Gay marriage? Underage sex?
One might very well wonder why I’m so upset about LiveJournal banning users for having imaginary descriptions of underage sex. One might also wonder, given that I’m not gay, why I’m so consistantly up in arms about this whole gay marriage thing.
Part of my answer is to just insist that it’s not right to ban people for imaginary acts, and that it’s not right to deny group A rights that group B has simply because you’re not comfortable with their lifestyle choices. However, these answers seem more than a little weak given how strongly I feel about it.
I guess in the case of the imaginary sex, it disturbs me that livejournal is playing the censor. My ISP shouldn’t refuse to pass me packets because they don’t like the contents of them, and LiveJournal shouldn’t refuse to host my journal because they don’t like what I write about. That my journal isn’t in violation of anything isn’t the point – the point is that somewhere, someone’s journal is, and that once you start making exceptions to free speech, it isn’t too long before they start coming after people who hate the government i.e. me, people who hate the dominant religion i.e. me again. So I’m speaking up for those pervs over there.. even though in many cases I’d really rather not read the things they’ve written.. because I figure they’re just the beginning. Once you start caring about the advertisers more than the paid users, there’s a slippery slope that turns really steep, really fast. How many advertisers would want their banner ads appearing on <i>my</i> journal?
There are all these things I feel strongly about that don’t directly affect me – for example, I doubt if I will ever get to exercise my right to choose not to have a baby, since I’m not biologically capable of it – but which I nonetheless have very strong opinions on. I wonder where a lot of these attitudes came from – a number of them don’t very closely resemble my parents – they do resemble my friends, but I think that’s more because I select my friends based on my beliefs than the other way around.
By all indications, politically I am in the minority – I am 1 in 100, maybe 1 in 50.. I’m never going to have any real power, and I don’t *want* any real power.. I just want for other people not to have power over me either.
Just for the record, I am absolutely against any nonconsentual sex, or any sex with someone who isn’t capable of comprehending the emotional ramifications of consent. I have no problem with rendered kiddie porn, but I’m strongly against the real thing. (Although, I don’t know that I have a problem with the Lewis Carroll varients that just involve photographing children naked, providing it’s not upsetting the children and providing you don’t hold onto copies of the images if the children request that they be destroyed.)
I sent a email off to LJ commenting that I wasn’t the biggest fan of their pro-censorship policy.. I wonder if that combined with this post will be enough to get my account suspended..
February 26th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Marriage is a basic civil right that should be attainable by all adult Americans. For the truth about gay marriage check out our trailer. Produced to educate & defuse the controversy it has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: http://www.OUTTAKEonline.com
February 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
You know what makes my feelings stronger about stuff like this? The people who get stuck on thinking you support the other guys and their issues and can’t fucking comprehend that the concern is the implications for the rest of us.
I used to hear on the radio for days on end about all the things they were trying to do to that “Pedophile” the man busted. Aside from the fact that the things they wanted to do were probably more likely to make him a ‘predator’ type… Where does it end? What would stop people from making enough of a stink about anyone else to get the man to ruin their lives?
Because while we’re looking for more excuses to destroy peoples lives the rest of the system is being geared towards snooping into peoples lives to determine to sell to people, rent to people, hire people…
For example what happens when rumors or political views or issues with religious groups lands you in jail or something else that will come up on a background check? Some nice vague red flag for potential employers who’re doing more checks all the time… Not gonna hire that guy!
Especially fun is when these people are on a rampage to get people they consider scum off the streets and they do this by making them homeless jobless scabs. So, what? Now they’re not going to lurk the alleys, hidden by the shadows with less to live for and more anger to drive them to do something horrible?
Rampage. That’s what people do now, and when people go on a rampage 9 outta 10 it snowballs and people jump on that bandwagon like they’re going to change the world. Totally incapable of understanding what they’re doing or what they really want.
People make me sick.