JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>
> Carlin Romano ran into trouble in the PC crowd by imagining, in a review of
> Catherine MacKinnon's Only Words, that he was in jail for raping MacKinnon
> while someone else was in jail for writing this outrageous fantasy about
> raping MacKinnon. Are you saying that a (published) rape fantasy is
> equyivalent to rape?
Is this a rhetorical question? In any case, no. Being raped causes a great deal more harm than reading about it. The worst reading about rape could do is make you physically sick.
> All that said, speech is special. It is not an act like any other.
That's not what I said. Speech is a physical act and should be treated like any other physical act. I really can't imagine anyone being harmed by speech. Offended, yes. Maybe if one yells loud enough you can break someone's ear drums. There are other ways of communicating ideas e.g the deaf and mute.
> Grownups are presumed to have a certain skin-thickness, sticks and stones &
> all that. Don't run to mommy--or, more to the point, Big Brother--just
> because people say mean things. Even if the things are really, really mean,
> utterly false, and quite indefensible.
What would you say about some bonehead tacking a Nazi poster on the public bulletin board outside your office? How about tacking said poster on your bedroom wall? Noone is an absolutist about free speech.
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> So if a capitalist feels harmed if you or I were to shout
> "Expropriate the expropriators!," should we be prosecuted?
Feels harmed or is harmed? If the capitalist could show that she suffered actual physical pain, she might have a case.
Michael Pugliese wrote:
>Compare to :"Earl Browder:Tool Of Wall St.?
Earl Browder was a tool of Wall St.
Sam Pawlett