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Cascadia1753 Posts
On January 08 2015 04:05 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 03:46 Tephus wrote:On January 08 2015 03:33 mcc wrote:On January 08 2015 03:26 Tephus wrote:
Catering to these populations by censoring ourselves is morally wrong from all perspectives.The only morally right thing to do is fight censorship, oppression, and violence. Appeasing those who promote the former is complete moral failure. It is not that simple. There is the whole "screaming-fire-in-full-theater" thing, and there is "hate-speech" that can easily be argued to be harmful and thus immoral. Depends on your definition of hate speech. If a population can label anything offensive as hate speech, then we've lost. If it's limited to conspiracy to commit violence (or another crime), then its redundant. Screaming fire in a theatre is an awful example. In any organized setting, at most this will cause temporary inconvenience to the people in the theatre. If you consider it metaphorically, then censoring those shouting fire is a massive restriction on free speech. And there is always the issue of who decides. Once someone can decide what is free speech and what isn't, you've by definition lost free speech. As for hate speech, I agree that it can get out of hand, but so can nearly everything beneficial in society. But you can limit it reasonably. For example I see absolutely no problem with banning even very widely defined hate-speech in schools and other special purpose places. Whereas in normal settings I personally am for complete freedom of speech (on the issue of hate speech), but I see the point of limiting some of it as some countries do. It is hard to judge. Panic in crowded places is not mere inconvenience. It caused quite a lot of death and suffering in history. And it is nearly no restriction on free speech. What positive purpose can such a speech serve ? Free speech is not self-serving principle. It is good if it causes good, it is bad if it causes suffering. Screaming fire in crowded places (if there is no fire) is in all practical scenarios bad. So no reason to not ban it purely ethically speaking. Sometimes it is more important to keep rules simple than to prevent some bad things, but this is not the case. Free speech rules remain simple and natural enough even after you ban panic inducing speech. As for who decides, society decides as in all things. Specific laws might be crafted by specialists, but they always have to stand some kind of test of society's approval. Our society is better now than 200 years ago, not because we introduced free speech, but because society changed so that the free speech principle could have been introduced (there is of course feedback loop) and the whole thing is more continuous than discrete, but the general direction is the way I described. In practice who decides is a judge as free speech is vague enough to require judges to actually weight different competing principles and decide as is their job.
I don't know what you mean by in schools or other special places, as if a teacher was doing something that could be considered hate speech, she wouldn't be doing their job. You don't need to create hate speech laws to tell someone they have to stick to their job while on the job.
Not being able to shout in a theatre can be analagous to any panic situation. When does it become 'allowed' to yell fire? A match? A garbage fire? A garbage fire that fell over? Who decides?
Consider a whistle blowing situation. No matter how much possible panic Snowden could cause, truthfully or not, he should have the right to speak. Controlling panic can be used as an excuse to control information.
If society is deciding what is free speech, it is no longer free speech. If a judge is deciding what is free speech, it is no longer free speech. It is some form of limited speech.
The only form of free speech is when all speech is allowed.
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On January 08 2015 04:37 Tephus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 04:05 mcc wrote:On January 08 2015 03:46 Tephus wrote:On January 08 2015 03:33 mcc wrote:On January 08 2015 03:26 Tephus wrote:
Catering to these populations by censoring ourselves is morally wrong from all perspectives.The only morally right thing to do is fight censorship, oppression, and violence. Appeasing those who promote the former is complete moral failure. It is not that simple. There is the whole "screaming-fire-in-full-theater" thing, and there is "hate-speech" that can easily be argued to be harmful and thus immoral. Depends on your definition of hate speech. If a population can label anything offensive as hate speech, then we've lost. If it's limited to conspiracy to commit violence (or another crime), then its redundant. Screaming fire in a theatre is an awful example. In any organized setting, at most this will cause temporary inconvenience to the people in the theatre. If you consider it metaphorically, then censoring those shouting fire is a massive restriction on free speech. And there is always the issue of who decides. Once someone can decide what is free speech and what isn't, you've by definition lost free speech. As for hate speech, I agree that it can get out of hand, but so can nearly everything beneficial in society. But you can limit it reasonably. For example I see absolutely no problem with banning even very widely defined hate-speech in schools and other special purpose places. Whereas in normal settings I personally am for complete freedom of speech (on the issue of hate speech), but I see the point of limiting some of it as some countries do. It is hard to judge. Panic in crowded places is not mere inconvenience. It caused quite a lot of death and suffering in history. And it is nearly no restriction on free speech. What positive purpose can such a speech serve ? Free speech is not self-serving principle. It is good if it causes good, it is bad if it causes suffering. Screaming fire in crowded places (if there is no fire) is in all practical scenarios bad. So no reason to not ban it purely ethically speaking. Sometimes it is more important to keep rules simple than to prevent some bad things, but this is not the case. Free speech rules remain simple and natural enough even after you ban panic inducing speech. As for who decides, society decides as in all things. Specific laws might be crafted by specialists, but they always have to stand some kind of test of society's approval. Our society is better now than 200 years ago, not because we introduced free speech, but because society changed so that the free speech principle could have been introduced (there is of course feedback loop) and the whole thing is more continuous than discrete, but the general direction is the way I described. In practice who decides is a judge as free speech is vague enough to require judges to actually weight different competing principles and decide as is their job. I don't know what you mean by in schools or other special places, as if a teacher was doing something that could be considered hate speech, she wouldn't be doing their job. You don't need to create hate speech laws to tell someone they have to stick to their job while on the job. Not being able to shout in a theatre can be analagous to any panic situation. When does it become 'allowed' to yell fire? A match? A garbage fire? A garbage fire that fell over? Who decides? Consider a whistle blowing situation. No matter how much possible panic Snowden could cause, truthfully or not, he should have the right to speak. Controlling panic can be used as an excuse to control information. If society is deciding what is free speech, it is no longer free speech. If a judge is deciding what is free speech, it is no longer free speech. It is some form of limited speech. The only form of free speech is when all speech is allowed.
I meant more for students, not the teachers. Basically where the purpose of the place does not have anything directly to do with exercising your democratic rights. Schools are for teaching, the same would go for army (where it is I think clear), police and so on and so on.
Who decides, the judge. As for how should you know what is allowed and what is not ? Use your common sense, unless you are psychopath or mentally ill, you will know pretty well what is and what is not illegal. General purpose laws like these are common-sense-based as otherwise they would not do their job. Snowden situation does not have much to do with it. The intent of those laws pretty clearly does not cover situations where you are telling the facts. If there is in fact fire in that theater nobody will actually punish you for screaming fire (unless you do something really stupid along with it).
Okay, if you want to use your definition, so be it. Then I am against free speech and happy to oppose it.
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Cascadia1753 Posts
I'm sad to hear it.
My common sense says all speech should be allowed.
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On January 08 2015 05:06 Tephus wrote:
I'm sad to hear it.
My common sense says all speech should be allowed.
All speech might be allowed but that does not mean it should be spoken.
On a very basic level, free speech is not valued the same cross-culturally. One of the most striking examples for me is that a lot of Thai (and maybe Asian) people are willingly sacrifice the right to free speech if it would bring harmony in the society, especially if the message would harm our beloved King. Although we don't go bombing places that publish derogatory stuffs about our King, be it from inside or outside Thailand, Many Thai would still happily point and say "I am happy that the government censor that piece/arrest the person who did that". "Free-speech" pales in comparison to "harmony" and "Respect the King" values here in Thailand.
If we try to apply one standard to all people in the world, then it would just simply fail. People are raised differently so sometimes a cross-cultural aspect might need to be considered too before someone publishes things that might not be taken very well from other cultures.
Although I am not considered myself as a very strict follower of Buddhism, there is one teaching about speech that I like despite very difficult sometimes to do it correctly. I paraphrased it a little bit:
If words are lies and someone is harmed by them, do not speak them.
If words are lies but no one is harmed by them, do not speak them.
If words are truth but someone is harmed by them, do not speak them.
If words are truth and no one is harmed by them, then that is the only time you should speak the truth.
The most difficult part is that the world is larger than ever. So people might need to think very carefully before they speak something.
Also please note that I do not condone any violence and I believe that the shooter should be heavily punished. But I do think that if someone publish things that will make people upset, they should be very prepare for the possible consequences.
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Cascadia1753 Posts
Having internal beliefs like that to follow is fine, despite the problem that its nearly impossible to profess an opinion that won't offend someone. But you are free to follow these teaching as you wish.
The problem arises when others get to decide what you may or may not say.
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On January 08 2015 05:06 Tephus wrote:
I'm sad to hear it.
My common sense says all speech should be allowed.
The common-sense is to be applied to your behaviour in the situation in question. Would you scream fire in a crowded building if you could rationally decide (excluding legality from the equation) ? Normal person would not purely based on common sense. And thus using common sense you easily avoid running into the law limiting such speech.
You are applying "common sense" to the meta-argument that we are having. Whether speech should be completely free. There common sense is much less useful and definitely not an argument. Seems to me like instead of having some reasonable goal, like utilitarian minimization of suffering or some such, and trying to achieve those goals by implementing social institutions that will help with that pragmatically, you instead worship abstract concepts like "absolute freedom of speech" no matter how useful such principle is in practice in achieving actual important things. Free speech is a tool and as all tools has limited usability.
You did not show any arguments why speech should be free even in cases when it causes harm, except stating that such limits might lead to slipper slope. But that is slippery slope fallacy as most modern countries show that it is quite possible to have limited free speech and not fall down that slope.
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Cascadia1753 Posts
Being able to tell yourself something isn't wise to do is different from someone else saying you can't do it.
Please show me a country that has put restrictions on free speech(all countries have some laws..) and hasn't once used those restrictions to control or try to control the flow of information in a way negative to the general population. Its not a slippery slope if its demonstrably true.
For example:
USA:
USA v Thomas Andrew Drake (leaking non-classified information about waste, fraud and abuse at NSA) http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/04/drake-indict.pdf
USA v Samuel Morison (spent time in jail, pardoned 20 years later)
Germany
Manfred van H sent to jail for printing "koran, the only koran" on toilet paper. http://www.ksta.de/politik/der-angeklagte-gibt-den-maerchenonkel,15187246,13710216.html
Also, having the opinion that the holocaust didn't happen is JAILABLE in Germany, which I think is kinda fucked. Pretty sure history has shown that making ideas illegal isn't how you defeat them.
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On January 09 2015 02:19 Tephus wrote:Being able to tell yourself something isn't wise to do is different from someone else saying you can't do it. Please show me a country that has put restrictions on free speech(all countries have some laws..) and hasn't once used those restrictions to control or try to control the flow of information in a way negative to the general population. Its not a slippery slope if its demonstrably true. For example: USA: USA v Thomas Andrew Drake (leaking non-classified information about waste, fraud and abuse at NSA) http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/04/drake-indict.pdfUSA v Samuel Morison (spent time in jail, pardoned 20 years later) Germany Manfred van H sent to jail for printing "koran, the only koran" on toilet paper. http://www.ksta.de/politik/der-angeklagte-gibt-den-maerchenonkel,15187246,13710216.htmlAlso, having the opinion that the holocaust didn't happen is JAILABLE in Germany, which I think is kinda fucked. Pretty sure history has shown that making ideas illegal isn't how you defeat them.
Did I say it never happens ? No, I said that those countries are not embracing censorship. That is what slippery slope means. Of course stupid shit happens. Does that mean that Germany and US are becoming North Korea ? So no, slippery slope is not demonstrably true as for that you would have to show that things are getting worse on average, that is what the slope in slippery slope means, not find some random excesses of power and misuse.
Sometimes innocent people are sent to jail for murder, does that mean we should stop prosecuting it ? And is it a slippery slope to becoming a genocidal country ? We should strive to minimize (and possibly eliminate) the wrongful convictions some other way than just stopping prosecuting murder at all.
Germany has a good reason to make denying Holocaust illegal, even if I might disagree with the efficacy, I am not worried about it since Germany had it for decades and contrary to what you are saying they actually climbed up in the free speech department in those few decades. So things are ok and I really could not care about banning spouting obvious lie for good historical reasons.
History has shown one thing about defeating ideas. That neither making them illegal or keeping them legal is sure way to solve anything. Sometimes making them illegal is a way to defeat them, sometimes it is not. Problem is we currently have no way predicting what will happen.
Basically, even modern countries have their stupid laws that I disagree with (for example the defamation law in Germany could be worded more sensibly), and yet they are not slipping anywhere. So if they had only the limits I was actually defending the slippery slope would be even further from happening.
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(Reuters) - Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which angered Muslims by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad 10 years ago, will not republish Charlie Hebdo's cartoons due to security concerns, the only major Danish newspaper not to do so.
"It shows that violence works," the newspaper stated in its editorial on Friday.
Denmark's other major newspapers have all republished cartoons from the French satirical weekly as part of the coverage of the attack which killed 12 people in Paris on Wednesday.
Many other European newspapers also republished Charlie Hebdo cartoons to protest against the killings.
When Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons by various artists in September 2005, most of which depict the Prophet Mohammad, it sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world in which at least 50 people died.
"We have lived with the fear of a terrorist attack for nine years, and yes, that is the explanation why we do not reprint the cartoons, whether it be our own or Charlie Hebdo’s," Jyllands-Posten said. "We are also aware that we therefore bow to violence and intimidation."
Jyllands-Posten decided to tighten its security level in the wake of the Paris attack.
"The concern for our employees’ safety is paramount," it said in Friday's editorial.
source
This shows how silly your point actually is. For publishing a cartoon they have to live in fear of a terrorist attack for 9 years and instead of blaming the ones who are causing the voilence you're saying it's their own fault.
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Coming back into this thread I am kind of annoyed at people arguing semantics rather than my actual points. Who was "blamed" in my paper has nothing to do with it, the entire point of the paper was to discuss a very specific question. That question was NOT whether or not muslim extremists are at fault for their actions. If the extremists were the focus of my paper, It would have been a bad paper.
In the real world, the person that is accountable for what happens to you is you. If you think it's otherwise you are not very skillful at living. Who's fault you think it is doesn't change what actually happens. If you go into a bad neighborhood and get robbed, it happened both because you went into a bad neighborhood and because people robbed you. There are multiple reasons for things that happened.
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I think that this needs a Muslim perspective to balance this out, first off, murder or even the threat of murder as retaliation to the pictures is completely wrong. I'm willing to bet at least 99% of Muslims will agree, that whilst the pictures were absolutely disrespectful, the retaliation is utterly unacceptable, and therefore in this tragedy both sides are at fault (although that attackers are to a greater degree)
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Cascadia1753 Posts
On January 10 2015 07:10 Cricketer12 wrote:
I think that this needs a Muslim perspective to balance this out, first off, murder or even the threat of murder as retaliation to the pictures is completely wrong. I'm willing to bet at least 99% of Muslims will agree, that whilst the pictures were absolutely disrespectful, the retaliation is utterly unacceptable, and therefore in this tragedy both sides are at fault (although that attackers are to a greater degree)
Unfortunately, polls conducted in Muslim majority countries show that this simply isn't the case. Some countries return results as high as 60% saying it is okay to use violence to protect Islam.
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On January 10 2015 08:09 Tephus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2015 07:10 Cricketer12 wrote:
I think that this needs a Muslim perspective to balance this out, first off, murder or even the threat of murder as retaliation to the pictures is completely wrong. I'm willing to bet at least 99% of Muslims will agree, that whilst the pictures were absolutely disrespectful, the retaliation is utterly unacceptable, and therefore in this tragedy both sides are at fault (although that attackers are to a greater degree) Unfortunately, polls conducted in Muslim majority countries show that this simply isn't the case. Some countries return results as high as 60% saying it is okay to use violence to protect Islam.
protect is the key word here as the only time in which violence is justified is when a Muslim is defending him/herself from an attack
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Cascadia1753 Posts
It didn't ask 'to protect yourself', it said 'protect Islam'.
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EPT
