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At birth, all U.S. citizens will still be granted the standard consitutional right of free speech. However, as this right is ambiguous and offenses can still be punished with civil fines and loss of one's job, it is necessary to clarify the specific classes of potentially insulting remarks that a person
is allowed to utter risk-free.
Public speakers, singers, and politicians are advised to apply for a Free Speech Permit. This specifies what classes of insults (racial, gender, sexual orientation, monetary status) you can make WITHOUT fear of losing your job or incurring criminal or civil punishment. The sections are further divided into insults towards your own race and towards other races; the former is much easier to obtain permission for.
The types of free speech granted will be decided by United States popular vote, using text messaging, internet polls, and national phone hotlines.
Even if an expression is permitted, the speaker may be forced to apologize and his permit may then be revoked. This depends on public outcry. However, he is guaranteed to keep his job and will suffer no monetary damages.
Once that section of the permit is revoked, a second offense is unprotected. The speaker is then subject to the standard free speech amendment to the U.S. constitution.
current events
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Imus
[jhomrighaus, Apr 16 2007]
Whiskey
http://www.mindspri...s/whiskey/intro.htm
invented in Ireland [xenzag, Apr 16 2007]
The story of the Cavity Magnetron
http://news.bbc.co....ci/tech/6331897.stm
[hippo, Apr 17 2007]
Tim Berners-Lee
http://news.bbc.co....hnology/3357073.stm
inventor of world wide web [xenzag, Apr 17 2007]
Pretend everything was invented by someone French
Pretend_20everythin..._20someone_20French
by M. mark_t [calum, Apr 17 2007]
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The right is not ambiguous. The assignment of free speech to corporations (as if they were individuals) and the prosecution of people who practice it is the problem. |
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The very idea of someone making racist comments and getting away with it by law is just wrong. |
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Besides, it wouldn't work. The guy makes a racist torrent, and then can't be fired because he had a permit, so the firm fires him for something 'unrelated'. |
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If you cant deal with people's right to speak their mind then leave. If you work for me and get paid by me then you will speak for me or get fired. No one said you had to work for me. |
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No one has curtailed Mr. Imus' right to speak freely in whatever manner he wishes, they just choose not to pay him for it any more. |
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This is a fundamental tenet of a free society as the slope from saying I cant make a racist comment and I cant make an anti-government comment is very short and very slippery. |
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The very basis for this idea is naive. |
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//The assignment of free speech to corporations (as if they were individuals) and the prosecution of people who practice it is the problem// |
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This is not a problem at all. If you dont like the message then you can choose not to deal with that company, thus society determines the nature of what is acceptable. If CBS began broadcasting strong racist messages on a daily basis their customers would object, pull their funding and the corporation would cease to exist, end of story, problem solved. Democracy and the free market in action, this is one of the fundamental reasons that the United States as one of the youngest societies on the planet has achieved so much in a little over 200 years, more than any other society on the planet. |
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Others have done more with less. |
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What jh said. People at the cutting edge, whether it's technology or broadcasting, do run the risk of getting their their fingers cut. We don't need any laws about this. |
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//more than any other society on the planet.//
Blimey. That's some claim. |
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Is this some breaking US news story at the moment? |
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// Is this some breaking US news story at the moment?// |
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//Blimey. That's some claim.//
//Others have done more with less.// |
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By all means throw out some other examples! |
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If you need a permit then, by definition, it isn't free speech.
I'd be interested to know what you think the USA's achievements are. |
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//By all means throw out some other examples!// |
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Are we talking achievements, or examples of free-market democracies? |
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Because on one hand you've got the technological, architectural and organisational (read Colonial/Imperial) achievements of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, British, and for at least 50 of those 200 years you mention, between 1776 and 1865, the USA; All of whom, far from operating true democracies, actually did really very well out of slavery, thankyou very much. |
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While, strangely enough, many of the powers mentioned (except perhaps the Egyptians) were also extemely proud of their governmental systems in terms of how fair and representative they were, as well as embracing and benefiting from all of those lovely free-market and free-speech bonuses that we've all grown to know and love. |
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I'd venture that the reason why the US has grown so rapidly is likely to be down to the abundance of natural resources, married with the almost total replacement of the indigenous population with colonists; many of whom were the slaves and indentured servants, who did much of the actual building, planting, farming, mining and other work that was necessary to make the formative colony a success. |
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The size of the continent, and it's relatively sparse indigenous population also allowed for the new technological, post industrial advancements to be implemented without all that pre-existing, medieval infrastructure getting in the way. |
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//Democracy and the free market in action, is one of the fundamental reasons that the United States as one of the youngest societies on the planet has achieved so much in a little over 200 years, more than any other society on the planet// |
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So while free speech, market-economics and representative government must been a good way to nurture this explosion of development, I can't see it being fundamental - and, given the chance, all of those slaves would probably argue the toss over the free speech/democracy points too. |
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They had to say "ho" when announcing Don Ho's death the other day... |
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The administration of this system would be expensive, its powers would be abusable and real malice would leak through the cracks in it anyhow. [-] |
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It was free speech that ultimately allowed us to move forward and eliminate slavery(and the deaths of many free speaking people in one of the bloodiest wars ever fought) |
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I am making no statement as to the rightness or wrongness of our choices as a society only the success of a free market free speech society as a whole. Be clear that things such as slavery were not limited to the US(the world had quite a thriving slave trade before we ever showed up) Further subrogation of native peoples is also not a trick we developed either. I think the Brits hold the crown on that trick. But it is wrong for us to look back and say who was right or wrong, hindsight is 20/20, but looking back tells us that the most successful societies in world history were overwhelmingly democratic in nature(republics, parlimentary, etc.) and many if not all tolerated the practice of free speech. |
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The United States is by no means a new invention by one in a long line of free societies that repeatedly have proven more stable, more prosperous and more successful than their contemporaries. |
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Oh don't get me wrong - I wasn't making a moral position and I certainly wasn't trying to diss the US - I was just answering your challenge to provide some examples of nations that had achieved more, with less. |
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I do think it's amazing that what we today call "The West" follows almost verbatim the ancient Roman model, which in turn was based on some of the city states of Greece, which in turn likely inherited ideas from somewhere else. |
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Rather depressingly (depending on your point of view) I have to argue against your point about //the most successful societies in world history were overwhelmingly democratic in nature// while this is true - those societies were successful, I'd say only with the qualification that despite their vaunted democratic values, these societies succeeded because they were able to maintain a good supply of slave labour. It's counter-intuitive (when you think of their representative governmental achievements), but telling, that those high-power, high-achievement cultures (Egypt, Greece, Rome, Britain and the other Imperial European powers, and later the US etc) all had large unrepresented sections of the population who did almost all the hard labour for the benefit of those who did enjoy some kind of civil representation. |
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Today of course, we have industrial technology to perform the necessary tasks for a thriving civilisation, and so have transcended the requirement of slave labour - at least, let's hope so - Today, a culture can grow and become influential without the use of forced labour. Free speech really can finally be free, because we now (as a species) have the luxury of technology to provide us with all our civic requirements. |
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Let's hope it remains that way. |
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//I'd be interested to know what you think the USA's achievements are.// |
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The Singer-style sewing Machine
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The Americans With Disabilities Act
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Nylon, Neoprene, teflon, kevlar
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//If you need a permit then, by definition, it isn't free speech.// |
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Not really. If you read the idea carefully, what is proposed is additional protections in the private sphere through a statutory scheme. I think what is proposed is the types of speech protected under the Constitution -plus- regulation of private entities to prevent retaliation for this speech against those who hold permits. |
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The problem with this idea is that you ave to take away someone else's constitutional rights to enforce the newly-created statutory rights. The best way to determine whether your tongue-in-cheek jokes are being interpreted correctly is to wait and see if you get fired. |
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// Today, a culture can grow and become
influential without the use of forced
labour. // Good thing those cheap
workers in Bangladesh don't complain too
much about the whippings. |
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Good list [nomocrow] only the tip of the iceburgh of course. |
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As to the question of the private market, why should the government have any say over what is said by employees of mine while on company time. Its my business I own it, I paid for it, I paid for their time to do a job that I define. That relationship is a contract in which I say jump and they say how high, If I don't like how high they jump then I let them go. |
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If they feel what I did was unfair then they can sue me and try to recover(which happens all the time). |
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Is it possible to invent gravity? |
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On second thought didn't the brits have a hand in inventing the USA to? |
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You forgot powdered Wigs, Tea and Crumpets. |
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well they did invent Guinness so I suppose we cant be too hard on them. |
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//English-speaking England//
Best to ditch that old canard, it irks some people quite hard. |
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//Television (another Scottish one?)//
'fraid so. |
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Scotland:
the Ku Klux Klan
The American Navy
Canada
The Wealth of Nations
Whisky
Tarmac
Bagpipes
The Watt Steam Engine (and, by extension, the Industrial Revolution)
David Hume
The concept of evolution (no, really, see Lord Monboddo)
The Krankies
Auld Lang Syne
Encyclopædia Britannica
Graeme Souness
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Actually, no, I'm not sure. |
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//well [the brits] did invent Guinness so I suppose we cant be too hard on them.// |
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That was the Irish, so feel free to keep dissing us Brits. |
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But Marmite, now that's a genuine British invention. |
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corrections... whiskey was invented in
Ireland, the oldest and best being
Bushmills (see link). That which the
Scots describe as whiskey is skank
water by comparison. |
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corrections... whiskey was invented in
Ireland, the oldest and best being
Bushmills (see link). That which the
Scots describe as whiskey is skank
water by comparison (retreats as hail of
bricks and bottles blot out the sun) |
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Further Engl/Scot/Wel -ish inventions include: |
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Benny Hill
Tiffin
Watches
Sauce
Pirates
Cricket
Pimms
Pakistan
Evolution
The Sandwich |
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Let's not forget Monty Pyton ... |
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No danger of forgetting them, given the 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' theme this discussion has taken. |
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"All right, but apart from the air conditioning, McDonalds, the Internet, Californian wine, personal computers, jets, the free market system, and Polaroid cameras, what have the Americans ever done for us?" |
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"Oh. Free speech? Shut up!" |
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"I'm sorry sir but your permit expired at noon, we are going to have to arrest you now for excessive sarcasm" |
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further corrections ... jet engine (Frank
Whittle),
computer (Charles Babbage), and
internet (Tim Berners-Lee) all British
inventions. |
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I'll see your bushmills xenzag, and raise you a Talisker. Slainte mhath! |
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The design for the US' Stars and Stripes was invented by the British, or at least, the stripey part was. |
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And don't forget the Cavity Magnetron - another great British invention (It's an interesting story actually - see link).
And, another of those things the British invented but didn't tell anyone about because of the Cold War: Public-Key Cryptography. |
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Thats an scotish one(Radar) and Babbage's machine was certainly impressive but I would consider it quite a stretch to consider it inventing the computer. |
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Interesting lists of 'achievements' but, with the exception of The Americans With Disabilities Act I would suggest that none of them rate very highly from a civilisation point of view. No mentions of health, education, literacy, happiness or peace and harmony there, just a list of stuff. |
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<sobbing>
What about gravy? Surely that's not just "stuff"? |
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<coughs, points to Krankies, Souness> |
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//xenzag, - Tim BL didn't invent the
Internet.// www did did did ! ! ! |
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I think there's a bit of semantics going on here - Tim BL (from Wimborne, Dorset) came up with the concept of a browser, that read and parsed hypertext. |
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Meanwhile, teh internets, is a distributed network of cables, routers, and computers that negotiate packets of data between one another within nets and subnets over a messaging standard called IP (internet protocol). |
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The one sits atop the other. The software "Web" (of World-Wide variety) sits atop the much harder network of interconnecting machines that constitues the internet. The software makes it far easier to navigate and use than having to constantly provide 4-byte addresses and associated port numbers. But it is something different. |
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Try opening a command shell on your operating system, and typing
ping www.halfbakery.com
You'll see a set of four numbers separated by full-stops, this is the ip (internet) address of the halfbakery. Your web browser asks the bakery server (at the address listed) to send it the html, which it recieves normally on port 80. |
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Somewhere between you and this server, there is a box that resolves the alias www.halfbakery.com to that 4-number address. When you 'register' an internet address, all you're really doing is adding another entry into that resolution table, so that whenever someone types in www.xyz.com, they'll get pointed at the machine at internet address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx |
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which was created in the United States. |
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<even further off-topic>
The author of the book "History the Betrayer: a Study in Bias" chose invention lists as his strongest and most obvious example of patriotic bias through selectivity. Invention lists fit this role nicely because, of course, technologies tend to roll forward more or less in parallel in several places at once, and each technological step in one place is likely to rely on technological steps in other places. So, simply by careful selection of facts, a number of developed nations simultaneously are able to create the false impression that they, and they alone, invented every damned thing worth having - without actually lying. |
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The man who formulated this brilliant observation was, of course, British.
</efot> |
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//health, education, literacy, happiness or peace and harmony// |
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Health - polio vaccination. Many, many other medical achievements. |
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And the health system sucks, I know. I'm working on it. |
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literacy - we have over 99% literacy, just like the U.K. |
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happiness - not having polio, jazz,the internet. |
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education and peace and harmony - nobody's perfect. I'm working on it. |
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// Tim BL (from Wimborne, Dorset) came up with the concept of a browser |
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While Tim Berners-Lee came up with the World-Wide Web, the first SGML browser (which, yes, followed hyperlinks) was written by John Bottoms in 1987, predating the Web. And of course there's Vannevar Bush's Memex, written about in 1945. |
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(I don't mean this as a contribution to the idiotic "who invented most" battle, but to point out that ideas are not created in a vacuum, and many interesting things are put together by groups of people from all over, working loosely together in a climate that fosters exchange of ideas.) |
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//idiotic "who invented most" battle// |
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Yet another American invention. |
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Actually following a short sleep, I
remember that it was non other than
myself who invented the internet, using
little more than the dried backbone of a
sardine, some clear plastic tubing and a
spool of 3amp fuse wire. |
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On another subject [lt_Frank]//They are
the straw that breaks the camel's back
of quality 'bakers, such as UB, and of
course, myself.// Is that a single or
double hump and what do you store in
yours? |
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//and many interesting things are put together by groups of people from all over, working loosely together in a climate that fosters exchange of ideas// |
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Isn't it great what free speech does to make that possible? |
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This whole discussion, good and bad is an extension of free speech rights. |
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Oh by the way you realize we are all just having fun and not actually seriously trying to win the discussion. |
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Um, guys, hang on a minute - have you got a permit for all this? |
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//Free Speech Permit//
Who invented the one where you must pay? |
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While I agree that Hate Speech as you call it is deplorable, I would posit that it is a necessary extension of Free Speech. You cannot have free speech without allowing all points of view. No matter how much we might hate to hear such things their existence is a powerful validation of the right to speak freely. It is incumbent on us the listener to also speak up and express our view. If we sit by and complain then such behavior will continue unchecked. |
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//Thats an scotish one(Radar) // 16cm radar was patented in 1934 by... a Frenchman, Emile Girardeau, though a German patent for a 50cm wavelength ship detection device was granted in 1904.
sp. "Scottish" |
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