I linked this particular video because he addresses the crux your post in a clever way. — Emptyheady
Maybe the values of free-speech simply need to be re-learned in a new and increasingly connected world who for whatever reason was not able to digitally export them off the bat. — VagabondSpectre
if there was some governmental means by which all speech could be forced to be truthful, would we still need free speech?
So do you think Fascists, Communists, The Left or The Right, Anarchists can tolerate ideologically free speech or don't these groups make the presupposition (Example: Milo's being turned down by Berkeley's due to Marxist or/& Anarchist protesters or Milo being turned down by CPAC ostensibly for moral reasons) that their followers & perhaps by implication that the pubic will be hurt in some manner by any such speech. The assumption that the masses are too immature to handle certain ideological sophistry, that the masses are unable to think as adults. — Cavacava
No, because no one would have anything to say. — Cavacava
We identify rights when there's a need. I think the 1st Amendment was responding to a situation that doesn't really exist now. If Vagabond is right, that we should recall the value of free speech, I think that means we need to focus on what we're looking to address. Is it a looming Leftist Threat? Obviously not. — Mongrel
Whilst I appreciate your detailed answer, you have unfortunately misconstrued my point in use as the remarks were not an example of hate speech, but rather the absurdity to disregard hate crimes because no one was physically hurt. Violence needn't be aggravated assault and can also be emotional and psychological. But, I certainly agree with you nonetheless that it is wholly dependant on the particular circumstances; bullying legislation here in Australia requires a particular set of circumstances before it could be considered serious harassment - such as repeated behaviour that is clear and/or evidenced - that would enable the judge to ascertain the potential damage it could/has caused to the victim. Someone just yelling out absurdities once to a person is not considered bullying. Ambiguity in legislative terms is necessary to enable this judicial process to work effectively, something the positive, inflexible regulations in the amendments stifle.Using an example of possibly sexually harassing words as something we ought to censor is actually a very bad example to use to make the argument for anti-hate speech laws because we already have a very detailed set of existing laws which handle issues of verbal harassment, sexual harassment, stalking, intimidation, and sexual assaults. The difficulties of trying to set proper speech standards for such dynamic, informal, and context dependent situations in and of itself is a legislative nightmare... — VagabondSpectre
Research has shown that people who have "foreign" names have a unlikely chance of getting a job interview; it is that invisible discrimination that I made reference to vis-a-vis the ramifications of hate speech in the broader context. But, certainly, yes there are a number of protective instruments that empower workplace rights.I'm not sure how discrimination from and within employment is facilitated by hate-speech, but there is also a rather large set of anti-discrimination law and human rights laws already on the books which are designed to handle cases of human rights abuses in the workplace (many overlap with the anti-harassment laws). There are many instances of speech that we can all agree are criminal, but we don't need to appeal to hate-speech for 99% of those instances. — VagabondSpectre
Whilst your opinion is duly noted, unfortunately psychological harm is a great deal more vicious than mere pangs of cognitive and emotional development. Laws here have changed only recently (inclusive of my own petitioning) which we call Brodie's Law because of a young girl who committed suicide from the repeated bullying done to her by male staff. Psychological - and sometimes psychiatric - injury is serious and we cannot brush the circumstances aside and blame Brodie needed to sort out her own issues and the inevitable result was her fault. That is victim-blaming, again, your failure to see that the actions themselves are wrong despite the injury it has caused.Regarding the psychological harm that might be incurred as the result of experiencing ridicule or hearing an idea that makes you feel unsafe, these are the natural pangs of cognitive and emotional development in my opinion. If ideas in and of themselves make someone feel unsafe, then they've got psychological issues of their own that need sorting, and when it comes to ridicule, there's a difference between justifiable political speech which includes ridicule and verbal harassment or bullying. If I publish a client-patron anarcho-communist gift-economy manifesto I'm opening the door completely for the use of ridicule. Ridicule is often the first and last line of defense against bad ideas. Likewise if someone publicly publishes a picture of themselves on the internet and says "Am I hot?", they are opening the door very widely to ridicule and speech that we might otherwise classify has harassment. Context matters. — VagabondSpectre
This is just mere gobbledegook. It is not just about white supremacy and whether these extremists are more or less appealing is completely besides the point. Is it wrong? Yes. No.If you censor the very idea of white supremacy all you will do is give it the appeal of a forbidden fruit and increase the already inflated fear of it in others. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and if liberal and progressive morals and ideals really do have merit, then we should not be afraid to put them in the ring against any opposition. But deciding that the masses at large are not capable of making sufficiently rational decisions when it comes to the finer points of governance and ideology is to throw the baby of democracy out with the bigoted bathwater. And by absolutely protecting people from the emotional difficulties and occasional harshness of the real world you will be hampering their ability to develop any real resistance to it.
If I agreed though and we sat down to write out the list of every political idea which could possibly compel someone to an ideological extreme, how large would that list be and what would it look like? What if I felt that the tenants of socialism inherently provoke some people to the ideological extreme of infringing upon my natural land ownership rights? What if I felt that irrational religious beliefs inherently lead to terrorism? That very long and immutable set of every idea we forbid would be nothing more than an expression of our own imperfect moral and material assumptions about the very uncertain future of a very complicated world, to the exclusion of all others. — VagabondSpectre
Whilst I appreciate your detailed answer, you have unfortunately misconstrued my point in use as the remarks were not an example of hate speech, but rather the absurdity to disregard hate crimes because no one was physically hurt. Violence needn't be aggravated assault and can also be emotional and psychological. But, I certainly agree with you nonetheless that it is wholly dependant on the particular circumstances; bullying legislation here in Australia requires a particular set of circumstances before it could be considered serious harassment - such as repeated behaviour that is clear and/or evidenced - that would enable the judge to ascertain the potential damage it could/has caused to the victim. Someone just yelling out absurdities once to a person is not considered bullying. Ambiguity in legislative terms is necessary to enable this judicial process to work effectively, something the positive, inflexible regulations in the amendments stifle. — TimeLine
Research has shown that people who have "foreign" names have a unlikely chance of getting a job interview; it is that invisible discrimination that I made reference to vis-a-vis the ramifications of hate speech in the broader context. But, certainly, yes there are a number of protective instruments that empower workplace rights. — TimeLine
Whilst your opinion is duly noted, unfortunately psychological harm is a great deal more vicious than mere pangs of cognitive and emotional development. Laws here have changed only recently (inclusive of my own petitioning) which we call Brodie's Law because of a young girl who committed suicide from the repeated bullying done to her by male staff. Psychological - and sometimes psychiatric - injury is serious and we cannot brush the circumstances aside and blame Brodie needed to sort out her own issues and the inevitable result was her fault. That is victim-blaming, again, your failure to see that the actions themselves are wrong despite the injury it has caused. — TimeLine
The founding fathers are old, dead guys Vagabond. They each owned slaves and it was the onset of executive corruption. Things have changed....
...This is just mere gobbledegook. It is not just about white supremacy and whether these extremists are more or less appealing is completely besides the point. Is it wrong? Yes. No. — TimeLine
This, in turn, stipulates that the amendments themselves are unnecessary and could have once perhaps been used as a guide but now redundant amid changes to our understanding of human rights and freedoms, particularly following the Nuremberg trials. If it is indeed about protecting individuals, not only is the separation between the judicial, executive and parliamentary powers necessary to ensure that either are not corrupted or influenced - something clearly problematic in the US - but that due to the tensions of positive laws such as rights vs. freedoms, ambiguity in legal frameworks is necessary to enable common law jurisdictions to assess on a case by case basis and apply decisions according to the fundamental rule that the intent of the law itself was developed by the principle of protecting the people. This is how landmark cases here is Australia - like Mabo v Queensland - were applied by the high court and why our government continues to try and challenge it.By your own description the 1st amendment flexes to additional stipulations wherever we choose to add them. Anti-harassment laws are a good example which exist quite happily in US criminal law. If you can show that an action is a reasonable source of fear for physical safety or damage to property, that can be prosecuted. The existing laws in the end are meant to protect individuals, not broad demographic categories. — VagabondSpectre
You're still not getting it, are you? You are consistently attempting to justify pernicious acts by purporting the victims are the ones requiring flexibility and adaptation, on the contrary, it should be those that discriminate that should be adapting. It is almost a master-slave dialectic, as though the master - the far-right who you purport should be allowed to speak freely - while the slave - everyone else who you purport should adapt, the latter almost at fault for not. This is a incorrect way of analysiing the situation. How about we reverse your line of though here, that the far-right adapt by our acknowledgement of the madness of such extremism and extremist rhetoric, whereby a pluralistic and inclusive society dedicated to righteousness would ensure that it is the far-right that should adapt.All they need to do is abbreviate their name to something common in the header, problem solved. No hate speech (subconscious thought?) laws required. — VagabondSpectre
You seem to be tossing in confusion as to your position and I think that it really quite simply lies in your misunderstanding of how the legislature functions. You are holding victims partially responsible for actions committed against them and this is an attitude and a barrier that requires elimination, as you say below:I really don't get how you've taken the examples I've given of justifiable ridicule and instantly equated them with the worst sort of harassment and me with "victim blaming". We need better anti-harassment and bullying laws, or have them better enforced, not laws which rigidly outlaw words and ideas for our own protection. — VagabondSpectre
If ideas in and of themselves make someone feel unsafe, then they've got psychological issues of their own that need sorting — VagabondSpectre
Experiencing ridicule is a part of life. — VagabondSpectre
If someone told a joke at your expense, or stated an idea you are afraid of, contact your nearest adult. — VagabondSpectre
What exactly is the first amendment then? Hence the necessary ambiguity.We can and do legislate behavior, but we ought not legislate against certain thoughts and ideas themselves, even if they can be emotionally or psychologically offensive. — VagabondSpectre
You are still gobbledygooking, buddy.Interestingly Trump would probably be with you in this. The amount of ridicule he has received over the last year or so might actually be more than any single person in such a short period of time ever in history. Surely if we outlaw all ridicule because of the deep emotional trauma that it might lead to then ridicule of Trump would at this point be the the majority of all crime committed day to day. — VagabondSpectre
Ideological? As I said earlier, in Australia we have legislation that ensures all parliamentary bills adequately adhere to human rights principles to avoid corruption prior to being passed and changed into a law. If the separation of powers remains, corruption is minimized and laws are made by the people for the people.So you hereby claim glorious and honorable right of list maker who lays great foundation for ideological future of mankind? — VagabondSpectre
This, in turn, stipulates that the amendments themselves are unnecessary and could have once perhaps been used as a guide but now redundant amid changes to our understanding of human rights and freedoms, particularly following the Nuremberg trials. — TimeLine
... tensions of positive laws such as rights vs. freedoms, ambiguity in legal frameworks is necessary to enable common law jurisdictions to assess on a case by case basis and apply decisions according to the fundamental rule that the intent of the law itself was developed by the principle of protecting the people. This is how landmark cases here is Australia - like Mabo v Queensland - were applied by the high court and why our government continues to try and challenge it. — TimeLine
You're still not getting it, are you? You are consistently attempting to justify pernicious acts by purporting the victims are the ones requiring flexibility and adaptation, on the contrary, it should be those that discriminate that should be adapting. It is almost a master-slave dialectic, as though the master - the far-right who you purport should be allowed to speak freely - while the slave - everyone else who you purport should adapt, the latter almost at fault for not. This is a incorrect way of analysiing the situation. How about we reverse your line of though here, that the far-right adapt by our acknowledgement of the madness of such extremism and extremist rhetoric, whereby a pluralistic and inclusive society dedicated to righteousness would ensure that it is the far-right that should adapt. — TimeLine
You seem to be tossing in confusion as to your position and I think that it really quite simply lies in your misunderstanding of how the legislature functions. You are holding victims partially responsible for actions committed against them and this is an attitude and a barrier that requires elimination, as you say below: "If ideas in and of themselves make someone feel unsafe, then they've got psychological issues of their own that need sorting... Experiencing ridicule is a part of life... If someone told a joke at your expense, or stated an idea you are afraid of, contact your nearest adult.... " - Vagabond — TimeLine
We can and do legislate behavior, but we ought not legislate against certain thoughts and ideas themselves, even if they can be emotionally or psychologically offensive.... " - Vagabond
What exactly is the first amendment then? Hence the necessary ambiguity. — TimeLine
You are still gobbledygooking, buddy. — TimeLine
Ideological? As I said earlier, in Australia we have legislation that ensures all parliamentary bills adequately adhere to human rights principles to avoid corruption prior to being passed and changed into a law. If the separation of powers remains, corruption is minimized and laws are made by the people for the people. — TimeLine
?How do we fight against people innately not calling to interview people with names they've never heard before? — VagabondSpectre
Again, ?hows' abouts' we silence the far right and force "different name" mandates upon employers such that they need to hire more of the most oppressed class currently in America: The differently named. — VagabondSpectre
So it sounds ridiculous? Yet, it is not ridiculous to say that everyone else should adapt to the rhetoric of the far right? Why and what exactly is your reasoning here? Do you sympathize with white supremacy?The far-right should adapt" in this context bears the same sentiment as "send them to the re-education camps". (Better finish that cirriculum ;) !) — VagabondSpectre
Goodness. I hardly think my previous responses expressed any alleged hurt of feelings.I realize only now that it's entirely possible that me alleging "you should contact an adult" if and when your feelings get hurt could actually cause your feelings to get hurt (what cruel irony!). Which, theoretically, could trigger the draconian law you want to be put in place that will see me physically sanctioned for victimizing you with my emotionally harmful and therefore hateful-speech. — VagabondSpectre
As I have said several times, positive laws such as the first amendment requires ambiguity to apply common law fluidity on a case-by-case basis. It is not that freedom of speech itself that is wrong, certainly not, but the question we should be discussing rather than me having to swim through a sea of awkward remarks is whether freedom and equality is mutually exclusive? This is what needs to be discussed, rationally and with evidence.The first amendment is the thing that tells the US government to NOT make any laws which abridge people's right to religion, or abridge their right to political opinions and to peacefully speak those opinions, for the sake of freedom, truth, and democracy. — VagabondSpectre
There it is....who equates free speech with national socialism — VagabondSpectre
I'm asking you specifically for example statements or ideas (not contextually enhanced bullying/harassment) which you feel, on their own, ought to be forbidden from public speech or topics of public discourse.
But how can we be sure that banning certain ideas is really by the people and for the people if we're then not permitted to discuss the ideas in question?
Please though, which ideas should we ban? — VagabondSpectre
Free speech is about having no punishments for expressing views, not about providing a platform from which such views can be expressed. — andrewk
If there is evidence of the 'antifa' movement systematically advocating violence against fascists, it needs to be brought out and discussed. I am not aware of such evidence. Rather, it is the fascists that advocate violence, as we saw in the Trump rallies where he encouraged attendees to beat up their detractors. — andrewk
Interviewer: "Physically confronting people, that's part of the strategy, right? "
Bray: "Yes, it is. It’s an illiberal politics – [laughter] - of social revolutionist applied to fighting the far right". "
I would judge that on a case by case basis, according to how private the platform was, and the means of attempting the shutdown. If it is a private house, and the shutdown was effected by forming a barrier to entering the house and wrestling with, or striking, those that attempted to do so, I would consider that to be unacceptable. On the other hand if it were a lecture theatre and the protesters were massing around it shouting abuse or alternatively, forming a non-violent barrier in the Gandhi fashion, I would consider that acceptable.my concern is that by force third parties are trying to shutdown the private platforms of others — VagabondSpectre
I would consider those examples unacceptable behaviour. They are also very bad tactics, because they whittle away public sympathy for the cause.there are more than a few recent examples of protest groups, some labeling themselves as antifa, using violence, force, and assault to disrupt and shut down the speaking events of some controversial speakers and groups. — VagabondSpectre
So it sounds ridiculous? Yet, it is not ridiculous to say that everyone else should adapt to the rhetoric of the far right? Why and what exactly is your reasoning here? Do you sympathize with white supremacy? — TimeLine
the amendments themselves are unnecessary and could have once perhaps been used as a guide but now redundant amid changes to our understanding of human rights and freedoms, particularly following the Nuremberg trials — TimeLine
In Australia, we have legislation - namely the Racial Discrimination Act that legally enables perpetrators of racial hate speech to legal account without flagrantly opposing freedom of speech. There needs to be a clear disproportionate harm caused by the hate speech to ever risk the human right to speak freely. The freedom to communicate - particularly on political subjects - on topics of public interest is fundamental and plays a very important part in Australian culture and democracy. One important element is that it needs to be a case-by-case - procedurally thus within the common law jurisdiction - that assesses this proportion. — TimeLine
May I kindly suggest that you discontinue using the internet following the oral consumption of rolled hashish? :-|So what you're proposing is to revoke the right to exist in society of whichever swaths of the political spectrum and their associated speech habits which you think winds up making employers behave favorably towards people with familiar sounding names? Riiiiight? — VagabondSpectre
Are you talking about the riots? Because, again, perhaps since I was talking to another member you may have missed it, I do not condone it and I hardly think that discussing hate speech laws somehow means that I do. I assume from the above-mentioned that you disagree with the mob mentality? If this is what you are talking about, as in, what the rioters have done, I agree. I still think the riots were nevertheless a product of many cultural and legal failures within the United States.I don't sympathize with white supremacists, but I sympathize with any non physically violent group being crushed by another group through violent force in a depiction of might makes right because if we allow it to happen to them we're in principle allowing it to happen ourselves. One day, the mass offended might begin to find you or your ideas offensive and they could use your own precedents to silence you... — VagabondSpectre
Nope.So are you saying that free speech is now obsolete because we know what should and should not be said? (for instance, the need to outlaw national socialism/racism?). — VagabondSpectre
Hence the Nuremberg trials; while I can see the logic in your argument, hate crimes based on race, ethnicity, skin colour, religion, gender and national origin have a higher probability than crimes against someone with cellulite on their elbows.I simply don't condone a law that makes it illegal to say something in public that causes offense just because it's on the basis of race. Why not make it illegal to offend people on the basis of hair color? Body-weight? Height? Etc? Keep in mind if someone is actually engaged in harassment (which goes beyond merely uttering a single statement on a sidewalk) then harassment law can legally sanction them without the need for special cases of race based offense. — VagabondSpectre
People don't like a lot of things about the law and there are certainly risks. What I fail to understand here is that you are saying 'force us all to adhere to the linguistic rigidity' but is that not what the first amendment is doing?Being politically correct is emotionally considerate and sensitivity to the feelings of others is laudable, but to force us all to adhere to the linguistic rigidity that is required to spare all possible feelings sacrifices too much to preserve too little (the gaps in existing harassment law) — VagabondSpectre
May I kindly suggest that you discontinue using the internet following the oral consumption of rolled hashish? :-| — TimeLine
I'm not accusing you of anything except subscription to a few bad ideas. Since you asked if my motivation for defending free speech was sympathy to white supremacy (context: I framed you as wanting to send white supremacists to re-education camp), I was simply making it clear that my reasoning is if we do violence to otherwise peaceful racists, we're actually committing a worse crime than racist speech. Whether it's by mob or by legally sanctioned incarceration, using force to revoke the right of individuals to hold opinions and to communicate them peacefully, regardless of how offensive they might be, is inherently a bigger potential threat to democracy than the potential threat of hurt feelings.Are you talking about the riots? Because, again, perhaps since I was talking to another member you may have missed it, I do not condone it and I hardly think that discussing hate speech laws somehow means that I do. I assume from the above-mentioned that you disagree with the mob mentality? If this is what you are talking about, as in, what the rioters have done, I agree. I still think the riots were nevertheless a product of many cultural and legal failures within the United States. — TimeLine
Hate crimes based on race, ethnicity, skin colour, religion, gender and national origin have a higher probability than crimes against someone with cellulite on their elbows. — TimeLine
People don't like a lot of things about the law and there are certainly risks. What I fail to understand here is that you are saying 'force us all to adhere to the linguistic rigidity' but is that not what the first amendment is doing? — TimeLine
I want to further discuss hate speech and censorship in general, but I feel that this would be a different topic of the thread, which was to acknowledge the authoritarian left. Do you all think I should make a separate thread or should I just post about hate speech here? — Chany
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