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Pulitzer Prize Winning Maus Censored By Tennessee School District
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Started by sfcityduck,

144 posts in this topic

paqart

paqart

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On 2/2/2022 at 11:22 AM, sfcityduck said:

A lot of people get confused when talking about "rights."  When we talk about Constitutional rights, we are talking about rights vis a vis government actors.  We are not talking about rights versus private individuals or businesses.  

And, even as to rights against the government, they are not absolute.  For very good reasons, we recognize that every Constitutional right has an outer limit and that a compelling government interest can justify government suppression of a Constitutional right.  

 

That is an idea pushed by some political activists but our Constitutional government has no allowance for the type of flexibility you describe.

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paqart

paqart

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On 2/2/2022 at 11:40 AM, sfcityduck said:

Are you an attorney?  Because the threshold to deem a private business or individual as a "state actor" is very high.  I don't think there is any reasonable case to be made that Twitter or Facebook etc. meet that threshold and are "state actors."  Certainly, no one has ever been able to make that case in court.  I don't think that anyone has even made a serious attempt.

 

Take a look at this: https://newspunch.com/bombshell-federal-judge-signals-he-will-end-twitters-immunity-in-censoring-conservatives/

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sfcityduck

sfcityduck

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On 2/2/2022 at 8:41 AM, paqart said:

That is an idea pushed by some political activists but our Constitutional government has no allowance for the type of flexibility you describe.

Sorry, but that's completely wrong and at odds with over two hundred years of free speech jurisprudence in the U.S.  The majority of men who drafted the Constitution, the majority of men who voted to send the Constitution to the states for ratification and adoption as the new country's governing document, the majority men in the state legislatures who voted to adopt the Constitution, and the majority of men on the Supreme Court which first ruled on the Constitution all disagree with the view you just stated.  There has always been speech which the framers, adopters, and earliest enforcers of the Constitution considered beyond the pale of Constitutional protection.  

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sfcityduck

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On 2/2/2022 at 8:44 AM, paqart said:

Take a look at this: https://newspunch.com/bombshell-federal-judge-signals-he-will-end-twitters-immunity-in-censoring-conservatives/

Get back to me when the case is over. 

I will say this now:  All federal judges "take seriously" the cases before them, even when the case is not a serious case.  That does not mean every ruling by a federal district judge is correct.  I get hosed more than I'd like.  That's why we have Courts of Appeal and a Supreme Court.  As for this judge, I don't know anything about him.  Federal judges are appointed for life and even if they make stupid rulings they keep their jobs.  Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court exist to correct mistakes.  So you can't evaluate cases like this based on allegations and early rulings in the case, or even at the end of the trial court proceedings.  You have to wait to see if the rulings are endorsed as broader authority by a Court of Appeal.

The facts in your article are not enough to allow me to offer an opinion on what actually happened.  The plaintiff is going to have to meet a high burden, with facts not just allegations, to get a judgment that Twitter is a state actor in this limited context.  And even if it so deemed, that's not going to establish Twitter is a state actor for all purposes.  

So I think you are more than a bit overly excited by one guy's filing.

But, none of this has anything to do with the Maus situation which is undoubtedly the government, not a private business, censoring.  So what's the point?

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sfcityduck

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On 2/2/2022 at 8:56 AM, october said:

Sorry, what is this supposed to signify? I Googled it, and the case was dropped by the plaintiff. 

Apparently not a serious effort.  LoL!

Edited by sfcityduck
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Lord Gemini

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On 2/2/2022 at 10:30 AM, paqart said:

Not when they are functioning as agents for the government. Also, for the same reason a business is not allowed to turn away customers of a certain race or gender, business should not be allowed to utilize similarly discriminatory tests based on political ideology for platform access. For those who think that some perspectives are so awful that they must be squelched, remember that others likely feel the same way about you. 

Fans of misinformation aren’t a protected class. Sorry.

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Lord Gemini

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On 2/2/2022 at 10:12 AM, paqart said:

Definitions of these words, "abhorrent, false, stupid, defamatory, or traitorous" vary so much on certain subjects that they include polar opposites. For that reason, it isn't possible to know what you mean from what you wrote. Example, "traitorous": one group says that people who went to the Capitol rally last year on January 6th were traitorous. On the other side, the people responsible for arresting the protestors are described as traitors for setting up the protestors to be arrested (by encouraging them, removing no trespassing signs, opening doors, guiding them into the building, exhorting them to go in, plus the addition of Antifa prvovateurs).

Thanks for fully proving you’re not to be taken seriously.

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paqart

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On 2/2/2022 at 11:47 AM, sfcityduck said:

Sorry, but that's completely wrong and at odds with over two hundred years of free speech jurisprudence in the U.S.  The majority of men who drafted the Constitution, the majority of men who voted to send the Constitution to the states for ratification and adoption as the new country's governing document, the majority men in the state legislatures who voted to adopt the Constitution, and the majority of men on the Supreme Court which first ruled on the Constitution all disagree with the view you just stated.  There has always been speech which the framers, adopters, and earliest enforcers of the Constitution considered beyond the pale of Constitutional protection.  

I was reacting to the idea that the Constitution is a "living document" as some say, not limits on, for instance, starting a stampede by yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. That, by the way, is analogous to what we're seeing with "pandemic"-related information.

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paqart

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On 2/2/2022 at 11:56 AM, october said:

Sorry, what is this supposed to signify? I Googled it, and the case was dropped by the plaintiff. 

That the idea has been brought before a court and it was seriously entertained by the judge.

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VintageComics

VintageComics

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On 2/2/2022 at 8:45 AM, Lazyboy said:

What kind of life-saving information has been suppressed?

Social media has taken draconian measures to censor discussions about some pretty important things over the last two years only to reverse their decision once they realized they were wrong. I assume they reversed their decisions so that they would not be held liable. 

The topics aren't really allowed to be discussed here any longer but if anyone wants to start a group chat, I'm game. 

And no matter the topic, this sort of censorship does massive amounts of damage not only to the proper exchange of information but also to the public trust. 

On 2/2/2022 at 8:47 AM, october said:

No clue what you are talking about here.

It's one of the forbidden topics here. Big deal over the last 2 years. 

On 2/2/2022 at 9:57 AM, Lord Gemini said:

Except good ideas are not being discussed openly and honestly. The low IQ types are absorbing bad information and defending it with their lives...and ours. Misinformation like this should be removed.

The solution is to stop producing low IQ types, NOT to keep them in the dark. 

On 2/2/2022 at 10:02 AM, Lord Gemini said:

Yup. Someone's been buying into the lies. Sorry, but when misinformation is being spread on a platform that costs millions of lives, the platform should seriously consider removing that nonsense.

Actually, it's basically a fact that the media is the misinformation and that it takes a proper entanglement from all sides to get to a truth...because NO SINGLE SIDE has a monopoly on the truth and most certainly NO AUTHORITY does. 

That sort of thinking sends us back into the dark ages faster than a time machine. 

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sfcityduck

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On 2/2/2022 at 9:08 AM, paqart said:

I was reacting to the idea that the Constitution is a "living document" as some say, not limits on, for instance, starting a stampede by yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. That, by the way, is analogous to what we're seeing with "pandemic"-related information.

I don't get your point.  You'll have to flesh this out. 

Let me say this:  The only reason that the Constitution limits the "right" of free speech by not protecting a person from prosecution for yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is because the Courts have interpreted it that way.  They did so because our Constitution conveys to the Courts the right to interpret it as new fact patterns arise.  In that sense the Constitution is absolutely a living document, one that is adapted to new facts, including new technologies, that were not envisioned by the Framers, Adopters/Ratifiers, and earliest interpreters.   The Framers and Adopters/Ratifiers knew this process would happen this way.  They had explicit discussions of this flexibility during the Ratification and Adoption debates. 

Moreover, shortly after the original Constitution (drafted 1787) was adopted and ratified in 1788, a Bill of Rights  was drafted in 1789 which made explicit in the 11th Amendment that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."  This amendment was adopted and ratified in 1791.  It empowers the Courts to identify and protect rights retained by the people which are not explicitly set forth in the Constitution.

So I'm not getting your point at all.

Edited by sfcityduck
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VintageComics

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On 2/2/2022 at 10:17 AM, namisgr said:

Quality levels of information, from strongest to weakest:

- Facts

- Generally accepted knowledge

- Unsettled issues

- Contrary to generally accepted knowledge

- Lies, propaganda, and falsehoods

MOST of the research and investigation comes from #3 - 5 to challenge and either overturn or establish #1 and #2 

And if you quash discussion of #3 - 5 you absolutely destroy the integrity and credibility of #1 and #2.

It's unequivocal.

That should be obvious to everyone. 

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VintageComics

VintageComics

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On 2/2/2022 at 10:49 AM, sfcityduck said:

Free speech is about the speaker, not the recipient.  All ideas are not entitled to be given equal weight by the viewers or listeners.  Just because you post something on a private businesses’ message platform does not mean that business is obligated to help you spread that message by keeping it up on their site.  If the message is abhorrent, false, stupid, defamatory, or traitorous it may well be taken down,   You can always find another corner of the internet on which to post.

What if that business is found to be negligent and causing human harm by limiting information? 

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