StoneHappyMonday
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I assure you as far as trends in modern cultures go, and despite SS, that's a fairly accepted fundammental philosophy of western Europe. I reckon you've lived in Aus too long. 
Flag desecration, and how about it?
- Thread starter Bardeaux
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JessFR
Bluelight Crew
I assure you as far as trends in modern cultures go, and despite SS, that's a fairly accepted fundammental philosophy of western Europe. I reckon you've lived in Aus too long.
Without a doubt that is true. But I'm to poor to afford moving back to the US.
No offense to the Australians, I'm sure its a great country of you're culturally Australian, but I'm sick of having a wildly different accent to everyone else and being constantly reminded of it.
exactly. you can't argue that you believe they're free to express themselves and argue in the same breath that they should be physically assaulted for doing so.
the thing about freedom is the freedom bit... i'm not saying that freedom of expression should be consequence free. if you freely express your opinion, others should be free to counter than opinion, boycott your business, whatever.
but can we agree that freedom to express an opinion should reasonably mean freedom from physical violence for doing so?
it's fascinating to read that somebody believes an appropriate response to an act which, while highly offensive, doesn't not harm anybody, is physical violence.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
alasdair
Deleted member 210577
Bluelight Crew
I didn't say they should be physically assaulted, and one can argue this position.. yes a person should have the freedom to express what is on their mind but requiring that everyone tolerate it in all instances is just absurd. Like my child analogy.. how long are you really going to tolerate that kind of bullshit before you snap huh? Or will you just stand there and let your child be bombarded by stuff you don't want them to hear?
Reasonably is the key word here. Whether we find those christian nutbars offensive for their opinion or not is irrelevant.. though I imagine we both agree it is a stupid position to hold. What matters is appropriateness. On a street corner is a different situation to a funeral. You say "doesn't harm".. I would argue emotionally it does and is harmful to the family.. like I said, time and a place, and at an already emotionally charged time that kind of shit is not socially calibrated behavior and is fucking obnoxious. Taking it to an absolute position of saying those funeral people should tolerate that shit is just an absurd notion quite frankly.
I get American's value this thing highly but taking it to an absolute condition is just not compatible with the way people are and I doubt the founding fathers wouldn't hesitate to punch some obnoxious twat at their families funeral procession either.
What about the right of the family at the funeral to not be harassed and suffer emotional distress?
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
See this is what I was talking about before about the different perspectives across cultural lines.
As far as I'm concerned, the right to free speech is more important to society than the right not to feel hurt by someone's retarded words. And once you accept the proposition of such a right, it gets out of control until free speech is meaningless, because anyone can be offended by anything. It always starts with one small compromise in something hard to defend, but it never ends there. The Westboro Baptist church is already required to be far enough away that I don't think calling it harassment holds much weight. The primary behavior the family will find hurtful is knowing that they're picketing it, regardless of where they're doing it.
I strongly believe in free speech, and much as I don't want people to have their feelings hurt by peoples cruel and despicable words, I'd rather that than watch freedom of speech get reduced to the point I see it in Australia, where even opinions can get you in trouble if you say anything negative about certain groups because they consider anything they disagree with offensive.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't want to see the situation in America I see in Australia where you aren't allowed to voice certain legitimate political opinions because they may be deemed offensive. The price of freedom is supposedly eternal vigilance. And I for one won't compromise on the right to express a viewpoint, any viewpoint provided it isn't directly calling for physical harm against someone.
I know not everyone will agree with me, and that's ok, ill defend their right to say they think I'm wrong too.
I believe anyone has the right to voice their political opinion to anyone willing to listen, not just a publicly condoned opinion selected from a specific list of acceptable opinions. Many states require they be at least 500 or in some 300 feet from the funeral, that's a good compromise IMO.
As far as I'm concerned, the right to free speech is more important to society than the right not to feel hurt by someone's retarded words. And once you accept the proposition of such a right, it gets out of control until free speech is meaningless, because anyone can be offended by anything. It always starts with one small compromise in something hard to defend, but it never ends there. The Westboro Baptist church is already required to be far enough away that I don't think calling it harassment holds much weight. The primary behavior the family will find hurtful is knowing that they're picketing it, regardless of where they're doing it.
I strongly believe in free speech, and much as I don't want people to have their feelings hurt by peoples cruel and despicable words, I'd rather that than watch freedom of speech get reduced to the point I see it in Australia, where even opinions can get you in trouble if you say anything negative about certain groups because they consider anything they disagree with offensive.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't want to see the situation in America I see in Australia where you aren't allowed to voice certain legitimate political opinions because they may be deemed offensive. The price of freedom is supposedly eternal vigilance. And I for one won't compromise on the right to express a viewpoint, any viewpoint provided it isn't directly calling for physical harm against someone.
I know not everyone will agree with me, and that's ok, ill defend their right to say they think I'm wrong too.
I believe anyone has the right to voice their political opinion to anyone willing to listen, not just a publicly condoned opinion selected from a specific list of acceptable opinions. Many states require they be at least 500 or in some 300 feet from the funeral, that's a good compromise IMO.
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that seems a little disingenuous. "i'm not saying they should be beat up, i'm just saying it wouldn't bother me if somebody did"
like saying that your anti-gay credentials are solid because you don't think they should be publicly executed for being gay?
that's kind of missing the point. you don't have to like it. you can vehemently disagree with it and think it's the most disgusting thing you've ever heard. but you have to tolerate it because they have a constitutionally protected right so say it.
in which amendment is that right enshrined?
don't get me wrong. we agree it's disgusting. i just don't think that the first amendment stops applying because something offends me. for me, that's the whole point.
alasdair
Blue_Phlame
Bluelight Crew
I feel this is on topic.
^ yep.
as is often the case with discussions like this, we're discussing degrees.
i get that nutty and ss have strong feelings on this subject and i respect that. but they are, unequivocally, talking about limiting freedom.
alasdair
as is often the case with discussions like this, we're discussing degrees.
i get that nutty and ss have strong feelings on this subject and i respect that. but they are, unequivocally, talking about limiting freedom.
alasdair
StoneHappyMonday
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Sorry, but that only works if (probably like SS) you succumb to the idea that the rubbing of genetalia is a bad thing. Personally, having spent 35 years having sex with people who enjoy genetalia rubbing, I don't see that as a bad thing.
alasdair
Escher's Waterfall
Bluelight Crew
Seems to me that a right "not to be offended" basically ends up with society deciding to give power to the most easily offended.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
I agree, it starts with something hard to defend, but before you know it, it covers anything that certain groups don't want discussed.
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
I have actually protested a wbc protest in Nashville when they were protesting a military mans funeral. We found out a few of their names and with big signs saying that they molested children they were not fans of us and actually came up to us and angrily declared we were liars and God would get us. A great irl troll it was. I personally defend their right to protest just as I would defend my own to protest their protest.
nuttynutskin
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I seriously don't understand how what they're doing isn't considered hate speech. Less and less is becoming sacred in this country I guess when you can legally cause a distraught family who lost a loved one even more distress.
Like I already said, as long as someone is a member of any society no one it totally free. There are limits to freedom in any country, some just more than others.
Like I already said, as long as someone is a member of any society no one it totally free. There are limits to freedom in any country, some just more than others.
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Bardeaux
Bluelight Crew
It is hate speech, though. It's just been ruled legal by the supreme court (as it should be), as it doesn't incite violence or threaten anyone with violence. See: Snyder v. Phelps
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
Dude asked my name and said he was going to sue me for slander lol. He demanded my name so I gave it with passion so he wouldnt doubt me I said Lou D. Phillips of nashville, tn and he wrote it down. All the while these cops really didnt give a shit about the situation. Really we couldnt of been the first people to fuck with these people in this manner but maybe we were it was like 2010. I didnt even care that much about the fallen soldier not that I didnt at all I was just indifferent due to my habit at the time.
nuttynutskin
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As it should be? How would you like it if you lost a loved one and had a bunch of assholes celebrating their death outside and writing hateful things about them on their website? I think the supreme court absolutely made the wrong decision.
Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenting justice in this case, beginning his dissent with, "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case."[29] He concluded, "In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps
I totally agree with him.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
This isn't about 'total' freedom, this is about freedom wherever possible, which it is in this case. And respecting the constitution, which covers protest behavior regardless of subject matter.
Maybe it should be considered more sacred by society, it really doesn't matter, sacred is a matter of social perspective, this is a matter of legal perspective. The question is not should funerals or whatever be held sacred, it's should men with guns force the WBC not to protest, and I strongly feel the answer is no. I agree the WBC should not be permitted to protest within a certain distance of the funeral, whatever's sufficient to prevent any interruption of the funeral or distraction, but that's it.
A funeral may well be sacred, but I hold the first amendment as even more sacred. The bill of rights is what should be most sacred in this situation.
"How would you like it" is a bad question, the world would NOT be a good place if we ran everything by what grieving distressed families would like. Forget good drug policy, that'll go the second someone drops dead and someone goes "how would you like to lose your daughter from an overdose, we need to do X". And along with that many other bad policies would come. The same is true of this.
People have a right to protest whatever they want. They do not have a right to commit slander, which WBC doesn't, granted it's close. Accusing one of them of being a pedophile in such a way as people might legitimately believe it were true on the other hand would be.
You're all acting like the question is either we let the WBC scream AT the funeral, or prohibit them completely, it's not. We can permit them to protest but far enough away as to not be a problem anymore so than the fact that they exist and have said the words they say would be, which would be said regardless of the protest itself. We gonna ban them from the internet next?
Protecting free speech means protecting some viewpoints you find disgusting. The westboro baptist church have said that in almost any other country in the world, they would be forcibly stopped from doing what they do, and I believe for the most part that's true. And to me that is something that makes me proud to be an american, and there is far too little to be proud of to start with, I'm never going to support what I see as making things worse.
I know how tempting it is to say this isn't what free speech is about, but it really is. If you stopped them, you would set a precedent. What happens when someone decides that protesting the government is disgraceful because 'you should be proud of your country', and decides on behalf of the american people that they should be protected from bring told their leaders are bad or incompetent? I'm sure some would say that that hypothetical is being extreme or alarmist. But keep in mind it won't go straight from one to the other. It starts with WBC, then it moves on to other deemed hateful or prejudicial groups, then something a little more, and a little more, before you know it you can't protest a war because it 'is disrespectful to the troops'.
We all hate their message, we all believe that their actions are twisted, no one is defending their actions, only their right to them.
Bardeaux
Bluelight Crew
I wouldn't, obviously.
But that doesn't mean everything I dislike should be made illegal.
"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the organizer,
Who gave us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag.
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
(Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC)
some other random thoughts from the interwebs...
on the idea that flag burning dishonors veterans:
"Given how much members of the armed forces must or may be called upon to sacrifice, no one wants to be seen as dishonoring them. This makes the claim that burning the flag dishonors veterans an appealing one, but the claim is what actually does the dishonoring. No one fights and dies for a piece of cloth, they do so for the ideals which the flag stands for. Attempts to undermine those ideals, including the right to protest and attack the government, are what dishonor veterans’ sacrifices."
on the idea that flag-burning is anti-american:
"Some say that burning and desecrating the flag should be banned because they are anti-American. Even if we ignore the possibility that some burn the flag to protest when the government acts contrary to American values, rather than in opposition to American values themselves, so what? American isn’'t truly free if people aren’'t free to express anti-American ideas — and if America isn'’t free, then being anti-American should be a virtue rather than a vice."
alasdair
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the organizer,
Who gave us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag.
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
(Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC)
some other random thoughts from the interwebs...
on the idea that flag burning dishonors veterans:
"Given how much members of the armed forces must or may be called upon to sacrifice, no one wants to be seen as dishonoring them. This makes the claim that burning the flag dishonors veterans an appealing one, but the claim is what actually does the dishonoring. No one fights and dies for a piece of cloth, they do so for the ideals which the flag stands for. Attempts to undermine those ideals, including the right to protest and attack the government, are what dishonor veterans’ sacrifices."
on the idea that flag-burning is anti-american:
"Some say that burning and desecrating the flag should be banned because they are anti-American. Even if we ignore the possibility that some burn the flag to protest when the government acts contrary to American values, rather than in opposition to American values themselves, so what? American isn’'t truly free if people aren’'t free to express anti-American ideas — and if America isn'’t free, then being anti-American should be a virtue rather than a vice."
alasdair