So before I start here’s the link to the news article.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/27/texas-teen-makes-violent-joke-during-video-game-is-jailed-for-months/
Now then, I have to say I’m rather upset at the situation that has gone down and I think it’s gone a little too far when it comes to how secure we want to be. I understand we don’t want to tolerate hate speech or threats and we need to take everyone of them seriously but this is a bit much.
Justin Carter, a 19 year old in the state of Texas was arrested for making a sarcastic comment online while playing League of Legends. Someone decided that the comment was offensive enough to make a phone call to the police.
Now, I will just say that the kid was doing your typical online banter in an online video game. That’s it! Nothing more but a stupid comment said while playing a game and if anyone has played an online game in the past few years they’d hear so much worse.
The issue here is that instead of just deciding it was not worth pursuing they actually arrested the guy! To make this worse, it also looks like he may get an 8-Year Sentence for it. So he’s in jail and may get a longer sentence all for saying something online that is nowhere near the caliber of what has been said on Xbox Live.
I’m sorry but I have a major problem with this. He just made a sarcastic comment while playing a game. Nothing more. I guess hate speech will not be tolerated at all. It’s just stupid. Normally I would have something more thought out but I just can’t get past the utter stupidity of wanting to arrest a kid for something so trivial.
Perhaps this will set an example to all the people on Xbox Live then. Every racist, sexist, overtly violent comment and message sent over Xbox Live should be treated the same way. Each one of those people is just as guilty. But, alas, that won’t happen.
Look, I’m not about hate speech or threats, I understand the negative impact they have. However, we do have freedom of speech in the United States and that freedom should not be anymore infringed than any of the other amendments. I will defend hate speech largely for that and that only. That doesn’t mean I agree with it but if I’m willing to defend hate speech, despite the fact I don’t like it, you can bet that I’ll defend a sarcastic, joking comment.
We’ve become a society where being offended is not OK and simply walking away from the problem isn’t enough for us. Nowadays we want people arrested for the slightest infraction because we’ve become unable to deal with the problem in any other more appropriate way.
I’ll just be talking in circles here so it’s best not to continue. If you read this spread the word about it and make sure this gets out these because if things like this are allowed to continue then I don’t know what will happen. I fear that we’ll be creating a new witch hunt.
