[LMB] competence in fiction and in life

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008, Elizabeth Holden wrote:

> --- Azalais Aranxta <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > A man commenting on a strange woman's breasts can't be the same
> > as a woman commenting on a strange man's butt until the society
> > that makes them different things has changed.
>
> Or perhaps it is rude to make personal comments about specific
> people's physical flaws or attributes in public, regardless of
> the gender of either person involved?

Well, yes, if the person's right there, but you know, you've
heard what they say about Adrian Pasdar in my journal, and it
probably would seem a lot ickier to me if 'they' were guys
talking about Ali Larter.

> > Telling people that expressing bad ideas is illegal leads to
> > things like killing every LiveJournal someone owns because
> > they linked to a fic
>
> Do Americans not have laws against hate crimes, discrimination,
> and so on?  (I ask because I really don't know.) Most such laws
> I know of, in the countries in which I know of them, are pretty
> pointed and specific, allowing no room for fuzzy thinking on
> the matter, or (for example) unwarranted censorship. And they
> seem to be countries where freedom of speech is thriving.

We have laws against hate crimes--killing people because they're
a member of group X is generally treated as worse than killing
them because you want their shoes.  We have laws against
discrimination in employment and stuff like that.

But rules against simply saying bad things about groups are
controversial and laws against it are arguably unconstitutional,
the idea of "hate speech" is very controversial in America
(without getting into the banned topic of US Politics).

> > I kind of like the system where saying certain things isn't
> > illegal, but you're subject to social censure unless you can
> > explain yourself or apologise.
>
> Shunning?  Or do you have another penalty in mind with 'social censure'?

I mean that people won't think well of you if you're in the habit
of using racial slurs and making bigoted comments, and you won't
get invited to all the best parties, and that it will cost you.
And of course you can be sacked for creating a hostile working
environment and being a bad employee that people of other groups
don't want to work with because you treat them badly.

But I know a lot of other countries have laws where you can go to
prison for say, having a really hateful website.  As unpleasant
as those websites are, I'm not sure I agree that that's a good
idea.  I'm fine with LJ throwing people who advocate
anti-semitism off, it's their server and they shouldn't have to
put up with it and that's one of the reasons I feel safe there;
at the same time, if someone wants to buy their own server and
post hateful stuff to the net, I'm not forced to go and look at
it, and I have no issue with LJ deciding not to host it but I'm
not of the opinion that we should throw people in jail for having
stupid, hateful opinions even if they never act on them.  I think
Fred Phelps should go to jail but not because he has a website
that is horrible and homophobic; I think he should go to jail
because he stalks the families of dead people and creates scenes
at funerals.  That's not speech, that's stalking.

(Besides, anyone who is dumb enough to post hate speech on line
is someone we know to watch to see if they ARE doing something
about it, and then you can arrest them and throw away the key.)

~malfoy :)
****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Fry