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> Anytime someone tells me they care about marginalized communities while also trotting out "muh consequences" has told me that they don't care about marginaliz

> Anytime someone tells me they care about marginalized communities while also trotting out "muh consequences" has told me that they don't care about marginalized communities. It is also true that there exists behaviors that are unacceptable, socially.. but that should not be illegal. I can lie all I want in most cases, legally, but there are social repercussions for that. I can treat people disrespectfully, but it might cause them to no longer interact with me. There absolutely MUST be cases where actions have social repercussions, but are not actually illegal. That being said, I totally agree that freedom of speech is a social construct that goes beyond just the law. And the impacts on someone for their speech has grown more and more out of hand over time.

tristor 4y ago
> There absolutely MUST be cases where actions have social repercussions, but are not actually illegal. Absolutely. Social repercussions are not the only consequences however, and the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. Individuals have a right of free association. Small businesses arguably have a right of free association as well. Massive multi-national corporations do not and should not, they are allowed by society their size and breadth so that they serve the needs of society, which includes providing services to every member of the public. You should not be deprived of necessary services for a normal life because of behaving in a legal manner and exercising a legal right.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > Social repercussions are not the only consequences however, and the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. That's fair.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  > Small businesses arguably have a right of free association as well. Massive multi-national corporations do not and should not So, Joe's corner pharmacy should be allowed to kick someone out of their store who's protesting, acting unpleasant, wearing a KKK outfit, or other First Amendment protected activities, but Walgreens shouldn't be able to? Where do you draw the line?
  - tristor 4y ago
    Arguably, there are likely some services in which you should be obligated to provide to the public regardless as a public service. Pharmacies seem like they'd fall into this bucket. That said, let's entertain your scenario... yes. Joe's Corner Pharmacy is not the only pharmacy wherever it happens to be (mostly because there's very few independent pharmacies left in the US), but Walgreens and CVS may be the ONLY pharmacies in an entire major metro that aren't inside of a hospital. Walgreen's and CVS as a consequence of their duopoly/monopoly position do not have the right to kick you out of their pharmacy and prevent you from getting the medication you need to sustain your life (possibly quite literally) because they don't like the racist slogan on your t-shirt. If you don't agree with this, you don't agree with freedom of speech, and any further conversation is basically pointless. You don't get to kill people by proxy or make people homeless by proxy because your don't like what they say as long as you can proxy it out so it's not the government literally directly doing it. It's just as unethical as the government warrantlessly wiretapping all Americans by buying data from data brokers hoovered up by FaceGoog, rather than building said system itself directly to skirt the laws. The Constitution was conceived at a time when the government was the most powerful entity. Modern multi-national megacorps are arguably more powerful, and should be reigned in with similar restrictions. Since I've entertained your scenario, in your reply to me, I'd expect an acknowledgement that preventing someone access to medication required to sustain their life, due to their speech, is effectively equivalent to killing that person due to their speech. You cannot have "freedom of speech" in a society where you can legally kill people because of their speech. There's a huge gap between "social consequences" and material life consequences, and this is why "muh consequences" is a disingenuous argument made by people who actually are opposed to freedom of speech, but don't have the balls to say it (ironically, because they have the right to do so, but are afraid of the consequences).
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      I purposely picked a pharmacy because it's a more difficult discussion than, say, a sports equipment store. There's no easy answer. Ideally, for things that are life-and-death there would exist a government provider that anyone could go to. We should not be relying on the grace and invitation of corporations for life-and-death needs. Blanket rules and arbitrary size limits won't work. If you have a blanket rule that companies can kick people out for any[1] reason, then you have your "only one pharmacy in town" problem. If you have a blanket rule that companies must serve everyone regardless of their speech/behavior, then you can't kick a disruptive customer out of your business. If you say life-or-death companies must serve everyone, then you get into the endless debate about what counts as a life-or-death company. We have to eat. Do grocery stores count? Restaurants? We spent 2020 agonizing over what counts as an Essential Business. If you say companies over a certain size (or monopolies) must serve everyone, then you have to set an arbitrary size and debate over whether company X is a monopoly. I don't know what the answer is. 1: Any reason besides discriminating against "protected classes" https://subscriptlaw.com/protected-classes/ https://subscriptlaw.com/protected-classes/
- jjk166 4y ago
  > the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. They are the same, they merely vary in degree. If my neighbor walks up to me and asks for a loan of $1000 and I say no because my neighbor regularly calls my wife a whore, there are certainly material repercussions to not having access to that $1000 (maybe he really needs it) but it is clearly a social repercussion of his actions. I don't think I should be legally required to give him $1000. Likewise if someone walks into a restaurant and starts shouting "this food is the worst I've ever ate" it should be perfectly legal for the restaurant to refuse to serve food to this person, even though being denied food is perhaps one of the most severe material repercussions one could experience depending on what other options were available. Other people do not know nor are obliged to know your circumstances and what you need. It is your personal responsibility to make sure your needs are met, which includes making sure at least some portion of society tolerates you. If you piss off one bank, bank with someone else; if you piss off every bank, you screwed up.
  - tristor 4y ago
    > If you piss off one bank, bank with someone else; if you piss off every bank, you screwed up. Everything is a matter of degree, that's not a counter-argument. The issue here is that "social consequences" are a matter of individual relationships, material life consequences are generally a matter of policy. If you find yourself afoul of a banking policy that banks as a group have chosen to take to discriminate against you for lawful speech, you find yourself having material life-altering consequences for your speech. You are imaging a scenario in which someone is unbanked because one bank rejected them, when in fact the lived reality of the unbanked in the US is that they are unbanked because /all banks/ reject them, or at least all banks they have access to in their community. And it's not as if they've taken specific and directed actions against those banks, in many cases it can be as simple as having priors, which makes it both harder to get and maintain employment, as well as harder to impossible to get banking services. Nearly 10% of the American adult population has prior felony convictions, but once you serve your time it is morally reprehensible to mark you with a scarlet letter that prevents you from getting basic services required to exist in society, like banking. So sure, someone screws up? Do we damn them forever for screwing up? Is MERE SPEECH enough to damn someone forever? Because that's what we're talking about here. That's the "muh consequences" argument you're making by implication, even if not explicitly. The way you imagine "consequences" working, is not how it actually works. Your delusion is not reality, and reality is a harsh mistress. We are accountable for the arguments we make and the policy positions we espouse to their actual reality, not to our imagined outcomes. Be brave enough to just say that you don't believe in freedom of speech, and that you're okay if 10-20% of the population ekes out an abject miserable existence or dies due to their belief system or utterances, because that's the reality of "muh consequences".

tristor 4y ago

> There absolutely MUST be cases where actions have social repercussions, but are not actually illegal. Absolutely. Social repercussions are not the only consequences however, and the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. Individuals have a right of free association. Small businesses arguably have a right of free association as well. Massive multi-national corporations do not and should not, they are allowed by society their size and breadth so that they serve the needs of society, which includes providing services to every member of the public. You should not be deprived of necessary services for a normal life because of behaving in a legal manner and exercising a legal right.

RHSeeger 4y ago
> Social repercussions are not the only consequences however, and the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. That's fair.
ryandrake 4y ago
> Small businesses arguably have a right of free association as well. Massive multi-national corporations do not and should not So, Joe's corner pharmacy should be allowed to kick someone out of their store who's protesting, acting unpleasant, wearing a KKK outfit, or other First Amendment protected activities, but Walgreens shouldn't be able to? Where do you draw the line?
- tristor 4y ago
  Arguably, there are likely some services in which you should be obligated to provide to the public regardless as a public service. Pharmacies seem like they'd fall into this bucket. That said, let's entertain your scenario... yes. Joe's Corner Pharmacy is not the only pharmacy wherever it happens to be (mostly because there's very few independent pharmacies left in the US), but Walgreens and CVS may be the ONLY pharmacies in an entire major metro that aren't inside of a hospital. Walgreen's and CVS as a consequence of their duopoly/monopoly position do not have the right to kick you out of their pharmacy and prevent you from getting the medication you need to sustain your life (possibly quite literally) because they don't like the racist slogan on your t-shirt. If you don't agree with this, you don't agree with freedom of speech, and any further conversation is basically pointless. You don't get to kill people by proxy or make people homeless by proxy because your don't like what they say as long as you can proxy it out so it's not the government literally directly doing it. It's just as unethical as the government warrantlessly wiretapping all Americans by buying data from data brokers hoovered up by FaceGoog, rather than building said system itself directly to skirt the laws. The Constitution was conceived at a time when the government was the most powerful entity. Modern multi-national megacorps are arguably more powerful, and should be reigned in with similar restrictions. Since I've entertained your scenario, in your reply to me, I'd expect an acknowledgement that preventing someone access to medication required to sustain their life, due to their speech, is effectively equivalent to killing that person due to their speech. You cannot have "freedom of speech" in a society where you can legally kill people because of their speech. There's a huge gap between "social consequences" and material life consequences, and this is why "muh consequences" is a disingenuous argument made by people who actually are opposed to freedom of speech, but don't have the balls to say it (ironically, because they have the right to do so, but are afraid of the consequences).
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    I purposely picked a pharmacy because it's a more difficult discussion than, say, a sports equipment store. There's no easy answer. Ideally, for things that are life-and-death there would exist a government provider that anyone could go to. We should not be relying on the grace and invitation of corporations for life-and-death needs. Blanket rules and arbitrary size limits won't work. If you have a blanket rule that companies can kick people out for any[1] reason, then you have your "only one pharmacy in town" problem. If you have a blanket rule that companies must serve everyone regardless of their speech/behavior, then you can't kick a disruptive customer out of your business. If you say life-or-death companies must serve everyone, then you get into the endless debate about what counts as a life-or-death company. We have to eat. Do grocery stores count? Restaurants? We spent 2020 agonizing over what counts as an Essential Business. If you say companies over a certain size (or monopolies) must serve everyone, then you have to set an arbitrary size and debate over whether company X is a monopoly. I don't know what the answer is. 1: Any reason besides discriminating against "protected classes" https://subscriptlaw.com/protected-classes/ https://subscriptlaw.com/protected-classes/
jjk166 4y ago
> the "muh consequences" crowd conflates social repercussions (I didn't get invited to the party) with material life repercussions (I had my bank account closed). These are not the same. They are the same, they merely vary in degree. If my neighbor walks up to me and asks for a loan of $1000 and I say no because my neighbor regularly calls my wife a whore, there are certainly material repercussions to not having access to that $1000 (maybe he really needs it) but it is clearly a social repercussion of his actions. I don't think I should be legally required to give him $1000. Likewise if someone walks into a restaurant and starts shouting "this food is the worst I've ever ate" it should be perfectly legal for the restaurant to refuse to serve food to this person, even though being denied food is perhaps one of the most severe material repercussions one could experience depending on what other options were available. Other people do not know nor are obliged to know your circumstances and what you need. It is your personal responsibility to make sure your needs are met, which includes making sure at least some portion of society tolerates you. If you piss off one bank, bank with someone else; if you piss off every bank, you screwed up.
- tristor 4y ago
  > If you piss off one bank, bank with someone else; if you piss off every bank, you screwed up. Everything is a matter of degree, that's not a counter-argument. The issue here is that "social consequences" are a matter of individual relationships, material life consequences are generally a matter of policy. If you find yourself afoul of a banking policy that banks as a group have chosen to take to discriminate against you for lawful speech, you find yourself having material life-altering consequences for your speech. You are imaging a scenario in which someone is unbanked because one bank rejected them, when in fact the lived reality of the unbanked in the US is that they are unbanked because /all banks/ reject them, or at least all banks they have access to in their community. And it's not as if they've taken specific and directed actions against those banks, in many cases it can be as simple as having priors, which makes it both harder to get and maintain employment, as well as harder to impossible to get banking services. Nearly 10% of the American adult population has prior felony convictions, but once you serve your time it is morally reprehensible to mark you with a scarlet letter that prevents you from getting basic services required to exist in society, like banking. So sure, someone screws up? Do we damn them forever for screwing up? Is MERE SPEECH enough to damn someone forever? Because that's what we're talking about here. That's the "muh consequences" argument you're making by implication, even if not explicitly. The way you imagine "consequences" working, is not how it actually works. Your delusion is not reality, and reality is a harsh mistress. We are accountable for the arguments we make and the policy positions we espouse to their actual reality, not to our imagined outcomes. Be brave enough to just say that you don't believe in freedom of speech, and that you're okay if 10-20% of the population ekes out an abject miserable existence or dies due to their belief system or utterances, because that's the reality of "muh consequences".