Hardly. I could list one stupid liberal idea a day and keep this thread going for months. And that’s just based on what I know already. There’s no telling how long I could keep it going through active research.
I probably won’t, because who needs the aggravation? But I could. Easily.
So don’t kid yourself, there are a hell of a lot of stupid liberal ideas out there. Where this thread is concerned though, it’s just a matter of whether the board’s eight or ten conservative posters find it and decide to weigh in on them.
I don’t pretend to know how the laws are applied in practice, but in theory the victim being merely part of a protected subgroup isn’t enough to qualify it as hate crime (nor is the “protected subgroup” part required, either - a white man killed because “all honkies need to hang !” is also the victim of a hate crime. It just so happens that xenophobic violence is quite more often performed by the larger in-group). The defining aspect of a hate crime is that the offence was not perpetrated against the given victim per se, but through the victim the offenders were attempting to target his entire demographic segment (or rather, they picked on the nearest guy from that segment, could have been anyone else).
Contrast to personnal grudges or robberies, which “only” target specific individuals or have a specific end goal: the threatened party is quite larger, as is the risk of re-offending if not kept behind bars since after all, if I killed Joe Fuckwit because he went and done me wrong, once out I’m presumably done. No more Joe Fuckwit to kill. If I killed Joe Fuckwitstein for being a Jew, there’s plenty more where he came from when I’m back on the streets.
Do feel the same about increased penalties for crimes directed at police officers?
No.
In any case, you misunderstand how hate crime laws work. The addition penalty is not for committing a crime against someone who happens to be a member of a particular group. It’s for committing a crime against someone BECAUSE they’re a member of a particular group. It’s the MOTIVATION of the criminal that triggers the law, not the IDENTITY of the victim.
Should have expected ol’ Starkers to have a hadron about porno. And to a limited extent, he has a point, the First Amendment was not intended to protect porn. The Big One was intended to protect, especially and specifically, political speech. That does not mean that other expression is somehow excluded from any protection, only that it doesn’t rise to the importance and significance of political speech. Political speech is of the very essence, the right to sway others to your opinion. So of course there is a special emphasis on its protection above others.
But that doesn’t mean its open season on everything else. Our restrictions on commercial speech seem to have few if any boundaries. We freely permit the commercial blandishments for harmful activities, smoking, drinking, etc. Why then should we have restrictions to prevent people from producing or seeing pictures of people fucking?
The main reason we cannot outlaw porno is that we cannot define what it is, it is unjust to outlaw behavior that you cannot actually define, the potential criminal cannot be sure whether his actions are lawful or not. I know what the word “porno” means to me, I cringe to imagine what it might mean to you. To be perfectly frank, don’t much like it. Erica Jong said it best, I think: “For the first ten minutes of a porn movie, all I want to do is fuck. After fifteen minutes, I never want to fuck again as long as I live.”
It doesn’t matter in the slightest whether or not the Founding Fuckups intended for the First Amendment to protect porno.
Exactly! Especially and “specifically” political speech. That means it was intended to protect political speech specifically and it says nothing one way or the other about other types of speech or other types of expression. The deceit that it does is a liberal invention.
And just where in the 1st Amendment is this little bit of exposition to be found? I can’t seem to find it.
Because people can choose not to smoke or drink by the simple expedient of not doing them. If pornography is freely and openly displayed in public venues, it is unavoidable. Plus, we have restrictions on “hate speech”, which I’m sure you’re four square behind. Where’s your concern for unlimited 1st Amendment protections there? The fact of the matter is, people on your side of the aisle are perfectly happy to prohibit speech and actions that you disapprove of.
Oddly enough, we seemed able to define it throughout most of the country’s history. And we’re able to define it in terms of this discussion. And everybody knows what we’re talking about when they hear the word. The argument that pornography can’t be defined is a deceit promulgated by liberal ideology. And it’s certainly more definable than something like hate speech. That argument simply doesn’t hold water.
Then there’s no justification for using 1st Amendment protections to allow it, is there?
The Bill of Rights does not “allow” rights, it limits the power of goverment to infringe them. Only a conservative could misunderstand the Constitution so profoundly as to think rights come from the government.
Doesn’t have to be, unless you’re operating from the premise that no speech is protected unless it is specifically approved by the Constitution. Why should we believe that? They took the trouble to exalt political speech above others, as it is an integral part of the political process of a democratic republic.
That doesn’t mean you are free to declare images and speech illegal simply because you find it disgusting.
So easy even you can do it? Prove it. Define it, in objective, testable terms. Without scurrying to the shelter of unprovable assumptions, like “Everybody knows what porno is.” They may think they do, as you do, but can you prove it?
Could you point out to me where it says that, in bold, if you would?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
I don’t see the word “political” in there at all, SA. As a matter of fact, I don’t see ANY adjectives modifying the word “speech”. Surely you’re not inventing it or inserting it deceitfully–that’d be frighteningly LIBERAL of you–so if you’d be so kind as to bold it and/or underline. My lying liberal eyes, naturally, must be shielding me from it.
'Luci, you’re welcome to try too, since you appear to be going for some kind of appeasement strategy to get him down a different alley.
I may not be able to define it, but I’ll know it when I see it.
Could you please pass the the picture of the blonde again? Gotta double or triple check that one.
Then your expectation would have been in error. I have no problem with pornography at all as long as it is deliberately sought out and viewed in the privacy of one’s own home. I draw the line at having the sights and sounds of it being broadcast in a public venue where people have no choice but to encounter it whether they want to see it or not. (Also, given the hysteria going on these days with regard to children (i.e., anyone a day under 18) and sex, why is it that no one in this thread seems particularly disturbed by the idea of children watching and listening to some of the most vile shit human beings can dream up, and at an age where they cannot possibly comprehend or understand it?)
I also quarrel with the library’s stance that they will not prohibit people from looking at “legal” material on library computers, as thought they are not about to deprive someone of what he or she has a legal right to. Funny, cigarettes and alcohol are legal, but I bet you couldn’t light up or pour yourself a scotch in one.
So we have specious constitutional justifications and we have specious legal justifications, all cooked up by smarter-than-thou liberals in the New York Library system. Thus, by adding “smarter-than-thou liberals” to “specious” and “specious”, you get “stupid”. Thus qualifying the matter for inclusion in this thread.