5 ms·

I don't understand, these decisions appear to be made by people appointed by democratically elected MPs? Are you making a different complaint about the democrat

by md8z 5y ago

I don't understand, these decisions appear to be made by people appointed by democratically elected MPs? Are you making a different complaint about the democratic process? That's fine for you to do, but that seems to be unrelated to the topic.

Clubber 5y ago
So in the US, you get to choose from a group of politicians. All those politicians need money to run their campaigns. Those politicians get money from corporate interests to fund their campaigns. Therefore, nearly all politicians you are able to choose from have already been tainted by corporate money. Corporate interests don't just cut big checks and expect nothing in return. Point being, this is a law that helps the powerful imprison people who criticize them disguised as a way to stop people from hurting other people's feelings. It won't be the sole purpose, I'm sure regular people can get people imprisoned who criticize them as well, but once the law is there, powerful people will use it to stifle criticism. Is this really a good idea?
- md8z 5y ago
  I really don't see how that's relevant here, if you really want to take that angle, then every law can be abused by corrupt officials. I agree with your complaint about that, corruption in politics is sadly nothing new. But that is a different problem to address, can we please discuss policy and not derail the discussion with cynicism about politicians? It's not interesting conversation and I feel like this is just shutting the discussion down.
  - colpabar 5y ago
    If we are talking about laws, it is absolutely not irrelevant to talk about the people who will be enforcing them. This thread is about an extremely subjective law, and some people think that's a really bad idea because the people enforcing it will abuse it, because it's easy to do.
    - md8z 5y ago
      Could you think of ways we could make it less subjective? Or are you saying that you think it's impossible for us to make it an objective law?
      - Clubber 5y ago
        It would be impossible. If we had hard rules, like you couldn't say "Fuck Joe Biden," it would easily be circumvented with a coded language like "Let's go Brandon," and therefore useless. We would have to constantly be upgrading the language to accommodate all the coded language. Eventually lawmakers will get sick of fooling with it and it will either stop, being half baked, still under penalty of imprisonment; or they will make some umbrella law that basically restricts nearly all speech under penalty of imprisonment. It's got noble intentions, but really gets ugly when you start to map out implementation. It's also has the "I know it when I see it," aura to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
      - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
        Not OP, but I think both questions you proposed would be good places for you to start.
  - soco 5y ago
    Sometimes shutting the discussion down is exactly the goal of such assertions "they're all the same". It happens often when the topic is too sensitive to handle constructively.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >I don't understand, these decisions appear to be made by people appointed by democratically elected MPs? I assumed you were trying to say that since the law would be created "democratically," it was either just or can't be corrupted. In response, I explained how the democratic process works in the US, trying to say that just because we have a democratic process, that doesn't necessarily mean the people we elect to represent us do it in good faith. They represent the corporate interests who funded their war chest first and foremost and the citizenry who elected them incidentally. Democracy as currently in practice is very different from democracy in theory. I love the theory. Let me try to make a bad analogy. Say you are in a union and it's time to vote for your union rep. There are 4 candidates and they are all mid and high level managers. Yes, they would be democratically elected, but the choice is limited to people who have a serious conflict of interest. It's unlikely you would be represented in good faith. Because of this, any law proposed we should be highly skeptical of as it likely isn't in our best interest but more in the best interest of "management," i.e. corporate interests. >Are you making a different complaint about the democratic process? That's fine for you to do, but that seems to be unrelated to the topic. See above. So collectively, as a single voice, I think our politicians are using this as a way to censor the population and I collectively, as a single voice do not in any way support it. If people don't want to get their feelings hurt, they shouldn't go on Twitter or Facebook or talk to people in any way; otherwise, people probably have to get accustomed to getting their feelings hurt sometimes. It sucks, because nobody likes getting their feelings hurt, but the alternative is way worse.

by md8z 5y ago

Clubber 5y ago

So in the US, you get to choose from a group of politicians. All those politicians need money to run their campaigns. Those politicians get money from corporate interests to fund their campaigns. Therefore, nearly all politicians you are able to choose from have already been tainted by corporate money. Corporate interests don't just cut big checks and expect nothing in return. Point being, this is a law that helps the powerful imprison people who criticize them disguised as a way to stop people from hurting other people's feelings. It won't be the sole purpose, I'm sure regular people can get people imprisoned who criticize them as well, but once the law is there, powerful people will use it to stifle criticism. Is this really a good idea?

md8z 5y ago
I really don't see how that's relevant here, if you really want to take that angle, then every law can be abused by corrupt officials. I agree with your complaint about that, corruption in politics is sadly nothing new. But that is a different problem to address, can we please discuss policy and not derail the discussion with cynicism about politicians? It's not interesting conversation and I feel like this is just shutting the discussion down.
- colpabar 5y ago
  If we are talking about laws, it is absolutely not irrelevant to talk about the people who will be enforcing them. This thread is about an extremely subjective law, and some people think that's a really bad idea because the people enforcing it will abuse it, because it's easy to do.
  - md8z 5y ago
    Could you think of ways we could make it less subjective? Or are you saying that you think it's impossible for us to make it an objective law?
    - Clubber 5y ago
      It would be impossible. If we had hard rules, like you couldn't say "Fuck Joe Biden," it would easily be circumvented with a coded language like "Let's go Brandon," and therefore useless. We would have to constantly be upgrading the language to accommodate all the coded language. Eventually lawmakers will get sick of fooling with it and it will either stop, being half baked, still under penalty of imprisonment; or they will make some umbrella law that basically restricts nearly all speech under penalty of imprisonment. It's got noble intentions, but really gets ugly when you start to map out implementation. It's also has the "I know it when I see it," aura to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
    - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
      Not OP, but I think both questions you proposed would be good places for you to start.
- soco 5y ago
  Sometimes shutting the discussion down is exactly the goal of such assertions "they're all the same". It happens often when the topic is too sensitive to handle constructively.
- Clubber 5y ago
  >I don't understand, these decisions appear to be made by people appointed by democratically elected MPs? I assumed you were trying to say that since the law would be created "democratically," it was either just or can't be corrupted. In response, I explained how the democratic process works in the US, trying to say that just because we have a democratic process, that doesn't necessarily mean the people we elect to represent us do it in good faith. They represent the corporate interests who funded their war chest first and foremost and the citizenry who elected them incidentally. Democracy as currently in practice is very different from democracy in theory. I love the theory. Let me try to make a bad analogy. Say you are in a union and it's time to vote for your union rep. There are 4 candidates and they are all mid and high level managers. Yes, they would be democratically elected, but the choice is limited to people who have a serious conflict of interest. It's unlikely you would be represented in good faith. Because of this, any law proposed we should be highly skeptical of as it likely isn't in our best interest but more in the best interest of "management," i.e. corporate interests. >Are you making a different complaint about the democratic process? That's fine for you to do, but that seems to be unrelated to the topic. See above. So collectively, as a single voice, I think our politicians are using this as a way to censor the population and I collectively, as a single voice do not in any way support it. If people don't want to get their feelings hurt, they shouldn't go on Twitter or Facebook or talk to people in any way; otherwise, people probably have to get accustomed to getting their feelings hurt sometimes. It sucks, because nobody likes getting their feelings hurt, but the alternative is way worse.