Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
seems to me that conservatives are squealing now that tactics they've no problem with promoting and using so long as they serve a conservative political purpose are being turned on one of their own. this after decades of red-baiting, attempting to squash or marginalize dissent from what was once the left. i find that funny.
so's the implicit assumption that the actual content of arguments presented as if they were coherent on a 24/7 "news" channel are of no consequence, that anything goes, and that what a consumer society really means is that not only do consumers have no power to question the range of commodities they can choose from (their "power" lay only in choosing another from within the range) but that consumers *should* have no power. unless of course they're organized by conservative groups and directed toward conservative-friendly ends.
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I don't see how this is a gotcha moment. Companies decided (for whatever reason) they don't want to advertise with Beck. Individuals decided (for whatever reason) they don't want to do business with those companies. Freedom. In the end, things will change, either Beck will tone down; he'll become unprofitable to the network and be pulled from the air; the boycotting companies will lose business and change their advertising; or the boycotting people will pay too much for car insurance and go with Geico anyway. In any case, the government didn't have to lift a finger. Who cares how it turns out. At least, I know that it won't cost me a penny in taxes for this problem to resolve itself.
---------- Post added at 05:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
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Yes, I know that. You asked me how should "society" censor Beck. I answered you, and then you told me that's what they are doing. I'm confused.
As to those videos, I don't believe that is hate speech. You might disagree with it, but it's not hate speech. There are SCOTUS definitions of hate speech. I might be wrong, but technically, "hate speech" can't be hate speech if it is based on behavior or unprotected classes (race, color, religion, etc). Beck doesn't dislike Obama because Obama is black. He dislikes Obama because he believes Obama is all of those things in the video - none of which are protected classes. Believing someone else to be a racist doesn't make you a racist. Also, I believe hate speech has to be a call to (illegal) action against a protected class - which hasn't occurred either. Again, I may be wrong about the definition of hate speech, as I haven't looked it up in a decade.
Please don't take this as me defending Beck, I am defending the assertion that what Beck said was hate speech.