As much as I agree with you, the judge in the case is just bigoted, not stupid. Judges frequently punish individuals they don't like by putting them last on the docket. Somebody has to go last and it won't be recognized as punishment as a consequence, even though it really is. Most sessions can run 5 to 6 hours, that's quite a long time to wait.
The problem is even the hundred odd Americans making such comments on a couple of mainstream social networking sites is disconcerting. These people actually did put up such comments. Who knows how many others exist who did not publicly make such comments just so they were politically corrext?
Well yes. But show me a country of 300 million or so where you cant round up a sizable mob of knuckle-dragging morons. It reflects poorly on them, but the fact that it was a story at all is due to the context in which it was presented (I found out about it on the Daily Show and posts to my facebook) because most Americans found it embarassing and absurd.
I wish reporters and pundits would just quit mining twitter for stupid quotes. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. It means exactly nothing that a couple of hundred, or even thousand, people said something dumb on twitter.
What this judge said is definitely newsworthy. Some random anonymous user on twitter who is probably trolling, stoned or both saying something means bupkis.
Although I did get a laugh out of Colbert's take - "705 people saw a woman in a bikini and thought, 'Muslim Extremist.'"
Free speech still stands. No one is stopping you from being stupid. Obviously when one is a public official, racism/idiocy in this situation comes into play and the person gets kicked out of office.Also being an Arab as far as I know is not a slur. One is not supposed to know every damn ethnicity that exists.
Also being an Arab as far as I know is not a slur.
Context is everything. They didn't just idly identify her as an arab as in "Wow, an arab finally won Miss America" - they called her an arab as part of a larger effort to associate her with terrorism and debase her as being less of a person and therefore undeserving of winning.
Just because a racist is illogical in their hatred doesn't make their hatred any less real.
Thanks for clarifying. To reiterate my point, I think the way free speech ideally should work is that you are technically free to be stupid. Don't be surprised if you get fired from your job. That is the responsibility you take on for spouting your opinion. That however does not mean that is something "sad" or "awful" which the parent post was implying. It simply is a function of outliers existing in a distribution of people. I am sure I can pick such outliers in any country of your choice.
A mistake in identifying her ethnicity is fine. But what they did was call her an Arab to associate her with terrorism and thus insult her.
Free speech does exist. But do remember that any free country also stipulates that the freedom comes with the responsibility that you do not use your freedom to hurt others.
> Free speech does exist. But do remember that any free country also stipulates that the freedom comes with the responsibility that you do not use your freedom to hurt others.
There is a distinction between "hurting someone" as in "yelling fire" in a crowded theatre to "hurting someone" as in going on twitter and spouting random crap. Sure, you can sue for emotional damages or whatever if you please. However, it really is not the same thing. At least the way it works in America. I know that in some European countries, one's free speech rights are limited (e.g. when it comes to holocaust denial or whatever).
Free speech does exist. But do remember that any free country also stipulates that the freedom comes with the responsibility that you do not use your freedom to hurt others.
Joe Random twitter user can't hurt anyone by being an asshole on twitter.
The real free speech issue here is that freedom of speech runs both ways -- you are free to speak out and everyone else is free to speak out and criticize you for what you said.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
A succinct embodiment of all that is wrong with the self-assumed authority of the modern nation-state, which, at its core, is based upon a monopoly of violence.
I don't really want to engage with this (it's a really common talking point and it won't change anyone's mind who didn't already agree) -- but your phrasing made me for the first time realize what exactly the alternative is: a free market for violence. Is that what you're advocating?
I don't really want to engage with this (it's a really common talking point and it won't change anyone's mind who didn't already agree)
Oh right, and being trite with a false dichotomy is supposed to be more constructive? Sheesh. I suspect if you were, say, homeless or wrongly jailed for awhile then you'd come out far less dismissive of criticism of government.
No, seriously, it's such a common talking point that if you google the words "monopoly of force" you'll find the argument hashed out, extremely we'll, by both sides, thousands of times. So there's literally I reason to do it again, instead of just linking to one of those.
My question was also literal, not rhetorical: is a free-market for force what you intended to advocate? If not, what are you advocating? Explain how force should be divvied up, if a monopoly is suboptimal.
I wasn't trying to roadmap a solution, merely highlight the excellence of the example. However, I'll bite. I believe states are essentially post-WWI (ie. passport era) anachronisms largely propped up through the UN and ISO who prevent new states from succeeding. I believe that any group should have the full right to succeed from the existing state at any time without any hard to obtain consent thereof. I also believe that geographical proximity to a state, for instance at birth, should not endanger one's capacity to travel beyond its borders or seek meaningful membership of other social groups providing competing avenues of service to its members. Critically, they should also have the ability to use any form of currency they see fit, and thus to subvert poorly performing governments by replacing present-era state mandated taxation systems with alternatives that may be more responsive to local conditions in terms of service provision and social priorities. Obviously, such changes will require significant re-organization within market and supply systems, however I also believe that owing to technological change we are entering an era in which such a direction, despite its complex and untested nature, is becoming more feasible.
