Halloween costumes -- where is the taste line drawn?

[Kramodlog]

Because, simply put, they are apples and oranges. The government has police, armies, and jails. All a private concern can do is have you not speak in one particular place or venue (virtual or real-space). The government can shut you up completely and permanently.

Says a man who probably doesn't know anyone who has spent time in a gulag. Which sounds melodrmatic, but is demonstrative of what the Right is supposed to prevent.

If Facebook prevents you for saying Putin is naughty, you can go whine about him on G+, or one of a hundred other social sites. If, for historical example, the Soviet government prevented you from saying something like it, you may not have ever been heard from again. This is a perspective that is often lost on modern Americans, who have had so little restriction on their speech for so long.

Weak sauce if your best argument is that corporations can't throw you in jail or kill you so their censorship is ok. If jail and/or death are the only standards to judge of the morality of an action, than we are in deep trouble.

I also see you didn't adress what the supreme court said about freedom of religion and how it does not just apply to guberment oppressing people.

And I am not an USian if that is what you ment by American.

Nope. Speech is speech. Private venue is private venue.

A home is not a public website. I'll point to you're apple and orange comment.

Edit: Didn't see the ironic "stop the off topic" post before I posted this one. I was writting it.

 

[trappedslider]

Pardon me Mr. Pot, but Mr. Kettle can't take your call at the moment.

 

[billd91]

A home is not a public website. I'll point to you're apple and orange comment.

And the owner of a publicly viewable website isn't a government. The public may be able to view it, but membership and active participation is on the owner's terms because it is still the owner's site. Fundamental laws designed to limit the power of government in favor of individual liberties simply don't apply. Moreover, if you were to attempt to exert civil liberties on a privately owned site, you'd quickly run into a clash of two of them - freedom from censorship and freedom to assemble/associate which is typically taken to also mean the freedom to choose with whom you assemble. So, you may assert freedom from censorship, but the site owner still has his freedom of assembly to weed out the people he doesn't want there.

Meanwhile, the rulings of the Canadian Supreme Court have little bearing on a website owned by a Briton who isn't living or hosting his site in Canada.

 

[Kramodlog]

And the owner of a publicly viewable website isn't a government.

Good thing I didn't say it was guberment. Nice strawman.

Fundamental laws designed to limit the power of government in favor of individual liberties simply don't apply.

This is more libertarian mythology and ethnocentricity than universality (see ruling I link and other countries). I disagree that they were designed to only limit the power of guberment (see ruling I linked) and that they should be limited to guberment. The internet is something new, rights were not designed with it in mind. Times change, communication, the definition of public space, corporations, their power and influence, the nature and significance of rights and their application.

Let us face it, rights, how they are applied and to what they are applied is arbitrary. Chosen by the powers that be. In representative democracies, we have the unique opportunity to define rights. Why agree to censorship or uncodify censorship? Why give corporation unchecked power?

Moreover, if you were to attempt to exert civil liberties on a privately owned site, you'd quickly run into a clash of two of them - freedom from censorship and freedom to assemble/associate which is typically taken to also mean the freedom to choose with whom you assemble. So, you may assert freedom from censorship, but the site owner still has his freedom of assembly to weed out the people he doesn't want there.

Interesting stuff for the legislative to sort and legislate on.

Meanwhile, the rulings of the Canadian Supreme Court have little bearing on a website owned by a Briton who isn't living or hosting his site in Canada.

More strawman, woot!

 

[Remus Lupin]

You guys are aware that Umbran is a mod and Morrus actually owns the website, right?

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Yes, so?

 

[Remus Lupin]

I don't know, I just think it's a good general policy not to be obnoxious to the mods. But please, suit yourself.

 

[Umbran]

You guys are aware that Umbran is a mod and Morrus actually owns the website, right?

Yes. But that doesn't mean folks can't disagree with us - merely that if they are rude in so doing, they are sure to get caught.

You reacted very poorly to a comment that wasn't aimed at you.

I don't see anything "poor" about my reaction. I am remaining rational, civil and thoughtful in my responses. Unless noting holes in your argument is what you consider "poor", I don't think the word applies.

A home is not a public website. I'll point to you're apple and orange comment.

Ah, but the functional bit for our purposes is not the difference between home and business, but the difference between governmental and private.

Whether it is a home or a business, it is still owned by a private entity. There's a basic point about rights and freedoms, which can be summed up as, "Your right to swing your fist about ends at the tip of my nose." Whether it is my home or my business, it is *mine*. So, if you enter into the space (real or virtual) of another private citizen, we have a clash of rights - yours and the owner's. The person with the home-field advantage wins on the matter of personal expression.

This does not apply to the government. It does not have rights, as such, to clash with yours.

 

[evilbob]

A couple years ago, one of the British princes dressed in a Nazi uniform for a costume party. There was a lot of uproar about it. The problem struck me as odd. He could have dressed as the devil, an axe murderer, a zombie, a medieval executioner, and no one would have had a problem. But somehow Nazi is over the line?

Someone else has probably said this already, but:

The Nazis murdered millions of people in real life. It was called the holocaust because it was so horrible. This is one of the worst things that has ever happened in recorded history.

Zombies are fictional characters.

You are still unclear about why one is over the line and one is not?

As for blackface: yes this is offensive. Whether you understand the social implications, complex history, or the true face of prejudice or not, you don't get to make the rule about whether or not this is offensive to many people.

Also, since these discussions ALWAYS come back to this: this isn't about censorship. There's a difference between what you CAN do and what you SHOULDN'T do. Of course you have the right to think dressing in blackface is ok. But you will also deal with the consequences of that (which, especially in a private setting like a forum, may include infractions, for example).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't see anything "poor" about my reaction. I am remaining rational, civil and thoughtful in my responses. Unless noting holes in your argument is what you consider "poor", I don't think the word applies.

"Diagnosing" is something he does. I don't know why.