The Silent Emergency

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Imagine what it would be like iif a whole planeful of schoolage kids got onto a jumbo jet- you know, a Boeing 747,and the plane crashed on the main runway at Heathrow Airport on landing.

This would probably hit the headlines on every front page, in every land around the world. the media would turn up- CNN, BBC, Sky News, they would all be there. people would want to know how, why this happened, and make sure that it didn't happen again.
( Read more... )

Fighting Words

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So this link was given by someone in a thread in this comm a bit back. I stumbled upon it, thought it was interesting and read it. It's not terribly long. Go ahead, read it. I'll wait.

Awesome, now I have a question.

How come Fred Phelps and his WBC aren't subject to this? I mean, isn't his whole shpeel that he pisses people off so they hit him, he files a civil suit and uses the $$ earned to go to the next place and piss off more people with his hate filled speech.

From SCOTUS:

It is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality

I do not like censorship, and I am against it the majority of the times. Yet Phelps and WBC serves *no social value* [IMO] and if it has even a shred of social value, it is outweighed by the infliction of injury and the inciting of a breach of the peace.

this is a bit tired and treaded, sorry, but the link rekindled my interest in the topic.

~Namaste

Lies and the lying liars who tell them:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

So, the Evangelicals in Texas are posting lies and completely attempting to rewrite history. No surprise, if the truth were to be spoken the political movement masquerading as a religion that calls itself contemporary Evangelicalism would revert either to suicide bombings or a mass die-off. It requires a completely hermetic environment filled only with contacts within the subculture to have a prayer of existing.

But for the LULZ, I'll share with you some of the real beauties these fellows are trying to pass for truths and why they're lies:
( cut before I get spammed with requests for one )



Conservatives have been accused of an assault on the history of civil rights. One curriculum amendment describes the civil rights movement as creating "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" among minorities. Another seeks to place Martin Luther King and the violent Black Panther movement as opposite sides of the same coin.

Facebook, freedom of speech, and decency

[readherring.livejournal.com]

So Everyone Draw Mohammed Day has come and gone on Facebook. Since Facebook isn't known for its intelligent conversation, I thought I'd talk about it here.

Despite hearing many arguments for it, I thought "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day" was a horrible thing to do. Those arguments boiled down to:

- The Muslims were violent, or threatened violence, so they deserved it.
- The Muslims need to be less sensitive about this.
- I have freedom of expression, and I won't stand for that to be curtailed.


In our amped up, everyone-hates-the-Muslims new Western society, these arguments make sense to people. But if we ignore the hate, we find this isn't consistent with our values. What if the Facebook page wasn't "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day", but "Everyone call a black person a Ni99er" day? Try doing that, and you are likely to encounter black people who would be violent or threaten violence. The violent ones would be a small percentage; a much greater number of black people would likely just be highly offended. Should they be less sensitive to it? And while it is within our legal right to do so, why would you hold an "Everyone call a black person a Ni99er" day? Would anyone honestly believe this would help people become less sensitive to the word? Or would it just be an excuse to take a shot at a group that they don't like?

I don't respect people who are so easily moved to violence. But I also don't respect people who like to piss other people off, just because they legally can. There is no decency in going out of your way to needlessly aggravate people. This also applies to enders_shadow's current post.