3 ms·

I don't get how banning racist crap is a stepping stone to banning all speech. I just don't. I mean, it's not like racism is a subtle legal category that people

I don't get how banning racist crap is a stepping stone to banning all speech. I just don't. I mean, it's not like racism is a subtle legal category that people can rule-lawyer you into. It's pretty clear when it happens, and it's bad, so it should be banned. Also, it's not like almost every European country has enacted laws against hate speech, Holocaust denial etc. and turned into a totalitarian hellhole decades after. Also, Youtube is a private company, yes it's huge but no one is entitled to a huge audience, yadda yadda. The rest of your rant is hard to make sense of.

eesmith 7y ago
John Stuart Mill agrees. I bring this up because many of those who wrongly insist that 'free speech' extends even to private companies will reference a 'classic liberal' like Mill, not having read, for example, the following from his "On Liberty": > It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. ... > We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  I'm confused. Are you suggesting that those passages are illiberal?
  - eesmith 7y ago
    ... no? And I don't see how that inference can be made? There is a group of people who believe we should "tolerate the in intolerant" (quoting olliej's characterization). These people often say that 'freedom of speech' must be given a high status, and extends beyond preventing government restrictions on speech to also include private restrictions. That is, free speech without repercussions. Some of these people justify their views connecting them to classic writings on liberalism. However, reading those classic works shows that they are wrong, as I quoted.

eesmith 7y ago

John Stuart Mill agrees. I bring this up because many of those who wrongly insist that 'free speech' extends even to private companies will reference a 'classic liberal' like Mill, not having read, for example, the following from his "On Liberty": > It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. ... > We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.

staticautomatic 7y ago
I'm confused. Are you suggesting that those passages are illiberal?
- eesmith 7y ago
  ... no? And I don't see how that inference can be made? There is a group of people who believe we should "tolerate the in intolerant" (quoting olliej's characterization). These people often say that 'freedom of speech' must be given a high status, and extends beyond preventing government restrictions on speech to also include private restrictions. That is, free speech without repercussions. Some of these people justify their views connecting them to classic writings on liberalism. However, reading those classic works shows that they are wrong, as I quoted.