Impeach Bush Guy Says 1/3 of His Plots Will Not Have Signs

Ah so you fight stupidity with stupidty? Great strategy - the net result is we have more pointless signs cluttering up the landscape. Your signs are not some wry statement on the inaneness of his advertising. You are no better than he is - you selling or not selling the land is irrelevant - the crap you put out is as much a blight on the landscape as his is. Yet you both have the right to do that and I support it as you bought the land it is on, regardless of how stupid I think it all is. Just to be clear on keeping score, he has agreed to 1/3 of his land with no signs, and you have agreed to signs in no more than 1/4 of the mainland sims. Got it.

heheh everyone thinks their own farts don't smell...

Since this is Second Life, why is it necessary for some people (who live in only one country of this real world), to bring the real world into this one? This is our fantasy time, our play time, and our entertainment. It's more than annoying, it's disruptive to this game. It's even interferring with property values! Who in their right mind would want to buy property in view of one of these reminders of the lack of harmony in our real world?

I'm all for free speech and this guy's so called rights, but he lives in only one country that would bother to support his views for the sake of his rights. This is his political agenda and he's using the whole Second Life world as his soapbox! Let him hold events to gather those who agree with him and stage a rally on his own land or land he's renting. But, don't force everyone in Second Life, who pays to be here, to participate in the way he chooses to mix his rl and his sl. Most people would say he's annoying, and our Second Life would be better without the reminder of the things we leave behind when we log on.

I see the arguments against the IBG as being shared by residents of varying views. Some are up in arms about advertising in any form. Others, of which I lump myself into this group, are against the IBG because he's outright griefing hardcore big time. His signs are 20x20 and never fly solo. He buys a lot of plots with in view of each other. They don't do anything but vividly say a controversial message. He's just putting up more and more signs to tick people off.

I'm all for the many different selling and advertising services that use small plots. I've sold small lots in the middle of my land directly to others who run such services. It's more to offer new residents, which happen to make up most of my visitors, and even better the other vendor's setups are 16m^2 cubes so the dwell timer doesn't get reset from the residents moving off my land. What I'm against is someone like the IBG who does his "work" just to get people's goats.

erm, excsue me, but HIS freedom off speech/press allows him to have the signs, and deosn't hurt you one bit as long as they stay on HIS land.

This is why I don't liek the military, it teaches you that you are nothing, you know nothing,a nd that you willl DO nothign wihtout being told.

You need to add "can only be viewed from his land as well". I can come up with some signs that would get "American" to blush as well. How about putting down his "heros" the Clintons?

If this "American" had done military service, he would be more respectful

Is it just me or did it get a little stankier in this thread?

just reading through the forum trying to find an area where what i have fits - so far i cant find such an area ... but while i am here i couldnt help but come to this area cuz of the impeach bush crap ...

first i will let it be known i detest bush with a passion as i view him even worse than his father as we are now in an all time high deficit deeper than his father ever took us. people have said keep looking up and i crack off well kinda hard not to keep looking up from the bottom of this gigantic hole the man has dug us into .... so this is just to show i am in no way partial to bush ...

BUT ... i have now dumped land in SL four times ...

the first land i dumped at a total loss to me was because of those stupid impeach bush signs and they did not go up until i bought this particular piece of land and when they went up it was right there in my face gigantic with that bright blue glare actually hurting my eyes to even spend any time at this particular area of my land.

i tried to tolerate it but nooooo then went up another one above it and another one above that and then another one beside it and the glare actually became intolerable to my eyes ... it actually hurt ... and too this presented a very ugly eye sore ...

all i knew to do was dump the land and get away from it ... so i dumped this particular chunk of land which was somewhere around 5000 to 6000 sq off to the resellers so that they could wait out sale for profit cuz i didnt care to have to wait around and pay for land that i deemed useless to me and useless due to the impeach bush eye sore staring and glaring in my face ...

AND also i cant help but have in mind why make SL such an ugly place when this so-called president's term will be up and he cannot be put in once again and he has already done so much damage it will be years and years before a good president will be able to dig us out so kind of like geez just ride the tide, ride it out its almost over for this idiot we have in there right now ... and heck the way its gone there wont be anyone worth voting for on next term cuz its all done nothing but go downhill even with our choices as we have no choices is how bush got is stupid self put into office anyhow kinda like bush was the better stupid of the stupids ... he should be so proud of himself lmaooooo
... why keep SL ugly cuz of this ?

ok goodie i finally got to growl about those God-Forsaken impeach bush signs !!
laffin

He has his right to free speech under your US constitution and I would support that legal right within reason. More to the point we had a brief IM chat and while debating FL politics found ourselves in agreement over a possible successor to Bush, although from a political view agreed to disagree over Bush.

I want to be careful what I say in the following paragraphs but as we all know in FL there is a tremendous lot of trouble brewing over various cartoons of The Prophet. The Islamic people have taken very serious offence at what many people in the UK deem to be quite acceptable satire within certain bounds. Indeed our politicians are regularly pictured in The Times political cartoons. Yet some Islamic followers regard hostage taking and TV beheading of same quite acceptable......


Maybe Second Life should have a "no overt Political/Religious" clause in its TOS. Politics and Religion always cause trouble.... far more so than money and commerce.

Think what could happen here if somebody used prims and textures to emulate those real life cartoons of the Prophet....

In short in a mass media environment like SL you need to be careful about very publicly expressed views

To be honest, I'm surprised someone hasn't. It would take about 5 minutes.

Lewis

When I first went land-shopping I found several plots for a very good price. I was very pleased and went to scout out each one in person. Ugh. Each one of the plots I wanted had 1 or more Bush signs near or around it. So much for that, eh? Besides the ugliness of the signs, the message itself intrudes upon the SL world. Why bring that crap into our world? We have to hear it / see it in RL day after day. It's nice to come into SL and get away from it all.

I agree with the previous poster. All political / religious messages should be banned from SL.

I'm not completely sure the constitution has anything to do with this at all.
He has the right to freedom of speech because Linden Lab allows him to have that right. The government isn't sitting in LL's office saying "Hey! You've GOT to allow him his god-given rights in your little make believe world!"

Just pointing it out.

Yes you are right Amber, but to gainsay him that right could lead to Lindon being sued as I understand US law assuming he has money and was determined enough. There is a similar right in the UK under the Human Rights Act but it is being tempered by certain laws regarding religion going backwards and forwards through the Lords and Commons. Difficult issue.

Also never assume what happens in VR is not necessarily enforceable in real life law. For example I know for a fact several people have just gone to prison for share ramping on bulletin boards in the UK

OK Bottom line is this. The signs just look bad regardless of what they say. If they were all blue with no writing they would still make the Horizon look bad. If they said I love bush he is the best, they would still look bad. But then again, I guess we are free to do what we want with our property right?

However I do not think that it shows good judgement on the part of the Impeach bush guy because he is not helping with the resale value of property around his sings that we have invested our hard earned money into. I am sure most of us would like to see a positive return on our investment. If not, then why own property, you may as well be renting and take less risk.

The signs do not hurt just Bush Supporters but all of us as a whole. Property value around his signs are selling for less and at the expense of his opinion which in turn also has an affect on the Second Life economy. So a lot of good people have to suffer from the results of his poor judgement whether they agree with him or not.

To me, the signs are a very taistless and selfish way to practice free speach in any community. They show absolutey no respect for the community as a whole and provide absolutly no public service of any kind.

Actually the US constitution only prevents the government from suppressing your rights. Private Businesses, such as LL, don't have such restrictions.

You signed a contract with LL preventing you from doing certain things here on pain of being ejected, with an additional clause that it may change at any time. Standard US EULA mostly.

I wonder what's actually bugging people more:

1. That IBG is actually putting up all these ugly rotating signs...
   
2. The message the signs deliver...
   
3. or the price the lots are for sale..
   

True, the US Bill of Rights defines what the *government* cannot do to individuals. These amendments have little effect over private citizens or private entities (this is why your job can limit your free speech).

However, since LL is holding themselves out as a governmental entity (i.e. the de facto government of Second Life), a strong argument exists that would hold them to the amendments. Similar arguments have been used to hold corporations running "company towns" in violation of free speech rights.

But then we'd have to acknowledge that even if LL is in fact the defacto government of Second Life (they are actually more Gods than government) then we'd also have to acknowledge that it is a *different* government - ie not the government of the United States. The American Constitution is only valid under an american government.

Count me in as one of the pissed-off. I absolutely hate the signs myself. I also recognize he's a completele MORON.

See, free speech goes BOTH ways. The BEST way to counteract this garbage, IMO is to start posting signs that say (something to the effect of) "Democrats: Party of Jackasses" with some eye-catching artwork...

We'll see how long it takes for the OTHER side to start whining about having the signs removed...

You keep coming abck to harping on your 'rights.'

Like security scripts, the landowner has the right to put up what he wants. I don't see why his signs are an assault on you..sure they're ugly, but ALOT of things on sl are. I'm not homosexual but I don't get upset if someone has an advert for a gay men's dating service near my actual home (for the moment).

Can I go around the welcome area with political/any other protest signs? I think not, the rules don't permit that.

So, where's free speech?

I used to go around the WA protesting foot shadows... Thanx to Pasta Mann for the shot:

Yes again agreed. But Second Life servers are on US soil and therefore are technically subject to a legal concept called "absolute domain". A similar concept exists in UK law and is again technically administered by the Crown.

The only way around that issue is to locate your servers off shore.

Btw, if you do some research into a UK FT100 Plc company called Partygaming (epic code prty) you will see the directors could face automatic prison if they travel to the US.

Hmm I tried to dig up the WA rules from the forums, but didn't find it yet. But if I remember correctly, some activities that might fall under free speech are not permitted.

I don't remember seeing those--I'd have to check with current policy to be 100% sure, but on past occasions when I saw protesters in the WA, they were allowed to carry their signs, insofar as it didn't violate the Community Standards on other grounds. For example, I remember someone asked to remove their anti-government signs not because they were political, but because they contained explicit sexual nudity (in the PG WA) and they were also playing very droney soundloops and spinning around repetitively--thus also clearly being a disturbance of the peace.