Paul Harvey's take on prayer in public/Xmas (In general, a "freedom of speech" topic)

For the record, St Nicholas was a real person, a very sectarian religious Roman Catholic priest. Being of one denomination of Christianity, Santa stuff is more of a religious establishment statement than Jesus, because Jesus includes all Christian faiths. Thus Jesus stuff is more freely exercising Christianity than is Santa stuff which is sectorial. In fact, it was the past inquisitions of Roman Catholic priests and bishops that the writers were concerned about when they wrote this ammendment, because Jesus was preached, taught and sang about right in Congress. (No RC priestly functions were involved in these services.)

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

They can call for all they like but that does not mean it is going to be implemented. By the same right I am allowed to speak out against the DMCA, the Patriot Act, the Induce Act, the Espionage Act, etc without fear that the government is going to come arrest me for dissent.It also allows us to protest against a definition of marriage from being written to our Constitution. It also allows us to organize in front of public offices and protest the war. It allows us to protest and get Prohibition repealed and womens suffrage put into the Constitution.Yes the right is broad and inclusive but the the whole point! Fundies are allowed to gather over by the Lincoln monument, make a bunch of signs and chant about the Establishment Clause should be repealed from the Constitution. Meanwhile I can gather with a group of concerned citizens over at the Washinton monument, make a bunch of signs, and chant about how no one should ever repeal any single iota of the first amendment. In the middle of that one homeless guy can be standing in the middle of the pond with a sign made of cardboard around his neck saying that aliens are about to bring about the end times. All that speech and ability to peacibly assemble and petition the government is protected by our law. We already have such laws. Your ignorance of the Constitution is harrowing. And since you were given an explanation of the origin and reason for the system your rant about how the founding fathers are somtimes idolized is entirely useless to the conversation. The founding fathers missed a whole bunch of stuff. We had to pay the price of a civil war to finally realize their mistake and rectify the Constitution to include equality for all. By your moral standard which should not be legislated by government. Which it is not in America. We have a whole bunch of laws, the Constitution not the least of these, that explicitly prohibit racial, ethnic, religious, or any kind of abuse.

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The moment you are able to limit one kind of speech you set a viral example of how other types of speech that are disliked by the majority can also be outlawed. If you don't like the fact that this kind of thing is limited by the Constitution of the USA, don't live in America.

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I don't, and I'm very pleased about that fact. I only wish that Iraq enjoyed the freedom from barbarous America that I do.Please read the commentary on the South African constitution I have just posted. I understand the point you raise, but my own position is that human dignity and protection from hate speech, which is inherently anti-democratic, are more important.you could address this specific point, if you like:

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The right to freedom of expression does not extend to the listed categories of speech, which have in advance been singled out by the framers of the South African Constitution as not deserving constitutional protection, since they have, among other things, the potential to impinge adversely on the dignity (one of the core values of the Constitution) of others and cause them harm.

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This message has been edited by contracycle, 01-06-2005 11:41 AM

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It also allows us to protest against a definition of marriage from being written to our Constitution. It also allows us to organize in front of public offices and protest the war. It allows us to protest and get Prohibition repealed and womens suffrage put into the Constitution.

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I have all those rights AND I have the right to be protected from dehumanising and degrading hate speech.

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We already have such laws. Your ignorance of the Constitution is harrowing.

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Is it now. I think your ignorance of the consitution is harrowing. The south african constitution, of course.

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And since you were given an explanation of the origin and reason for the system your rant about how the founding fathers are somtimes idolized is entirely useless to the conversation.

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Then do not appeal to their authority.

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Which it is not in America. We have a whole bunch of laws, the Constitution not the least of these, that explicitly prohibit racial, ethnic, religious, or any kind of abuse.

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...except that as this thread began, religious dogma that dehumanises and degrades people of other faiths is apparently protected, and those of us affected by it should just suck it up or not go to these private venues. Which is it?

Which is a complete mischaracterization of what he said. In the USA you have to have a court order to get a wire tap to gather evidence on a suspect. In the USA I can sit in my own home, in your home, on the steps of the capitol building or even in the midst of the president himself and say how much I think the admistration sucks ass and I cannot by law be arrested unless I am also commiting some other crime by that act. Not on the basis that it is private property. On the basis that it is not officially sanctioned by an agent of the government. I can stand on public property and make bigotted comments if I want to as well. I may also pay the price if those comments incite riot or I say them in a way that is targeted toward and with the intent to abuse a specific person. Overall, you seem to think abuse is sanctioned in the USA when it is explicitly not. What is also explicitly protected by law is your expression that does not explicitly abuse anyone even if it may be denegrating or offensive. Even if you don't like it, that is the point. Your morals or sense of civility don't make law.

Totally irrelivent to our topic. I am adamently opposed to the war and the current administration any my right to be adamently opposed to the administration can never be taken away by any law as long as our Constitution is in place. I am a citizen who is in staunch opposition to the current actions of our administration. Therefore I start an organization speaking out against neo-conservatism. I make a bunch of t-shirts that "NEOCON = FACIST" and I wear them along with a bunch of people who are a part of my organization. Now the dignity of the neocons has been impinged adversely and harm has been caused to their ability to maintain their jobs because my movement might not allow them to get re-elected. This might affect their ability to take care of their families and causes them great personal stress. They might cry and be mad. Their bloodpressure might go up and they might have health problems. Because of all this I and everyone in my organization is arrested because of the harm and dignity has been impinged by my particular act of expression.There will always be groupings of people by things like ethnicity, politics, religion, geography, education, economics, morality, lifestyle, etc. The moment you consider denegration to be the act of speaking out against one of those things there is absolutly nothing that should prohibit you from extending it to all of those things. It is the slippery slope towards fascism.You can be as explicit as you want in law with what is and what is not acceptable but by the nature of change there will constantly be situations where you will slowly and predictably be adding to that list of things that are not allowed to be said. This is because some hundred years from now the kind of thing that divides people may no longer be race. Extending that, to think that there will be never something that divides people, while ideal, is asking for far too much out of humanity as a whole.

Jazzns writes:

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I make a bunch of t-shirts that "NEOCON = FACIST"...

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I WANT ONE!!!. Where do I send my check?

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

What they wanted has been tried and tested. What they wanted produced the greatest, the most prosperous, the most blessed and the most free society ever. It wasn't broke until folks began fixing it. Now we're loosing it, one law at a time. At the rate you revisionists are revising, it'l be gone soon and we'll join the loosers and the oppressed. I've been watching it's moral and Biblical decline for 50 of my nearly 70 years along with the loss of personal freedom; freedoms which Biblical principles bring.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-06-2005 12:31 AM

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

You have those same rights in the USA. The diffrerence is that it is only criminal when it becomes verbal assault. You cannot be arrested for saying something that might offend someone merely by its content. Which I freely admit. You however where implying that citizenship in the USA was still determined by land owners which is entirely false. This is in direct contradiction to the Consititution of the USA; in particular, the 14th amendment. Before you damnify a political institution you should make sure your characterization of that institution is correct. The point was that neither I nor scharf were trying to appeal to the authority of the founding fathers. Because we must reference them in a description of the origins of our system does not constitute an appeal to authority. I personally think that the founding fathers were not enlightened enough to establish enough freedoms to prevent future problems that we had such a slavery, and suffrage, to which much bloodshed occurred to ammend. There is no dichotomy here. Plain and simple, you cannot be arrested in the USA for the content of your expression. You can be arrested if that expression is used in the process of violating another law such as abuse, precipitation of violence, threats, etc.

buzsaw asserts:

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What they wanted produced the greatest, the most prosperous, the most blessed and the most free society ever. It wasn't broke until folks began fixing it.

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Oh, yeah, of course. Everything was just fine so long as we allowed slavery, denied women the vote and the right to own property, enforced segregation laws, forced children into working 16-hour days in sweatshop factories, pursued polices to perpetuate poverty and starvation, etc. No, no, we didn't tempt God until we began trying to do something to relieve human suffering and to recognize the dignity of all human beings by enforcing civil rights laws. God must be furious.You tell 'em, buz!This message has been edited by berberry, 01-06-2005 11:41 AM

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

While I agree that we are experience a time that has the potential to become the dawn of a new dark age I don't feel that it is due to lack of Biblical principles. I feel it is due to the widespread accepted and defense of a bastardization of institutionalized Christianity. We are try to pass laws that protect greed and someone else's sense of legalistic morals based on some kind of hybrid capitalism Christianity that in no way resembles the actual teachings of Christ.We can and should take this to another thread if you wish to continue.

I can feel myself dragging the topic at a tangent here... but sod it If I could modify this analogy I would liken it to a class full of kids, one of which is constantly called names by two or three others, to the point where they feel totally miserable (they don’t have to be directly threatening or physical to genuinely hurt). Does the teacher turn around and say "Just stop moaning and ignore them?" Hell no!And that’s really where I have to stop stretching analogies because I’m not talking about playground name-calling and hurt feelings. Incitement to Racial hatred laws (and similar ones) which we have in Britain, that are absent in the States are there to protect groups of people from a culture of harassment and abuse that is just as nasty and abusive as the more in-your-face examples, and yet harder to pin down. I believe these laws work to stop this kind of culture without the principle of free speech being eroded. After all true free speech is a fallacy isn’t it? It’s always: Free Speech as long as I suppose this discussion is all about where you draw the line.On a slightly different tack: I really don’t see the difference between government and these other examples. A company is obliged to protect it’s employees, a school to protect it’s staff and students: so why isn’t it expected that a government protect it’s citizens?

Hiya KJAs Contra has pointed out, I don't think we still do have those kind of laws over here, or if we do then they are of the "It is legal to shoot a Welshman within the town walls on a Sunday" variety. There might be something, somewhere about defacing the queens head or similar but I'm unlikely to get shoved in the tower for it.Now the outdated, confusing and downright discriminating blasphemy law...that's a different matter. (Although I'm not even sure that's been used in the last 10 years or so)See my reply to Schraf for a response to your other comments

Yeh, I was probably mis-remembering the incident from some blurb on the TV or newspaper. It was a long time and many brain cells ago!

Here is the basic misunderstanding of the first amendment. To understand it you must know where the founding fathers were comming from. They were searching for religeous freedom from a country that had a state sponsored religeon. There intent was that:1. Congress ... The last time a checked a school member or student at a football game is not a congressman!!2. shall make no law ... again saying a prayer is far from making a law!!3. respecting the establishment of a religion ... No one is saying that from this point on everyone has to become a member of the local baptist church under penalty of law because a baptist person said a prayer at a football game.4. or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... Here is the big one that most people who quote seperation of church and state miss!! A person praying at a game is not establishing a state or Federal religeon, thus not against the constitution, but prohibiting prayer is prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and should be a violation of the constitution!!