Are we talking about Speak or the pedophile book?
You don’t think libraries carry SPEAK by National Book Award winner Laurie Halse Anderson, or you can’t be bothered to read the post you’re replying to?
You appear to be having a difficult time being civil. I quit. Enjoy the thread.
I’m boycotting this thread until **Odesio **comes back.
Call me a bully, if you must.
And about Harry Potter, that satanic bastard. Do you really want your children learning how to cast spells and do black magic? Horrors!
No one ever listens or responds when I wade into a discussion this late, but I’m going to anyway.
I think the heart of the issue is why we value freedom of speech. As a concept, freedom of speech isn’t limited to freedom from government censorship, but for many people First Amendment protection of speech is what they mean when they think of freedom of speech or use the phrase in conversation. Is the reason we value the First Amendment that we believe the government would do a poor job of censoring? That the government might choose to censor material we would prefer remain available while allowing material we find offensive? Or do we believe that the unfettered dissemination of ideas is inherently good?
The former position is not obviously wrong, and it isn’t internally inconsistent. There is nothing wrong with someone who says that governments’ powers of censorship are much greater than those of any other entity, and can be used in more sinister ways, and therefore governmental censorship is uniquely bad, but that the use of market forces and moral suasion to silence harmful opinions is good.
I happen to hold a different opinion, and I think most of the people arguing against the Amazon boycott do as well. I believe that a progressive society depends upon people having not just the legal right, but the actual ability to communicate their ideas as effectively as possible. I don’t think all ideas and opinions are equally valuable (much less valid), but when the choice is not constrained by limited bandwidth or shelf space, I’d rather see ideas made available than not.
Nicely put Alan.
The First Amendment only applies to the Government, but that’s not true of the word “censorship.” Censorship can and does happen in the private sector, and it’s a legitimate part of civil discourse to have opinions on whether public pressure for a private entity to censor itself (or to desist in purveying free speech that the public finds objectionable) is or is not obnoxious.
I see no philosophical difference between pressuring Amazon to stop selling the book and boycotting a restaurant that won’t serve black people.
Thanks, cricetus.
My question for Opal and her mother is, if you aren’t trying to limit the availability of this book in general, how should this book be distributed?
Again, there is nothing wrong with saying that this book should not be made available at all, and that as long as the government is not brought in to prohibit it, any legal method of eliminating it is fair and beneficial. But you (and some others) seem to be saying something different. You specifically don’t want this book available through a business you patronize, but are open to other methods of dissemination.
Was the boycott a success in your opinion, since the book is no longer available at Amazon, but sold many more copies than it otherwise would have? If the author goes on to make the book widely available on a personal website or via bittorrent and is more successful distributing the book that way, will your goals still have been met?
For you and for people who want the book made less available overall (though not through government censorship: How would you feel about the author mailing copies of the book to every address in his (or your) home town or state? What about standing in a corner of a public park and giving speeches and handing out free copies of his book? What steps would be appropriate to stop him, if any?
The internet has made it much easier to communicate evil and offensive ideas than used to be the case. The Southern Poverty Law Center regularly reports on the explosion of right-wing hate groups that has occurred since the internet became widely available. Of course, the SPLC’s own efforts to research and track these groups has also become much easier.
I think this is an important issue that is becoming more important every day: As the digital revolution continues, should anything be done to mitigate the greater ease with which hate can spread? Who should be doing it? What should be done?
I’m not beyond convincing that some speech should be banned. Canada and Europe have far greater legal restrictions on speech than the US, and yet maintain vibrant national discourses on all aspects of society. I think that restricting speech (legally or otherwise) harms society, but I am willing to consider that I am wrong (beyond obvious extreme situations like child pornography or yelling “fire” in a crowded theater–and I’m also willing to consider the position that those should not[ be exceptions to freedom of speech!).
This goes far beyond Amazon, but keep in mind that the book in question was an e-book self published for the Kindle. A few years ago, this was impossible.
The difference is that in my opinion Amazon should sell the book, but that restaurants shouldn’t discriminate against blacks. And those are much more interesting positions to discuss, I think, than whether boycotts are good or bad.
I think society benefits more by having this book widely available so that not only potential child-molesters, but also parents, police, sociologists, and everyone else can read it, than by forcing the author to hide and to communicate his ideas in secret.
Do you see selling a book as being equivalent to refusing to serve black people? Who is deprived or discriminated against by the selling of a book?
It’s more like boycotting a restaurant because they do serve okra. You don’t have to order it, but by god, it just makes you so angry that other people can…
Well I guess you should contact the FBI if you think it’s a threat. Maybe they can explain it to you better.
It’s an objection to a business practice. And yes, businesses exist to generate profit. They do this by catering to the needs of customers. If people don’t like the way the place looks, the service, the products or an infinite number of other variables they will go elsewhere.
If you want to patronize a business that makes money promoting pedophilia that is your choice. The book promotes the most heinous of illegal activity and anybody who does business with a company who profits from this is a delusional champion of the rights of monsters.
Sure, If people are raping children with the Okra…
That is not the parallel. Amazon didn’t rape anybody. They sold a book that seemed to be about that, but as many people have pointed out, there are all kinds of books on Amazon about everything from hacking computer networks to making pipe bombs. It’s not illegal or even immoral to sell a book about criminal behavior.
Wow.
And so ends another great debate.
To summarize: people are free to complain about the book to Amazon, and Amazon is free to stop selling the book, and the only thing that can be said is that the people who complain about the book are “douchebags” and “obnoxious”.
Boo fucking hoo.
Some posters on the Internet think some people are “obnoxious”. Hardly a scathing indictment.
Also, for those who think the people who complained about the book are douchebags, do you also think that the powers-that-be at the SDMB are douchebags for not allowing people to post instructions on how to break the law? Sure, this is not a one-to-one analogy, but, if in your ideal world Amazon should allow books with instructions on how to break the law, shouldn’t the SDMB allow posts with instructions on how to break the law?