Freedom of speech and freedom of consequences

[fast]

We've heard the saying that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences. That has never really sit too well with me. I don't disagree; it's just that something always seems to be peculiarly amiss. Whether I support the notion or not really depends on the perspective I choose to take.

First, on the agreeable account, we want to be free of legal consequences when we choose to say what we wish. For instance, if George says "cats are bad," we don't want George to face legal repercussions like a fine or jail time. The cat lovers, of course (well, some of them), upon hearing George make such a dastardly remark, are then out for blood and want his life to be ruined in every way possible ... all the way from being fired to out right financial ruin, and any public humiliation that comes with it the better. However, just like us, they don't want him to suffer any legal repercussions. Lose $15 to a fine, no, but lose $15 million for making the utterance, yes.

On the second account, well gee, what kind of actual freedom worthy of having is that (if I open my mouth in earshot of someone and express a distasteful view against cats that there will be someone hell bent on crippling my life in any and every way legally possible)? Well, the answer is legal freedom, and I too support the notion that we should have that legal freedom; however, when some people speak about desiring and willing to stand up for the freedom of speech, they don't have that narrow and limiting idea in mind that it's exclusive to mere legal ramifications. Others, on the other hand, will say things like "I don't agree with you, but I accept the notion that you should be able to freely speak your mind." Even if appalled by your views, they don't want to stop you, hurt you, or become so vengeful that they cause untold pain in all other non-legal areas of your life.

So, what we have are two different meanings of "freedom" at play here: 1) the narrow view and 2) the broad view. If you truly believe in the freedom of speech (the broad view), then you're not going to set out to inhibit others from speaking their mind. Why? Because you know there can be dire consequences to that freedom, and you strongly believe in not being a cause for diminishing it.

Well, you might choose to exercise your own right to speak your mind, walk with your feet, and not patronize "Doggy is King," (while causing only minimal hardship), but you won't set out to inform the world and form major newsworthy boycotts. Why? Because you place a higher value living in a world where people can openly express how they feel.

What you believe is seen in your actions. If you bring untold numbers of others into it (with the obvious intended consequences of putting a stop to the speech by voicing your own in such volumess ways horrible consequences are expected), you can't innocently say you believe people should have the freedom to speak their mind in any other way than legally so.

So please, don't ask me about how I feel about cats. Don't go on and on about how wonderful it is to live in a country that feels so strongly about how we should protect others from who take away our legal right to speak without legal consequence. That's just a lure to get me to open up so you can pounce on me. Sure, you hate cats, but at least allow me the dignity to remain coiled up in silence without having to endure things like my silence being implicit of this or tacit to that.

If I don't agree with the main stream, I might as well not have the right; it's not like I can take advantage of it without losing everything else I've worked for all my life.

#Love thy kitty

 

[Malintent]

well, one of the best parts of freedom of speech is the freedom to not speak. You are free to exercise that right if you feel that the alternative will create negative consequences. Personally, my issue with "consequences" is that they have been outrageously magnified since the infection of Social Media set in years ago. If you put a sign up in your bakery that says "no cakes for gays", then you can expect some negative consequences from the locals.... That 15 million people can now throw their zero cents in on the "trending" (or my 'favorite', "breaking news") is a bit much... to say the least.

 

[fast]

well, one of the best parts of freedom of speech is the freedom to not speak. You are free to exercise that right if you feel that the alternative will create negative consequences. Personally, my issue with "consequences" is that they have been outrageously magnified since the infection of Social Media set in years ago. If you put a sign up in your bakery that says "no cakes for gays", then you can expect some negative consequences from the locals.... That 15 million people can now throw their zero cents in on the "trending" (or my 'favorite', "breaking news") is a bit much... to say the least.

I agree.

To the bold, it reminds me of what I've said regarding voting. People say we have a responsibility to vote. What I say is that if we choose to exercise our right to vote, we should do so responsibly. But, guess what happens when we choose to exercise such rights as remaining silent. Pure ridicule. Okay, so I chose not to speak up when the bad doggy said such horrid things about the kitty. Tacit this, implicit that.

 

[untermensche]

Speech is a form of conduct.

I do not wish any restraints on my conduct.

I want to harm others at will.

And those that oppose my desire to harm others are tyrants.

 

[repoman]

What if the sign was "we will make gay wedding cakes, but only because it is the law"?

Is that discrimination?

 

[repoman]

I also wonder what are the limits of punishment for abhorrent speech?

Should a grocery store, car dealership, airline or a landlord be able to refuse the money of Richard Spencer? What about a hospital?

 

[Malintent]

What if the sign was "we will make gay wedding cakes, but only because it is the law"?

Is that discrimination?

No. It is a Protestation... a declaration that something is right or wrong.

 

[Malintent]

I also wonder what are the limits of punishment for abhorrent speech?

Should a grocery store, car dealership, airline or a landlord be able to refuse the money of Richard Spencer? What about a hospital?

Any entity within the realm of the "free market" should be free to conduct business as they see fit, within existing regulations, and not be exempt from public discourse that may help or hinder profits.. the breadth of the "public discourse", in my opinion, is far too broad with social media spreading local issues thickly across the nation.

Hospitals, in my opinion, are not part of the "free market", but are a part of basic infrastructure that access to which should be a guaranteed right for all.

 

[Malintent]

well, one of the best parts of freedom of speech is the freedom to not speak. You are free to exercise that right if you feel that the alternative will create negative consequences. Personally, my issue with "consequences" is that they have been outrageously magnified since the infection of Social Media set in years ago. If you put a sign up in your bakery that says "no cakes for gays", then you can expect some negative consequences from the locals.... That 15 million people can now throw their zero cents in on the "trending" (or my 'favorite', "breaking news") is a bit much... to say the least.

I agree.

To the bold, it reminds me of what I've said regarding voting. People say we have a responsibility to vote. What I say is that if we choose to exercise our right to vote, we should do so responsibly. But, guess what happens when we choose to exercise such rights as remaining silent. Pure ridicule. Okay, so I chose not to speak up when the bad doggy said such horrid things about the kitty. Tacit this, implicit that.

I don't think it is quite a fair comparison to relate preference to one animal as a pet over another with one President of the United States over another.

That football team that deflated the ball to cheat... same thing as what Nixon did to try and get reelected? Same level discourse on those topics?

I don't think so... like, at all.

 

[JohnG]

Speech is a form of conduct.

I do not wish any restraints on my conduct.

I want to harm others at will.

And those that oppose my desire to harm others are tyrants.

I've been stewing about this topic for years. At the end of it all, the only relevant point in all this is the point this post has made.There is an imaginary line here where free expression of opinion turns into a social disease. There is a line between, "I don't like cats" and "(Insert race here) have no place in our country"

Also, why wouldn't false advertising fall under free speech? An organization in Quebec is posting on billboards climate change denial messages. The govt. wants them down and people are freaking out saying their free speech is being violated by "Big Brother" - 1984 comparisons are being made.

 

[ronburgundy]

Speech is a form of conduct.

This is the only sentence in your post that reflects anything the OP or other free speech defenders might agree with or have ever implied.

I do not wish any restraints on my conduct.

This has zero logical connection with the first sentence or anything implied by the OP. Your false generalization "logic" is equal to saying that anyone who thinks that gay sex should be legal thinks that all actions should be legal, or that anyone who thinks murder should be illegal thinks that all actions should be illegal. If a person says "That dog is gray.", they are not implying that "Dogs are gray." Speech is 1 of infinite types of conduct, and one's views about it has no implication for restraints on the infinity-minus-1 other forms of conduct.

I want to harm others at will.

Again, zero logical connection to either of your above statements. Even if a person wanted zero constraints on all conduct (which even the most extreme stance on free speech does not entail), that would have zero implication about them wanting to harm others at all. Wanting there to be harm to others is entirely separate from what methods one finds acceptable to prevent the possibility of harm. Your false equivocation of these is exactly what fascist authoritarians capitalize upon by evoking fears and hysteria about possible harms. Like you, they proclaim that all those who don't want jack-booted thugs to rob people of liberty and privacy in the name of "harm prevention" must be the one's who want to cause that harm.

Authoritarianism almost always leads to massive harm to countless people, and freedom of speech is and has been the most essential and effective tool in rooting out the oppressive authoritarianism. Calls for speech restriction have been and still are a reliable indicator of those seeking to harm others via fascistic authoritarianism (all of whom consistently use your identical propaganda about protecting people from harm). Almost never does history show that the speech restrictors were more on the side of improving the well being of the most people, especially those oppressed at the time, relative to the speech defenders. Speech defenders have consistently been the heroes responsible for most of the exponential moral, political, and scientific progress of the last couple centuries.

And those that oppose my desire to harm others are tyrants.

Again, no logical connection to your prior strawmen statements.

There is zero logical connection between each those sentences and any of the others. There is however, a logical connection between restricting speech and promoting authoritarianism since is it as a matter of definitional truism an instance of authoritarianism. There is also a clear empirical connection showing that the prevalence of authoritarianism and harm to the well being of the masses is tightly tethered to the prevalence of free speech restriction, which tons of evidence showing such restrictions are not merely byproducts of authoritarianism but precursor enablers of it. Thus, even when those seeking to restrict speech have noble aims and are not themselves tyrants (contradicting your strawman conclusion), logic and the facts of psychology, sociology, and history strongly predict that they are unwitting enablers of tyrants.

 

[JohnG]

I dunno rb, whether you agree or not, that is the narrative being played out.

 

[LordKiran]

Freedom of speech protects you from government retaliation. It doesn't necessarily protect you from the ire of your neighbors if you say something to piss them off.
I don't think people who look for fights should complain when they get what they're looking for and try to hide behind the first amendment when they don't even know what it is.

I don't disagree that the tyranny of the majority is any less real than the tyranny of the state, or the tyranny of one's employer though, so I'd rather see pariah-ship take the form of benign unacknowledgment.

 

[untermensche]

I do not wish any restraints on my conduct.

This has zero logical connection with the first sentence or anything implied by the OP. Your false generalization "logic" is equal to saying that anyone who thinks that gay sex should be legal thinks that all actions should be legal, or that anyone who thinks murder should be illegal thinks that all actions should be illegal. If a person says "That dog is gray.", they are not implying that "Dogs are gray." Speech is 1 of infinite types of conduct, and one's views about it has no implication for restraints on the infinity-minus-1 other forms of conduct.

If speech in itself can harm it has a connection.

 

[Trausti]

Beautiful!

 

[fast]

I agree.

To the bold, it reminds me of what I've said regarding voting. People say we have a responsibility to vote. What I say is that if we choose to exercise our right to vote, we should do so responsibly. But, guess what happens when we choose to exercise such rights as remaining silent. Pure ridicule. Okay, so I chose not to speak up when the bad doggy said such horrid things about the kitty. Tacit this, implicit that.

I don't think it is quite a fair comparison to relate preference to one animal as a pet over another with one President of the United States over another.

That football team that deflated the ball to cheat... same thing as what Nixon did to try and get reelected? Same level discourse on those topics?

I don't think so... like, at all.

Well, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it's peculiar that your objection was to a statement that was made on False Equivalency Day!--the day we all come together in celebration of false equivalencies! Check my calendar next time!

No no. A common occurance when discussing issues is that they sometimes take a back seat to the examples that captures the limelight. I could have listed any number of examples to illustrate what I was driving at, but the examples themselves could trigger defense mechanisms that ultimately steer conversations into heated battles.

I certainly didn't mean to minimize the significance of clearly important issues when I tried to add a touch of humor in my original post; however, your response wasn't to my original post but rather to a later post, so how do I explain that?

On egg shells, I guess, because i need to be careful. I didn't mean to do what I did on purpose. Yeah, okay, that doesn't make any sense, so let me keep that as a lead-in and try again. Yes, I meant to compare them, but I didn't mean to have the effect that it appears I was going after. That probably wasn't much help either, but I'm honing in. Think of the original post. It was a fictional example to aid me in disussing a nonfictional issue. The cat and dog theme was just a place marker for substitution. The post you were responding to included my continuation of the same theme. So, while I was in fact making a comparison, it was not in the same vein others might make false equivalencies.

 

[fast]

Freedom of speech protects you from government retaliation. It doesn't necessarily protect you from the ire of your neighbors if you say something to piss them off.
I don't think people who look for fights should complain when they get what they're looking for and try to hide behind the first amendment when they don't even know what it is.

I don't disagree that the tyranny of the majority is any less real than the tyranny of the state, or the tyranny of one's employer though, so I'd rather see pariah-ship take the form of benign unacknowledgment.

I don't have an argument against what you're saying, but to expound upon it a bit, I'd like to point out an ambiguity. It's between "freedom of speech" and "freedom of speech." At first glance, they look the same, just like "right" and "right" look the same. However, upon closer inspection, we can differentiate them by how they are used in different cases.

The "Freedom of Speech" you speak of is a complex term and shouldn't be viewed as three consecutive words but rather as a single three-worded term. It's a noun phrase signifying a label with the object of reference being the first amendment in the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. If you're a proponent of free speech, you're probably in favor of preserving the legal rights as granted to us in the US Constitution.

Now, what's in the heart of the girl holding up that sign--in the picture Trausti posted? My crystal ball says something is held in mind that extends beyond what is expressed in the first amendment. Remember that case where a black man said, "I can't breathe?" Somebody was fired when she said, "I can breathe, because I obey the law." <that was the comma of pause>

There are those, and I don't know if they're on the left, right, top, bottom, or over in the corner, but there are those in one camp that differentiates between freedom of speech and freedom of consequences and expresses the sentiment as portrayed by that sign, but then again, there's another camp that also distinguishes between freedom of speech and freedom of consequences, but they feverishly support the destruction of people who openly say what's on their mind, when it's reflective of 'disliked' views.

 

[fast]

Beautiful!

It's probably coincidental that the inverse to the number of stars depicted is calcuably identical to the number on the flag flown by General Lee.

 

[JohnG]

Its a weird catch 22. People want freedom of speech, and then use it to limit the freedom of others.

I cant help but think its just an abuse of the spirit of the concept.

In a way, its like US gun laws. There's this concept that more guns will make things safer, and statistics show thats not the case.

But we really know its just motivated reasoning because just think guns are cool and dont want to give them up despite high murder rates.

Same with 'free speech". It's s a way of justifying something (hate propoganda) that is harmful to society as a whole, and actually has the reverse effect (like lax gun control) by limiting the freedoms of its targets.

I want a society where people are free to express themselves, but does it need to br at the expense of others? Particularly when the "others" pose no threat, risk, or inconvenience to those doing the "free (hate) speaking"?

Where is the line drawn?

 

[Bomb#20]

Same with 'free speech". It's s a way of justifying something (hate propoganda) that is harmful to society as a whole, and actually has the reverse effect (like lax gun control) by limiting the freedoms of its targets.

I want a society where people are free to express themselves, but does it need to br at the expense of others? Particularly when the "others" pose no threat, risk, or inconvenience to those doing the "free (hate) speaking"?

Where is the line drawn?

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." - Noam Chomsky