Where is the border between free speech and bullying?

Happy News! Dudes I’m so not going to tell you that I am going to be blogging on a constant basis because I say that every year lol. I hope you all had a kick ass Christmas and winter holiday season.  I usually don’t write about current and world/political events on my blog because the purpose of this blog is to share my love of #AllHorrorEverything with others who love the genre. Plus the opposing sides ever agree and those types of conversations are usually to the death but I’m going to today because the topic drifts into the zone of free speech...the life blood of those who create for a living.

After Sony was hacked I posted on Facebook that I didn't particularly feel bad for Sony and their racist little film. Needless to say people were stunned. It was assumed that because I write for a living that I would side with Sony on principle because they were a victim of censorship.

I always see those campaigns and post railing against bullying. There’s explanations of the different types of bullying, and immediate and long term effects of being picked on are often highlighted and sited in these types of threads. Videos of victims standing up against their aggressor’s usual goes viral especially if the victim responds with violence. There are helpful tips on how to report a bully or other suggestions on how an attacker should be held accountable. When the bullying is prejudicial the push back from advocates on team anti-bullying quickly escalates into the equivalent of a pitch-fork, flame carrying mob, and rightly so because this type of bullying is severe and can open the door to hate crimes.

People have no right to bully others

Bullies Lose In The End

Stop bullying & make a difference!

No one will miss a bully.

We’ve all heard them, some of us repeat them. But the way this works is if you truly want to end all bullying then you need to call it out every time you see it, but the problem is team end bullying only fight for the cause if the person being bullying is them or someone they know. It doesn’t work like that.

You either want it to end or you don’t. So which is it?

Now. Where is the border between free speech and bullying?

"It was a horrendous, unjustifiable and cold-blooded crime. It was also a direct assault on a cornerstone of democracy, on the media and on freedom of expression."

“People had been "murdered in a cowardly manner"

“Despite today's attack, Kerry said, civilization — with its core values of freedom of expression and a free press — will prevail.”

"It's perhaps a bit pompous, what I'm about to say, but I would rather die standing than to live on my knees,"

Judaism, Islam and some strands of Christianity all, to varying degrees, share an aversion to visual images and anyone who has done the minimum amount of research knows that.

Some are calling Hebdo's work satire but his cartoons are doubly offensive because, rather than criticize Mohammed, his purpose seems to have meant to be especially offensive.

Where is the border between free speech and bullying?

Let’s back up a bit: Sketch artist Ted Rall. When he drew our President and his wife as apes, the outrage was immediate…and global.

“an editorial decision that has been slammed as "stale racist drivel."

"When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don't see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism," the newspaper said. "We wrongly assumed that racism is no longer accepted, and that in this way it could be the subject of a joke."

I'm repulsed and speechless at the same time. This is wrong on so many levels.”

“Your depiction of Barack Obama as ape-like is intolerable. Being critical of Obama, even ferociously so, is not the problem. Through British and American history, Blacks have been subject to racist depictions of themselves as monkeys and apes. No excuse is acceptable for replicating that history, no matter what your intent. If it happens again, your posting privileges will be suspended.”

Where is the border between free speech and bullying?

After the Sony hacking the Washington Posts said in part, “It’s impossible to summon much sympathy for Kim Jong Un. But now imagine this assassination farce was made not in Hollywood, but in North Korea or Moscow, and the leader assassinated in the film was a president of the United States. Or imagine the film was made by Iran, and the leader assassinated in the film was the prime minister of Israel. Where “The Interview” draws on stereotypes about North Korea’s ridiculous, yet terrifying isolationism, this hypothetical film makes jokes about African Americans and Jews — perhaps about the incompetence of a black man in the White House, or about Israel’s right to exist.”

If there was a The North Korean, Russian or Iranian version of “The Interview” Would we be so willing to write that off as satire?

I seriously doubt it.

The most memorable thing I've read from a Eric Garner protest was this: “Its not an attack. Its retaliation.”

Where is the border between free speech and bullying? This is something that we need to figure out and figure out quick, because like the saying goes: There Is Always Someone Bigger, Stronger and Meaner

You either want it to end or you don’t.  So which is it?