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It doesn't feel remotely level-headed. Just about anyone in my AP English class could have made all of that up 12 years ago. That is, using circular logic to de

It doesn't feel remotely level-headed. Just about anyone in my AP English class could have made all of that up 12 years ago. That is, using circular logic to defend something like freedom of speech is something I expect any high school senior to be able to do. What I would like to know is, why it's so important if, for most of us, for the best and most capable parts of our lives, we don't have anything that resembles free speech. In fact, we expect to have our income and Healthcare cutoff if we really speak our minds often in the workplace. What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen. What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis. What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen. I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary. Moreover, it's hard to believe there is much substance to people's positions on unbridled freedom of speech when people are so religious about it. It's hard to believe that we have the right answer when we don't allow an ounce of nuance in the discussion.

gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
Those countries don’t give you the freedom to get into a gunfight with a SWAT team though.
blueprint 4y ago
the 'slippery slope' is not a fallacy. they are real. I'm sure you'd agree if I cited some examples.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MisterMower 4y ago
  All slopes are slippery. The real question is to what degree. Some slopes are far more slick than others.
mpalczewski 4y ago
> What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen. 1M people died but the way your sentence is framed is that without those lies 1M people wouldn't have died. That looks like quite the intent to deceive, which makes it look like you are the liar. Why is it ok for you? Furthermore it's quite obfuscated. Yes people lied about the pandemic(every politician lies, it's like a contest to elect the best liar). I'm willing to bet some of those lies saved lives(just by chance, who knows). So directly in answer to your question. Speech should be free because that's how society advances, free speech is how you question the current dogma, it's how society moves forward. There's costs and benefits. Charlatan will con people. The way you deal with charlatans is by exposing them with better speech. Banning speech is weak sauce for people that don't know how to be convincing. > What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis. I live a pretty good life as an immigrant. Can't complain. Great country, wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The country where I come from does not have "free reign over discussions on Nazis". > I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary. That's an admission that you really haven't heard or considered the best argument for free speech. If you can only state arguments from one side of an issue, you haven't made up your mind, it was made for you.
causality0 4y ago
Pretending the actions of the government and the actions of private entities are equivalent borders on being deliberately obtuse. There is an enormous difference between being fired because you called a coworker the n-word and having uniformed men with guns show up at your front door because you taught a dog to sieg heil.
- rxhernandez 4y ago
  Thanks for the strawman; you know as well as I do that you can be fired for a lot less than calling your co-workers obscenities. I've seen people fired for just mouthing off about their office job while they're at the grocery store. Also, don't tell me it's important if you're more than willing (re: you're going out of your way to defend it being taken from you) to have it taken away from you. Don't tell me I'm being obtuse if you can say that it's unimportant for one of the most valuable portions of your life.
  - kurupt213 4y ago
    You are being obtuse. The freedoms we are talking about are freedom from government interference. Being an asshole still means that private people and companies will treat you like an asshole.
- smsm42 4y ago
  They are not equal, but they are similar and can have similar effect. I.e. if your bank seizes your account because you dared to express wrong opinion, it's different than the government did it, and yet you'd still have no access to your money and it could ruin your life pretty thoroughly. If you get fired because you consider your medical information private and do not want to disclose it, especially when you work remotely and it's irrelevant to any job function - it's not the government that fired you. But does it make the situation much better for you? It is more dangerous when a totalitarian government infringes your rights. That doesn't mean when a private company infringes your right it's not dangerous too. Maybe less dangerous, relatively, but still very very bad. And, btw, a lot of seemingly "private" actions turn out to be actions performed by private actors on behest of the government, which either forces or entices, by using their gigantic powers to both break and promote business, the "private" companies to act as their agents, "voluntarily" - or else.
hedora 4y ago
Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy. What form of government would you prefer? The biggest modern alternate examples are China (I'm guessing you disapprove of their zero covid policy, but your comment is ambiguous), and Russia (which also seems worse than the US according to the criteria I could tease out from your comment). So, what concrete alternative do you propose?
- rxhernandez 4y ago
  > Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy. Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute? > So, what concrete alternative do you propose? You get that there are many other countries in Western Europe that don't have as much free speech as the US right? You get that the lock down policies of many other Western countries seem Draconian relative to our policies right? You get that giving me some of the most extreme examples of alternatives makes it seem like you are arguing in bad faith right? Why do we need a brand new form of government? We didn't need a new form of government to ban saying "fire" in a theater.
  - MisterMower 4y ago
    > Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute? I think it would be extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for if speech supporting a certain candidate is suppressed, for example. Free speech and the ability to vote are deeply intertwined. Without the ability to discuss candidates and issues openly, the electorate can’t make an informed, honest choice. If one candidate or side of the debate is suppressed or censored, that in and of itself affects the outcome of an election.
    - Intermernet 4y ago
      It seems extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for due to the lack of consequences for completely misleading or false statements. Is a politician's lie protected by free speech?
raxxorraxor 4y ago
> What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen. I didn't downvote you and don't like if someone does it without leaving criticism. That said, I understand the objection to your reasoning very well and maybe people refrain from answering because the pitfalls of your model for speech are trivial. It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it. And we have seen intentional lying which I believe was a great mistake in current times when information moves that fast. Because the lie will come to light at some point anyway.
- rxhernandez 4y ago
  > It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it. I don't understand how you can call my issues with it trivial when I've heard this same propaganda over and over again for decades. I think the issue is that people made this propaganda their religion and are now unable to see that nuance can be used to safely reduce free speech. You can't yell fire in a crowded fire when there is no fire can you? Why do you act like these safeguards don't already exist for other things?
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    The propaganda is actually the people saying there are consequences for speech and it must therefore be limited. It is a trivial observation that there are consequences but that is of course not a justification to curb it. Again, the problem with "reasonable" exceptions is that someone has to define them. Free speech means the spread of ideas, it doesn't mean you are allowed to lie if you swear an oath to a judge. But we specifically see language policing and idea suppression in supposedly scientific institutions (hot examples: climate change, gender, wars, racism, immigration, ...).

gunfighthacksaw 4y ago

Those countries don’t give you the freedom to get into a gunfight with a SWAT team though.

blueprint 4y ago

the 'slippery slope' is not a fallacy. they are real. I'm sure you'd agree if I cited some examples.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MisterMower 4y ago
All slopes are slippery. The real question is to what degree. Some slopes are far more slick than others.

mpalczewski 4y ago

> What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen. 1M people died but the way your sentence is framed is that without those lies 1M people wouldn't have died. That looks like quite the intent to deceive, which makes it look like you are the liar. Why is it ok for you? Furthermore it's quite obfuscated. Yes people lied about the pandemic(every politician lies, it's like a contest to elect the best liar). I'm willing to bet some of those lies saved lives(just by chance, who knows). So directly in answer to your question. Speech should be free because that's how society advances, free speech is how you question the current dogma, it's how society moves forward. There's costs and benefits. Charlatan will con people. The way you deal with charlatans is by exposing them with better speech. Banning speech is weak sauce for people that don't know how to be convincing. > What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis. I live a pretty good life as an immigrant. Can't complain. Great country, wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The country where I come from does not have "free reign over discussions on Nazis". > I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary. That's an admission that you really haven't heard or considered the best argument for free speech. If you can only state arguments from one side of an issue, you haven't made up your mind, it was made for you.

causality0 4y ago

Pretending the actions of the government and the actions of private entities are equivalent borders on being deliberately obtuse. There is an enormous difference between being fired because you called a coworker the n-word and having uniformed men with guns show up at your front door because you taught a dog to sieg heil.

rxhernandez 4y ago
Thanks for the strawman; you know as well as I do that you can be fired for a lot less than calling your co-workers obscenities. I've seen people fired for just mouthing off about their office job while they're at the grocery store. Also, don't tell me it's important if you're more than willing (re: you're going out of your way to defend it being taken from you) to have it taken away from you. Don't tell me I'm being obtuse if you can say that it's unimportant for one of the most valuable portions of your life.
- kurupt213 4y ago
  You are being obtuse. The freedoms we are talking about are freedom from government interference. Being an asshole still means that private people and companies will treat you like an asshole.
smsm42 4y ago
They are not equal, but they are similar and can have similar effect. I.e. if your bank seizes your account because you dared to express wrong opinion, it's different than the government did it, and yet you'd still have no access to your money and it could ruin your life pretty thoroughly. If you get fired because you consider your medical information private and do not want to disclose it, especially when you work remotely and it's irrelevant to any job function - it's not the government that fired you. But does it make the situation much better for you? It is more dangerous when a totalitarian government infringes your rights. That doesn't mean when a private company infringes your right it's not dangerous too. Maybe less dangerous, relatively, but still very very bad. And, btw, a lot of seemingly "private" actions turn out to be actions performed by private actors on behest of the government, which either forces or entices, by using their gigantic powers to both break and promote business, the "private" companies to act as their agents, "voluntarily" - or else.

hedora 4y ago

Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy. What form of government would you prefer? The biggest modern alternate examples are China (I'm guessing you disapprove of their zero covid policy, but your comment is ambiguous), and Russia (which also seems worse than the US according to the criteria I could tease out from your comment). So, what concrete alternative do you propose?

rxhernandez 4y ago
> Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy. Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute? > So, what concrete alternative do you propose? You get that there are many other countries in Western Europe that don't have as much free speech as the US right? You get that the lock down policies of many other Western countries seem Draconian relative to our policies right? You get that giving me some of the most extreme examples of alternatives makes it seem like you are arguing in bad faith right? Why do we need a brand new form of government? We didn't need a new form of government to ban saying "fire" in a theater.
- MisterMower 4y ago
  > Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute? I think it would be extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for if speech supporting a certain candidate is suppressed, for example. Free speech and the ability to vote are deeply intertwined. Without the ability to discuss candidates and issues openly, the electorate can’t make an informed, honest choice. If one candidate or side of the debate is suppressed or censored, that in and of itself affects the outcome of an election.
  - Intermernet 4y ago
    It seems extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for due to the lack of consequences for completely misleading or false statements. Is a politician's lie protected by free speech?

raxxorraxor 4y ago

> What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen. I didn't downvote you and don't like if someone does it without leaving criticism. That said, I understand the objection to your reasoning very well and maybe people refrain from answering because the pitfalls of your model for speech are trivial. It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it. And we have seen intentional lying which I believe was a great mistake in current times when information moves that fast. Because the lie will come to light at some point anyway.

rxhernandez 4y ago
> It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it. I don't understand how you can call my issues with it trivial when I've heard this same propaganda over and over again for decades. I think the issue is that people made this propaganda their religion and are now unable to see that nuance can be used to safely reduce free speech. You can't yell fire in a crowded fire when there is no fire can you? Why do you act like these safeguards don't already exist for other things?
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  The propaganda is actually the people saying there are consequences for speech and it must therefore be limited. It is a trivial observation that there are consequences but that is of course not a justification to curb it. Again, the problem with "reasonable" exceptions is that someone has to define them. Free speech means the spread of ideas, it doesn't mean you are allowed to lie if you swear an oath to a judge. But we specifically see language policing and idea suppression in supposedly scientific institutions (hot examples: climate change, gender, wars, racism, immigration, ...).