I'm sorry I don't take kindly to ridiculous condescension when I've actually put thought into a balanced argument which tries to take into account multiple perspectives and stays away from blanket statements in favor of analyzing situations as they come. And I especially don't like it if I get ad-hom'd ridiculously for no fucking reason, by someone whom I frequently defend from accusations of excessive ad-homming, no less. What a slap in the face.
What is this, kindergarten? I don't care who took who's spot on the swing, just shut the fuck up about it.
And to get on topic, I'm with AngelHedgie, and I think the fact that Drez is from New York is giving him a bias in this conversation. I mean, I guess I have a bias, too, but fuck that I'm always right.
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CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
Actually, the response stems more from a "I'm tired of cat getting away with bullshit" perspective on my part, the whole "people who live in a glass house should not throw stones" thing.
Alot of America, especially middle America and the South is still quite racist, and we have quite the history of racism in the country as a whole. Not much I can do about it, and I'm not really being defensive about it. Just tired of the Cat's crap.
I know perfectly well aboriginals are treated terribly here. However, it has nothing to do with the thread, so fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
What is this, kindergarten? I don't care who took who's spot on the swing, just shut the fuck up about it.
And to get on topic, I'm with AngelHedgie, and I think the fact that Drez is from New York is giving him a bias in this conversation. I mean, I guess I have a bias, too, but fuck that I'm always right.
I know perfectly well aboriginals are treated terribly here. However, it has nothing to do with the thread, so fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
As long as you fuck the horse you rode in on first. This thread's opening post was obviously more about censorship versus freedom of speech and expression and how racism pertains to those two subjects, and where the line should be drawn between the two. Of course, he kind of omitted the part about the law specifically mentioning using the noose to threaten and harass, which puts the law beyond the scope of something like Sam and Max.
But you and your horse couldn't help but jump in and make an America America olol post.
But, I digress, this is off topic, so I'll bugger off with this line of conversation.
What is this, kindergarten? I don't care who took who's spot on the swing, just shut the fuck up about it.
And to get on topic, I'm with AngelHedgie, and I think the fact that Drez is from New York is giving him a bias in this conversation. I mean, I guess I have a bias, too, but fuck that I'm always right.
AngelHedgie and I agree that racism is more "blatant" in the South.
We simply disagree on whether blatant racism is more racist than subtle racism. I argue that it is more racist to adopt a very obvious anti-black culture and I do not think it is equivalent to any other situation where "minorities get screwed" though I agree there is a problem in any area where the latter occurs.
There's really nothing more for me to say on this subject. And this whole thing is retardedly off-track now considering the original post is about a law against drawing nooses to threaten people. But then again that happens when certain people have no clue about the subject but feel like throwing their irrelevant moral bullshit into an argument anyway.
I'm just wondering when/if Cat will address my posts at all.
I'm ignoring your little diatribe because "lol my friends tell jokes without getting offended" isn't an argument, and you strawmanning me as some sort of coddle-the-natives type isn't either. I'll be back when you've got something relevant to say.
But your position is pretty fucking ridiculous, at least how you portrayed it, and you've probably thrown around a strawman or two at your opponents. The long and short of this issue is that context and intent matter, but you are implying that using the noose as a symbol means that you are specifically using it as a symbol of racial lynchings, even though that is only one of a selection of contexts of the noose in the American public mind.
For me, the wild west connotations of the noose are more prominent than the black lynching connotations, most likely due to me living my entire life on the West coast and very rarely being exposed to overt racism like that except conceptually in the abstract. Using these other contexts for the noose, like with Halloween, is perfectly valid and it is quite a stretch to treat that as a threat for the black lynching context. However, when you say stupid things about blackface when people consider using the noose in other contexts, do you honestly expect people not to call that bullshit for what it is? *cough*You must be new here*cough*
There are two sides of the context matter: the creator and the viewer. This creates problems, because the viewer can consider the context to be threatening or intimidating when the creator did not. It's absurd, especially in legal matters, to weigh too heavily on the side of the viewer by ignoring the intentions of the creator or context or ambiguity, which the way the Cat seems to be leaning. For example, prohibiting _all_ symbolic usage of the noose that could potentially construed as offensive or threatening regardless of intent is very much contrary to free speech. You get stupid shit like the Boston "hoax devices" when you go too far down that road.
However, according to what's been said here the law in question seems to take into account whether the symbol is intended as a threat, and threats aren't protected speech. So, much ado about nothing?
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited October 2007
The problem with putting a qualifier in there about intent is that intent is very hard to determine in a lot of cases...its the problem of trying to define something subjective using objective terms...and I think there is ample historic evidence that the word of law does not do well in that kind of situation.
The problem with putting a qualifier in there about intent is that intent is very hard to determine in a lot of cases...its the problem of trying to define something subjective using objective terms...and I think there is ample historic evidence that the word of law does not do well in that kind of situation.
There's definitely gray area, especially when people can easily be ignorant of some of the connotations of their actions or simply be stupid or crazy. That's why there needs to be a consideration of the contributing factors and not simply the viewpoint or word of a specific side in such a conflict.
For example, say a person puts a noose in a tree, and there is doubt over their intentions, although it is clear there was no actual lynching that would take place. The benefit of the doubt depends heavily on the context and the surroundings. If it is in a place with high racial tension or a history of lynchings, then they will have much less benefit of the doubt than if it was in the middle of nowhere or in a place having a western festival.
I'd be more worried about such a noose being the threat of someone just getting their ass killed rather than racism if there was little to no reason to believe it was a racial threat. The hate crime component is that it is meant to terrorize a whole group, but a threatening noose doesn't necessarily imply that.
The problem with putting a qualifier in there about intent is that intent is very hard to determine in a lot of cases...its the problem of trying to define something subjective using objective terms...and I think there is ample historic evidence that the word of law does not do well in that kind of situation.
Look, it's easy to slam the courts for making stupid decisions. But there's an appeals process for when that happens, and for the most part the occurence of those stupid decisions are overblown. Judges are elected officials, and they try to make the best decisions possible the overwhelming amount of the time. I really have no problem trusting them and law enforcement with proper enforcement of this law.
The problem with putting a qualifier in there about intent is that intent is very hard to determine in a lot of cases...its the problem of trying to define something subjective using objective terms...and I think there is ample historic evidence that the word of law does not do well in that kind of situation.
Look, it's easy to slam the courts for making stupid decisions. But there's an appeals process for when that happens, and for the most part the occurence of those stupid decisions are overblown. Judges are elected officials, and they try to make the best decisions possible the overwhelming amount of the time. I really have no problem trusting them and law enforcement with proper enforcement of this law.
Yes, the appeals process happens quickly enough for the original conviction not to fuck up your life at all, too. This law in particular is a different matter in that I don't see it ever really amounting to anything except a way for people to say "See? There's no nooses in trees so there's obviously less racism now!". If there is a problem that the existing laws about directly threatening people with symbols aren't handling, those laws should be adjusted. For starters naming specific symbols only really forces people to switch symbols. Beyond that, placing it under hate-legislation gives it the power to be used to claim progress has been made to solve a problem when in fact it only hides it. See antidiscrimination employment laws, which have successfully forced companies to list their reason for failing to promote/firing someone for being black/gay/Jewish/a woman as something innoccuous and unprovable like "poor work-performance" or "insubordination".
And then if the same someone does get promoted they get to come into work every day to a bunch of coworkers who are convinced they didn't deserve that promotion and only got it because of affirmative action. I mean I can't really say from experience, but that doesn't seem like it makes people's lives any better nor like it actually promotes equality in practice. As I said before I think hiding problems makes them a lot less likely to be solved, and I don't buy the claim that a legislated ban constitutes societal rejection by itself. As far as I've seen the only real ways to effectively lessen hate-crimes in particular and violent crime in general is by improving quality and quantity of education. Which takes, like, 20 years to show results, but at least it actually shows results instead of simply pushing the problem into the shadows where we can't see how big it's getting. But in the end I don't think most social problems can be solved by the government. Only the people can change the people.
So, to sum up the oncoming straw-men, no I don't think it should be legal to threaten black people with nooses, no I don't think threatening people's lives constitutes protected expression, no I don't think this law has anything to do with Sam and Max, no I don't think people are going to be going to jail for Halloween decorations under this law, no I'm not just trying to make excuses for autistic forum-nerds, no I'm not worming around anything, and no I don't think the solution is to just ignore the problem.
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
I'm not even sure what distinction you are making. I said "laws". This particular law would be part of that subset.
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
I'm not even sure what distinction you are making. I said "laws". This particular law would be part of that subset.
The distinction between trying and doing. And in making that distinction I'm generously assuming that the law really is trying to help instead of trying to get someone re-elected.
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
I'm not even sure what distinction you are making. I said "laws". This particular law would be part of that subset.
The distinction between trying and doing. And in making that distinction I'm generously assuming that the law really is trying to help instead of trying to get someone re-elected.
Are we going down the retarded road of insisting that laws against murder do not prevent murder then? Because if we are I'll just write you off now and not waste time.
The point is that the appeals process sets a precedent that guides all further judgements.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
I'm not even sure what distinction you are making. I said "laws". This particular law would be part of that subset.
The distinction between trying and doing. And in making that distinction I'm generously assuming that the law really is trying to help instead of trying to get someone re-elected.
Are we going down the retarded road of insisting that laws against murder do not prevent murder then? Because if we are I'll just write you off now and not waste time.
In order to be going down that road I would have to have said that there should be no legislation against using symbols to threaten people. Instead I said this approach to legislating against such in practice only makes shit worse. It's feel-good legislation that gets people re-elected or elected into a higher office and lets unaffected people pretend the problem is all gone. The proponents of this law are running all over the thread shouting how stupid all us autistic white nerds are for not seeing the kind of terrible shit that people do in the name of bigotry and that if they only did they'd clearly support this sort of sweeping it under the rug response. If the problem is that people don't know the problem is there, why would the best solution be to impose legislation that accomplishes absolutely nothing except to cover the shit up more thoroughly?
Yeah, because people are so attentive to the problem whether this law passes or not.
Get real. The marginal benefit in deterence and prosecution this provides far outweighs the marginal negative in people assuming everything is fine just because of this law.
Yeah, because people are so attentive to the problem whether this law passes or not.
Get real. The marginal benefit in deterence and prosecution this provides far outweighs the marginal negative in people assuming everything is fine just because of this law.
If the judges are incompetent, then the problem would be a lot bigger than the implementation of just this law.
They are and it is, and honestly I see it being much less of a problem with this law than with many existing laws.
So how do you propose stopping people from hanging nooses as a threat? Asking them nicely? Buying up all the nooses? Obviously it's not the most perfect solution, but it's far and away the most effective solution we have.
If the judges are incompetent, then the problem would be a lot bigger than the implementation of just this law.
They are and it is, and honestly I see it being much less of a problem with this law than with many existing laws.
So how do you propose stopping people from hanging nooses as a threat? Asking them nicely? Buying up all the nooses? Obviously it's not the most perfect solution, but it's far and away the most effective solution we have.
By outlawing "threats"? I mean, I find it kind of silly to ban nooses-as-threats in specific.
Mind you, I wouldn't agree that we should ban "threats" outright, either. Should "I'm going to kill you" be prohibited speech, for instance? I'd suggest no.
If the judges are incompetent, then the problem would be a lot bigger than the implementation of just this law.
They are and it is, and honestly I see it being much less of a problem with this law than with many existing laws.
So how do you propose stopping people from hanging nooses as a threat? Asking them nicely? Buying up all the nooses? Obviously it's not the most perfect solution, but it's far and away the most effective solution we have.
Yeah, I haven't already responded to that, and I can totally see how something that's neither effective nor a solution could possibly be the most effective solution available.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
edited October 2007
I'm assuming that in eight pages, someone has publicly wondered why we need a law against a particular form of visual harrassment and intimidation rather than a law which simply says, "Hey, don't fucking mark up public property with shit designed to threaten and harrass"?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I'm assuming that in eight pages, someone has publicly wondered why we need a law against a particular form of visual harrassment and intimidation rather than a law which simply says, "Hey, don't fucking mark up public property with shit designed to threaten and harrass"?
Yes. Many someones. The answer is "oh shut up we already had a hate-crime thread".
I'm assuming that in eight pages, someone has publicly wondered why we need a law against a particular form of visual harrassment and intimidation rather than a law which simply says, "Hey, don't fucking mark up public property with shit designed to threaten and harrass"?
Yes. Many someones. The answer is "oh shut up we already had a hate-crime thread".
Specificity (hell, even redundancy) is hardly a bad thing in the context of criminal law. The crime charged should match the misdeed as closely as possible. We have laws against manslaughter, but we also have laws against manslaughter that is a result of dangerous driving. More possible charges gives more prosecutorial discretion, and allows the punishment to suit the crime (which, with regards to the argument earlier in the thread, is one of the fundamental tenants of our legal system).
The real question is - are racially-motivated threats a distinct social problem from non-racially-motivated threats? I think it's a pretty tenable argument to say that they are.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited October 2007
It all comes down to the simple argument, that I think holds a great deal of truth.
You can't completely stop anti-social behaviour by outlawing it. The only way to completely stop it is to educate people about it. And some people are just too stupid to educate in that way.
Its harsh, but some people are not malicious, nor evil, nor are they the product of a bad upbringing or lack of life opportunities.
It all comes down to the simple argument, that I think holds a great deal of truth.
You can't completely stop anti-social behaviour by outlawing it. The only way to completely stop it is to educate people about it. And some people are just too stupid to educate in that way.
Its harsh, but some people are not malicious, nor evil, nor are they the product of a bad upbringing or lack of life opportunities.
They're just fucking dumb.
EDIT: Also, judges are elected officials now?
Can someone define "anti-social" please? People keep throwing the term around. Isn't, you know, choosing to stay home and play videogames instead of going to a bar technically "anti-social" behavior?
Racism and anti-social attitudes/behavior may be related but are not interchangeable terms. People have every right to be anti-social.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited October 2007
This is anti-social in the legal sense, i.e., acting against society. Not anti-social as in "I don't feel like going to the mall today."
This is anti-social in the legal sense, i.e., acting against society. Not anti-social as in "I don't feel like going to the mall today."
Okay, and as I requested can someone please define that for me? Or at least point to a source that defines it?
In other words, I'm looking for the legal criteria for "anti-social" behavior.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited October 2007
Well, what do you want? It's commonly understood to mean recklessness, disregard for other people's health or property, et cetera - in other words, it's the larger umbrella under which criminal behavior falls, but also includes dickery, assholishness, and chodeitude. There's an anti-social personality disorder defined in the DSM-IV whose symptoms are listed thusly:
Common characteristics of people with antisocial personality disorder include:
* Persistent lying or stealing
* Recurring difficulties with the law
* Tendency to violate the rights of others (property, physical, sexual, emotional, legal)
* Substance abuse
* Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights
* A persistent agitated or depressed feeling (dysphoria)
* Inability to tolerate boredom
* Disregard for the safety of self or others
* A childhood diagnosis of conduct disorders
* Lack of remorse for hurting others
* Superficial charm
* Impulsiveness
* A sense of extreme entitlement
* Inability to make or keep friends
* Lack of guilt
* Recklessness, impulsivity[6][4]
In England the judges are empowered to issue ASBOs, meant to curb behaviors that may or may not be illegal but are considered detrimental to the community - gang signs, littering and graffiti, rude speech, and so on. Which I think is pretty extreme, legally speaking, but even so it doesn't touch on the sort of thing you were talking about - staying inside and playing video games or whatever - which, anyway, would be more properly called anti-socialization.
I'm maybe nitpicking here, but that list you posted isn't nearly as good as the actual list on the A-S disorder wiki page. I'd qualify as having the disorder by the list you posted, but not nearly by the list on wiki, much in the same way as a person who has one drink every three days while at home alone in the evenings qualifies as a full-blown alcoholic by some AA websites' criteria.
Of particular concern is the lack of emphasis on the person in question having to meet more than one of those criteria. I mean, Nelson Mandela would qualify as having it if criteria 2 was used in isolation.
t drez: maybe we need an extra word here. nega-social?
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited October 2007
Eh. I got the feeling Drez was wanting clarification as a lead-up to worrying that being a shy nerd is next on the block to be criminalized, so I just threw down the link to show that the term "anti-social" is used in ways other than what he was talking about.
Also, huh? That list was on the wiki, at least when I looked at it.
The list on the page I'm looking at is like half the length, much more specific, and the page specifies that at least three of the items have to be met. It paints an overall picture of a much more dysfunctional individual.
EDIT: look further up the page to the actual diagnostic criteria. I think that symptoms list might be left over from an older edit, it should probably be removed.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
The list on the page I'm looking at is like half the length, much more specific, and the page specifies that at least three of the items have to be met. It paints an overall picture of a much more dysfunctional individual.
Oh wait, I get it. Scroll down a ways and they also have the one I posted. My eye was drawn by the bullet-points.
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lol catfight get it
I'm sorry I don't take kindly to ridiculous condescension when I've actually put thought into a balanced argument which tries to take into account multiple perspectives and stays away from blanket statements in favor of analyzing situations as they come. And I especially don't like it if I get ad-hom'd ridiculously for no fucking reason, by someone whom I frequently defend from accusations of excessive ad-homming, no less. What a slap in the face.
And to get on topic, I'm with AngelHedgie, and I think the fact that Drez is from New York is giving him a bias in this conversation. I mean, I guess I have a bias, too, but fuck that I'm always right.
Yeah, because clearly racism only exists within the confines of America. Racism will be rampant, everywhere, always.
Is that legal in Australia?
Yeah yeah, I'll take it to PMs or something.
As long as you fuck the horse you rode in on first. This thread's opening post was obviously more about censorship versus freedom of speech and expression and how racism pertains to those two subjects, and where the line should be drawn between the two. Of course, he kind of omitted the part about the law specifically mentioning using the noose to threaten and harass, which puts the law beyond the scope of something like Sam and Max.
But you and your horse couldn't help but jump in and make an America America olol post.
But, I digress, this is off topic, so I'll bugger off with this line of conversation.
AngelHedgie and I agree that racism is more "blatant" in the South.
We simply disagree on whether blatant racism is more racist than subtle racism. I argue that it is more racist to adopt a very obvious anti-black culture and I do not think it is equivalent to any other situation where "minorities get screwed" though I agree there is a problem in any area where the latter occurs.
There's really nothing more for me to say on this subject. And this whole thing is retardedly off-track now considering the original post is about a law against drawing nooses to threaten people. But then again that happens when certain people have no clue about the subject but feel like throwing their irrelevant moral bullshit into an argument anyway.
But your position is pretty fucking ridiculous, at least how you portrayed it, and you've probably thrown around a strawman or two at your opponents. The long and short of this issue is that context and intent matter, but you are implying that using the noose as a symbol means that you are specifically using it as a symbol of racial lynchings, even though that is only one of a selection of contexts of the noose in the American public mind.
For me, the wild west connotations of the noose are more prominent than the black lynching connotations, most likely due to me living my entire life on the West coast and very rarely being exposed to overt racism like that except conceptually in the abstract. Using these other contexts for the noose, like with Halloween, is perfectly valid and it is quite a stretch to treat that as a threat for the black lynching context. However, when you say stupid things about blackface when people consider using the noose in other contexts, do you honestly expect people not to call that bullshit for what it is? *cough*You must be new here*cough*
There are two sides of the context matter: the creator and the viewer. This creates problems, because the viewer can consider the context to be threatening or intimidating when the creator did not. It's absurd, especially in legal matters, to weigh too heavily on the side of the viewer by ignoring the intentions of the creator or context or ambiguity, which the way the Cat seems to be leaning. For example, prohibiting _all_ symbolic usage of the noose that could potentially construed as offensive or threatening regardless of intent is very much contrary to free speech. You get stupid shit like the Boston "hoax devices" when you go too far down that road.
However, according to what's been said here the law in question seems to take into account whether the symbol is intended as a threat, and threats aren't protected speech. So, much ado about nothing?
There's definitely gray area, especially when people can easily be ignorant of some of the connotations of their actions or simply be stupid or crazy. That's why there needs to be a consideration of the contributing factors and not simply the viewpoint or word of a specific side in such a conflict.
For example, say a person puts a noose in a tree, and there is doubt over their intentions, although it is clear there was no actual lynching that would take place. The benefit of the doubt depends heavily on the context and the surroundings. If it is in a place with high racial tension or a history of lynchings, then they will have much less benefit of the doubt than if it was in the middle of nowhere or in a place having a western festival.
I'd be more worried about such a noose being the threat of someone just getting their ass killed rather than racism if there was little to no reason to believe it was a racial threat. The hate crime component is that it is meant to terrorize a whole group, but a threatening noose doesn't necessarily imply that.
Look, it's easy to slam the courts for making stupid decisions. But there's an appeals process for when that happens, and for the most part the occurence of those stupid decisions are overblown. Judges are elected officials, and they try to make the best decisions possible the overwhelming amount of the time. I really have no problem trusting them and law enforcement with proper enforcement of this law.
Yes, the appeals process happens quickly enough for the original conviction not to fuck up your life at all, too. This law in particular is a different matter in that I don't see it ever really amounting to anything except a way for people to say "See? There's no nooses in trees so there's obviously less racism now!". If there is a problem that the existing laws about directly threatening people with symbols aren't handling, those laws should be adjusted. For starters naming specific symbols only really forces people to switch symbols. Beyond that, placing it under hate-legislation gives it the power to be used to claim progress has been made to solve a problem when in fact it only hides it. See antidiscrimination employment laws, which have successfully forced companies to list their reason for failing to promote/firing someone for being black/gay/Jewish/a woman as something innoccuous and unprovable like "poor work-performance" or "insubordination".
And then if the same someone does get promoted they get to come into work every day to a bunch of coworkers who are convinced they didn't deserve that promotion and only got it because of affirmative action. I mean I can't really say from experience, but that doesn't seem like it makes people's lives any better nor like it actually promotes equality in practice. As I said before I think hiding problems makes them a lot less likely to be solved, and I don't buy the claim that a legislated ban constitutes societal rejection by itself. As far as I've seen the only real ways to effectively lessen hate-crimes in particular and violent crime in general is by improving quality and quantity of education. Which takes, like, 20 years to show results, but at least it actually shows results instead of simply pushing the problem into the shadows where we can't see how big it's getting. But in the end I don't think most social problems can be solved by the government. Only the people can change the people.
So, to sum up the oncoming straw-men, no I don't think it should be legal to threaten black people with nooses, no I don't think threatening people's lives constitutes protected expression, no I don't think this law has anything to do with Sam and Max, no I don't think people are going to be going to jail for Halloween decorations under this law, no I'm not just trying to make excuses for autistic forum-nerds, no I'm not worming around anything, and no I don't think the solution is to just ignore the problem.
"lolz crazy judges" is an idiotic reason to imply that any law is invalid or foolishly conceived.
Nor is the law foolish because it does not treat the underlaying racism of the act which it bans. The Good should not be the enemy of the Perfect. I don't see how a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation is any more the foolish for not correcting the racism that incite harrassment and intimidation. In the absence of a silver bullet to cure that social attitude I'm perfectly willing to support laws that insolate innocent people from the retarded acts to which racist attitudes give rise.
Wait there's a law that prevents harrassment and intimidation and insulates innocent people from racially-based threats? Because I thought all this one did was assign a penalty for hanging nooses as a publicly visible racial-threat...
I'm not even sure what distinction you are making. I said "laws". This particular law would be part of that subset.
The distinction between trying and doing. And in making that distinction I'm generously assuming that the law really is trying to help instead of trying to get someone re-elected.
They are and it is, and honestly I see it being much less of a problem with this law than with many existing laws.
Are we going down the retarded road of insisting that laws against murder do not prevent murder then? Because if we are I'll just write you off now and not waste time.
In order to be going down that road I would have to have said that there should be no legislation against using symbols to threaten people. Instead I said this approach to legislating against such in practice only makes shit worse. It's feel-good legislation that gets people re-elected or elected into a higher office and lets unaffected people pretend the problem is all gone. The proponents of this law are running all over the thread shouting how stupid all us autistic white nerds are for not seeing the kind of terrible shit that people do in the name of bigotry and that if they only did they'd clearly support this sort of sweeping it under the rug response. If the problem is that people don't know the problem is there, why would the best solution be to impose legislation that accomplishes absolutely nothing except to cover the shit up more thoroughly?
Get real. The marginal benefit in deterence and prosecution this provides far outweighs the marginal negative in people assuming everything is fine just because of this law.
Oh okay.
So how do you propose stopping people from hanging nooses as a threat? Asking them nicely? Buying up all the nooses? Obviously it's not the most perfect solution, but it's far and away the most effective solution we have.
By outlawing "threats"? I mean, I find it kind of silly to ban nooses-as-threats in specific.
Mind you, I wouldn't agree that we should ban "threats" outright, either. Should "I'm going to kill you" be prohibited speech, for instance? I'd suggest no.
Yeah, I haven't already responded to that, and I can totally see how something that's neither effective nor a solution could possibly be the most effective solution available.
Yes. Many someones. The answer is "oh shut up we already had a hate-crime thread".
Specificity (hell, even redundancy) is hardly a bad thing in the context of criminal law. The crime charged should match the misdeed as closely as possible. We have laws against manslaughter, but we also have laws against manslaughter that is a result of dangerous driving. More possible charges gives more prosecutorial discretion, and allows the punishment to suit the crime (which, with regards to the argument earlier in the thread, is one of the fundamental tenants of our legal system).
The real question is - are racially-motivated threats a distinct social problem from non-racially-motivated threats? I think it's a pretty tenable argument to say that they are.
You can't completely stop anti-social behaviour by outlawing it. The only way to completely stop it is to educate people about it. And some people are just too stupid to educate in that way.
Its harsh, but some people are not malicious, nor evil, nor are they the product of a bad upbringing or lack of life opportunities.
They're just fucking dumb.
EDIT: Also, judges are elected officials now?
Can someone define "anti-social" please? People keep throwing the term around. Isn't, you know, choosing to stay home and play videogames instead of going to a bar technically "anti-social" behavior?
Racism and anti-social attitudes/behavior may be related but are not interchangeable terms. People have every right to be anti-social.
Okay, and as I requested can someone please define that for me? Or at least point to a source that defines it?
In other words, I'm looking for the legal criteria for "anti-social" behavior.
In England the judges are empowered to issue ASBOs, meant to curb behaviors that may or may not be illegal but are considered detrimental to the community - gang signs, littering and graffiti, rude speech, and so on. Which I think is pretty extreme, legally speaking, but even so it doesn't touch on the sort of thing you were talking about - staying inside and playing video games or whatever - which, anyway, would be more properly called anti-socialization.
Of particular concern is the lack of emphasis on the person in question having to meet more than one of those criteria. I mean, Nelson Mandela would qualify as having it if criteria 2 was used in isolation.
t drez: maybe we need an extra word here. nega-social?
Also, huh? That list was on the wiki, at least when I looked at it.
EDIT: look further up the page to the actual diagnostic criteria. I think that symptoms list might be left over from an older edit, it should probably be removed.
Oh wait, I get it. Scroll down a ways and they also have the one I posted. My eye was drawn by the bullet-points.