Far too often people forget that Right to Free Speech is not your first right, and it is superseded by other human rights above it.
Your right to Free Speech only applies as long as it doesn’t interfere with other people’s rights to safety and freedom from prejudice, hate, harm, etc…
It’s not that complicated and yet countless people always fuck something so straightforward up.
That’s all fine and dandy until people change the definition of those words to suit their needs. Then all speech they disagree with is hate speech. Which has already happened.
That’s all fine and dandy until people change the definition of those words to suit their needs. Then all speech they disagree with is hate speech. Which has already happened
Let’s get some examples there chief.
Link what you think is “fine” and has been labeled hate speech
As a Floridian, the issue is pretty apparent. Conservatives are outlawing the current teachings about race in our schools all under the guise of STOPPING racism.
There have been some laws passed by several states to label criticisms of Israel’s apartheid state as hate speech and outlaw BDS boycotts based on that.
Do not assume the right wing won’t try to turn whatever tactic you find effective against them back at you. That doesn’t mean you should stop using it though; they certainly aren’t going to drop it now that they’ve found a way to wield it.
Link what you think is “fine” and has been labeled hate speech
Sure, lets start with having a penis making you a man, and a vagina making you a woman. Referencing indisputable biology has been called both hate and a phobia more times than I can count.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’ve been had. No one is coming to take your precious heteronormativity and matching pronouns away from you.
So what you’re saying is that it’s important to instill strong morals and encourage critical thinking in the general populous so that we can recognize the difference between actual hate speech and what is being spun as hate speech in order to further the agendas of those who would oppress us and therefore any action made to suppress public education must be the precursor to a larger scheme to gain control by manipulating the ignorant?
Thats not how Hate Speech works, its explicitly about intent and not the actual words used, at least in Canada.
Canada doesn’t specify any specific words that are “banned” or whatever, and the law is explicitly setup to handle that no matter what you do or dont say, all it cares is about the intent behind your words and whether they intended to incite violence/hate.
the tolerance paradox
If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people.
The solution is that it’s a social contract. I agree to tolerate your weirdness and quirks. You agree to do the same to myself and others.
By being intolerant (without a good reason), they break the social contract. Therefore they are no longer protected by it either.
This doesn’t seem so much of a liberal thing but a social centrist thing. There’s plenty of people on the left that are socialist/communist but don’t care as much about social issues. I recall someone arguing that the people who wanted to kidnap Gov Whitmer were experiencing “economic anxiety”. You see it too with leftists who float the idea of working with MAGA hats for economic populism.
It’s like when people say there’s basically only one party or there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans. From a purely economic perspective, sure, the differences are rather small. Pretty much just comes down to taxes. But the two parties are polar opposites when it comes to social issues. To say there’s no difference is basically ignoring the social aspect.
Enlightened centrist or liberal or apologist, it’s just cringe.
anyone telling you to defend nazi’s isnt a lib.
You’d think that’d be obvious and you wouldnt have to be told that, yet here we are, having to tell you the blatant fuckin obvious.
Someone else being a twat won’t make me violate my principles. I’m not good to others because they’re good to me. I’m good to others because they’re an end themselves, not a means to my ends.
If you are good to nazi’s because they are good to you, regardless of what they do to others, Then your principles, and you as a person, are shit, and you should be treated as nothing but an infiltrator for their cause, because that is what you are.
And that’s completely your right to do. However, that is not what the tolerance contract covers. It goes beyond what most people would tolerate normally. Also, people cannot both break the social contract, and then insist you hold up the other end.
By example, I’ve previously had long debates over nazi Germany and Hitler’s economic recovery. I would even tolerate Nazis, if they followed the social contract from their side. Unfortunately, the various Nazis groups regularly break that contract. They then try and hide behind it, when others take offence.
Conversely, I also disagree with the “tankies”. They tend not to break the social contract however. This gives them the right to reasonable tolerance of them, and their views. They respect others, despite disagreeing with them. They, in turn, gain a level of respect in discussions.
Don’t get me wrong, I am tolerant of a lot, from purely moralistic reasoning. The social contract is a larger entity however. It formalises what many of us feel. It also shows us where the lines are, beyond which people are abusing our tolerance. It’s the larger social version of our internal morals.
Honestly these days if you say you tolerate someones ideas, but you don’t agree with them, then you are just called a ist word
There are levels of tolerance in there. E.g. I’m not gay. I have no interest in men. The idea of being sexual with a man is mildly repulsive to me.
With this, the bare minimum of tolerance is not actively working against the existence and legality of being gay.
Next is the “none of my business” level of tolerance. What happens between 2 consenting adults is down to them.
Above that is acceptance. Gay people have developed their own culture and community. While it’s not for me, I recognise that its existence and celebration makes our overall culture more dynamic and interesting. It also provides a lot of happiness to others. Accepting and rolling with that provides a lot of positivity to others, without significant cost to me.
However, if I was approached by a gay guy and propositioned, there is no issue with me turning them down. I try and be polite about it, but being firm isn’t being intolerant. (Luckily, most gay guys take being rejected a LOT better than some straight guys do).
Going back to your example. Going up to a black guy and expressing that, while you tolerate them not being a slave, you don’t agree with it. This is intolerant, it is an incredibly strong dog whistle of your tolerance is forced.
Conversely, if, during a debate on religion and it’s effects, you express your view that you accept people are religious, but don’t agree with it, that is better. The context is a debate, and you can explain your reasoning better. It also lacks the dog whistle element that makes it bigoted.
Basically, context matters, A LOT.
This comic is a good example of the Paradox of Tolerance. You can’t tolerate intolerance… it does not end well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Tolerance of everything except intolerance, except that of intolerance. “Paradox” resolved.
It’s not a paradox at all if you view society and government as a social contract entered by all parties. The conditions for being protected by the tolerance provided for in the Constitution is that you extend that tolerance to everyone else. The intolerant have breached that contract and are therefore no longer protected by it.
Tolerance is a social contract.
Those who dont abide by it, try to use it as a weapon against those who do, to enable their intolerance to grow and spread.
Those who don’t abide by the social contract are a threat to society as a whole, and should not receive its protection.
Because you end up empowering them, and weakening society against them.
Intolerance must be put down, with force. It is not hypocritical. It is not paradoxical. For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further, because if you don’t… nothing will thrive but the weeds.
That’s a very heavy responsibility though. And the abuse of it is the exact reason our founders gave us such an extreme right. Alas we were also supposed to maintain a healthy public dialogue and rewrite the Constitution every 20 years. Doing half the job doesn’t end well.
For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further,
What does this look like?
That’s kinda the reason why I believe the solution to defeat intolerance is by talking directly to the intolerant and showing how they are wrong otherwise you’re just showing them you are the intolerant fascist. By attacking their freedom of speech your proving that you attack free speech. In history it seems that fascism arizes when there is injustice like how when the Germans were oppressed after WW1 it was the fascists that had a solution to the injustice. Mind you a not very good solution but when you are dirt poor humiliated forced to live in a land desimated by war the Nazi party was a pretty effective way to get back at the world that destroyed your home. Had we caught onto the injustice the Germans were facing we could have prevented the rise of Nazi Germany. Granted at the time the Germans would have told anyone who listened that it was the Jews that made everything bad happen but if your smart enough one could see past the hate and see exactly why these people are hurt to the point of blaming a religion and feeling the need to puff themselves as superior any nation could have caught onto that and become the hero the Germans made the Nazis out to be. Just look at any other regime like Soviet Russia or North Korea they rose because they had a issue and only evil people were around to wear the cape of a hero.
Yes, the left has to counter hateful rhetoric with their own rhetoric and propose viable alternatives. Making the issue about freedom of speech, like this comic does, plays right into the hands of the right wing. They know they can win that battle, because most people are in favor of free speech.
That’s the part that made me uncomfortable as well. Sounds like a planty euphemism for violence. The rest I find agreeable.
I guess I should have made it more explicit then, since you think its merely a colorful euphemism and not a direct statement.
Words and feelings don’t defeat authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants.
Violence does.
You’d be sitting there with a swastika on your arm in a world without jews, roma, and gays, trans people, and far more… if good men and women didnt take up violence against the ideology of hate that these people push.
They don’t care about yours words. Your tolerance. They use them as toys for amusement, laughing as you exhaust yourself trying to argue against their ever increasingly absurd statements, and as tools to spread their intolerance and hatred.
You cant debate or compromise with them, because debating gives them false legitimacy and compromise does nothing but sacrifice society to advance their position and gains.
You should be uncomfortable that these people are emboldened to come out and make their speeches. to fly their flags. to hang their banners and to assault government buildings at the direct command of their masters.
They have no problem using violence to eradicate you and everything you hold dear.
and you being uncomfortable about it will do nothing but make them laugh. Because its not a matter of if they come for you, its when.
And if you insist on inaction and being the last one standing because you did not fight… well, you’ll be the final verse of a poem and no one will be left to speak for you.
Trying to paint this as hypocritical, as paradoxical, as cognitive dissonance, or anything else, is nothing but tools of soft handed approach for the intellectuals of the ideology of hate to try and carve a space of false legitimacy for themselves via compromise and exploitation of societies tolerance.
These people are a direct threat to everything we hold dear as a people, as a society, and as a species, and need to be treated as such.
Lotta talk in here about free speech that seems to be missing the point.
The right for someone to spew hateful rhetoric freely does not supercede my right not to tolerate it. The first amendment does not give the hate monger, nor the englightened centrist immunity from the social consequences of their public opinions.
Exactly: in order to promote tolerance we must be intolerant to intolerance. It’s a paradox described by Popper.
Why do people think there’s a paradox? Tolerance is a bad policy anyway; the point is to make society accept different races, genders and sexual orientations within reason (i.e. no pedos or whackos) so why even bother with tolerance if you have to dance around it to protect yourself and not be a hypocrite?
You’re taking an authoritarian perspective. Fair, but I disagree. Tolerance is important because we as a society grow and evolve due to the discussion of ideas, simple or complex as they may be.
The paradox is that to achieve a tolerant society we must be absolutely intolerant to intolerant ideas otherwise intolerance “wins” and becomes the norm.
Did you just say tolerance is bad, then go on to to describe tolerance as the solution?
An idea does not have to be absolute with no exceptions to have value.
Nor does it magically make their ideas into law. For a democracy to do this it has to actually accept the totalitarian ideas. Widespread ignorance is therefore a precondition for the “paradox” to hold true.
Ironically, ignoring that is a classic appeal to totalitarian principles - claiming that, without totalitarian controls on some aspect of human behavior, people must necessary produce some bad outcome, therefore, banning bad behavior is necessary. It ignores really the entire moral evolution and capability for reasoning of individuals in favor of a simplistic mechanical explanation of people. The simplistic language of “tolerance” in the paradox obfuscates key details - what we advocate with “free speech” is that the government may not criminally punish forms of speech, not that we must respect every idea equally on conceptual grounds, or especially not put every idea, flawed or not, into practice, or law. The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
The entire idea behind a free democracy is that we diligently compare and evaluate concepts and put only the best ideas into practice.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
I highly suggest you look into the philosophical background of the democratic movement and liberalism before you continue to repeat the fruits of American Slavers arguing that “states rights”.
No, the idea of Democracy is surprisingly not to put the best idea into practice, but instead to create a societal framework that the majority of members can live under. It’s not about creating good results but the legitimization of the government.
That IS the best idea, the societal framework that gives the best outcome for the population. Come on, with this reply, seriously.
There should never be legal consequences for it. I am absolutely for everyone and anyone to be able to say as much racist, sexist, homophobic or what-have-you crap as they want. BUT I agree that the social consequences should be allowed to thrive. Act like a jerk; people are jerks right back. Act like an absolute piece of shit; guess how people treat you? I think that all this sabre rattling about censoring hate speech is just driving the attention-whores into the public forum, not because they actually hate the people they say they do, but because they’re attention whores.