8 ms·
Are you non-sarcastically defending Alex Jones?
by FLGMwt 8y ago
Are you non-sarcastically defending Alex Jones?
- Consultant32452 8y agoFirst they came for the bat-shit crazy conspiracy theorists, and I did not speak out because I was not a bat-shit crazy conspiracy theorist.
- GW150914 8y agoUh huh... that poem had more than one line, and if it started with your version the response would broadly be, “get back to me in a few lines and I’ll start fighting.” Even the fallacy you’re invoking is a slope and not a cliff. The republic isn’t going to implode because Alex Jones can’t use PayPal. Now if the government were throwing him in jail for what he said, I’d grudgingly support his right to be a bloviating psychopath, with rights under the 1st amendment. Companies not wanting to do business with him? yawn
- Consultant32452 8y agoI highly recommend reading Frederick Douglass' "A Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston." It was written after he was deplatformed by protesters shouting him down while he was trying to give a speech. It talks about how he thought it was good enough that the government could not block his speech and how wrong he was about that. Obviously Jones is no Frederick Douglass, but the culture of deplatforming/censorship is a dangerous one nonetheless.
- GW150914 8y agoLet’s make a deal, when they start to come for the modern equivalent of a Frederick Douglass, I’ll care, and we’ll still be high up on the list with plenty of time to fight. Until then this feels a lot more like a slippery slope fallacy, and not a sound argument. After all the poem is all about how many chances for intervention were passed by, not that only ideological absolutism can prevent tyranny. Not to mention that despite attempts to silence him, Douglass was ultimately successful and still remembered.
- Consultant32452 8y agoWho gets to decide who is a Frederick Douglass and who is an Alex Jones? What makes you feel so confident that you will be on the right side of history when the modern Frederick Douglass is deplatformed?
- GW150914 8y agoWhen that modern Frederick Douglass is deplatformed, we can talk, instead of this hysterical “when the world ends where will you be?!” shit. If you have something more than slippery slopes to offer, and comparing Alex Jones to Frederick Douglass, I’m all ears, otherwise, have a good day.
- Consultant32452 8y agoI don't know if any modern Frederick Douglass' are being deplatformed. It's nice to imagine that if I lived in 1863 that I would recognize that Douglass was on the right side of history, but statistically that is unlikely. I highly doubt you would recognize a Frederick Douglass either, if I could manage to point one out. That is why everyone must be allowed to speak. If I find someone that I think is an Alex Jones, a Nazi, etc. it's easy enough to block them. What I don't do though is tell you that you're not allowed to listen to them either. That's where sensibility turns to authoritarianism. Freedom of speech is not just the right to speak, but also the right to hear.
- GW150914 8y agoWhat I don't do though is tell you that you're not allowed to listen to them either. No one has said that about Jones, not Apple, or Youtube, and certainly not PayPal. They chose not to publish him or process his payments, and that’s all. In the same way that a book publisher doesn’t owe anyone a book, a radio station isn’t obligated to allow everyone who wants to be a DJ on the air, and TV stations don’t owe anyone a talk show. Yet when it’s the internet people pretend that a company choosing who they do business with is something new, is censorship, etc. It isn’t, no amount of hand waving and slippery sloping makes it that, and everyone should be sick of these canards being used almost exclusively in regards to conspiracy theorists and far right nutjobs.
- kolderman 8y agoHis right to free speech? Sure I am.
- packetized 8y agoFreedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequence.
- jjeaff 8y agoI'm quite certain he's still speaking, and no one is stopping him. You just can't go to Twitter to hear it.
- zorpner 8y agoThe right to free speech is not the right to a platform.
- adamrezich 8y agoDvorak: "Twitter and Facebook Are Publishers, Not Platforms" https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363100/twitter-and-facebook-are-publishers-not-platforms https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363100/twitter-and-facebook...
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoHe still has that. Just without someone else's soapbox to stand on. Being obnoxious is a right, but it can invite consequences.
- hluska 8y agoYou have the right to say (almost) anything you want. I have the right to tell you that you can't use my microphone. Someone else has the right to build a microphone tailored for you.
- hiram112 8y agoSo I suppose you are all for Comcast, AT&T, etc. injecting ads into your traffic, charging premium for your Netflix binges, and worse? I mean it's their ~~microphone~~ fiber. Oh, but this is different, I'm sure you'll say, because reasons. Well that's why we generally, in the US at least, have always thought it was a good idea to just allow all speech, even if some awful stuff leaks out once in a while.