If you believe that racist ads, literature, & public speeches should be outlawed, do you feel?

Question

the same about sexist ads, literature, and speeches? Should sexist ads be outlawed, like racist ads, literature and speeches?

For example, for a number of years (in the late 1980's) there was an ad for the Ku Klux Klan outside of a small town, off an interstate, near a large city. It wasn't taken down, it fell down.

I'm not suggesting they can't meet, the Klan still marches in that town and many other cities nearby, when they perform Klan "recruitments". They are well protected by the police.

Answer 1

sexist ads are not outlawed, and neither are racist ads, literature, public speeches, or any of those things you mention.

in the united states, the freedom of speech rights exist and protect some of this, but it is not boundless. death threats are not protected as free speech. and everyone knows the example of shouting fire in a crowded room.

offensive advertising does not represent the majority of advertising, and i'll put up with it to so that all our free speech rights are upheld.

sexist, racist ads get immediately noticed and consumers usually complain. it's good that people notice, but really, there are much more important things to complain and protest about.

when confronted with such adversity, the companies usually buckle under the pressure of avoiding a huge public relations disaster (like don imus). what are they supposed to do? say that they fully support a racist, sexist, ect person? in some cases, advertisers go ahead anyway and use the ads in other countries (link below for white playstation portable).

don imus got taken off the air because the advertisers pulled out. as for whether the apologies were genuine? you be the judge. south park is still on the air, and many other racist comedians and shock jocks are doing just fine too. what of them? obviously there isn't enough time to protest every single one of them, but we can organize, gather and come together like never before.

klan members, anti-war protesters, civil rights marchers, striking workers, and everyone, have the US first amendment right to peacably assemble. if klan members are being threatened with violence, then they have a right to be protected by the police, as everyone does.

with freedom and justice for all.

PS: Advertising? There are so many ways to shut it down. Public TV, HBO, Adblock plus in Mozilla Firefox, podcasts, fast forward button, Tivo and downloaded TV. Seriously, regular tv, radio and regular newspaper and media is so stone age. everyone who is offended by advertising should reconsider the way they access the media.

Answer 2

Yes, they should be eliminated.
Unfortunately, they won't be, because sexism is subjective.
One could never get a group of 10 people to agree about what is offensive, much less a nation the size of the US.
The only true power Americans have against the "Man" or the "System" is economic.
Pull your dollars away from any industry, write letters telling why, and you may get incremental change.
Without economic pressures, advertisers do no respond to requests for change.
Insofar as the KKK and other hate groups go, as has been pointed out, they (like us) are protected by Freedom of Speech. I hope our Constitutional Freedoms are never taken away.
We CAN however, use positive peer pressure to let people know that it's no longer acceptable to be hate-mongers.

Good luck

Answer 3

It is difficult because you are getting into the free speech argument here. If you outlaw any specific contnet, you are opening the door to start outlawing other types of content. Pretty soon, any pro-Muslim content will be outlawed, or anything criticizing the government...see the problem. I agree that that garbage has no place anywhere, but that's part of the price you pay for freedom...you have to put up with a lot of other people's bulls**t!

Answer 4

It should not be outlawed for a very simple reason. If we start allowing that sort of media to be outlawed, how long until all opinions can be silenced via the law?

You can dislike the messages, even put your own out there in rebuttal, but as long as the repugnant can speak their voice, the rest of us can as well.

Part of freedom is realizing that we have to offer that right to all, not just the ones we like.

Answer 5

No. It's better that hatred be out in the open, so that we can keep an eye on it.

However, I don't think that hatred belongs on public airwaves (i.e., Don Imus). Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you have to be given a venue.

Answer 6

For one, free speech is protected by our Constitution.

For another, we as humans, who consider ourselves civilized, should be able to teach our children what is generally acceptable treatment toward others different from ourselves withOUT having to have a law about it.

If racist, sexist, ethnocentric, heterosexist people want to be cruel to others, they themselves will eventually have ridicule coming THEIR way as well, because society no longer accepts discrimination the way it used to. What goes around comes around.

Answer 7

I only feel this way about obviously malicious ads, literature, and speeches. Freedom of speech is important, but no one should be even trying to abuse it by spreading hate.

Answer 8

Yes.

Advertisments need to be politically correct.
Verizon had to recall one of its ads a while back because it portrayed fathers as complete idiots.

Advertisments, speeches etc. do not need to be racist, sexist etc and it is improper to make them as such.
The idea of free speech hinders such restrictions though.

Answer 9

As much as I hate racists, it is their 1st amendment right. You cannot remove it unless it shows something that should not be seen publicly...other than that no. Once we start being subjective about what people can and cannot say we are being no better than Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Answer 10

it would be nice if we all just agreed... i myself would be very pro-anti-kkk-marches. but you can't outlaw something just because it's offensive... did you hear about this? there was some church...and the details i can't remember precisely but... it was one of those far far right anti-gay churches. very anti-gay. in fact, i think that was their main message. anyway, they believed that our soldiers were dying in iraq because god hates "fags," and america of course embraces them. they would have these loud offensive protests near the funerals of fallen soldiers. i think they were eventually forced to be at some distance, but can you imagine?! these sorts of groups i would love to see outlawed and banned banned banned. but... it's perhaps our most precious right to be able to say whatever we want--even if it's largely unpopular and hideously offensive...