On the burning of books ...

stonebeard wrote: About your edits: "Arrested for racism." I genuinely laughed. You can't be arrested for a belief here, only an act. Also, burning a cross in the front yard of a black person is illegal (I'm supposing it is) because it's an act of intimidation. Also, it's not on the person's land. If the person wants to burn a cross on their own property and dress as a KKK member, I'm quite certain they're allowed to, barring any home owner's accommodation agreements or city ordinances.

Well, he must ACT, like the KKK. You cannot be arested for your beliefs here also. You can be arrested for your actions, which would be the case if he DID burned the books. AFAIK he gave up, so no harm.

And yes, I meaned but a cross like that.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: This is one of the replies we are getting:   The burning of books is nothing new to True Christians®.  We invented the practice over two-thousand years ago as a way to promote our faith in the Lord Jesus. In the early days of Christianity, when new believers in Christ were converted, they were naturally moved by the Holy Spirit to grab as many books as they could and pitch them into a fire. Unlike the sissy "Jesus is Love" fake-Christians (whom both the Lord Jesus and we loathe) we have running around today, the early followers of Christ were never ashamed to burn books. In fact, if you ever find yourself being grateful for the destruction of most of the works of pagan nincompoops like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, you have a Christian to thank!   http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1002/bookburning.html   For God's sake, this is retarded!!!!!!!!   And they are proud:   The truth is, burning a book is one of the most loving things a Christian could do for a person they really care about. The Landover Baptist Church is proud to be sponsoring America's Largest Book Burning on Satan's Birthday, October 31st. This will be the third consecutive year we have held the event. Last October, we had 152,800 American Christians show up for the event. We burned over 3.4 million books! That's right! Don't let the numbers dissuade you from holding a book burning at your local church this Halloween.   http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1002/bookburning.html   Some will say I burn for the right reasons and they do it for wrong reasons, that's even more stupid, because if you allow one burn, you must allow all and for any reason.   We can't let this stupity spread.   Iván

stonebeard wrote: CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: maybe it is an active gesture to hurt the FEELINGS of Muslims. That's all a book burning might do. Hurt their feelings. Boo-f**king-hoo. I wonder if it's in their Constitution that their cultural feelings aren't allowed to be hurt. Because we're sure as hell allowed to do things that hurt others' feelings in our country. What kind of country has laws specifically in place that makes it a crime to hurt someone's feelings? Is that not crazy? And as far as your second paragraph let's be clear here; the day America bents over backwards not to hurt the feelings of people that demand we all treat their religion with respect is the day the simpering pansies win. I'm not a racist, and I am not anti-Muslim. I am against curving freedom of expression and speech just because some overly sensitive people who are not afraid to blow themselves up enough times to get certain unnamed governments to make insulting their beliefs illegal. There's a word for that: cowardice. Maybe I'm insensitive, but it's better than letting fear run amok. If hurting feelings are so innofensive, psychological torture is allowed, I would guess. If  that is so, bombing the Capitol, the independence Monument, Mt. Rushmore, the White house and the Lincoln Memorial is OK, right? They don't mean nothing but feelings after all. . . . Just so we're all aware here, every time a girl broke up with us and we were sad, we might as well have been psychologically tortured. All feelings and situations are equal I suppose. Arrest her! They're only ok as far as destroying the property of a government is ok. I'll let you decide on your own whether you think that's illegal or not.

In the USA you CAN sue a girl because she broke up with you. Let's think about that for a wile. . . .


Edited by CCVP - September 12 2010 at 22:23

Yeah CCVP, you CAN sue anybody for anything at all. That doesn't mean you'll win. 

Henry Plainview wrote: Yeah CCVP, you CAN sue anybody for anything at all. That doesn't mean you'll win.  stonebeard wrote: If the person wants to burn a cross on their own property and dress as a KKK member, I'm quite certain they're allowed to, barring any home owner's accommodation agreements or city ordinances. Eh, maybe super technically, but I can't imagine you getting away with that in most states without getting hit with a hate crime or something if it's in a place that anybody else could actually see it. I'm not a lawyer or anything but I can't imagine the DA letting that one slide even if just for political reasons.

I think they ruled that cross burning is intimidation, even if on your own property, but I'm not sure that would stand up as constitutional if it ever went to the supreme court.


Edited by thellama73 - September 12 2010 at 22:29

CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: maybe it is an active gesture to hurt the FEELINGS of Muslims. That's all a book burning might do. Hurt their feelings. Boo-f**king-hoo. I wonder if it's in their Constitution that their cultural feelings aren't allowed to be hurt. Because we're sure as hell allowed to do things that hurt others' feelings in our country. What kind of country has laws specifically in place that makes it a crime to hurt someone's feelings? Is that not crazy? And as far as your second paragraph let's be clear here; the day America bents over backwards not to hurt the feelings of people that demand we all treat their religion with respect is the day the simpering pansies win. I'm not a racist, and I am not anti-Muslim. I am against curving freedom of expression and speech just because some overly sensitive people who are not afraid to blow themselves up enough times to get certain unnamed governments to make insulting their beliefs illegal. There's a word for that: cowardice. Maybe I'm insensitive, but it's better than letting fear run amok. If hurting feelings are so innofensive, psychological torture is allowed, I would guess. If  that is so, bombing the Capitol, the independence Monument, Mt. Rushmore, the White house and the Lincoln Memorial is OK, right? They don't mean nothing but feelings after all. . . . Just so we're all aware here, every time a girl broke up with us and we were sad, we might as well have been psychologically tortured. All feelings and situations are equal I suppose. Arrest her! They're only ok as far as destroying the property of a government is ok. I'll let you decide on your own whether you think that's illegal or not. In the USA you CAN sue a girl because she broke up with you. Let's think about that for a wile. . . . Yep, and with that you carry the responsibility of paying for your retarded lawsuit which you will inevitably lose. Oh no the crushing burden of responsibility! Lol, no. There are countless cases which that happened and, guess what? The judicial system didn't thought it was retarded. I guess you'd better vote better for a congressman so they won't approve "retarded" legislation that will allow this to happen. But oh well, I gues that in the USA boyfriends a re more important than a set of values, culture and respect. Go figure. . . .

I'm not sure what your point is. Judges make stupid decisions in lawsuits all the time. Are we required to agree with their verdicts? Because a woman successfully sued McDonald's after spilling coffee on her\self, do you expect us to believe that serving hot beverages is a crime?

CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: CCVP wrote: stonebeard wrote: maybe it is an active gesture to hurt the FEELINGS of Muslims. That's all a book burning might do. Hurt their feelings. Boo-f**king-hoo. I wonder if it's in their Constitution that their cultural feelings aren't allowed to be hurt. Because we're sure as hell allowed to do things that hurt others' feelings in our country. What kind of country has laws specifically in place that makes it a crime to hurt someone's feelings? Is that not crazy? And as far as your second paragraph let's be clear here; the day America bents over backwards not to hurt the feelings of people that demand we all treat their religion with respect is the day the simpering pansies win. I'm not a racist, and I am not anti-Muslim. I am against curving freedom of expression and speech just because some overly sensitive people who are not afraid to blow themselves up enough times to get certain unnamed governments to make insulting their beliefs illegal. There's a word for that: cowardice. Maybe I'm insensitive, but it's better than letting fear run amok. If hurting feelings are so innofensive, psychological torture is allowed, I would guess. If  that is so, bombing the Capitol, the independence Monument, Mt. Rushmore, the White house and the Lincoln Memorial is OK, right? They don't mean nothing but feelings after all. . . . Just so we're all aware here, every time a girl broke up with us and we were sad, we might as well have been psychologically tortured. All feelings and situations are equal I suppose. Arrest her! They're only ok as far as destroying the property of a government is ok. I'll let you decide on your own whether you think that's illegal or not. In the USA you CAN sue a girl because she broke up with you. Let's think about that for a wile. . . . Yep, and with that you carry the responsibility of paying for your retarded lawsuit which you will inevitably lose. Oh no the crushing burden of responsibility! Lol, no. There are countless cases which that happened and, guess what? The judicial system didn't thought it was retarded. I guess you'd better vote better for a congressman so they won't approve "retarded" legislation that will allow this to happen. But oh well, I gues that in the USA boyfriends a re more important than a set of values, culture and respect. Go figure. . . .

Funny how we got to that last sentence.

Anyway, judges can make dumb decisions. I don't know what you'd want the other option to be. Not be allowed to sue? Not be allowed to sue and win/lose and have to pay whatever price that would incur. This part doesn't even matter to me... the real point is in the last sentence. In the USA we value freedom of expression, or at least we should. And to say we don't value culture or respect....nonsense. You may notice that people who burn books, especially for racist and bigoted reasons, are called disrespectful and generally bad things. We're a varied nation and most people who have a lick of sense here will try to respect differences. But ultimately if it comes down to having that freedom of expression stifled and allowing an overly sensitive group to dominate national discourse with archaic rules in a modern pluralistic society, I hope we don't side with respect.


Edited by stonebeard - September 12 2010 at 22:46

CCVP wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: CCVP wrote: Lol, no. There are countless cases which that happened and, guess what? The judicial system didn't thought it was retarded. I guess you'd better vote better for a congressman so they won't approve "retarded" legislation that will allow this to happen. But oh well, I gues that in the USA boyfriends a re more important than a set of values, culture and respect. Go figure. . . . Countless? You're going to have to give me at least 5 examples to prove that, because the complaints about the ridiculous lawsuits in America almost always turn out to be stupid. An excellent example is the infamous McDonald's coffee lawsuit, which became the punchline for every hack comedian on air for a few months. I'm not saying she's not a little dumb, but she had some very good reasons for suing, if anybody had bothered to think about it for more than 5 seconds. I did saw that on the calssroom the other day about tendancies on the family right (I don't know it's exact name in the USA) on the opening class. I know there is a language barrier, but I'm sorry I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Both on Europe and on the USA people have been sueing boyfriends and girlfriends for various kinds damages and actually winning the lawsuit. it would be somehow hard to find the actual sources because the teacher didn't mentioned who were sueing who or the number of the lawsuits, but I also saw that on newspapers,  TV and eventually on the internet. Even if true, I still don't see what point you are trying to make with this. And contrary to popular belief, unless the Supreme Courte overrules the decision, it can serve as the basis for other decisions, at least on the North-American model. Contrary to popular belief? Dude, everyone, and I mean everyone, in the USA knows this very well.

Edited by thellama73 - September 12 2010 at 23:01

 I have no desire to wade through all of this thread, but I've been thinking about this matter recently (and other such issues before). Here's my 2.5 cents worth: 

Edited by Peter - September 13 2010 at 00:05

You know, that's how terrorism (supposedly) works -- it's all about what happens later as a result of your act, the ripple effect, the dominoes that fall. Blow up market (or buildings, or children, or cherished symbols, whatever) > cause fear & distrust > cause a limitation of rights of movement and assembly > cause anger > cause further repression "for the greater good" or "security" > cause schism along ethnic, political  or religious lines > cause revolution >>>>

Edited by Peter - September 13 2010 at 00:01