You see kids, free speech is NOT, as it turns out, limited to just saying and writing stupid shit. Actions too are a form of speech. If you don't believe me, take a look at the concept of symbolic speech. You can exercise this speech by, say, favoring certain products over others in a store. Maybe your store caters to environmentally friendly products. That is an act of free speech. A Jewish book store is under no obligation to sell Mein Kampf and pro-Nazi propaganda.
If you're reading this and thinking "Well DUH Damios, that's just stupid!" then ask yourself one, possibly 2 questions: 1, did you object to Amazon refusing to sell the aforementioned handbook on pedophilia, and if so, what the Hell makes Amazon any different than the Jewish bookstore? The correct answer is the scope they CHOSE to take. A Jewish bookstore is perfectly, legally capable of selling pro-Nazi propaganda if it so chose. Amazon is nothing more than a store with an incredibly wide scope of goods. But just because it chooses a wide scope of goods doesn't mean it has to accept all goods.
And before you go all "Fahrenheit 451" on my ass, let's be clear that book burning is perfectly fine. Free speech is protected from the government because governments have power. If a government has power, they can control opinion. When a bunch of free citizens burn a book, it is EXPRESSING their opinion. Do you see the difference? It's subtle, I know.
So, to recap, a bunch of citizens expressing dislike about Amazon selling a book, and Amazon choosing not to sell the book, is not a free speech issue. It is an expression of free speech. If you force Amazon to sell goods they don't want to sell, that is a violation of free speech. Come on people, it isn't hard!
Carry this over to the fucking internet. Here's a page on Encylopedia Dramatica that demonstrates this principle wonderfully. Notice this line;
"Fast Eddie — The founder of the site. He does not believe in free speech, is mentally retarded, is very paranoid, and, above all, is incredibly lazy. He's also not fond of words liek weeaboo because they are "derogatory specifically in a way that is against our cross-fandom."
"Fast Eddie — The founder of the site. He does not believe in free speech, is mentally retarded, is very paranoid, and, above all, is incredibly lazy. He's also not fond of words liek weeaboo because they are "derogatory specifically in a way that is against our cross-fandom."
He doesn't believe in free speech? Oh, right. See, that's in reference to Fast Eddie locking down the Encyclopedia Dramatica page.
"Encyclopedia Dramatica Locked because Fast Eddie fears that someone will mention this very page and how it exhibits TV Trope's numerous fuck-ups. Update: Fast Eddie has now pussied out entirely, and has removed even the token mentioning of this very page. Stay classy, you frail-nerved crybaby."
"Encyclopedia Dramatica Locked because Fast Eddie fears that someone will mention this very page and how it exhibits TV Trope's numerous fuck-ups. Update: Fast Eddie has now pussied out entirely, and has removed even the token mentioning of this very page. Stay classy, you frail-nerved crybaby."
And...you can pretty much take everything I said about a couple paragraphs up there and just cut and paste, only replace "store" with "website." Who gives a flying fuck if Fast Eddie actually is a hypocrite? It's his fucking website. It's not a violation of free speech if its his fucking website, you retarded fucks. He has every right to say whatever the fuck he wants. If he posts a page HIMSELF about Encyclopedia Dramatica and Anonymous on TVTropes, trashing them entirely and displaying nothing but gay porn to ineffectively parody your pathetic trashy subculture, then not only would he degrade himself to your level, but he'd be exercising free speech.
By the ways, I love how quick you are to claim Fast Eddie is a hypocrite. The reason he's several rungs above you on the evolutionary ladder is that you brats are equally hypocritical, if not more so, and he's at least twice as beneficial to society. Because what screams "TEH INTERNETS R NOT 4 SRS BIZNESS!" like writing an enormous Encyclopedia Dramatica page that makes you sound like a...to steal a term, "butthurt fanboy..." who just had their favorite TVTropes article "unfairly edited" by the guy who fucking owns it.
So, fuck 4chan, fuck Anonymous, and fuck anyone stupid enough to believe that Amazon's refusal to sell a handbook on pedophilia is a violation of freedom of speech.
Well said Damios! Although it seems that Amazon only refuses to sell the book because of the massive loss of business they risk in continuing to offer it, I think a lot of people really need to realize that a store can sell whatever the hell it wants to, within the realms of legality of course, licenses and whatnot.
ReplyDeleteAnd, though I personally don't really care if the owners of Amazon are pedos themselves, regardless of my own opinion on child molesters, and want to sell a guide book to safely be a pedophile, I do applaud this concerted effort (though perhaps somewhat misguided, I dunno) on the part of consumers to control what is being sold to them. It's only too bad that this is a limited and rare case and really doesn't impact anything at all.
But it is a nice reminder/hint of what could be done if people put group efforts into things that actually, you know, mattered.
I fully agree with you. This is exactly what's been missing in our capitalist society, the element of "enlightened" in "enlightened self-interest."
ReplyDelete