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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

#371

Post by [deleted] »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #365
jimbo9991 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Before his neo-con conversion, Hitchens was explicitly some kind of social democrat or socialist, but not "liberal" in the US sense in that he routinely viciously criticized American liberals for their hypocrisy and for their pro-capital, pro-imperialist positions. Jacobin had a reasonably decent article about this recently. https://jacobin.com/2022/09/christopher-hitchens-essays-left... But yes I understand you're m…

[deleted]

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

#372

Post by Zetice »

jimbo9991 wrote: post #368
Zetice wrote: post #127

Sigh, every single time this comes up, people gloss over the part of freedom of speech that involves free association. I’m free to say, “i hate ”, and you’re free to refuse to associate with me as a result of that. It’s so simple. The government can’t, but you can. As long as we all agree with that, then yeah freedom of speech is great, you just don’t get to stop applying it when you feel satisfied.

Hate to have to bring up the obvious fact that free association hasn't existed since the 1960s in practice, and in certain ways much longer. I think this is almost certainly a good thing, but it's disingenuous to pretend that free association is something that we practice in the US. It simply isn't the current law and it probably shouldn't be.

It 100% exists, that’s what “cancel culture” actually is.

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

#373

Post by more_corn »

Calling for violence is speech and sure as shit leads to violence.

In fact if we want to be intellectually honest speech should be recognized as a legitimate form of violence.

If you ever decide to do violence you’re going to be a lot more effective if you have a mob at your back.

To be clear I’m not calling for mob violence. I’m Just being intellectually honest. Speech is an effective tool in the execution of violence.

Whatever else your politics we can all agree that “Go to the capital and fight like hell” led to a mob attacking, entering and committing violence at the capital. It was certainly more effective than the speaker showing up personally with his fists up.

Was the speech itself violence? No. Did it directly encourage violence and then that violence happened? Yes. In that sense was it an effective orchestration of violence? Yep.

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

#374

Post by [deleted] »

flangola7 wrote: post #308
Zetice wrote: post #127

Sigh, every single time this comes up, people gloss over the part of freedom of speech that involves free association. I’m free to say, “i hate ”, and you’re free to refuse to associate with me as a result of that. It’s so simple. The government can’t, but you can. As long as we all agree with that, then yeah freedom of speech is great, you just don’t get to stop applying it when you feel satisfied.

People also forget that freedom of expression isn't a license to go spreading harmful material that hurts people or undermines the values of democracy itself. >Guarantee of rights and freedoms – section 1 > >1. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic socie…

[deleted]

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

#375

Post by giantg2 »

freejazz wrote: post #357
giantg2 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Years of costly appeals will still ruin your life.

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

#376

Post by imgabe »

flangola7 wrote: post #260
rajin444 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument always comes up too and you end up with certain people trying to force others to bake cakes a certain way. The whole idea of “protected classes” spits in the face of free speech. I think free speech is a noble goal but can only really exist when we don’t live in a zero sum world. Until then: > "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more or less." Alice responded to Humpty Du…

The cake thing isn't about speech but public accomodations.

No it wasn’t. The issue was a custom made cake. The court ruled that the cake constituted an artistic expression (i.e. speech) on the part of the baker and they couldn’t be compelled to produce speech they disagreed with. If they just wanted a premade cake there would have been no issue.

Suppose at some point gay marriage is overturned, and some conservative group goes to a gay baker and commissions a cake saying "Hooray no more gay marriage! God is good!". Should they be compelled to bake that cake since they can't discriminate on the basis of religion?

You might disagree with that logic, but the ruling had to do with free speech, not public accommodations. Commissioning a custom work is not a public accommodation.

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

#377

Post by s1artibartfast »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #361
s1artibartfast wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hm. Agreed. I meant common but I agree that the words are not interchangeable.

Thanks for clarifying, that makes more sense.

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

#378

Post by cmh89 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #355
cmh89 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>That's already a crime friend. Conspiracy.

Yes it is, because the State decided to censor and restrict 'free speech' in that case.

>I think you are smart enough to understand the difference between free speech and plotting a murder.

Sure, I'm very open to my belief we should censor and punish some speech. I just wanted to establish that you do support censorship and you do believe that sometimes saying 'don't let those words affect you' isn't an appropriate reaction.

>Who do we give the power of deciding what speech is banned in modern day America?

That power already resides with Congress and then hypothetically the Supreme Court. Functioning democracies can have conversations and then decide when, where, and how to restrict speech. We've been doing that for 250 years.

>I just don't think anyone in the United States should have the power to ban ideas.

We've already established that you think the government can and should restrict ideas. 'Free speech absolutist' are rarely actually absolutist.

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

#379

Post by jojobas »

freejazz wrote: post #251
wonderwonder wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woman convinced her boyfriend to kill himself and was convicted: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michelle-carter-found-g...

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…

Where did you get that? The court decision does not mention "duty of care" (which is a well established term for situations that have nothing in common with this one). She created a different kind of duty for herself, not by any of the preceding messages but rather by the final "get back in" message.

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

#380

Post by throwawayacc6 »

freejazz wrote: post #366
throwawayacc6 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, I get it. WHOOSH! No you don't. >You think you are demonstrating that the post you are mocking is meaningless because you can artificially insert other words to it in an arbitrary fashion that renders it meaningless? They're not arbitrary, nor were they inserted. >Shocking that you are being smarmy about it, IMAX-level projection. >I guess that comes with the territory of not realizing the pie is in your own fac…

It's not even an argument, it's a rhetorical fallacy. There really is no good reason for you to conduct yourself this way.

>It's not even an argument, it's a rhetorical fallacy

It is an argument, and it's not a rhetorical fallacy.

>There really is no good reason for you to conduct yourself this way.

Maybe I was being a bit much.

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