But they felt that it was a distinct possibility. The place was well guarded. "Fightin' words" are not run-of-the-mill everyday insults. They generally involve racism, family feuds, politics, or something else that people hold dearly. In addition, the violent reaction is more likely to take place in a bar, where people have been drinking heavily and thus lost their judgment. You can walk down a street in Washington, DC (where the largest ethnic group is Afro-Americans) in daylight and call somebody a "dumb nigger," and it's unlikely that you would be prosecuted--although you might get the shit kicked out of you. But if you walk into a bar in East Los Angeles (the barrio for Mexican-Americans) at one o'clock in the morning when everyone is drunk, and yell, "You damn wetbacks should go back home and take your filthy greasy food and your juvenile delinquent children with you," the bartender will call the police and they will come and arrest you--if you haven't already been beaten to a pulp. There are exceptions to our constitutional right to freedom of speech. One is fraud: you can't lie to someone in order to connive them into giving you money or something else you want, or simply cheating them. This neatly covers the common example of yelling "Fire!" in a dark movie theater. You are lying to all the other people, in order to watch them harming themselves in the stampede to escape for your own amusement. Another is inflaming people to riot. This is a breach of the peace. Another is agitating for the overthrow of the government. If you don't like the government, you can always run for President yourself. Another is conspiring to commit a crime. This is considered a lead-in to the crime itself. They had arranged considerable protection, which implies that they believed that an attack was quite possible.
To use a less severe simile, I recall the heavy metal wars of the 1980s. Al Gore summoned Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Wendy O. Williams, and others before the United States Senate. You know why Twisted Sister's Under the Blade was "banned" insofar as major retailers wouldn't carry it? Two goddamns, a shit, and a fucking. So here's the deal: With bands being hauled before the U.S. Senate, into courtrooms for prosecution (2 Live Crew, the gayest rap outfit ever) or lawsuits (Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest), the band Anthrax decides to pitch a temper tantrum. To this day, "Cunty cunty cunty cunt!" is my favorite backup vocal in musical history. I don't believe any other will replace it. Anthrax knew damn well they were stepping into the fight. Megadeth had done so, quite directly. And what sets "Startin' Up a Posse" (Anthrax) or "Hook in Mouth" (Megadeth) apart from, say, "One Foot in Hell" (The Forbidden) or "Suffer the Masses" (Flotsam and Jetsam) is that instead of taking up the fight against an idea, these couple of songs went after people. The point of these songs was to offend, and I don't recall either of them ever suffering the risk they stepped into, being hauled before Congress―though that was probably in no small part owing to the observable fact that calling these bands into the Senate chamber only rocketed their popularity and influence. But it was a code of honor for that heavy metal generation; if you weren't in the fight you were ducking your duty. And plenty did their parts. Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, Overkill, Helloween ... really, everybody did their part. And in this fight, everyone was after the risk. To be so honored as to piss off the U.S. Senate? To the other, pissing off murderers with guns and bombs? Yeah, you know, dude, some fights you don't get into. Screaming Trees at La Luna, a seven-foot longhair drunkenly crashing through the crowd. Tiassa drives him off. His friend gets in Tiassa's face: "Why you pushin' him around?" Tiassa responds ferociously: "Tell Chewbacca to keep the hell off people!" And, you know, sometimes you might be drunk, but you've still got a point. That would have been a bad fight. Floater, Showbox. A fight just breaks out. Pit-related, I would assume, but there is a clear aggressor and a clear defender. Tiassa steps between and starts walking defender off as others restrain aggressor. "It's not worth it," Tiassa says. "It's not worth it." And, you know, it worked. Floater, Off-Ramp (Subzero, El Corazon, I forget what it was called at that time). The second Alter show; the Seattle debut of the album. The motion starts in a shadowy distance and Tiassa is suddenly moving. He moves to Tig's left and starts walking her off; it's a bad situation. Definitely a fight, and it's rolling across the floor toward where Tiassa, Tig, and the Squash, all of five months gestated, are moving cautiously, trying to mark its path, predict its future, and get the fuck out of the way. No matter how far they move toward the back wall of the dancefloor, the fight arcs toward them, and in the end Tig is climbing a table into the mezz, and Tiassa is preparing to take a blow as the miniature riot rolls past. Indeed, he nearly takes a boot to the chest. Later, we learn that security managed to pull the drunk to the alley, whereupon the drunk pulled a knife and proceeded to find his holy living fuck beaten into next week. But, you know, some fights you just don't stick around for; your only point is to get the fuck away. Why am I not in this fight? I haven't figured a way to win it without firing an actual bullet. The enemy is willing to kill just because one isn't blind. This isn't a fight I would rush into. So neither of us hold with "fighting words", but it is a reality we must deal with. And if I'm prepared to pick a fight with fucking terrorists, the kind of people who have made it clear their tactics have no care for strategy, the sort who kill not for necessity but, rather, any fucking excuse they can find? Yeah, I better have some tricks up my sleeve. Standing around and crying because someone accepted my challenge will not be an option. You know, my mother learned a new technique last year, an art of, er ... ah ... artistic icing? I don't know, but after the effort I saw her put into Seahawks cookies, I can certainly imagine her church friends might try to get her to do some sort of Jesus cookie for ... well, I doubt we're talking about Pentecost cookies, or whatever, but you know what I mean. But why would my mother decide to do a Muhammad cookie? Why are these artists taking part in a "Draw Muhammad" event? No Muslim will take part just to express the Prophet the way my mother might be convinced to try to draw Jesus. (She would decline for lack of confidence in her representations of human forms.) So what were these artists up to, if not entering the fight? And instead of something we might celebrate, like getting called before the Senate for calling Al Gore's wife a cunt, the fight they're entering could very well get them killed. I'm sorry, Geoff, but with all my revolutionary sympathies this has been an issue I'm rather quite required to consider. Yeah. When am I entering the fight, and just what fight am I getting myself into? I have a short list of fights right now I would throw down for, but owing to Noish-Pa, I also accept that it is not my duty to go looking for the fights. And since fatherhood is about as good of an excuse as I can find to not rush out and get myself killed, it's true, I do wonder why some would choose to seek that conflict. It is enough, when the conflict comes, to do our part; why would we want to create it? There is no question that the bad guys in this are bad guys. But we need to stop painting the victims as innocent, clueless fucks who had no idea they were taking any sort of risk.
Ah. The form of my punishment is to be a warning for "off-topic posting", as advised by moderator PM. It is now a crime to point out inconsistency of thought, doubly so if the question is raised against those in authority. Basically, if one wishes to point out that an argument can have little creedence or relevance when only used in support of a single point of view, then that poster is "off topic". When one goes off at these so-called moderators for misrepresenting a post in such a manner, one has that response deleted. It would seem that misrepresentation is not only freely practiced, but officially sanctioned. However, one is not permitted to respond to it. Not only that, they are in fact now deleting posts. Welcome to authoritarianism, Sciforums. Enjoy the ride. Just bear in mind that the behaviour they're displaying here is exactly the kind of behaviour they'll post about for hours, decrying how immoral it all is. Well, there's the left for you, in all their glory. What a bunch of hypocrtical tossers.
Mod Note I did not delete your post. I didn't even know that it had been deleted. If you wish to complain about moderation, I'd suggest you PM the administrators with your complaint or discuss it with the moderator(s) in question instead of once again going off topic in the thread.
Exactly! Well said, Geoff. Even so, iceaura is right. Fighting words must be uttered face to face. Fighting words are speech that incites an immediate breach of the peace. The Court has never upheld a conviction for fighting words that don't involve face-to-face encounters, such as those that involve ridicule or scorn about an ideology. (Source) Offenses against dignity involve a failure to show people the respect and deference to which they are entitled by virtue of their intrinsic humanity; offenses against honor involve a failure to show people the respect and deference to which they are entitled by virtue of their social status or role. In a fascinating article about civility law in Germany, France, and the United States, James Whitman distinguishes between the interest in reputation and the interest in honor. The interest in reputation, according to Whitman, is an interest in making sure that shameful or discreditable things about us do not become public. The interest in honor is an interest in making sure that other people show us respect, not only in public but also in private. (Source) The increasingly raucous demands from religious believers that their religions be accorded more respect in the public square and from non-adherents is a sign that something very serious is going on but what, exactly? In many instances, we’ll find that religious believers are not asking for something appropriate, they are asking for deference, positive thoughts, and privileges for themselves, their beliefs, and their religions. Rarely, if ever, are such things justified. (Source)
Within every religion (at least the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i and Rasta) there is a large core of members who believe that their religion is the only true religion, that their religion is the only one that can lead mankind into a state of perfect peace, that their religion is the only one that can solve all of mankind's problems, and that all other religions are impostors that must be eradicated. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that anyone who stands in the way of the one true religion's ascendence is simply evil, and therefore can be killed (en masse if possible) without the inconvenient niceties of civil laws. The Christians lived by this rule for many centuries, and more recently the Muslims have begun behaving the same way.
Well, I have no rock analogies to offer. I sincerely wish that I did. Which is more dangerous: the American political establishment - these people have kidney-shaped pools at home, Tiassa - or the first line of moderately inbred religious fascists demanding a return to 7th-century sensibilities? The one group will ruin your life, the other actually kill you. I think it goes without saying that the first group are infinitely worse at the moment - yet in its way, like elephants tramping an unfortunately-situated colony of meerkats (and wasn't that an episode we all felt in our hearts?), unintentional. They don't want totrample the life out of vast swathes of American society via their incredible stupidity, they do it because they have to, have to, have to, get to the slightly fermented fruit in those banana trees over there, stripping them clean of vegetation to cram into their swollen bellies, topping off their hunger while getting ever so slightly stewed at the same time; and isn't Mark off to <Pointless Ivy League School> this year? Oh he is! He's just been accepted into the Useless Trust Fund Nonce program with a Minor in Fingering Rich Coed Inheritors! But I digress. And so I have to believe that this former group - harmful, destructive and inherently odious as it is (no other member of the Animal Kingdom so shamelessly forces you to look up at its wrinkled, hairy and probably unsanitary private parts, except elephants) actually doesn't mean to harm us, as hard as that may be. It's just, you know, fermented bananas. What would a prole do with them? The second group - reactionary inbred religious types (Islamist ones this time) - however, would gladly do all of that, because, you know, Allah. Allah needs those bananas. He likes to get a drink on as much as anyone, whatever he might say in that book, and when He's happy, all you earthly types know it... because we'll tell you about it. What's that? How will we know? Because we'll tell you, that's how. And, we'll shoot you for asking. And for being gay. And a woman. No, wait, we need those. Who else will we shoot? People who ask questions and don't act like us and gay people? Is that it? All right. And, if we don't shoot you, we will go out of our way to make your life as shitty as possible: you personally, for not being as tolerant as we are and not revering God the way we do. Actively. Because this God, who loves us hates you. Yes, including the women. Where's that shooting already? Come on, come on, his questioning is starting to make me uncomfortable and you know what that means. Look, just tell the kafir to invent and build me a weapon to shoot him with. Is that so much to ask? On a serious note, you frame the issue as a fight. Maybe it is. Real religious fascists are pretty likely to kill for their beliefs... but isn't that exactly the kind of fight that a true liberal son of the Stars and Stripes ought to take up? Isn't that what America stands for or stood for? I appreciate the modern reality but, ideally, that is or was the American essence. When would you enter the fight? Now, or later, when you might not be allowed to do so? It's that old story: confront Hitler on the Rhine when he first got a little uppity, or wait until 1939 to sit around and call him mean names from the far side of your fortifications. But maybe all the hoopla is unnecessary. Things can change for the bad for any philosophy, and it might be that it will all just fizzle, like it has in Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan and Iran. Or maybe this is the act that turns it back while protecting the establishment rights of the community from which these murderers spring, collectively and jointly fixing all our problems. And now that we've all finished laughing - well.. who knows. Would we hesitate to fight Nazism, knowing what it did with a few short years to act unopposed? It didn't require so many people, either: just a few actors to get the ball rolling. Well, that and an election win. I understand what you're saying about fatherhood. What can I offer in return? Some trite lines about how a hero dies but once? Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain? One thing never dies, and that is the reputation we leave behind at our death? The validity of a slogan depends on what you think of it, and when you think of it. And anyway, you're not too likely to earn your packet criticizing Islamist fascists, unless you're a cartoonist. They knew there was a risk; they had bodyguards for it. They claim that was what America was about; the right to insult or express. I don't know. There's no point in offending the inoffensive, generally: and it's not very nice for Nigel. I do know that insulting dangerous madmen used to be an American pastime. As a thing, in and of itself, that isn't so bad.
Which is an activity you're quite willing to indulge in, when it suits your purpose. And not when it's not. In this case, the bad guys are the bad guys, but... she asked for it. Yet in another thread, you'll defend the rights of Rodney King and make him a millionaire - if it helps prevent those nasty policemen from taking a baton to him because... well. He asked for it. Rodney King, of course, now being among the very least of that particular example. And in yet another thread, we're all cajoled into subscribing to the theory that a rape victims' actions should never be questioned, regardless of whether or not she might have asked for it. Shit, Tiassa. I'm just trying to help you understand what your problem is. You're a Siren. Not saying I'm Orpheus or anything, but hell... I can at least drag out a guitar. You're demanding by proxy I only examine a thread. I'd rather view the tapestry.
Never once mentioned your name, don't care who did. You're not Bells, you're a representative. Your problem is that you don't understand that - or more that you gain more personally from deliberately misconstruing it. Well, Bells, you did make me laugh. This thread has gone from a discussion on another Muslim attack to the merits of free speech, to what constitutes "fighting words" - with a rather lengthy digression on metal in times of yore which differ in several respects from my own recollections on the subject. All I did was, as per above, call out Tiassa for being inconsistent in his arguments. You didn't like that very much, so you used whatever excuse you could find to card me. That's all that happened here, and you're free to tell yourself anything you want... but don't for one second believe that I'm going to pay a dollar for your snake oil. Nor that I need to be here, or that, by extension and consequence, your threats have any weight behind them at all. I'd rather have this out right here - in the open. That you'd prefer to conduct this discussion behind closed doors is rather revealing, and in your interests - not mine. So, yes. I'm aware you'd far prefer we do this "behind closed doors", and I'm aware of why you'd prefer it that way. I'm not of a mind. Sorry about that. By which, of course, I mean not at all. .... This does actually bring me to another thought. Which, I'm afraid,. I am now far too drunk to articulate. But it has to do with Bells defending the blacks who have died in the USA at the hands of white police. I'm typing that out, of course, because someday soon I might be slightly more sober and more able to expound upon it; it is actually a marker for my own use. ..... I remember once having made a post, very heartfelt on my part, calling upon Sciforums to appoint Tyrants as moderators. Looking back now, I suppose I should have made it more clear that I was appealing more for a Lee Kuan Yew than a Pol Pot. More fool me, I suppose, but in my defence, I gather it's extraordinarily difficult to make the proles understand the difference. tl'dr: Take your purple prose and shove it up your arse. Respect is earned, not demanded.
You said it in your deleted post, that was in direct response to me. Or did you forget that? I can undelete it if you prefer, if your memory needs refreshing. No, I am actually Frank. Of what? Or whom? How, exactly, do I do that? I don't get paid, I do this in my personal time. I fail to see how I actually personally gain from volunteering my time on an internet forum, sometimes having to stay up half the night deleting hundreds and hundreds of spambot posts during a spambot attack. What do you think the personal gain is? Bossing people around? Power trip? Dude, I do that in my real life every day, and I get paid for it. Why would I do it on the internet for free where everything is anonymous? Where is the actual value in that? What value are you to me? None. And perhaps that is your problem. You want to be of value. But you aren't, not to me at least. Hence the inventions and stories that just don't add up. For you, moderation is about people feeding off a power that does not actually exist. That was never what it was about. Recollections were never your strong point. Case in point: That wasn't why you were warned. If I had wanted to "card you", I would have done so within the first couple of your posts in this thread. I tend to have a policy of letting you know first that you were very much off topic and that you were trolling. When you went out of your way to do worse, then you were warned. And another moderator felt that your post was bad enough to warrant deletion. This site is free, dude. You don't have to pay a cent to post here. You say this, but you always return. I mean, look at the length of your post in response to my two line post. You want my attention, you have it for 10 minutes. Don't expect me to take you seriously though. I don't take people who are so obviously drunk, seriously. I didn't threaten you. I issued you with an infraction. Then open a thread in the appropriate forum and have it out there. I did suggest that to you as well. I think your problem is that if you PM the administrators, you will be forced to provide proof for whatever conspiracy theory you believe exists against you on this site. But that is entirely up to you. If you do not wish to PM the admin with your obvious complaint, start a thread about it and let it all out in that thread. I can assure you, you will get more traction there then here, if your issue is with moderators, sorry, "representatives", moderation, the site, etc. If you really want to have it out, why not start a thread in the place where there will be a hell of a lot more traction and you will have a much bigger audience then you will have here? That's what you want, isn't it? To have this out in the open? Stop hiding, get out there and do it properly. In the appropriate forum. How strange and unusual [eyeroll]. As long as you do it in the appropriate thread, knock yourself out. And I remember you once suggested that you could be made a moderator to clean out all the people you deemed to be a problem for the crap and rambling crap they posted. I didn't have the heart to tell you back then that you can't ban yourself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It was pink, sweetness. 'Cos you spesh. Then stop demanding it.
Um...excuse me, but maybe you didn't think this little piece all the way through. Wasn't Orpheus a pedophile? No wonder the women tore him to pieces.
So taking measures to protect oneself against a potential negative outcome is evidence that you want to experience a negative outcome? If a prostitute seeks out a pimp to protect her, that means she wants to be raped? If a strip club employs bouncers to prevent clients fondling the girls, that means they want the girls to be molested? It's amusing how when The Marquis brought up the slut/rape analogy, it caused quite a bit of discomfort amongst certain left-wingers here. I guess cognitive dissonance does that to people. I'm with Geoff on this one. While I can understand the reasoning behind 'Fighting words', I think the concept is open to interpretation, and prone to abuse. If someone does indeed say something beyond the pale, there is no need to assault them. In today's age of social media, it is far more effective to publicise their shitty behaviour on Youtube. The social ostracism they would be subjected to would be far more damaging than a punch to the face, and it wouldn't violate their right to not be assaulted.
