So if we take away all political correctness, what checks and balances remain to prevent speech that can easily lead to mass murders and genocides?

More often than not, hate speech incites violence on the one who speaks it. It’s why police defend the KKK and the American Nazi party to hold their rally’s and marches, in order to protect them from violence. That threat of violence is always there, I suppose, and acts as somewhat of a deterrent.

On the other hand, hate preachers, holocaust deniers, and racists of all types are viewed as cranks in American culture. Chomsky makes this point, that anyone can publish works of holocaust denial in the US and no one really pays them much notice. If you do that in Europe, where it is often illegal, their work gets all sorts of press.



If you’re ever in New York go watch the Black Hebrew Israelites hold their very public displays of street preaching. They speak hate speech pretty much daily, out in the open, with little to no effect on anyone. It’s almost comical to watch.

At any rate, the idea that free speech leads to genocide is ridiculous in my view. No government ever involved in genocide had any commitment to free speech. In fact, quite the opposite. Clearly the issue is state-sanctioned mass murder.

I believe the checks and balances is greater free speech.

You answer that, in light of your support for the Trump Administration's threats to ABC.

Personally, I do not think those in power should wield that power to limit free speech. I believe that is likely unconstitutional, but absolutely believe it is wrong.

There you have it. That’s a principle. I guess it’s a good thing Kimmel, the multimillionaire who celebrated other people being fired or censored, is still doing his show.

We just found out the other day from Google that the Biden admin pressured them to remove accounts for misinformation, many of whom were Trumpists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Terrible isn’t it?

Enjoy Kimmel tonight.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/23/us-news/google-to-reinstate-youtube-accounts-banned-for-repeated-violations-of-covid-19-content/

But you can lie and say I turned off Electrical Grid B to an electrician, perhaps in theory even just walking by without being employed by the company, and an electrician goes to work on it and gets killed. That's illegal. Or, you can stand by a bridge you know is dilapidated and cover leaves over it and if a person asks if it's safe, you can say "Sure", and they are also killed. That's quasi-legal, simply because no one can prove you did anything. So, no, this idea that speech cannot lead to real human death, possibly mass causality has already been legally codified. That ship has sailed, mate. So, that realization hitting you (or anyone who was ignorant of such) aside. What are you truly hoping to proliferate?

Here’s a chance to prove your case. Let’s see you injure me with words.

The capacity of speech to injure, or the capacity of speech to lead to injury? How can speech injure?

You can damage someone’s ear if you yell too loudly. That’s about the only way to injure someone with speech.

As you know these sorts of censorial claims, used as they are to justify silencing others, are testable. Injury is measurable. We can simply ask them to injure us with words and examine the results. I would even offer myself as the victim and sign a waiver. At the very least it would be interesting to know which combination of sounds can lead to the worst injury. But you and I both know that no such tests are forthcoming and the claims are piffle.

You abhor government censorship.

The President and the chair of the FCC using their words to threaten their critics into not saying the things they're saying and/or to have them deplatformed under the pretence of legal responsibility is government censorship, even if not said face-to-face, officially and formally. It isn't just them casually speaking their mind. No reasonable person accepts "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" as plausible deniability. You're engaging in poor apologetics, plain and simple.

I abhor all censorship and I oppose ABC’s decision. I also respect their right to do whatever they want to Kimmel. He’s an employee. His waning popularity and the collapse of ratings probably made the decision much easier.

Watching everyone now twisting themselves into pretzels to blame Trump, after a decade of trying to silence him and his movement, is just added enjoyment on my part.

Now that you abhor censorship I hope you carry your new-found principle further and oppose the censorship prevalent in your own country, union, and continent. Sadly, I doubt that’s something I’ll ever read.

Yes, because that's what he was doing. Whereas Carr and Trump are using transparently tenuous and bullshit justifications to attack their critics. Everyone other than absurd apologists like you can see it for what it is.

Uh oh, “attacking their critics”. Scary stuff.

I don't know what you believe, but what you said in earlier posts was a defence of Carr's and Trump's words, pretending that they weren't doing the very thing that you claim to abhor.

I don’t abhor speaking. In fact I want to know exactly what those in power are thinking and what they believe, and I wish they’d speak more.

Let’s get this out of the way first—do you believe those in power should decide what you can and cannot say?

So the free speech absolutist makes an exception, when it entails retaliation by his side; a retaliation that's an order of magnitude worse because it entailed explicitly political speech, and threats to misuse the office of the FCC to inflict that punishment*, and threats of expensive lawsuits

If retaliation (in spades), is acceptable, then you should be fine if there were to be counter retaliation from the left. But obviously, you have no principles.

No, I’m pointing out that this is the world that people like Kimmel built. You want censorship you get censorship.

Your (apparently faux) commitment to free speech absolutism has left you incapable of understanding nuance and that the real world isn't black and white.

That I disagree with your claim that all speech regulation is bad isn't that I believe that all speech regulation is good.

Laws against defamation, conspiracy, and incitement to violence are both prudent and justified. The government and the President threatening to revoke the licenses of news organisations that are critical of them is bad.

It's ironic that your obsession to defend Trump even leads you to turn a blind eye to blatant, unjustified, government censorship, trying to whitewash it away as being something other than what it is. Even Ted Cruz and other Republicans are calling it out. This isn't just some liberal, anti-Trump hysteria.

Right, but when the EU commission directly threatens Elon Musk with fines it’s just “Reminding someone of their legal obligations to moderate their platform”. You appealed to law so using that logic a president and fcc chairman reminding those companies of their legal obligations to moderate their platforms is just that. I was just pointing that out. I believe all such laws are stupid, and all such regulating bodies should be abolished. I have never wavered from this belief.

It's laughable if you think that something so insignificant, even if false, warrants revoking a news organisation's license. Compare that with basically the entirety of Fox News, which even has hosts suggesting that homeless people should be murdered. Silence from Trump, Carr, and the FCC.

I don’t believe that at all. I believe Kimmel, Kirk, Fox News and indeed anyone who speaks should govern their own words. But this isn’t the world you advocate for. It’s you who advocates for those in power to set the conditions for speech, and here you are having to deal with the consequences of those beliefs.

Network stations owned by companies like Nexstar and Sinclair Group also have an obligation to abide by FCC rules. Their licenses forbid them from spreading lies like Kimmel did and must consider the public interest. And it is in their power to moderate their own content, which is exactly what they chose to do.

Hopefully you’re aware Trump doesn’t have the power to fire Kimmel or anyone else on television, nor does the FCC. Neither ABC nor Disney are under their authority. If he does seize that sort of power I’ll start to worry.

For someone so defensive of government censorship and speech regulation, though, you’re suddenly so adamant about free speech.

When an EU commissioner did the same to Elon Musk, threatening him with penalty under the digital services act, is this the same sort of thing? He wasn’t just saying this to some YouTuber I’ve never heard of, but directly.

Subtext. Yet there were no conversations between either of the parties you mention. I guess this subtext just floats in the air, moving people around.

Perhaps it is the case that Newstar and Sinclair group didn’t want to show the episode because they didn’t like it, just as they said. Are you just going to dismiss this as lies?

I didn't mention Kimmel. I was alluding to this:

Oh, that’s right, Trump talking is government pressure in some circles. Forgive me.

You might appreciate this.

Democracy is at threat when a television show gets cancelled, but when a guy holding a microphone gets publicly assassinated we should refuse to show empathy. Your comments over the past week are a the perfect instantiation of Western political hysteria.

ABC and Disney ended Kimmel because their local affiliates refused to air his inflammatory episode.

There’s a difference between “cancel culture”, i.e boycotts, and government pressure to fire critics.

Nexstar media group said they made the decision to stop showing Kimmel unilaterally, without discussion with the government. They had the betterment of their audience in mind. I’m afraid they also have the free speech right to broadcast whatever they wish.

Only a totalitarian would expect to be able to speak without any consequences.

Why do you say that? Speaking without consequences is precisely what free speech is.

I remember. Also, so-called “election denial” was verboten. Anti-Trump pressure campaigns even got the president removed from the largest social media platforms, along with vast swaths of his supporters. That’s why I don’t care too much about the victims here, and their cries ring rather hollow. This is what you get.

Hate speech is a censorship term of art like blasphemy, heresy, or sedition, and functions much the same. It’s a kind of sacrilege speech a ruling class and orthodoxy does not want people to hear because they fear the deleterious effects to their order.

Pam Bondi, many republicans, and the conservative wing of MAGA have moved to censorship in order to defend Kirk’s honor, which is something Kirk himself would have abhorred. And now those who have worked to silence opposing speech worldwide are claiming “free speech” as if they never hated such a concept just moments ago. This confirms the theory that no one really cares about free speech until it benefits them.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court has declined to consider Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others.

Citing an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case, the Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the case.

https://apnews.com/article/fani-willis-appeal-georgia-supreme-court-trump-7be50feee272612484490b53592e7e08

The hopes and dreams of the anti-Trump brigade lied with the corrupt because their hopes and dreams were corrupt.

I think you had to delete what you wrote because you could be arrested for it. I couldn’t imagine.

Many Americans see what is happening to the UK and it only reaffirms the reasons we should never give up our guns.

Other’s have noticed that the quote of Kirk speaking about the 2nd amendment has spread like a disease among his enemies, like most propaganda does. Even Elon Musk has noticed, and posted a video of a woman proving how it was taken out of context, as per usual.

It is an interesting phenomenon.

My question is: what psychological benefit does one receive from posting it on social media?

I wonder if they’ll ban 3D printers in Scotland since a kid was recently jailed there for plotting a mass shooting at his/her school.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyj2g5l1g2o.amp

An idea is indeed a misinterpretation of the body, just as the gods were a misinterpretation of the cosmos and thunderclouds. This is to be expected of a being who wishes to peer inwards but can only see out, and has behind him an entire of history of guesswork to rely on. Those ideas, at least as they are manifested as language and literature, are difficult to let go, no doubt; but like the gods behind the clouds, under the oceans, the earth, and other places we cannot see, soon they will have to be let go.

So an idea’s nature is invariably our own.

My apologies for the confusion. I only read a couple posts on the last page. I wasn’t aware there was a longer conversation there.

I do disagree because I do not believe the good and the bad can be found in thoughts, only actions. For instance, the assassin may have had the most beautiful thoughts ever conceived. Perhaps they were so good that he opposed fascism and the spreading of hate. Kirk, on the other hand, wanted to bring back the death penalty, and probably believes you or I will go to heaven and hell. Those are bad thoughts, in my view. But from the stories of Kirk I’ve been reading the last couple days, he was very kind. As far as I know he never hurt anyone, and gave a platform to opposing views. The shooter, who apparently opposed fascism, murdered someone in cold blood. So who is good or bad?

In my view there is an increasing conflation between words and deeds in Western moral literature and it leads directly to these sorts of acts.

I’m not sure what your conversation was about, because I didn’t read it. It doesn’t even appear that you’re involved at all.

Do you want me to quote exactly which sentences I’m referring to? Because it is all there above, unless there is some formatting issue that I am unaware of.

For instance, I read the accusation “He's part of the same side that spread hate, calls for violence, and for dividing people into us vs them.”

In the paragraph after I read this.

The point being, we could actually divide the world into two sides of legitimate good and bad. The good stands for respecting human rights and rejecting the concept of an individual as a means to an end. Those who argues for equality, the respect of each individual, respect for another group than them etc. ...and the other argues in opposition to that.

What do we have?

I explain in the following paragraphs.

A charge of "spreading hate" -- but I'm the one who has used "evil", not @Christoffer, except this one time in quotes:

I cited the words I was responding to in preceding paragraphs.

This assassination seems to whitewash what Kirk spread around, and it was not to spread love. He's part of the same side that spread hate, calls for violence, and for dividing people into us vs them. This side has no political color. It just happens to be more common on the extreme right in this time in history.

The point being, we could actually divide the world into two sides of legitimate good and bad. The good stands for respecting human rights and rejecting the concept of an individual as a means to an end. Those who argues for equality, the respect of each individual, respect for another group than them etc. ...and the other argues in opposition to that.

Arguing for the good side is arguing for the side that, with evidence in living standards and quality of life in the world, produces the best living conditions in a society.

Right now we're seeing a rise in the spread of hateful, polarizing rhetoric. Something that divides and makes enemies of neighbors. This rhetoric is eroding society and causing a lot of suffering and even deaths.

When speaking on a topic like this thread, I think it's important to be aware of which stance people holds in an argument. Which also means we can't ignore what someone like Kirk spread around. We can't whitewash what he did with spreading hate because he was the target of political violence, just as much as we can't ignore that the assassin acted out according to the bad side as well through his violence.

I think it's important not to get lost in these basic ideas about what is good and what is bad. The reality is that we can't justify the assassination, but we can't justify what Kirk stood for either.

And there we have it.

Note here the charge of “spreading hate”, and the making of a threadbare connection between the act of holding and espousing one’s belief and being evil, as if Kirk’s brain state and the combination of sounds that came from his mouth is all it takes to make such an accusation. On the one hand Kirk committed the sin of dividing people into Us vs Them, but on the other Kirk resided on the wrong side of the Good and the Evil, those who speak like us and those who speak like them.

The problem is there is not even a string of chewing gum between the premise and the conclusion, between one duplicitous phrase and the next. It is no strange wonder that the assassin himself accused Charlie of such evil, for “spreading hate”, days before killing him.

This sort of piffle can be read all over social media and presents a window into the empty logic of the censors among us.

Good read, thanks for writing

Modern self-help culture, mindfulness programs, positive psychology, and to a lesser extent outdoor education, present themselves as the heirs of ancient, medieval, and Eastern wisdom traditions (i.e., to philosophy and spirituality). They borrow their vocabulary from these sources, speaking to "character development," virtue, flourishing, balance, discipline, detachment, etc., yet sever these practices from the original anthropology that supported them. In turn, the switch towards a "thin" anthropology, and the liberal phobia of strong ethical claims tends to unmoor them from any strong commitment to an ordering telos that structures the "self-development" they intend to promote. Everything becomes about the individual, about getting us what we want.

Just a couple questions.

What is the “original anthropology” that supported these practices?

Do you believe pre-modern philosophers were acting without self-interest, and that their philosophical activity had no telos towards their own self-development, but towards something else?

As an outsider to American gun culture, I think it's a shame that so many agree with Charlie Kirk, who once said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."

Everyone keeps mentioning this statement here and elsewhere, without citation. It’s an odd phenomenon because clearly it is not something that you all remember hearing or reading before his murder, assuming that you never followed his debates and conjured it from memory. I never heard it before but I’ve read it a bunch of times today. Was it passed around on Reddit or Bluesky or something in the wake of his assassination?

I suppose it’s supposed to be a comforting piece of irony or karma for his haters, or an argument for gun-grabbing. The problem is its repetition only serves to undermine the irony. He believed people should have the right to own guns in order protect the rights of themselves and their loved ones, and his murder only proves to justify that statement. There are crazies out there and people who hate you and wish death upon you because they don’t like what you say. These people do not believe in any rights at all. Perhaps you do not believe in such rights nor possess any desire to protect them, or maybe you skilled enough to take out those who would hurt you and your loved ones with homemade nunchucks and kitchen knives, but the statement is not the irony everyone is making it out to be.

reports are circulating that the weapon and bullets used to assassinate Charlie Kirk were labelled or engraved with “transgender and anti-fascist ideology”.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/11/us-news/gun-charlie-kirk-shot-with-revealed/

Personally, I would remain skeptical of such engravings as it would be the perfect cover for more sinister suspects, such as the cartels or some foreign-influence operation, who may be trying to goad the reactionaries into action.

My coworkers wanted to vote on what food to order, and I was like, I'm not a slave, damn you! They totally got my point.

You need another’s vote to decide what food to order? No wonder.

It’s a stupid analogy because in that case you’re not operating under the illusion that you’re participating in government, that a government job-holder can represent you and your interests while deciding the conditions of your life, and that you have some sort of say in power. The whole process is at best performative piffle for thralls, at worst, the signing over of yourself as property.

The only oppressed victim in this case was Charlie Kirk. Do you believe his family deserves revenge? Perhaps.

I’m with you on voting, though. If one votes he acquiesces to the system, and his own serfdom.

I remember you talking about the group of anarchists you housed with.

I figured you'd prefer if they could stay rather than be pushed out.

I never lived there. I only surfed with them. I would prefer that that they weren’t burnt out of their homes.

I’m not sure what any of this has to do with ballots or bullets though. My comment was regarding people who would resort to murder in order to make a political statement or affect politics.

My collective? I’m just one guy. But yes, I would would leave rather than resort to violence.

Neither, in my opinion. People should just try to avoid having their sentiments outraged when others have thoughts and words that differ from their own.

Trump ally and conservative pundit Charlie Kirk was sniped in the neck while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University earlier today. Conflicting reports about whether he is dead or not. Not sure if shooter has been apprehended.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/10/us/charlie-kirk-shot-utah

Sounds about right.

You just listed, nearly verbatim, a bunch of lawfare complaints from anti-Trump plaintiffs and lawyers, which you imply are “damning facts”, even though they haven’t been ruled on.

You know what has been ruled on? Biden’s agenda and a series of progressive causes, much of which have been deemed unconstitutional and unlawful by the highest court in the land.

"I think it is the toughest series of defeats since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s had many New Deal programs declared unconstitutional," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School, referring to another conservative court that frustrated a Democratic president.

John Yoo, who served as a Justice Department lawyer under Republican former President George W. Bush, said Biden experienced "an amazing number of defeats" in his biggest cases as president.
"It's hard to think of another president in our lifetimes who lost so many high-profile cases on issues so near and dear to his constitutional agenda," said Yoo, now a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-dealt-biden-historic-series-defeats-2025-01-18/

The majority of the population doesn't care about (what can be characterized as) legal technicalities, they simply want action that achieves the results they desire. For this reason, I truly wish the center and left would focus on the aspects of Trump's actions that are illegal and unconstitutional, and remind everyone on why the "technicalities" matter - rule of law is critical to our system of government.

They would then be forced to admit their own illegal and unconstitutional actions. Trump has almost always won his Supreme Court cases during his second term. In July it was reported that the U.S. Supreme Court granted all 15 of President Donald Trump's emergency applications since April.

The rule of law has been a thorn in the sides of Trump’s opponents, so it would be a little comical to hear them opine about the rule of law now.

The one visible success of DEI initiatives and the entire woke movement—and also the key to its demise—was its ability to disguise general tyranny as enlightened governance. Racism was disguised as anti-racism. Sexism was disguised as anti-sexism. Conformity, discrimination, and exclusion was disguised as diversity, equity, and inclusion. Not only did people engage in such discriminatory practices, they did so believing they were combatting discriminatory practices, and they were in the right to do so.

The entire episode proves to me that anyone can hide tyranny, become tyrannical, and live with tyranny, so long as the stories detailing their efforts sing the opposite tale. The problem is it can only be disguised for so long.

It would be interesting to hear from someone that was full-on woke, but who has repented, to see how he was able to make peace with what he was doing. I imagine the steps involved were like the ones Czeslaw Milosz wrote about in the Captive Mind, where he had to come up with delusions in order to soothe the inevitable cognitive dissonance required to live under Stalinism.