My apologies
In the writing classes I've taken we rely on honest peer review. These are the equivalents of editors in professional publications and are not only helpful but necessary for quality writing. It has come to my attention that I have more peer reviewers of this blog than I thought and I welcome the critique and correction.
My last post was quite the mess of information. First, I was unclear in stating my point. Second, there was a glaring error. Two readers pointed this out in the comment section and my thanks goes out to them. I would like to fix these two points in this post.
I'm going to start with the error. John is correct in his statement that there is no law preventing freedom of speech. The hate crimes legislation simply considers crime based on certain criteria "hate crimes" against protected peoples. The new legislation is meant to clarify this and specify new classes as protected. It is not attempting to limit the freedom of speech or inhibit it as I might have implied in my previous post. This implication may have been explicit or implicit but was not intended. I should have spent more time reviewing my post before posting it and I would have caught this.
The point of my last post was also muddled. When this was first pointed out to me by Uzza I didn't see it and came across rather harshly. With their clarification I began to understand the point of the comment tried to clarify my post. A favorite quote from a friend of mine when we would discuss personal difficulties of mine would be, "Can you please be a bit more vague, I think I'm understanding you too well." Being sarcastic myself, this often prompted me to be far more specific than I was used to being.
My point from last post: I don't believe in government censorship. I do, however, believe in personal censorship and think that individuals should have private filters that work between their brains and their mouths to prevent certain things from being said. The radio hosts linked to in my last post engaged in their right to free speech when they spoke of beating innocent children simply because they didn't like them. Aside from being mean spirited this kind of talk could, quite possibly, embolden someone to act accordingly. It was this type of talk that "allowed" a school student to kill another student simply because the other student was different. One student was raised hearing homophobic hate speech and, when the other expressed his attraction to this student of the same sex, shot him. The rhetoric he heard regularly "allowed" this action. When anti-choice people consistently label abortion doctors and women using these services "murderers" they diminish their human-ness and reduce them to evil "others" deserving of death. This speech "allows" folks like Mr. Roerden, the gentleman who recently shot an abortion provider in a church, to feel justified in ridding the world of such beasts. When Greenpeace labels lumberjacks "rapists of the earth" they justify the spiking of trees and the injury or death of those "rapists".
It's unfortunate that these are repercussions of our First Amendment. It would be fantastic of people understood and considered the consequences of their actions before committing to them audibly or in written form but, alas, we aren't all the concerned with consequences these days.
I hope this post is clearer than the last and I apologize for that miscommunication. Thank you for your honest peer review and thank you so much for reading.
Chuck
My last post was quite the mess of information. First, I was unclear in stating my point. Second, there was a glaring error. Two readers pointed this out in the comment section and my thanks goes out to them. I would like to fix these two points in this post.
I'm going to start with the error. John is correct in his statement that there is no law preventing freedom of speech. The hate crimes legislation simply considers crime based on certain criteria "hate crimes" against protected peoples. The new legislation is meant to clarify this and specify new classes as protected. It is not attempting to limit the freedom of speech or inhibit it as I might have implied in my previous post. This implication may have been explicit or implicit but was not intended. I should have spent more time reviewing my post before posting it and I would have caught this.
The point of my last post was also muddled. When this was first pointed out to me by Uzza I didn't see it and came across rather harshly. With their clarification I began to understand the point of the comment tried to clarify my post. A favorite quote from a friend of mine when we would discuss personal difficulties of mine would be, "Can you please be a bit more vague, I think I'm understanding you too well." Being sarcastic myself, this often prompted me to be far more specific than I was used to being.
My point from last post: I don't believe in government censorship. I do, however, believe in personal censorship and think that individuals should have private filters that work between their brains and their mouths to prevent certain things from being said. The radio hosts linked to in my last post engaged in their right to free speech when they spoke of beating innocent children simply because they didn't like them. Aside from being mean spirited this kind of talk could, quite possibly, embolden someone to act accordingly. It was this type of talk that "allowed" a school student to kill another student simply because the other student was different. One student was raised hearing homophobic hate speech and, when the other expressed his attraction to this student of the same sex, shot him. The rhetoric he heard regularly "allowed" this action. When anti-choice people consistently label abortion doctors and women using these services "murderers" they diminish their human-ness and reduce them to evil "others" deserving of death. This speech "allows" folks like Mr. Roerden, the gentleman who recently shot an abortion provider in a church, to feel justified in ridding the world of such beasts. When Greenpeace labels lumberjacks "rapists of the earth" they justify the spiking of trees and the injury or death of those "rapists".
It's unfortunate that these are repercussions of our First Amendment. It would be fantastic of people understood and considered the consequences of their actions before committing to them audibly or in written form but, alas, we aren't all the concerned with consequences these days.
I hope this post is clearer than the last and I apologize for that miscommunication. Thank you for your honest peer review and thank you so much for reading.
Chuck
posted by Chuck | 7:33 AM
2 Comments:
I think we're going to see a bit more of this senseless violence.
The extremist's world is falling apart and they're lashing out in blind anger.
As a father, though, I get see every day what the next generation is like, and I am very optimistic.
It has got to be nice to be able to see goodness raised in your child. Ghandi said, "Never underestimate the power of one." Any parents, each, is that one with immeasurable power.
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