At 9:44 AM -0700 12/3/97, Tim May wrote:
Labelled speech will be the touchstone for the next couple of decades of debate about censorship, hurtful speech, and mandatory voluntary self-ratings.
"But you can say anything you wish, provided you voluntarily and accurately self-label your words, and provided none of the protected class members are offended or insulted."
I should add a brief anecdote about the mind-set these people have. In the early 90s the city of Santa Cruz, CA, considered an "appearance discrimination" law. It was aimed at banning discrimination on the basis of appearance. The cited examples were of restaurants and other businesses in town which had rules against employees wearing nose rings, tongue studs, spiky hair, mohawks, lip piercings, tatoos, scarification, and such things. And "weight discrimination," as in the also-famous case of a Santa Cruz health food store turning down the employment application of a "person of poundage." (The grossly obese Toni Cassista, who sued the health food store citing weight discrimination...I believe she eventually settled out of court.) Inasmuch as the U.S. has not quite yet reached the point where such "appearance discrimination" is barred under Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the city fathers and mothers considered having their own appearance discrimination law. It was eventually tabled. Much national attention got focussed on it, as some of you may recall. ("What will Santa Cruz think of next?") I attended one of the public hearings, held in the Civic Center before a crowd of several hundred. Those who spoke pubically, during the hours-long public input, were apoplectically insistent that thoughtcrime be purged, that restaurants and other businesses be forced to hire those with extreme body decoration, piercing, tatooing, and such. A woman I vaguely knew from science fiction circles, who had divorced her husband and become a Radical Dyke (tm), summarized the view of the crowd: "The First Amendment gives these bigots the right to think anything they wish. But it doesn't give them the right to act on their bigoted thoughts publically." This view is, I think, the increasingly common view of the Left: that the First Amendment is about private thoughts, but that public expressions of such thoughts, either in published form or in hiring and firing decisions, etc., is not covered by the First Amendment. Sadly, if the Civil Rights Act is upheld, they are probably correct. Any public utterance or publication of certain politically incorrect thoughts is likely to be viewed as a violation of the "civil rights" of some aggrieved minority. (I, of course, would like to see all parts of the Civil Rights Act except those dealing directly with _governmental_ discrimination against certain races or gender, struck down. The Civil Rights Act should only be about government allowing equal access to voting booths, publically-funded facilities, etc. It should not interfere with a person's right to associate with whom he wishes, to hire and fire whomever he wishes, and to serve or sell to whomever he wishes. Without these rights, there is no real freedom.) --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."