Do we want to be in a society where only things deemed non-offensive are protected? Seems maybe a little arbitrary and capricious?
Personally, I'd rather ditch most IP entirely, but that's rather a different issue.
Well, offensive to whom? There's obviously "Nigger"... But wait. It's offensive if a white person calls a black person that. But many a time, blacks will call each other that to 'own' the word and reclaim its power. So we have an immediate example of an offensive word that isn't offensive in many cases.
Or in recent years, simply asking "Are you a man or woman?" is offensive if they pull the 'not gender binary'-card. Yeah, we can ignore the fact that you either have sperm or eggs, or genetic anomalies that have interesting medical conditions.. But the question in certain groups is "Offensive".
Then there's the last group of people who are, what I call, professional victims. I've not seen a conservative one of these yet. They primarily are in the extremist liberal camps, and the smallest innocuous things will set them off in tirades. To them, everything they don't do is "Offensive". And this "Offensiveness" changes as per person. I usually treat these people by ignoring them. You cannot win. (An example of one of them is demanding to have others use some pronoun like hir or zir or zem. And they will get angry if you ask, don't ask, use a different one around other people or... )
Edit: I try for a variant of the Robustness Principle. Unless someone is intentionally mocking me, if they get some term wrong or use no longer "politically correct" terminology, I try to look past that for their underlying idea.
Ive seen plenty of them. They rail against any sign of diversity as an attack on their white, heterosexual normalcy. Check out the forums on IGN. They are outraged by the sight of a penis in a tv show (American Gods) or a person of colour cast in a leading role.
I've seen a bit of these types, but usually they wore iron cross rings, or white robes (KKK). Even some of the more extremist Christians I know haven't acted quite like that. Yes their preference is very much against homosexuality and more liberal policies of "Do what you want as long as you don't harm others", but I haven't seem them go out of their way like the extremist liberal ones do.
I've even been screamed at by some extremist liberal woman because I (a male <shudder>) dared to walk through a door and hold the door open for her, err, hir, err, "it". And note, even if you can't see it, am a bisexual male.
I want to believe that's not what you're saying, but I'm having a hard time parsing something different out of your comment.
Maybe the conservatives have their own. Pretty sure they do. Ive seem some kicking and screaming with Christianity, but even in Indiana, apathy with regards to religion seems to be taking more of a hold. And there's that Starbucks cup thing.. I'm 100% sure that was social media "fake news". I never saw anyone in real life actually complaining about that, other than for a week or 2, it was bandied around everywhere.
Then again, the ones who've consistently yelled and screamed and flailed around are the special snowflake extremist liberal SJWs over perceived and non-existent slights. And yes, I'm a liberal complaining about how extremists are ruining liberalism, because what they want freedom for you to comply with them.
Like the guy who goes to places and gets himself into horrible situations on YouTube Live or Twitch, when people call in a Swat Team onto his location.
And I don't even know anything about his politics, I just know that he has a following, and he literally makes (was making?) money off of his streams, which people were attracted to based on wanting to see harm come to him!
Literally inconveniencing airplanes and airport concourses full of people so that he could get some more media attention on his scam.
So, I think that's despicable and I've never looked up his streams as a result, because I don't want him to profit. Like I said I don't even know his politics, and I won't say anything about mine.
But to argue the singular point, I think there are some professional victims and it is well... dismissive, to be dismissive of them.
Outside of very narrow circumstances where it's actually relevant, asking someone's gender identity or sex is likely to be offensive even without a forced binary choice and even if they don't subscribe to a non-binary identity, simply because it implies that they are going to be judged on that rather than their ideas or actions (or by how their ideas or actions fit your perception of sex/gender roles rather than the merits of the ideas/actions on their own.)
heh. The "War on Christmas" sprang to mind without even thinking about it. I mean, a large number of people spent Christmas 2015 offended by the color a cup wasn't.
Boy, you live in some bubble don't you. There are so many examples, it boggles the mind that you haven't seen them.
Really? Because I seem to not be able to take a step without tripping over the mainstream conservative Christians whining about the persecution of "people of faith" everytime the government fails to sufficiently privilege their religious viewpoint in public policy, or some private actor fails to acknowledge their preferred religious holiday in standard commercial greetings, or...
Among numerous other conservative examples.
Donald Trump. Professional victim since 1946. Far-right conservative since at least 2008. Recently threatened to cut off relations with several of our closest allies because the elected leader didn't congratulate him quickly enough after November 8th. Has claimed since his inauguration that (a) Democrats, (b) Republicans, (c) the government, and (d) the Media are out to get him, despite being part of each of these groups during the last few years.
There are already many limitations on truly free speech, as there should be. Should this type of speech be limited? It's a valid question.
My main objection in this thread was to the specific statement: "This is a win for a free society." It implies that the defense was fighting against a "free society." I'm saying that two people can disagree on this specific matter while both being in support of a "free society." There's no need to polarize this issue in terms of free vs. non-free.
The trademark office interpreted the statute one way, the plaintiffs another way, it worked its way through the courts and the decision came down in the plaintiffs' favor, so the trademark office will change its interpretation. The system works.
There's no need to villainize the trademark office for disagreeing on the interpretation of a statute that hadn't yet been clarified by the courts.
Some people argue that a hijab is empowering to women, and is a sign of freedom. Some argue the exact opposite. Just because one group says they believe in a given thing doesn't mean they actually do things which promote the thing they claim they support.
By your definition, passing laws is a privilege too, because Congress can choose to not do it. Perhaps that's correct usage of the word privilege but I don't really see it
You're correct that Congress may choose not to exercise that power, but they are prevented from being able to exercise that power arbitrarily, and especially not on matters of obscenity or indecency without passing(failing?) the Miller test[2], which this clearly doesn't, and "The Slants" arguably satisfies none of the conditions.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_Communications_of_Califo...
Since then though, the FCC has been more prudent with what they go after, and the fines have are low enough that it serves everyone's interests to keep everything de rigueur.
NBC doesn't want to have to worry about having to compete with smut on the public airwaves, or having to big against Pornhub in the next spectrum auction. Meanwhile, the FCC of course enjoys the presumption of authority over the airwaves with a quasi-plausible veil of content neutrality.