Thought Police
Dangerous bill currently in the senate. Consider contacting Senators Smith and Wyden like I just did.
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Link: The Thought Police
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Annette, Wednesday, 7-18-07 8:24 AM
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re: Thought Police
Couldn't the same bill be used to protect Christians from hate crimes and/or "peaceful speech"?
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Zach, Wednesday, 7-18-07 10:01 AM
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re: Thought Police
In theory yes, in practice only religions other than Christianity are protected from hate speech. But I'd honestly prefer that nobody be protected from fuzzily defined 'hate speech'. Preaching from Romans verbatim has been defined in several Western countries as 'hate speech'.
Of course, if we as Americans really DON'T have free speech, why is it that we have to put up with the pornification of the culture? I don't think the authors of this bill will like it at all when the general population realizes that the old gentleman's agreement (we'll leave your tawdry commercial speech alone if it's necessary to protect our political and religious free expression) has fallen by the wayside and decide they've got nothing to lose by banning the speech they dislike....
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David C, Thursday, 7-19-07 8:50 AM
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re: Thought Police
I guess in general I am against creating new laws to deal with problems adequately covered under existing laws. We don't need Federal jurisdiction to take over prosecution of your every day assault and battery or libel cases.
Besides, I don't personally see why we need to define some crimes as worse than others based on their "hate" value. If someone is going to break into my house, does it really matter if they do it because (a) they think I have a lot of expensive camera equipment, (b) they hate red cars like the one in my drive way, or (c) they hate Christians? I think if the punishment for reason "a" is adequate, the actual motivation of the criminal is irrelevant. Just prosecute the crime. Leave the motivation between the criminal and his psychiatrist - or better yet, between him and God.
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Annette, Friday, 7-20-07 11:43 AM
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