4 ms·

Do you not see that there is a line drawn from speech to action, like in the situation surrounding the Rwandan genocide or in the case of antivaxxers leading to

by Frondo 8y ago

Do you not see that there is a line drawn from speech to action, like in the situation surrounding the Rwandan genocide or in the case of antivaxxers leading to a resurgence in preventable disease? Like, are you trying to frame this in the sense of, "I can swing my fist toward your face all I want, but so long as I don't actually make contact it's okay"? I'm trying to understand how you're trying to thread the needle here and am coming up empty-handed.

philwelch 8y ago
Speech can counter speech, and action can counter action. If you don't vaccinate your kids, CPS can take them away from you. If you want to write paranoid screeds about how vaccines and fluoridated water are a communist plot to block the pineal gland, that's up to you, buddy. Just know that if you have kids, we're keeping an eye on you, and if their shot cards aren't up to date or you have a doctor buddy forging them, we're gonna take away your kids and throw you in prison for a long, long time--just to make an example of you. This is what happens to tax protesters (like Wesley Snipes) and this is why tax protester conspiracy theories don't really get anywhere despite the absolute lack of any legal authority to stop people from disseminating them. I mostly agree with you about Rwanda because openly calling for people to commit genocide does cross a threshold that justifies forceful reaction. My point there is that you're appealing to government, which is exactly who in Rwanda was organizing the genocide in the first place. But if you're imagining a UN peacekeeping force being deployed to Rwanda being the censors instead--sure, among many other things they should probably shut down the radio stations. I'm fine with that. > Do you not see that there is a line drawn from speech to action The problem is that this argument makes it too easy to misuse the instrument of censorship. You're calling for censorship that's both unnecessary and insufficient to solve the anti-vax problem, using a standard that could be just as easily abused to call for censorship that even you would disagree with.

by Frondo 8y ago

philwelch 8y ago

Speech can counter speech, and action can counter action. If you don't vaccinate your kids, CPS can take them away from you. If you want to write paranoid screeds about how vaccines and fluoridated water are a communist plot to block the pineal gland, that's up to you, buddy. Just know that if you have kids, we're keeping an eye on you, and if their shot cards aren't up to date or you have a doctor buddy forging them, we're gonna take away your kids and throw you in prison for a long, long time--just to make an example of you. This is what happens to tax protesters (like Wesley Snipes) and this is why tax protester conspiracy theories don't really get anywhere despite the absolute lack of any legal authority to stop people from disseminating them. I mostly agree with you about Rwanda because openly calling for people to commit genocide does cross a threshold that justifies forceful reaction. My point there is that you're appealing to government, which is exactly who in Rwanda was organizing the genocide in the first place. But if you're imagining a UN peacekeeping force being deployed to Rwanda being the censors instead--sure, among many other things they should probably shut down the radio stations. I'm fine with that. > Do you not see that there is a line drawn from speech to action The problem is that this argument makes it too easy to misuse the instrument of censorship. You're calling for censorship that's both unnecessary and insufficient to solve the anti-vax problem, using a standard that could be just as easily abused to call for censorship that even you would disagree with.