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Recently, oral arguments were heard regarding a case about license plates and the first amendment. The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has challenged a rejection of their proposed plate that had images of the Confederate flag.
The Texas solicitor general argued that, "Messages on Texas license plates are government speech ... [because] Texas etches its name onto each license plate and Texas law gives the state sole control and final approval authority over everything that appears on a license plate.”
Please share your ideas/comments on this case or your views on vanity plates in general.
Story: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-confederate-license-plates-20150323-story.html
Case: http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2014/2014_14_144
What a vanity plate is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_plate
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @04:27PM
Common sense says anyone stupid enough to put any political speech on their vehicle (thus inviting anonymous vandalism/damage to said vehicle in the form of keying, tire slashing, etc) deserves what they get.
What is "common sense"? Have you conducted some sort of statistically significant survey and found that most people agree with this, or are you just giving your own opinion and calling it "common sense"? Furthermore, how common something is is irrelevant to whether or not it is correct, so "common sense" is meaningless anyway. Just tell people to use their brains, not to go by some ambiguous "common sense" that may or may not be common.
Second of all, I don't think they deserve what they get. Maybe it is unsurprising that someone would vandalize their property, but unsurprising != them deserving it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:04PM
I want to wear my Schutzstaffel [wikipedia.org] uniform around the town while shopping. I'm not a Nazi - I just wish to honour this history and brave sacrifices of my family - of my grandfather who laid his life down for the sacred values under which I was raised. I won't let any "political correctness" wipe away the symbol of that bond of loyalty and heritage.
It doesn't have anything to do with Jews, or the "peculiar institution" of a final solution.
Now, some may say I need more "common sense" than this. Let me tell you, I don't need common sense! I have a statistically significant survey and found that most people agree with this.
If anybody were to take offense at me and the the glorious Reich? It's ridiculous to think that I deserve any attack or approbation at all - let alone that there's even any likelihood.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Disagree) by frojack on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:16PM
He did it. He actually played the Godwin card [wikipedia.org].
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:21PM
But, sadly, Godwin does not go far enough. Yes, the SS were evil, true-believing Nazis and all. But at least they were not clearly and openly traitors to their own country, like the American Confederates were.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:25PM
I'm having trouble deciding between murders and traitors.
Seems like a trick question and I sense a bitchslap in the offing regardless of which I choose.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fadrian on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:32PM
But let's face it - you deserve it because you entered the conversation? Don't you, fro bro? Don't you just?
That is all.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday April 05 2015, @06:58PM
I'm having trouble deciding between murders and traitors.
Would it help if it was between racist genocidal murders and slaving racist traitors?
The Big Lebowski might help, because as Walter says, "Said what you want about the tenets of Southern Confederalism, at least it was an ethos." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday April 05 2015, @07:32PM
American and Caribbean plantation slavery were also a genocide. One that lasted for more than 6 or 7 years.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday April 05 2015, @07:47PM
American and Caribbean plantation slavery were also a genocide.
Let's not belabor the point. Frojack is already penitent. And besides, Arbeit Macht Frei!
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday April 05 2015, @08:05PM
Jahwohl. :-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Monday April 06 2015, @08:33AM
So say we all...
That is all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday April 05 2015, @08:14PM
American and Caribbean plantation slavery were also a genocide. One that lasted for more than 6 or 7 years.
In large part that is true of South America. Their economic theory was to work slaves to death. They worked their way through about 12 million [theroot.com]. Mostly used in mining and other dangerous work.
In North America, only about 388 thousand slaves were imported, and the southern plantation owners theory was to breed the rest in-country. They could get useful work out of ten year old kids. And having kids around made slaves less likely to rise in rebellion. Although some histories suggest wanton murder of slaves, that was neither the norm nor economical in the North American experience. It was quite common in South America, because as soon as a slave couldn't work in the mines they were useless.
The Genocide aspect of Slavery Trade rested mostly with the African tribal warloards that captured and sold entire rival tribes into slavery.
Slave merchants had no mercenaries running around Africa gathering slaves. It was all done by paying some local chieftain by the head. They got paid for the slave and got to keep the lands they depopulated. A double win for them. There was a great deal of competition to be a slave provider.
When international Slave Trade was banned in 1820 it pretty well spelled the death knell for the South American mines, but no so much in North America.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday April 06 2015, @02:40AM
Another important difference between the African slave trade and what we now term "genocide" is that the capturing of slaves in Africa was not done with the purpose of destroying the culture of the captured people, but rather sheer profit. And indeed, the cultures that lost many to the slave trade still survive to this day in Africa.
By contrast, the stated policy goal of Andrew Jackson was to kill every American Indian in North America if he could. The stated goal of the Holocaust was to kill all Jews. The stated goal of the Rwandan genocide was to kill all Tutsis. And there are many other examples of this particular kind of depravity.
So yes, the slave trade and slavery were terrible. But it was not, according to the usual definitions, a genocide.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday April 05 2015, @09:07PM
well, thats just, like, your opinion, man.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @07:37PM
But at least they were not clearly and openly traitors to their own country
Just being a traitor to a country says nothing. Supporting slavery says much more about them than them being traitors. Someone who is a traitor can be an ethical person if the country they are 'betraying' is evil.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday April 05 2015, @08:44PM
Someone who is a traitor can be an ethical person if the country they are 'betraying' is evil.
Maybe. But we should examine this a bit more carefully. This is the whole point of going Godwin, and even more the point of calling "Godwin": to stop reasoned consideration of a point. So the argument so far:
1. Good ole boys in Texas can't but Confederate battle flags on their license plates.
2. Doing so is just like wearing an SS uniform to honor one's German ancestors.
3. Nazis were just evil, not traitors (in a plain and simple sense, you could make a case there were in effect.)
4. Race-based slavery in the New World was tantamount to genocide, and lasted much longer than Nazism.
5. Treason against an evil government can be good.
So what we have here is a direct conflict between the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Neo-Confederates want the ability to freely admit to treason. But is treason really not bad some times? Racism, whether of the Nazi or Confederate version (and they are related, cf. eugenics movement in the US), is an evil. But to turn on your own, to attack without warning those you are joined with in a civil union, that is something that is always wrong, in all cultures. Even those who defect from evil regimes are suspect, since they have turned on those who trusted them, and even if they say they are now on our side (the side of good and cookies!), we cannot trust them. So when the Confederacy attacked the Union, it added treachery and betrayal to the longstanding practices of racial slavery and genocide.
(Addendum: Betraying evil may seem like a good thing, but it is still betrayal. The proper recourse is to publicly take a stand against the evil, as in Civil Disobedience, or to take your leave, again openly and publicly, without being a traitor. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @09:30PM
But to turn on your own, to attack without warning those you are joined with in a civil union, that is something that is always wrong, in all cultures.
I'd say it's not wrong in some situations, regardless of what the culture (probably the one you're trying to escape from) says.
Even those who defect from evil regimes are suspect, since they have turned on those who trusted them, and even if they say they are now on our side (the side of good and cookies!), we cannot trust them.
Given the discussion, all it shows is that they'll betray evil. If your country does not violate people's liberties, there will be no problem. And if they remained loyal to their original country, they would still be untrustworthy and they would be hated either way.
Addendum: Betraying evil may seem like a good thing, but it is still betrayal.
And, of course, betrayal isn't always bad.
The proper recourse is to publicly take a stand against the evil, as in Civil Disobedience, or to take your leave, again openly and publicly, without being a traitor.
The proper recourse depends entirely on the situation. I have no problem with completely betraying evil that is violating everyone's rights. There is no solution that will work in every situation.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday April 05 2015, @09:44PM
You see, this is why I cannot trust ACs. They'll just stab you in the back if they think you're evil, without stopping to think that maybe they are the ones that . . .
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @11:53PM
But to turn on your own, to attack without warning those you are joined with in a civil union, that is something that is always wrong, in all cultures. Even those who defect from evil regimes are suspect, since they have turned on those who trusted them, and even if they say they are now on our side (the side of good and cookies!), we cannot trust them.
You have just explained exactly why so many people hate Edward Snowden.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @02:46AM
Because they're government bootlickers who don't care one bit for the principles and freedoms the US is supposed to stand for. Mindless tribalism is all it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @06:23AM
Ironically your post is an example of mindless tribalism too. So meta!
Sure I'm being snarky, but given how the discussion had clearly identified those who defect from evil regimes, you still had to come along and do a bit of mindless cheerleading for your tribe rather than accept any possibility of nuance. And then someone modded you up as "informative" as if what you wrote actually added anything new to the discussion, like there have not been literally a million other posts saying exactly the same thing since Snowden defected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @11:56AM
Ironically your post is an example of mindless tribalism too. So meta!
Actually, no it's not. It's an example of me forming an individual opinion and cheering on someone who challenged the intolerable status quo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @02:49PM
Woooosh!
Of course the tribalist thinks his cheerleading is valid and meaningful.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @01:35AM
I tried to point out (in above postings) that your #4 was not really true in North America.
The plan in NA was to preserve the slave as property, not wipe them out. Genocide is the wrong word, the wrong concept, and not what happened.
The overwhelming majority of blacks in the US at the beginning of the civil war were descended from those 388 thousand imported slaves.
In 1860 they numbered 3.9 million, a 10 fold increase. [bowdoin.edu]
(Blacks were 12.7% of the US population in 1860, and that percentage holds true today.).
The black population grew steadily, way in excess of imported slaves both before and after 1820 outlawing of international slave trading. Slavery was a lot of horrible things, but genocide wasn't one of them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by aristarchus on Monday April 06 2015, @04:24AM
Hey, Fro,
Since I know you put some thought into your posts, I appreciate the interposition. But look up the definition of genocide. It is not a matter of individual fatalities, it's more a matter of the destruction of a people. So you could increase their numbers, to your profit, I might add, and still be committing genocide. Second, racism, which seems to be a recurring topic here, and I can only suspect that is because of a heavy American presence. Chattel Slavery has existed as long as humans have had any political structure. It is only in the Modern period that so-called "race" has had anything to do with it. Greeks were slaves to Greeks, and to Persians, and even to Israelis if they were lucky (ancient times, I refer to here). But with a race-based slavery and doctrines of racial superiority and Social Darwinism, things change, and not for the better. That is why slavery in the Americas is at least as bad, if not worse, than any inhumanity ever done by some people to another. And the costs still remain. Your revisionist history misses the point. And it was you that called "Godwin"? Oh, the huge manatee!
(Score: 5, Touché) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @05:22AM
But look up the definition of genocide. It is not a matter of individual fatalities, it's more a matter of the destruction of a people.
I just did that.
the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.
Using a new age definition of genocide, or stretching the definition, really isn't helpful. Sort of like throwing the word "toxic" around too glibly as is all too common these days. The killing of people based on some national or racial basis is KEY to the definition of genocide.
There never was any intent of "destruction of a people" here. There wasn't a plan, to do so, and it didn't happen.
Those groups sold into slavery (sold by their own brothers) were not wiped out. They persist today both in Africa and in America.
The slave traders looked at it like they were buying cattle. (Or so they claim). They had no reason to want to their source of income to be wiped out.
The only people with animosity toward the enslaved were the enslavers, neighboring tribes, land coveters, historical rivals, or petty tyrants, almost certainly of the same ethnic stock as those they sold.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 06 2015, @05:48AM
Frojack! You are better than this! First, you could have used the definition of genocide under international law, which is kinda, you know, correct? Second, those who held persons in bondage because of skin color were certainly not doing so out of humanitarian concerns. It just made it easier to spot the runaways, like our own Runaway1956! Black? Must be a slave! Certainly you have seen the recent movie. And you may have heard of the Dredd-Scott decision of the Supreme Court?
And perhaps the entire group from which slaves were taken were not wiped out. But that reveals two things, again. Genocide does not have to be successful to be genocide, and secondly, you can commit genocide on a portion of a people. I suggest you take a look at policy toward Primal Peoples in Canada as an example. The fostering of native children to detach them from their heritage is an act of genocide, even if it only happens to one child.
New age definition? No, the definition, under international law. The ground has shifted beneath your feet, as Obama put it in his Inaugural address. Best to recognize this before you fall down and find out that after all, you are a racist. Maybe an accidental racist, but a racist nonetheless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @06:45AM
Frojack is of the modern conservative mindset which thinks race is not a social construct. If race is pure biology then a "captive breeding program" can't be genocide because the biology is preserved despite the fact that the identity of the people is eliminated.
> New age definition? No, the definition, under international law.
It would help if you actually cited that definition.
"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/whatisit.html [genocidewatch.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:03AM
Race isn't a social construct. You're thinking of culture. Killing an entire race of people will typically destroy their culture entirely as well, but one doesn't need a specific skin color or have a certain heritage to share the same culture.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 06 2015, @08:04AM
Poor Tejas, so far from God, and so far from God. I am not a racist because I don't understand what race is? WTF? Well, now I say let them have the "special" plates. Between those, the "truck nuts" and them "rolling coal", we will know who to have to drones target.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @09:31AM
> Race isn't a social construct. You're thinking of culture.
Hhhm. There are thousands of scientists who disagree with you. [nytimes.com]
For example, Craig Venter, [wikipedia.org] the first guy to map the human genome, said ''Race is a social concept, not a scientific one."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @02:56PM
They can disagree all they want, but the definition of the word says otherwise:
If they say that race is a social construct, then they're using a different definition for "race" than the one that exists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @04:33PM
> They can disagree all they want, but the definition of the word says otherwise:
Typical dictionary pedant doesn't actually check the dictionary:
race: [oxforddictionaries.com]
1.2 A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.
example: "They sought to weld the country's diverse ethnicities into a Brazilian race defined in historical and cultural terms."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @09:36PM
And that definition a subset of the definition I used:
This is the generally-accepted definition of the word and what most people think of when they hear it - specifically referring to distinct physical characteristics. There's also 1.1 and 1.3 that further clarify it, still agreeing with the premise of definition 1.
Like I said, the definition of the word, what most people think of when they hear it, says otherwise.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @08:37PM
Hmmm, first you tell me to look up the definition.
I do so, I post it.
And sure enough you reject it.
Now you want to reject my sources and substitute your own, from a body of law which you deem to be superior, but which is the prevailing law exactly NOWHERE.
Next time you demand I look something up, but fully intend to honor exactly ONE pet source, just save everybody the time and effort, and post your only acceptable source ahead of time.
Further, slavery didn't choose blacks because their color made them easier to find when they ran away. They already had a population readily at hand that they could have chosen for that - American Indians.
They chose blacks because of the utterly perverted belief among slave holders that they were sub-human, and undeserving of protection, and utterly uneducated, had no government in their country of origin (indeed no countries).
This wasn't a north american decision, slavery was rampant in the world at that time, and just about every slave holding countries chose people of this nature.
Slavery in north america was never genocide, either in effect or intention. It was a violation of the very principals the country was founded on, and the Northern states should have just rejected the Southern demands and formed a union without them, as many northern delegates had argued. History has proven this believe would have been the better choice.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 07 2015, @04:17AM
Hmmm, first you tell me to look up the definition.
I do so, I post it.
And sure enough you reject it.
Predictable, ain't it! But it is still your own fault. Where did you get that particular definition? Dictionary (dot) com? Citation needed! It was your snide remark about "new age definitions" that brought it up. And you may not be aware that, yes, the United States is a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, passed in 1948. Treaties such as this have a standing on par with the US Constitution, according to the US Constitution. So its definition of genocide is in fact the correct definition under United States Law. Period. Vulgar usage might differ, but that is hardly relevant. And I might suggest that you take a look at the United States reservations to signing said Convention. Yep. Racists!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Monday April 06 2015, @02:21AM
By that logic, George Washington was worse than Adolf Hitler, because Washington was a traitor to his country, which was Great Britain, while Hitler was just an "evil, true-believing Nazi" who wanted to genocide the Jewish race.
Your move, troll.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 06 2015, @05:07AM
Yeah, you racist! How can you not even see the difference? Let me lay it out.
George Washington was worse than Adolf Hitler, because Washington was a traitor to his country, which was Great Britain,
No one is a Britain, and the Britons are long gone. Besides, they were Celts, anyway. So what makes you think that Ol' George was a citizen of Great Britain? Certainly, he did not have rights equal to a British citizen! So how could he commit treason? But as before, this slips down into a major confusion about what is at stake in politics.
Treason is the betrayal of those who trust you. It is not the betrayal of those who for some pathological reason claim that you must obey them. Does this distinction make sense to you? Loyalty is something given, not something that can be demanded. Alright, now that we have that straight, let's move on the the next postulate. If loyalty can only be given, then we can only commit treason against those we have given loyalty to. Follows, right? Now, what if those that we have sworn loyalty to change such that we no longer grant them loyalty? Sticky wicket, say what? But this is the crux. You can withdraw loyalty, as I believe Washington that the other American Revolutionaries did, or you can pretend to keep it, and use that pretense to your advantage, based on the trust of those whom you have neglected to inform of your change of allegiance. They have to still trust you in order for you to betray them. If you have openly declared your change of heart, treason is impossible. Washington was no traitor. He did own slaves, however. Hmmm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @12:00PM
Treason is the betrayal of those who trust you. It is not the betrayal of those who for some pathological reason claim that you must obey them.
And yet they were thought of as traitors. And they don't have to trust you; you just had to swear allegiance to them at some point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @04:59PM
You bastard! My grandfather died in a German concentration camp. He drank too much one night, and fell out of the tower.