When deliberately spreading known falsehood becomes the catalyst for newly formed beliefs that lead people who believe the lies to violent insurrection of the government, such as Jan. 6, and those complicit in such spread are current elected official of the government, and the government is one such as the US has, then there is more than adequate reason for punishment and/or removal of such elected officials for reasons ranging from treason against the United States to defrauding the American people to inciting a riot to a failed insurrection attempt.

Free speech is crucial for fostering a well informed electorate, but it has proven to also be pivotal in creating the conditions for a large portion of the population to be deliberately mislead about several keystones of the American system... free and fair elections, easy access to exercise voting rights, and the peaceful transition of power.

Jan. 6, and the circumstances surrounding it, is not good reason to silence free speech. It is more than adequate reason to punish those who've defrauded the American electorate by convincing so many to believe known lies and falsehoods to the extent that they believed it was necessary to stop the peaceful transfer of power by any means.

The free speech of such leaders perhaps ought not be looked at as good reason to silence dissent, but rather as a prima facie example of what domestic enemies of America look like and punish them accordingly, even given that they were/are elected officials. They were, and have continued to be complicit in an erosion of trust in the government that has it's only precedent in how blacks, minorities, and recently poor whites view the government. The latter was and remains well founded belief. The former(Jan. 6) was ginned up by the likes of Trump and all those who did not act to remove him and/or fight against him during the time he was promoting all the distrust while taking actions to impede the success of the last election simultaneuosly.

:up:

Free speech, much like anything really, is just a convenient name, which if we weren't being lazy, should actually be broken down into a multitude of contexts and circumstances. A student at school doesn't have free speech, one will be punished for expressing certain opinions but this is necessary for maintaining order and protecting students. Even here, you're talking about censorship with private businesses in social media but private spheres such as this very forum, actually do have the right to police the types of speech allowed on their platform. Your positions sound nobler than they are, really, free speech isn't free anymore if it's restricted? Then there's nothing for you to protect, no such free speech exists.

Your only problem is that private businesses have so much influence now, such as Twitter actually being in a position to seriously restrict a president's ability to communicate directly to the public. You worry over private businesses ability to censor on their platforms, that is your main concern, correct? Not only this but also people being disincentivised to speak by being barraged by others (or seeing this happen) on social media and the consequences of these activities, right? I think you see yourself as defending the status quo but you're actually calling for reform and don't realise it. Isn't it your duty to tell us how things should be reformed or at least state what you're trying to change? You actually want more rules, more policing of speech and more policing of business practices but instead, you talk about slippery slopes like you are protesting such things. Your position is confused because you do not call for reform but maintenance of a status quo that doesn't exist nor solves any of the problems causing your concern.

Who would you trust? — ToothyMaw

Probably the most important aspects of free speech and where it's generally wrongly restricted; is the ability for one to criticise those with power and secondly, to criticise social, cultural, religious institutions and practices. To be able to express oneself freely is something we all value but it's also essential for the survival of democracy and to allow people to shine a light on problems that people without free speech, aren't able to. That is why I find some definitions of sexism and racism to be too broad, as to be ideological, and to curtail one from criticising the government freely. I don't believe logic should be censored for the sake of promoting the "correct" way of thinking, which is indoctrination. I don't believe one's offence or interpretation should serve as an objective measure for what shouldn't be allowed to be said. But who makes these decisions? There are many contexts that call for restrictions on speech, mainly because maintaining order depends on it in contexts such as classrooms and workplaces and now many online spaces such as this one. Generally, we gave freedom to teachers, bosses, moderators to make these kinds of decisions and the kinds of decisions they made and what decisions are considered acceptable to make has evolved with the times. Now on social media, corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, moderate with such power that it can affect the entire democratic system. Thus, this freedom has become a new kind of potential tyranny, where such corporations can restrict speech on their platforms, which are monopolies with virtually no alternatives. And the second problem is that through social media, unpopular opinions can cost people through damage to reputation, their jobs, safety, mental wellbeing and so on. This is free speech magnified to the extent that it harms people. Neither of these problems has simple solutions.

For the first one, probably these tech giants need government oversight and specially crafted laws which name them because they are too big to be left alone but I don't know the specifics of how this might look. For the second, I have no idea, I don't know if there is a solution, maybe but I can't think of one. And as for what kind of censorship I would like, I no longer feel that this is worth discussing in your thread, you have enough to deal with as it is.

The notion of free speech as a natural right of man has its origins in the teachings of the Enlightenment, and arose as a means of protecting the philosopher/scientist against the political/religious authorities with which he was prone to collide, and therefore be either exiled or condemned to death. It is as though the philosophers said to the new rulers, “Let us be free to investigate nature as we will and communicate our discoveries to each other, even if those discoveries seem to contradict or offend you or the priests, and in return we promise that what we discover will lead to the material and physical prosperity of mankind.”

This exclusively academic right to freedom of speech however soon devolved into a general such right, applicable to any citizen, and the reason for this lies in the very notion of the Enlightenment: the life lived according to reason, Socrates’ ideal, had now come within the grasp of everyman: once the LIGHT of reason has been shone on human life for every man to see the truth, he will unqualifiedly choose light over darkness, truth over falsehood, reason over unreason...

This modification for the plebs of the life lived according to reason was, of course, quite different from that of the original philosophers. It hinged on calculation of material self-interest as opposed to the purely philosophical one of obedience to, or love of the discovery of, nature—which sometimes conduced to actions contrary to self-interest. One need only consider Archimedes’ ignorance of the invading Roman army at Syracuse, or Thales’ failure to realize he was about to step into a well as he absentmindedly contemplated the heavenly bodies, or Allan Bloom putting the lit-end of his cigarette to his lips while engrossed in a discussion.

At any rate, once the scientists and commoners had become allies against altar and throne, the former could not, in principle, deny the latter any of their own rights, and this lead to the citizenry daring to express whatever opinion they will against their leaders and their country’s and religion’s most sacred opinions or symbols: one could now either burn the American flag in protest of the Vietnam War, or declare he was more popular than Jesus ever was, as John Lennon did, or immerse a crucifix in a vat of his own urine and name it Piss Christ, or drive a pickup truck up and down the road in SW Virginia flying a flag that reads, “FUCK BIDEN: and fuck you if you voted for him”, with impunity.

Let us now return now to the ancients, to the Socrateses, Archimedeses and Thaleses of antiquity, who pursued the truth according to reason for their own personal satisfaction: had they foreseen these consequences of an Enlightenment, what do you think they would have thought?

Furthermore, do we really want to see the views we disagree with fester? No - the solution is more constructive or corrective speech. Wherever there are Nazi marches there should be counter protestors. — ToothyMaw

That's awfully impractical, at the very least. To have one's time and efforts commanded by other people like that??!


"Freedom of speech" is a dud anyway. We have free speech, there is no demon or angel on our shoulders making us say or withold this or that. What we don't have is freedom from the consequences of what we say. And there are always at least informal consequences. When people don't like what you have to say, they will retaliate in one way or another, whether by firing you from your job or by spreading mean gossip about you that can destroy your reputation. Either way, you'll suffer the consequences of what you're saying and other people not liking it.

Censorship begins, in part, with the conferring of power to speech. One must fear the effects of speech to seek to regulate it, and to do this one must suppose the speech has enough power to cause effects in the first place.

The problem is conferring power to speech is much like conferring power to kings; the only power they have is what society gives them. Speech possesses no actual, physical power, insofar it lacks the capacity to transfer more energy than any other sound from the mouth. Yet there are people who believe speech has consequences beyond the expelling of breath, that it can oppress minorities, injure or influence the weak, or lead to varying fits of societal disorder. This may be the most ubiquitous superstition of man.

To confer power to some articulated sounds but not to others is magical thinking and folk psychology at best, but at worst a kind of sophistry used to justify censorship. It is why censorship is the handmaiden of injustice, ever-erecting a false cause (speech) while continually absolving the actual ones (actions).

It is simply untrue that words possess any power over that of man. After all, he is the creator of them. So we should work to dispel that myth, defang speech, remind people of their power over and above that of words and opinions, and free ourselves from our most deep-seeded superstitions.

immerse a crucifix in a vat of his own urine and name it Piss Christ — Todd Martin

Interesting example... last I checked, Warhol's exhibit had been banned for exactly that piece. In Cincinnati anyway. Not exactly impugnity, but not exactly banned either...

Censorship begins, in part, with the conferring of power to speech. One must fear the effects of speech to seek to regulate it, and to do this one must suppose the speech has enough power to cause effects in the first place.

The problem is conferring power to speech is much like conferring power to kings; the only power they have is what society gives them. — NOS4A2

It's not the 'conferring' of power to speech that is the problem Nos. Speech has power. We all know this. That's why we use it. That's why you're here using it as well. As a means to convince others that speech has no power(if by that I mean the abillity to influence subsequent thought, belief, and behaviour). Your stance here is untenable. If you believed that speech has no power, then you would not be using it as a means to convince others that it has no power.

It is simply untrue that words possess any power over that of man. After all, he is the creator of them. So we should work to dispel that myth, defang speech, remind people of their power over and above that of words and opinions, and free ourselves from our most deep-seeded superstitions. — NOS4A2

It does not follow from the fact that man created something that that something does not have the ability to influence man's thought, belief, and behaviour. Your reasoning here contradicts your actions. I think it's called a performative contradiction...

If you believe that words have no power, then what sense does it make for you to use them as a means for convincing others of that idea?

There's currently a push in Florida which is basically attempting to survey potential students at universities as a means to acquire knowledge of their political stances/leanings. The claimed reasoning for this is to promote critical thinking and the questioning of assumptions in the guise of increasing diversity and well rounded considerations of ideologies. This push is being performed under the guise of free speech. It all sounds nice until we understand that it's not an attempt to broaden the critical thinking and inclusivity that it claims to be. Rather, it's an attempt to remove the discussions of certain kinds of political and philosophical thought such as communism, marxism, and democratic socialism from being considered with unbiased and/or positive discussion to being labeled as "stale ideologies". It is an attempt to not allow such political stances to be freely discussed on campus, and allowing only(presumably) their counterparts that privilege.

To use the idea of promoting diversity and inclusiveness as a means to suppress discussions and expressions of dissenting and/or oppositional ideas/thoughts in order to promote more conservative(politically speaking) ideas and discussions is disgusting.

I don’t use them as a means of convincing others. I use them as a means of expression, of creativity, to communicate my thoughts and to manifest my thinking. It’s not up to me whether you agree or not, and it’s clear that despite the power you confer to speech, my speech lacks the power to alter you in any way. So the performative contradiction is yours.

But if you want to test your theory I submit myself as your willing subject. Oppress me, injure me, exert your power, do what you will.

I don’t use them as a means of convincing others. I use them as a means of expression, of creativity, to communicate my thoughts and to manifest my thinking. — NOS4A2

Nah, Nos, you're full of shit.

You claim words have no power. Then you use them because they do, in fact, have the power to...

...as a means of expression, of creativity, to communicate my thoughts and to manifest my thinking... — NOS4A2

The ability to express is a power. The ability to communicate is, once again, a power. The ability to manifest thought is, yet again, a power...

Your speech says more about you than it does about me. Your evasions and ridicule reveal to me all I need to know about the contents of your mind and methods of thinking and speaking. So much for power.

We have a lot of abilities, but moving human beings against their will with speech isn’t one of them. But again, I’d love to see you try. Until then…

Saying something is also a power. Moving the goalposts is yet another. You're doing both... with speech.

Saying something is also a power. Moving the goalposts is yet another. You're doing both... with speech.

I’ve never said we don’t have the ability to speak. You said speech has power; now you’re saying we we have the ability to speak. You never had any goal posts to begin with.

This doesn't help your case Nos. Now you're just muddying the waters with irrelevant gibberish, false accusations, misinformation, and demonstrably false accounts of our conversation...

...and you're doing all that, once again, with the power of speech.

I suspect you’re so tied up in your own equivocations and proofs by assertion that this is all you could come up with. A shame. I almost hoped to see some power here but could only find the lack of it.

Ad homs are also something that can be done with the power of speech...

The position Nos is attempting to promote is one that exonerates people like Trump and any other promoters of the known falsehoods about 'widespread election fraud' and the idea that the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump.

Yet again, a power of speech.

Thankfully, it seems that enough people know better than to claim that the promotion and manufacture of doubt and mistrust in the election of 2020 had no effects/affects on the followers of Trump and/or the current confidence of Republican voters in the American system. We all know, including Mitch McConnell, as per his own initial condemnation of Trump's central role in the insurrection of Jan. 6, that Trump's free speech had effects/affects that led directly to certain beliefs and behaviours culminating in the attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power.

Studies? — ToothyMaw

You're on the internet dude, I don't have to do your research for you. It's not exactly obscure.

The position Nos is attempting to promote is one that exonerates people like Trump and any other promoters of the known falsehoods about 'widespread election fraud' and the idea that the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump. — creativesoul

It is one thing if @NOS4A2 believes speech has no power only because he wants to exonerate Trump; another entirely, if he held this opinion prior to Trump’s promulgation of “widespread election fraud”...

...of course, only he can answer this question for us.

It shouldn’t matter either way. I never mentioned Trump, at any rate, so the criticism is projection or worse. But I thank you for letting me speak for myself.

The overestimation of the power of speech is an old tale it and goes back thousands of years or more to the Sophists. Gorgias, for instance, believed speech had an effect like drugs upon the body.

That's not an argument. You're just citing other people who believed in the power of speech. Instead maybe focus on how no one has ever been roused by a great speaker, moved to tears by a poem, stunned by a Shakespeare play, put in stitches by a great comedian, etc.

That’s not an argument. So go ahead and make one.

Declining the invitation, huh? I'm noticing, and this is probably old news to most, that bullshitters are distinguishable from wrong-headed people in the energy they put into avoiding dealing with their own arguments, presumably because they've seen so many wrong-headed people suffer epiphanies.

What’s the argument?

The position Nos is attempting to promote is one that exonerates people like Trump and any other promoters of the known falsehoods about 'widespread election fraud' and the idea that the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump.
— creativesoul

It is one thing if NOS4A2 believes speech has no power only because he wants to exonerate Trump; another entirely, if he held this opinion prior to Trump’s promulgation of “widespread election fraud”... — Leghorn

His wants are irrelevant.

That enumerating instances where people thought that speech was rousing is not an argument that speeches aren't rousing.

That enumerating instances where people thought that speech was rousing is not an argument that speeches aren't rousing.

I wasn’t making that argument. I was only drawing a parallel between sophists, sophistry, and the belief that words and incantations can manipulate matter.

The overestimation of the power of speech is an old tale it and goes back thousands of years or more to the Sophists. Gorgias, for instance, believed speech had an effect like drugs upon the body. — NOS4A2

To spell it out even more clearly, your argument against consequences for Trump inciting a riot against the Capitol is that the power of speech is overestimated. Your illustration of this is that Gorgias believes speech to be potent, like a drug. This is a bizarre approach to making your point. If you'd cited someone suggesting that speech is impotent that would be, at worst, an ad hom. But citing someone who believes speech to be potent is not an argument for dismissing the potency of speech. The invitation remains open if you ever fancy actually engaging with your own beliefs but, like I said yesterday, I do understand why you prefer not to.

I only mentioned Trump once and that was to say I never mentioned Trump once. There are only a few reasons why you’d spread such a falsity and all of them suggest a perversion of some sort. What is bizarre is that you approached a minor side point I was making, accused me of not making an argument while you yourself made no argument, and then continue to invite me to engage with it as if you did, and implying I’m a bullshitter while doing so. This is bullshit of the highest order.

I assure you I have focussed on those topics, and long before you “invited” me to do it. So now what?