Far too often people forget that Right to Free Speech is not your first right, and it is superseded by other human rights above it.
Your right to Free Speech only applies as long as it doesn’t interfere with other people’s rights to safety and freedom from prejudice, hate, harm, etc…
It’s not that complicated and yet countless people always fuck something so straightforward up.
the tolerance paradox
If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people.
The solution is that it’s a social contract. I agree to tolerate your weirdness and quirks. You agree to do the same to myself and others.
By being intolerant (without a good reason), they break the social contract. Therefore they are no longer protected by it either.
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anyone telling you to defend nazi’s isnt a lib.
You’d think that’d be obvious and you wouldnt have to be told that, yet here we are, having to tell you the blatant fuckin obvious.
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Oh you sweet summer child.
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You really need someone to explain to you that the guy in the comic is a drawing and is just a fable for making a point, and not a real liberal actually defending real nazis?
The problem is it’s not a simplistic line. I strongly disagree with the nazi viewpoint. They also break the social contract so often they’ve voided all rights to be covered by it. At the same time, some people want to take it too far. There are still later lines we shouldn’t cross. (E.g. A mob beating Nazis with baseball bats is never acceptable).
Unfortunately, Nazis like playing games, and trying to mess with the scale of problems. Some people try and step in and “help” without realising that they are dealing with untrustworthy information. This can tie people’s minds into an impressive knot, just as they intended.
(E.g. A mob beating Nazis with baseball bats is never acceptable).
real heavy “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” vibes from this.
Endgame for fascists, nazis, authoritarians, etc is violence. Violence against you, me, and anyone else they declare “undesirable”
The only way to defeat them is violence. To protect a civil society and a way of life that allows humanity to blossom in all its various shades and shapes.
You hide behind betters, pretending to have a moral highground because you didnt get the blood on your hands, while benefiting from the blood on everyone elses.
I never said I’m not willing to get blood on my hands. Violence can be required. It’s an unfortunate sign though that we have already failed badly. However, if violence is required, it should be controlled, and focused. A mob beating with fists is spontaneous, a mob using baseball bats is a lynching.
The difference between a mob and a militia is in the organisation and responsibilities. A militia has a chain of command, and so someone who can stop things going too far. They can also make sure the actual job is done, rather than straying into mindless violence.
If violence is required, we are morally required to apply it. However, we are also morally required to apply it precisely in controlled amounts, towards the required goal. Otherwise we can easily degenerate into the exact thing we claim to fight.
The other thing to remember is that we can be baited. Mindless violence might feel good, but if it doesn’t advance the cause, it’s worthless. Even worse, it can justify the actions of the other side, even if the balance is still disproportionate.
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I don’t think it’s so much violence itself but the threat of violence. Nazis and fascists need to know that if they get violent, we’ll return it a hundredfold in kind.
It’s kind of like the phrase that a sheathed sword is sometimes enough to keep the peace. The threat of it being used is what keeps people in line. What we need are more visible sheathed swords – unless of course we need to draw the weapon.
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The amount of people trying to middleground this shit to advance nazi causes shows you just how fucking good they are at infiltrating discussions to try and shift their bullshit to a more normalized position with this soft hands shit.
Its blatantly black and white. If you arent against it, you are enabling it. Not a lot of things in life are black and white, but this particular instance is. There is no middle ground, no concessions, nothing. Only absolute rejection. Anything less is just is just letting them win and advance.
This doesn’t seem so much of a liberal thing but a social centrist thing. There’s plenty of people on the left that are socialist/communist but don’t care as much about social issues. I recall someone arguing that the people who wanted to kidnap Gov Whitmer were experiencing “economic anxiety”. You see it too with leftists who float the idea of working with MAGA hats for economic populism.
It’s like when people say there’s basically only one party or there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans. From a purely economic perspective, sure, the differences are rather small. Pretty much just comes down to taxes. But the two parties are polar opposites when it comes to social issues. To say there’s no difference is basically ignoring the social aspect.
Enlightened centrist or liberal or apologist, it’s just cringe.
Mmmm, milk toast.
Someone else being a twat won’t make me violate my principles. I’m not good to others because they’re good to me. I’m good to others because they’re an end themselves, not a means to my ends.
If you are good to nazi’s because they are good to you, regardless of what they do to others, Then your principles, and you as a person, are shit, and you should be treated as nothing but an infiltrator for their cause, because that is what you are.
I’m good to everyone because they’re humans. Even pieces of shit.
Whatever you say, Nazi. Enjoy your contemporaries.
And enjoy your day.
So you’d be kind and nice to Hitler?
I’ve actually answered this before. While you guys are arguing over who gets to peel his dick like a banana I’d slit his throat.
That doesn’t sound like being good to him.
And that’s completely your right to do. However, that is not what the tolerance contract covers. It goes beyond what most people would tolerate normally. Also, people cannot both break the social contract, and then insist you hold up the other end.
By example, I’ve previously had long debates over nazi Germany and Hitler’s economic recovery. I would even tolerate Nazis, if they followed the social contract from their side. Unfortunately, the various Nazis groups regularly break that contract. They then try and hide behind it, when others take offence.
Conversely, I also disagree with the “tankies”. They tend not to break the social contract however. This gives them the right to reasonable tolerance of them, and their views. They respect others, despite disagreeing with them. They, in turn, gain a level of respect in discussions.
Don’t get me wrong, I am tolerant of a lot, from purely moralistic reasoning. The social contract is a larger entity however. It formalises what many of us feel. It also shows us where the lines are, beyond which people are abusing our tolerance. It’s the larger social version of our internal morals.
I don’t find social contract arguments all that convincing, but we can just pretend my social contract is “no violence or you get fucked” and ignore that. Tankies are way easier to talk to than Nazis, though I don’t really find myself talking to nazis often - just run of the mill bigots. Anyone with consistent standards or ethics is fairly easy to talk to, even if we disagree.
In my personal life I tend to take on more than half of the social costs in some friendships and I probably do the same when arguing with certain types of people. I’m more tolerant than I strictly need to be, but I feel like treating people like that is necessary for me.
The social contract concept is over-used by people who try to make it cover too much. It becomes a one-sided contract of adhesion which you’re assumed to have agreed to simply by existing. This, however, is simple reciprocation—it’s more like a truce than a contract. It would be unreasonable to expect tolerance from others while refusing to grant the same tolerance to them.
Of course there is no obligation to be intolerant just because the other person is; you are free to make a better choice.
Honestly these days if you say you tolerate someones ideas, but you don’t agree with them, then you are just called a ist word
There are levels of tolerance in there. E.g. I’m not gay. I have no interest in men. The idea of being sexual with a man is mildly repulsive to me.
With this, the bare minimum of tolerance is not actively working against the existence and legality of being gay.
Next is the “none of my business” level of tolerance. What happens between 2 consenting adults is down to them.
Above that is acceptance. Gay people have developed their own culture and community. While it’s not for me, I recognise that its existence and celebration makes our overall culture more dynamic and interesting. It also provides a lot of happiness to others. Accepting and rolling with that provides a lot of positivity to others, without significant cost to me.
However, if I was approached by a gay guy and propositioned, there is no issue with me turning them down. I try and be polite about it, but being firm isn’t being intolerant. (Luckily, most gay guys take being rejected a LOT better than some straight guys do).
Going back to your example. Going up to a black guy and expressing that, while you tolerate them not being a slave, you don’t agree with it. This is intolerant, it is an incredibly strong dog whistle of your tolerance is forced.
Conversely, if, during a debate on religion and it’s effects, you express your view that you accept people are religious, but don’t agree with it, that is better. The context is a debate, and you can explain your reasoning better. It also lacks the dog whistle element that makes it bigoted.
Basically, context matters, A LOT.
Thanks, really good thinking :)
I’ve found crystallising my morals into words and logic is useful. It both makes it easier to explain, as well as finding holes in my views. My moral framework has advanced significantly over my life. At no point did I think I was immoral, however, I have found significant flaws in my viewpoints. I’ve also found a lot of biases, which I’m mildly horrified that I ever held.
I’m still far from perfect, but aiming that way, as best I can.
semantic satiation incoming
Thanks. I need to put my mental dissonance to words.
This comic is a good example of the Paradox of Tolerance. You can’t tolerate intolerance… it does not end well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_toleranceTolerance of everything except intolerance, except that of intolerance. “Paradox” resolved.
It’s not a paradox at all if you view society and government as a social contract entered by all parties. The conditions for being protected by the tolerance provided for in the Constitution is that you extend that tolerance to everyone else. The intolerant have breached that contract and are therefore no longer protected by it.
Yes, tolerance itself is valued, and if you’re not tolerant, you need not be tolerated by others.
Tolerance is a social contract.
Those who dont abide by it, try to use it as a weapon against those who do, to enable their intolerance to grow and spread.
Those who don’t abide by the social contract are a threat to society as a whole, and should not receive its protection.
Because you end up empowering them, and weakening society against them.
Intolerance must be put down, with force. It is not hypocritical. It is not paradoxical. For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further, because if you don’t… nothing will thrive but the weeds.
That’s a very heavy responsibility though. And the abuse of it is the exact reason our founders gave us such an extreme right. Alas we were also supposed to maintain a healthy public dialogue and rewrite the Constitution every 20 years. Doing half the job doesn’t end well.
For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further,
What does this look like?
That’s kinda the reason why I believe the solution to defeat intolerance is by talking directly to the intolerant and showing how they are wrong otherwise you’re just showing them you are the intolerant fascist. By attacking their freedom of speech your proving that you attack free speech. In history it seems that fascism arizes when there is injustice like how when the Germans were oppressed after WW1 it was the fascists that had a solution to the injustice. Mind you a not very good solution but when you are dirt poor humiliated forced to live in a land desimated by war the Nazi party was a pretty effective way to get back at the world that destroyed your home. Had we caught onto the injustice the Germans were facing we could have prevented the rise of Nazi Germany. Granted at the time the Germans would have told anyone who listened that it was the Jews that made everything bad happen but if your smart enough one could see past the hate and see exactly why these people are hurt to the point of blaming a religion and feeling the need to puff themselves as superior any nation could have caught onto that and become the hero the Germans made the Nazis out to be. Just look at any other regime like Soviet Russia or North Korea they rose because they had a issue and only evil people were around to wear the cape of a hero.
In an ideal world this would be enough, but you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into. For your strategy to work, the intolerant have to be acting in good faith and listening to reason. And often, that’s the antithesis of bigotry.
Yes, the left has to counter hateful rhetoric with their own rhetoric and propose viable alternatives. Making the issue about freedom of speech, like this comic does, plays right into the hands of the right wing. They know they can win that battle, because most people are in favor of free speech.
That’s the part that made me uncomfortable as well. Sounds like a planty euphemism for violence. The rest I find agreeable.
I guess I should have made it more explicit then, since you think its merely a colorful euphemism and not a direct statement.
Words and feelings don’t defeat authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants.
Violence does.
You’d be sitting there with a swastika on your arm in a world without jews, roma, and gays, trans people, and far more… if good men and women didnt take up violence against the ideology of hate that these people push.
They don’t care about yours words. Your tolerance. They use them as toys for amusement, laughing as you exhaust yourself trying to argue against their ever increasingly absurd statements, and as tools to spread their intolerance and hatred.
You cant debate or compromise with them, because debating gives them false legitimacy and compromise does nothing but sacrifice society to advance their position and gains.
You should be uncomfortable that these people are emboldened to come out and make their speeches. to fly their flags. to hang their banners and to assault government buildings at the direct command of their masters.
They have no problem using violence to eradicate you and everything you hold dear.
and you being uncomfortable about it will do nothing but make them laugh. Because its not a matter of if they come for you, its when.
And if you insist on inaction and being the last one standing because you did not fight… well, you’ll be the final verse of a poem and no one will be left to speak for you.
Trying to paint this as hypocritical, as paradoxical, as cognitive dissonance, or anything else, is nothing but tools of soft handed approach for the intellectuals of the ideology of hate to try and carve a space of false legitimacy for themselves via compromise and exploitation of societies tolerance.
These people are a direct threat to everything we hold dear as a people, as a society, and as a species, and need to be treated as such.
Thanks for taking the time to almost radicalize me.
Well said
Intolerance must be put down, with force. It is not hypocritical. It is not paradoxical.
The human capacity for cognitive dissonance will never cease to amaze me.
Lotta talk in here about free speech that seems to be missing the point.
The right for someone to spew hateful rhetoric freely does not supercede my right not to tolerate it. The first amendment does not give the hate monger, nor the englightened centrist immunity from the social consequences of their public opinions.
Exactly: in order to promote tolerance we must be intolerant to intolerance. It’s a paradox described by Popper.
Nor does it magically make their ideas into law. For a democracy to do this it has to actually accept the totalitarian ideas. Widespread ignorance is therefore a precondition for the “paradox” to hold true.
Ironically, ignoring that is a classic appeal to totalitarian principles - claiming that, without totalitarian controls on some aspect of human behavior, people must necessary produce some bad outcome, therefore, banning bad behavior is necessary. It ignores really the entire moral evolution and capability for reasoning of individuals in favor of a simplistic mechanical explanation of people. The simplistic language of “tolerance” in the paradox obfuscates key details - what we advocate with “free speech” is that the government may not criminally punish forms of speech, not that we must respect every idea equally on conceptual grounds, or especially not put every idea, flawed or not, into practice, or law. The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
I highly suggest you look into the philosophical background of the democratic movement and liberalism before you continue to repeat the fruits of American Slavers arguing that “states rights”.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
That IS the best idea, the societal framework that gives the best outcome for the population. Come on, with this reply, seriously.
No, Democracy brings about not the best idea, but the most commonly accepted one, and there is often stark difference. There is a reason the democratic philosophers never actually mentioned “the ability for democracy to find the best idea” and many instead outright warned of the potential for bad ideas, going all the way back to Plato’s accounting of Socrates, in the works of enlightenment and revolutionary philosophers such as John Lock, or the governmental structure of the United States its self.
The governmental philosophy that does promise the best results on the other hand is a technocracy.
But do, please keep going about the platitude you heard.
That is the formula for the best outcome in a democracy. Nobody is talking about how Greek philosophers described it. Pipe down.
This is one of those really nasty reddit patterns I was enjoying not encountering here. You leave a thoughtful/well-reasoned message one morning, the next day you wake up and some guy is still hounding you about his bad-faith reading of your comment. I write “the entire idea behind a free democracy”, in context clearly I’m talking about how you actually make a society work best with a democratic model, and he starts replying with a “correction” about early Greek philosophers’ takes on democracy, like this is in any way what I was talking about.
but your message is not as thought out and well reasoned as you think it is. You are literally just repeating stuff you have heard somewhere, without knowing the context or the entire surrounding school of thought, and then of course you double down on your dunning Kruger interpretation of what a democracy does.
And I wouldn’t call John Lock or Alexander Hamilton a “Greek philosopher”, but you do need to understand that their idea of democracy stems from the Renaissance and Enlightenment era’s rediscovery of Greco-Roman philosophy, so if you are referring to democracy as a governmental structure, you are talking about these Greek philosophers.
I am not “just repeating stuff I have heard somewhere”, I have reasoned out myself the basic truth that a society where the will of the public dictates its structure benefits immensely from the population being educated. Regardless of what Socrates or Plato said, regardless of what the American “founding fathers” said. Done with this conversation, blocking.
There should never be legal consequences for it. I am absolutely for everyone and anyone to be able to say as much racist, sexist, homophobic or what-have-you crap as they want. BUT I agree that the social consequences should be allowed to thrive. Act like a jerk; people are jerks right back. Act like an absolute piece of shit; guess how people treat you? I think that all this sabre rattling about censoring hate speech is just driving the attention-whores into the public forum, not because they actually hate the people they say they do, but because they’re attention whores.
When I was growing up it was never about tolerating intolerance. It was about dragging it out into the sunlight so you could kill it. They have a right to say anything they want so we can make an example of them and they don’t go into hiding and do dumb shit.
Of course that depended on the mainstream leadership believing in democracy and not leaning into extremism. Because the GOP has switched sides on democracy it’s a liability now instead of a strength. A swing too far from the laws of England our founders meant to forestall.
Amusing, when exactly was this utopian culture in existence because as far as I’m aware the last 2000 years of society directly disagree with you.
Who said anything about a utopia? I’m talking about one aspect, a belief in an American Democracy/Republic (I know the D word triggers some people out there and that’s not the conversation right now). If you read our founders writing they considered public debate to be the best way to maintain that project because the previous government would jail you for criticism. That’s it. That’s the reasoning and context. Nobody claimed it was perfect
I’m aware, what period of time are you speaking of.
You need to narrow down your founding fathers since approximately a third were openly and objectively anti democratic.
The period of time regardless of what era you choose is not as you portray it.
Narrow your argument says the dude who’s made 0 actual claims and instead chooses to do the old “you’re just wrong” approach straight out of the gate.
Thanks for the empty conversation
When I was growing up it was never about tolerating intolerance. It was about dragging it out into the sunlight so you could kill it.
This period of time has not existed in recorded human history point blank period.
We choose issues and we pursue those issues but that state of affairs where injustices are inherently dragged out into the light has never existed and certainly not in the United States.
Shit if you’re 60 you’ve lived through literal systemic racism which has existed for what 300 years and still exists. You’d also have lived in a time where a woman needed an adult male related to her to sign so she could get a bank account.
Take off the nostalgia binders boss.
Are you living under a rock?
What do you mean we’ve never dragged out issues into the light so they can be handled?
Antifa?
Martin Luther King Jr?
I’m done with this conversation, I’m losing brain cells by the second
Nope just on one.
I mean exactly as I said, you’re blinded by nostalgia.
Antifa?
That is certainly a question just not one anyone could answer, what do you have against antifa.
Martin Luther King Jr
Famously publicly assassinated for dragging things out into the light, good point…
I’m done with this conversation, I’m losing brain cells by the second
Well don’t huff gas then boss.
Not sure to what actually he’s refering to but he’s not wrong though. The foundation of ours “western liberal democraties” wasn’t really the ideal we have today about what democracy is or even worst it wasn’t either the preffered regime of a large part of the rulling classes at that time.
In order to not have an empty conversation :
“I don’t know what he’s talking about but he’s right”
Nah fam.
I’am pretty sure you get what I mean. I can’t speak in the name of the guy and since he didn’t developed his point or give references I can only assume what he mean’t and I can be wrong, yet the statement in itslef is not wrong.
I developed a bit more my point and gave you a reference that leads to more references if you find the subject interessting…
It’s kind of ironic from you to complain about and empty conversation and do the exact same thing right after.
They have a right to say anything they want so we can make an example of them and they don’t go into hiding and do dumb shit.
Well… that’s not very freedom of you.
I’m not the government. The amendment doesn’t protect their speech from mine.
True. Social shaming is a very effective tool against this stuff. I draw a hard line at laws that stop it, but I see your point.
This is one of the wisest things I’ve read.
You may have not read much.
Hey leave them alone. I like the idea that I might not be the dullest tool in the shed.
Of course that is freedom. It’s the freedom of association and freedom of speech of the people appealed by the words of these bigots.
No one is free of the consequences of their words.
What are you on about, mate? This is the same sort of rhetoric you see form the GOP, “Make America great again.”
Dude, they literally took the Capitol building in an attempt to prevent the election results from being certified. If the GOP didn’t want to back Trump after that I’d respect that. But they fell in line. They’re okay with that. Which means they are not okay with democracy. There’s no democracy without free elections.
Do you think I’m defending the GOP?
Well you’re either defending them or defending tolerance of them. So take your pick.
No, I’m accusing your “things used to be better” rhetoric for being the same as their “make America great again” rhetoric.
No one ever gets the point until people start getting beaten, threatened, wounded, maimed or killed. They’ll keep arguing the details until there is an authoritarian government telling you what you can or can’t do or say.
Then everyone stands around wondering how it all happened.
Most regular people I know just want to live life and not really bother with anyone else in a negative way … in fact most people I’ve ever known would do something good for the other person if it meant it would help. Most people are just good and have a very good nature.
It’s the psychotic few billionaires and millionaires out there that want a world with authoritarian fascist government in power because it means those wealthy few get to keep all their money and if they do get their way, they can exponentially grow the wealth they already have. It’s all about money and power.
It’s all about a handful of morons who aren’t aware of their finite life that believe they can become temporary rulers of the world.
Some number of people are getting maimed, wounded, or killed. Do people have a threshold number at which point they decide it’s too much?
I like to explain it as such:
The Mediterranean is full of dead bodies from asylum seekers, but people still bath there. People will not bathe in a pool, if that pool has a single cadaver in it. Some might say that it doesn’t count because you can’t see the bodies in the Mediterranean, but you can in the pool. but even if the pool has an angle and the corpse obscured behind said angle, people won’t swim in it if they are told this in advance. so clearly there must be some ratio of dead people to water that society sees as acceptable.
so to answer your question, yes, and we haven’t reached that point yet, and the right is doing it’s best to keep that bar as high as possible.
I like this explanation too, actually
Never expected to see this joke used in such a way
Usually hunger … if you look through history, change doesn’t happen in societies because people are poor, abused, imprisoned, impoverished or have a lack of luxuries … change often happens when people go hungry because at that point they all realize that if they have no food, they will die … and when they can see death, especially their own death, they no longer have anything to lose and will fight for some kind of change …
And even that want for change is dangerous because it can come in many forms … good change, bad change, fascist change, socialist change, democratic change, authoritarian change.
in your post the thing I liked the most, the most significant in my opinion, it’s
They’ll keep arguing the details
this is the sum of all the thread. there’s so much on this few words. in my understanding,vsums up perfectly what I’d describe as the paranoia feeding the knitpicking and the extenuating effort to manage the malice. thank you
Consider… what went wrong is that no one pushed back on Panel Two using the very same free marketplace of ideas.
Panel One: Fighting for everyone’s right to express themselves is fine. Good as it is.
Panel Two: Destroy the bigot’s arguments and describe to the public what society will be like if the bigot gets their way. Is that tolerating intolerance?
Exactly. That’s how we were able to nip the whole global warming thing in the bud. Thank god rational arguments always prevail.
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Panel Two: Destroy the bigot’s arguments and describe to the public what society will be like if the bigot gets their way. Is that tolerating intolerance?
I can’t believe no one thought of this. And here planned parenthood and the grieving families at funerals of vets have just been sitting by listening to the noise.
Calling people out on their BS is the right line to draw for me personally, but I still want that person to have the right to express their opinion. We just need to teach people that it’s ok to be wrong as long as you can admit it and learn from it. No idea gets processed until pushed from an opposing party.
Sitting back and doing nothing teaches nothing. Calling it appalling and informing the person why they’re wrong is the right step toward change. But if you can’t say it in a way that makes them hear you, then you’re doomed to have the argument all over again.
I’d say that’s tolerating intolerance and is the right thing to do. Once they switch to violence though, remember you have a robust right to defend yourself, your community and your loved ones.
Yes it is tolerating intolerance.
But then you are called anti islamist or isla mophobic. Yes, i went there.
Nice, dark touch: The last panel has two people being deported. They seem to form an SS rune.
It also loosely reminds of Niemöller:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Hadn’t spotted the people in the background, thanks for pointing them out.
What is being done to you might as well happen to me feels like the core idea of solidarity. It is different from sympathy.
Hate speech is not the same as free speech. Free speech was for reporters to keep them from being jailed so it’s not even applicable for what this guy thinks he’s defending with that phrase.
That’s not entirely accurate. The first amendment mentions both freedom of speech and freedom of press. Freedom of speech is for individuals sharing ideas, not just reporters. That applies both conceptually and legally. Hate speech is seen as a necessary exemption by many, because of the potential ramifications (see comic). That isn’t the same thing as saying free speech wouldn’t apply even without said exemption; even though it may lead you to the same conclusion.
If you don’t like the reprocussions and losing your job for yelling sexist or racist comments at people out in the world, that’s not what freedom of speech protects.
It’s also worth noting that the government can’t limit free speech. We as citizens can boycott, bully, and harass hateful speech and should
Citizens have their own limitations when their response strays outside the realm of speech. Boycotts are fine—you have no obligation to buy what they’re selling. However, harassment is not okay, and bullying is not okay. These things are wrong (and coincidentally illegal) on their own merits, and not a justified response to someone else’s speech.
I wouldn’t go so far as saying bullying hateful and racist actors is illegal, but I think it’s a fair point that you have to use judgment and empathy when dealing with differing opinions
It’s also worth noting that the government can’t limit free speech.
But it can and does! Go on Facebook and detail how you will storm and overthrow your state government next Monday at noon and see how long it takes for your speech to land you in jail. Or incite a stampede in a cinema by yelling “Fire!”. And that’s just two examples. Libel and slander are other examples where “just words” can get you in trouble with the government.
The idea of complete unlimited speech in the US is a fantasy. They clearly can and do draw lines at what you can and can’t say in public. The only question is where this lines are.
Yeah, fair. That’s a whole nother can of worms to this discussion where physical harm results from words rather than simply expressing abhorrent beliefs
Well, WW2 in Europe and it’s resulting horrors was basically the result of Hitler and Mussolini “simply expressing abhorrent beliefs”. That’s how they got into power in the first place and also how they got the better part of their population behind their insane dreams.
I agree with you there
I’m with you on boycotting. Not with you on the abuse. Boycotting is not abuse. Though the bros with the cancel culture shirts seem to think so.
Hate speech is not the same as free speech.
“Free” is not a type of speech. It is the ability to speak. You can freely say all kinds of things. They could be hateful or not.
Germany has extremely harsh laws on language which promotes Nazis, but they clearly still have free speech. We can discourage hateful language and still maintain freedom of expression.
Yes it is possible. The problem is the amendment itself and the context in which it was written. Germany got to make their laws about it 150 years later, taking advantage of modern democratic experience. In 1792 it was extremely prevalent that governments would use any excuse to shut down political opposition. Thus the difference.
We should absolutely have evolved it by now instead of turning it into scripture.
We should absolutely have evolved it by now instead of turning it into scripture.
But you did and still have that very option. That’s exactly what the amendments are for! The first was enacted just a few years after the foundation of the US and the last was added in 1992. The US does have the tools to better safeguard themself against fascists if they want to. But of course that’s rather difficult when a big part of the GOP has absolutely no scruple to flirt with overthrowing the whole system.
It’s not just that. There are large parts of the US where they teach the Bill of Rights next to the Ten Commandments. Theoretically we could amend the first or second amendment. In reality I chose the word “scripture” for a reason.
Oh absolutely. It hasn’t changed well for the times.
Would you stick your hand inside the massive machine that is Americas laws and founding documents to fix those gears?
Unfortunately, I’m not so sure we can pause such a machine with all the other chaos that goes around us. Maybe it’s time America finally get their fucking hands out of every other country and start handling its own shit so we can stay a country instead of immanent collapse.
Would you stick your hand inside the massive machine that is Americas laws and founding documents to fix those gears?
That’s exactly what the amendments are for. And the last of them was enacted in 1992. So the tools are there.
The main problem is that a big part of the GOP have and will continue to betray everything the US has stood for if it means for them to keep a bit longer in power.
That’s a good point. We’ve made many good corrections as time has gone on.
What are some things that the GOP did specifically to make it harder to do amendments or that are trying to to do? It’s always good to name names and put things into specific words. Otherwise it’s just another loose, general statement without any real backing know what I mean?
It’s never a good time and the longer we wait the worse it gets. If a Constitutional Convention isn’t ratified then we can keep on going with the previous version. The biggest problem is one side has been working on locking up state legislatures and they aren’t going to play nice with representation at a convention.
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Oh cool! Muddy waters!
I’ll just go ahead and stick this filter in here.
Hate speech: abusive or threatening speech or writing used to express prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.
Pretty simple, you don’t get to threaten, scare or abuse people with your words. That infringes on their right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Shall we of course discuss the one grey area “or similar grounds” or was there another direction you’d like to take this?
Oh go cry in your racist pillow that you can’t scream racisms at people on the street.
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The thing is, every culture has rightwing extremists that want to exploit that.
I’m not aware of a single one that’s all rightwing extremists, and any large enough is going to have some.
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Nah, it’s because you’re replying to a week old comment thread and then made multiple edits bitching about it I’m just going to block and forget you exist
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Yes. And “accepting” doesn’t mean love bombing for purposes of conversion, like evangelism/da’wah (only to reveal the nasty tenets after initiation into the group). And acceptance with the fundamental belief that women are subservient to men in some fucked up sense of divine order is not acceptance. If someone wants to call this an Islamophobic dog whistle, they need to get their hearing fixed.
Is this an Islamophobic dog whistle?
If you hear the whistle, you’re the dog.
A person can see a dog whistle and know it for what it is without being able to hear it. Also it’s not only dogs who can hear dog whistles; some people just have exceptionally good hearing.
Woof :3
Or a former dog. I can remember the days of Bush Jr. regularly dog whistling to Evangelicals in his addresses, and unless you were a fundie or a former fundie, you would have no idea that his speeches had built-in supersonic Jesus whistles that only the evangelicals and evangelical survivors could hear.
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I think this is a very bad idea and leads to bad places.
The culture in China is extremely insular and the Chinese state is very focused on homogenising the country into a single culture.
Should Chinese people be not allowed to move out of China?
I think discriminating on immigration based on ethnicity is an appalling idea, even if it means that sometimes a person from a bad country immigrates to where I live.
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Image Transcription:
A comic by Jennie Breeden and Obby from site TheDevilsPanties.com.
The first panel shows a mustached person with short hair wearing a t-shirt and sitting at a laptop. A speech bubble rising from the laptop reads “I just don’t think you people belong in our society!”
The second panel shows a different short-haired person wearing a t-shirt, long pants, and sneakers, sitting on a park bench and looking at a mobile phone. A speech bubble from the mobile phone reads “Well, I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I’ll fight for your right to say it.”
The third panel shows both people standing on the side of a street. The first person is holding a Bible and pointing across the road at a group of shadowed people carrying signs with hearts and pride flags. He is speaking to a crowd of people and saying “Your kind is a betrayal to God! You’re a drag on the whole country!” To which the second person is shrugging and responding “That’s appalling, but we can’t have free speech without the free marketplace of ideas!”
The fourth panel shows the first person standing at a lectern and wearing a suit with an American flag behind them and a shadowed crowd in front of them. They are saying “We will stop the woke ideology that’s destroying America!”. The second person is standing close to the foreground and shrugging, saying “Democracy needs this discourse, so let’s agree to disagree.”
The fifth panel shows the second person being dragged away by people in uniform while saying “Wait! Where are you taking me? You can’t just get rid of me!”. The first person is standing between the first person and an open paddy wagon, wearing a black uniform and looking smug as they reply “Let’s just agree to disagree.”
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Good human
Thank you, fellow human!
The problem is, if you condemn them back to the shadows and basements, they fester and pass their hatreds down within their in-group. They’ll just teach their children “the south with rise again” in private, with no pushback because others don’t know it’s happening.
At least letting them talk in the name of free speech lets you know who the Nazis/fascists/white supremacists are, instead of having them going back to using toxic, slowly indoctrinating dogwhistles and regrouping.
At the end of the day, secrecy just prolongs and exacerbates problems. We should rise or fall as a society on who we all are, not on the basis of who has the most appealing web of lies. Let the Nazis bury themselves by speaking their fucked up beliefs, because otherwise they’ll temper their messaging, which will recruit more people than the horror of their actual endgame.
You wrote three paragraphs to demonstrate how thoroughly you missed the point of this extremely blunt comic. Don’t get mad at me for pointing this out, I’m just exposing my own opinion the to purifying effect of public discourse.
I think you misinterpreted their post as anger.
No, I anticipated an angry response to providing the kind of discourse they portrayed as necessary.
Why would I be angry about what you said? You’re allowed to have a different opinion on how to react to bigots.
Because I’ve put forth no constructive criticism, I’ve not tried to explain why you’re wrong or justify my own position, nor would I accept any arguments that you put forth to try and explain your position. If I could shout over you, I would do that too. I’m arguing in bad faith. I’m not here to debate you. I’m here to make people think you’re stupid by publicly making fun of you with cheap crowd pleasing rhetoric and imply what you said is wrong because of it. This is the tactic I will use to take control of this country and you seem to think I have a right to use it.
This is the kind of discourse someone attempts when they don’t feel they can declare their fucked up beliefs overtly.
I’d rather make them feel like they can declare their fucked up beliefs without hedging or room for doubt, then inform their employer, the businesses that deal with their employer, their family, their neighbors, etc with the receipts.
Oh good, you shouted down a nazi on a street corner ranting about the inferior this and the inferior that. They’ll now temper their message, keep their job, and slowly convert the new office runner with terms like “urban” and “not real Americans.” congratulations, you’ve now got a stealth Nazi staying low insidiously making more. Thanks a ton.
What you guys aren’t understanding in this frictionless hypothetical sphere of argument is that a single Nazi, by itself, is not a threat. The problem comes when this Nazi connects with other Nazis. If Nazis can’t publicly be Nazis then finding the other ones to gang up with becomes a lot harder.
Maybe they don’t agree with the comic.
At least letting them talk in the name of free speech lets you know who the Nazis/fascists/white supremacists are
That’s great and all, but knowing who the Nazis are is just step one. Without taking additional steps, that knowledge is useless.
That knowledge literally ended the employment of a lot of white supremacists that were filmed in Charlottesville overtly chanting against Jewish people. You see? They were given enough rope, and they hanged themselves, and now those images and reputation can keep others informed about who they are and never to give them an inch.
Free speech is the absence of consequences by the state, but once you know someone is a proud white supremacist, you don’t have to keep them employed, or renew their lease, or hire them, or stay married to them, or invite them to your wedding, etc. A known Nazi can suffer social consequences all day and be socially ostracized, if they were emboldened enough to disclose that fact instead of spending their lives infecting people with shit like "I hate urban people in the inner cities." Shit like that can appeal to the weak minded.
It’d obviously be better if the Nazi ideology never surfaced in the first place, but that would require a good level of education, empathy, and social support…or as the right puts it, “leftist woke indoctrination.”
Instead you have disingenous discourse defended under the banner of free speech. Fascists have historically used this right as their anchor point to undermine Democratic institutions.
Usually they amplify their racist/hate speech, xenophobic messaging, and nationalistic fervor during times that Democratic institutions are under particularly extreme pressure by natural disasters or domestic/foreign wars. Democratic societies tend to propagate comfortable and idealistic upper/middle class citizens when they’re doing well (not under said pressures), often fostering the sentiment for a live and let live philosophy, even for those with dangerous hateful ideologies and rhetoric.
Then, when the Democratic institution is inevitably put under stress by external or internal circumstances, Fascism accelerates and gains momentum in the public consciousness not because they debated better or have genuinely good ideas on how to solve the society’s problems, but because they argue that is the only way everyone can survive, when in fact they are usually just narcissistic megalomaniacs who want to control everything and everyone around them, ultimately destroying personal freedoms and diverse communities in the name of moralist, nationalist hegemony.
That is a myth that too much media falls for, and that fascist groups exploit mercilessly.
They can and do recruit a lot more people by spreading lies about minorities on live TV than whispering it to their buddies in the basement.
I don’t believe you can see my reply but counterpoint: reddit and 4chan both went that route and host major nazi ideology funnels. Just like… ban assholes.
Counterpoint to your counterpoint: because they have bigot dens to spew their bile among like minded white nationalists, intelligence agencies now have their names and identities and they’re now on lists. They can and have stopped violent actors that were given enough rope to feel safe discussing their plans online instead of being driven to bars and basements to plan out of view.
If you don’t give the Nazis the the freedom say “hi im a Nazi” you don’t know where the Nazis are, let alone have the means to find out what they’re planning.
Now I’m not sure how the partial defederation works… anyway, they move offsite to websites owned by the moderators, in the case of Reddit, so that’s not exactly true. It’s equal parts money-making and radicalization effort and it largely flies under the radar. 4chan, on the other hand, makes as many nutters as it stops. It’s not effective for your mosquito spray to kill 5 mosquitos and create 5 more from the ether.
But that contained the problem for many, many years. And more times than not when members of the group experienced the real world, their indoctrination fell apart. Being in daylight emboldens them and lets them amplify their message and find like-minded people.
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I weirdly agree as much as I hate racist wannabe genociders. I think freedom of speech is important even if it is hateful speech that I don’t agree with. I don’t think it should be up to the legal system to decide what’s okay to say and what isn’t. That’s a slippery slope that can quickly go badly with the wrong people in power.
That being said, I am most definitely going to look the other way if I see a person getting stomped out for being racist. I would personally make them feel unwelcome in anyway I could. I think it should be left up to the people to make it known that intolerant assholes get intolerant treatment, I guess is what I am getting at.
If people vote for their own chains in a free and democratic society, they deserve to get what they want.
They aren’t only voting for their own fate but for the fate of everyone else. So 51% can doom everyone. That hardly seems fair.
But I still fundamentally believe that any and all forms of censorship are the wrong way to go and will only accelerate the decline into totalitarianism.
This always ignores how very dangerous uncensored words can be. Hitler is famous for his speeches and not for his military brilliance! So is Mussolini. They both abused lenient and weak democratic systems to talk their way into power resulting in the literal Holocaust and one of the most devestating war the world has ever seen.
I’ll bet that most who think they live in a free and democratic society do not actually.
In the Republic, book VIII, Socrates identifies as democracy’s leading cause of corruption precisely that thing makes it seemingly so beautiful. In a democracy, citizens become inebriated with freedom (Euleteria). By making it the highest goal, people in a democracy end up leading democracy to its downfall.
True ca. 2400 years ago; still true today.
A democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Our boy Socrates was 2200 years too early, he might have learnt from ours boys Charles Fourier, Bakunin, Marx and others that democracy is never an accomplished regime, it needs to be defended at all time in a ceaseless battle against the worst parts of mankind, against our own turpitude and weakness, it’s an everlasting revolution that dies as soon as it starts to be content with itself.
