| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
Sixteen men and women wore Klan robes and hoods but not face masks, and they did not use a sound system, respecting limits set by the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In a victory for the mayor, those limits were upheld in a last-minute ruling, issued at 2 p.m., by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lawyers for the white supremacists had challenged the city, winning in federal court Thursday but losing in appeals court Friday. At issue were the Klan's masks, which city lawyers argued violated an 1845 statute against wearing masks while gathering publicly. Lawyers for the Klan argued that the masks protected members' right to free speech. Without masks and denied a sound system by the city permit, Klan members stood silent as thousands jeered." Damn, I wish those racist assholes had had the shit kicked out of them, then been strung up from the nearest lamppost! Kudos NewYorkers on another crushing of Neo-Nazi bigots!! |
|
"fucking the french good into the next century!!" fondly, waffles |
|
I'm not glad that they think what they do, but I'm glad that they can. Free speech isn't just what you want to hear |
|
This might not be an appropriate tangent, but: My immediate family is Catholic. My extended family is all sorts of things...some are Episcopalians, some are born-again, some are Presbyterian, some have no affiliation, etc. though they (meaning my mom's siblings) were all raised Catholic. Well, one of the most important differences between Catholicism and other Christian sects is the Catholic belief that Jesus is truly, physically, present in the Eucharist. Because of this, non-Catholics are allowed to come to Mass, of course, but they are not allowed to take communion. This is a well-known rule. So a few years ago, we have a family reunion, and all my family comes with us to Christmas Mass, and before Mass I tell everyone just what I said....please don't take communion, I didn't make this rule up, etc. My God, the uproar that caused! "We have every right to do what we want to do!" And on and on. So what happened? They took communion...and when I asked them why, one of my cousins said "they have crackers at our church too!" AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!! Right now, this is striking me as hilarious. What better way to get my goat?? Though I'm not without sin. I was recently chewed out by a friend of mine for some blasphemy on my part when I hung up a poster that had a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus...and Jesus had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. I thought it was funny. What can I say? She, on the other hand, started crying when she saw it! And I laughed at her! But I took the poster down. After she left, of course. |
|
but i agree |
I have problems with her anyway (not to get off topic AGAIN, but I feel like ranting for a while). In high school, she was pretty wild, or at least, wilder than I was and I wasn't wild. But *anyway* it was always, like, built into the friendship that she was the worldly one, and I was the naive one. Even though I was bitter and mean. I guess we just meant worldly in a social sense. Whatever. She used to tease me for being so naive all the time. (So I'm saying she thought she was wild herself.) Then she had something of a religious conversion in her first year of college. She stopped listening to music, going to movies, reading anything other than religious books, etc. Now, she was and is my best friend...who knew/knows me better than anyone else on the planet, and I knew her that well too....so I was kind of freaked out about how we were having less and less in common, to say the least. She started acting weird, too. Weird as in completely unemotional. She would just kind of sit there and smile blandly at me whenever I talked about anything. I couldn't get any kind of response out of her. Apparently, *saints* were "above" emotion, and she read this, and was trying to be saint-like. She even told me she wanted to be a saint. Well, okay, fine, but she was also disapproving openly of what I was doing. And what was I doing?? Um, reading novels, going to movies, talking about all *sorts* of things besides religion. These were not things she wanted to be a part of. So all of a sudden, *I'm* the wild one. And I'm not even wild! For about 3 years (until this year) I saw very little of her, because there was nothing to talk about. Recently, though, she seems to be returning to her old self. She's making me a mix, she says. She wants to go with me to whatever concert I next want to see, she says. We talk about music and poetry and non-religious things. She wants to apply to the same grad school I want to go to, so we can live together. She seems okay again. But then, a few weeks ago, she freaked out over that poster. So I don't know what's going on with her. I just hope she levels out soon. I'm tired of these pendulum shifts. |
But, anyway, RE: the bigots, free speech includes the right to refute, and it looks like those assholes got shouted down. TFB for them. That's the way it works. There are more issues with whether or not their behavior constitutes free speech, but I will post more later, as I gotta get back to work. |
|
and yes Lucy, you bet the right to refute most definitely |
"squeeky clean *WORLD*" |
first they came for the nazi's then they came for the NRA then they came for the NEA, then they came for the NBA,then they came for the KLA, then the ...you get my drift????? ............... it's all about the forest, not just the trees......... |
|
Patrick, i understand and can fully comprehend all the shades of grey in this issue, yet i stand firm on my statement. and as far as *i'm* concerned, i don't give a goddamn piece of monkey shit what you think about me, or my convictions about human rights. have a nice day. |
|
|