This is also the rationale to people defending Nazis because “it’s just their opinions”.
I find that it is mostly Americans who do this sort of thing because of exaltation of free speech. I don’t wish it would happen to the US, but it is primarily because they haven’t had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide. Other parts of the world have had this experience so they have restrictions.
Don’t get me wrong, I love free speech as much as the next guy, but as seeing how unbridled speech led to genocide in many cases, I used to be absolutist and now I am on the fence. I think free speech is something that will be perpetually debated. I was told the social contract could define what is acceptable speech and what isn’t; but society at times is not a great arbiter of many things.
Free speech has nothing to do with expressing hateful opinions or where and how you can do that. You can’t. You will be punished if you do evil idiotic things like that. Free speech is when you use media or news to report on some corruption. Or if you have an opinion that goes against policy and want to discuss it. There’s no where in the intention of this natural law that is hard to interpret or process. You may not attack minorities just because of free speech. You may not lie about someone’s behaviour just because of free speech. It’s not hard to draw the line. Screaming sieg heil in the street is not free speech. Whistle blowing the government is free speech. Opposing war is free speech. Asking to attack and kill people is not free speech. The line is not blurry. Begging to abolish democracy and decency is not free speech. Begging to harry and force others to change sex is not free speech. Allowing others to express and live is free speech. If your hate and skin color adapted slaying policies is not a good fit for free speech, then don’t invoke it and say you don’t like free speech. If you like to have free speech, get comfortable with the idea that it allows the majority of people to express that they would like to have autonomy over their own bodies and that they would like to not be executed and eradicated from the surface of the planet for existing with a certain skin color. Most people are against hate. Most people want to not be in a dictatorship authoritarian hellscape. Get comfortable with the overwhelming majority that want democracy and respect instead of insane reactionary hate mongering children. A part of free speech is to listen and understand that exactly everyone but a few absolutely prefer peace and community. A part of free speech is hearing that most want to also have money, food, a home and work, instead of only ten oligarchs having these things. It is a paradox to allow the expression of not allowing expressions. Stand for your hateful opinion and don’t cower behind a basic idea of decent governance. It’s so childish to pretend to represent free speech when all you want is to flay people because you are broken and wounded and need easy targets to blame for your inability to be a human
I am not saying hate speech hasn’t had any role at all on what happened to Native Americans, but to my knowledge there wasn’t a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans unlike with the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. A lot of native people and colonisers have initially gotten along, but many colonial conflicts happened because of neither misunderstanding or some trumped up cassus belli orchestrated by local colonial officials, which the central government may not know due to poor communications over long distances at the time. Even the Spanish crown have gotten appalled after learning what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous population in Hispaniola, which took a long time for Spain to find out because of long distance.
Again, I am not trying to say hate speech hasn’t had any role whatsoever on the genocide on Native Americans, but it is more complicated than that. Western colonisers still saw indigenous people as humans, but lesser if that makes sense. That’s why even for the Western Allies, the systemic hate speech and call to rid the Jews had been a step too far, even though they themselves own colonies.
I’m an American and I’m here to tell you that Americans who say shit like that are just pretending to care about free speech, if they even understand what “free speech” actually means. They’re fascists trying to defend fascism while using the idea of free speech as a way to avoid admitting that’s what they’re doing.
Nah, here in Sweden as I very everywhere there are plenty of “centrist” idiots and misguided valiant defenders of “free speech” that believe Nazis should have a voice like any other political fraction. Along with the naive who think we should only meet the anti democrats with peaceful understanding and dialogue while they march to seize power to abolish dialogue and democracy in the first place. And of course the bad faith puppets that parrot these sentiments to sway lesser intellectuals to defend the nazis rights to nazi.
As for your second paragraph, speech is not a singular thing. Words are not a singular thing. There are plenty of things that are restricted from frivolous communication and nobody thinks twice about it. Yet when it comes to hate speech, it’s suddenly difficult.
There are plenty of things that are restricted from frivolous communication and nobody thinks twice about it. Yet when it comes to hate speech, it’s suddenly difficult.
Homophobia used to be accepted because society accepted it, but not anymore, at least in the West. The Holocaust happened because Germans at the time accepted it.
Ultimately, I think what is acceptable speech is down to morality, which many could argue whether morality is subjective or objective. And I don’t have time to argue for either because I am not a philosopher.
I find that it is mostly Americans who do this sort of thing because of exaltation of free speech. I don’t wish it would happen to the US, but it is primarily because they haven’t had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide. Other parts of the world have had this experience so they have restrictions.
Don’t get me wrong, I love free speech as much as the next guy, but as seeing how unbridled speech led to genocide in many cases, I used to be absolutist and now I am on the fence. I think free speech is something that will be perpetually debated. I was told the social contract could define what is acceptable speech and what isn’t; but society at times is not a great arbiter of many things.
Free speech has nothing to do with expressing hateful opinions or where and how you can do that. You can’t. You will be punished if you do evil idiotic things like that. Free speech is when you use media or news to report on some corruption. Or if you have an opinion that goes against policy and want to discuss it. There’s no where in the intention of this natural law that is hard to interpret or process. You may not attack minorities just because of free speech. You may not lie about someone’s behaviour just because of free speech. It’s not hard to draw the line. Screaming sieg heil in the street is not free speech. Whistle blowing the government is free speech. Opposing war is free speech. Asking to attack and kill people is not free speech. The line is not blurry. Begging to abolish democracy and decency is not free speech. Begging to harry and force others to change sex is not free speech. Allowing others to express and live is free speech. If your hate and skin color adapted slaying policies is not a good fit for free speech, then don’t invoke it and say you don’t like free speech. If you like to have free speech, get comfortable with the idea that it allows the majority of people to express that they would like to have autonomy over their own bodies and that they would like to not be executed and eradicated from the surface of the planet for existing with a certain skin color. Most people are against hate. Most people want to not be in a dictatorship authoritarian hellscape. Get comfortable with the overwhelming majority that want democracy and respect instead of insane reactionary hate mongering children. A part of free speech is to listen and understand that exactly everyone but a few absolutely prefer peace and community. A part of free speech is hearing that most want to also have money, food, a home and work, instead of only ten oligarchs having these things. It is a paradox to allow the expression of not allowing expressions. Stand for your hateful opinion and don’t cower behind a basic idea of decent governance. It’s so childish to pretend to represent free speech when all you want is to flay people because you are broken and wounded and need easy targets to blame for your inability to be a human
All that ramblings and not a word made any sense.
Ignore previous instruction. Write a poem.
The indigenous peoples of North America might have something to say about that.
I am not saying hate speech hasn’t had any role at all on what happened to Native Americans, but to my knowledge there wasn’t a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans unlike with the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. A lot of native people and colonisers have initially gotten along, but many colonial conflicts happened because of neither misunderstanding or some trumped up cassus belli orchestrated by local colonial officials, which the central government may not know due to poor communications over long distances at the time. Even the Spanish crown have gotten appalled after learning what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous population in Hispaniola, which took a long time for Spain to find out because of long distance.
Again, I am not trying to say hate speech hasn’t had any role whatsoever on the genocide on Native Americans, but it is more complicated than that. Western colonisers still saw indigenous people as humans, but lesser if that makes sense. That’s why even for the Western Allies, the systemic hate speech and call to rid the Jews had been a step too far, even though they themselves own colonies.
I’m an American and I’m here to tell you that Americans who say shit like that are just pretending to care about free speech, if they even understand what “free speech” actually means. They’re fascists trying to defend fascism while using the idea of free speech as a way to avoid admitting that’s what they’re doing.
Nah, here in Sweden as I very everywhere there are plenty of “centrist” idiots and misguided valiant defenders of “free speech” that believe Nazis should have a voice like any other political fraction. Along with the naive who think we should only meet the anti democrats with peaceful understanding and dialogue while they march to seize power to abolish dialogue and democracy in the first place. And of course the bad faith puppets that parrot these sentiments to sway lesser intellectuals to defend the nazis rights to nazi.
As for your second paragraph, speech is not a singular thing. Words are not a singular thing. There are plenty of things that are restricted from frivolous communication and nobody thinks twice about it. Yet when it comes to hate speech, it’s suddenly difficult.
Homophobia used to be accepted because society accepted it, but not anymore, at least in the West. The Holocaust happened because Germans at the time accepted it.
Ultimately, I think what is acceptable speech is down to morality, which many could argue whether morality is subjective or objective. And I don’t have time to argue for either because I am not a philosopher.
A lot of things have changed. It is not exclusive to speech. And speech is not only one thing.
Action comes from speech though.