Freedom of expression

Thanks for the interaction on yesterday's article on the 2007 First Amendment survey.

I got a good chuckle out of an anonymous poster's comment when he said, "Oh, W.S. is just in his kitchen standing on a chair screaming 'Eeek! A Christian!' again." I liked it enough to add it to the "Can I quote you on that?" section over there in the sidebar. (Send your comments about The Burning Taper to WidowsSon@BurningTaper.com.)

In today's news cycle there are two stories that seem to me to be related to the attitudes and views of Americans as indicated by the First Amendment survey. Both stories seem to indicate that a majority of Americans hold the twin icons of our country, the American flag and Jesus, in higher esteem than they do tolerance for our differences and for "liberty and justice for all."

Matt Drudge yesterday linked to a North Carolina TV station's story about a Sampson County high school not allowing students to wear clothing displaying the American flag. Actually, the ban was against students wearing any flag, American or otherwise. The logic behind the ban was that gang members identify themselves with flags of different countries.

Personally, I think that's lame logic, but I agree if one flag is banned, then all, including the American flag, should be banned.

However, I don't believe any flag should be banned. As a libertarian, I'm all for free expression, including by school students. If people want to wear red, white and blue clothing, or flags — any flag — I'm all for it.

(Aside: I'm old enough to remember when hippies took to wearing American flag patches and red, white and blue clothing, hats and bandanas. In those days, the "Establishment" took offense at that, saying that type of clothing showed disrespect to the flag. Nowadays, shirts and jackets mimic the flag, and the flag emblem is everywhere. Thanks to retailers like Old Navy, most everyone has some item of clothing that 35 years ago would have been considered disrespectful of the flag. Now it's considered patriotic. When did that change?)

After a day's pummeling in the press, the Sampson County School Board overruled the local school's ban, and today, students can wear any flag they wish to on their clothing. Good call.

So what does this have to do with yesterday's First Amendment survey?

On the TV station's website, accompanying both stories is a poll asking "Should schools be allowed to ban clothes that display flags?" The answer-choices were Yes, No, An exception should be made for American flags, and An exception should be made for other national or cultural flags."

Of course, I voted "No." Schools shouldn't be banning any clothing as long as the clothes cover up the essential "naughty bits" and don't have the commonly agreed upon "dirty words" on them.

Most of the poll respondents (at this moment, just over 20,000) didn't say "no, schools shouldn't ban clothing with flags on them."

Seventy percent said that an exception should be made for American flags.

So much for freedom of choice, and freedom of conscience, and freedom of expression. Instead of celebrating the freedom that the American flag represents, a majority of those answering the poll chose the rah-rah patriotic warm and fuzzy glow.

America used to be the beacon of freedom in this world. Now, according to polls, we'd rather rally around the symbol of freedom instead of letting everyone have a taste of that freedom.

And now, as Bro. Paul Harvey used to say, "Page Two."

I can't think of any female comedienne that I like less than Kathy Griffin, except for Rosie O'Donnell. (I haven't decided yet if I love or hate Sarah Silverman.) I find Griffin boorish and extremely unfunny.

But someone must like her; she recently won a Creative Arts Emmy Award.

The other day she gave a crude, but funny to the audience, acceptance speech, mocking award-winners who include Jesus in their lists of people they thank for winning an award.

I don't think Jesus gets too personally involved in granting wishes, or helping people win awards, or any of the other zillions of favors people ask of him everyday. I mean, by helping you win an award, wouldn't he be actively involved in keeping someone else from winning? Hardly seems Christ-like.

But I digress.

Here's what she said: "A lot of people get up here and thank Jesus for helping them win this award, but I have to say nobody has been less helpful in getting me to this moment than Jesus. I don't know what I ever did to him, I just think he doesn't like me that much, and if he had his way, Caesar Milan would be holding this statue right now, but he's not and I am! So I guess all I can really say is, 'Suck it, Jesus! This statue is my God now!'"

While the audience apparently thought it was funny, the Catholic League (and I'm sure other Christian groups, both Catholic and Protestant) didn't.

Catholic League president Bill Dohohue condemned Griffin's remarks, calling them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

Hate speech? Oh, come on! Jesus doesn't offend that easily.

But Americans do. Most of the news articles I read about Griffin's comments wouldn't even print her entire quote. The E! Channel has already said it will delete her comments when the program airs on Sept. 15th.

Americans get offended far too easily. Jewish-Americans got up in arms 20 years ago when Bro. Jesse Jackson called them "hymies." Jackson himself gets all high-and-mightily miffed when a black man calls another black man "nigger." Don Imus caught hell for joking about "nappy headed ho's." Newspapers won't even reprint Griffin's comments for fear of offending Christian readers.

In a comment to the First Amendment story yesterday, Bodo summed it up succinctly. "Freedom," he wrote, "is frightening to ignorant people. They know deep down inside that they can't trust themselves, and so they don't trust anyone else (assuming everyone is like them) and want protection."

Let freedom ring. Let others speak. Don't censor their choice of clothing or their choice of words. If someone doesn't like you, or attacks your sacred cow, relish in it. Be proud that you're living in a country where you — and everyone else — has freedom of expression.

Sometimes I get complaints about what I write on this blog: "You shouldn't say that," or "I don't like your tone," or "You're too preachy," or "You're doing a disservice to Freemasonry by exposing such and such."

Those are all expressions of a desire for censorship, for the suppression of ideas, because I've pushed the envelope of someone's belief system. People don't like hearing things that go against their set-in-stone beliefs. "How dare you question my politics/religion/Freemasonry?!"

As Thomas Jefferson said, "Question with boldness even the existence of God...."

He also said this: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

Live free.

And let others do the same.

Image: The Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights | Kathy Griffin | Censorship | Freedom | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

This blog is rated NC-17

I noticed on Bro. Don Tansey's blog Movable Jewel this morning, down at the bottom, a new widget gizmo saying "This blog is rated G." You can click on it and get the rating for your own blog.

The Burning Taper is rated "NC-17: No one 17 and under admitted."

I was surprised. I don't use much profanity on this site, and the rating system most likely only reads the blog content, not the comments, where a "dirty word" occasionally gets posted.

So why the adult rating?

"This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• death (12x)
• sex (6x)
• dead (5x)
• dick (3x)
• kill (1x)"

Interesting. So we need to protect our kids from discussions of dying?

Er. I guess I just increased the word count by one for all those words by posting their list here.

All of the uses of the word "dick" on this blog are related to the late science-fiction author Philip K. Dick, by the way. So is that link in the blog roll to a blog called Total Dick-head.

Oops. I just increased the word-count for "dick" three more times. Uh, damn, now four times!

And added a damn.

Twice.

I better stop before the Taper gets rated triple-X.

Speaking of ratings, have you seen the film This Film is Not Yet Rated? It's been playing on IFC lately. It's a documentary about the film ratings industry, and it will open your eyes about the politics behind the ratings system. The raters' identities are a closely guarded secret, with the MPAA ratings board saying they're all mainstream family types, with young or teen-aged kids, people who would naturally be concerned with morals and protecting children, and that the roster changes frequently.

With the help of a private investigator, the filmmakers "out" the identities of some of the MPAA raters, discovering that many, if not most, of them have been around a very long time, making a career out of what is billed as a temp job, and that their children are long since grown.

An interesting twist to the film is that it shows what happened when the movie itself was submitted to be rated.

I'll not give away any more of the film. If you like learning new things, and don't mind having pre-conceived notions (like the belief that the ratings system is a "good" thing) held up to scrutiny, I recommend you to see the movie.

Film | Movie Ratings | Censorship | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Blogging guidelines: Civility or censorship?

After a shouting match free-for-all developed on a technology blog recently, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Today's New York Times has a long article discussing their ideas.

O'Reilly's version and his comments can be found here.

Here are the guidelines suggested by Wales, along with his commentary:

The Bloggers Code of Conduct

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation. One can disagree without being disagreeable.

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.

We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it.

We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:

• is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
• is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person
• infringes upon a copyright or trademark
• violates an obligation of confidentiality
• violates the privacy of others

We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.

2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.

3. If tensions escalate, we will connect privately before we respond publicly.

When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved — or find an intermediary who can do so — before we publish any posts or comments about the issue.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible) and ask them to publicly make amends. If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.

5. We do not allow anonymous comments.

We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.

6. We ignore the trolls.

We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them — "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it." Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.

7. We encourage blog hosts to enforce more vigorously their terms of service

When bloggers engage in such flagrantly abusive behavior as creating impersonating sites to harass other bloggers they should take responsibility for their clients' behavior.

Here at the Burning Taper, we strive to keep the comments section as open as possible. Only once in a while have we deleted anyone's comments, and except when an occasional foul-mouthed troll comes along, we've kept your ability intact to post anonymously.

What do you think about these guidelines? Are they fair, or do they limit free speech? Do you support them? Would you adopt these rules for your own blog? Do you think the Burning Taper should adopt them, in toto or at least partially?

Or is this much ado about nothing?

Blog Guidelines | Civility | Censorship | Jimmy Wales | Tim O'Reilly | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com