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TheHeretic -> RE: Freedom can go to hell! (1/12/2010 7:49:09 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: philosophy
The answer comes in two parts.
The first part you yourself referred to in a later post.
"Most of our nonsense restrictions are regarding sex and dirty words broadcast on the public airwaves"
In large part there are bizarre and nonsensical restrictions on the type of language useable in public settings. i freely admit it's a small thing, but if you're going to suggest that the US is the land of free speech because people are free to taunt mourners at a funeral the very least you can do is let the word 'fuck' be used on tv.
The second part i'm fairly sure you'll disagree with, but here goes. Free speech is only free when speech is free of restriction. This doesn't just mean you're free to say something, it also means you're free of consequences. In the US there are consequences to speaking certain things. Try going to a local bar and then, in a loud voice, suggest that the US should take responsibility for creating the climate in which Islamic terrorism occured. Think there'd be a sanction applied to you? Probably.
Now, you'd quite rightly point out that speech always has consequences. i'd agree. and this is why i say that there is only an illusion of free speech in the USA. Because speech always has consequences, it is always conditional. In effect there is no such thing as free speech. It's an impossibility. The USA is the only country that tries to maintain an illusion that speech can be free.
Hope that clarifies my position Rich. i always enjoy debating with you :)
Thank you, Phil. Even on those subjects where we can't find the tiniest bit of common ground, I never end a discussion with you feeling like I've been suckered into wasting my time talking to a deliberately obtuse jackoff. You seem a very decent guy I would drink a beer with.
I'll reverse your order for my reply.
Except for a few areas I'll get into when I address your first point, speech in my country IS free of legal consequence. I'm not sure how your notion of speech without social consequence might work. Doesn't that strip those who hear it of their right to speech and expression? Doesn't it grant a special status to the speech of some, while depriving others of theirs?
Let's drag out my favorite example to play with; Bill (The Bigot) Maher. I'm not referring to his infamous remarks that cost him his ABC show in the wake of 9/11, but to his current program (unless it has been cancelled without my hearing about it), Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. I used to really enjoy the program, but I noticed, on a number of occasions, how casual he was in his bigotry towards religion and people of faith. I'm not even a Christian, but it bothered me, and I ultimately switched off the DVR setting. I also decided that his speech was sufficiently offensive to me that I adopted the habit of adding the title "the bigot" when I mention him. Am I not free to do this? If Bill the Bigot is to enjoy his right to spout hatred and contempt for people with different beliefs and myths about the universe than he holds, without fear of any consequence, does that mean I have to keep watching his show? Does he have a right to a captive audience with duct tape over their mouths? Perhaps a single viewer tuning out, a single poster on the internet calling him an insulting name, isn't much of a consequence, but there it is, all the same. Would you strip me of my rights, in preference to his?
How is this supposed to work, Phil? Are we then to ban the sort of speech that might lead to such reactions so that only inoffensive speech everyone agrees with is tolerated? Action and reaction, yin and yang, these are the forces of the universe you are suggesting we do away with.
I think I get what you are meaning about wanting to express yourself, in a bar for example, and knowing that to do so would result in some non-consensual pummelling without a safeword, or some other price you just aren't willing to pay. Been there, done that, it's on my calendar again for next month. We are social animals, and not still evolving. I don't think that is going to be something government can issue a decree on. That's the kind of intrusion into personal life and social engineering that would make me load my guns if it was attempted here.
Pick your battles carefully, though, choose your words with equal care, understand the difference between using your temper and losing it, it's possible to speak your mind in damn near any bar you would want to hang out in otherwise.
Besides, Phil, if all speech truly was free of potential consequence, can you imagine the incessant blithering idiocy we would be forced to sit through???
This is getting long. I'll catch the legal side in another post.
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