Roseanne Barr off the air

[Dr. Keith]

Free speech is at issue here, yes. Obviously. How can anyone say otherwise? Roseanne is being punished for speech, so yes, it's a free speech issue. Unambiguously.

I'm not a free speech absolutist, and free speech isn't the only issue at play here, so recognizing that this is in part a free speech issue doesn't determine what one thinks is an appropriate response to her speech. But if one cares about free speech, one should at least consider the implications of a response on free speech, even if one decides that it is a lesser concern than other factors.

I can see the Free Speech angle, and I care a lot about Free Speech. I also think speech, even free speech, has consequences. If it didn't, there would be no purpose to speech. Speech is intended to convey meaning and influence others. If it didn't then it wouldn't be so damn important. Speech is how we rally people to our cause, it how we gain support for our ideas and beliefs. Speech has to have an impact in the world or it isn't speech. The flip side of that is some speech is going to influence people to not want to be associated with the speaker.

Also, if you you ask for a turd sandwich you can't complain when you are given a turd sandwich.

And from what I've read, she was told form the beginning that she was on a short leash, that she was being given a second chance. She didn't have to ask for a turd sandwich, but when she did she can't complain that someone delivered it to her door.

 

[phiwum]

Gendered insults are okay though?

**** her and all but hypocrisy hurts the cause.

I have to say that I have less problem with gendered insults.

"Bitch" applies to women more or less exclusively (and when applied to a man, one is questioning his masculinity). "Bastard" applies to men exclusively. "Dick" as well. I use those terms.

The word Bee used (beginning with C) is more offensive. I confess I use it, but not in public, and I cuss like a sailor. I can understand the backlash over that term.

I don't think I'm being hypocritical when I interpret Bee differently from Barr. Calling a black person an ape seems to be based on the fact that they are black. Calling a woman a **** isn't just because she's a woman. There are other characteristics involved, just as not all men are bastards, though all bastards are men.

 

[Ziggurat]

I can see the Free Speech angle, and I care a lot about Free Speech. I also think speech, even free speech, has consequences. If it didn't, there would be no purpose to speech. Speech is intended to convey meaning and influence others. If it didn't then it wouldn't be so damn important. Speech is how we rally people to our cause, it how we gain support for our ideas and beliefs. Speech has to have an impact in the world or it isn't speech. The flip side of that is some speech is going to influence people to not want to be associated with the speaker.

Sure. Freedom of speech collided with freedom of association, and in this case freedom of association won. And I'm not arguing that's a bad outcome.

 

[phiwum]

Re write history much?

Racist jokes have always been a thing. A horrible thing, but many people historically and currently are that brand of *******.

I appreciate your vigor, but outright trying to pretend history didn't happen hurts the cause.

When I was about 12 or so, I bought many different ethnic joke books by Larry Wilde. The Official Black Joke Book, The Official Polish Joke Book, The Official Irish Joke Book, The Official Jewish Joke Book (as a boy from Oklahoma, I had no stereotypes about Jews before that one, so it was a learning experience).

He's got his own page on Wikipedia, but the joke books he was writing back in the 70s have long passed their sell-by date.

 

[dudalb]

I can see the Free Speech angle, and I care a lot about Free Speech. I also think speech, even free speech, has consequences. If it didn't, there would be no purpose to speech. Speech is intended to convey meaning and influence others. If it didn't then it wouldn't be so damn important. Speech is how we rally people to our cause, it how we gain support for our ideas and beliefs. Speech has to have an impact in the world or it isn't speech. The flip side of that is some speech is going to influence people to not want to be associated with the speaker.

Also, if you you ask for a turd sandwich you can't complain when you are given a turd sandwich.

And from what I've read, she was told form the beginning that she was on a short leash, that she was being given a second chance. She didn't have to ask for a turd sandwich, but when she did she can't complain that someone delivered it to her door.

If you are an entertainer on commercial TV, you live or you die by one thing:Advertising Revenues;how much the network can charge for commericial time on your show. (Ratings are just a means to this end;the higher the ratings, the more the networks can charge advertisers).
Disney/ABC obviously felt that Barr's antics made her toxic to advertisers;it did not matter what kind of ratings she got;advertisers would shun her show.
That was a pretty big reason she got the Ax.
And that her ratings were slipping badly in the second half of the season just made the decision a bit easier.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Sure. Freedom of speech collided with freedom of association, and in this case freedom of association won. And I'm not arguing that's a bad outcome.

Where's the collision? If the restaurant manager insults me on my way out the door, and, as a result, I decide I'd rather not eat there any more, is my action in opposition to freedom of speech?

 

[dudalb]

Where's the collision? If the restaurant manager insults me on my way out the door, and, as a result, I decide I'd rather not eat there any more, is my action in opposition to freedom of speech?

ANd a business should be compelled to keep employing an employee who was damaging their image in a business where image is very important?

 

[The Big Dog]

I have a dream. When someone says it is a free speech issue, people do not immediatly claim it is not, because free speech has consequences (which makes it a free speech issue) and then sonorously lecture everyone that the first amendment only applies to governmental action (despite the fact that the original poster did not mention the first amendment)

Call me crazy, I know.

 

[dudalb]

I also think the "I just don't want anybody that stupid working for me" principal applies.

 

[dudalb]

Note that all the Roseanne Barr supporters here are also Trump worshipers?
I don't think that is a coincidence.

 

[Fudbucker]

Another reason Samantha Bee's situation is different is it was a woman using a term that is very offensive to women. It's the old trope that blacks can say the n-word and Jewish comics can make fun of Jews. Could anyone other than a Jew have been able to make The Producers? I doubt it.

 

[Ziggurat]

ANd a business should be compelled to keep employing an employee who was damaging their image in a business where image is very important?

I never suggested they should be. Freedom of association is very important, and firing her is an exercise of that freedom.

 

[sadhatter]

"Wealthy famous woman loses tv show, will be replaced by some other show."

Oh the horror. To put this in the proper perspective, call me when she's tortured to death at a town event and has her extremities chopped off and cut up to be kept as souvenirs, for whistling at some dude, then we can talk about something actually awful, and not just losing something she's not entitled to have in the first place.

ETA: or to add a modern context - tell me when she's stabbed for holding hands with another woman. Or chased down and murdered for walking down the street in the arbitrarily-defined "wrong" clothes. Or beaten dragged to jail for "disrespect".

Or robed or murdered in a low income neighborhood.

Btw , respect? Don't think killing over it is a white person thing, fairly sure if I flip through my play list I can find many a song in which a black gent extols the virtue of harming another person for disrespecting them.

Ya reached too hard.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yeah, imagine that a claim of harm involve actual harm...

Brutal death is what's required for actual harm?

No, that's absurd. Loss of money is a harm. It's not the same magnitude or type of harm, but it's still harm. Which is why I'm not indifferent to people having their money stolen by police under asset forfeiture laws. That is actual harm, even if no one is physically mistreated. Are you indifferent to that? Your posts suggest so.

Here's the thing - all of these guys have contracts saying that they can lose their job if they cause too much public offense.

I'm not arguing that the harm to Roseanne is unjustified, or that we should feel sorry for her. But your posts have gone well beyond that.

 

[Mumbles]

Brutal death is what's required for actual harm?

No, that's absurd. Loss of money is a harm. It's not the same magnitude or type of harm, but it's still harm. Which is why I'm not indifferent to people having their money stolen by police under asset forfeiture laws. That is actual harm, even if no one is physically mistreated. Are you indifferent to that? Your posts suggest so.

No, again, asset forfeiture is actual harm, unless you were using the property to cause actual harm to others - and I've spoken against it before. Barr is the equivalent of someone throwing a game controller into a tv, and then suing the tv and/or game manufacturer for the resulting fire. It's her own fault, the end. The other workers could claim that she harmed them, but again, scorpion, back, river.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, again, asset forfeiture is actual harm

Yes. But it doesn't meet the criteria you gave previously.

unless you were using the property to cause actual harm to others

Well, no. It's still harm, even in those cases, it's just justified harm.

Barr is the equivalent of someone throwing a game controller into a tv, and then suing the tv and/or game manufacturer for the resulting fire.

No, it isn't. The remote and TV are not actors in that scenario. They do not make choices. The network made a choice. I'm not disagreeing with their choice, but the fact that they had one does make it different.

 

[Giordano]

I have a dream. When someone says it is a free speech issue, people do not immediatly claim it is not, because free speech has consequences (which makes it a free speech issue) and then sonorously lecture everyone that the first amendment only applies to governmental action (despite the fact that the original poster did not mention the first amendment)

Call me crazy, I know.

I have a dream too! My dream is that when someone runs into justified social condemnation because of something truly abhorrent that they say publicly, I will be able to read a thread about it without the same small cadre of posters attempting to distract from the key issue by a knowingly bogus citition of "freedom of speech." Given you are able to cite why this point is bogus and irrelevant, if you don't wish to be lectured on it then don't bring it up.

 

[Giordano]

Interesting how for so many of today's conservatives and Trump supporters the very most important aspect of freedom of speech, the one that they most rush to defend first, is the freedom to call other people nasty names without any societal or personal repercussions. Funny- i see much more important reasons to defend freedom of speech and frankly I'm not convinced that trying to hurt and frighten other people has a high priority in my list of things that are important to our society and civilization.

 

[The Big Dog]

I have a dream too! My dream is that when someone runs into justified social condemnation because of something truly abhorrent that they say publicly, I will be able to read a thread about it without the same small cadre of posters attempting to distract from the key issue by a knowingly bogus citition of "freedom of speech." Given you are able to cite why this point is bogus and irrelevant, if you don't wish to be lectured on it then don't bring it up.

Knowingly bogus citation of “freedom of speech.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I might not agree with what you say, but by god, I will fight to the death my right to conclusively declare that a human right so fundamental that it is enshrined in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights is “bogus.”

- attributed to Voltaire.

 

[Babbylonian]

It's such a shame that Voltaire doesn't even know what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is called, let alone how to interpret it.