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> I think defending free speech with "the bad speech isn't that harmful, actually" is a bad road to go down. I am offended by this and you shouldn’t have the r

> I think defending free speech with "the bad speech isn't that harmful, actually" is a bad road to go down. I am offended by this and you shouldn’t have the right to say that. /s While bad speech is indeed harmful, not being allowed to express bad speech (whatever that actually means) is even more harmful.

dalbasal 6y ago
I don't disagree with that, and I'm in favour of free speech. What I mean is (responding to parent) that the problem is just insecure people being needlessly offended is a bad defense of free speech. No matter what your standard of "real harm," free speech has examples where it risks causing real harm. Speech is not harmless. The contrary, it can be very potent, powerful and therefore harmful. The point of a right is that it is defensible regardless. Free speech is important, not harmless.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > No matter what your standard of "real harm," free speech has examples where it risks causing real harm. I think you must have either a very broad interpretation of what counts as "speech" or a very loose concept of causality. My standard of "real harm", which I do not consider particularly idiosyncratic, essentially comes down to bodily injury or property damage. (How other people think about you—reputation—is not included; neither does IP count as actual property.) Speech is purely the communication of information (of any sort) from one person to another, which by its nature causes neither bodily injury nor property damage. Speech may influence listeners may go on to inflict bodily injury or property damage, but to say that the speech caused the harm ignores the agency of those responsible for acting on it. Mere influence does not nullify choice or personal responsibility. Freedom of religion falls under a similar category; your beliefs are your own and you ought not be persecuted (or prosecuted) for them, but that doesn't mean you get a free pass if you act on those beliefs in a way that harms others. Theft is still theft, and punishable as such, even if your religion disavows private property. Murder is still murder even if your religion calls for human sacrifice. Etc. In both cases you have to start with the much more fundamental right to do anything which does not directly harm other people or their property in order to answer the question of which particular forms of expression (of speech or religious sentiment) are actually protected. Speech and religious expression are subsets of the set of things you already have every right to do specifically because they do not harm others, and only really make sense in that context. The key point of the dual freedoms of speech and religion is to emphasize that actions you would otherwise be free to take do not suddenly become out-of-bounds based on the information content or religious affiliation.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    This is a legalistic take on causality. I agree in legal terms. It's not belief in human sacrifice, or joining in a religion that does human sacrifice that should be illegal. These can't be illegal if we want to have freedom of religion. That said, the relationship between cult beliefs and cult practices is not "loose" at all. The "Peoples Temple" religion did result in a mass suicide. 19th century rumours about Jews sacrificing children in eastern europe did lead to mass murders. Rumours did lead to lynchings in the south. Neither speech nor religion are harmless. If your standard of harm is "harming other people or their property," I'm sure we can find examples of speech, religion, and other freedoms which have led to these harms. That's the whole point of a right. A, the reason it is worth protecting, and requires it is because these things are powerful. B, the whole idea is that we defend against harm without losing those rights. We work around the rights. It's just simply not true that freedom of association (or any other freedom) can't and won't lead to harm. It can and it will.
    - nybble41 6y ago
      > If your standard of harm is "harming other people or their property," I'm sure we can find examples of speech, religion, and other freedoms which have led to these harms. As I said, you seem to have a very loose concept of causality. To me, led to is very different from caused. That difference comes down to choice. Speech may influence someone to act in a certain manner, but it doesn't cause them to act that way—they have to choose to act, and in doing so take full responsibility for the consequences. Their choice serves as a break in the chain of liability; the speaker is not responsible (punishable) for what others may choose to do after hearing them speak. Even if the speaker is directly calling for specific actions, the responsibility lies entirely with those who make the choice to act on that speech. The harm is not in the speech, but rather in the action. We have these freedoms because they do not and cannot cause harm, in and of themselves, which in turn implies that harm (again, bodily injury or loss/destruction of property—any sort of legally-mandated punishment) is not a proportional response no matter how much one may dislike the speech or beliefs, respectively, or how concerned one might be for the influence they may eventually have on other people's choices.

dalbasal 6y ago

I don't disagree with that, and I'm in favour of free speech. What I mean is (responding to parent) that the problem is just insecure people being needlessly offended is a bad defense of free speech. No matter what your standard of "real harm," free speech has examples where it risks causing real harm. Speech is not harmless. The contrary, it can be very potent, powerful and therefore harmful. The point of a right is that it is defensible regardless. Free speech is important, not harmless.

nybble41 6y ago
> No matter what your standard of "real harm," free speech has examples where it risks causing real harm. I think you must have either a very broad interpretation of what counts as "speech" or a very loose concept of causality. My standard of "real harm", which I do not consider particularly idiosyncratic, essentially comes down to bodily injury or property damage. (How other people think about you—reputation—is not included; neither does IP count as actual property.) Speech is purely the communication of information (of any sort) from one person to another, which by its nature causes neither bodily injury nor property damage. Speech may influence listeners may go on to inflict bodily injury or property damage, but to say that the speech caused the harm ignores the agency of those responsible for acting on it. Mere influence does not nullify choice or personal responsibility. Freedom of religion falls under a similar category; your beliefs are your own and you ought not be persecuted (or prosecuted) for them, but that doesn't mean you get a free pass if you act on those beliefs in a way that harms others. Theft is still theft, and punishable as such, even if your religion disavows private property. Murder is still murder even if your religion calls for human sacrifice. Etc. In both cases you have to start with the much more fundamental right to do anything which does not directly harm other people or their property in order to answer the question of which particular forms of expression (of speech or religious sentiment) are actually protected. Speech and religious expression are subsets of the set of things you already have every right to do specifically because they do not harm others, and only really make sense in that context. The key point of the dual freedoms of speech and religion is to emphasize that actions you would otherwise be free to take do not suddenly become out-of-bounds based on the information content or religious affiliation.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  This is a legalistic take on causality. I agree in legal terms. It's not belief in human sacrifice, or joining in a religion that does human sacrifice that should be illegal. These can't be illegal if we want to have freedom of religion. That said, the relationship between cult beliefs and cult practices is not "loose" at all. The "Peoples Temple" religion did result in a mass suicide. 19th century rumours about Jews sacrificing children in eastern europe did lead to mass murders. Rumours did lead to lynchings in the south. Neither speech nor religion are harmless. If your standard of harm is "harming other people or their property," I'm sure we can find examples of speech, religion, and other freedoms which have led to these harms. That's the whole point of a right. A, the reason it is worth protecting, and requires it is because these things are powerful. B, the whole idea is that we defend against harm without losing those rights. We work around the rights. It's just simply not true that freedom of association (or any other freedom) can't and won't lead to harm. It can and it will.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    > If your standard of harm is "harming other people or their property," I'm sure we can find examples of speech, religion, and other freedoms which have led to these harms. As I said, you seem to have a very loose concept of causality. To me, led to is very different from caused. That difference comes down to choice. Speech may influence someone to act in a certain manner, but it doesn't cause them to act that way—they have to choose to act, and in doing so take full responsibility for the consequences. Their choice serves as a break in the chain of liability; the speaker is not responsible (punishable) for what others may choose to do after hearing them speak. Even if the speaker is directly calling for specific actions, the responsibility lies entirely with those who make the choice to act on that speech. The harm is not in the speech, but rather in the action. We have these freedoms because they do not and cannot cause harm, in and of themselves, which in turn implies that harm (again, bodily injury or loss/destruction of property—any sort of legally-mandated punishment) is not a proportional response no matter how much one may dislike the speech or beliefs, respectively, or how concerned one might be for the influence they may eventually have on other people's choices.