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Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

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Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#211

Post by AHappyCamper »

mynameishere wrote: post #198
AHappyCamper wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, and thank you for asking. The group I was involved in was repatriating Eastern European women who had been duped. They responded to ads in the paper that were seeking farmhands to spend the summer picking fruit for excellent wages. When the women showed up to the "interview" at the farm, they were drugged and kidnapped. From there, they were transported to Egypt, where they were smuggled close to the borde…

Well, if you are genuinely worried about terminology you can call that what it is, the "white slave trade". It's ancient, extensive, and completely, 100 percent, not taught in schools. So there's a lesson there too.

a. Sometimes there isn't time to craft the perfectly non-offensive message. You need to be able to freely communicate, or the hesitation can easily cost someone their life.

b. I'm sure there are people who would be offended by the term you used too. If everything is potentially offense, then at a certain point it becomes very hard to say anything, even if you're trying to stop slavery.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#212

Post by textgel »

DanBC wrote: post #182
dependenttypes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same spirit, gentleman11's point is that if you attend a gathering with people you don't know, and that gathering turns out to be heavily represented by looters and rioters, you are going to be labelled with it. > You're furiously defending an argument that you've made More like trying to show to DanBC that their line of thinking is illogical. Regardless, I do not see anything furious about it.

There's nothing illogical about describing as racist a group of people who make Nazi salutes, who attack black people, who spray racist graffiti. I'm pointing out that this is a simplistic, dishonest, framing: > Eg, people out protecting Churchill statues in the UK are labelled as racists in several stories[1]. A more honest framing would be "people out protecting Churchill statutes, many of them making Nazi salutes…

> There's nothing illogical about describing as racist a group of people who make Nazi salutes, who attack black people, who spray racist graffiti.

However that's not what you were doing; you were stating the point that being with a group doing x means you will labelled as x.

> If you're in a large group, and many members of that group are by any definition racist, you're going to be called part of a racist group.

Now whether you meant that that is a case of will be vs should was not covered but that was what the original point was.

The new point about framing would be in relation to the original point made where all in the protest centred around protection of the statues were labelled racist for doing so by major news organisations. At a guess there's at least two frustrations made in that that I can immediately think of

1) the lack of nuance from the papers (probably a hopeless ask given the way media operates in general for any story they handle but something worth discussing)

And 2) the hypocrisy displayed. We've seen the recent riots described as "mostly peaceful protests" time after time when a simple look at the stories and videos coming out show anything but yet the difference in the media descriptions of the two is pretty glaring would you agree?

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#213

Post by lr4444lr »

worik wrote: post #186
zarkov99 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Damore wrote an essay basically arguing women and minorities should be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics. That is completely false and you should be ashamed if yourself for spreading such blatant lies. I urge anyone reading your comment to check for themselves and read Damore's essay, which was well researched, rational and compassionate, the exact opposite of the kind of libel th…

Not completely false. "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." Which could be interpreted, honestly, as saying... "women and minorities could be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics"

"Differences in traits" doesn't mean "incapable". You know what happens if you take a whole population and deprive them of adequate calcium and protein in their early years? You get a "difference in traits" as to their height. Damore made no Essentialist claims about race or gender. He was just trying to be helpful in explaining an observed phenomenon at one causal level back.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#214

Post by whiddershins »

worik wrote: post #186
zarkov99 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Damore wrote an essay basically arguing women and minorities should be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics. That is completely false and you should be ashamed if yourself for spreading such blatant lies. I urge anyone reading your comment to check for themselves and read Damore's essay, which was well researched, rational and compassionate, the exact opposite of the kind of libel th…

Not completely false. "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." Which could be interpreted, honestly, as saying... "women and minorities could be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics"

He literally had a list of suggestions for increasing the number of women in tech.

Much of the thrust of his essay was a critique of the methods being used to increase diversity, not of the goal or the feasibility of achieving the goal.

It was a technical critique. This method won’t work, kind of critique.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#215

Post by Mangalor »

zarkov99 wrote: post #173
Mangalor wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore wrote an essay basically arguing women and minorities should be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics. The effect of which would silence both their work rights and free speech rights. Google, a private corporation, not a government, decided to stop contracting with him, as they have women and minorities on staff whose employment output likely outweighs his personal need to write…

> Damore wrote an essay basically arguing women and minorities should be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics. That is completely false and you should be ashamed if yourself for spreading such blatant lies. I urge anyone reading your comment to check for themselves and read Damore's essay, which was well researched, rational and compassionate, the exact opposite of the kind of libel th…

I often find that the usual so-called defenders of free speech do not hesitate for one moment with that libel charge whenever they encounter an opinion they happen to disagree with.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#216

Post by Thorrez »

AHappyCamper wrote: post #105
Thorrez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always say "underground market". Just make sure there aren't any hobbits around.

Ha! There is nothing illegal about an underground market. And the real issue is: if any use of terminology can get you blacklisted (another potential faux pas) then you end up not being able to say anything. At a certain point, all language becomes not viable because anything could potentially cause offense, so as a result, you just stop talking... even though you're trying to save slaves.

This page seems to think underground market is a synonym for black market:

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Underground+market

Wikipedia also uses the phrase "underground market" seemingly interchangeably with "black market":

> Even when the underground market offers lower prices, consumers still have an incentive to buy on the legal market when possible, because:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market

But you could also just say "illegal market" or just "slave market".

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#217

Post by bachmeier »

rbecker wrote: post #49
bachmeier wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same free speech that is protecting racists today is the same one that prevented Gay people from being censored in the 90s for their "deviant" behavior. You mean the guys I went to college with that went into a bar together and got beat up for it?

You would prefer that, after being beaten up, they were also arrested and convicted of spreading "gay propaganda"? You are intentionally conflating homophobic violence with 1st amendment protections, to make it seem like they didn't have the latter. Please debate more honestly in the future.

Traditionally free speech was a 1st amendment issue. In recent years, the term has been used more broadly to mean there should be no consequences of any kind for any form of speech. Consider the examples in the article:

> Universities have faced demands to rescind admissions offers for incoming students and discipline professors over disparaging remarks (such as those of a Cornell professor who faulted a protester injured by police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., for not getting out of the way).

This has nothing to do with the 1st amendment. It appears the concern of the author is that people have encouraged universities to take action.

> A controversial (and, some said, fascistic) New York Times op-ed piece by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) fed a clamor that cost two top editors their jobs.

In this case, readers cancelled their subscriptions because the editors approved a piece that contained misleading information and lies. The editors (not the guy that wrote it) were fired.

> Philadelphia Inquirer Executive Editor Stan Wischnowski resigned under pressure — apparently for many reasons, but the proximate cause was an egregious three-word headline equating looted buildings to lost lives.

In this case, it's a free speech issue for a private business to fire someone for incompetence.

I do wish we'd return to the narrower interpretation as being a 1st amendment issue, but that's not the reality now, and it's not what the article was talking about. Free speech today refers to any negative consequences for expressing your views. I can't think of any recent cases where free speech came up and the 1st amendment was relevant.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#218

Post by AHappyCamper »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #167
AHappyCamper wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I empathize with the feelings of people who may feel emotionally threatened by a derogatory comment, but some speech deals with people whose lives are in imminent mortal danger (e.g. those about to be sold on Black Market) and if we can't quickly discuss their cases and potential responses to rescue them, then they will be doomed to a life of untold misery. In such situations, there is no time to filter every…

Could you just say “slave market” or “illegal market”? Of course, black in this context refers to the transactions being performed in the shadows, and has nothing to do with the colour of the skin of the participants in the market. It’s all a bit absurd, but it’s also a trivial change to adopt. And now I’ve offended adopties. I jest.

Once you start with this type of thinking, it never stops, and instead of focussing on how to save slaves from a life of misery, you're instead having meetings on which words are less offensive in your posts, messages, and internal communiques.

The amount of energy that this takes up is ENORMOUS, especially when you're dealing with something as difficult and dangerous as the slave trade. And what do you do when the new terms you've chosen all of a sudden become not acceptable?

If we agree that many types of non-threatening speech are no longer allowed, it becomes almost impossible to talk and convey ideas, especially in high-stress areas like this one.

Imagine a medic who waits to treat a homeless person who has overdosed because they can't remember the politically correct way to refer to the person, and they need to radio into the command center first before they begin treatment. So the person dies because the stressed out medic couldn't remember the politically correct terminology because they were trying to work out the best course of treatment...

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#219

Post by worik »

precisioncoder wrote: post #162
thr999978797 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's maybe important to note that the phrase 'He was no angel' is a common (extremely dark and sarcastic) joke in left-leaning circles around these kind of tragic murders because there is always, without fail, some right-wing effort to paint the victim as some sort of low-life who had it coming one way or the other. Let's be clear: no one, regardless of how much they've fucked up in their lives, deserves to be murder…

"deserve no quarter in civilized discourse." This is a dangerous opinion. I would argue that the entire point of civilized discourse is to provide quarter for even opinions you radically disagree with, after all people hold these opinions and isn't discussing them in a civilized manner rather than dismissing and villainizing the people who hold them the only way to progress? Otherwise you have two sides that aren't d…

https://www.conspiracy-cafe.com/l6eC9Pd.png

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#220

Post by lr4444lr »

nonsince wrote: post #191
ngngngng wrote: post #177

I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now…

People with racist or otherwise regressive views know that these views will (rightly) get them criticised by the majority, and so they won't couch them in those terms precisely, but it's often very clear when you take context into account. I can't speak for this exact case, because we don't know what his exact words were, but it's telling that even your defence of him describes him criticising protesters at a time wh…

Okay, so you can check their academic CV and ask for colleague references. Quite another to ruin their professional career for a personal view on Twitter that isn't about planting bombs in black churches, or the like.
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