Student gets charged for essay (Die Free Speech Die!!! )

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Xorbon
I wonder if Steven King would've been arrested for some of his early short stories? There's a specific story that I have in mind, but I forget the name of it...

Hardly, since none of King's published works (under his own name, Bachman, or his mag/short story work under his own pseudonym could be remotely construed as a threat against a specific indivudual or group of individuals in a specific setting.

Not really up to the level of a strawman. Perhaps you used some of that Chinese bulk gluten that poisoned pet food instead of straw?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


There have been no penalties meted out, since this case hasn't gone to trial (if it ever will).

Does being charged stick with him for the rest of his life?

Could that have some impact on his options?

[Aeson]

He might get to write a book about it or on some TV talk shows. (He better get someone to ghost-"wright" the book for him though.)

[notyoueither]

I've heard that arrests can have a negative effect on options. I was wondering if a charge would have the same effect.

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Not really up to the level of a strawman. Perhaps you used some of that Chinese bulk gluten that poisoned pet food instead of straw?

Well, it's not a straw man (or gluten man) at all, since it was more of a pondering than a real arguement for one side or the other on this particular issue. It's more of a red herring if it's anything.

If Stephen King submitted his story "Rage" for a school essay, given today's climate, I think it's totally possible a teacher would want to get King psychiatrically evaluated.

[PLATO]

So...If you don't want to be a Marine then all you have to do is write about killing people?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Elok
He had health problems his whole life, possibly psychosomatic. And he never got any tail. Permanent solitude is not fun, no matter what "noble" lies you invent about it. I should know.

Had some close and loyal friends. As for his health problems, you can sometimes see the variations in tone while he's writing, and it's not all that bad. In Ecce Home, he describes what states he was in when he wrote which book, and he seems to have been lucid about it.

Slave morality...you're familiar with the concept, surely? The idea that conventional morality was invented by slaves and inferiors to justify their weakness. When it's good to be meek, submissive, and dumb, the reasoning goes, you can feel good about your inferiority as a human being. Or something like that; my class on Nietzsche focused more on The Will to Power than The Genealogy of Morals.

It's a bit more complex than that, but let's say you got the basics correct. The other part of the reasoning is that if you can criticize morals, once you wrote the idea, you can't pretend you don't know it.

That's what ultimately it's all about : how to go from the abyss of solitude to happiness, and how to find a new abyss when you're happy.

What I'm saying is, being obscure to avoid arguing with others and claiming that you do it because you're intellectually superior to them, "they think I'm babbling nonsense but I'm the smart one nyah nyah nyah," well, how is that much different? He might have been Wise, but that doesn't change the fact that the Fools had all the power and there was jack he could do about it.

Well again, it's a bit more complex...

You can read him reflect on his style, and he never says 'I'm writing this way because'... He always says : 'I wrote this way, and now I realize what effect it had' (which goes along his liquidation of final causes).

As far as reception of your writings are concerned, you could say, in a sense, that being read and misunderstood makes you 'powerful'. Most people, nowadays, see the letters Spinoza received, and the violent pamphlets published against him, as the proof he was 'powerful'... that no one could ignore him, yet was doomed to write half baked replies.

[Arrian]

Thanks to Aeson for posting the entire essay.

So, OB. Still claiming the kid's a misunderstood genius?

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by PLATO
So...If you don't want to be a Marine then all you have to do is write about killing people?

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children want to make sure you kill the right people.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Does being charged stick with him for the rest of his life?

Could that have some impact on his options?

Not at all. Even for security clearances, you have to disclose arrests and charges (even traffic), but being charged with a misdemeanor and not being convicted is not disqualifying. In some cases, the conviction on a misdemeanor charge is not disqualifying.

As far as anything else goes, it's a non-issue.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Arrian
Thanks to Aeson for posting the entire essay.

So, OB. Still claiming the kid's a misunderstood genius?

-Arrian

Where did I claim that ?

I find his text funny.

[Arrian]

Judging from the quoted part of his text, the guy is actually creative, with good rythm in his prose.

In a delicious irony, he tried to downplay his own metaphors by saying 'not really but would have been funny if I did'

Granted, that's not claiming genius, but you ripped people for saying they didn't find the guy's work to be creative/good.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Ecthy
Being a rebel would at least make you normal for your age...

Not necessarily true. In fact, IIRC your political views are actually correlated with your parents'. And socioeconomics also argue against me being a rebel.

Originally posted by Ecthy
50%. Socioeconomics yes, as for the other thing... I had a friend in kindergarten and primary school who was from a really well-off background. His father was an architect and his mother I don't know what but they lived fairly well and were arch-conservative. His brother was also studying architecture and was very "do the right thing" (is this what Boris referred to as 'bland'?) and all that. My friend on the other hand was a rebel lost rebel and hung out with punks and all that, being very lefty and blah blah. Never figured this one out.

Nothing remotely unusual about people from well-to-do backgrounds being rebels. Naive to think otherwise, I'd have thought. People can either turn out as rebels, robots, or anything in between.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Elok

Did I tell you about the dump I took last night? The neat, "appetizing" food was transformed into "unappetizing" feces...but the joke is, feces can be made into fertilizer, which is used to grow better food! The hideous and the beautiful are not only conceptually but physically interdependent! I'm demonstrating the futility of our revulsion with the limitations of our organic ecosystem! Pin a prize to me and call me a genius!

...no, wait, I'm just a guy taking a dump. Never mind. If this was a troll, it was pretty good. But I'm afraid you're serious.

Old Art. South Park already did it.

[Elok]

Sorry, I don't watch South Park so I wouldn't know.