Freedom has a price but it doesn't keep score

[vernard]

I got an email from a co-worker that is a member of an organization on Emory’s campus that is trying to bring issues of racism to the forefront of the campu’s collective mentality so that they can better develop strategies for dealing with it. She forwarded me this email today:

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One of the white members of my TCP group shared this story with us last night. We are thankful and optimistic that she is one of many Emory students who do not share in this new breed of hate and is sharing her voice to protest.

What can we do about it?

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1

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Unfortunately for her, I decided to respond. I won’t send the full text of my email but basically I said “Nothing. and there shoudln’t be anything that you can do about it.” One of the unfortunately and necessary tenants of a society like ours is that folks should be free to think what they want and to also teach their kids the same thing. You cannot legislate tolerance and love any more than you can legislate morality. Nor should you try to. Its a slippery slope that we really don’t want to even get near.“

So exactly how far should the government/society go to protect itself from this type of thing?

Comments

Attention

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

As awful as that movement is, since they LOVE attention of any kind it's almost best to just starve them of it.

A bit late, as the story was on ABC News. And of course, the musical group isn't about promoting the girls, but about using the girls to promote the movement's message. I hope ABC got a nice check for helping them along.

Still, I agree that the best thing to "do" is to ignore 'em. With any luck, the girls will get exposed to saner people as they get older, and may eventually come to question their beliefs before they pass them along to their own children. Probably not, but we can hope, and eventually some generation will shake off their hateful heritage.

After all, historically, bigotry is on the decrease. I think we'll probably see a brief uptick as the Internet makes it easier for these types to find other like-mindless folks, but I don't think the overall trend is going to change.

Re: Attention

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

A bit late, as the story was on ABC News. And of course, the musical group isn't about promoting the girls, but about using the girls to promote the movement's message. I hope ABC got a nice check for helping them along.

Yeah, that was pretty unfortunate.

Re: Attention

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Here's more from David Neiwert: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/11/when-to-ignore-them.html