Family wisdom here, having grown up with 2 brothers, is as follows: âOne boy, one brain, 2 boys, half a brain, 3 boys, no brain.â Hypothetically, after that it enters negative numbers and begins to suck wisdom from the surroundings. Or, you could just go with the time-tested Tommy Lee Jones quote
I love MIB and quote that line fairly often. But I donât take it to mean that individual people suddenly stop being smart in a crowd; rather that the pressure to conform and the practical exigencies created by the dumb panicky dangerous people limit the options of those who donât, for example, stockpile toilet paper or fill trash bags with gasoline.
True, but I would think that crowd dynamics (as in: situational stupidity and/or bigotry resulting in violence) and group dynamics (as in societally accepted/promoted stupidity and/or bigotry resulting in irrational behaviour up to violence) are slightly different sides of the same medal.
Sorry there is no such unicorn called âTrue Freedom of Speechâ. Freedom of speach is not actually free. The constitution grants it to every citizen, but its paid for by the military. Sometimes the price is high, where the service member gives his life to defend your rights.
Now having said that, freedom of speech comes with consequences at all times. One can not yell fire in a theater, the consequence is you get arrested. One can not cuss out ones boss, the consequences is you get fired.
For every action there is a reaction. For example, lets say you are attempting to burn the American flag in public. You have that right, and its covered under freedom of speech. I as a veteran take offense, i scream and cuss you out, and then clock you to rescue the flag. Your consequences is getting clocked, mine could be to get arrested for assault and theft of private property. We both exercised our freedoms, but neither escapes the consequences.
Another example would be to talk openly about killing an elected official, that would get you arrested.
So, in short, there is no such thing as âconsequence-freeâ speech, just as there are consequences for every other action.
Not sure how clocking someone constitutes speech, whether free or not, but I would avoid it.
Freedom isnât free; it is known. But to follow from that thereâs no such thing as freedom is a fallacy which conflates freedom having a cost with freedom being denied. The word free does not refer solely to price. And the argument that freedom is a myth by comparing it to a mythical creature because it has a price is the kind of absolutist nonsense no one with any sense should seriously countenance.
Also, welcome to Boing Boing. While I donât agree with everything in your comment, I hope you stick around to engage with the community in a spirit of baseline mutual respect for your interlocutors.
ha ha no
Since when has the US military last protected or fought for an Americanâs right to free speech? Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? Syria? Vietnam? Korea?
You seem to be conflating a few things. First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech mean that you cannot be prosecuted by the government for most speech. It does not (as you rightly point out) equate to consequence free speech, nor to any requirement for platforming. And most importantly, IMHO, it does not mean anyone can be made to pay any attention. There is a common position on the snowflake right that there is a right to have your speech broadcast and taken seriously. No such right exists. Only that you cannot be arrested for it.
I donât know what world you live in that physical assault on another person ( a crime) is considered âfreedom,â but I never want to go there.
No. Physical violence != speech. The consequence for assault is the slammer.
Since youâre new here you might want to review the BBS rules. Hereâs the relevant bit, bolded for your benefit:
- Be cool. Donât post or encourage insulting, bullying, victim-blaming, racist, sexist, violent, homophobic or transphobic remarks.
I assume you have the same violent reaction when you see someone wearing clothing with either the U.S. flag or some bastardization of it?
So with your reasoning, youâre willing accept veterans âclockingâ police who fly blue lives matter flags? Or wearing symbols of flags on their clothes? Because both of these things are considered disrespectful to many veterans.
Also, veterans are not of one mind when it comes to defending the flag. My WWII veteran father would say that his service was to protect the right of Americans to burn the flag as a form of protest. If you have a problem with flag burning, you should have an equal problem with blue live matter flags or those tattered flags on cars.
Also, welcome to BBS!
Indeed. Those to whom symbols mean more than the ideals, however imperfectly observed, they represent, have lost the plot.
If your reaction to seeing a burning flag is to scream obscenities and punch people, you should probably talk to a therapist at the VA.
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Not as recently as organized labor has fought and died for free speech. Fly that flag on Labor Day and see how âpatriotsâ respond.
Putting this here instead of in the coronavirus thread lest it derail it. Short respectful exchange between two of my favorite people, which succinctly sums up my own frustration that conspiracy theories are harmful and the government canât be trusted to police them.
I think Popehat is equivocating badly here. There is a law against misrepresenting information from the national weather service about weather disasters (I only know about this because of talk of it the time Trump flagrantly violated it).
Having a specific law against a specific kind of speech because that speech causes public harm is normal. At some point in the past, people sat down and agreed that lying about where a hurricane was going to make landfall fell into that category. We might also agree that lying about a pandemic is harmful to the public.
I donât find the response very respectful at all. Raising internment camps is a low blow and a ridiculous argument. Putting people in camps is not the same thing as telling them they canât lie about a pandemic. You could use that argument for literally any law. âDo you trust a government that put your family in concentration camps to tell people where they can and cannot stick their knives?â We canât just work on a zero trust principle. We have to agree that stabbing people is wrong, and I think itâs totally reasonable to agree that telling people to take potentially dangerous drugs off-label to treat something we know they donât treat ought to be illegal. Honestly it probably is and they just arenât enforcing it.
