(Title Censored)

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco, you will never concede anything in defense of your ideology. Neither will a fundamentalist..

So your experience with hate speech is dispositive of the issue?

[_Robert_Participant]

The right to free speech also gives one the right to censure. If I run a forum or website and someone posts something I don’t like..well it’s my site, so bye. It works both ways. Trump had to start his own twitter and I bet it is just a boring echo chamber, LOL. Now if Twitter under Elon Musk starts allowing buttloads of conspiracy/hate bullshit, well good luck with that. I will just quit it. A new and improved version of the app will soon appear. I can barely stomach that crap as it is.

[UnseenParticipant]

@davis

Who decides what we may say, see, and hear? What are their qualifications? Do they need some sort of education or expertise?

And by what authority are such basic rights abridged? Should I assume you’d be happy with a censor who gives what the public thinks and believes no consideration whatsoever if that runs contrary to such a person’s values.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

The right to free speech also gives one the right to censure. If I run a forum or website and someone posts something I don’t like..well it’s my site, so bye.

If you’re the least bit politically aware, Robert, you will know that those three super corporations, through their subcorporations (referring to the graphic I submitted above) effectively own the government, so, through the Federal government, it is they who decide what it’s okay to say and know. The government and its PR arms, like the CDC for one, get to control the flow of information.

[DavisModerator]

Who decides what we may say, see, and hear? What are their qualifications? Do they need some sort of education or expertise?

And by what authority are such basic rights abridged? Should I assume you’d be happy with a censor who gives what the public thinks and believes no consideration whatsoever if that runs contrary to such a person’s values.

The same people who decide what Libel is, what copyright infringement is, what constitutes “causing a panic”, what constitutes “inciting a crime” etc. What you are getting at, which is fairly transparent, is allowing such a thing would lead to a slippery slope.

Well…in dozens of countries (including Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ) this hasn’t happened. Speech outside of a fairly narrow purview of gross hate speech is not censored. Just like, you know…allowing euthanasia hasn’t led to murder factories nor has legalising marijuana led to the legalisation of heroin (if anything these laws have not led to the predicted slippery slope by reactionaries but even reduced drug abuse and make suicides less calamatous). You can judge the merits of a reasonable and just policy on how things worked (in some countries for decades) or on some unfounded paranoia of disastrous reactionary tyranny.  I wouldn’t want to live in a country where people don’t give a shit about protecting me from the most vicious harmful and outrageous pointless hate speech that demonstrably infringes on my other rights, equality, safety and prosperity…while endorsing the curbing of more mundane speech. And I feel sorry for people who live with such indifference surrounding them.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by  Davis.

[—Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Jake and Davis, Look I am no stranger to hate speech. I’ve been called “Queer” and a “Faggot” since 5th Grade when I barely had an idea of what sexuality even was.

Most of what you described isn’t hate speech in most (possibly all) jurisdictions. It’s just being insulted. If someone beat the shit out of you because you were (or they thought you were) gay, then them shouting ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’ at the time may constitute evidence of a hate crime. Or, in a school or a workplace or the like, it may be evidence of discrimination or discriminatory harassment. But hate speech? No.

Don’t knock the “fuck you Wild West” until you’ve tried it, Jake. It’s fun, it’s an exercise in resilience, and it beats curling in a fetal position!

If people want to slag each other off, then jerk off their egos thinking about how rough and tumble they feel, I say great. If it feels good, you do you. But you having weak sauce flame wars on the internet, again, has little to do with hate speech.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco, I meant to say that i did not think that was sufficient to be characterized as hate speech.

Lets not forget you said no speech rights for those who pretend to be victims of hate crimes. You want those bastards prosecuted to the full extent of the law. (i agree btw if that ever actually happens) Juxtapose that against your intended protection of the worst scum filth excuses for homo sapiens who spew the most vile imaginable hate speech. Care to justify your position, Enco?

[UnseenParticipant]

@davis

I take it by “The same people who decide what Libel is, what copyright infringement is, what constitutes “causing a panic”, what constitutes “inciting a crime” etc.” you mean lawmakers. I wasn’t talking about who creates restraints or limits on what people are allowed to say, see, hear, and ultimately believe. I was more talking about enforcement. The real nitty-gritty of making specific decisions.

You rightly point out that euthanasia hasn’t led to Nazi-esque death camps, nor has legalizing marijuana led to a pandemic of heroin usage, but you take a totally different tack when it comes to free speech. With free speech, it seems, allowing it without restraint opens up a pandora’s box. One that presumably does lead to Nazi-esque death camps and widespread heroin addiction.

You’re not making logical sense.

Furthermore, once restraining free speech is acceptable, it’s not a slippery slope problem at all. The problem is who is in power, for they will be making those decisions according to their possibly twisted values.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Following up on Davis i can report that slippery slope is a sloppy stop gap substitute for an actual argument. Law is filled with tough issues and close factual distinctions requiring a judge to make that call..

I think some of the failure to modify stance on hate speech as it relates to the first amendment is explained by our early adoption of the essential rationale of free speech. We all will acknowledge i assume that a society bereft of free speech is one to avoid at all costs. If we know nothing other than political speech can get ya hung by the nuts then that society sucks. Further we early on understand the notion that the simple fact that listeners find speech offensive is trumped by the essential value and need for free speech. So that notion of tough titty if my words offend ya resonates. And then along comes hate speech which on a superficial level is an 83 mile per hour fast ball without movement over the middle of the plate and coming in belt-high.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

The right to free speech also gives one the right to censure. If I run a forum or website and someone posts something I don’t like..well it’s my site, so bye.

If you’re the least bit politically aware, Robert, you will know that those three super corporations, through their subcorporations (referring to the graphic I submitted above) effectively own the government, so, through the Federal government, it is they who decide what it’s okay to say and know. The government and its PR arms, like the CDC for one, get to control the flow of information.

Oh, the boomer companies, right. Nobody 40 under watches TV anymore. There are 6 millennials in my immediate family. They never watch “the news”.

[UnseenParticipant]

[UnseenParticipant]

@robert

Millennials get their news from online sources, often social media, but social media manages what their users get to hear just like the mainstream media.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

And then along comes hate speech which on a superficial level is an 83 mile per hour fast ball without movement over the middle of the plate and coming in belt-high.

Hate speech is nothing new, Jake. Nor has it gotten worse over the years.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Sayeth Unseen: Hate speech is nothing new, Jake. Nor has it gotten worse over the years.

As to the former same applies to slavery. Duration of a practice is not an argument as to its validity. As to the latter i think that is probably false. Admittedly hate speech just prior and during Nazi Germany was worse. Even in the USA there was Father Coughlin preaching antisemitism to millions and the German American Bund etc. However, look how that turned out. Yeah i know post hoc suck my …. It would be interesting to know were there a way of ascertaining such knowledge the role hate speech played in WW2 and the holocaust.

Right wing and fascist tendencies are on the rise in Europe and USA. The number of hate groups is also on the rise. It is also important to consider the role of algorithms/social media in causing the LCD to adopt virulent hate and absurd conspiracies. I have mentioned how i am interested in utilizing AI to manipulate the moronic masses to unite in opposition to climate change. Turnabout is a bitch. It is funny cuz the echo chambers of insanity and consequent mobs/mob mentality is in part a byproduct of capitalism. I have to think it is complicit in the vulnerability the USA has to an uprising and challenge to democracy. Ya think Trump could have done it without social media and algorithms? So why not use AI deliberately to effectuate positive change? Religion intentionally manipulates/indoctrinates/brain washes. Military does same. Governments do it. But i bet a deliberate effort to indoctrinate the masses to confront an existential challenge would be anti-freedom or some such platitude.

[DavisModerator]

Yeah and school bullying has always been around, and since my father’s generation something is slowly being done about it, with many people going “that’s just the way kids are”, while the victims are more able to trust adults to do something as they are relentlessly terrorised. Abusive environments that threaten someone’s well being, opportunities and safety should not continue, regardless of how much it was tolerated in the past. Resistance to progress is nothing new either. It is a bloody miracle women, LGBTQ+ people and the poor have any rights at all, let alone “in theory”: equal rights. I’m not going to stop working towards actual meaningful real equality because some people think things are good enough as they are, their religion excuses abuse, they don’t want to admit there are serious problems or they prefer to hide behind some fantasy “absolute free speech” nonsense.

[Author]

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