There’s no inconsistency here - as a condition of release, he cannot sing about guns or violence; that requires gov’t monitoring to ensure compliance. Anyone want to give him a gun/gun license? I didn’t think so…
Who said anything about giving him a gun or a gun license? Straw man much?
That is NOT a condition of his release. A condition of his release is that he not associate with known felons unless absolutely necessary. The First Amendment does not allow the state to place restrictions on people’s right to free speech, even if they have been convicted of a crime.
They don’t want him rapping about gang life or violence because they’re imagining that that is a sign that he is not rehabilitated. And that is bullshit. And unconstitutional.
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How is that the same thing as a song?
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… oh they absolutely are
They should either lock his ass back up if he’s that dangerous, or get over it and let him go 
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He should do a remake of this:
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Freedom of speech ≠ owning a lethal weapon.
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Is it really, though?
If he instead authored a novel glorifying a criminal lifestyle, or wrote a screenplay glorifying a criminal lifestyle would that be evidence that “rehabilitation isn’t working”? This is literally an artist needing to pre-clear their creative output through the government. That’s a scary thought.
This is also complete bullshit as well as far as I’m concerned. Unless someone is making an explicit admission to something (versus metaphors or abstractions), using lyrics as “evidence” just seems completely wrong to me. Unfortunately this has been a successful tactic. Guess what kind of person it always seems to end up effecting?
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He’d get an oscar for that? Or is that only for white people?
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It’s a bunch of bullshit, but parole conditions often are a bunch of bullshit. I hope this publicity helps him for the next 2 years. Then he can write whatever the hell he wants, hopefully with an extra helping of criticism for the justice system.
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Depends on the situation really. The lyrics are standard posturing and bragging about how badass the musician is - wild.
The lyrics match specific details of a crime the musician is at least suspected of doing, when said details weren’t publicly known - not so wild.
Although I can’t think of any cases outside of that one Key and Peele sketch where that second one has happened.
There is no suggestion of that here. They aren’t wanting to use the lyrics as evidence in a criminal trial. They want to hold the violence in the lyrics against him as evidence of whether or not he’s been rehabilitated, per the terms of his parole. That…is completely inappropriate.
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Repeat offender Johnny Cash sang “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” in a live album recorded in front of a bunch of convicted felons at Folsom Prison and it went triple platinum.
Cash was later personally presented with the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush.
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So, no supervised release with conditions, then - just lock them up or else let them out unconditionally?
They may be censoring him or they may not be. The article simply says that he has to report his lyrics, and implies that if they contain further glorifications of or exhortations to violence (“inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation”), he may get his ass locked back up (“modify [his] supervised release terms”). It is silent on any power to prevent him using/publishing/recording his lyrics.
Which seems to be the intent behind the paragraph I quoted from the article (and excerpted in parentheses here).
To be clear I am not advocating this approach, simply analysing what the article says about it.
I do think it’s wrong to use his lyrics against him in isolation, just as it would be if the same sentiments expressed in a novel or poetry or (long list) were to be used in this way. But if an author of a novel had committed similar crimes and was up for parole, perhaps looking at what the author is publishing, as part of a pattern of behaviour when supposedly trying to prove they have been rehabilitated and deserve not to be locked back up is something those responsible for parole should be looking at. OTOH it probably should be something for professional parole authorities to manage, not judges.
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He has to write the lyrics before he can do any of that, and the threat of imprisonment is a power that would prevent him from writing lyrics freely so that they could then be used, published or recorded (which also cannot be done from prison).
There is no way that this is not censorship, and while I understand the need to impose conditions on parole, this is a step away from punishing parolees for even thinking about crime.
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I take your point, up to a point, but Isn’t there a difference between writing (a private activity) and publishing/disseminating?
she would have the artist turn his lyrics over to the government prior to putting out or promoting any songs he planned to use them in
For which he had permission
So his work is being censored (and liberty threatened) on the basis of something he had official permission to do.
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Yes, because you have to write before you can publish. If you cannot write, then you have nothing to publish. He cannot write what he wants, so he cannot publish what he wants.
It’s like saying that he is free to eat the sandwich, but he cannot make any kind of sandwich he wants. If he wants to make a sandwich with prohibited ingredients, then he is only free to eat something that does not exist. But he cannot eat it because it does not exist.
Also, isn’t this exact conversation in Catch-22 verbatim?
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No, it’s like saying he can make the sandwich but not eat it. Equally daft, but logically very different.
I write loads of stuff. I publish very little of it. They aren’t asking for everything he writes, they are saying they need to see it…
He can write anything he likes. Nobody is saying he cannot write anything. They are asking to see what he writes if he intends to publish it.
@anon33176345
Permission to perform and permission to associate unnecessarily with other convicted felons are different things.
Again, I’m not advocating this approach as portrayed, but there do seem to be some logic fails here.
That is exactly what I said. In effect, he cannot publish it, so it is censorship.
Are you saying that it would only be censorship if they insisted on going through everything that he wrote? What working definition are you using for censorship?
If censorship means that he is not free to publish or attempt to publish what he wants (and I believe that this is the definition of censorship), and he is in effect unable to publish or attempt to publish what he wants as a consequence of this requirement, then it logically follows that this is censorship.
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