Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

Post by ghjm » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 5:23 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #27

droithomme wrote: post #8

> The much-misconstrued statement of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that free speech does not give you the right to shout fire in a crowded theater is now being used to curtail speech that might provoke a violence-prone minority. This is very incorrect to say it is misconstrued. In Schenck vs US, the Court was prosecuting a pacifist who distributed pamphlets protesting the involuntary draft in World War I, arguing tha…

> The decision was an extremely bad one and the passage by Holmes was inflammatory rhetoric since the case was clearly never about shouting fire in a theatre, it was about peacefully and reasonably protesting unconstitutional action by the government. It's an interesting theory that the thirteenth amendment prohibits conscription, but it's never been upheld in court.

Post by milfot » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 5:26 AM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #36

milfot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick question, do you actually think it is the 'militant' or the 'islam' that scares the west? And once you figure out the (right) answer to that question, please rewrite your post to replace 'islamists' with 'militants'. The real lesson here is what better way to mobilise a generation of a nation into militancy than occupy their country, sell off their assets, kill 5% of the population and then insult their religio…

> please rewrite your post to replace 'islamists' with 'militants'. No need to rewrite anything, it's both their hostility and philosophical differences that scare us. Overcoming that fear and reaffirming our values is the basis for one of the most important texts in the European culture — The Song of Roland. EDIT: I do know what you mean and I'm sorry but those are just feel-good platitudes. West quite obviously is…

Post by maxwin » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 5:27 AM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #34

RobAtticus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that all murders happen because the murderer hates the victim? I think it's very possible for their to be violent non-hate crimes (e.g., murder for hire, killing witnesses to another crime, etc).

No I don't. You are right of course. I just find the term "hate crime" a bit pointless. As if violence against a person is worse if the motive was hatred or that person is ... {pick any of: gay, black, white, atheist, catholic, protestant, American, muslim, ...}

Post by justsee » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 5:28 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #14

javajosh wrote: post #9

Why can't the article just come out and say what it means? Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. The simple lesson here is that if you want to stop non-believers from doing blasphemy, violent reprisals work . And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one.…

> Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. This is such a stupid strategy. The right thing to do is to look at the root cause of all this. After all, there are lots of angry people all across the world that hate the Western world and want to hurt it, but most can't. What sets the Arabs…

Post by mcantelon » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 5:35 AM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #9

Why can't the article just come out and say what it means? Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. The simple lesson here is that if you want to stop non-believers from doing blasphemy, violent reprisals work . And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one.…