Friday, August 2, 2013

FEDERAL HURT FEELINGS COURT

Seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language

[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/02/seattle-officials-call-for-ban-on-potentially-offensive-language/#ixzz2apXWGmEM]

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.
KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.


 "Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

 In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

 "For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

 According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

 Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

 "They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.
Seattle, however, isn't the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.

 The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city’s Department of Education avoids references to words like “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke “unpleasant emotions” among the students.
Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.

 Officials said such exclusions are normal procedure, insisting it’s not censorship.
“This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction,” a Department of Education spokeswoman told the newspaper last year.
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The obvious next step is a federal "Hurt Feelings Court" where a person -- and his or her trial lawyer -- can bring a civil, or perhaps when the laws are passed, a criminal action against someone that used a potentially offensive word that hurt his or her feelings.  The evidence of course would be one's testimony about one's hurt feelings.  There would be a fine.  Ultimately one would have to purchase insurance -- from a federal government agency -- to protect oneself and to pay the winning trial lawyer.

 

 

Andrew Napolitano: 'Nudge Squad' Goes Too Far


[http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/napolitano-obama-nudge-squad/2013/08/01/id/518220?s=al&promo_code=14622-1]

Napolitano said the Obama administration is overreaching with its recently revealed "Nudge Squad."

"What will they think of next? The government can't deliver the mail, and they want to tell us to fix the broken screens in our house, clean our attics and change the oil in our cars? These are not functions of government," the former New Jersey Superior Court judge and Fox News contributor said Thursday.

"If the Constitution protects anything ... it protects the right to be different. We don't need the government in our faces telling us how to live," Napolitano said on "Fox & Friends."

 Napolitano was referring to a so-called "Behavioral Insights Team" put together by the Obama administration to explore ways that might encourage Americans to improve or change their lives. Paying back-taxes, making homes more energy-efficient, and eating better are just some of the things that could be addressed with an ad campaign or other promotional effort, FoxNews.com reported Tuesday.

"We have a Constitution — says what the federal government should do and limits it to only doing that. This type of nudging us and telling us how to live is not there," Napolitano said.
"When does a nudge become a push?"

Napolitano stopped short of suggesting the program amounts to an effort at mind control, but he said it still goes too far.

"This particular administration is interested in controlling people, even if the Congress is not," he said. "And this is one of the ways it will do it. Nudge, nudge, push, push, elbow, elbow."
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