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Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

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Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#351

Post by freejazz »

wonderwonder wrote: post #268
freejazz wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was convicted because she breached her duty of care after he informed her that he attempted suicide, and she told him to get back in the car and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it. The judge was spot in noting that by having the conversations with him that she did, at the time, she had a duty of care that she did not uphold. Your characterization of her liability is completely inapposite what the co…

interesting. What are my beliefs regarding freedom of speech? I attempted to provide an example of what the OP spoke of, might have been wrong. My beliefs regarding freedom of speech is that is should be just shy of absolute. Only limit should be believable threats of violence. I appreciate you telling me what I believe and my political beliefs though.

When did I say what your political beliefs were? It's obvious to anyone reading your post, that you shared what you did to further your beliefs. Sheesh! And go figure, you're just shy of an absolutist. Who would have guessed that? (me! I would have!)

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#352

Post by Clubber »

hpen wrote: post #339
Clubber wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Things like banning the shoutout of “fire” in a theater. Some laws need to be low pass filtered. That was mostly overturned in 1969, though the history of it is interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Interesting info. I think people still get the point I’m making but thanks for the clarification

You're welcome. The most interesting part is the "fire in a theater" was at a time when the government was throwing people in jail for protesting WWI under the Wilson administration. When the SCOTUS affirmed the Debs conviction and 10 year sentence and permanent disenfranchisement, they referenced the case of "fire in a theater," as justification. It was a pretty dark time in our history. I'm glad it was overturned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#353

Post by [deleted] »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #43
Joeboy wrote: post #11

> few liberal-minded commentators seemed eager to say Rushdie was entirely without fault This does not match my recollection. As I recall things, Rushdie was vigorously defended by the left, which at the time quite liked the idea of freedom of speech. At least in the UK, can't speak for anywhere else.

I would say he was quite vigorously defended by liberals. Since the 1970s there pretty much hasn't been such a thing as the left, especially in Rushdie's hayday of the 80s-00s. If there was, I doubt it would've spent much time worrying about the fate of a bourgeoisie fantasist. Nothing against Rushdie btw. I loved the Satanic Verses. But institutional journalism (which provides the fundamental model most people use t…

[deleted]

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#354

Post by s1artibartfast »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #343
s1artibartfast wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant even remember the last time I saw a credible threat of violence online. It is hard for me to believe they are normalized.

I often hear of people having the Twitter mob descend on them so hard that it makes the news and they get a shitload of menacing violent threats on their voicemail or other harassment.

To be clear, I am not saying it doesn't occur.

I am just pushing pack on the idea that just because something happens regularly or frequently, it is normalized. There are 350 Americans and 5+ billion people on the internet.

You could probably run a news story every day about a mother who murdered their child, but that doesn't mean infanticide is normalized. It doesn't even mean infanticide is a serious problem.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#355

Post by wonderwonder »

cmh89 wrote: post #348
wonderwonder wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always consequences to freedom of ideas. Some good, some bad. The suppression of speech and ideas leads to a dictatorship. I think people that attack others verbally for who or what they are are bad people. I just think that the consequences of suppression of speech are worse. It's all good when the leaders we like are in power and stifle the speech of those we disagree with. It's not so fun when the pendul…

>The suppression of speech and ideas leads to a dictatorship. That's not true. Nazi ideology is banned in Germany, and they are a far healthier democracy than the United States. > I just think that the consequences of suppression of speech are worse. So if a group of people were plotting to kill you, you'd only want the State (i.e. the police) to step in after they had gone through with their plot? > Sometimes. Are y…

"So if a group of people were plotting to kill you, you'd only want the State (i.e. the police) to step in after they had gone through with their plot?" That's already a crime friend. Conspiracy. I think you are smart enough to understand the difference between free speech and plotting a murder.

"I was merely pointing out that your fantasy of 'responding in kind' is nonsense". Cool, I still support near absolute free speech.

Nazis are banned in Germany as a result of WW2 and was part of their rehabilitation. Who do we give the power of deciding what speech is banned in modern day America? Biden? Trump? Desantis? Elizabeth Warren? The supreme court? I agree Nazis are bad, I just don't think anyone in the United States should have the power to ban ideas.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#356

Post by naniwaduni »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #316
naniwaduni wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all agree that some kinds of violent speech should be suppressed. This is bad consensus-building. It is not a reflection of reality, but an attempt to strongarm the reader into agreeing with a false claim by exploiting people's willingness to accept confident claims at face value.

Do you, or anyone you know, honestly believe that the level of threat that would constitute assault in most common law jurisdictions should be treated as protected free speech? My example, of a specific, credible, actionable threat. I know plenty of people with extreme views, but "coercion by threat of violence should be legal" is not one I've heard before. It certainly is a consensus, and your denial of such is in d…

I believe that equating credible threat with violent speech is a category error. Speech is not the only thing going on for the threat to be established as credible. Perhaps those things should be more harshly sanctioned than they are. Perhaps there are structural problems that grant enough leverage to create threat with only the outward appearance of speech.

Speech alone -> the level of threat that would constitute assault in most common law jurisdictions is tantamount to AI-boxing, and while I don't consider that quite crackpot enough to dismiss out of hand, the implications are absolutely not anywhere near "we all agree" levels of consensus.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#357

Post by freejazz »

giantg2 wrote: post #270
s1artibartfast wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on what you did to convince them. See the top level post. The law does not only care about causality. It is also cares free speech, reasonable interpretation, and comparative responsibility. I could craft and publish an argument School shootings are in fact a positive good a we should have more of them. I am legally in the clear, even If someone finds my argument convincing and goes and shoots up a…

"Reasonable" can be whatever the judge/jury say it is. That can vary wildly. There are laws on the books in which the statute specifies "reasonable" and a judge has determined that it's an absolute liability offense because determining reasonableness is too hard and would frustrate the legislatures intent. (Even though this conflicts with other precedential opinion which states you can't ignore the letter of the law…

>"Reasonable" can be whatever the judge/jury say it is."

Not really. The boundaries of "reasonable" are... wait for... it reasonableness.

I.e. if a jury or a judge isn't reasonable, then an appeals court can overturn it. A judge or jury is not given free reign to determine anything to be reasonable.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#358

Post by freejazz »

kneebonian wrote: post #276
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of the US, everything I’ve seen suggests the right seeks authoritarianism more than the left does, doing things like getting books they don’t agree with banned, working to eliminate the votes of those not aligned with them, and weakening the barrier between church and state.

[flagged]

Surely there is a reasonable response to the poster that doesn't involve just a list of strawmen?

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#359

Post by s1artibartfast »

farmaway wrote: post #325
s1artibartfast wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hyperbolic nonsense to say laws are almost never enforced that way. There are real biases and Injustice, but it doesn't a disservice do any reasonable debate to make such exaggerating claims

It's not an exaggeration. My city government has funded a "Black Excellence Center" which will use public funds to build a racially-exclusive art gallery/business incubator/cultural space for black people, who represent ~6% of my city's population and are not excluded from any of the similar places which already exist: https://www.theblackcenter.org/ This is blatantly unconstitutional, but no one has challenged it in…

I take your point. I thought you were speaking about "the law' in general, and not specifically commenting equal opportunity laws

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#360

Post by jimbo9991 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #271
Joeboy wrote: post #11

> few liberal-minded commentators seemed eager to say Rushdie was entirely without fault This does not match my recollection. As I recall things, Rushdie was vigorously defended by the left, which at the time quite liked the idea of freedom of speech. At least in the UK, can't speak for anywhere else.

There was kind of a moment around 9/11 & invasion of Iraq&Afghanistan when the "left" (a term I hate, but I'll put aside that hate for now) pivoted on how it treated Islam, Islamic countries & immigrants and speech which was inflammatory around Islam. And in that context I think there was on the whole some sympathy on "the left" for Rushdie before, and less so after. (But like, I also think you can't make any broad g…

Hitchens is still a liberal whether he is neoconservative or not because neoconservatism is a form of liberalism.

Its just "liberalism in one country", or "great power liberalism" i.e. in the US context the constitution doesn't apply to our enemies, which regardless of whether or not it is moral or wise in modern times, it is certainly an accurate reading of the text and intent of the constitution.

Neoconservatism for instance is almost always framed as defending liberal societies against illiberal societies, as an ideology its adherents hold liberalism in very high regard. The common arguments against neoconservatism are that they hold liberalism in too high of regard/violently high regard, and of course that you cannot be truly liberal if you are illiberal in fighting illiberalism. I still remember that Poppins quote being used by neocons to justify ugly wars, before it became popular with young Democrats during the Trump years.

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