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Anonymous has chosen a new target

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Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#21

Post by [deleted] »

chris_j wrote: post #18
bugsy wrote: post #10

Westboro is obnoxious and vile, but they work within the law. Anonymous has declared war on free speech.

This saying is (probably incorrectly) attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The question is, would I defend to the death your right to turn up at someone's funeral and deliberately cause distress to their grieving relatives? Probably not. There's free speech and then there's harassing people. If Anonymous want to hack into these people's website i…

[deleted]

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#22

Post by rick_2047 »

moxiemk1 wrote: post #12
FiReaNG3L wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's free speech, and there's hate speech.

What's always concerned me is that I don't know how to draw that line. Where do you put it?

I know it when I see it.

--Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers.

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#23

Post by portman »

deno wrote: post #15
portman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At funerals? Screaming at small children, six inches from their faces, that God killed their father on purpose?

> six inches from their faces That's quite an exaggeration. They are standing far away from the ceremony. EDIT: To clarify, I don't mean to defend them. I just think what they do is appalling enough on its own, without stretching the facts.

You're right that there is no need to exaggerate.

The raft of state legislation in 2007/2008 setting up perimeters (300 - 500 feet, depending on the state) was in direct response to the stepped-up funeral protests of 2006 which were in extremely close, personal proximity to the mourners.

Now, they are 300-500 feet away, but only due to specific state laws.

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#24

Post by fletchowns »

bugsy wrote: post #10

Westboro is obnoxious and vile, but they work within the law. Anonymous has declared war on free speech.

Did you even read the statement? This is most definitely not a war on free speech.

We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS - the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People... Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are...

Look, I'm all for free speech. It is an absolute necessity. It should be protected at all costs.

...Except for when you have a group that is so deranged and have abused this right to free speech that we hold so dearly that it is barely recognizable. As far as I'm concerned, we can make this one exception, and the world will be a better place. Throw them in the "yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater" category.

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#25

Post by OpieCunningham »

SlyShy wrote: post #6

Ironic that a supposed defender of free speech is doing this. Although I find Phelps abhorring, I still support his right to spout his ideology.

Phelps uses free speech to attack military families for ... well, Phelps own brand of crazy.

Anonymous uses free speech to attack Phelps for being an asshole.

And you use free speech to attack Anonymous for attacking Phelps.

How many iterations should we take this?

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#26

Post by philwelch »

FiReaNG3L wrote: post #7
SlyShy wrote: post #6

Ironic that a supposed defender of free speech is doing this. Although I find Phelps abhorring, I still support his right to spout his ideology.

There's free speech, and there's hate speech.

Absolute bullshit. Free speech isn't meant as a defense of reasonable, well-mannered expression, because such speech needs no protection. It's meant to defend the kinds of expressions that people would actually want to censor.

Let's be clear here. Stalking, harassment, and invasion of privacy--those all may or may not be legitimate things WBC can be rightly accused of. If the WBC is in the wrong, they're in the wrong for disrupting people's funerals by shouting at the top of their lungs, not for the specific things they happen to say in the process. "Hate speech" is a bullshit political euphemism, and the right to march down the street or stand on a street corner to share your views is the essence of free speech. It doesn't matter whether you're the WBC, the Ku Klux Klan, or Lyndon LaRouche.

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#27

Post by portman »

bugsy wrote: post #10

Westboro is obnoxious and vile, but they work within the law. Anonymous has declared war on free speech.

No, if anything they have declared war on a very specific tactic: protesting at funerals.

There are well established limits on free speech, such as yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater (Schenck v. US, 1919).

Pretend for a moment that we live in a world where the Schenck case never happened. A group (call them the "Eastboro Baptist Church") has started using the tactic of running into movie theaters and yelling "FIRE!". After all the commotion, they spread their anti-gay message.

This "fire" ruse is starting to get on some people's nerves, so an online group (call them "NAMED") says that they are going to protest the Eastboro Baptist Church.

That's not a "declaration of war on free speech", it's an argument that shouting fire in a crowded theater does not deserve protection under the First Amendment.

Also, for anyone who isn't aware, the Supreme Court has already heard oral arguments (Snyder v Phelps) about whether these funeral protests are protected speech, and will issue an opinion at end of term in a few months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#29

Post by astrange »

trotsky wrote: post #28

Is Anonymous teasing around the edges of the technological singularity? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Technological... A suitable glitch soundtrack for such questions: http://soundcloud.com/heyoka-1/heyoka-marklar-promo-mix

I don't understand what the original site has to do with members of Anonymous uploading themselves into robots.

Re: Anonymous has chosen a new target

#30

Post by bugsy »

fletchowns wrote: post #24
bugsy wrote: post #10

Westboro is obnoxious and vile, but they work within the law. Anonymous has declared war on free speech.

Did you even read the statement? This is most definitely not a war on free speech. We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS - the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People... Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are... Look, I'm all for free speech. It is an absolute necessity. It should be protected at all costs. ...Except for when you hav…

So basically you are for free speech except when you don't like it.

That's not free speech though.

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