Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Because your neighbor's problem eventually becomes your problem. This is an argument for doing something , not necessarily for putting a burden on individuals to counter extremist and murderous ideology - especially those who are most likely to be targeted by it. It may be a moral imperative, but moral imperatives really are sensetive to a variety of individual circumstances to exercise, because they only work by wa…
Let's not confuse or conflate the bounds of in-person speech, with printed or online content. These differ slightly. > Similarly, the fact that a hate speech law can be abused is not a good argument; plenty of laws can be abused, including, say, anti-terrorism laws. False equivalency, red herring, and two wrongs don't make a right. Laws can be written across a continuum of vagueness and precision. Laws must be contin…
I very much agree; the law should be evidence-based and continuously under review to ensure scientific and philosophical argumentation gets a look-in to the results.
>"Be the change you seek" because waiting for Godot is a terrible idea. Take ownership yourself and do it.
I still agree that indvidual action can work well, but this says nothing of whether individual action is sufficient to accomplish the aims of the moral obligation you outlined.
>Saudi Arabia, regardless of many other concerns in the Kingdom, has an entire department in the MoI that has processed thousands of now former Jihadi's.
This is fantastic, but it does not prove the supremacy of individual action - it only proves that state counter-speech can work in certain instances. That's admirable in itself, and it can work very well. My only qualm is that it is unclear whether it should be the whole solution or only part of it. Naturally, I prefer legislation that does not restrict freedom - to restrict it as little as possible to accomplish the aims therein. However, this says nothing about the cases that fail, and the cases that fester. My point about mentorship has gone unaddressed - you proposed a system where people could individually take it upon themselves to persuade others, as an alternative to the state. I think it can work, but I'm still skeptical about the scale it can work at. You mentioned moral obligations, and you also said that difficulty is irrelevant to whether we should try our best to fulfill them. It seems here that freedom of speech and the moral course of action may be in conflict, doesn't it?
>Cartoons of Muhammed plus the Quran is better than burning and banning the Quran, because that reinforces an adversarial and underground dynamic rather than dialogue.
I agree! But I neither suggested banning the Quran nor did I even suggest banning Das Kapital - what I suggested was a restriction on hate speech. I think this preserves the thought/speech dichotomy, something which even liberals should be convinced of.
>Who decides which ideas are "good" or "bad?" You? Verizon? Dept of Safe Ideas?
It's not about goodness and badness, it's about harm. I'm not imposing some moralistic framework on law here (although that has been gaining steam recently). Rather, I am proposing that even if we abide by the harm principle and we keep up with modern neuroscience and philosophy, we end up with harm from certain speech. The legislature, through debate and consideration of the peer-reviewed scientific conclusions, will decide how the law should be crafted. The law will also be read over through special debate and involve the consultation of various interest groups, from the people it's supposed to represent to the legal scholars who are experts on the topic. I realize this is an 'ideal', but it's how I'd like it to be done in order to accept it. I'm sure that if you agreed with me, you'd have it done the same way.
>Censorship/hobbling powers never end well.
They do; an upstream commenter mentioned post-WWII Germany, and arguably threats, libel, child pornography, and assault work just fine. We have censorship, we don't have unlimited freedom of speech on any country on earth. The question is not whether to draw the line, but where to draw the line - something I argue should be considered through scientific and political debate.