Believe it or not, this is NOT a Meta Diary. Well, it isn’t a Meta-KOS diary anyway!
While I personally have some disagreements with Troll Ratings and what often falls into the Realm of Troll Rating abuse through little more than ideological differences shared between people that are generally on the same side of many issues. It seems that the level of discourse can devolve simply through a disagreement of tactics.
On the plus side though, I think that Troll Ratings, when not abused (and this is truly hard to define I admit) do serve to keep this place from deteriorating into chaos.
But this isn’t about Daily KOS.
FREE Speech
One of my favorite explanations of what Free Speech came about as I was watching Manufacturing Consent, while I can’t recite it off verbatim, the rough transcription, in the context of defending an infamous French holocaust denier (I forget his name, nor do I think it particularly relevant):
Anyone can claim that they are for free speech. The Nazis were for free speech – For speech that they agreed with. So anyone is for the promotion of speech for which they agree with, but that isn’t a belief in free speech. A belief in free speech is that You defend the rights of speech for which You specifically disagree with. This is the true test of whether You support free speech.
With great apologies to Noam Chomsky for probably mangling this – but, as I remember it, it is pretty close to the mark of what he said (As a point of interest, he delivered this statement at one of my old ‘alma mater’s.)
UNIQUELY American
The idea of free speech is truly uniquely American. While many may like to bash the US for stifling free speech (particularly within its borders I would guess), the US has been an incredibly important advocate for the value of free speech both at home and abroad. As an expatriate Canuck I can tell You that there is no such thing as free speech in Canada and to the best of my knowledge there never has been. Hate speech legislation has been around for quite some time in many countries.
While I would acknowledge that political dissent seems to be far stronger in many other western industrialized nations compared to here in the US, the fact remains that, freedom of speech and expression is far better protected here by statute if not by practice.
Many of us learned the principle of free speech at a young age.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
It is a simplification of a broad principle. But, as adults, I believe that it is one that is and should be broadly applicable. I have no disagreement that this principle, while for many of us originating on the playground, is least applicable to ‘the playground’. I think that children are due the respect of not having to fend of verbal attacks, especially if hurled at them from authority figures.
EROSION of Free Speech
I wrote an essay in my high school drama class, Censorship or Bullship (a clumsy play on words I admit) and it was only a few years later that this principle was crystallized for many of my generation (I am on the cusp between Baby Boomer and GenX’er, so naturally I associate myself as a GenX’er – a topic for a different time I am sure!) with Tipper Gore’s infamous PMRC. Since that time, Democrats and Republicans alike have been on what could well be argued a crusade against Obscenity.
Music, Movies, Books, Paintings, Sculpture, Magazines and most recently video games all have come under what I feel is the far too heavy handed thumb of "legislative/judicial oversight" It seems that there is a ridiculous attempt to take judgment out of the hands of rationale adults (and parents) in an attempt to replace people’s individual abilities to guide themselves (and their children) with a distrusting government.
The issue of Obscenity and Censorship was further clouded, in my opinion through the often quoted piece by Justice Potter Stewart:
It is possible to read the Court's opinion in Roth v. United States and Alberts v. California, 354 U.S. 476, in a variety of ways. In saying this, I imply no criticism of the Court, which in those cases was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable. I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court's decisions since Roth and Alberts, that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
For more on the regulation of Obscenity
For me, this is a total cop out. What I would find obscene is clearly different than what my neighbor, my wife or my children would find obscene. We can not legislate obscenity because it, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To suggest otherwise, I believe, is to contradict the principle of the freedom of expression.
I should very much like to encourage Democratic and Republican legislators to back away from this principle, for I believe that it erodes more than just the freedom of speech and expression.
Bush Administration and Dangerous Speech
While September 11th had a yet to be accounted for effect upon the American psyche, it was 15 days later that this had the proverbial klieg lights shone upon one aspect in particular. Responding on September 26, 2001 to comments made by Bill Maher regarding the cowardice of terrorists:
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.
This is my classic definition of OBSCENITY.
And things haven’t gotten any better over the past 6 years, nearly to the day.
Sense of the Senate
September 20, 2007. I think we all know the Sense of the Senate resolution that passed 72-25, and the related Boxer amendment that ‘passed but didn’t’ by 50-47. I can almost forgive Ari Fleischer his obscene remarks in light of this vote, but I won’t.
Unfortunately, this obscenity has been propagated by some ‘on the left’ (as expressed through the Boxer amendment) in response to this ridiculous action against the likes of Bill O’reilly and more recently Rush Limbaugh (and by ‘the right’ against the likes of David Shuster in his interview with Marcia Blackburn)
It seems that we are collectively losing any sense of what freedom of expression means in this country, and I can see only One person who may be able to restore it.
Calling All Residents of Wisconsin
There exists only one Senator whose hands are clean on this absurdity. Senator Russ Feingold was the only Senator to vote against both Cornyn and Boxer Amendments.
I would urge all Wisconsin residents to contact Senator Feingold and urge him to propose a Sense of the Senate Resolution of his own:
To express the sense of the Senate that it is the duty of all elected officials to promote freedom of expression through respectful dialogue and that any condemnation of speech or expression intended to stifle that speech is anathema to one of the very keystones of Our Democratic Republic.
Hopefully, we can at least all agree on that one!
I did mean to bring this back around to the Title, namely that I believe that there may well be a sound reason to have Troll Ratings on a blog, I firmly believe they have no place in the Legislative, Executive, or Judicial Branches of the US Government