You know what?
You can say anything you want. You can espouse any belief you want, you can argue anything you want, you can be a total nutbar, you can be a Nazi, you can be a furry. If I disagree with you, I don't really think that I have the right to censor you - because you still get the right to your opinion, and me censoring you isn't going to change your mind. It is, in fact, quite likely to cement it even further into your head.
And yes, I do feel more strongly about censorship than I do about pretty much anything else. I feel a lot more strongly about it, in fact, than I do about politics, knowledge, awareness, or the Open Source Boob Project. I will defend your right to fuck up your life in many interesting and varied ways; I will never, ever support you if you choose to censor others.
That's my line in the sand. Censorship is wrong; there is no justification for it whatsoever.*
There is absolutely no justification for it on LJ unless both parties have agreed that a comment thread was mutually non-beneficial and both chosen to delete it. Choosing to leave the parts of the conversation that make one party look rude and deleting the parts where they were tripping over themselves to apologise is amazingly, breathtakingly rude.
*With, since I'm grammar-nazi-ing elsewhere, the exception of harmful speech, such as shouting fire in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. That's not censorship - that's harming others, which is something to be prevented at number one, on my priority list.
ETA: You know what else? When I was in college, I had a teacher who recounted the times he'd won arguments about his "hippie ways" by pointing out that not only did he fight in Korea, he'd volunteered, and he'd become partially disabled as a result - that that somehow gave him a free pass to criticise America.
This is not a true statement.
Anyone has a free pass to criticise America. You and I and everyone else have a responsibility to decide what criteria we want to place on who we care to listen to critique it, but that doesn't mean that someone can't critique. And saying that someone can critique because they have volunteered to be part of the US military during a war but they couldn't if they hadn't is wrong.
That doesn't mean that my teacher didn't volunteer: that meant that my teacher did not walk into arguments saying "Well, this is wrong and this is wrong and that's wrong, and by the way, I fought in Korea, motherfucker," and expected to win. What I really don't like about the OSBP, aside from how it's taken over my flist, how it's only "okay" to feel one way about it (and I dislike
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
theferrett's retraction of the post and project from that standpoint), and how it's directly led to me being censored which pisses me off, is the fact that I
could win some of these arguments if I said "Yeah, yeah, you think I don't know that women can get groped on the street by primitive screwhead assholes, but I've
been groped by random strangers (and nearly broke my leg falling over in surprise), I've
been whistled at by ill-mannered pigs, and
I have been raped," but I can't win them by saying "Look, all I want you to acknowledge is that by phrasing what you have in that language, you're saying that
I don't have the right to choose what happens to my body."
What's more fucked up here? The OSBP or the fact that's revealing really, really deeply-entrenched reflexive overcorrection of politically-correct behaviour from intelligent people who should know better than to say that no woman should be touched like that because the person saying that doesn't want to be?
What if I said I did, assuming my total control of the situation, and my right to refuse even if I said I wasn't averse to being asked the question? Does that make me not worth your support and protection and care because I don't see my body the same way you do? Would you refuse my support and protection and care because I don't march in step with you?
Why are you trying to protect me when I don't know that I want to be protected like that? I want people to see the difference between two things:
- Politeness and the Law argue that
no one is touched without their consent. No one. I firmly, and wholeheartedly, and even violently, believe and affirm this.
- Choice argues that
I get to decide what happens to me, and everyone running around making blanket statements about how no woman should be touched like this has made my choice for me: I now cannot make the decision that I would be intrigued to be asked that question without, evidently, abrogating my right to consider myself a woman.
I cannot possibly be the only person who sees the distinction here.
If you say that "No woman should be touched like that (implying the OSBP) without her consent", that follows politeness, the law, and choice, and is absolutely what will have me cheering you on for. If you say that "No woman should be touched like that (implying the OSBP)," that only follows politeness and the law, and does not acknowledge my
right to choose.
Oh the irony of it, that we as good liberals have finally overcorrected the Right To Choose so far that there
is no right to choose. When did we become Republicans?
What I believe - and I will defend you for it - is that you, me, all of us, we all have the right to choose, and there is nothing whatsoever about the right to choose, in any circumstance, that says your choice has to follow the law. The law says that, in America, abortion is legal (broadly speaking). I may or may not agree with that law, but I can make a choice that allows
my morality to not infringe on
your morality. The law says that, in America, homicide is illegal (broadly speaking). I may or may not choose to murder, but I can make a choice without needing it to fit the law (though if I don't, I run the risk of punishment). The law says that the speedlimit is 70 mph near where I live; nothing in the law compels me not to drive over that speed, though I admit, again, that I run risks.
The law says that no one has to put up with being touched in ways they find unwelcome. I can still make a choice that allows the law to stand and does not abrogate your right or my right or anyone else's right to choose differently under specific circumstances.
The point is not that it is women whose breasts are primarily being focused on here, not for me. The point is not that,
clearly, men are all asshole pigdogs who just want to touch boobies and not one of them has the sense or socialisation god gave a goat, so the OSBP is just an invitation to rape, and will concomitantly increase the number of rapists in the population. The point is not even that I feel that our culture is overly non-touch-oriented, with bad results, and that destigmatising some things, with consent offered, may improve life for us all.
The point is that there are plenty of people out there willing to take away my right to choose because they don't agree with one side of the choice. I don't agree with "wet" reservations because of harm to residents; do I have the right to use my Caucasian access to power to decree that all reservations will now be "dry"?
No. I think we all can agree that I do not, not even if it is to prevent harm to a group of people I don't represent. You have to make that choice for yourself. I will support your choice to the extent of my ability: I will never, ever let you avoid making it.
