Ban me; or, Welcome Heathers
Fri Jul 08, 2005 at 09:24:32 PM PDT
Our experience since Roth requires us not only to abandon the effort to pick out obscene materials on a case-by-case basis, but also to reconsider a fundamental postulate of Roth: that there exists a definable class of sexually oriented expression that may be suppressed by the Federal and State Governments. Assuming that such a class of expression does in fact exist, I am forced to conclude that the concept of 'obscenity' cannot be defined with sufficient specificity and clarity to provide fair notice to persons who create and distribute sexually oriented materials, to prevent substantial erosion of protected speech as a byproduct of the attempt to suppress unprotected speech, and to avoid very costly institutional harms.
Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 103 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Yes, I know that dKos is not covered by the First Amendment, but I'm going to go out on a limb: Kos's dictatorial purge of conspiracy-minded nutcases harms the blog he worked so hard to build more than the nutty diaries that prompted the action - diaries that almost no one pays attention to anyway.
I gotta admit: I never did like Justice STEWART's concurrence in
Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964), in which he stated about obscenity, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . ."
[Those who have read Bob Woodward's The Brethren know the story behind the Supreme Court's obscenity cases in the 1960s and 1970s. A good read; I recommend it. (You'd be surprised at how the liberal judges individually defined what was and was not obscenity.)]
I'm more of the Justice STEWART view, quoted above, that such a standard-less standard is simply unworkable. And the same is true here, on Daily Kos.
On July 5, not long ago, kos wrote this about how the Right is like our "Islamic crazies" enemies:
Free Speech
Al Qaida/Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is an infidel and must be silenced
American Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is a traitor and must be silenced
Liberals: Anyone who disagrees with us is in for a spirited discussion
Now, kos says this isn't about disagreement with what people are saying (the "this is not an echo chamber" assertion made me laugh out loud, especially given the many posts by Kos's merry band of front-pagers, and others, with the "conform! or else!" message). But make no mistake: this is irrefutably a content-based restriction, and - Hunter's "community standards" post notwithstanding (another SCOTUS standard I never did like) - one that is impossible to figure out with any degree of certainty.
Where do we draw the line? Is believing that the Kennedy assassination (either one, plus MLK Jr.'s too) was the work of more than one person a ban-able belief? What about aliens at Area 51? The death of Diana, Princess of Wales?
How about Operation Northwoods, a CIA plot to commit acts of apparent terrorism
and blame them on Cuba to encourage support for a war. Oops, that turned out to be true (after a looong time, of course. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male? Wait, that one turned out to be true too - and it took over 50 years.
Back in 1972, would diarists have been banned for openly questioning whether the Nixon administration had anything to do with the Watergate break-in? (It did.) People scoffed at Hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy" comment. Turns out she was right, too. What about the Guiliana Sgrena controversy? There were multiple posts on that subject.
What about rumor and speculation? After all, what is a conspiracy but a "wacky" rumor, so far out that it's difficult to believe - rumor to an nth degree, I guess. Just yesterday, Kos posted a rumor about Rehnquist's retirement. (It turned out wrong.) Of course, he was just repeating what he had heard. But if a diarist repeats "rumor" or "speculation" about government involvement in bad acts, that's subject to banning (even though, as we all know, governments have been doing bad things for centuries and even millenia).
But the fact that there are true conspiracies is kinda beside the point. The point is that - well, actually there are a couple of points:
- We here at Daily Kos constantly decry the behavior of right wing blogs who ban folks for expressing contrary views. This is similar - just a different motivation - and equally deserving of condemnation.
- While we pride ourselves on being the Reality-Based Community, it simply strains reason to conclude that infrequent, nutty, off-the-wall conspiracy posts tar this site and its denizens as whack-jobs, particularly when they are nearly always roundly condemned by commenters.
[In any event, does it strike anyone as unusual that these conspiracies are attractive because our own government fosters them with its behavior over the last 5 years?]
In short, the "conspiracy" diaries are easy to ignore and do not have the negative effect on this site that many think they do. With over 300 diaries a day, even one wacky one per day can easily go unnoticed (or, if noticed, I suggest the best response is to roll one's eyes and move on). What won't go unnoticed, however, is a stunning over-reaction in response to such a tiny problem.
This is a sad day for Daily Kos. I've been around since the Scoop conversion, I'm member #1409, and I depend on this site for news and analysis. But lately I see more and more group-think, more frequent meta-diaries, and repeated appeals for conformity. If I wanted that I'd go to Redstate. Is that really what we want?
To a certain extent, I guess what we want is irrelevant. This is Kos's site and he gets to do what he wants. But what once was a welcoming and tolerant community has turned into a Heathers clique, and I feel like a Veronica.
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