When "free speech advocates" don't give a fuck about free speech being suppressed...

[Trausti]

Are you seriously advocating that questioning / criticizing the government or a politician is a clear and present danger?

I am claiming that is a strawman.

So why are you bringing up Trump?

 

[laughing dog]

Anyone who denies that Biden won fair and square or that no-vaxers are making it more likely that a super-variant will emerge that current vaccines may be useless against is either a liar or an uninformed fool. They are facts, not opinions. They create a clear and present danger. And as I pointed out, free speech ends where a clear and present danger begins. Do you accept that facts exist? Do you accept the doctrine of clear and present danger?

Questioning the government is a clear and present danger? Jawohl, mein Führer.

Inciting an insurrection via "questioning" is a clear and present danger.

 

[Elixir]

Anyone who denies that Biden won fair and square or that no-vaxers are making it more likely that a super-variant will emerge that current vaccines may be useless against is either a liar or an uninformed fool. They are facts, not opinions. They create a clear and present danger. And as I pointed out, free speech ends where a clear and present danger begins. Do you accept that facts exist? Do you accept the doctrine of clear and present danger?

Questioning the government is a clear and present danger? Jawohl, mein Führer.

Inciting an insurrection via "questioning" is a clear and present danger.

But what if we really NEED an insurrection because we lost the last election?

 

[Emily Lake]

What about the a non-political fact that these viruses mutate and by allowing the virus to continue to spread the likelihood that a variant will emerge that the vaccines are not effective against increase and represent a danger to the world. This is not "political". It's a biological fact.

Stepping outside of the partisan bickering... this is a coronovirus. They mutate like mad regardless of whether we have a vaccine or not. The virus *will* continue to spread and to mutuate, because there are already bazillions of coronavirus variants out there. The presence or lack of a vaccine doesn't affect the mutation rate of the virus in any meaningful way.

It seems like you're thinking of this like polio or smallpox, when it really, really isn't. Both of those were pretty stable viruses, with very low mutation rates. A vaccine administered to a large enough volume of people can effectively produce herd immunity to the disease as a whole, because the virus doesn't mutate much. But getting a vaccine administered to enough people to deprive those viruses of a vector was a very large undertaking that spanned decades.

That's not going to happen here. If we're very lucky, we'll end up with an annual coronavirus vaccine similar to the annual influenza vaccine, one that can just keep up with the variants that seem most harmful in any given year. But no matter how you look at it, this vaccine will NOT be effective against all coronavirus variants, and NEW variants will emerge at a fairly rapid pace.

Whether you're aware of it or not, there's a fair bit of political narrative to your post. I'm certain it's unintentional, and fueled by a media industry that is increasingly polarized and sensationalist. At the end of the day, just know that there are hundreds of existing coronavirus variants out there already, and there are dozens of new mutations every year... and there will continue to be. We've run across a particularly nasty strain(s) over the past year, but that's fairly uncommon for this class of viruses. We have developed vaccines for this small set of viruses, in an effort to prevent excess deaths over a short period of time. That kind of response is unlikely to be sustainable, and at some point, we're just going to have to roll the dice and go back to suffering through the occasional chest cold.

 

[untermensche]

Are you seriously advocating that questioning / criticizing the government or a politician is a clear and present danger?

I am claiming that is a strawman.

So why are you bringing up Trump?

To show what a clear and present danger is.

 

[ZiprHead]

What about the a non-political fact that these viruses mutate and by allowing the virus to continue to spread the likelihood that a variant will emerge that the vaccines are not effective against increase and represent a danger to the world. This is not "political". It's a biological fact.

Stepping outside of the partisan bickering... this is a coronovirus. They mutate like mad regardless of whether we have a vaccine or not. The virus *will* continue to spread and to mutuate, because there are already bazillions of coronavirus variants out there. The presence or lack of a vaccine doesn't affect the mutation rate of the virus in any meaningful way.

So much wrong in one little paragraph.

 

[Emily Lake]

What about the a non-political fact that these viruses mutate and by allowing the virus to continue to spread the likelihood that a variant will emerge that the vaccines are not effective against increase and represent a danger to the world. This is not "political". It's a biological fact.

Stepping outside of the partisan bickering... this is a coronovirus. They mutate like mad regardless of whether we have a vaccine or not. The virus *will* continue to spread and to mutuate, because there are already bazillions of coronavirus variants out there. The presence or lack of a vaccine doesn't affect the mutation rate of the virus in any meaningful way.

So much wrong in one little paragraph.

Care to tell me what is wrong, or are you content to simply demean with a handwave?

Are you of the opinion that coronaviruses do NOT mutate pretty regularly?
Or do you think that there are only a few strains of coronavirus out there?
Or do you think that vaccinating against two or three variants will slow the mutation rate of the non-deadly variants that are out there?

It seems as if hand-waving something away as "so much wrong" should at least confer the burden of enlightening people with your truth, hmm?

 

[J842P]

That sounds like accumulated knowledge counts for nothing.

But the point is that speech that creates a clear and present danger to others is not protected free speech. Do you accept that legal doctrine? The historical example being that shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater which creates a dangerous stampede when there is no fire is not protected speech. Do you accept that?

Interesting that this is your opinion.

So, if we want to talk about history, "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a paraphrase from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion on Schenck v. United States, where it was ruled that opposing the draft during WWI was not protected speech.

It that really the conceptualization you want to endorse for what 1st Amendment freedom of speech applies to or not?

And if we want to talk about legal doctrine, that standard was overturned for the stricter "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" standard from Brandenburg v. Ohio.

 

[ZiprHead]

So much wrong in one little paragraph.

Care to tell me what is wrong, or are you content to simply demean with a handwave?

Are you of the opinion that coronaviruses do NOT mutate pretty regularly?
Or do you think that there are only a few strains of coronavirus out there?
Or do you think that vaccinating against two or three variants will slow the mutation rate of the non-deadly variants that are out there?

It seems as if hand-waving something away as "so much wrong" should at least confer the burden of enlightening people with your truth, hmm?

How does a virus mutate and spread if it can't infect a host?

 

[ZiprHead]

Here's another free speech advocate.

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan Crenshaw: It’s time to cancel cancel culture!<br><br>Also Dan Crenshaw: Gwen Berry MUST be canceled for daring to protest! <a href="https://t.co/1SfRzZKzJw">pic.twitter.com/1SfRzZKzJw</a></p>— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball/status/1409566926418886656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

 

[Emily Lake]

How does a virus mutate and spread if it can't infect a host?

1) There are HUNDREDS of coronaviruses in the human population, and hundreds more in the animal kingdom. Preventing ONE STRAIN from spreading won't prevent any of the OTHER strains from spreading and mutating

2) Vaccinating enough of the global population to attain complete herd immunity (thus denying the virus an infection vector) would take YEARS

3) This CLASS OF VIRUS mutates quickly - we've already had at least three identified mutations of THIS STRAIN in one year

End result: We cannot vaccinate fast enough to ensure that the virus cannot mutate and continue infecting people. We also cannot vaccinate against all of the existing endemic strains, and their mutations.

That said, vaccination against THIS STRAIN is an excellent idea. Although it will not stop this strain from continuing to propagate, it is highly likely that future mutations will lead to a less deadly variant, not a more deadly one. Coronavirus in general is not a deadly virus. There are only a couple of families of coronavirus that have severe effects in humans, and almost all of those have been spill-overs from animal viruses that jumped species. Most of those end up being relatively short-lived in humans.

Vaccinating against this strain helps slow the spread, and in moderately well-controlled situations, can help prevent infection in particularly susceptible or immune-compromised people until the virus either jumps back to animals or mutates to a less harmful variant.

There's also reason to think that the current vaccines may not grant long-term immunity even to these strains. We'll see - so far, it's providing at least several months of protection! But historically, the antibodies humans produce for coronaviruses don't last, and we end up susceptible to even the same strains again in the future. We'll see. This class is a new one for humans (thus, NOVEL coronavirus), so immunity could last much longer than we see for endemic human strains.

 

[RVonse]

Can you explain what you mean by this? In what way have they become what the government does?

The communication monopolies are so powerful their end result cancels speech just as if the government had done so with a gag order.

I'm not saying that I don't like Google because I think they are fine company that provides great value. I just do not think they should have the authority and right to cancel people like Alex Jones and President Trump.

Now if someone like our supreme court compels one of these monopolies to cancel Alex Jones or President Trump for shouting in the theater that would be a whole different matter. But that is not what has so far happened.

Assuming that you are referring to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Why do you imagine that is the way it should work? If a theater gets wind of a person in their capacity crowd who is planning to yell "fire" at some random point during the movie, should they have to take a case to SCOTUS before they can remove that person from the theater? Meanwhile, before they can even find a lawyer to file suit, the person has yelled "fire" leading to several people being trampled to death in the rush for the exits. And that is leaving aside the fact that the first amendment says nothing about theaters ejecting unruly persons from their premises, as they are private property.

Everyone brings up the point that Google is a private company so they can do anything they want to Alex Jones or Trump. That is a fallacy because private companies and individuals frequently can not do things to their client base just because those people are using their private property. Example: A landlord can not throw his tenants out of his house without legal process. We have laws for landlords because like Google, they have power and must be fair and have decency before cancelling someone out on the streets.

 

[laughing dog]

The communication monopolies are so powerful their end result cancels speech just as if the government had done so with a gag order.

Assuming that you are referring to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Why do you imagine that is the way it should work? If a theater gets wind of a person in their capacity crowd who is planning to yell "fire" at some random point during the movie, should they have to take a case to SCOTUS before they can remove that person from the theater? Meanwhile, before they can even find a lawyer to file suit, the person has yelled "fire" leading to several people being trampled to death in the rush for the exits. And that is leaving aside the fact that the first amendment says nothing about theaters ejecting unruly persons from their premises, as they are private property.

Everyone brings up the point that Google is a private company so they can do anything they want to Alex Jones or Trump. That is a fallacy because private companies and individuals frequently can not do things to their client base just because those people are using their private property. Example: A landlord can not throw his tenants out of his house without legal process. We have laws for landlords because like Google, they have power and must be fair and have decency before cancelling someone out on the streets.

There is no constitutional right to say anything you want anywhere you want. And there certainly should be no right to incite people to violence or to lie without consequence.

 

[untermensche]

How does a virus mutate and spread if it can't infect a host?

1) There are HUNDREDS of coronaviruses in the human population, and hundreds more in the animal kingdom. Preventing ONE STRAIN from spreading won't prevent any of the OTHER strains from spreading and mutating

2) Vaccinating enough of the global population to attain complete herd immunity (thus denying the virus an infection vector) would take YEARS

3) This CLASS OF VIRUS mutates quickly - we've already had at least three identified mutations of THIS STRAIN in one year

End result: We cannot vaccinate fast enough to ensure that the virus cannot mutate and continue infecting people. We also cannot vaccinate against all of the existing endemic strains, and their mutations.

That said, vaccination against THIS STRAIN is an excellent idea. Although it will not stop this strain from continuing to propagate, it is highly likely that future mutations will lead to a less deadly variant, not a more deadly one. Coronavirus in general is not a deadly virus. There are only a couple of families of coronavirus that have severe effects in humans, and almost all of those have been spill-overs from animal viruses that jumped species. Most of those end up being relatively short-lived in humans.

Vaccinating against this strain helps slow the spread, and in moderately well-controlled situations, can help prevent infection in particularly susceptible or immune-compromised people until the virus either jumps back to animals or mutates to a less harmful variant.

There's also reason to think that the current vaccines may not grant long-term immunity even to these strains. We'll see - so far, it's providing at least several months of protection! But historically, the antibodies humans produce for coronaviruses don't last, and we end up susceptible to even the same strains again in the future. We'll see. This class is a new one for humans (thus, NOVEL coronavirus), so immunity could last much longer than we see for endemic human strains.

HIV/AIDS gave us many new classes of anti-retroviral drugs.

If found HIV can be contained within most people.

We now have new regimens of drugs that can cure Hep C.

This pandemic is going to give us many new anti-viral drugs.

It will take a while.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Now you know why so many Dutch have a problem with importing Middle Eastern Conservative refugees.

Actually, it was the filmmaker Theo van Gogh who was assassinated by a (Dutch-born) conservative son of Moroccan immigrants. Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by a home-grown ethnic Dutch left-wing extremist much like the ones you say have taken over Sweden.

This is what happens. The slippery slope of intolerance ends in murder

Yes. Woke intolerance and Islamist intolerance are birds of a feather.

I agree 100%. Both are the scurge of mankind.

 

[DrZoidberg]

When was there a time this didn't happen?

Denmark, Holland, France, the UK. Germany.

With a sharp contrast to USA, Sweden, the Middle East and China where loose lips can ruin your life.

No, cancel culture is neither normal, natural or universal. But there is, internationally, a trend toward it.

As a Swede living in Denmark I am reminded every day how precious this kind of intellectualy free environment is how important it is to defend. Sweden is a lost cause. Its a woke intolerant hell hole were conversations go to die.

It wasn't until I left Sweden that I understood just how warped my own thinking had become, just by living there. It poisons and destroys everything.

I suppose it depends on what time period you're limiting this to. I suspect that, for instance, various Jewish people might find flaws in your view that this phenomenon has never happened in Germany or the UK. Or perhaps the descendants of Huguenots might think France has done this too. Kind of like the whole beheading of people who didn't get fully on board with that whole revolution thing. And you know, various crusades and inquisitions throughout history. Plus that witch burning thing where women who didn't toe the line got set on fire for having minds of their own.

That said, let's be clear: Just because a phenomenon has happened frequently in the past does NOT mean that it's a good thing, and it certainly doesn't suggest that the normalization of that phenomenon in modern days is not a problem.

I mean, seriously people. Slavery has happened repeatedly throughout the course of human history... so hey, why waste our breath talking about people who are actually being sold into slavery today? It's not like it's "new" or something, right?

As far as I understand it it has to do with where and when industrialization started and the printing press. In a triangle between Berlin, London and Paris modern thinking started. People had access to more information than ever before and they had money and technology to do things to do things no human's had been able to do before. That's how new philosophy starts. The 18'th century century philosophers got access to the imported religious and philosophical works from the entire world. For the first time ever. From Schopenhauer onwards Western philosophy stopped being Western philosophy and became global philosophy. Suddenly the Western perspective seemed less like obviously the superior one. Industrialization and labour migration shattered social structures that had been taken as obvious and natural. Religious authorities seemed less like they knew wtf they were talking about.

This is the place where questioning what you have been told begun. So it's the place where free speech and free expression has had the most time to permeate the cultures. The closer to the epicentre of this new movement the more tolerant and receptive people are of other people's behaviour and ideas.

I don't think this is a particularly controversial belief.

 

[KeepTalking]

The communication monopolies are so powerful their end result cancels speech just as if the government had done so with a gag order.

That is incorrect. Facebook and Twitter can only say "You can't say that here." A court imposed gag order says "You can't sat that anywhere but here."

Assuming that you are referring to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Why do you imagine that is the way it should work? If a theater gets wind of a person in their capacity crowd who is planning to yell "fire" at some random point during the movie, should they have to take a case to SCOTUS before they can remove that person from the theater? Meanwhile, before they can even find a lawyer to file suit, the person has yelled "fire" leading to several people being trampled to death in the rush for the exits. And that is leaving aside the fact that the first amendment says nothing about theaters ejecting unruly persons from their premises, as they are private property.

Everyone brings up the point that Google is a private company so they can do anything they want to Alex Jones or Trump. That is a fallacy because private companies and individuals frequently can not do things to their client base just because those people are using their private property. Example: A landlord can not throw his tenants out of his house without legal process. We have laws for landlords because like Google, they have power and must be fair and have decency before cancelling someone out on the streets.

Oh, so you ignore the bulk of my post to concentrate on the aside. I knew I should not have added that aside. Please show me where the 1A says something about "theaters ejecting unruly persons from their premises" or anything else done by a private entity on their property. Then connect your inability to do that to what free speech codified in the Constitution actually means and why it does not and should not apply to private entities on the internet.

 

[Emily Lake]

HIV/AIDS gave us many new classes of anti-retroviral drugs.

If found HIV can be contained within most people.

We now have new regimens of drugs that can cure Hep C.

This pandemic is going to give us many new anti-viral drugs.

It will take a while.

Maybe. Almost all of the research focus has been on vaccine development, not treatment. Actually, some treatment possibilities have been inhibited as a result of the politicization of the pandemic. Even though media and various narrative has hyperbolized both the potential benefit and the potential harm of things like hydroxychloroquin and ivermectin, both showed enough anecdotal benefit to be worth researching. But they've also both been treated to such hyperpartisanship that the medical community has found it difficult to actually do any clinical testing on them.

In my non-expert opinion, a focus on a treatment for the class of coronoviruses is a better idea than focusing solely on vaccines. Both HIV and Hep C are pretty stable viruses, that mutate only rarely and don't have a bunch of strains. Coronaviruses are very different, though.

I don't know. I'll have to give it some thought and do some research, reach out to some of the epidemiologists and virologists I know. I just don't know much about antivirals compared to other treatments. For example, I don't know if antivirals carry the same risk as antibiotics, in that they can prompt antibiotic resistant strains.

 

[untermensche]

Antivirals can target an essential process, like reproduction.

The virus might develop some immunity but that would mean developing a new form of reproduction.

That's how a drug like Aciclovir works.

Some HIV drugs arrived 10 years after the outbreak. Many even later. Treatment for HIV involves several drugs each working on a different mechanism to handle the mutations of the virus. But over time you have to change the regimen in some cases.

I think drugs will eventually be able to keep this is check without necessarily eradicating it. But it will take some time.

But people die from the seasonal flu. The H1N1 outbreak several years ago killed a lot of people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What about the a non-political fact that these viruses mutate and by allowing the virus to continue to spread the likelihood that a variant will emerge that the vaccines are not effective against increase and represent a danger to the world. This is not "political". It's a biological fact.

Stepping outside of the partisan bickering... this is a coronovirus. They mutate like mad regardless of whether we have a vaccine or not. The virus *will* continue to spread and to mutuate, because there are already bazillions of coronavirus variants out there. The presence or lack of a vaccine doesn't affect the mutation rate of the virus in any meaningful way.

Your focus is too narrow here.

The mutation rate is a function of the number of times the virus reproduces. The vaccine has zero effect on the chances any given reproduction causes a mutation, but it has a big effect on the number of reproductions.