How private are your private views?

Don't know if anyone seen the case in America about the basketball owner and his racist comments but it raises quite an interesting point - well in my opinion in does.

Basically the owner said some racist things, in private, to his girlfriend - this was recorded and published.

The bottom line was that the owner as been banned from basketball for life and now will be FORCED to sell his club.

Serves him right many might - and have - said BUT as far as I can tell he's never ACTED racist and as always kept his opinions - irrespective of whether you like them or not - private.

There seems to be now a small dissenting minority of opinion questing the sanctions handed out to the 'racist'.



A common theme was a concern that the NBA's decision set a bad precedent, that private comments should not be grounds for public disciplining.

"It's not a First Amendment issue," tweets TruthRevolt's Ben Shapiro. "It's a 'do we want to live in a country where your private thoughts are cause for your destruction' issue."

He continues: "Now that Sterling's head is on a pike, can we can all go back to pretending that we defend privacy and views with which we disagree?"

Conservative radio host and columnist Larry Elder also took to Twitter: "Private thoughts + private recording = force sale of private property!!!"

Dan Calabrese, writing on former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's website, takes issue with the "process" used to punish Mr Sterling.

"The things Sterling said were, he thought, being said in private to a person with whom he had a personal relationship," he writes. "He did not know he was being recorded. It was not his intention to say them for public consumption. But they were leaked, and he is now being banned for the things he said - he thought - in private."

"Are you OK with that?" he asks. "Would you want to pay a price like this for the worst thing you ever said when you thought you were speaking in private?"

Who gets to decide what is "hurtful and offensive" he asks. And why did the investigation only take two days?

"We're getting way too quick in this country to simply bum-rush people out of their livelihoods because of a position they took or a thing they said," he says. "However big a racist jerk Donald Sterling may be, this is dangerous."



Interesting points - are we getting TOO PC for our own well being?


Story here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27214758


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27214773

You can't fart nowadays without someone catching it on video.

And it's dangerous because there's always someone with an agenda who will use it against you.

As I've said before on here, the world's getting smaller and not in a good way.

That's why I don't understand the modern obsession with laying your life bare on Facebook and Twitter.

(A) It's 90% boring shite that I wouldn't even presume anybody else would be interested in (Just had toast for breakfast. Quite good. Here's a jpg.)

and 

(B) If you're happy to post your inner most thoughts on the internet where literally anybody can read it, don't start crying when it all goes tits up and you get yourself in bother.

I know this case is different because he didn't know he was being recorded, but it does demonstrate this sense that it's suddenly ok to record and publish someone else's private comments on the web.

It's a dangerous road to go down as a society if we start punishing people for things like this.

Next stop "Thought Crime."

And this next bit is just me playing Devil's advocate, so don't all shout at me:

The NBA relies massively on support from black fans.

Would he have received the same treatment if his comments had been about Hispanics, who traditionally don't follow Basketball and consequently aren't as financially important to the NBA....?

I suspect not.......

Breadman wrote:it does demonstrate this sense that it's suddenly ok to record and publish someone else's private comments on the web.

I have a file on my laptop with every single post you've ever made on a football forum. I intend to publish it one day for the world to see. It has the working title of Breadman: What a Wanker.

I get called a wanker alot and at my age I am pleased to hear it!
There's still life in the old dog yet!!!!?!

If they can ever point something at you and read your mind i will never get out!!!

Angry Dad wrote:If they can ever point something at you and read your mind i will never get out!!!

Don't worry, you'll never get put away for made up stuff.

This is just the straw that broke the camels back for Sterling, It's well known what kind of views he's held, I don't doubt the NBA have been looking for a smoking gun for a long time, this has acted as one.

the power of the owners by committee and the commissioner are extreme in the NBA and thats a "club" Sterling signed up to be a part of knowing very well the kind of axe they possess, I don't think he'll go quietly, but if he does he will "sell" the team to his wife or family no doubt. This will probably be very messy considering this team is worth well over 800 million dollars maybe over a billion considering it's in LA. 

The "world" he's "playing" in doesn't help him either, this going unpunished would have led to a players strike and an LA team that was poisonous which would have brought the league into disrepute.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Breadman wrote:it does demonstrate this sense that it's suddenly ok to record and publish someone else's private comments on the web.

I have a file on my laptop with every single post you've ever made on a football forum. I intend to publish it one day for the world to see. It has the working title of Breadman: What a Wanker.

As long as I get half the royalties, you can do what you want.

We could sell it as a bundle together with "Natasha Whittam: How I overcame my wonky tits and became the fourth funniest contributor on Bolton Nuts."

People say all sorts of things they don't mean when they think nobody that matters is listening.

I can't think of anybody I know that I've not once heard say something that could be perceived as racially untoward, whether it be a silly rant about immigration or using the "P word" instead of "Asian", or whatever you like.

If we knew what everybody in the public eye said behind closed doors, there'd be a new racism storm every five minutes.

Racist jokes are told by mates to one another all the time. It's the same with text messages. There must be millions and millions of racist text messages doing the rounds throughout the world. Just because somebody finds a racist joke funny it doesn't make them a racist.

I don't know what Sterling has said on this occasion but it must have stirred up a shitstorm because Obama has expressed his displeasure.

In a nutshell - his girlfriend can befriend and sleep with black people, but please don't promote them on her instagram page (a photo of herself and Magic Johnson of LA Lakers fame) or bring them to his games (where mostly black people play on his team).

Private views kept in private don't bother me. When they become public, in this particular scenario, it is most unbecoming. Banning him for life is no real punishment, however - that is unlikely to affect him for long.

Breadman wrote:

We could sell it as a bundle together with "Natasha Whittam: How I overcame my wonky tits and became the fourth funniest contributor on Bolton Nuts."

As if there are three people funnier than me.

I was trying to be kind when I said fourth.

I suspect that, in reality, on a purely "laughs per comment" scale, you're about ninth.

You're still above Boggers, though.........

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Breadman wrote:

We could sell it as a bundle together with "Natasha Whittam: How I overcame my wonky tits and became the fourth funniest contributor on Bolton Nuts."

As if there are three people funnier than me.

Don't kid yourself. Herpes is funnier than you.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:

It's not totally hijacked until Magoo starts the gay sex posts.

May as well close the thread If the genuine discussion is over. 

certainly a watershed moment for the NBA and sports as a whole.

Given that the essence of this thread is about freedom of expression and peoples' innermost thoughts being revealed on the web, I would have thought that the comments made are perfectly in keeping with the general discussion.

Now go and shove some more Brazil nuts up a prozzy, you dirty bastard!

Breadman wrote:

Now go and shove some more Brazil nuts up a prozzy, you dirty bastard!