Free speech derail from The Rise of Christian Nationalism

[Metaphor]

A generation ago, it was left-leaning people who must forcefully defended both the law and value of freedom of speech. Our current crop of leftists have taken the opposite view. Leftist fascism?

Fighting fascism is fascistic now, is it? Looks as though you have not heard of the paradox of tolerance.

I also regard hate speech and incitement to violence as disqualified from the protection of toleration and the right to free speech. And yes, I know there is a problem with all of that. It is that definitions of who is a fascist or a racist, and what constitutes hate speech or incitement to violence can - and has been - stretched beyond acceptability.

Anyone who believes in "hate speech" proscriptions does not believe in free speech.

 

[Hermit]

A generation ago, it was left-leaning people who must forcefully defended both the law and value of freedom of speech. Our current crop of leftists have taken the opposite view. Leftist fascism?

Fighting fascism is fascistic now, is it? Looks as though you have not heard of the paradox of tolerance.

I also regard hate speech and incitement to violence as disqualified from the protection of toleration and the right to free speech. And yes, I know there is a problem with all of that. It is that definitions of who is a fascist or a racist, and what constitutes hate speech or incitement to violence can - and has been - stretched beyond acceptability.

Anyone who believes in "hate speech" proscriptions does not believe in free speech.

Why the scare quotes, Metaphor? Don't you accept that hate speech actually exists?

Anyone who believes in hate speech proscriptions regards hate speech not qualified to the protection of toleration and the right to free speech.

 

[Metaphor]

Why the scare quotes, Metaphor? Don't you accept that hate speech actually exists?

I believe that some of what is regarded as 'hate speech' by corporate culture and some governments is nothing of the sort.

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

Anyone who believes in hate speech proscriptions regards hate speech not qualified to the protection of toleration and the right to free speech.

Anyone who believes in 'free speech' but thinks there are qualifications with respect to 'hate speech' simply does not know what 'free speech' means.

I am as close to a free speech absolutist as you might imagine. A real one, though. One who would dispense with most of 'libel' and 'slander' laws as they stand in many countries.

Twitter thinks calling Rachel Levine a man is hate speech. I disagree. It is not hateful to acknowledge reality. But I would go significantly further. I think actual hate speech should not be subject to government proscription.

 

[Hermit]

Why the scare quotes, Metaphor? Don't you accept that hate speech actually exists?

I believe that some of what is regarded as 'hate speech' by corporate culture and some governments is nothing of the sort.

Guess what? We agree on that. From four hours ago:

...And yes, I know there is a problem with all of that. It is that definitions of who is a fascist or a racist, and what constitutes hate speech or incitement to violence can - and has been - stretched beyond acceptability.

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

There we disagree. Hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed. I am not only thinking of the obvious example. Martin Luther has a lot to answer for. Then there were the Russian pogroms of the 1880s and dozens, maybe hundreds of other instances we neither hear about nor cared if we did, because they happened to ethnic populations in geographic areas we westerners simply choose to ignore. It is because of those tragedies hate speech has no right to the protection of free speech.

 

[Metaphor]

Why the scare quotes, Metaphor? Don't you accept that hate speech actually exists?

I believe that some of what is regarded as 'hate speech' by corporate culture and some governments is nothing of the sort.

Guess what? We agree on that. From four hours ago:

I know what you said. I suspect nevertheless that we would strongly disagree on what 'hate speech' is, and we definitely disagree on how the State should react to it.

...And yes, I know there is a problem with all of that. It is that definitions of who is a fascist or a racist, and what constitutes hate speech or incitement to violence can - and has been - stretched beyond acceptability.

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

There we disagree. Hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed.

Violence leads to deaths, not hate speech.

I am not only thinking of the obvious example. Martin Luther has a lot to answer for. Then there were the Russian pogroms of the 1880s and dozens, maybe hundreds of other instances we neither hear about nor cared if we did, because they happened to ethnic populations in geographic areas we westerners simply choose to ignore. It is because of those tragedies hate speech has no right to the protection of free speech.

No. People have the right to "hate speech" because people have the right to their conscience without the State or the mob proscribing and punishing thoughts and the speech that arises from those thoughts. State-mandated religion terrifies me, and State proscriptions on speech is exactly that.

 

[Hermit]

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

There we disagree. Hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed.

Violence leads to deaths, not hate speech.

It is a historical fact that hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed.

I am not only thinking of the obvious example. Martin Luther has a lot to answer for. Then there were the Russian pogroms of the 1880s and dozens, maybe hundreds of other instances we neither hear about nor cared if we did, because they happened to ethnic populations in geographic areas we westerners simply choose to ignore. It is because of those tragedies hate speech has no right to the protection of free speech.

No. People have the right to "hate speech" because people have the right to their conscience without the State or the mob proscribing and punishing thoughts and the speech that arises from those thoughts. State-mandated religion terrifies me, and State proscriptions on speech is exactly that.

There is nothing worth protecting about people's conscience that lead to hate, then on to wars and genocides. State proscriptions that are aimed at preventing them are based on humanism. If there is an aspect of religion to this humanism, so be it.

 

[laughing dog]

A generation ago, it was left-leaning people who must forcefully defended both the law and value of freedom of speech. Our current crop of leftists have taken the opposite view. Leftist fascism?

Fighting fascism is fascistic now, is it? Looks as though you have not heard of the paradox of tolerance.

I also regard hate speech and incitement to violence as disqualified from the protection of toleration and the right to free speech. And yes, I know there is a problem with all of that. It is that definitions of who is a fascist or a racist, and what constitutes hate speech or incitement to violence can - and has been - stretched beyond acceptability.

Anyone who believes in "hate speech" proscriptions does not believe in free speech.

A more accurate statement is "Anyone who believes in 'hate speech' proscriptions does not believe in Metaphor' definition of hate speech".

In order to have fruitful discussion, what do you mean by "free speech"? And then, where is your definition of free speech practiced?

 

[prideandfall]

In order to have fruitful discussion, what do you mean by "free speech"? And then, where is your definition of free speech practiced?

fortunately in this case it's very simple.
meaphor's (and many other's around here) definition of "free speech" that is notable and should be protected is "anything that harms another person" - whether that harm is quantifiable in terms of real-world impact due to social forces, or harm done to the target's mental or emotional well being.

what is NOT free speech to people like metaphor is "anything that metaphor disagrees with."

so for example, here's what it's OK and not OK to say over and over again day in and day out to a class of high school students:
OK: that gay men should be castrated because they're a plague on humanity and an affront to god - because that quantifiably harms people.
not OK: if a person's sense of self expression is to identify as a different gender it doesn't really matter because who gives a shit how people self express - because metaphor disagrees with it.

so what 'free speech' is or isn't can be simply calculated by figuring out whether anyone is harmed by the speech (it's free speech) or if it's totally innocuous but metaphor doesn't personally like it (it's not free speech).

 

[Bomb#20]

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

There we disagree. Hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed.

Violence leads to deaths, not hate speech.

It is a historical fact that hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed.

It is a historical fact that advocacy of socialism has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed. Do you think this is sufficient grounds for making it illegal to advocate socialism?

I am not only thinking of the obvious example. Martin Luther has a lot to answer for. Then there were the Russian pogroms of the 1880s and dozens, maybe hundreds of other instances we neither hear about nor cared if we did, because they happened to ethnic populations in geographic areas we westerners simply choose to ignore. It is because of those tragedies hate speech has no right to the protection of free speech.

No. People have the right to "hate speech" because people have the right to their conscience without the State or the mob proscribing and punishing thoughts and the speech that arises from those thoughts. State-mandated religion terrifies me, and State proscriptions on speech is exactly that.

There is nothing worth protecting about people's conscience that lead to hate, then on to wars and genocides.[/quote]
This exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of the reason for freedom of speech laws. We do not put constitutional roadblocks in the path of would-be government censors because the ideas they intend to censor are worth protecting. We put constitutional roadblocks in the path of would-be government censors because censorship is a power government cannot be trusted not to abuse.

State proscriptions that are aimed at preventing them are based on humanism. If there is an aspect of religion to this humanism, so be it.

So not be it. We put constitutional roadblocks in the path of would-be religious censors because religions also cannot be trusted not to abuse the power. It is a historical fact that religions that were given the power to decide who to censor censored people for disagreeing with them. It isn't because we've been putting the wrong religions in charge that this happened. This happened because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Anybody who think religious humanism would be different from the others is a fool.

 

[Bomb#20]

A generation ago, it was left-leaning people who must forcefully defended both the law and value of freedom of speech. Our current crop of leftists have taken the opposite view. Leftist fascism?

Fighting fascism is fascistic now, is it? Looks as though you have not heard of the paradox of tolerance.
<cartoon snipped>

Of course we've heard of it. Popper said it, you believe it, that doesn't settle it. The thing about paradoxes that makes them paradoxes is that they're self-contradictory nonsense. When you're preaching that any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution must be outside the law, you're preaching intolerance and persecution. Of course those in the movement to not tolerate intolerance will never regard their own movement as intolerant, so they will believe themselves consistent, but this merely shows no one should be the judge in his own case. The doctrine you are advocating is a free pass. Anyone who wants to censor anything can convince himself he's only fighting fascism. He's the easiest one to convince, because he's telling himself what he wants to hear.

 

[Bomb#20]

Free Speech is a right that protects you from being shut down by the government.
Any free individuals, organizations, or business denying to provide a platform for some person or group, is not and cannot be a Free Speech violation.

It can be and it is, if it's the government putting the free individuals, organizations, or business up to it to get them to deny to provide a platform for some person or group. Contracting your violation of others' constitutional rights out to private parties doesn't make it not a violation. Not when it's their abortion rights; not when it's their free speech rights.

 

[Metaphor]

In order to have fruitful discussion, what do you mean by "free speech"? And then, where is your definition of free speech practiced?

fortunately in this case it's very simple.
meaphor's (and many other's around here) definition of "free speech" that is notable and should be protected is "anything that harms another person" - whether that harm is quantifiable in terms of real-world impact due to social forces, or harm done to the target's mental or emotional well being.

what is NOT free speech to people like metaphor is "anything that metaphor disagrees with."

so for example, here's what it's OK and not OK to say over and over again day in and day out to a class of high school students:
OK: that gay men should be castrated because they're a plague on humanity and an affront to god - because that quantifiably harms people.
not OK: if a person's sense of self expression is to identify as a different gender it doesn't really matter because who gives a shit how people self express - because metaphor disagrees with it.

so what 'free speech' is or isn't can be simply calculated by figuring out whether anyone is harmed by the speech (it's free speech) or if it's totally innocuous but metaphor doesn't personally like it (it's not free speech).

Quoted as a representation of prideandfall's freedom to formulate a fantasy from whole cloth and preach that fantasy as if it were the truth.

 

[Bomb#20]

The quote nesting misattributes what you are quoting, but Evergreen State is a state college and not a private one.

utterly irrelevant.

in the US, the concept of "free speech" is the federal government won't arrest you for saying things.
that is the beginning, the end, and the totality of what "free speech" means in terms of US law.

short of the federal government arresting you for saying things, it is not a "free speech" issue.

That's ridiculous. If a state government arrests you for saying things, it's a free speech issue. If the federal government or a state government fines you for saying things, it's a free speech issue. If the federal government or a state government grabs up all the newspapers you're trying to deliver and burns them for saying things, it's a free speech issue. If the federal government or a state government smashes your presses and beats up your employees for saying things, it's a free speech issue. If a gang of criminals smashes your presses and beats up your employees for saying things and the federal government or a state government refuses to prosecute, it's a free speech issue. If the federal government or a state government cuts off your access to the means of saying things, it's a free speech issue.

The PRI maintained one-party rule in Mexico for 71 years by, among other things, preventing opposition journalists from being heard, by enacting a newsprint monopoly and declining to sell newsprint to any newspapers that didn't self-censor criticism of the government. No arrests, no fines, no smashed printing presses, just silenced critics. That's a free speech issue.

 

[Metaphor]

Even as a near-absolutist on free speech, there are certain situations that where I think the government has a right to restrict speech (e.g. credible threats of violence).

But just because I would generally allow private corporations a lot of latitude in what they allow on their platform (e.g. I would not want the government to force Twitter to reinstate the Babylon Bee's account), that doesn't mean it is not worth discussing the censoring instinct in tech oligopolies. Twitter's hugely ironic stated values versus its status as the most toxic social media platform ever devised is a case in point.

 

[Bomb#20]

Anyone who believes in "hate speech" proscriptions does not believe in free speech.

Why the scare quotes, Metaphor? Don't you accept that hate speech actually exists?

Anyone who believes in hate speech proscriptions regards hate speech not qualified to the protection of toleration and the right to free speech.

Certainly hate speech exists. We already have in the thread a guy who posts hate speech over and over in thread after thread, from:

"The capitalist belongs to a class of people who don't themselves make or provide any goods and services, but have enough wealth to appropriate the required materials for doing so, and thus claim the right to channel other people's work into a surplus whose destination (reinvestment, dividends, taxes) they decide independently of the workers. ... I say scare them away."​

to:

"you are a completely boring run-of-the-mill paranoid reactionary regressive right-wing ditto who parrots whatever idiocy on FOX news that week, and you always have been for all the many years you've been posting here."​

Do you consider those statements "not qualified to the protection of toleration and the right to free speech"?

 

[Bomb#20]

And, secondly, and quite radically compared to leftists, I do not believe there should be government proscriptions on actual speech that is actually "hateful".

There we disagree. Hate speech has been a causal contributor to millions of deaths and untold suffering by those who were not actually killed. I am not only thinking of the obvious example. Martin Luther has a lot to answer for. Then there were the Russian pogroms of the 1880s and dozens, maybe hundreds of other instances we neither hear about nor cared if we did, because they happened to ethnic populations in geographic areas we westerners simply choose to ignore. It is because of those tragedies hate speech has no right to the protection of free speech.

The hate speech of he who must not be named, and Martin Luther, and the instigators of pogroms, and the hundreds of other instances, did not contribute to vast death and suffering only by being hate speech per se. Their speech contributed to vast death and suffering by being hate speech from the powerful.

If you ever find yourself in a position to demand censorship and actually get it, you can be 100% certain that you are powerful and those you are censoring are not. If they had power they would be able to stop you from censoring them.

Censors always tell themselves they're the righteous man and their censorship law's Mr. .45 here is the shepherd protecting their righteous ass in the valley of darkness. But that ain't the truth. The truth is the censored are the weak. And the censors are the tyranny of evil men.

 

[prideandfall]

Quoted as a representation of prideandfall's freedom to formulate a fantasy from whole cloth and preach that fantasy as if it were the truth.

oh, so you're claiming that you're for trans women declaring that they are women publicly now?

would you support a teacher in a classroom telling students that anyone who identifies as female is a female?
that's double free speech right there.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Anyone who believes in "hate speech" proscriptions does not believe in free speech.

And note that most on the left don't support banning hate speech.

Rather, the pressure is to have nothing to do with it. You want to engage in hate speech, you need to bring your own soapbox and you'll be ostracized other than by fellow haters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Even as a near-absolutist on free speech, there are certain situations that where I think the government has a right to restrict speech (e.g. credible threats of violence).

But just because I would generally allow private corporations a lot of latitude in what they allow on their platform (e.g. I would not want the government to force Twitter to reinstate the Babylon Bee's account), that doesn't mean it is not worth discussing the censoring instinct in tech oligopolies. Twitter's hugely ironic stated values versus its status as the most toxic social media platform ever devised is a case in point.

What you are missing is that those aren't public utilities, but private companies.

As such, there is no prohibition on them saying they don't want to be associated with the hate speech and the attempts to deceive people into self-harm. Besides, the QOP did it to itself with the keystone coup attempt--that took it from unpleasant words to sedition and of course a bunch of people got a swift boot to the ass for that.

 

[Metaphor]

Quoted as a representation of prideandfall's freedom to formulate a fantasy from whole cloth and preach that fantasy as if it were the truth.

oh, so you're claiming that you're for trans women declaring that they are women publicly now?

I don't care who declares what, publically or privately. My nieces and nephews have declared they are dogs, and cars, and babies, and Batman, and I know them to be nothing of the kind. In fact, I don't even say 'no you're not'.

Declare away. It's no skin off my nose.

would you support a teacher in a classroom telling students that anyone who identifies as female is a female?

Would I support a teacher lying to her captive students, you mean?

If I were a parent and my child were in a non-public school, no I would not support it. I'd complain about it using my own free speech.

If it were a publically funded school, no I would not support it. Free speech does not mean the government has to provide a platform and a salary to the person making the speech.

If it was a university, I'd let the university decide whether professors preaching nonsense to the gullible is something they want to encourage.

that's double free speech right there.