15 ms·

"Free speech for me and not for thee..."

frugalmail 1y ago
That was mostly the case pre 2025. We all have to fight to undo the Obama Smith-Mundt Modernization Act that allowed the executive branch to create domestic propaganda.
echelon 1y ago
Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend. If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job. Have free speech, but use it wisely. Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it. Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole. Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate. But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > consequences for saying things that harm or offend. Appropriate consequences. Death is never an appropriate consequence for this. Loss of employment is only appropriate where the speech demonstrates an inability to do the job properly.
  - zingababba 1y ago
    I mean, if a surgeon for instance was posting something like "Glad he died" on social media I'm not sure that would indicate whether or not they could do their job properly. However I'd still consider that individual to be slightly unhinged for posting something like that. Personally I think social media is almost entirely opinion policing garbage and engaging with it 'unironically' is a low IQ indicator but whatever.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > I mean, if a surgeon for instance was posting something like "Glad he died" on social media I'm not sure that would indicate whether or not they could do their job properly. It raises the suspicion that the surgeon might fail, consciously or unconsciously, to work at full capacity for a patient who happens to resemble the victim in some way.
- frugalmail 1y ago
  Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government. "Offend" is subjective, and US Citizens should not have punitive governmental consequences as a result. But private organizations, should be able to make their own decisions on all the above.
  - immibis 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - zahlman 1y ago
      This is plain sophistry. When an order to harm is given and followed, the harm was caused proximately by the person following the order; and ultimately by the system in which the speech was to be taken as an order, and was followed. It was not caused by the speech itself. Where American law makes an exception for "incitement to imminent lawless action", this is a recognition that something more than mere "speech" is going on.
      - immibis 1y ago
        You're saying you don't believe giving orders is a form of speech. Can you justify that in more detail?
        zahlman 1y ago
        No, I am not saying that. I am saying that when an order is given, it has other properties, aside from "being a form of speech", and those are the properties that make it bad to give an order to do a harmful thing. The simple fact that it is uttered, is not what's problematic about the order. It is therefore not valid to say that "you believe speech can harm people", any more than "you believe breathing can harm people" (since breathing is a prerequisite to being alive, which is a prerequisite to giving an order).
        1y ago
BJones12 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- alchemical_piss 1y ago
  [dead]
- lostlogin 1y ago
  This is a strange take. A right wing firebrand just got shot. How is this an example of an action having consequences against the left?
  - krapp 1y ago
    I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing. Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ. It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
  - BJones12 1y ago
    Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
- scuff3d 1y ago
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
[dead]
trelane 1y ago
It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

That was mostly the case pre 2025. We all have to fight to undo the Obama Smith-Mundt Modernization Act that allowed the executive branch to create domestic propaganda.

echelon 1y ago

Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend. If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job. Have free speech, but use it wisely. Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it. Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole. Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate. But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.

zahlman 1y ago
> consequences for saying things that harm or offend. Appropriate consequences. Death is never an appropriate consequence for this. Loss of employment is only appropriate where the speech demonstrates an inability to do the job properly.
- zingababba 1y ago
  I mean, if a surgeon for instance was posting something like "Glad he died" on social media I'm not sure that would indicate whether or not they could do their job properly. However I'd still consider that individual to be slightly unhinged for posting something like that. Personally I think social media is almost entirely opinion policing garbage and engaging with it 'unironically' is a low IQ indicator but whatever.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > I mean, if a surgeon for instance was posting something like "Glad he died" on social media I'm not sure that would indicate whether or not they could do their job properly. It raises the suspicion that the surgeon might fail, consciously or unconsciously, to work at full capacity for a patient who happens to resemble the victim in some way.
frugalmail 1y ago
Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government. "Offend" is subjective, and US Citizens should not have punitive governmental consequences as a result. But private organizations, should be able to make their own decisions on all the above.
- immibis 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - zahlman 1y ago
    This is plain sophistry. When an order to harm is given and followed, the harm was caused proximately by the person following the order; and ultimately by the system in which the speech was to be taken as an order, and was followed. It was not caused by the speech itself. Where American law makes an exception for "incitement to imminent lawless action", this is a recognition that something more than mere "speech" is going on.
    - immibis 1y ago
      You're saying you don't believe giving orders is a form of speech. Can you justify that in more detail?
      - zahlman 1y ago
        No, I am not saying that. I am saying that when an order is given, it has other properties, aside from "being a form of speech", and those are the properties that make it bad to give an order to do a harmful thing. The simple fact that it is uttered, is not what's problematic about the order. It is therefore not valid to say that "you believe speech can harm people", any more than "you believe breathing can harm people" (since breathing is a prerequisite to being alive, which is a prerequisite to giving an order).
        1y ago

BJones12 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
alchemical_piss 1y ago
[dead]
lostlogin 1y ago
This is a strange take. A right wing firebrand just got shot. How is this an example of an action having consequences against the left?
- krapp 1y ago
  I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing. Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ. It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
- BJones12 1y ago
  Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
scuff3d 1y ago

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

[dead]

trelane 1y ago

It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/