ? It implies that some don’t, and that some satirists have been found guilty. Sobering thought, there, isn’t it ?
Again, you assume people act morally because the laws compel them to do so. That’s not true. People act morally because most people are (or want to be) righteous.
Yes, but herein lieth my entire point : if some ignorant news consumer attacks me, guess what ? It’s an action ! And an illegal one at that ! And that’s who should be seeing the inside of a courtroom pronto, and be sued for punitive damages. That’s the behaviour that is to be discouraged by society, and that’s what I rely on the law to protect me from.
So you want a definition that would apply to every country throughout the entire world? :rolleyes: You’re not contributing anything to the discussion here. You’re just trying to throw a monkey wrench into it.
I tend to agree that things shouldn’t be banned merely for being disgusting.
I know they don’t quite fall into any of the listed categories, but the Phelps clan tests my limits. I’m uncomfortable with limiting their right to protest (in some places, their are geographic limits on how close to cemeteries they can get), and while I don’t think it should be banned outright, I think I’m okay with some restrictions. I don’t think society loses anything by keeping protesters 100 yards from funerals, for example.
I don’t think I have the time to untangle the above exchange right now, but you people do realize libel and slander are civil torts, right? Slandering someone is not illegal, it’s just not protected.
And as far as famous people: public figures have to meet a higher threshhold in proving they have been libeled or slandered. It is easier for a private citizen to prove it - the statement just has to be false, published, and damage his or her reputation. For a famous person, there also has to be malice or recklessness in the publication of the statements. Famous people usually let these statements go because it would be expensive to do anything about it and they would probably still lose. It is very hard to prove you have been libeled or slandered if you are a public figure because of the malice/recklessness issues and because free speech and satire are well protected.
Yes it is a monkey wrench but not the one you think.
The point is by enumerating enough of the other laws (you can start and probably finish in the UK) you will find they are not at all alike or based on the same principles.
I believe diddling a kid is a horrible crime, but watching a kid being diddled is merely off-the-scale skeevy, yes. It just so happens that one typically entails the other. However, allow me to retort with my own unimpressive shock factor question : do you think drawn or CGI pedo porn should be banned ? If so, why ?
How is speech an action ? How does your speaking infringe on my rights & freedoms ?
By definition, something you keep to yourself isn’t speech. And the fact that he’s diddling kids is still separate from his filming it. It’s the diddling part that’s immoral, criminal and harmful. Not the filming part. If a child molestor only molests and doesn’t film it nor talk about it, is that his right ? See, I can ask dumb questions too. Hurray me !
Again, by definition, if you keep quiet about it, don’t show it, publish it or mention it : it’s not speech.
BTW, I think you’ll find intent is of primary importance when it comes to legal matters. Intent is what separates manslaughter from third degree. Intent is what separates a mistake and a lie.
Intent is incidentally also what speech and debate are supposed to be about, which litteral nitpickers combing over every single word for a flaw to exploit seem to misremember. When I speak to you (general you), the point of you listening to me is to try and understand what I mean, not contort what I say into what you want to read into it and call it my speech.
Oh. Well if the US Supreme Court says so, it must be God’s own, unalienable, unarguable Truth.
What about it ? And what kind of classified information are we talking about, the kind that would get the government in trouble if word got out ? Nixon’s kind of classified ? Some say that’s what the Press is, you know, ABOUT.
Gee, I don’t know, that’s a toughie. Is that person a German giving out German spies to the Allies, in which case he’s a freedom loving hero acting on his conscience, or an Ally giving out Allied spies to Nazi Germany, in which case he’s a goddamn traitor who oughta be shot ? These borders and situational moralities get so confusing…
Article 19. of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
That doesn’t exclude spy identities or troop movements.
No. He suffers harm from peer pressure and victimization by his community, a community that should know better than to act on unverified sources I might add. That’s the action.
No. He’s killed because he’s a spy, at the mercy of his enemies. The newspaper didn’t pull the trigger. And frankly, if a journalist or private citizen can get to that kind of info, his spy network is doing a piss-poor job.
And as we’ve seen, that’s all about free speech :rolleyes:. Damn that free speech protection allowing such outrages to cont…in… wait.
People are trampled to death by people trampling them to death. That’s the action. Try as I might, I cannot trample anyone to death by yelling “FIRE !” loudly. Although that would be quite cool.
If I yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, cause a stampede that kills people, and there really was a fire, am I guilty of mouthing off and getting all them people killed ? What if it was a really, really small fire ? What if I only believed there was a fire because I’m schyzophrenic ? What if I yell fire, everybody jumps me because one’s not supposed to be free to do that, and we all die in the blaze ? What if I yell fire and the stamped is caused by people coming to film it for YouTube ? What if I yell fire in an obviously ironic way ?
OK, I believe I made enough fun of that stupid, canned phrase.
These are all examples of harmful actions motivated by speech. The speech doesn’t do harm by itself. Somebody has to what we experts call “do something” about it. Speech don’t kill people, video games do :D.
Rights are absolute. However, you seem to think that an absolute freedom also implies freedom from the consequences and responsibilities of exercising said freedom. Such is not the case.
Let me put this in a concrete hypothetical for you:
You’ve been dating a girl for 3 weeks and things aren’t going so well. One night, you have a fight and break up. A few days later, you are hauled away by the police in front of your neighbors on charges of rape. After your breakup, your ex-girlfriend has been publicly proclaiming that over the last week of your relationship, you were violent and physically abused her including multiple occurrences of forced intercourse. You, of course know that this is bullshit but it ultimately devolves into a he-said-she-said situation.
The courts cannot arrest you there is not enough evidence to overturn the presumption of innocence and you are let free but your ex-girlfriend continues to tell all of your close and professional acquaintances that you are an unconvinced rapist. She starts a webpage that becomes so highly linked to that it is now the top result for your name and makes sure that for every job you apply for, the HR department knows about your record.
Do you believe in this instance, it is the states duty to adamantly defend your ex-girlfriend in her right to free speech and that you are provided no legal recourse to prevent it?
The question, I understood. The point, however, continues to elude. Yes, it’s a given that different countries have different laws about libel. Some of them have no laws about libel. Some of them have no laws, period. So what? I’m not trying to hold a global symposium on libel laws, I’m having an off-the-cuff discussion of the concept of libel as it applies to most posters on this board. The vast majority of whom are Americans, or living in a Western democracy whose laws are largely similar to the US. How libel is prosecuted in Tierra del Fuego is not particularly important to the conversation. So, yes, you are correct that there are places in the world where truth is not a defense against libel. You’re very clever for knowing this. Have a cookie. However, it is entirely irrelevant to anything that anyone has posted in this thread. So passive-aggressively asking for a cite over it is not very clever. Which means I’ll have to ask for that cookie back.
Or what about Web sites that publish the personal information of abortion doctors, encouraging people to go kill them? That’s a real-life example. The idea that speech never hurts anybody is nice, but it’s not realistic: speech can lead to or encourage actions, and if we ignore that, this all becomes academic. Not to trot out the “fire” example again, but if that happens, people may not have the time to inspect for the fire - they hear the word and run, because they believe they could die if they do otherwise.
The posters on this thread are NOT all from the US, and the question is directed at a global audience.
what good is restricting free speech of you can’t prevent it? Are you prepared to do what china does, only to have free speech happen anyway?
Uh no (you or others, I lost track) were making absolute statements about libel which simply ar not true. Turns out you know it but did it anyway?
Passive aggressive much instead of employing persuasive rhetoric? You are going to need a lot of cookies if you are going to play that childishly! Have the whole box!
I begin by doubting the concreteness of it - I mean, what would be her motivation for going through all that trouble *just *to fuck with me ? And how would a crummy personnal page about something nobody gives a flying fuck about garner so much attention ? But OK, OK, I ain’t fighting the hypothetical.
I would retort that while I could just as easily start my own “I’m only guilty of sticking it in the crazy” MySpace, the truth is any prospective employer who’d monitor or even consider my private life as relevant to the job (as opposed to my education, skills, past employer record… you know, work stuff), I don’t want to have anything to do with. What does a beef with my ex- has to do with a job application, exactly ? Especially if the courts have absolved me of all blame in the matter, what, is “where there’s smoke…” a defendable position now ?
I’m expecting a majority (not all of them, but a majority) of grown-ups to act and think like grown-ups, is that youthful idealism, unrealistic expectations or something ?
I must confess however that you did lead me to google my own name out of curiosity. First three hits are from a pen 'n paper RPG group I joined in my youth. Dammit, I’m FUCKED ! Now I’ll never get to translate Chick tracts !
Well, child porn is illegal because it entails the hurting of children–I think a better comparison might be possessing faked child porn because no one is being hurt, so you don’t have that argument to fall back on. Is CGI or animated child porn wrong because of what it depicts or is it fine because there is no victim?
Did you follow the Duke Lacrosse Team rape accusation drama at all? It’s one of the most public recent examples but stuff like this happens. And the courts did not find you innocent, they simply didn’t find enough evidence to find you guilty. Plenty of guilty people go free all the time because of a lack of sufficient evidence but that doesn’t do much for them in the court of public opinion.
And yes, if you expect your workplace to be completely blase about a rape allegation on your personal record and be willing to consider your side of the story, you have a whole lot of youthful idealism to obliterate.
I kept looking for an actual answer to the question I asked, but I can’t find it. Maybe if I squint and look at it sidewise, it seems that you’re saying that yes, child pornography should be legal and there should be no limits whatsoever on speech. Am I right?
Speech, like most other actions, has consequences. Those consequences can, and do, harm others.
Both are immoral, criminal and harmful. It’s not an either/or.
Is this what passes for debate in your circles?
YOU, are not speaking, but when you distribute said film (even if you had no role in its making) you are speaking. And that distribution should not be protected.
Is this aimed at me? And, again, is this what passes for debate in your circles? I’m trying to determine what your position is by asking questions, and you simply dodge, weave, and don’t answer them.
Strawman. I guess these kinds of things are what you consider debate. How sad.
Non responsive. This isn’t a game, Kobal, it’s a debate. You asked for an example where speech about classified information wouldn’t involve a contract; I gave you one. Now you’re nitpicking to get out of it? If you’re uninterested in debate, just say so.
Let’s say the classified information identified someone as a CIA informant who gave, and continues giving, information about terrorist cells in Europe. The newspaper has never signed a security agreement or anything and reveals said informant’s identity. Protected speech or not?
So, again, you see no harm in identifying troop movements in a war or identifying spies? Is that your position? Or do you think speech could cause harm, but that it is should always be protected? Either way, the UN also recognizes that governments have the power to keep information classified.
The result is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the speech. BUT FOR the speech, there would be no harm. I’m astounded you don’t get that.
And, again, the murder was DIRECTLY CAUSED by the speech. BUT FOR the speech identifying the spy, he wouldn’t be dead. The fact that someone else pulled the trigger doesn’t change the causality.
[qutoe=Kobal2]And as we’ve seen, that’s all about free speech :rolleyes:. Damn that free speech protection allowing such outrages to cont…in… wait.
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Do you have a point, or is this more of your gameplaying?
And, again, you’re ignoring the causation. It’s like saying that the guy who pulled the trigger didn’t kill that person, it was the bullet entering the body. THAT’S the action that killed him, not the pulling of the trigger. Blame the bullet. You’re drawing an imaginary line in causation.
[qutoe=Kobal2]If I yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, cause a stampede that kills people, and there really was a fire, am I guilty of mouthing off and getting all them people killed ? What if it was a really, really small fire ? What if I only believed there was a fire because I’m schyzophrenic ? What if I yell fire, everybody jumps me because one’s not supposed to be free to do that, and we all die in the blaze ? What if I yell fire and the stamped is caused by people coming to film it for YouTube ? What if I yell fire in an obviously ironic way ?
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Sigh. I wish I could say I’m surprised by your inability to debate. But, at this point, I’m not.
Again. You have a problem understanding causation.
No. They’re not. Not when the exercise of those rights harms others.
I’ll tell you what. Given your track record, how about you ask me what I think instead of making stuff up and building false strawmen.
I followed it closely, having been in the lacrosse community since high school, and attending one of Duke’s top rivals. I actually have Mik Pressler’s book (he was the coach) near the top of my “read soon” pile.
Your characterization of the justice system is all wrong. Maybe you never heard “innocent until proven guilty”?
The burden of proof was on the state, not the defendants. As is always.
The long term affect on the players will be minimal. What there has never been a scandal with 20 year olds before? How about every day in the gossip pages? Life goes on.
Depends on the people in your workplace. Are they gossips or are they simply executing bad hr practices? Either is manageable, if your workplace chooses to not manage it effectively, that says more about your workplace and its management than it does about someone tried but not convicted.
:rolleyes: You’re not contributing anything to the discussion here. You’re just trying to throw a monkey wrench into it.