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Banning "violent speech" is the same as banning political opinions altogether. Politics is essentially deciding in which ways the state should apply violence ag

Banning "violent speech" is the same as banning political opinions altogether. Politics is essentially deciding in which ways the state should apply violence against its citizens. Saying "the state should be violent against people who do X" is violent speech. Also, asking the govt. to ban "violent speech" is violent speech itself. Are people too dumb to understand this or would they actually love to live in a totalitarian dictatorship?

godzillabrennus 8y ago
People have been taught that feelings are as important as our physical health. Now we suffer from the consequences.
- colejohnson66 8y ago
  Could that be because mental health affects physical health?
  - lone_haxx0r 8y ago
    Hypothetically, if watching other people chew affected my mental health, would it be a justifiable to ban chewing in public?
    - godzillabrennus 8y ago
      Only if you provide chewers with safe spaces.
  - godzillabrennus 8y ago
    Of course it does. The world isn't gum drops and rainbows. Mental health is a real thing and I sympathize but can't support the impact that attention to it is having on society. Negatively impacting someones mental health is not the same thing as directly having a negative impact on someones physical health. Words and feelings are not a good reason to restrict free speech.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
That is the American view. Many countries, and citizens of those countries, expect their government to take reasonable steps to protect groups from racist or other hate speech. We don't feel that makes it a totalitarian dictatorship. Germany has some very particular regulations around speech and certain political symbols and groups - because they very clearly don't want to become a totalitarian dictatorship again. The US allows those - because free speech. You'd expect me to follow US standards if I had a company selling food or electrics there, wouldn't you? Why does it become "people are dumb" to expect a US company to follow European or Far Eastern law? Don't like it? Don't operate there. It's that simple for all other products and services, why not tech?
- kantos2 8y ago
  >because they very clearly don't want to become a totalitarian dictatorship again. It doesn't matter what they "want". The fact is they becoming totalitarian by banning speech, even if they say it is the opposite. And yes, people are dumb on certain topics. How could we expect that every man in country would be expert in philosophical aspects of censorship.
- lone_haxx0r 8y ago
  > Many countries, and citizens of those countries, expect their government to take reasonable steps to protect groups from racist or other hate speech. The point is that under that same logic, you should ban practically all opinions that involve politics. "Selling cocaine should be prohibited" implies that you want the state to exert violence against people who sell drugs, either to incarcerate them, force them to pay a fee (which if not paid will likely result in incarceration, i.e. violence). Wanting cocaine to be prohibited is violent speech. "Bald people should be incarcerated" is also violent speech. Allowing one while prohibiting other is an arbitrary decision, since both are violent ideas. The fact that most people agree with the former and disagree with the latter is not a good way to decide, since you might as well just ban every idea that people disagree with (or that the state disagrees with) which is exactly what totalitarian dictatorships do. > We don't feel that makes it a totalitarian dictatorship Given a big enough cage, animals don't notice that they are in a cage. I wouldn't call Germany a totalitarian dictatorship, but it doesn't have freedoms that I consider important, such as freedom of speech. If that freedom is taken away by a dictator or by a crowd voting against it, it doesn't make much difference to the individual that wants freedom. Keep in mind that not everyone in Germany, or other countries is against freedom of speech, they lost it because most people don't want it. It's not an American view, it's a view of people who care about freedom. I'm not American, and I'm sure there are many non-Americans that want freedom.
NotSammyHagar 8y ago
I disagree. On hackernews, if you can't express yourself without threatening others, you will be kicked off after warning. You can still call something crazy, idiotic, wrong. You just can't say you want to kill people with that idea. I don't see a general worry that there is a list of things that are not in themselves violent but that supporting them is equivalent to violence and should be banned. If you support say gay rights, saying they should be allowed is not a violent attack against those who disagree for whatever reason.
- lone_haxx0r 8y ago
  Depends on what you mean by gay rights. Saying "Gays should be treated the same as straights by the law" isn't necessarily violent. Saying "You can't refuse to sell a cake to a gay person" is violent, because it implies forcing a person to sell something.
  - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
    I disagree that your last statement is violence, that seems to really push what violence is. How about this statement "you should treat everyone with respect". Would you claim that's violent because you don't want to treat some people with respect but we "are making you" do it?
    - lone_haxx0r 8y ago
      Yes, I would actually agree that it's violent in a way. I'm not saying that treating everyone with respect is a bad thing. Using "just" violence is sometimes necessary to prevent "unjust" violence, I think practically everyone agrees with that. What I'm criticizing is banning speech because it's "violent" while at the same time allowing other forms of violent speech. You're not banning it because it's violent, you're banning it because you don't agree with it. Am I pushing this violence thing to the limits? Kind of, I can see a counter-argument saying that I'm being overly literal, etc. but hear this: Many of these moral inquisitors that want to ban violent speech have ideas that are actually violent, not only in the "philosophical"/overly literal sense that I described, but ideas that actually would affect good people negatively, and many times they don't only want to ban nazis and that sort of stuff, sometimes they want to censor liberal (in the British sense of the word) and conservative ideas that are held by a non-negligible amount of "regular" people. So it's important to spot these lies when they start, even if they seem like edge cases and overly literal interpretations, I think it's good to deconstruct these ideas to their fundamental concepts and analyze them before saying "Yeah, they're Nazis anyway, ban them".

godzillabrennus 8y ago

People have been taught that feelings are as important as our physical health. Now we suffer from the consequences.

colejohnson66 8y ago
Could that be because mental health affects physical health?
- lone_haxx0r 8y ago
  Hypothetically, if watching other people chew affected my mental health, would it be a justifiable to ban chewing in public?
  - godzillabrennus 8y ago
    Only if you provide chewers with safe spaces.
- godzillabrennus 8y ago
  Of course it does. The world isn't gum drops and rainbows. Mental health is a real thing and I sympathize but can't support the impact that attention to it is having on society. Negatively impacting someones mental health is not the same thing as directly having a negative impact on someones physical health. Words and feelings are not a good reason to restrict free speech.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

That is the American view. Many countries, and citizens of those countries, expect their government to take reasonable steps to protect groups from racist or other hate speech. We don't feel that makes it a totalitarian dictatorship. Germany has some very particular regulations around speech and certain political symbols and groups - because they very clearly don't want to become a totalitarian dictatorship again. The US allows those - because free speech. You'd expect me to follow US standards if I had a company selling food or electrics there, wouldn't you? Why does it become "people are dumb" to expect a US company to follow European or Far Eastern law? Don't like it? Don't operate there. It's that simple for all other products and services, why not tech?

kantos2 8y ago
>because they very clearly don't want to become a totalitarian dictatorship again. It doesn't matter what they "want". The fact is they becoming totalitarian by banning speech, even if they say it is the opposite. And yes, people are dumb on certain topics. How could we expect that every man in country would be expert in philosophical aspects of censorship.
lone_haxx0r 8y ago
> Many countries, and citizens of those countries, expect their government to take reasonable steps to protect groups from racist or other hate speech. The point is that under that same logic, you should ban practically all opinions that involve politics. "Selling cocaine should be prohibited" implies that you want the state to exert violence against people who sell drugs, either to incarcerate them, force them to pay a fee (which if not paid will likely result in incarceration, i.e. violence). Wanting cocaine to be prohibited is violent speech. "Bald people should be incarcerated" is also violent speech. Allowing one while prohibiting other is an arbitrary decision, since both are violent ideas. The fact that most people agree with the former and disagree with the latter is not a good way to decide, since you might as well just ban every idea that people disagree with (or that the state disagrees with) which is exactly what totalitarian dictatorships do. > We don't feel that makes it a totalitarian dictatorship Given a big enough cage, animals don't notice that they are in a cage. I wouldn't call Germany a totalitarian dictatorship, but it doesn't have freedoms that I consider important, such as freedom of speech. If that freedom is taken away by a dictator or by a crowd voting against it, it doesn't make much difference to the individual that wants freedom. Keep in mind that not everyone in Germany, or other countries is against freedom of speech, they lost it because most people don't want it. It's not an American view, it's a view of people who care about freedom. I'm not American, and I'm sure there are many non-Americans that want freedom.

NotSammyHagar 8y ago

I disagree. On hackernews, if you can't express yourself without threatening others, you will be kicked off after warning. You can still call something crazy, idiotic, wrong. You just can't say you want to kill people with that idea. I don't see a general worry that there is a list of things that are not in themselves violent but that supporting them is equivalent to violence and should be banned. If you support say gay rights, saying they should be allowed is not a violent attack against those who disagree for whatever reason.

lone_haxx0r 8y ago
Depends on what you mean by gay rights. Saying "Gays should be treated the same as straights by the law" isn't necessarily violent. Saying "You can't refuse to sell a cake to a gay person" is violent, because it implies forcing a person to sell something.
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  I disagree that your last statement is violence, that seems to really push what violence is. How about this statement "you should treat everyone with respect". Would you claim that's violent because you don't want to treat some people with respect but we "are making you" do it?
  - lone_haxx0r 8y ago
    Yes, I would actually agree that it's violent in a way. I'm not saying that treating everyone with respect is a bad thing. Using "just" violence is sometimes necessary to prevent "unjust" violence, I think practically everyone agrees with that. What I'm criticizing is banning speech because it's "violent" while at the same time allowing other forms of violent speech. You're not banning it because it's violent, you're banning it because you don't agree with it. Am I pushing this violence thing to the limits? Kind of, I can see a counter-argument saying that I'm being overly literal, etc. but hear this: Many of these moral inquisitors that want to ban violent speech have ideas that are actually violent, not only in the "philosophical"/overly literal sense that I described, but ideas that actually would affect good people negatively, and many times they don't only want to ban nazis and that sort of stuff, sometimes they want to censor liberal (in the British sense of the word) and conservative ideas that are held by a non-negligible amount of "regular" people. So it's important to spot these lies when they start, even if they seem like edge cases and overly literal interpretations, I think it's good to deconstruct these ideas to their fundamental concepts and analyze them before saying "Yeah, they're Nazis anyway, ban them".