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A Fairy Tale for S(wine Flu) Daniels
Daniels queried: "Why are there so many songs about rainbows?... :) 'Cuz they're so nice to look at while you're drinking your Coke? :)— October 16, 2009 3:39 p.m.
A Fairy Tale for S(wine Flu) Daniels
Fish wondered: "I wanna know how y'all got Larry Craig's medical records released!!!" Wasn't easy. :) I also got film of him getting busted by his wife for the same thing, YEARS earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw7LdZSh5EM— October 16, 2009 3:37 p.m.
A Fairy Tale for S(wine Flu) Daniels
"Epic pic-hunting, AG. Well done!" Thank you, Pike. Coming from such an expert as yourself, that's quite a compliment. :)— October 16, 2009 3:29 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
Re #83 & whichever # it refers to: "SD and AG "hate" this country? For an "independent thinker," Pete, you sure sound like a very typical, irrational hate monger to me." Yup, I saw that. "So-and-so hates this country." That's your garden variety hatemongering right there. Not even worth responding to.— October 16, 2009 3:20 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
"In the United Kingdom, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits, by its Part 3, expressions of racial hatred. "Racial hatred" is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group's colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. Section 18 of the Act says: A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if— (a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or (b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby. Offences under Part 3 carry a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment or a fine or both. The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 amended the Public Order Act 1986 by adding Part 3A. That Part says, "A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred." The Part protects freedom of expression by stating in Section 29J: Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 amended Part 3A of the Public Order Act 1986. The amended Part 3A adds, for England and Wales, the offence of inciting hatred on the ground of sexual orientation. All the offences in Part 3 attach to the following acts: the use of words or behaviour or display of written material, publishing or distributing written material, the public performance of a play, distributing, showing or playing a recording, broadcasting or including a programme in a programme service, and possession of inflammatory material. In the circumstances of hatred based on religious belief or on sexual orientation, the relevant act (namely, words, behaviour, written material, or recordings, or programme) must be threatening and not just abusive or insulting. [25]" Whew! Hail Brittania! What's most interesting about this list? Who's NOT on it. Without doing any further research, it would appear that the a-holes that we have the MOST trouble with in the world? Aren't on the list. So, could it be, that since THEY aren't on the list, and WE aren't on the list, that the real problem is they're too much like us -- angry, violent, and out of control? Food for thought.— October 16, 2009 3:17 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
"South Africa -- Act No. 4 of 2000: Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.[23] contains the following clause: 10. (1) Subject to the proviso in section 12. no person may publish, propagate, advocate or communicate words based on one or more of the prohibited grounds, against any person, that could reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to - (a) be hurtful; (b) be harmful or to incite harm; (c) promote or propagate hatred. "Sweden prohibits hate speech, hets mot folkgrupp, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or express disrespect for an ethnic group or similar group regarding their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation.[24] "In Switzerland public discrimination or invoking to rancor against persons or a group of people because of their race, ethnicity, is getting penalized with a term of imprisonment until 3 years or a mulct. What's a mulct? I dunno. Let's look it up on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulct And now, for the Brits:— October 16, 2009 3:13 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
"In Ireland, the right to free speech is guaranteed under the Constitution (Article 40.6.1.i). However, the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, proscribes words or behaviours which are "threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred" against "a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation."[18] "New Zealand prohibits hate speech under the Human Rights Act 1993. Section 61 (Racial Disharmony) makes it unlawful to publish or distribute "threatening, abusive, or insulting...matter or words likely to excite hostility against or bring into contempt any group of persons...on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national or ethnic origins of that group of persons." Section 131 (Inciting Racial Disharmony) lists offences for which "racial disharmony" creates liability. "Norway prohibits hate speech, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual life style or orientation or, religion or philosophy of life.[21] "Serbia - Serbian constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but declares that it may be restricted by law to protect rights and respectability of others. Because of inter ethnic conflicts during last decade of 20th century, Serbian authorities are very rigorous about ethnic, racial and religion based hate speech. It is processed as "Provoking ethnic, racial and religion based animosity and intolerance" criminal act, and punished with six months to ten years of imprisonment.[citation needed][22] "Singapore has passed numerous laws that prohibit speech that causes disharmony among various religious groups. The Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act is an example of such legislation. In 2005, three men were convicted for hate speech under the Law of Singapore.[citation needed] The Penal Code criminalizes the deliberate promotion by someone of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different racial and religious groups on grounds of race or religion. It also makes it an offence for anyone to deliberately wound the religious or racial feelings of any person.— October 16, 2009 3:06 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
"Denmark prohibits hate speech, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten, ridicule or hold in contempt a group due to race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation.[8] "Finland prohibits hate speech, kiihotus kansanryhmää vastaan/hets mot folkgrupp, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or insult a national, racial, ethnic or religious group or a similar group.[9] "France prohibits the publication of material which is defamatory or insulting, or which incites discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or a group of persons on account of place of origin, ethnicity or lack thereof, nationality, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or handicap.[10]... French law allows a plaintiff to launch an action on account of hate speech in a criminal court or in a civil court. The Public Prosecutor can turn a civil action into a criminal action. The penalties include imprisonment, a fine, or both.[13] "In Germany Volksverhetzung ("Sedition") is a punishable offense under Section 130 of the Strafgesetzbuch (Germany's criminal code) and can lead to up to five years imprisonment. Section 130 makes it a crime to publicly incite hatred against parts of the population or to call for violent or arbitrary measures against them or to insult, maliciously slur or defame them in a manner violating their (constitutionally protected) human dignity. Thus for instance it is illegal to publicly call certain ethnic groups "maggots" or "freeloaders". Volksverhetzung is punishable in Germany even if committed abroad and even if committed by non-German citizens, if only the incitement of hatred takes effect within German territory, e.g. the seditious sentiment was expressed in German writ or speech and made accessible in Germany (German criminal code's Principle of Ubiquity, Section 9 §1 Alt. 3 and 4 of the Strafgesetzbuch). "In Iceland, the hate speech law is not confined to inciting hatred, as one can see from Article 233 a. in the Icelandic Penal Code, but includes simply expressing such hatred publicly: "Anyone who in a ridiculing, slanderous, insulting, threatening or any other manner publicly assaults a person or a group of people on the basis of their nationality, skin colour, race, religion or sexual orientation, shall be fined or jailed for up to 2 years." (The word "assault" in this context does not refer to physical violence, only to expressions of hatred.) "India prohibits any manner of expression which someone might consider insulting to his religion or which for whatever reason might disturb public tranquility.— October 16, 2009 3:04 p.m.
UCSD's Gary Jacobson frets about polarization
All righty. I've skimmed the previous comments a bit, but I'm not going to even bother reading all of them, much less responding. To clarify, I WOULD criminalize hate speech, and not bat an eyelash at doing so. It serves no constructive purpose whatsoever, and plenty of destructive ones. The older, wiser countries of the world have realized this, and put legislation in effect so that those who don't have the wisdom to censor themselves, find themselves censored. The Wiki link to what the rest of the world does about hate speech is right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech If America were older, wiser, and less egocentric, America would follow suit. For those who can't be bothered to read the entire Wiki article, I'm 'only' going to pick out the synopses of the nations that specifically prohibit hate speech. I'll start with my favorite writeup. Brazil. "In Brazil, according to the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, racism and other forms of race-related hate speech are "imprescriptible crime(s) with no right to bail to its accused".[5] In 2006, a joint-action between the Federal Police and the Argentinian police has cracked down several hate-related websites. However, some of these sites have recently reappeared—the users have re-created the same sites on American domain. The federal police have asked permission from the FBI to crack down these sites, but the FBI denied, stating that the First Amendment guarantees the right to any speech, even if it involves racism." Why my favorite? Because of that last part, where the hatemongers have to flee to American webspace, where such things are considered "normal." Next, our neighbors to the north: "In Canada, advocating genocide or inciting hatred[6] against any 'identifiable group' is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code of Canada with maximum terms of two to fourteen years. An 'identifiable group' is defined as 'any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.' It makes exceptions for cases of statements of truth, and subjects of public debate and religious doctrine." Silly Canadian hoseheads, what with their free healthcare and all. More to come...— October 16, 2009 2:58 p.m.
A Fairy Tale for S(wine Flu) Daniels
"This reads like a possible future: for the record, I will NEVER be blonde, have not yet had the cosmetic surgery of my dreams, and only wish I were as productive as Miss Piggy (modeling and writing) here :)" I would have thought you'd be more interested in setting the record straight about all those trips to the ER... http://www.blognroll.com/_img/kermit.jpg :) (That one was my favorite.)— October 16, 2009 2:39 p.m.