[Discussion] On the right wing, free speech, and free opinion

Since my very slightly conservative opinions aren't apparently welcome in other threads, I thought I'd put them here.

DC’s transit agency rejected ads touting the First Amendment (really)

This article has a perfect example of what I've been trying to talk about, the attempts to silence about half the country:

Ars Technica wrote:

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are ideologically diverse: the ACLU itself, an abortion provider, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and alt-right-Internet-troll-to-the-point-Twitter-actually-banned-him Milo Yiannopoulos.

The inclusion of an alt-right figure like Yiannopoulos helps to demonstrate the ACLU's point that WMATA's policy squelches free-speech rights across the political spectrum. But Yiannopoulos' inclusion has also raised the hackles of some on the political left, who see associating with the controversial author as beyond the pale. Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who has represented whistleblower Chelsea Manning, posted a statement calling Yiannopoulos "vile" and attacking the ACLU for defending his First Amendment rights.

In other words, rights are only for people we like. Yannopolous shouldn't have rights anymore because his opinions are 'vile'. This is terrifying, especially coming from a lawyer who worked for the ACLU[!].

This everywhere on the left, including right here on this board. Conservative voices are being chased away, shouted or moderated into silence. Instead of punishing actions, the punishment becomes about opinions. People wanted to take away that Google's engineer livelihood just because he dared to publish an opinion they didn't like, and then have retroactively used his later associations to justify that call for punishment.

In what reasonable world can anyone assert that Milo Yannopolous, as awful as the man is, doesn't have the right to free speech?

After, it's critical to remember this: you only need rights when you are unpopular. It's only when the government or society hates you and wants you dead that you really need them!

It is precisely the people you hate most that need their rights the most desperately. This works both ways: the more they hate you, the more of a reason there is to protect yours. The framework that protects them also protects you. Violate that framework at your own peril.

Arguing that right-wingers should be silenced is arguing that you should be silenced. And they are a lot better at using force to get their way. That's kind of their thing.

I agree in general that is seems that the trend these days is to shout down literally any conservative viewpoint. Even if you disagree with someone to the point that that you cannot fundamentally understand their basic thought processes it does not mean they should be ridiculed and bullied to the point of silence.

I literally consider this to be the reason why Trump won the election. Too many people getting sick of having their opinions being shouted down and told that they are not allowed to have them or else be ostracized.

No mini-modding please. - Certis

Malor wrote:
Ars Technica wrote:

Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who has represented whistleblower Chelsea Manning, posted a statement calling Yiannopoulos "vile" and attacking the ACLU for defending his First Amendment rights.

In other words, rights are only for people we like. Yannopolous shouldn't have rights anymore because his opinions are 'vile'.

He's not advocating anything of the sort. He just wouldn't want to defend them himself. Strangio isn't responding to Yannopolous' opinions so much as his character: his history of picking targets and aiming swaths of people at them and his disregard for other peoples freedoms and safety in the name of his own free speech.

IMAGE(https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--iKoESbn1--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/ym19dj0vnm8isuvxicv7.jpg)

After about 35 years of massive propaganda efforts, conservatives have moved to a world-view that simply rejects facts that don't appeal, using the tools of mass media to do so. It vilifies scientists and other researchers who produce those facts as well as politicians and governments that implement policies based on them, hounds them in court and in public, makes false claims about them forming cabals to fool people, fearmongers about policies based on observed and verified facts about the world, and then deliberately - as a matter of policy - instructs politicians, pundits and news organizations on language to use to dehumanize and belittle any opposition.

Is it any wonder liberals have gotten to the point of not tolerating that anymore? Too many of them are sick of having their actual, verifiable facts shouted down and told that they are not allowed to have them, or else be ostracized.

(See the problem here? You want to point fingers, start with the folks who can't believe that cigarettes cause cancer, or that the ozone hole exists, or that the earth is warming, or do believe that fluoridation is a Communist plot, or government is uniformly evil and incompetent, or all taxes are bad, or racism is dead except against White people, or that trans people are faking it to get into women's bathrooms, or homosexuals are child molesters, or... And you are welcome to go after the anti-GMO nutbars and such on the Left, too, but that's much, much less effective on society than what Republicans have done to us, deliberately, to try to move political opinions to the Right.)

As far as I can tell, Republicans have *earned* their excoriation through inactivity, incompetence and an ideological fervor not seen in the US for probably a century, at least. (Oh, and if Trump had one through a popular rejection of, say, political correctness, then he'd have likely won the popular vote. Instead, he won with a very specific electoral college strategy, some "dirty tricks" from people like Comey, and a large amount of social media influence, very locally targeted, from Russian government-aligned organizations who were interested in keeping Clinton out.)

Since this thread is marked as debate, please keep in mind the rules of a debate thread which are more strict and specific than discussion:

Debate threads are rarely-needed places to strenuously and formally argue your position, to convince others to consider or accept your point of view. If you are arguing in a debate thread, you are expected to argue your position with integrity and use sources to back up your claims. You are also expected to treat other posters with respect, even while arguing against their positions.

This is the problem.

Point blank.

There is so much sexism and racism in American conservatism that anybody who self identifies as conservative, WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT, defends racist and sexist behavior and the subsequent harm it brings.

Am I the only one who laughed at PETA as "leftist" for being an animal rights organization?

PETA, as best as I've ever been able to figure, is not really on the spectrum at all and is really just out in the middle of nowhere with their ideas that like pets and any form of domestication shouldn't exist...

Meanwhile, it's becoming more amusing that being anti-GMO is becoming more viewed as "leftist" when the movement is pretty diverse and mostly centers on anti-science more than any political leaning (or see vaccines where there's both anti-drug companies followers and anti-government telling me to vaccinate for the public good, if there even is such a benefit followers).

How are we as a society supposed to handle people who refuse to admit that they have lost their battle in the "Marketplace of Ideas," but refuse to lay down arms? Not only refuse to admit that they've lost but continue to harass the other side rather than debate in good faith.

This isn't just about people sharing ideas, it's about causing real harm to people and inciting others to violence, and how that should be handled.

Our society generally recognizes that when you lose in the marketplace of ideas, you recognize that and keep your garbage to yourself, or hidden away in private groups. I think that at some point, people who refuse to acknowledge that their ideas have lost should face consequences in public spaces.

Malor wrote:

In other words, rights are only for people we like. Yannopolous shouldn't have rights anymore because his opinions are 'vile'. This is terrifying, especially coming from a lawyer who worked for the ACLU[!].

I think this is a little trickier than you're letting on. This is a murky grey area where organizations from advertisers to corporations to small government agencies are being pushed to moderate whose money they take and who gets access to the airwaves, front page, etc.

This one doesn't feel like a pure 1st Amendment issue, but something more complicated. Perhaps connected to the fact that so much speech reaches people via mass media these days.

Go on the comments of a YouTube video or a Facebook post and I'm positive that you'll see opinions like Milo's are well represented.

Malor wrote:

This everywhere on the left, including right here on this board. Conservative voices are being chased away, shouted or moderated into silence. Instead of punishing actions, the punishment becomes about opinions.

Every example you cited was a private corporation or organization that decided they had a code of conduct and that code of conduct is what's often being violated. I'm not sure what the free speech solution is unless you're arguing that people who freely assemble aren't allowed to have moderation of what people say on their platform.

Malor wrote:

In other words, rights are only for people we like. Yannopolous shouldn't have rights anymore because his opinions are 'vile'. This is terrifying, especially coming from a lawyer who worked for the ACLU[!].

The article doesn't really support your idea that this is a Conservative censoring, though. If this is a debate, which requires people back up what they say, you might not want to use an article that shows the incident started with an authority having to deal with a wide variety of topics and shutting them down.

Shocking that a party that does not hold the White House, The Senate, The House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships, or a majority of State Legislatures doesn't see the need to protect so called unpopular speech. Because what is the ballot box other than the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas."

Liberals have gone so far over the waterfall that I don't think most can be saved at this point. There's just way too much hatred, nastiness, and bile for them to recover. They just can't seem to understand that they are so petty and close-minded that to many people they make Donald Trump look like the nice guy. It's always someone else's fault that they are so hated in a large part of the country. It's always that other people are too stupid, racist, or under educated to agree with them. That's what you get when your politics are wholly designed to prop up your own self esteem.

It's time for the liberals that can contribute to the future to get rid of the ones that can't and start their own party. This issue will be a great way to weed them out.

It's interesting that you post this topic today. Here's a good article published today by a liberal that is the best self examination I've seen so far.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lib...

As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate.
What replaces argument, then, are taboos against unfamiliar ideas and contrary opinions.

This type of outlook means that liberalism is becoming moribund and cocooned. Not that I mind. The only real problem is they are incapable of being a viable opposition party at this critical time. When looking for allies against D. Trump these are not the allies we are looking for.

Seems fair enough that companies and groups dont have to advertise things they dont feel comfortable with
Even if they happen to be an public agency they are still handling a business here. Billboard advertisement in a metro is hardly a free speech right.
If Yiannopoulos decided to go to into a metro and hand out advertisement on his own, and the WMATA threw him out, that might be more problematic.

I generally dont think we should keep out nasty opinions from others. If nothing else they are an important reminder of paths we should not go down. A lot of the current nationalism and bigotry likely came about because everyone forgot the danger it presents.

But it really doesn't seem to be what is happening in this case regardless.
Advertisement is not even a main purpose of WMATA. When places like universities dont want people to speak due to unpopular opinions, that is more of an issue, exactly because exchange of ideas and opinions is part of the essence of a university. Ads in a metro? Not so much.

TAZ89 wrote:

Shocking that a party that does not hold the White House, The Senate, The House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships, or a majority of State Legislatures doesn't see the need to protect so called unpopular speech. Because what is the ballot box other than the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas."

No joke: I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

TAZ89 wrote:

Shocking that a party that does not hold the White House, The Senate, The House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships, or a majority of State Legislatures doesn't see the need to protect so called unpopular speech. Because what is the ballot box other than the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas."

This is where you're completely off base. This isn't a party thing. Progressives (of every party affiliation) have been fighting for centuries for basic rights and humanity of individuals. That's the struggle many of us believe we're in. The Democratic Party is the current best hope for those ideals. Nothing more.

Progressives have been fighting for centuries for many things like...

- The rights of human beings to not be property or slaves
- The rights of women to have the same voting rights as white males
- The rights of all workers to not be abused by their employers
- The rights of people of color to have the same voting rights white males
- The rights of gay people to love who they want and be treated equally under the law
- The rights of trans people to be treated equally under the law

This is but a sliver of what progressives have been fighting for. If you think these things are up for debate in the "Marketplace of Ideas" then that's news to most progressives. They think these are settled debates and shouldn't be re-opened for discussion.

This is what many people on the left (and many from the right and center) are fighting for right now. They're fighting against the alt-right to preserve centuries of progress that sure seems objectively right.

TAZ89 wrote:

Liberals have gone so far over the waterfall that I don't think most can be saved at this point. There's just way too much hatred, nastiness, and bile for them to recover. They just can't seem to understand that they are so petty and close-minded that to many people they make Donald Trump look like the nice guy. It's always someone else's fault that they are so hated in a large part of the country. It's always that other people are too stupid, racist, or under educated to agree with them. That's what you get when your politics are wholly designed to prop up your own self esteem.

I disagree completely. I have spent most of my time on GWJ fighting the fight of someone who believes in pure free speech and arguing against a large, intrusive state. I've changed over the last few years, but especially the last year, because for the first time in my adult life I saw my friends and family in actual danger. It became more real for me. I'm ashamed to admit this. It's kind of "there's no atheists in foxholes" thing, but the luxury was to keep calling myself a "socially liberal Libertarian". The thing that props up my self esteem is to try and hold a pure, logical, dispassionate point of view.

It's really self-esteem killing to admit you were wrong and to try to start to rebuild your worldview by really listening to people whose lives are actually affected by racism, sexism and xenophobia.

When a "marketplace of ideas" benefited liberals, they were for it and conservatives were against it, calling liberals unpatriotic and asking them "why do you hate America?" Now that a "marketplace of ideas" benefits conservatives, the roles are switched.

The reality is practically no one believes in a "marketplace of ideas." People just believe in whatever paradigm is most favorable to their ideology.

You know what happened to the "marketplace of ideas"? The "tragedy of the commons." A functioning marketplace takes work. Work too few people are willing to put in. Work a lot of people see (somewhat rightly) as unimportant compared to other kinds of work.

Forget the "marketplace of ideas." To borrow something someone said about Twitter, it's like a park filled with bats and perverts.

Liberals don't need to be more open-minded about argument. If anything, they need to be *less*. They need to get beyond arguments, and find identities to offer the people they want to bring over to their side that are attractive without watering down their goals too much in the process.

You don't win (not all) people over to your side with an 'argument'. You know what happens when someone loses an argument? They don't change their mind--they double down on their beliefs. You don't change minds. You change hearts, and the minds follow.

TAZ89 wrote:

Shocking that a party that does not hold the White House, The Senate, The House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships, or a majority of State Legislatures doesn't see the need to protect so called unpopular speech. Because what is the ballot box other than the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas."

9,749,926. That's how many more Americans voted for not Trump than voted for Trump.

2,868,691. That's how many more Americans voted for Clinton than Trump.

If your idea is true--that the ballot box represents the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas--then conservatives and the GOP are in trouble.

But the ballot box doesn't actually represent a perfect scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas" because conservatives and Republicans have expended a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money to stack the deck against ideas and policies that are more popular than theirs.

Republicans have used their control of Governorships and State Legislatures to blatantly, and in multiple cases, illegally gerrymander Congressional districts in ways designed to protect their candidates and ensure Democratic candidates can never get enough votes to win.

Those same Governors and State Legislatures have also launched aggressive, and, in multiple cases unconstitutional, attempts to disenfranchise voters by purging voter rolls or requiring voter IDs to combat what multiple experts say is a non-existent problem of voter fraud. As judges most recently found in North Carolina, those Republicans efforts were designed to "target African Americans with almost surgical precision."

Why, if ballot boxes are truly the scorecard of the "marketplace of ideas" and Republicans and conservative ideas are inherently better--and more popular--than Democratic or liberal ideas, do Republicans feel the need to blatantly tip the electoral process in their favor by suppressing Democratic votes? Could it be that they, deep down, understand that they don't have the best ideas?

We've certainly seen a lot of evidence for that. The conservative wet dream of trickledown economics--cutting taxes to "unleash" economic growth--failed spectacularly in Kansas. And despite Female Doggoing about Obamacare for seven years *and* controlling both houses of Congress, Republicans still couldn't repeal the healthcare law because their ideas of reform were so deeply unpopular.

For a country that supposes equality for every individual we sure to spend a good deal of time trying to rationalize why that doesn't really have to be true. I find it sad that we still try and treat racism, sexism, and bigotry in all it's forms as "opinions".

With the context of events last night:

Yonatan Zunger wrote:

At what point do we stop pretending that the so-called "alt-right" has any place in our society, in our workplaces, in our country?

At what point do we stop being required to be polite, and talk about these people the way you would about a clear and present danger?

Not to talk about protecting the rights of people who are actively calling for the deaths of so many of us, but to deal with them?

Not to talk about protecting the rights of people who are not only protected, but are in actual political power?

We owe the Nazis *nothing*. They have declared themselves outside the social compact which underlies our society: let them be outside.

The Nazis, and anyone who would willingly ally with them, are hostis humani generis: enemies of mankind as a whole.

People have said things about protecting the right to "conservative views" in the past few days. But this isn't conservatism.

"Conservative views" are about things like individual liberty. Nazism is about the power of the state to take the rights of "others."

We have fallen into a trap of seeing all things in US politics as "left vs. right." Nazis aren't left-wing, so they must be conservative?

Bullshit. I have plenty of conservative friends – and none of them have ever sided with anything remotely like this.

Yet the apparatus of the Right immediately flies to the defense of anyone claiming "conservative views," w/o asking what they are.

The Nazis are no friends to America.
The KKK are no friends to America.
Their fellow-travelers are no friends to America.

The argument that any restriction on them would necessarily lead to a slippery slope destroying free speech is belied by the fact that nearly every country in the Western world has done so for decades without any of these effects.

The @ACLU's argument that it's necessary to protect Nazis to protect all of us is, I think, no longer true, if it ever was.

There is no need to protect them in any way, shape, or form.

You want outside the basic social contract? Okay. Just remember that this social contract was all that protected *you*. //

(via Twitter)

I bolded what I think is the most important point: some places, such as Germany, have gone so far as to make Nazi symbols outright illegal...and Germany is still pretty free. If you want to make a free speech argument, you need to take into account that in a lot of democracies (America in the 20th century included) Nazi speech was beyond the pale, socially if not legally.

We can quibble over where to draw the line on free speech, but I think we're all in agreement that there is a line? Even if we confine ourselves to the base minimum of the legal is and not the oughts and shoulds, incitement to the use of force doesn't get First Amendment protection, nor are "fighting words", nor are threats of violence.

But beyond that, the whole idea of the First Amendment is that the government shouldn't censor ideas...but that We The People are free to socially shun ideas we find abhorrent. Social ostracism is protected under the Constitution, as are boycotts.

Social ostracism and boycotts are a form of speech too, after all. There's no reason to prioritize them below other forms of speech. And I certainly have no obligation to treat calls for genocide as being legitimate, no more than I have an obligation to give a platform to a belief in flat earth.

If you want to go have a dialogue with people advocating for genocide, well, be my guest. No one's stopping you. They're not posting on this forum, though, so telling us about it doesn't accomplish much.

TAZ89 wrote:

It's interesting that you post this topic today. Here's a good article published today by a liberal that is the best self examination I've seen so far.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lib...

As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate.

It's behind a wall so I can't get to the rest of the article, but I don't think that's what's happening. Conservatives dress up their "as an X" with a set of political ideals and principles, but there's no adherence to logic or arguing in good faith.

If young people on the left are saying it's about X-ness, at least they are being intellectually honest, which is more than you can say for most people, right or left or whatever.

What replaces argument, then, are taboos against unfamiliar ideas and contrary opinions.

This type of outlook means that liberalism is becoming moribund and cocooned. Not that I mind. The only real problem is they are incapable of being a viable opposition party at this critical time. When looking for allies against D. Trump these are not the allies we are looking for.

Opposition is harder for liberals because they can't offer people treats the way conservatives can. Anglo Protestant conservatives can go to Catholics of European descent and say "hey--wanna be white like us? Want to hate people who are different along side us instead of being at odds with us?"

Liberals can't do that. Liberals can't offer the same opportunity to be a full member of the 'tribe' the way conservatives can. Liberals are stuck in a bind where (generally) they have less and less to offer a person the more power that person has. Argument is not the solution to that problem.

Sometimes in my wildest, most fanciful dreams I wonder if one tenth the effort put forward defending right-wing grifters and Neo-Nazis, and naming as travesties of justice landmark cases for women's right to bodily autonomy and gay people's rights to be treated as full citizens were put to defending the people who's lives are actually under threat.

I wistfully imagine a time where a fantasy that actual fascists are somehow abiding by a social compact and everyone else is obligated to throw their bodies into the meat grinder to protect them was actually treated as the repugnant self-congratulatory wank-a-thon it is.

But here I am, where the people advocating genocide and the complete destruction of human rights must be protected at all costs and those standing against them are the real threat to democracy.

Yesterday, a close friend was surrounded, beaten with torches, and maced by a group of Nazi demonstrators who were marching from the UVA campus to a church that was hosting a meeting of interfaith resistance to them. They were doing so with lit torches in hand. Nobody helped her, nobody stood up to protect her rights.

These same people, who's rights to lay the groundwork for the purge of anyone not of Aryan blood, must be defended, killed someone in Charlottesville today.

And here we are, arguing over whether the movement who's been building up to this violence, stoking the egos of mediocre, disaffected white men, egging them on for YEARS are the real victims here.

f*ck all this.

Huh. I wrote a similar post and deleted it. Well said, Freyja.

My take was centered on the problem that, since it's just White Supremacists, the word "terrorism" doesn't come up, but if it were The New Black Panther Party, headlines would be choked with "Armed Black Terrorists Swarm Campus, Attack Students". No one would talking about Free Speech, any more than they defended Philando Castile's right to bear arms after he was shot.

I had hoped that 52 years after the Civil Rights Act this kind of thing would be long gone. Instead, it's resurgent. Republicans, rank and file, *own* this. They can dig themselves out of that hole by *fixing* the problem with their leadership and their members, rather than whining about angry liberals yelling at them for being intolerant racists. That's a problem that was created by their own actions.

Robear wrote:

Huh. I wrote a similar post and deleted it. Well said, Freyja.

My take was centered on the problem that, since it's just White Supremacists, the word "terrorism" doesn't come up, but if it were The New Black Panther Party, headlines would be choked with "Armed Black Terrorists Swarm Campus, Attack Students". No one would talking about Free Speech, any more than they defended Philando Castile's right to bear arms after he was shot.

I had hoped that 52 years after the Civil Rights Act this kind of thing would be long gone. Instead, it's resurgent. Republicans, rank and file, *own* this. They can dig themselves out of that hole by *fixing* the problem with their leadership and their members, rather than whining about angry liberals yelling at them for being intolerant racists. That's a problem that was created by their own actions.

Not just republicans. ANYONE who supports or normalizes this kind of shit owns it. That includes, to me, the people defending the hate speech.

Yeah, not into the whole, "Liberals are the real fascists," meme manure trying to stir up. I'm sure it makes right wing assholes and political trolls feel good, but it's intellectually dishonest. They attack liberals for their free speech because that speech makes right wing dipshits feel bad. But now, when the right wing dipshits suffer consequences, then it's time step in and protect the poor white snowflakes.

You know, there were plenty of times to trot out this weak argument, like maybe Colin Kaepernick. While I don't thin he is being blackballed, he definitely not getting a job because of his views. The NFL owners didn't need to collude. They all just decided he was too much trouble.

I don't have a problem with anyone that decides that the alt-right are just too much trouble to do business with. I hope hundreds of those dipshits in Charlottesville losing their jobs. I would fire anyone that took part in that protest.

Austin Walker, from February:

Real talk: If you aren't interested in being the one who aggressively, physically refuses fascists a space to talk, alright, fine.

There are lots of reasons that people don't want to throw hands. I get that. I'm not asking everyone to be the dude who clocks Spencer.

But if you think that we really need to have a calm, rational debate with folks who regularly frame genocide as a logical action, then peace

If this disappoints you, if you thought I was "smarter" than this, then maybe take a second to consider I might not be talking out my ass.

While you encourage me to debate a brick wall, I'll be busy trying to keep it from f*cking falling on my head.

I have been biting my tongue on this shit for two weeks now while literal white supremacists have been driving down my block shouting slurs

For clarity:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ctOVnwk.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/1SC7WOT.png)

Robear wrote:

My take was centered on the problem that, since it's just White Supremacists, the word "terrorism" doesn't come up, but if it were The New Black Panther Party, headlines would be choked with "Armed Black Terrorists Swarm Campus, Attack Students".

Jesus Christ could you IMAGINE.

MOD
The scope of the thread doesn't match the format of a Debate thread, so I'm switching it to Discussion, which is less restrictive.

There are no words to accurately convey my disgust, my disappointment, my frustration, my utter disbelief, and my anger, as to how no one stepped in to help another human being in the instance detailed by Freyja. No peaceful protestor deserves to be beaten, to be maced, to be disrespected, to be considered all but null and void. Worse still when it is simply for standing up for their rights, for standing in opposition to that which may threaten their very freedom. These rights take nothing away from anyone else. Nothing other than an ability to hate and to hurt under the disguise of free speech.

Racism is not an opinion. It's a hate crime against humanity. Sexism is not an opinion. It's a hate crime against humanity. Transphobia is not an opinion. It's a hate crime against humanity. Everyone is equal. Everyone is free.

You either agree with that or you do not. If you don't then you're promoting hate.

Hate speech is verbal abuse. Hate protests are intimidation. If the goal is to negatively impact the lives of others just because they do not align with a personal view, that is incitement.

I fail to see how it's dangerous to silence hate speech parading behind the protection of free speech. It's more dangerous not to. Free speech is not the problem. It's to what extreme it extends and to whom. KKK? Nope. Nazi? Nope.

That ex-Google employee wrote page after page of hate speech, of sexism, disguised as free speech, disguised as a manifesto, disguised as anything that allows for it to exist and for him to feel empowered. It is degrading and harmful to women. It is him whining that he wants women to know their place and to never think they are on par with him.

There is a huge difference between a minority seeking equal opportunity, freedom, and justice, whilst a majority seeks to maintain an imbalance, parameters, and institutionalized bias. One is right. One is wrong. Allowing the wrong to rally under free speech is stopping the human race from moving forward.

This feels all over the place. Maybe it doesn't quite fit the discussion. After catching the news tonight I simply had more to say than usual.

RnRClown wrote:

Hate speech is verbal abuse.

Great post, but this little sentence is key to this whole debate. Speech is violence, and ignoring and allowing this is complicity.

Allowing hate speech to go unchallenged leads to escalations like seen today, that Freja spoke about. And further.