Bullshitting

Bill Maher New Rule: "Don't Bite Your Gold Medal! You're in China, you'll get lead poisoning."

is he still alive?  i thought no one paid any attention to that moron anymore?

Are you kidding? After ABC fired him for calling Bush a moron, HBO gave him his own show and said, "say whatever the fuck you want." And he does. I love it. Don't always agree, but "real Time with Bill Maher" is a fantastic show. It's an uncencored version of "Politically Inncorrect". He has a guest panel, which could consist of anyone, (red, blue or pink) and they debate shit. Craig Ferguson was on the other night. That scot is a funny motherfucker, especially when he doesn't have to care about the Fuckfaces of Cencoring Commonsense (aka FCC).

I' all about zero censorship and freedom of speech. I don't care who you are, or what bullshit you have to say, you are allowed to say it. period.

I' all about zero censorship and freedom of speech. I don't care who you are, or what bullshit you have to say, you are allowed to say it. period.

even when it comes to child porn?

I said "freedom of SPEECH". You wanna talk about child porn and how it makes your panties tingle all day long, go ahead. I don't wanna listen. I think that is sick shit. I'll walk away. You take action, victimize a child, take pictures or even actively try to find or buy some, that is a completely different story.

You gonna get rusty recently used fish hooks through the scrotum.




A black or latino comic can get up on a stage and talk shit and all sorts of slanderous things about white people all night long *coughchrisrockandgeorgelopezcough*, and its grade A comedy. A white guy tells a black joke, he has to lower his voice and be surrounded by close friends only, otherwise its racism. Truth is, its ALL racism. Political Correctness might have been a good thing as a transiition in the first half of this century, but its gotten off key, become imbalanced, and is a mockery. Basically if you're a white male you can't say shit about anyone, but everyone is allowed to talk shit about you.

The other half of censorship is an archaic judeo-christian fear of boobs.



Does any of this make sense?

The other half of censorship is an archaic judeo-christian fear of boobs.

And other female body parts like that ass!

Suprisingly (or not, depending how you look at it) the FCC seems to be the least critical of the ass (maybe because its the fact that both pump out a ton of shit). But turn the female body around in the lower equator there, and you'll give those fucks a massive heart attack and a stroke at the same time. (they'd probably get a boner too, but would deny it even at the gates of hell)

I said "freedom of SPEECH". You wanna talk about child porn and how it makes your panties tingle all day long, go ahead. I don't wanna listen. I think that is sick shit. I'll walk away. You take action, victimize a child, take pictures or even actively try to find or buy some, that is a completely different story.

You gonna get rusty recently used fish hooks through the scrotum.

hey, i was just asking questions.  i would appreciate it if you would refrain from intimating about what gets my "panties [to] tingle."

everyone is in favor of "freedom of speech."  it would be a rare thing to legitimately opposed to free speech as a concept, at least in this country.  that not where the fight comes in.  its in the fact that everyone out there has different idea of what exactly comprises speech and what doesn't, and if it is speech, then how exactly "free" it should be.

there are lots of limits on free speech that no one complains about.  if i meet a biker dude in bar late one night, and offer to pay him $4,000 to kill someone for me, then all i have done was spoken a few words.  is that free speech?  is it speech that shouldn't be covered under free speech or is it not "speech" at all?

or what about the classic example of yelling "FIRE!!!!" in a crowded movie theater.  hardly anyone would argue that this is and should be illegal. is this free speech?

or what about copyright infringement?  can someone hide behind freedom of speech to disseminate copyrighted material?

then what about pornography?  is pornography speech?  should it be covered under free speech?  and if it is, where does the differentiation for child pornography come in?

i will actually inject a few of my own views in here.  i, too, am a huge supporter of freedom of speech.  but i also recognize that absolute freedom of speech is absurd.  there are a few areas where it simple does not make any fucking sense.

the first example of speech up is the hiring a hitman.  i would argue that there is no content worth protecting in a situation where the speech itself is a crime.  i see no sense in protecting murderers and the like.  that one is fairly straightforward.

the second mentioned is the yelling of "FIRE!!" in a crowded movie theater.  now i tend to agree with the supreme court on this one.  any speech that causes imminent danger of harm can safely be ruled out of free speech.  yelling fire would tend to make everyone try to stampede out of the theater, posing a real danger to human life.  fair enough to make it illegal.

then there is copyrighted material.  this one is a little harder.  if there were no copyright laws in place, there would be no incentive to produce works, because as soon as you published it, everyone else would copy it, and you would not make it profit.  the theory goes that we need to reward writers for the fruits of their labors.  that seems fair to me.

then there is pornography.  i tend to see this both as speech and as speech worth protecting.  consenting adults, no one should have any right to get in the middle of that.  with regards to child porn though that is a different area.  the idea is this.  the state had a compelling public interest in protecting children.  this would include preventing them from being the star of a porno movie.  with child porn, the concept is that making it is clearing illegal (all states have laws against raping kids), but the government has an interest in making it even less desirable to make child porn by making it illegal to buy or sell it, in hopes that someone who is thinking about making a kiddie porn movie would be discouraged from doing so in facing the difficulty in marketing his product.

where this breaks down though is with the invention of the intertubes.  there are alot of folks out there that have child porn on their computers but haven't bought or sold any of it.  it was saved off of websites like 4chan or downloaded off of a file sharing program.  this exists outside of the "market" and as such the government's justification for governing it breaks down a little.  you could postulate that by making it legal to own but illegal to buy would be next to impossible to enforce because then prosecutors would have to prove that someone purchased the child porn, which would be next to impossible.  so i kind of understand and agree with it being illegal.

i guess the point i was making was that most folks love to talk about freedom of speech and how much they love it, but if you really get into talking to them about it, nearly everyone will have a different definition of what should be covered.

they didn't put freedom of speech in there for apple pie, chevrolet, and mothers.  those things are popular.  popular speech doesn't need protecting.  unpopular speech is the important one to protect.

and fuck the FCC.

I more or less agree w/ Dave on this.  There are all kind of little caveats for specific things.  We were actually talking about this the other night.

How artistic should a picture of a naked child be before it is no longer considered pornography?  What if I collect pictures of a child's face as they are being raped, only from the neck up, and come up w/ some crazy art student logic saying it should be protected as "art?"  If it is "art"  to me, is it "art" to everyone else?  What about a hand drawn picture of a nude teen?  There are all kinds of little mini arguments that can't really be covered under the umbrella of "freedom of speech vs. censorship."

Shit. I wrote this huge fucking post and some how deleted it., mostly agreeing and defining what I was meaning and talking of the  crucisfixion of individuals for saying certain opinions at certain times, when often the persicuters do the same. In areas of pornography, well thats not speech at all. Its action. The act of the video/photography, as well of the actions captured on film. "Expression" through action is not speech. Consenting adults is nothing to fret on. Don't like it, don't watch it. But children, that falls into predatory and pedefilia. 

I'm not rewriting it.

Shit. I wrote this huge fucking post and some how deleted it., mostly agreeing and defining what I was meaning and talking of the  crucisfixion of individuals for saying certain opinions at certain times, when often the persicuters do the same. In areas of pornography, well thats not speech at all. Its action. The act of the video/photography, as well of the actions captured on film. "Expression" through action is not speech. Consenting adults is nothing to fret on. Don't like it, don't watch it. But children, that falls into predatory and pedefilia. 

I'm not rewriting it.

i understand.  i hate when that happens.

but i do have to disagree.  for "freedom of speech" to have any real meaning, i would have to argue that expression via action is still speech.  what about people that speak sign language?  could the government regulate what they say under your definition of speech?  what about flag burning?  that is clearly intended to express something?  should that be covered?

sign language is a form of speech. its a language unto itself. no where is it stated "speech" must be spoken. As for flag burning, well, congress has clearly defined THAT one for us here a few years back...


I'm not saying action isn't expression. It most definately is. And actions should be protected to a degree in the form of expression. In areas where no one is harmed (except for maybe their tightass sense of what is "proper"). Flag burning would fall into this catagory. I'm really pissed at this law. It's the slow dissolving of the bill of rights and the growing power of big brother.
But child porn obviously causes harm to the child, emotionally as well as physically. Regular porn only causes harm to bible thumpers blood pressure.




Oh, but don't start in on the "will someone think of the children???" argument with things like gratuitus violence and sex. It's not my fault you don't like it and yet give your child access to it and then freak out when you catch your kid wacking off to it. That's such a bullshit argument.

Flag burning would fall into this catagory. I'm really pissed at this law. It's the slow dissolving of the bill of rights and the growing power of big brother.

i think you are a little misinformed on this point.  flag burning (or flag desecration, if you will) is actually protected speech under the first amendment according to Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson

there was some rumblings of a constitutional amendment to change this, but cooler, leveler heads prevailed, and that never came to be.

if your country is really worth fighting for, it can weather a flag burning by some hippie college student who listens to too much rage against the machine.

*edited for grammar*

Most of the flags worth burning are illegal to burn.