Hi, I'm just speaking up a bit here since that's the underlying topic of this thread. Cheers, Mark On 3/12/06, Cesare Marilungo <cesare@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: ><SNIP> > I'm still undecided if is right or wrong to ban offensive language by > somebody who is trying to build a community of likeminded people. If you do then you have already decided what the 'like minded' community should look like, what it can do and cannot do. This is a recipe (in my mind) for a community that will not be healthy and grow in the future. It's stagnant from the outset. Consider whether the community is better off being forever limited by the decisions taken. If it is a community for children or closed minded adults who feel the need to be protected then the correct answer is probably different than for a community of open-minded adults looking to grow. would rock & roll have ever happened if the people minding the community would only let classical music play? Let the people who don't like it burn their records. That's their business. But do not stop the new musicians from playing their music and speaking their minds. Consider, please, that the basis of any law to suppress free speech has at its root an assumption that people listening aren't smart enough to figure to for themselves that the 'offensive' speech is really coming from stupid people they don't want to listen to. Give the listener proper credit and pretty soon you find out that not that many people care about what the talker is speaking about. (My opinion/observation anyway...) It's perfectly OK for people spout out stupid stuff as long as it's just words. Consider a recent conviction of some silly 'historian' convicted in Europe for writing a book that stated that the Holocaust never occurred. What's up with that? We need a 'law' that says the Holocaust happened? We know it did. It's amazingly Orwellian thinking to believe that we could ever get to a point where the general world population ever questioned this fact. But the Austrians (I think...) have a law that says you cannot even say the Holocaust didn't happen and convicted a silly person who wrote it in a book. I happen to think this whole affair really make the Austrians, and by association Europeans that don't speak out about this, look rather silly. But then again, I'm in California and it's clear everyone here is out of touch anyway. ;-) > > If you invite me at your home, and I start insulting you and your family > with racist and sexist words I don't thing you would invite me again. In > the same way anybody can start his/her own web community and apply the > rules he/she want. That is correct behavior in my mind. First, before I invite you to m home I hopefully know something about you. You are a friend or close acquaintance. I don't invite you unless I'm already sure you are someone I want to spend an evening with. Second, if you did this, but it was only me that heard it, I might tell you I don't like it and ask you to stop, or at least carry on a discussion about it. On the other hand, if you do this in front of my kids then our friendship is almost certainly permanently damaged because you didn't care about my family's feelings. It's a bad evening but it's not the end of the world. I use your behavior to teach my kids about some of the stupid people in the world and never invite you back again. None the less I do not think you should be arrested for this behavior - just unceremoniously dismissed. While I understand and even agree with your distaste for people speaking this way I do not, even in the slightest way, think that people should be prohibited from such speech. Here in America we have lots of people speaking things that I don't like. Republicans & Democrats. (as opposed to republicans and democrats...) People speaking from extremely narrow religious perspectives. Racists of all types. Neo-Nazi's, closed minded Americans, right-wing talking heads on TV. Our country and media is full of this stuff. I cannot stand most of it, and I don't spend my time listening to it, but not for a second do I want anyone to be silenced. Let them talk. As long as it's talk and nothing more then I think they are actually providing a service to the country and world at large. It would be FAR more dangerous to have it all underground until it finally exploded into some sort of war. Just my two cents, Mark
