On the burning of books ...

 

If you take your interpretation then yes what I proposed would be useless.

 

From what I'm understanding from your resources, they're not talking about people being unable to read. They're talking about people being unable to read at a proficient level. Those are certainly different.

 

I haven't ignored your use of functional. I've said again and again that llama never brought up functional.

 

And with that I hope this argument is done.

 

Hey don't worry, I had a very slow day at the office, only one of  my clients came, so I had to use my time in something to avoid frustration. .

 

That's the problem, one simple word makes a difference.

 

Iván

 

It actually doesn't apply in this situation.

 

I didn't mean to imply that it does. I was just bringing it up (1) Because its interesting and one of my favorite things when I teach stats, (2) demonstrates how tricky rates can be.

 

While people burn books, there are thousands of kids who finish school without being able to read in a basic  (fourth grade) level, some of this guys who burn the Qur'an are not able to read and understand what the Qur'an says and why they burn it.

 

I believe it's pathetic.

 

Iván

No. I don't see any connexion, and don't see how I somehow have presented that point? 

To work towards a society where all people will make a particular set of uniform choices may seem more unrealistic than my hope of tolerance and respect for a wide range of diverse choises. 

How can you have that without freedom of speech?

i.e. Freedom of speech is the freedom to say stupid things, insulting things, brilliant things, etc.

 

Here's an interesting analogy though - in biology some of the diversity gets culled. Certain types of speech might naturally get culled. Is government control just part of the culling or is it actually preventing the diversity in the first place. Since the law of the jungle would say, you can say whatever you want, but someone is likely to knock your teeth out if you make them angry enough with your speech - that's pretty directly analogous to a biologic selective process. But is it wrong for a society to say "Rather than have people busting each other's teeth out, we're going to make it less likely for people to say really inflammatory things from the outset."

 

Tell me one possible way and I'll eat my shoe.

^ For instance, yes.

"having it stopped" surely includes methods of trying to reason with or pursuade someone to change his mind and thus not act out his original intentions.