Jump to content

Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Consequences of Speech... not the same thing.


Ser Scot A Ellison

Recommended Posts

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And that happened far after other contentious occurrences had happened elsewhere. It was pretty organic in how it happened, and that was kind of by design.

Yeah, I guess it's hard to say how influential the California propositions were countrywide, in that we are one of the few states that use that crappy system. It seemed to me the big takeaway was how financially brutal this issue was for both sides. So much money spent.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It isn't an all or nothing; you don't have to accept hate speech because you also accept gay marriage advocacy. I said that already. So yes, still, citation needed. Another way to say it is this: would Germany's restrictive speech laws allowed gay marriage advocacy?

And that happened far after other contentious occurrences had happened elsewhere. It was pretty organic in how it happened, and that was kind of by design.

It depends how much independence the individual German "Lands" have.  If they have as much power as US States would without the 1st Amendment they could absolutely have laws passed making advocacy of gay marriage illegal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It depends how much independence the individual German "Lands" have.  If they have as much power as US States would without the 1st Amendment they could absolutely have laws passed making advocacy of gay marriage illegal.

They don't. And they have other ways to guarantee those kinds of rights. Which is sort of the point - that free speech does not mean things like equality. 

Point of fact, Germany could make advocacy of gay marriage illegal but I believe could not make gay marriage illegal, which is kind of funny. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It sounds a lot worse than it probably is. At most, they will join the brawling and the protests will become a bit more violent than they already are.

However... there does exist a serious problem in the cases of protests on college campuses that will eventually cause serious harm if not addressed. The state (as represented by the local police) has effectively abdicated its position as the monopoly on violence. That is, as long as they wear masks and aren't stupid enough to be physically detained, the protesters are allowed to respond to speech with violence without any meaningful repercussions. This power vacuum will result in progressively more violence deployed by both sides until it becomes serious enough for the state to step in. Worse, the violent groups developed in the process won't go away even after the fad of silencing speech dies down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

It sounds a lot worse than it probably is. At most, they will join the brawling and the protests will become a bit more violent than they already are.

However... there does exist a serious problem in the cases of protests on college campuses that will eventually cause serious harm if not addressed. The state (as represented by the local police) has effectively abdicated its position as the monopoly on violence. That is, as long as they wear masks and aren't stupid enough to be physically detained, the protesters are allowed to respond to speech with violence without any meaningful repercussions. This power vacuum will result in progressively more violence deployed by both sides until it becomes serious enough for the state to step in. Worse, the violent groups developed in the process won't go away even after the fad of silencing speech dies down.

The problem is any violence by the state just fuels a sense of righteousness and victimhood and encourages more violence. That's why you often see the police standing back in these situations 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Depends on what you care about, I suppose. If you care mostly about free and reasonable elections that preserve democracy I'd argue that it is a democratic society regardless of the robustness of the free speech rules, provided one simple thing: freedom of speech allows unlimited criticism of the government. 

If you care about freedom of speech period, and are willing to accept oppression of minority and disempowered groups as a result, then I guess you're right - but it's not a particularly democratic society for those people who are oppressed. 

Is there an argument that cases like you describe have a place in civil courts?    In the Milo example, when he outs people as part of his tired act, while technically legal, it causes significant damage to the people in question.   I'd think there's lawyers out there who'd love to go after Milo and people like him with lawsuit after lawsuit, effectively making this kind of behavior no longer lucrative.  I'm sure anonymous bigot donors would backstop Milo, but if the lawsuits were incessant and high profile enough, the funding would probably stop.

I think I'm basically asking if civil courts could be weaponized to de-incentivize toxic speech instead of increasing legal restrictions on speech or using (non-government) force or violence to stop speech.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Your initial implication that freedom of speech in the US is 'absolute' is deeply flawed, and punching someone in the face(even if it is speech, which it likely isn't) is not protected any more than walking into someone's house with a bullhorn is.

It obviously isn't covered d'uh. It was obviously a silly remark (and it was even labeled as such, I really didn't think I needed to make it more explicit), because Scot's wording in the post I responded to was not as carefully crafted as his usual posts are. So I had some fun with it. Kal got the basis of the remark, that "hitting a Nazi" is also a form of expressing that you violently disagree with what he had to say. It's not the most eloquent way to express your disagreement, and arguably not the best one, but as form of non-verbal communication it gets the message across.*

So where are the boundaries of free speech. ANything short of publicly asking your audience to commit a crime seems to be cool. On a second thought, remember when Trump asked his supporters to beat up protesters during his rallyes. So that seems to be cool, too. Falsely accusing someone of a crime, like running a child sex ring under a pizza place?

*Disclaimer this post contained elements of irony. Only read and respond, when you can detect them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

can we stop with the laziness of 'a slippery slope?' it is a weak bit of reasoning and logic. gay marriage didn't lead to the slippery slope of marrying animals. not letting people have rocket launchers isn't leading to the slippery slope of all your guns being taken away. 

now having excised the slippery slope from the argument can any of you truly express what harm is done to our society if we do not allow hate speech to be protected? to clarify and identify hate speech let's call it speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

what is truly gained as a society by allowing this to be protected?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, MercurialCannibal said:

can we stop with the laziness of 'a slippery slope?' it is a weak bit of reasoning and logic. gay marriage didn't lead to the slippery slope of marrying animals. not letting people have rocket launchers isn't leading to the slippery slope of all your guns being taken away. 

now having excised the slippery slope from the argument can any of you truly express what harm is done to our society if we do not allow hate speech to be protected? to clarify and identify hate speech let's call it speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

what is truly gained as a society by allowing this to be protected?

 

For one , people are going to hate it when they cant go off on a temper tantrums and irresponsibly  call people  bigots, sexists, racists, and homophobes.  Because that too is hate speech.

And what's it going to be like when no one can rant about the white heterosexual male? That also is hate speech.

Definitely not going to be allowed to go off half cocked and call someone a nazi, big time hate speech right there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, MercurialCannibal said:

can we stop with the laziness of 'a slippery slope?' it is a weak bit of reasoning and logic. gay marriage didn't lead to the slippery slope of marrying animals. not letting people have rocket launchers isn't leading to the slippery slope of all your guns being taken away. 

now having excised the slippery slope from the argument can any of you truly express what harm is done to our society if we do not allow hate speech to be protected? to clarify and identify hate speech let's call it speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

what is truly gained as a society by allowing this to be protected?

 

I hear your passion but you say this as though defining what is and is not "hate speech" is a simple matter.  Would aggressive atheists who speak out against all religious faiths be silenced because religious people consider their words "hate speech"?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Questions for potential arbiters of hate speech.

Which of these statements just won't do under your possible authority? Or all?

1 - Hitler sure had a cool mustache. That look needs to come back in style. Hate speech or no?

2 - Sorry but your opinion on that topic is invalid due to you being a White heterosexual male. Hate speech or no?

3 - Sorry but your opinion on that topic is invalid due to you being a gay black female. Hate speech or no?

4 - White people are responsible for the most evil in the world. Hate speech or no?

5 - Jews have been commiting atrocities on Arabs for centuries. Hate speech or no?

6 - Arabs have been commiting atrocities on Jews for centuries. Hate speech or no?

7 - Arabs are terrorizing White Christian countries. Hate speech or no?

8 - White Christian countries are terrorizing Arab Muslims. Hate speech or no?

9 - Fuck white people....and not in a have sex with them way. Hate speech or no?

10 - Black dudes got huge wangs. Hate speech or no?

11 - People in the Northern United States are smarter than the people in the South. Hate speech or no?

12 - People in the Southern USA are more racist than the people in the North. Hate speech or no?

13 - #WhiteLivesMatter. Hate speech or no?

14 - #JewLivesMatter. Hate speech or no?

15 - Shut up you fucking bigot! Just shut the fuck up! I'm sick of your ignorant bullshit opinions. You need to be punched in the fucking mouth for your beliefs you white heterosexual male scum. Hate speech or no?

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...