Freedom Of Speech @ MindSay

I have been reading around mindsay and seeing how crazy it is on the net lately with racism and general ignorance. I have to say that there should have been some sort of clause added to the freedom of speech deal. I think there should have been a limitation on what exactly this means. I mean, I understand that the USA is the most free country in the entire world, but we still have rules. You are not allowed to steal, kill, or hurt other people. These things are considered unlawful. How come hate speech is not included in unlawful acts? It's just seen as socially unacceptable to most people. Hate crimes many times go unnoticed and tucked under the rug, so does that mean we are permitting those acts, too? Just because we sweep things under the rug does not mean that they die there. No, they begin to fester and seethe and permeate every crevice of their habitation until they burst forth, unable to be contained any longer.

That is what I think has been happening online lately. People just can't keep their hate to themselves. If there was just one little clause that stated "freedom of speech as long as it does not express hate toward another race or culture", much of this stuff would be stifled...and still it would just grow underground. It would just become a back alley to the clean streets of society. How does one stop this malicious beast from growing?

It starts in the home, folks. Parent who hate birth children who are taught to hate. They are not born with hate. They are TAUGHT IT AT HOME. A person I know very well was taught to hate black people by his own grandmother and father. He came to high school and looked at me with disdain. What did I do? I taught him about love no matter the color. I taught him how not all people are the same. I taught him how to embrace me for who I was, not hold me away and miss out on a great friend just because of melanin or lack thereof.

What did this boy do? He embraced me! He began to embrace other people who were not the same skin tone as he. He even introduced me to his own racist father as his SISTER while arm in arm with me giving me hugs and cheek kisses. I even hugged HIM and told him how awesome my brother was! I was allowed to share in his life at his home, at his table, with the very people who had taught him this hate. His very best male friend turned out to be a radical afro wearing black teenager who reminded us all of Jimi Hendrix. What a change! What a transformation. He now is looking to have kids who will NOT be taught the hate that his parent and grandparent taught him.

(We = people who are not racist) The cure is simple. The problem is that we are not enforcing that cure. It's even harder now that the internet is so far and wide. Too many people with too much taught hate can get together and just go to town on whatever the subject of their hate without any checks or balances. They don't have to get to know people for who they really are online. They can just continue in their hate. How do we reach them? How do we stop them? That is the question that affords a real answer and quickly.

Conservatives believe in Freedom of Speech, but only when they're spreading hate speech. Need evidence? Google "miss california" and "homosexuals"

Exactly just that.

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(p.s. this also applies to any of my entries anyway, really...)


P.S. There will be more of these here in my blog.  Why? I dunno.

They'd like to leave Tommy in stitches

By CHRIS SMITH
PRESS DEMOCRAT COLUMNIST

Published: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 11:21 a.m.

A good many of the Emmy Awards viewers who've fired off blogs or e-mails about the acceptance speech by Kenwood's Tommy Smothers use some pretty ugly words.

Communist, elitist, traitor -- they're some of the more printable terms flung at him by people incensed that he used his minute and 10 seconds at Sunday night's Emmys to encourage speaking out against war and untruths and to lament the damage done by "ignorance in action."

"I really struggled with that speech," said Tommy, who went to the Emmys with his wife, Marcy, and brother-partner, Dick, to receive a commemorative award for the writing he did 40 years ago for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."

That short-lived show was "The Colbert Report" of its time, the Vietnam/civil-rights era of the late 1960s. The Smothers were funny but also pointedly political.

Tommy, 71, said he knew that in L.A. on Sunday night he couldn't offer the standard thanks for an Emmy acknowledging his writing for a TV show that was silenced by a network fearful it was too controversial.

He decided that in his Emmy speech he'd advocate speaking the truth and opposing war as the only path to peace, but avoid naming names or referring to specific issues or wars.

"I thought it was a philosophical speech," he said Monday. "I didn't mention politics at all."

Tommy said about half of the viewer comments he's seen are positive and thank him. As for the other half, some of the gentler ones suggest he pack up and leave the country he obviously hates.

"I love America," he said. "I just hate our government."

Even if half of the country today hates the veteran funnyman, musician, yo-yo master, satirist and rabblerouser, he said, "I'm happy with what I said because it was what I felt in my heart."
(You can view Tommy Smothers' acceptance speech, and Steve Martin's introduction, here on YouTube -- Eds.)

Sports fans can be vicious.  Occasionally, so much so that referees have penalized the home team to try and get the fans under control.  But the University of Virginia is taking things a step further, banning all signs from its sporting venues.  

According to the story that jakerad  sent us, it all started last year when a student held up a sign suggesting the football team should fire its head coach.  At the time, the school’s policy was to prohibit signs containing “derogatory comments, profanity, impede another guest’s view of the field or cover any stadium signage.”

But now that policy has expanded to ban all signage from stadiums.  Of course, some think this is trampling on freedom of speech rights.  But the counter point, as argued in this article says that:

“The new policy banning all signs is also straightforward. As Josh Wheeler of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression said, it’s actually friendlier to the First Amendment than the old policy, because it is “content neutral” — it does not discriminate against certain viewpoints.”

UVA is obviously free to do whatever it wants, but do you agree with the decision to ban all signs from sporting events?