Have you ever actually been to Europe. Because I have. Twice. I spent three weeks in France last summer and two in Italy in 2007.
The bread (and the butter and the cheese and the salami) that I had in France was simply a) not expensive (roughly about Euro and a half for a huge loaf) b) of incredible quality.
The produce was so good in France we just sat there and inhaled the smell of a cantaloupe for a good ten minutes. I’ve never had cherries that good before. The cheeses were mind boggling tasty. The salamis were equally fantastic. I could have lived on those items alone for two weeks.
Never. I’m 39 and the only produce I’ve ever eaten here in America that even came close were apples I’ve hand picked off a tree.
The same was true in much of Italy.
I love this country. At least I want to.
But my husband has been told that there may be layoffs at his job. If he loses his health insurance we’re seriously thinking of immigrating to Canada. I have another friend who has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a graduate law degree from one of the best law schools in the country.
She’s also thinking of immigrating because she was laid off recently. She has medical issues stemming from a difficult birth. She’s seriously thinking of claiming European citizenship if she can’t find another job and the COBRA runs out.
Two families with highly educated high wage earners are thinking of leaving the US solely because of our fucked up health insurance laws. My family alone would take about $750,000 in assets with us because I know I’d never get reasonable health care on the open market should my husband lose his job.
“Hey everybody! Let’s harm lalenin! Harass him in the streets! Tell lies about him to his boss and get him fired! Threaten his friends and family until they no longer associate with him!”
Really? You cannot see that as being harmful? That is exactly the kind of speech that should be censored, banned, muzzled, and suppressed into nonexistence.
To me, religious speech must conform to those restrictions. When you tell people that being gay is a sin, that harms him. When you tell women that their bodies do not belong to them, and old men living in Italy reading off a thousand year old book should decide how they act, that’s harmful. When I cannot watch my favorite shows, artists, or listen to the music I want to on the airwaves without it being censored, that harms me.
People like to twist words around and pretend things are the same on both sides, but it’s not the same, not by a long shot. My beliefs don’t make it mandatory for people to switch to my side. My beliefs will leave you alone if you leave me alone. The ONLY reason why I’m fed up with religion and want to ban them is because they’ve been trying to do the same to me in real life and not a message board. It is perfectly ok to be intolerant of intolerance. That is not a contradiction.
The lack of data is stupid. There is good data concerning aboriginals that has been put to good use (e.g. check out Stats Can family violence studies over the years). If there were equally good data for other groups, particularly those forming the urban poor, I expect that it too could be put to good use. I hope Canada picks up its socks in this respect.
I don’t think that rare prosecutions of the most viscious hate mongers have put a damper on an open discussion of issues involving race, culture, immigration, poverty, crime, etc. Just flick on TVO for wide open discussions of such issues. I submit that prosecution of the worst of the worst serves to stop them in their tracks, which in turn helps keep public discourse on the rails, rather than hurtling off into visciousness and building absurdly negative stereotypes. Full, open discussion, yes. Willfully promoting hatred, no. For the difference between the two, read the court decisions I referred to above.
I agree, which is why I’m quite shocked as to your claim that the USA’s lack of a law equivalent to s.319 is “backwards.” But it’s yours to clarify if you wish.
Not protecting innocent distinct groups from others who willfully promote hatred against them is backward. I don’t think our law is perfect, for I strongly oppose the religious exemption from the law. In that respect, we too are backward, but less backward than the USA when it comes to protecting against willful promotion of hatred. Backward when compared to some third world hell hole, no, but backward when compared to what I exepect a first world nation to do to protects its people? Yes.
I’m glad that you are “quite shocked”. Nice to know that my posts are so electrifying, rather than sending readers off into snooze land.
I’m sorry to hear about your struggles, LavenderBlue. I hope you and your family are able to find the ways you need to get your lives back on course, even if it means moving to Canada or somewhere else. It’s just that I get tired of the incessant “America sucks” drumbeat which has been coming from the left since the late sixties, and I interpreted your post as coming from that kind of mindset.
(And I hope whereever you land has lots of great foodstuffs. You obviously have a greater capacity to appreciate them does than the average bear.)
Freedom of speech is a cherished principle of american law, however in debates like these people talk as though America=Free speech, AnywhereElse=Not free speech.
In practice though, no country in the world gives its citizens the unrestricted right to say whatever they want in any context.
If I stood in front of a school gate and shouted profanities, at the very least I’d be moved on, and if I published a book containing the names and addresses of current US secret agents I could get in a lot of trouble. It makes sense to take exception to these things: freedom of speech should just mean freedom to state an opinion, not speak any words in any situation for any motivation.
But what about prohibitions such as on hate speech, as in the UK?
Well, it works in the same way. You can certainly express extreme racist views in the UK, and there are plenty of examples I can cite of this happening. Such views aren’t well tolerated by the public, but they aren’t restricted.
What is restricted is basically speeches urging people to commit crimes of one sort or another – kill white people, start a war etc.
…And on googling, I see that the US also has restrictions when it comes to urging people to commit crimes.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a qualitative difference.
Where would you draw the line exactly? Are people who say evolution was guided by God still creationist and thus censored? How about people who want a good debate regarding creationism and evolution-would you censor the Internet too?
Prostitution hurts women and if it’s legal it will encourage poor women to become one since you can earn more being a whore than say working at McDonald’s. Also hardcore pornography’s creative? :rolleyes:
How about atheists who say homosexuality represent a danger to society since they prevent reproduction of people?
Than you are a hypocrite since you clearly will not fight for the right of most people to say what they believe.
Harmless? What about anti-religious people who’ve shot up churches? Also would you ban defense of Stalin and denial of his crimes as represented by this site? http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/
What level of protection should “groups” expect from the state? You don’t think that’s a legitimate area of debate?
I mean, seriously, do you think David Ahenakew was a threat to anyone, and that a country that failed to chase after him was backwards in the extent to which it was failing its citizenry? Really? That’s not perhaps something open to reasonable debate in a democratic society?
I happen to like it here. As a native New Yorker I happen to adore my native home city and many places in America including California and Florida.
But at the same time we need to fix a few things. It seems to me that pure patriotism means admitting the problems we face here. When millions of people declare bankruptcy solely because of medical bills, when the Texas school board wants to give equal time to Abraham Lincoln AND Stonewall Jackson, when my own retired mom (a special education teacher) finds it difficult to afford prescriptions then yes we have a problem here.
Why is it so wrong to admit this and work to overcome our problems?
We could stick to facts, that’s a good place to start. If they want to posit that evolution is divinely guided, they better have some damn good evidence.
I don’t know about the net though. That’s something I haven’t decided what to do yet when I take over the world with my zombie army
First, I was referring to creative endeavors of the non-porn kind. It would be nice if we could show movies on network TV in prime time without blurring naughty bits or bleeping language. And second, if women want to work as prostitutes when it is legal, why should they be forced not to? Prostitution isn’t harmful, it doesn’t hurt women, and if they don’t want to do it, they can still work at McDonald’s. It should be available for women who want to do it
These people don’t exist. And if they do think homosexuality is a danger to society, they will always qualify that with religion as being an even bigger danger. Atheists don’t worry much about gays because they are not the end of the world for us
There is nothing hypocritical about my distain for religion and nothing hypocritical about atheism’s factual correctness over religion
What atheists do you know who have shot up a church?
Like it or not, Stalin isn’t as reviled in these parts as Hitler. I would ban defense of Stalin and denial of his crimes, but I wouldn’t have my heart into it. Don’t expect me to get excited over Stalin. His crimes were mostly volume because he happened to be in command of a large country. Hitler and his ilk went to the extreme.
Not Italian or German, but if I recall correctly you do have a French-speaking country as a neighbour. And a Spanish-speaking one.
Beyond that, it’s a bit odd that your rebuttal to points that would seem to put various European systems in favour is that these things are too different to be comparable, whilst not accepting those same differences when considering situations where you consider the U.S. to be superior. Could you give me an example of a comparison where the U.S. appears to come out on top, but due to the differences the situations aren’t comparable, and one where Europe is in your opinion however slightly superior?
Rick, have you read the cases that Muffin provided in his cites? With all due respect, I would suggest that you read his cites before you ask questions such as “What level of protection should ‘groups’ expect from the state?” The cases that Muffin cited will go a long way towards answering that, and other, pertinent questions.
FWIW, I have read those decisions, though not recently; it has been some time. I won’t attempt to answer the question you directed at Muffin for him, but I will say that, recalling those cases as I do, there is much more to the question you are asking than you may think. Again, I suggest that you read those cases, then return and ask your question (if you still have one) afterwards.
No, we don’t have relatively good public transport as a nation, at least not relative to the public transport in many other developed nations (which, to be fair, have greater population density than ours).
We have quite good public transport in several major metropolitan areas (including NYC and SF, as you note), and okay public transport in most fair-sized cities. But outside of that, our public transport facilities are extremely limited and uneven. I’m not just talking about real rural areas and wilderness; even our relatively densely populated suburban areas often just suck when it comes to transit options.
The vast majority of non-indigent Americans everywhere outside our largest cities depend almost entirely on private automobiles for their transportation needs. Many of them have class anxiety about public transport and are afraid to use it even if it’s available to them, because they fear they’ll be surrounded by criminals and homeless people.
This situation is drastically backward compared to the transit options in many European countries, where the majority of middle-class families have their own cars but can also easily travel by public transport without worrying about any social stigma.
You obviously have a greater capacity to appreciate them does than the average bear.)