Political leanings...

[Catharz]

1184765855[/unixtime]] the fewest† occurred in Idaho (801), South Dakota (878), and North Dakota (1,341)." Total known is apparently 751,866.

Since SD outlawed them, the number of abortions in Minnesota has risen. I wonder why...

[rapanui]

A list of my political beliefs which cause a lot of people to look at me like a madman:

1. I'm a social libertarian... like hardcore. Legalize all drugs now. Automatic rifles in every home that wants one. Combine the two! Let gays get married, or even better: kick the state out of marriage legislation in the first place.

2. I'm SOMEWHAT a fiscal libertarian, although I do believe the state is needed to provide infrastructure (roads/power/water), healthcare, primary schooling, secondary schooling and a strong support for college education (even if it is not fully paid for). Welfare in general I'm iffy on, although I understand that bad things can happen to good people. I don't think Walmart is all bad, I don't vilify corporations, and I do not oppose sweatshops and, depending on the conditions, think that even child labor can do more good than harm in certain situations.

3. Abortion: I believe a strong case can be made that it is immoral, but I also don't care. It's unreasonable for the state interfere in a woman's personal body affairs. If you're worried that your 14 year old daughter is going to get pregnant, lie to you, and have a secret abortion, You Have Failed as a Parent.

4. I think that to legitimize something as a "democracy", you can't simply base things off the legitimacy of elections. There also has to be a system of social plurality in play.

5. I believe in economic realpolitik, not some bullshit "clash of civilizations" type argument about modern state of affairs vis-a-vis the Arab world. The issues surrounding the Middle East are simply too complex to paint an Islam vs. The Western World picture, although I must admit that at times such a simplistic rationalization appeals at the fascist level.

6. Here's one I know could get me kicked off this board: being a social libertarian means that people should be allowed to use the language they damn well please. That means hate speech regulation is out, the FCC should be dismantled. There have been judicial decisions in the US that allow for verbal insults to be considered 'due provocation' for physical retaliation. That's nonsense and should be eliminated.

[tzor]

I may disagree with you rapanui but I would never consider you a madman. In fact I'm a little unnerved at how little I disagree with you in some areas.

1) I tend to hate binary thinking or an "either or" mentality. I tend to divide things into the obvious bad, the not so obvious bad, and the moderatly bad. Drugs are a good example. Highly addictive, highly dangerous stuff needs to be outlawed. The problem is when you get to the middle ground. You need to strike a balance between use and abuse. Outlawing cough medicine, dry erase markers, etc. would be not practical. The lack of proportion in current drug laws is hurting any real efforts to stop the real dangerous stuff.

Guns are a similiar problem. You don't need a license to ride a bike. You need a license to drive a car. You need a different license to drive an 18 wheel truck. Different categories need different levels of license becuase the potential for misuse inreases dramatically. The same, more or less is true for guns.

Finally marriage. To me the issue isn't really about marriage; it's about all the legal baggage that someone attached to marriage. Consider the following: If someone is in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital then his or her significant partner can only visit them if and only if they have a valid marriage license. WTF?

I'll get to the other points later.

[tzor]

On to point 2) I'm not really sure where I am on point 2. I do have one guiding principle; I believe it is practically impossible to legislate morality. I extend this principle to that of charity - it is practically impossible to legislate chairty. Yes you can have goverment take money from the people to give as charity in the form of taxes, but this has subtle and complex downsides.

Basically speaking a lot of income is invisible, or virtually invisible. Most people tend to look at their income in terms of net. So any increase in texes is in effect a decrease in (net) income. This in turn creates a demand for more income which encourages inflation.

This isn't to say that government charity is bad, but rather that you cannot raise the compassion level of a nation through laws alone. Fortunately most goverments also function as "bully pulpits" and good leaders can make a difference. (Like an honest man, a good leader can be a life long profession for lamp carrying seekers 'cause I am not sure there is one.)

So we get to the best argument of goverment, the biggest economy of scale. The problem comes down to two types, insurance and safety nets. Things happen and people need the ability to recover from personal or regional disasters. Likewise people need a solid empowering safety net that neither entraps nor ignores them but provides the means and the encouragement to bounce back.

Is wallmart bad? That's a tough question. I'll just say that it's naughty. The "wallmart" effect is in essence the notion that price is everything. It is not. Given generally equal (good enough for practical purposes) quality this is true, but this is not always the case. Now there are a number of things that are well over valued - I'll use women's apparrel as one example - Dress Barn and even Kohl's have quality equal or superior to a number of other more expensive stores at a significantly lower price. But when Tomas the Tank Engine from China is made with lead based paint the model implodes.

I'm definitely against "child labor." That doesn't mean I want to stop every little child from selling lemonade on the sidewalk. I'm definitely against "sweat shops." Working conditions must be safe and fair.

Are corporations evil? Sometimes. Unions are evil sometimes as well. In many cases it's the worker who deserves the money and neither the CEO nor the Union Boss deserve those fancy cars, fancy houses and fancy lifestyles because they don't do a damn thing to the corporate bottom line.

(wow I've only touched on 1 & 2 ... 3-6 still to go one of these days)

[Crissa]

Umm... Well, there are no crimes for 'Hate Speech' in the US and... The FCC already has been dismantled. The corporations run it as a puppet to keep each other from running away with the prize.

-Crissa

PS; the term 'sweatshop' doesn't actually mean just a factory, but a factory in which the labor is not given fairly - the shop keep has their visas, their parents, leins on their homes or cars, their parents in hock, etc. Actual shops which are merely manual and sweaty are a bother, but they are not ethically a problem - people do need to produce to feed themselves and their families.

[tzor]

Classically debt was a good way to maintain a sweatshop, and it also applied to other industries especially coal mining, as is sung in the classic song, Sixteen Tons. (Note the link to Debt Bondage). Aside from the fact that they were a variant on outright slavery they were also extreemely dangerous because they were considered "expendable."

[Crissa]

Modern sweatshops have things far more powerful than debt to apply their workers. Laws and immigration controls are held over workers, threatening their families and their welfare.

Classical debt bondage is now used in mainland Asia and India; in Europe, the US, and Oceania imigration status as bondage is becoming more common.

This was the source of all sweatshop work in the US, and the recent riots in France.

If you make immigrants illegal, they have no way to testify against their employers.

-Crissa

[dbb]

1185213986[/unixtime]]Umm... Well, there are no crimes for 'Hate Speech' in the US and...

That means hate speech regulation is out,

While it's true that the government is generally forbidden from criminalizing speech in the States, private actors can and do regulate it. I imagine the sort of "regulation" Rapa had in mind was the sort of speech codes one finds at, e.g., some colleges.

--d.

[PhoneLobster]

being a social libertarian means that people should be allowed to use the language they damn well please. That means hate speech regulation is out

In a zany shock twist ending that is only mildly less crazy looking than you describe your manifesto I'm going to say...

That despite saying earlier that supposedly "insulting" and "indecent" language is integral to the health of society and political discourse actual hate speech is not and should be stepped on, with the additional use of insulting and indecent dialogue while doing the stepping.

Why? Well its all a coherent whole when you think about it. I believe you should be able to throw around statements like "Everyone who supports policy X is either a murderer or a dupe" or what have you because words have real power over events and people.

Similarly though hate speech also has real power over events and people and should be watched carefully and suppressed as appropriate in case that power causes bad things to happen.

Take an example I discussed ages ago where I called the people that ran down the streets of Sydney chanting "Kill the wogs, Kill the lebs" a bunch of racist fvcks too ignorant and self important to even recognise that they were racist fvcks.

Calling them that is a weapon against that sort of behaviour and where it might take us.

But the actual chanting they did was also a weapon, which did have power over people and events and did lead to very real violence. But it was a weapon being wielded against innocent people in a purely evil cause.

On that basis saying that hate speech is OK because freedom of speech is OK is sorta like saying that anyone should be allowed to shoot anyone as long as its OK for someone to shoot someone.

Also, especially in light of confusion over what hate speech regulation is being discussed, note I mention an example with threats/incitements of violence and murder.

Most hate speech legislation I know of (well, just our local state laws we are lucky to have actually) is generally targeted specifically to that exact sort of speech. Threats and incitements to violence are in the right situations very much acts of violence both due to their own direct impact on their victims and also due to their frequent impact of succeeding to incite violence.

[Crissa]

1185252844[/unixtime]]While it's true that the government is generally forbidden from criminalizing speech in the States, private actors can and do regulate it. I imagine the sort of "regulation" Rapa had in mind was the sort of speech codes one finds at, e.g., some colleges.

Lemme get this straight...

...We should forbid someone from saying what is and isn't okay in their own house? Or criminalize specifying what is and isn't okay to do with their money?

What?

-Crissa

[dbb]

1185319430[/unixtime]]
Lemme get this straight...

...We chould criminalize forbidding someone else from saying what is and isn't okay in their own house? Or what is an isn't okay to do with their money?

Am I to understand from this line of reasoning that you support permitting corporations to deny employment to, say, African-Americans based on the color of their skin?

After all, it's "their house". Right?

--d.

[Crissa]

1185319752[/unixtime]]Am I to understand from this line of reasoning that you support permitting corporations to deny employment to, say, African-Americans based on the color of their skin?

After all, it's "their house". Right?

We already allow organizations, religions, to hire/fire based upon character.

But I believe contract and employment is a different matter than a service. And in fact, they are decribed differently in many jurisdictions.

Under your reasoning, it wouldn't be okay for fbmf to ever delete a post on this forum.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

BTW:

Hate Crime in the US is a modifier, not a crime in and of itself. Its existnce merely increses the severity or a pre-existing crime, recognizing that society finds that sort of anti-social behavior especially heinous.

Civil Rights don't expand far into the private sector. There are laws requiring that providing of essential services (housing, health, utilities, insurance) that are provided by the private sector not be racist; but for most situations there isn't anything stopping an employer from being openly racist. They could face civil action - for dealing with employees disingenously - but those are financial penalties, not criminal.

Freedom of Speech never included freedom from responsibility for the content or result of that speech. And apparently, it does not extend to jibberish, licentiousness, or commercial speech.

I'd include citations, but really, you should look these things up yourself.

-Crissa

[dbb]

1185320104[/unixtime]]
But I believe contract and employment is a different matter than a service. And in fact, they are decribed differently in many jurisdictions.

This is a distinction without a difference, though. I presume, for instance, that you also don't support a return to the days of permitting restaurants to post "No Coloreds" signs. Like it or not, the government already forbids us from doing a number of things in our own metaphorical "houses".

I should add that it's not at all clear to me that rapa was suggesting "hate speech" regulations be criminalized (which, irrespective of the Constitutional questions, presents major enforcement problems) as opposed to simply suggesting that they were a Bad Thing. I don't support the former idea; am still undecided about the latter. As PL points out, overt threats and incitement to violence are one thing; but the simple use of a racial epithet does not strike me as necessarily equivalent to either of those things.

--d.

[dbb]

1185320897[/unixtime]]
Hate Crime in the US is a modifier, not a crime in and of itself. Its existnce merely increses the severity or a pre-existing crime, recognizing that society finds that sort of anti-social behavior especially heinous.

Rapa's dislike of "hate speech" regulation is a separate issue from "hate crime" legislation. I didn't think it was relevant to the discussion.

Civil Rights don't expand far into the private sector. There are laws requiring that providing of essential services (housing, health, utilities, insurance) that are provided by the private sector not be racist; but for most situations there isn't anything stopping an employer from being openly racist. They could face civil action - for dealing with employees disingenously - but those are financial penalties, not criminal.

I confess to having used "criminalized" imprecisely. I presumed that, when you introduced the term into the conversation, you did not intend a distinction between things that are actionable in civil vs. criminal court; evidently I was mistaken.

I'd include citations, but really, you should look these things up yourself.

You expressed confusion with something rapa posted; I tried to clarify what I thought he meant by it. I'm genuinely sorry if I offended you in the process; apparently I have.

--d.

[Crissa]

...Actually, there's no law against 'No coloreds' signs in business windows.

-Crissa

[dbb]

Good golly. I had no idea how progressive I really am!

--d.

[dbb]

I suspect, though, that someone who posted such a sign in California (where I live!) would be rapidly sued under the [counturl=81]Unruh Act[/counturl].

And I guess, even if they weren't in California, they'd probably get smacked in the face with another famous Act.

Apparently I'm not really that progressive after all. Oh, well; it was a nice feeling while it lasted.

--d.

[Draco_Argentum]

1185271122[/unixtime]]Most hate speech legislation I know of (well, just our local state laws we are lucky to have actually) is generally targeted specifically to that exact sort of speech. Threats and incitements to violence are in the right situations very much acts of violence both due to their own direct impact on their victims and also due to their frequent impact of succeeding to incite violence.

Yeah. I don't think we can have a workable society where one portion runs around trying to get another killed. There has to be some form of limit of freedom of speech.

[Crissa]

Like I said, Public accomodations are different than Private establishments. Costco, for instance, is not a Public service, except for its food court - you need a membership to enter and accept contractual obligations. This allows them to do several things other establishments cannot: Check your bags upon existing, self-serve fuel in full-service states, etc.

And those are Civil, not Criminal repercussions. Nothing specifically stops a business from paying the possible fine and continuing. An injunction can be persued, but that doesn't stop the business from closing in and becoming a private club.

There are still many private clubs which are not equal. At one time even Tiger Woods played upon a golf course he could not be a member of.

I'm not saying that this is good, but merely that it is social pressure which is most important, and that laws like Unruh have proved mostly unnecessary.

-Crissa

[rapanui]

"There has to be some form of limit of freedom of speech."

No. Even the limitations on the things you can suggest ought to be done to the president are ridiculous.

[Draco_Argentum]

So I can claim you rape babies?

[PhoneLobster]

Perhaps you can also tell people that as a means of actively trying to convince them to kill him.

That is what he is saying right?

Edit: If this is going to sit here for ever at the tail end of the thread I'm going to add this.

Traditionally the freedom of speach line is "But I will fight to the death for their right to *say or think something I reacon is pretty damn bad*"

However that falls down when you are fighting to the death for their right to incite people to kill you. I think for obvious reasons.

[rapanui]

1185524748[/unixtime]]So I can claim you rape babies?

OK, let me partly concede the point: I don't think voicing OPINIONS and SUGGESTIONS should ever be outlawed. Making up facts to incite to violence or generally slander someone should not be allowed. Indeed falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater should be a criminal offense.

So:

'It is my opinion that Rapa-Nui is a baby rapist." is fine.

"Rapa-nui is a baby rapist, that's a fact!" [Slander]
"Here's a picture to prove it!" [assuming photoshop, Libel]

The latter can get iffy though. If you're obviously being facetious, it would be much like the case of Larry Flynt vs. Jerry Falwell.

A different example:

"Someone ought to lynch that Rapa-Nui!" is OK.

"Let's lynch that goddamn Rapa-Nui, now, follow me!" is not, since it is conspiracy to commit murder and an attempt to incite violence.

So, yeah, I will fight to the death for your right to suggest that I should be lynched (metaphorically... I wouldn't fight to the death for anything, I'm much too craven and self-interested).

[Draco_Argentum]

What about, "I saw Rapa looking at some little girls a little too closely, if you get my drift." That'd be about what I'd need to spread around to get people thinking of you as a pedophile.