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> whether this has actually happened like you say it has This is a fairly contrarian line to take. How would you say that it hasn't? > you have to consider th
by rusk 5y ago
> whether this has actually happened like you say it has
This is a fairly contrarian line to take. How would you say that it hasn't?
> you have to consider that nobody expected it to be used like this
To me this seems a little bit of a naive take. Nobody is arguing that free speech should be curtailed - at least not in any legal sense. But as a principle it does compete against various other ones, such as decency and respect, not to mention security and business concerns.
It's the people arguing that free-speech as a right is absolute and overrides all else, and whatsmore outside of a purely legal setting (i.e. not just that the state can't prosecute you, but that it gives you the right to insult, and belittle people) that are missing the point.
Voltaire offered to defend the right of his opponents to express their thoughts, but did not volunteer to give them a platform, or even to listen.
> The ACLU defended literal Nazis
I don't see a conflict here. The state should be blind, after all it's important for democracy that Nazis and other dodgy straw men should see their side of the story aired, and thus buy in overall. It doesn't mean that society as a whole can't make judgements on the value of Nazism.
- raxxorrax 5y agoReally doubt he would have argued in favor of corporate NDAs.
- rusk 5y agoThe joke here, is that it was is activism against corporate secrecy that got him into serious trouble and led probably to his eventual suicide. What I mean is that everyday "free speech" in the legal sense is already curtailed (and accepted to be so) by various other concerns.
- dionidium 5y ago> This is a fairly contrarian line to take. How would you say that it hasn't? When the KKK marched in Washington in 1925, there were 30k participants and more than 100k others showed up to watch. What I'm arguing is that we are not in fact experiencing unprecedented times that call for new restrictions. The left lived through that and maintained their commitment to defending free speech.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rusk 5y ago> we are not in fact experiencing unprecedented times that call for new restrictions I'm sorry, I think we might be talking cross purposes here ... I was talking about Aaron Swartz specific advocacy around digital free speech, which reddit embodied spiritually up until rather recently. Some of the community activity went very far down the rabbit hole indeed. I was speculating if Aaron Swartz might have experienced some kind of dissonance at that, though public discourse being what it is he might not have been able to express that ... but alas he did not live to see his views challenged thus. Of course there are historical parallels to this, across history and many other aspects of society. I don't see how the need to continue this discussion is any less relevant today than it was then though.
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoThere are a couple of things feeding into this. One is that everything is national or global now, so if there is one Nazi anywhere, everybody hears about it and misleads people into thinking there are more of them than there are. This also feeds into trolls pretending to be Nazis because they see what a rise it gets out of people, thereby causing people to overestimate their number even more. The second is that there is always a boogeyman. In the early 20th century it was anarchists. Then communists had a good long run. It became terrorists after 9/11. Now it's racists. You can tell when this is happening because the proposals are to censor/incarcerate/kill some vile subhuman Enemy who cannot be reasoned with, with isolated instances being exaggerated excessively. Whereas if there were actual Nazis as a meaningful political force you would see e.g. serious attempts to re-institute segregation or have to fight hard to prevent Nazis from censoring you.