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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (52518)	10/29/2006 2:45:29 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

>>There are any number of other areas where speech can result in civil liability. Fraud is a good example. But so what? These aren't really First Amendment cases.<< mph - I think you've hit the nail on the head there. The DU case isn't really a First Amendment case. We are talking about a form of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment; threats against public officials. >>Where we differ is that you seem to be concerned with civil liability whereas I'm looking at constitutional principles.<< I'm not actually concerned about civil liability, and you seem to be concerned about constitutional principles that don't apply here. Let's break it down another way, with another hypothetical example: You're running a political discussion board. Your next door neighbor, who is angry with you because your dog crapped on his lawn, gets on that board and posts threats against the President, in order to cause problems for you. The FBI comes around and wants the name of the person who posted the threats. I say that since your neighbor's motives in posting were only to get you in trouble, it would be perfectly fine to turn his ass in. See, it doesn't matter what the POV of your neighbor is in this example. He's just there to cause trouble. Moreover, there is no consitutional principle at stake, since his threats are not a form of protected speech. I would also like to point out that the constitution doesn't guarantee anyone the right to post on moderated discussion boards without being banned for acting like a jerk. I myself got banned from a conservative subject on SI once. I had been posting views contrary to those of the majority on the thread, but I had been sticking to issues and not being personal. The moderator of the thread kept calling me "gay". I referred to the thread as a "circle jerk" in a couple of posts, and that got me banned. Was that justified, or not? >>I also stand my initial comments. The posters on that site would only stand up for the constitutional rights of other posters if they truly shared their own political views. If not, they could care less about privacy rights or constitutional standards. Again, it's situational ethics.<< I think you're neglecting to take into account the other factors. It's not just the POV of the posters but their ulterior motivations that make the other participants on the thread don't wish to protect them. The people who posted the threats are acting like jerks. As for "situational ethics", I'm going to respond to that in a separate post. - Allen

To: mph who wrote (52518)	10/29/2006 2:48:19 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

mph - That phrase "situational ethics" is often used by conservatives to imply that liberals have no real principles or ethics. But it's really just a kind of propaganda phrase that has nothing to do with the real world. Ethical issues are not always black and white, and situations do have to be considered. For example, most conservatives would probably say that our constitution guarantees U.S. citizens certain rights if they happen to get arrested. Access to a lawyer, a speedy trial, the ability to confront the witnesses against them, etc. However, these conservatives seem to leave themselves an out for certain situations. So these constitutional guarantees might not apply if we're all really, really scared. I'm thinking of the Jose Padilla case, here. Or we might say that it's not OK to torture people if you're Saddam Hussein, but it is OK if you're George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. The justification for this is that these people are terrorists, who don't care who they hurt, so it's OK to torture them. Of course, this assumes that we never make a mistake and arrest the wrong guy. The presumption of innocence principle gets thrown out because, again, we're really, really scared. - Allen