(Title Censored)

[UnseenParticipant]

@davis @jake

As I’ve said, allowing the government to decide what you can read, watch, hear, see, or believe allows any government to do it, not just a government enforcing your ideas. Case in point:

I spent 15 minutes on Google trying to find even one example of a CRT-infected math problem. Something like

“If you severely beat five of your black slaves and two of them die, how many are left to lynch?”

and came up dry. Not one example. So, do you see how restrictions on free speech depend upon who’s in power? In two years, it’s entirely possible Trump will be reelected, and then it’ll be Donald and his crew deciding what speech to limit.

Good fucking luck!

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, i think you are conflating issues.

Yes governments and the propaganda they produce is dependent on who is in power. Ultimately in theory when the propaganda is not to the liking of the citizenry they can change the government to their liking. Governments can pass laws that are unconstitutional. In theory the Supreme Court is the arbiter of those violations and less dependent on who is in power. Of course if you understand the history of the USA and its constitutional rulings you will know that there is too often an alignment of the moneyed interests with the rights.

But free speech is about citizens. Who is the speaker. Who is the censor. What is the nature of the speech? Constitutional law is always about a balancing of interests. For instance 1st amendment protects free exercise of religion. But just like free speech the free exercise is not an absolute right. So the court has ruled using magic shrooms in a native religious ritual is protected by first amendment. But if a religious person wanted to sacrifice a virgin their free exercise would be trumped by the interest of the virgin to avoid being sacrificed.

[UnseenParticipant]

@jake

When Florida bans textbooks for whatever they mistook as CRT, is that just PR or is it attempted social engineering by limiting or curating the dissemination of ideas? If Trump gets into power, I wonder what he might do in terms of revising how American history is taught so that no white kids feel guilty.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, the dissemination of information is a great big issue.

It is not a first amendment issue for citizen’s 1st amend. rights but it is huge. As i indicated i would love to see some social engineering that is addressing climate change.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, the dissemination of information is a great big issue. It is not a first amendment issue for citizen’s 1st amend. rights but it is huge. As i indicated i would love to see some social engineering that is addressing climate change.

Who decides what the public gets to hear when it comes to, for example, hate speech? Should those who stand to benefit be required to recuse themselves?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen: Who decides what the public gets to hear when it comes to, for example, hate speech? Should those who stand to benefit be required to recuse themselves?

As it stands the USA is the fuck you wild, wild west. The government fed, state and local has the power to pass laws defining and censoring hate speech. If a citizen is prosecuted for the targeted speech they can claim 1st amendment protects their speech meaning that the law in question is a violation of the first amendment. Then it is up to the court to decide the constitutional issue. By appeal that is an issue that may go all of the way to the supreme court. If the court deems it super important they can take it on certiorari.

I am of the opinion that the US supreme court has wrongly decided the issue of hate speech. I love what Germany did in making it criminal to deny the holocaust. In the USA denial of the holocaust is kosher-protected speech. If it were an employer who told its employee to stfu about the holocaust and if not we will fire your ass-the employee can not rightly claim 1st amendment protection unless the employer is the government.

You are asking if hypothetically a justice deciding a constitutional issue of hate speech who lets say is transgender ought to recuse herself? Hmmm My gut is no recusal required.

[UnseenParticipant]

@jake

The problem with attempting to get the public behind fixing climate change, is a long history of misinformation and disinformation from environmentalists, who were worrying us about global cooling in the 1960’s, and then plied us with dire predictions of total disaster in just “x” years that never materialized. Now that things are getting out of hand, the public is like the famous frog in the increasingly warming pot on the stove.

So, I guess we socially engineer them (what Noam Chomsky calls “manufacturing consent”) telling the public whatever it takes since the actual truth will likely be dismissed. Kellyanne Conway had a neologism for that: “alternative facts.”

What a situation we’ve got ourselves into.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen when ya consider how the onset of the covid pandemic rapidly devolved into a political nightmare and created so much polarization i scarcely doubt the power of AI to give and disseminate the information best calculated to cause unity and stimulate action. Humans are so very amenable to being led and never detecting the manipulation. In terms of all the vested interests that contribute to climate change that can be altered if enough of us cry out for action then the economics that are contrary to arresting/mitigating climate change will in turn evolve.

My guess is scare the shit out of people by utilizing changes we can see and forecasts that are dire coming from experts. Those who speak against the consensus get the Putin disappearance or threat of it. Turn it into a patriotic imperative as though each country were being attacked from without by an invading army. Spur and reward cooperative efforts internationally. Portray parties who oppose necessary change as traitors to their country and to humanity. But i think AI can also give personalized messaging based on our individual profiles-messages that each individual is most susceptible to and then form alliances with similarly situated profiles while proffering a message of unity how it requires ALL of us wherever we live to join in the great cause.

[DavisModerator]

As I’ve said, allowing the government to decide what you can read, watch, hear, see, or believe allows any government to do it, not just a government enforcing your ideas

You act as though there is any single country in the world which doesn’t have at least some measures banning books, videos or expressing certain ideas. Even in the US, the anarchist cook book is banned, child porn is banned, expressing a view that the government is corrupt and must be overthrown is banned. These are all reasonable and hardly controversial. Get off your high horse over this idea that free speech and the market place of ideas is absolute and sacred and that allowing the government to control such things is a slippery slope. That is bloody ludicrous.

The US is basically one and only one sliver different from countries in the limits that are placed on free speech (all Western countries including the US have tons of such limits) and that is hate speech which most Americans may not like but are adamant about protecting at all costs despite the harm. Hate speech laws, for example in Belgium, are not open books where the government arrests someone for saying something unfashionable about a marginalised group. It is reserved for the most extreme and harmful cases, is rigorously tested in court under strict and specific laws and few people in the end actually get dinged. The results are vulnerable groups are less afraid of the most vicious toxic demonization or verbal violence. If we followed your paranoia to its extreme, you’d think their government was in board rooms organising their next wave of thought control and the next round of woke indoctrination.

Come down to Earth Unseen. Adding one more caveat to a right (one amongst many you have no problem with) to protect vulnerable people who effectively enjoy fewer rights…is not some nuclear pandora box and can never be closed again. Come down to Earth. Seriously

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by  Davis.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Am in agreement again on all counts with Davis as to hate speech.

My impression in having read and heard over the years so many American intellectuals want to protect hate speech is that it is much harder when there is so much consensus to change the views of people who have mistakenly appreciated the first amendment in regards to speech. That is particularly true when people who are considered wildly intelligent have espoused views supporting hate speech or should i say opposing censorship of hate speech. I have had many arguments and convinced a few as to my thinking but the same was true of marijuana laws. I argued against the majority with respect to marijuana legalization which is i think a much simpler issue or series of issues and there was such pushback to that radical way of thinking. We humans are stubborn mofo’s. I don’t actually remember persuading anyone we ought to legalize marijuana but i bet ya in 15 years the support of legalization will be so entrenched that the other side will appear to be radical.

[UnseenParticipant]

@davis

The Anarchist Cookbook is banned in the United States? No, you can even pick it up on Amazon.

I’m not arguing in favor of pedophilia, which should be legal in practice. I do think that NAMBLA shouldn’t be presenting their arguments in favor of buggery. I’m opposed to slavery but I can’t agree with outlawing discussing or even advocating it as long as the opposition is equally able to present their contrary views. I’m opposed to active incitement in front of a crowd, but if someone wants to advocate rebellion or sedition in print or on Youtube, that should be okay. The distinction is between being a general advocate of something (giving people something to think about) and trying to make it happen now without a period of reflection (the essence of incitement).

Now, if one’s argument is that hate speech must be banned or criminalized due to the harm done, okay, what about non-hateful speech that causes harm? In other words, is it the hate or the harm that bothers you?

There are people who are triggered by the very mention of some things. Well, gosh, let’s not discuss any sort of abuse, then, and threaten to bring the full weight of the government down on anyone who dares unhatefully to mention sexual abuse, domestic abuse, or any number of other potential triggers?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

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?

I don’t bend because rational arguments which I’ve made in the past make my case. Fundamentalist religionists do not bend because they think their faith justifies their positions. So not the same.

We both breathe Oxygen too, but that means nothing from a stance of our respective worldviews. A Fallacy of Formal Logic.

My experience of and response to hate speech does show one possible way to deal with it while retaining a free society. The method is coarse and acidic, but it is peaceful and it is fitting. You only use Robert’s Rules of Order with Robert’s Rules of Order people.

You do not owe rational discourse and courtesy to irrational, degrading, dehumanizing people with philosophies supporting subjugation and murder. Insults, taunts, and verbal jiu-jitsu are perfectly acceptable and compatible with freedom of expression.

You haven’t resorted to blows, so the burden is on your enemy to do the same. If they don’t meet that burden, then you can legally act in self-defense and the law can step in afterwards.

With Internet trolls and shit-posters, it’s not even that much trouble. I sleep well at night after an off-day of intellectual trash disposal.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco,

Faith is exactly what you have in your ideology just like a fundamentalist in their ideology. However one identifies politically the notion of infallibility (same as fundamentalist) is a sure indication of a hardcore ideologue who utilizes faith not reason. Whether one identifies as socialist, capitalist, libertarian; pick your poison cuz all political preferences are at best a necessary and lesser evil. There are issues and problems that are sure to accompany any political stripe. When ya can’t see it or cop to it you are either parroting or you are the functional equivalent of a fundamentalist. Your assertions on this site have been challenged by me and others repeatedly and you have nothing substantive to offer. You ignore or you strawman.

This time it is a strawman. To refresh your recollection you indicated that hate crime victim fakers have no free speech protection. At the same time you want to protect the most vile, virulent hate speech-i am not talking about the comparatively anodyne schoolyard insults.

[—Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

As it stands the USA is the fuck you wild, wild west.

A clashing of ad campaigns and to the victor go the truthiness.

[onyangomakagutuParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

@davis The Anarchist Cookbook is banned in the United States? No, you can even pick it up on Amazon. I’m not arguing in favor of pedophilia, which should be legal in practice. I do think that NAMBLA shouldn’t be presenting their arguments in favor of buggery. I’m opposed to slavery but I can’t agree with outlawing discussing or even advocating it as long as the opposition is equally able to present their contrary views. I’m opposed to active incitement in front of a crowd, but if someone wants to advocate rebellion or sedition in print or on Youtube, that should be okay. The distinction is between being a general advocate of something (giving people something to think about) and trying to make it happen now without a period of reflection (the essence of incitement). Now, if one’s argument is that hate speech must be banned or criminalized due to the harm done, okay, what about non-hateful speech that causes harm? In other words, is it the hate or the harm that bothers you? There are people who are triggered by the very mention of some things. Well, gosh, let’s not discuss any sort of abuse, then, and threaten to bring the full weight of the government down on anyone who dares unhatefully to mention sexual abuse, domestic abuse, or any number of other potential triggers?

You make good points, Unseen, which in general I am in agreement with.  I am trying to think of non-hateful speech that causes harm and I have come back blank.

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