All the recent talk of the new xanga ratings system has called something to my attention.
I am a free speech nazi.
Yes, I mean it when I say people should have free speech. Even nasty hateful dirty people you don’t like.
Letting them have free speech, pretty much unconditionally, is your safeguard against the people that think you’re hatefully, and dirty, and nasty.
There’s another aspect, too.
Who do you live for, and who lives for you? If your answer to either question was “the government,” I don’t know what to tell you, except that there’s a real risk you’ll always be a child.
We should have a law only where we need a law. You only need a rule against someone’s speech if their ideology scares you. I’m not afraid of neo nazi speech, of child molester speech, of crazy born again christian speech, of extreme right or leftist speech.
I’m afraid of some of those people, sometimes, inasmuch as I’m ever afraid of anything.
But I’m afraid of their actions, not their speech. The only way to STOP their actions in the long run is to defeat their ideology, and that can’t be done if they’re under a rock, in the dark.
Let those poison dogmas out themselves. Let them try to bring their ideas to war against mine.
I’ll win. My ideas are viral, my patterns insidious, my ideology of rigorous thought, my distaste for bullshit and obfuscation – it’ll rip your shitty dogma to bits, every time.
So I’m not afraid of your ideas. I welcome them.
Now some will say, “Xanga is a company. A company doesn’t have the same standards as the government.”
That’s a good point.
Nothing legally binds Xanga to uphold any sort of standards of speech or community of tolerance.
Nothing binds them to those standards at all.
But then, a morality you’re forced to uphold was never yours. Your behavior on the barbarous frontier is your true self, not the face you wear when you sell furs in the city.
UPDATE: HAHAHHAHAHAHA THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING EVER
IF YOU AREN’T LOGGED IN YOU CAN BYPASS THE CHECKER
SO JUST LOG OUT AND BROWSE YOUR PORN FOLKS
EDIT 2: OK NOW YOU JUST NEED TO ENTER YOUR BIRTHDATE TO GET TO THINGS RATED A-D AS APPROPRIATE TO YOUR AGE, SOMETHING I GUESS I NEVER DID. THIS IS ACCEPTABLE TO ME IN MY ROLE AS “LORD OF THE INTERNET”
Haha. ‘free speech nazi’. hee hee.
I love that last line…..I think that’s it right there…..
I agree, with one proviso. That if you exercise your free speech, you do not infringe on another person’s right of rebuttle. Example being somebody who posts hateful, dirty, nasty, neo-nazi, child molestor speech. If someone is ballsy enough to post it, they should be ballsy enough to open said post to comments, not delete any coments to the contrary, and not block users who speak out against it. That, as far as I’m concerned, is the price of free speech. Yes, you have the right to say whatever the fuck you want… so does everyone else.
in all practicality, you do have to let people ban commentors – to deal with the spam if nothing else. I think everyone does have a forum for rebuttle on their own blog. I’ve really only banned I think, three people in three years on xanga, and all of them were Xtreme Xtians who were fillining my comments with 5-10 pages passeges out of the bible, which has kind of a chilling affect on other people’s comments and my ability to read them.
Also, THERE IS NO NEED FOR YOUR BLOG TO BE RATED D SO FLEEN AND ME CAN’T READ IT
You aren’t even capable of thoughts vulgar enough to offend me.
If I could buy some dot come space. Oh I so would.
the breeders found this place and they’re turning it into neo-pets
silly breeders
and don’t bring your kids to my favorite restaurants!
ohhhhh…I love me some Bill Hicks!
i rated my site A, so all the other breeders can read me.
and i tend to agree with SG, that supporting free speech means not blocking people, being open for comments, not deleting them (unless ~~~ YOU CAN GET A FREE IPOD!!!! ~~~ baha. nobody needs that much freedom of speech, yo.)
But the idiots, the nazi’s the child porn pervs, they don’t care what you do to their dogma because they’re too stupid to know when they’ve lost. You might as well go talk to a wall for 30 hours.
Personally, I don’t go look for the hate shit and it doesn’t seem to come seek me out. I don’t care. But, if Xanga was trying to appeal to more people and please parents, they’d need to restrict that sort of thing.
You’re missing the point – those people pose a greater distance hidden then they do allowed their forum. If you don’t let them speak, they’ll just report one at a time via IM and chat, like they used too. There were nazis long before there were blogs.
As for kids? Tough shit. Fuck kids. Kids should stay the fuck off the internet anyway. They should be browsing from a computer in their school with harsh, harsh limits and an attendent to hit them with a stick if they type a p u and s in sequence. If I made a movie called “A giant redneck rapes a clown with fire” and someone watched it and got offended, well they are basically analogous to the last motherfucker in america that doesn’t seriously think their kids use the interent for smut.
Look at the affect this has already had on Sol. “I won’t be browsing your sight if it’s EX”
What’s the matter, chappy. . . afeard of a little titty? Maybe a titty with a swashtika tattoo! That’s be pretty hot. Esp. on a minority. Very Ironic.
Also, Hoobastank sucks. It’s not worthy of a whole blog, like the collosal slurping that comes from creed, but it’s worth a mention.