Ground Zero Mosque - Tolerance, Racism or Comedy?

Resolved in the sense of being determined... being "targetted". I don't think we can. We know there has to be one there somewhere, but we're never going ot be able to put our finger on it.

I'd have to rewatch those movies to be certain of the scenes, but I do seem to remember some people dying in comedic fashion.But how about this:South Park.Just last week I was watching an episode where the boys were challenged to a dance contest by another group of kids. Stan got together a few boys including a duck and one of the goth kids. But then he learned that Butters was almost the state champion tap dancer.So he went to Butters to get his help. Butters refused but didn't say why.So we see in a flashback with him on stage doing his routine. Then his shoe flies off. It flies all the way into the lighting. The lighting structure (sorry can't remember the proper name for it at the moment) flls to pieces. When it falls to pieces it kills several people in the audience in true South park bloody fashion.Later on he decided to join Stan's group at the contest in order to overcome his fears.When it's his turn, well.....His shoe flies off into the lighting structure. It explodes, and falls on the team of kids that challenged Stan in the first place. Now they're all dead.Stan's team wins by default.It may not sound funny in pure text, but it is a pretty funny scene, if you can stomach the gore.

And we wouldn’t have people advocating censorship of certain jokes or extensions to such laws if bullying were able to be so clearly defined and easy for us all to agree upon.But anyway I thought you were against some of these laws? Things like hate laws. No? If hate laws and the passions they inspire are not examples of people disagreeing over what does and does not constitute targeted bullying I don’t know what is. Yes we are all different. I love pears.We all make a distinction between things which we consider to be legitimate comedy and things which we consider to be unacceptable bullying. All of us draw these lines. Including you. But we don’t all draw these lines in the same places. They are necessarily subjective.So when you are next confronted with someone objecting to a joke because they deem it to be an act of unacceptable targeted bullying against gays, blacks, Jews, Moslems, women or whoever - When they suggest that some line has been crossed by such jokes — I don’t think you can legitimately dismiss them with your there is no line argument. There blatantly are lines. Albeit it highly subjective ones.I am not advocating the censorship point of view at all. I am simply denying the validity of the there is no line position. Do they? By whose definition of bullying? And why would they get weeded out if the majority find that particular brand of bullying incredibly funny? Because I suspect that there are many who do consider various comics to be consistently crossing the line they would draw with regard to targeting minorities in a way that they would deem to be bullying rather than comedy.Is the line between comedy and bullying just a majority rule situation as far as you are concerned? Do you think it never occurs that a majority find the immoral bullying of a targeted minority highly amusing? Is this just something we don’t need to even consider in your view?Just to be clear - I am not advocating the censorship point of view at all. I am simply denying the validity of the there is no line position.

Well we have laws and they are our best attempt to do that.Imperfect? Certainly. But this is our method of implementing the resolution.

Sure, but the scenario you described in Message 71 wouldn't be illegal and we both figured it is wrong So... is that really any resolution to what were trying to target?

I had to google Road House...I'm more a book and music kind of guy: I have an eternal debate with my wife's colleagues (liberal arts professors) about movies. To me, they're an entertainment excluded from high art by their ensemble/committee character; to them, they are the expression of the director's towering artistic vision.Meh. Give me a good book and Bach (or a graphic novel and rock), every time.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Well you can't expect everyone to agree. But for the most part, it's not an everyday situation. Something said is always gonna bother somebody, and in every case, there is a group defending the person/s being accused. This is inevitable. I'm against "hate" laws for the fact that it doesn't protect anyone group anymore than just calling it a crime does. It is used as a tool by politicians and community leaders to circumvent having to actually deal with the issues causing the tention. And, because in some cases, labeling it "hate" actually increases the potential for more violence.But not because it mislabels bullying. Agreed. I did no such thing, you can retrace my argument in that thread. My point was/is, protest all you want, call it what ever your subjective interpretation tells you it is, but don't expect your reaction to have the repercussion that only you desire when there are people disagreeing with you.This is when you as a listener need to shut off or not attend the questionable show. If you don't like it, don't listen to it. But when there are adults who enjoy it and no laws are being broken, your opinion while worth something to you isn't going to have much of an impact - which is the way it should be. I would say it's common knowledge for the most part when you are a student of comedy. But with that said, failure to adhere to that is almost guaranteed, especially when one is trying to stand out and separate from the herd. However, that's when the audience comes in and judges it for themselves - and that is how the shitty comic is weeded out. I've never seen a majority of audience members (Unless you are attending the KKK's weekly open mic) enjoy out-right bullying and targetting of someone like in your hypothetical example. Never ever.Can you give a different example or is this just hypothetical? I guess - but isn't that the way we all judge it?I've seen crazy situations, where a comic just bashed one dude to the point of making me uncomfortable for the poor dude, and yet after the show the person loved being the center of ridicule (nothing as bad as your example though). In my opinion though, the comic shouldn't have gone after the guy so harshly, but who am I to impose my opinion and demand things done my way? If you could give me a legit example I might consider it an issue but I've never seen it done to such an extreme, and I'm in clubs and bars almost every night.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Right now SCOTUS is also searching for the line.The issue revolves around the Phelps Family and their behavior at military funerals. Their speech is without a doubt hateful and down right nasty and they do typify Christianity at its worst, but here, in the US, is their speech protected.It's a tough issue. They are really obnoxious people saying totally nasty things to families and completely misrepresenting both the Bible and Christianity and doing so in a way that is totally irrelevant to the funeral or the individual being buried.Even for fundy Christians they are extreme and the god they try to market about as vile and evil a creation as imaginable.BUT...it is not the speech we approve of, that we agree with, that should be protected. As much as I hate everything the Phelps clan stands for and espouses, even though the god they market is vile, nasty, despicable and yet pitiful , I do have to come down on the side that says "Yes, their speech is protected."

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Sometimes shits funny and you don't have a choice in laughing so you can't really be taking any moral considerations into account beforehand. And then sometimes people feel bad about laughing at things afterwards, when they stop and actually think about it.

In most cases that is true. But how do you think attitudes and laws regarding these things change over time? People have the right both to complain and to campaign to change laws where they feel strongly enough.The argument with those who seek such restrictions should be made IMO on the basis of the balance between freedom of expression and any detrimental effects this might have RATHER than on the basis of declaring that "there is no line" or debating whose subjective notions of where the line between comedy and targeted bullying might lie.And on that basis - As you said earlier - Yes we have to sometimes accept that dickheads like the comic ripping the targeted piss out of the rape victim in my (admittedly extreme) example get the opportunity to transgress "the line" we personally would draw between valid comedy and bullying.But even this balance with freedom of expression will be subjective and up for debate. The specific targeting of an individual rape victim actually in the audience was an entirely hypothetical situation I made-up to elicit where "the line" between legitimate comedy and unacceptable targeted bullying lies for you personally.Because I thought you were saying that no such lines existed. And I was seeking to demonstrate that this is blatantly untrue. Maybe I am wrong but I thought you had quite consistently declared the lack of any lines with regard to what constituted comic material (at least verbal material). I thought you were saying that whether or not the audience found something funny was the only "line" that mattered. Then I had you wrong and it turns out we largely agree on this whole "line" thing. No. At the most simple level I think that, like all moral questions, ultimately the golden rule should be the measure. "Do unto others as you have them do unto you".And - No. I don't think you can just rely on majority rule to enforce that. In fact I would suggest that majority mob mentality can lead to quite the opposite on some occasions. Well the legitimacy and extremeness of any examples are going to be highly subjective as we have already agreed. I have no real life examples that I think would transgress your "line". Nothing like the rape victim example I cited previously.But, for example, there are many who would consider the more extreme anti-gay jokes to be acts of targeted bullying against a minority rather than legitimate comedy. And they aren't going to be convinced that just because the majority of an audience finds these jokes funny that this somehow negates their point of view. Majority rule and moral lines are far from necessarily synonymous.Now I might not agree with the positioning of their line. I might find the jokes in question fucking hilarious myself. But I don't think that either of the arguments "There is no line" OR "The majority finds it funny so it must be morally OK" are legitimate arguments to make against their position.Instead I think the only argument that matters is the one between balancing freedom of expression with the harm being caused. And unless the harm being caused by some form of expression is demonstrably pretty darn serious (which it can sometimes be) I think the principle of freedom of expression should win out by default.I certainly don't think some people being offended or even emotionally distressed is in itself a reason to legally ban anything at all.Pardon my Rrhain length post

Their speech is protected, certainly.But what about the location and time they choose to express it?Considering that the Phelps clan's purpose is primarily to harass and annoy military personnel, their families, and homosexuals and their supporters, couldn't they simply be required to take their free speech elsewhere?They tread dangerously close to committing actual hate crimes:

quote:

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"A hate crime is a criminal offense. In the United States federal prosecution is possible for hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity." In 2009, the Matthew Shepard Act added perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability to the federal definition, and dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity.

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If you can make absolutely any charge stick (harassment comes to mind), it becomes a hate crimeI think of the Phelpses much like I think of the KKK - they have the right to say whatever they want and hold whatever views they feel are right for them, regardless of how the rest of us feel. But the KKK doesn't have the right to express their speech by burning a cross on some black family's lawn, and I don't think the Phelpses should be able to invade the privacy of a funeral to tell the family members that their dead son/daughter/spouse/friend/whatever deserved to die as a punishment from God.Of course, I strongly suspect that, whether they actually believe what they say or not, the Phelps clan is just running a giant scam, baiting people into doing something they can be sued for. A significant fraction of the family practice law (as I recall, Fred's license was revoked a while back), and they have a long history of saying something nasty to provoke people, getting assaulted or moved off of property or what have you, and then suing over free speech protections and getting a bunch of money out of the deal. They're a bit different from your average hatemongers, not only in vehemence (which is not always the case anyway) but in that they seem to have made hate a profitable enterprise.

I don't think we should seek to implement any laws that would make either that example or my rape victim example illegal.In my examples I was trying to elicit from people where they would draw the line between legitimate comedy and targeted bullying. As I explain to Oni my point in establishing these lines is not to suggest that we must take some sort of legal action along these lines but simply to expose the "there is no line" argument" as one that is neither valid nor helpful to countering calls for censorship.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

And they are very careful to observe the letter of the law on where they demonstrate. But again, is there some right of privacy a in a public location? Is there some right of privacy that attaches to a burial?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

My understanding of the facts in the current SCOTUS case is that, 1) they were restricted to demonstrating 1000 feet from the funeral, and, 2) the father bringing the suit only learned about the "protest" after the service, when viewing media coverage.I think surrounding them with laughing people might be one good way to counter their hateful speech.Completely ignoring them would be another; instead, the media keep them going by providing all the attention their little shriveled hearts could desire.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

It's illegal to harass some kid going to public school over his race or perceived gender identity or what have you and thus discourage him from attendance. It's illegal for the KKK to burn their cross on the public sidewalk just off of the private property of a black family's lawn.I don't think it's about privacy at all. I think it's about the right not to be harassed, which exists in public just as much as in private. I think the relevant fact is not whether the grounds are public or private, but the proximity of the speech to those its directed against, and whether its intent can be reasonably ascertained to be the harassment of others regarding a protected class.