If I don't subscribe to your ideology, and can force ATS to ban you, is that right?

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Dude, once someone draws the line, a lot of people are going to be getting in on that line-drawing action. A disaster. The only light that I see in this whole situation is if the Duck Dynasty guy violated his contract and was gently reprimanded and brought off the air for a while in order to appeal to the viewer base.

Liberals all over the place are actually pushing for shutting down freedom of speech - ridiculous. A terrible idea. Liberals are historically the ones who benefit from freedom of speech the most.

Who do you think usually isn't allowed to speak? Workers! The poor! Blacks! Gays! Women! It's the historical precedent - taking away freedom of speech in no way, shape or form is progress. Is it really worth it?

reply to post by BO XIAN

What a grossly hypocritical assertion. You are one of the most hateful writers on ATS against my values and perspective. Sweet.

Well ty I try. Btw I'm not against your values or perspective I just don't think they should be forced on people who don't want them.

Worse, when you write, it doesn't some across as "merely" against my values and perspective, it comes across as personally hateful and hostile. Yet you dare to pontificate as though you are the sanctimonious righteous one in terms of "hate" and "racism!"

I'm sure you can provide some links where I promote hate or racism based on my beliefs. If you want hate or racism maybe you should read the bible for once.

Who defines "hate?" Who defines racism?

In America we have something called laws these laws are voted on then checked by the Supreme court to see if it violates the Constitution. Our founding fathers saw how bad the church could be and sought to keep America from being controlled by it.

I'll throw this one out there, but I have to get ready for work. From my understanding, in almost all cases, working people are "at will" employees. In short...they can be fired for any reason at any time. Yes, there are exceptions. One big consideration is can a wrongly fired employee sue and win and the answer is yes. From experience, if the employee handbook doesn't state "no sleeping on the job", and someone gets fired for sleeping on the job...they have a case and may very likely win. I've seen it happen a handful of times.

So...if the employee isn't specifically told in writing that they must follow such-and-such a rule, they have a good chance of winning a law suit against the employer if fired for that offence.

Debate and have fun.

WeAreAWAKE
So...if the employee isn't specifically told in writing that they must follow such-and-such a rule, they have a good chance of winning a law suit against the employer if fired for that offence.

Debate and have fun.

Well I guess the best I can hope for is the job that I am hired for having clear terms of employment stating the opinions I'm allowed to have or not. It's better than it being arbitrary.

In my opinion this is just going to leave the door wide open for workplace discrimination. Conservative areas seem to be mirroring the totalitarian take on free speech that liberal areas are enforcing.

That's my opinion though, hopefully I'm wrong. I do want to point out that my entire argument is based on the idea that minorities are the ones who traditionally suffer when freedom of speech goes out the window.

jimmyx
you people on the right do realize that there are many states in this country, where you can legally get fired from your job if you are gay? it's actually held up in state courts....you people on the right do realize that there are gays still being beat up, and sometimes killed because they are gay?....how about if we did that to all rednecks?..."hey, JB, did you know we have a redneck working here, and he is disrupting and bothering the rest of us while we work" ?... JB answers "well, if it is bothering my workers, I'll fire him"

and you people wonder why GLAAD is like that?

Are you saying that all folks that really don't care for the gay lifestyle are "peckerwoods".

Hay but some back woods white guy is the perfect face for the new PC homophobe and race thingy! Even though it was moneid white educated and business men that created the southern slave culture. No wonder "peckerwoods" are the way they are.

How would gays like it if the poster boy for gay, say like....fill in your own blank.... were replaced with some tattooed man raping convict from cell block "C"? Someone called "Daddy Packer" or "Mr. Tuff Love"?

reply to post by darkbake


lol... perhaps you should re-read my post. I said the exact same thing you did using different words.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Sorry that came across wrong! I think I was seconding / agreeing with your post. It was a good post. I starred it.

The freedom of speech issue scares me. It has the potential to make having a job or even existing in society a social land mine, and by no means is this lack of freedom guaranteed to make any sense or favor one side or the other. I don't want to spend the rest of my life living in fear.

I give kudos to Buster for expressing his free speech on ATS. Beezer never specified which views mods would be banning users for having.

reply to post by darkbake


lol... yeah, that came across like you were going up one side of me and down the other...

we all have a tendency to be misunderstood and to misunderstand sometimes... in this case, it was my misunderstanding! Sorry for that!

I agree with you, freedom of speech is a scarey road, especially like you said, when it can mean your job because of something you tweeted or said on facebook!

maus80

This is argument based on assumption, which I dislike. I never said he should be punished. I do believe Termination Rights in legal contracts are just. I also believe you should be allowed to fire someone because you don't like their new haircut, if that's what you want. If anything I am for MORE freedom than law currently allows.

daskakik
reply to post by beezzer

 

I'm not moving goal posts. I'm reminding you that T&C are common in private contracts and that this creates a grey area where you claim one doesn't exist.

Contracts eh?

That's not what people were saying when the issue was about Snowden.

ATS: Snowden is the poster child for an UnEthical Generation

Ten pages of people arguing against the sanctity of the contracts that he had signed.

Two people have sited contract as the exception to free speech, both users multiple times.






Does that mean that Snowden really is a criminal after all?

Mike Grouchy

reply to post by OpinionatedB


No dude it's cool! I think I was frustrated because of this issue (the same thing your were frustrated with) and it came out in that post ! This issue is one that I have trouble being tactful with. Glad you said something.

OpinionatedB
I agree with you, freedom of speech is a scarey road, especially like you said, when it can mean your job because of something you tweeted or said on facebook!

edit on 22-12-2013 by OpinionatedB because: (no reason given)

Yeah! Because social media is basically required for socialization these days, it is totally scary - you could even be tweeting or Facebooking from your living room -

In the past, when people actually did get together and talked in person, this would be less scary - but the way things are set up today...

I am not joking about this. In Idaho, a female teacher was fired because she had a picture of herself and her boyfriend on Facebook - and the boyfriend's hand happened to be touching her breast (which was in a swim suit) while they were hugging. The male coach was not fired -

Huffington Post Link



That's the photo that the female teacher was fired for! This is how arbitrary taking away free speech is. It is dangerous. I just moved from Idaho because of things like this happening over there - you really have to watch what you say on Facebook in that state -

Buster could be fired from his job, and I'm not joking, if he lived in Idaho and wrote his opinions on Facebook. And I support Buster's opinions. On A.T.S. we have the benefit of anonymity - for now - but there are pushes out there to take away anonymity on the net.

If that happened, every one of us on A.T.S. would suffer, every last one of us.

This is the kind of society we live in, and this is the kind of society I do not support - it is WAY too scary.

beezzer

maus80

beezzer
reply to post by maus80

 

So do don't believe in free speech. You just believe in speech that coincides with your ideology?

I believe in free speech, as protected by the constitution. Meaning I believe nobody should be prosecuted by government for what they say. What private content owners do and do not allow is totally up to them though, as is what they do with that content - I believe equally that these rights should be protected.

Yet you feel that Phil Robertson should be punished by expressing his free speech.

If the KKK had been on some tv show about woodpeckers, and one of them had said that Black people should be thrown on the bonfire, and he got sacked, would this be something you complain about?

His opinion, right?

Yet strangely, this is acceptable.

No one arrested this twat for what he said, he just got the boot from something I'd never even heard of before it all, and could not care less about. His opinion is freely expressed by idiots every day. He is not facing legal action. No one is taking his ability to live free away. No one, GOD forbid, is attacking him for his sexuality.. He has learnt that having an ignorant opinion and expressing it in public, is going to result in public consequences.

Why don't we just give fred niles a tv show and force everyone to watch it. I mean, the outrage must be insufferable to people who think you can walk around being ignorant without someone going "STFU you idiot."

I really must write a new set of greasemonkey scripts.

Logarock

jimmyx
you people on the right do realize that there are many states in this country, where you can legally get fired from your job if you are gay? it's actually held up in state courts....you people on the right do realize that there are gays still being beat up, and sometimes killed because they are gay?....how about if we did that to all rednecks?..."hey, JB, did you know we have a redneck working here, and he is disrupting and bothering the rest of us while we work" ?... JB answers "well, if it is bothering my workers, I'll fire him"

and you people wonder why GLAAD is like that?

Are you saying that all folks that really don't care for the gay lifestyle are "peckerwoods".

Hay but some back woods white guy is the perfect face for the new PC homophobe and race thingy! Even though it was moneid white educated and business men that created the southern slave culture. No wonder "peckerwoods" are the way they are.

How would gays like it if the poster boy for gay, say like....fill in your own blank.... were replaced with some tattooed man raping convict from cell block "C"? Someone called "Daddy Packer" or "Mr. Tuff Love"?

geez...I haven't heard that term used in 45 years...back in high school... I really don't know what you are trying to say?.....look, if you don't like gay people, that's your right.....but let's get something straight about the duck dynasty guys....they are not exactly living on some floating hut out in the middle of the bayou....I saw one of them has a really nice home, a lot bigger and more expensive than the one I live in....it's not like they have to go out and hunt for food because they are starving....and I'm sure their bank accounts are pretty well stocked, too.

BO XIAN
reply to post by buster2010

 

You are one of the most hateful writers on ATS against my values and perspective.

Buster and I are rarely in agreement. That said, I have a great deal of respect for the way he presents his view of any given topic. Another thing I respect about the guy is he doesn't 'argue' with the masses (and that can be frustrating if you're trying to troll him a little).

Today, I agree with him technically. I would have worded the follow-up sentence thusly: In America you cannot use *speech to spread an ideology of hate and/or racism*. ATS agrees with him (or vice versa) (The END of Hate Speech). But, I agree with Beez ideologically.

So ... the proper answer to the question in the title of this thread is: No!! Everyone knows that ... those who can't own up to it are just asleep with a PC mindset. Freedom of speech isn't a right. Freedom of speech is about freedom. You might have to kill for it ... and you may well die doing it. Being banned from this site could be a metaphor for dying. Sneaking back on-board with a new alias ... a metaphor for resurrection.

And don't ask me to defend anyone's right to free speech. That's someone else's problem now. I'm retired!

reply to post by darkbake


For me, I have always been more torn on the issue. When freedom of speech was allowed in this country, its intent was freedom of political speech, the freedom to openly question and criticize government.

We as a nation have gotten away with that intent, now, criticizing government is what is being curtailed in many cases and everything else is wide open.

As a person, I am against extremists having websites for the sole purpose of recruiting others into their fold. These people are VERY dangerous and they trap the weaker minded into their particular web. I would LOVE to see these types of websites shut down.

At the same time, joe blow loosing his job because he doesn't agree with gay marriage and said something on facebook about his views is more than just a little ignorant, people have to be whoever they are, and your views should not matter, its how you do your job, not what views you hold on things that do not even pertain to your job.

Like I said, to me, there are repercussions to both sides, when you allow total freedom of speech then you have to put up with the crazy's recruiting ignorant people and growing as a result, but when you curtail it, it seems the lines that get drawn are never the right lines, in the right places...

reply to post by beezzer


Oh yes, the whining cowards when the other side have to run to the mods and cry. This usually happens when they realize other side is actually correct and that just kills them so they have to eliminate the evidence they do that by reporting it to the mods.

reply to post by beezzer


This is dumb.

Reducing the argument to a binary answer is not how the world works. Never has and never will.

Unless there are only 2 people living in it.

sigh

reply to post by Snarl


Free speech is a right, sir, it was written in the Bill of Rights - in multiple places - I believe that the etymology of the words go against your argument -

But here.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[69]

That one specifies free speech, freedom of press, and freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The establishment of religion clause is fairly contested.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[69]

This is the fourth amendment - and there are a lot of violations of that going on due to people's personal affects being online, and a lot of people's conversations being through networks because of a change in social norms - in affect, there needs to be some radical reforms done to ensure the same freedoms we are guaranteed in the constitution of the United States.

This is definitely relevant to the O.P., because personal conversations that would normally be guaranteed under the law have the potential to have someone get fired or face repercussions in a very totalitarian manner.

reply to post by darkbake

You think words on paper 'give' you rights?

reply to post by beezzer


Television networks make their money by selling time to advertisers. If the network alienates consumers, they may boycott the advertisers' products, and the advertisers will no longer purchase air time from the networks. This is a fact of life in the capitalist system. All network employees, even redneck actors, understand this. If anyone who works for the network does anything to alienate consumers, they can and will be terminated. Is that fair? Absolutely. The whole premise behind "free speech" is that people will accept responsibility for what they say. If you know something will get you terminated, but you do it anyway, you are free to do so. Your employer is also free to fire you, as you knew that would be the consequence.