I thought it was Dawson.
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It could be. The shape of the head is the same.
I try to be guided by principle. I’m an artist, musician, street performer- Everything I do is centered around the freedom of speech, and I’ve given it considerable thought over the decades.
I’ve come to the conclusion that accepting freedom of things like speech, religion, association, etc. as fundamental rights leads to having to either defend some rather uncomfortable positions or accept that your own rights are equally subject to infringement.
eg: The ACLU defending Nazis and pedophiles right alongside BLM and climate change scientists, or fighting on behalf of both sides of the abortion war.
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Beyond racist speech, what other types of speech should be illegal?
Any speech that advocates violence against people just for existing, causing the target to fear for their lives and possibly react violently as a result?
They’re already excluded from the first amendment in the US
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Maybe, incendiary proclamations of imminent danger amidst gatherings of those who like to sit in the dark?
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If all you have to back up what you say is “it’s not explicitly illegal for me to say it”, it’s likely that you have nothing important to say at all.
Freedom of speech is an important protection. But it’s not a justification in any way when you say stupid or evil shit that people hate you for.
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r is the new p.
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The explanation is that Category 3 doesn’t really exist. Sure, I believe in free speech, in the sense that I don’t think people should be rounded up and thrown in jail simply for being racist. But as @LDoBe points out:
Think about it: if all they have to say for themselves is “NYAH NYAH IT’S NOT ILLEGAL I CAN SAY WHAT I WANT”, and the only people who really want to listen to their crap are other racist shitbags, why should I really defend what they say? Congratulations, it’s not illegal, you win I guess. No, wait, you lose, because now you can’t play the victim and say people are trying to trample your freedom of speech.
So basically, Category 3 people will defend the legality of racist speech, but not the speech itself. Since the legality is seldom if ever up for debate, they will not really defend racist speech. This leaves the racist speech defenders as mainly the racists themselves. I’d also imagine the number of people in Category 1 is quite small. People don’t become racists by being tolerant, after all.
Also consider this. If people don’t say edgelordy I’m-just-joking-unless-we’re-being-serious things, they are far less likely to need to “defend free speech”, whatever that means.
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I find there is a big undercurrent in freedom-of-speech defense of throwing up hands and saying, “We can’t tell the difference!” Like if that guy can’t run people over in his car, how can I be sure I’ll be allowed to make right turns? We need freedom to drive, don’t we? That analogy is intended to be outrageous, but when you get to some speech that I think is rightly outlawed in some European countries, like holocaust denial, I think there’s reason to consider how outrageous it even is. Is it impossible for speech itself to cause harm?
Here’s what I’m concerned about regarding defense of free speech:
Some people who get defended under free speech have a straight-line between their speech and harassment/attacks on marginalized groups and even specific individuals. A now disgraced free speech darling (disgraced because he said something his free speech defenders didn’t want to defend) would mention a name and next thing you know the person is receive death threats - there was a straight line from one to the other.
Free speech defense occurs when someone is wealthy, famous or otherwise privileged enough to have their case noticed. While trans people are beaten for their use of a particular pronoun, someone like Ann Coulter has the hordes come out to defend her if she says something ugly about trans people. Whose free speech is really in jeopardy? A person who has to hide who they are for fear of physical violence or a person who has more than a dozen published books? I see what looks like trickle-down human rights - somehow protecting the free speech of a person with a massive nationwide and even worldwide platform will end up protecting the rights of the “little guy” too. It doesn’t work that way.
Finally, I know free speech is defended as an important guard against tyranny, but I look at the real world and don’t see evidence that it accomplishes that. People are struggling against oppression all around the world, in places where they have a right to voice their opinion and in places where they can be jailed or disappeared for doing so. I think of the reunification of Germany, of the civil rights movement in the US, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle of Iranians against theocracy, and even violent campaigns like the troubles in Northern Ireland. Sometimes people fight for rights by legal means, sometimes by illegal means. Sometimes by peaceful means, sometimes by violent means. Sometimes change happens quickly (a few decades) sometimes it happens slowly (a few hundred years). I can’t see the actual evidence that freedom of speech has been a necessary or even important part of that change. It’s a nice-to-have for people who have already largely won struggles against oppression, not a must-have for people in them.
Tons of expression is already illegal in the US (just like everywhere else). Obviously direct incitements to violence are illegal. The majority seem to think that the right of a corporation to profit overrides free speech in the case of copyright. Somehow we have laws that say I can’t draw my own Mickey Mouse cartoon but I can draw my cartoon depicting Jews as baby eaters? We have to admit that’s a statement of our values - that one is more important to us than the other to us.
I’ve got nothing against genuine impassioned defense of free speech as a dearly held principle. It’s just that people are out there connecting the dots between the words “freedom of speech” and racism. I’m going to stick with “we shouldn’t vote for people who are going to make shitty laws” as a substantially better bulwark of freedom than a freedom of speech provision in a constitution. It turns out that oppressive leaders don’t follow the law anyway.
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As with everything else, context is a thing, and I maintain that one of the hallmarks of conservative thought is a refusal or lack of ability to recognize that.
I recognize that there need to be limits on everything. My concern is that we impose those limits with a great deal of thought to their necessity, effect, and secondary ramifications.
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Yes! I’ve long thought so too. It’s good to hear someone else say that. It’s the main way that I see conservative thought and claims as dismayingly simplistic.
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I absolutely hate the way free speech is being twisted by both liberals and conservatives right now.
I’m pretty old school and always revered free speech as a central pillar of a liberal democracy. Lately I find conservatives aping this principle in order to push an agenda of intolerance, while liberals seem content to sacrifice this same principle on the alter of political correctness.
I believe that are still many people spanning the political spectrum who believe in the importance of free speech and the vital function it serves to our way of life. I hate those who use the principle of free speech to push limiting points of views of others who don’t agree with their monocultural outlooks. At the same time, those who try to limit free speech so it won’t offend some members society seem to forget that it was only through free speech that most marginalized members of society were able to find their voices in the first place.
I only hope responsible people from all points of views can work together to save the principals we rely on from society’s outliers.
It gets worse: compare it to Tebow.
[quote=“Lancelot1066, post:36, topic:100582”]
At the same time, those who try to limit free speech so it won’t offend some members society seem to forget that it was only through free speech that most marginalized members of society were able to find their voices in the first place.
[/quote]This is not even a little true in the US.
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What is Political Correctness? Please explain. As far as I can tell, it’s simply a combination of common courtesy, and not speaking for others without permission. So, common courtesy.
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I agree with you that that’s all what gets labels as PC actually is. As you probably know, it’s perceived by conservatives as something else, an unfair limitation on their right to say whatever the hell they want. More extreme rejection consists of an insistence that un-PC beliefs are fine to think, say, and act upon because they’re (supposedly) true. The concept of PC also gets wielded by political operatives and opportunists in different ways. These days, it’s often used to claim (ironically) the mantle of victimhood – criticism of obnoxious or injurious speech commonly gets branded, ridiculously, as censorship by “PC liberals.”
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