Lieberman is the one on the left -- well, maybe he was 45 years ago, anyway.
Unfortunately, except for the Senator’s name, this isn’t quite an April Fools’ Day joke. The name is Lieberman — Joe Lieberman. A big hat tip to our friend Adam Bonin at Daily Kos for this story:
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 … provides powerful legal protections for owners of sites like this one, saying that when it comes to defamatory (or otherwise offensive) posts you make on someone else’s site, the site owner’s not liable — just you. You can imagine how many letters I’ve gotten to send [that] thanks to Section 230 reduce down to telling some gnat that he’s “f’ed on owner liability,” and any day of the year that ends things.
Onto Lieberman. Via the McIntyre-v-Ohio website, which is dedicated to anonymous speech issues, I’ve learned that Sen. Lieberman plans to introduce a bill this week to strip site owners of Section 230 protections for the posts of anonymous commenters. Here’s the text. [Warning, PDF].
Lieberman’s bill would end the Internet as we know it. By a simple change from “shall” to “may,” Lieberman will empower a Republican-dominated federal judiciary to decide on whim and caprice which site owners are protected from liability their commenters’ actions, and who faces potentially massive judgments.
We have a continuing disagreement with our colleagues at Liberal OC (and some other sites) who don’t think that we should allow anonymous blogging — or even pseudonymous blogging where we don’t know the actual identity of the blogger sufficiently well to pass along liability to them. They have a reasonable point about some of the cowardly attacks that are thrown about under the cloak of anonymity, but we believe that the cure is worse than the disease.
Vern and I think that there are valid reasons for anonymous blogging — as well as, of course, invalid ones. (I should note that I’m publishing this without consulting with Vern, based on our conversations over the course of the past half-year about this issue.) To protect the valid reasons for anonymous speech — including legitimate whistle-blowing — we’re willing to put up with a certain amount of rat scat in the peanut butter, so to speak. Vern and I tend to agree with the ACLU that the cure to bad speech is generally more speech, inviting the reader to condemn. Some other sites cope with bad speech by moderating everything and picking and choosing what gets published, which we do not want to do. Upon request, though, we will take down something that strikes us as defamatory or bigoted, among other reasons. We take a liberal view (naturally) towards including comments without intending to allow a complete free for all or to let our communal water cooler turn into a cesspool.
In the bad old days, before then-Reps. Ron Wyden and OC’s own Chris Cox (who would later go on to dismantle the SEC) passed Section 230, we would not be able to do that. We’d have one of two choices: either choose to operate as a “common carrier,” with no more say into what appears in our comments sections than the Post Office has regarding sealed mail or the phone company has with private conversations, or else edit it for content. If we chose to edit it for content, we (well, Vern) could be sued for not doing the kind of job of it that lives up to someone else’s standards. The best way to avoid being sued? Block commenting. The second best way? Allow the speech there to be completely uncensored — photos included. The worst way? Try to do a conscientious job of striking a balance.
Sen. Lieberman hates blogs because they have treated him, over the past decade, like the piece of rat scat that he is. He’s retiring this year; this appears to be his attempt to get in one final punch at his nemeses, of which I’m proud to have been one. If you like blogging, commenting on blogs, or just reading them, he’s your nemesis too.
Who can stop him? The first chance is in the committee he chairs. Here’s a list of the people on the committee who do not look and act like Emperor Palpatine:
Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii
Mark Begich, D-Alaska
Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts
Tom Carper, D-Delaware
Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma
Susan Collins, R-Maine (ranking member)
Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana
Carl Levin, D-Michigan
John McCain, R-Arizona
Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri
Jerry Moran, R-Kansas
Rand Paul, R-Kentucky
Rob Portman, R-Ohio
Mark Pryor, D-Arkansas
Jon Tester, D-Montana
Step 1 is to call them; step 2 is to call Senators Feinstein and Boxer; step 3 is to call President Obama. If you appreciate free speech on the Internet, it’s time to defend it.
*Just need to have real effort to call Senator Lieberman and let him know….how you
feel. 202-224-4041
“Sen. Lieberman plans to introduce a bill this week to strip site owners of Section 230 protections for the posts of anonymous commenters.”…….. Hmmmmm
Well, because I am allegedly anti-Semitic according to Jewish bloger who wrote this article, I can criticize Jews Like Lieberman because his action is design to undermine Obama’s and white’s effort to scale down Jewish influence in this country.
It is good old Jewish politic to circle wagons because you can criticize Jews only anonymously and Jews do not like that.
But that is my view allegedly anti-semitic one.
Who wants to be called anti-Semi?…… day and night?….. and have this stigma attached to his name?……. Huh?…… Diamond?
There is Newton’s 3rd laws of motion — freshenup Esq. Door Knob.
I think, I need to rethink Obamaism.
Just a reminder to our readers that Stanislaw is allowed here, from what I can tell, as a museum specimen of old-school anti-Semitism of a kind that is not often found in the wild in our country anymore (at least by people who are literate) and that he should be regarded in that light.
I offer him my condemnation for his comments and invite others to tweak his nose and ears to their hearts’ content. It beats censorship, at least.
Well folks that is what you will get from Jews like Diamond — a crapola, stigmatization, showing that only they are unteachable and can do everything and you cant do noting.
See the language: “Stanislaw is allowed here”.
Do you sense that racist domination?
Obviously Obama does not like it because it is not good for black and white America.
And I agree with Obama.
I bet that Obama will not sign Lieberman’s oppressive bill.
It has nothing to do with your race or ethnicity, Stanislaw. I have known too many good Czechs over the years to assign them responsibility for the likes of you. It has to do with your being a crazed bigot.
FYI, the world has everything to do with the power, domination and race.
That is why Jews and Arabs, both Semitics, still fighting their 5,000 years old war and will never settle their differences.
That is fact and it has noting to do with my alleged bigotry.
As to your promulgated hate of me for my spiking the truth, your accusations of anti-Semitism and bigotry Diamond, are clear testimony of the Jewish morality.
However, I am student of the history and you are moron mongoloid so I know what is coming and you do not.
So get the popcorn and watch the history rerun flick.
The most insightful analysis of Senator Joseph Lieberman on this blog remains – even though it is in the context of Prop-8-related satire – THIS, by Phobius.
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2008/09/defend-the-octopus-of-marriage-yes-on-prop-8/
Prop 8. is distraction Vern! I am in a very FIala mood right now. I think you all need to go do your “Master of Arts in Military History” degree as promoted by your own unwitted self. By design, probably.
Fiala, I openly criticize jews. why not? I openly criticize San Roman as well. Join me Fiala. Remember Bohemia! Santa Ana Bohemia!
Don’t tilt at Windmills.
Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”
“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.
“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.”
“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.”
Always ask yourself: “Is it 5 in the morning? Have I been drinking all night? Is Fiala seeming to make an unusual amount of sense? Should I really be commenting?”
Also, you who comment anonymously should not think of a law that could lead to the end of you being able to comment anonymously as a harmless “windmill.”
Also, tell your gay friends what a distraction Prop 8 is. I assume an artist has some.
Also, how the fuck did “JEW” enter into this story of Diamond criticizing Lieberman? Go get a good morning’s sleep, both of you.
I read 2xI as lampooning Fiala for tilting at windmills. Could be wrong.
The word “Jew” enters most conversations Fiala has with me on this blog, whether it makes sense that it’s there or not. If it didn’t have thousands of years of history behind it, it would be right near inexplicable. As I’ve said, he’s a museum quality anti-Semite. Look but don’t touch!
I criticize every reverse racist!
I criticize Mexican Pedroza and his enabler Mill for their open pro Mexican National Socialism support and their Aztlan.
They do not like it but they are not as vicious as you Jew Diamond is.
So what ever anti-Semitic crapola comes from your mouth is pure and evil hate.
I do not care if moron mongoloid Gröfaz keeping you in OJ because he is paying price for it by converting OJ into Jewish hate propaganda blog.
It is no longer leftist nor progressive blog; and
Now you all idiots who criticize my wisdom will pay by Lieberman’s hell because he is behind the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) same as John McCain.
There is no difference among these assholes because they all subscribe to the Boiling Frog syndrome.
Okay, take a week off now, museum piece.
Although you will not print it because you are the mother of all asskissers — how about one month?……. Year?
You cant stop the truth you uneducated moron mongoloid.
That train went off the rails pretty quick.
Lieberman is two-thirds fascist. The other third is asshole.
There. I said it.
“There. I said it.”……… Hmmmmm
No you did not you fool!
You forgot to say that Lieberman is powerful Jew where even Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity soil their trousers before they can pronounce his name, and when they do, you can hear how good liberal Lieberman is.
Why?
1) Lieberman is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and
2) He has entire Jewish shadow government behind him.
3) One phone call (twit) to Mossad and you are a history.
Now I said it!