Poll - on punching Nazis

[Derived Absurdity]

Well, he/she's not wrong. Slippery slope arguments are 99% of the time just concern-trolling. You can literally argue against anything in the world by saying it can possibly lead to ridiculous circumstances if you let it go to absurd extremes for no reason. An argument that can be applied to anything is too broad to be meaningful or useful.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

What if giving Nazis and other racists free speech rights makes it more likely that they'll gain a legitimate following and do some serious damage to the world?

This is pretty much a slippery slope argument.

Changing freedom of speech laws on a case by case basis is not a concern because "oh my god now we live in a thought dictatorship" in and of its own right - For the law to do what you want it to do (Assuming you would issue a ban of free speech for a list of activities that you disapprove of based on some personal "this is just to terrible" criteria) you would have to completely rewrite the 1st amendment

and to remove the first amendment as it is written, you would need to replace it with something that either protects freedom of speech but allows you to do what you propose, or completely abandons the notion of freedom of speech entirely.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances

^ this is the first amendment and I happen to like how it is worded.

Free speech is a good principle, but like all principles, there should be exceptions in special circumstances

There are exemptions but those exemptions need to be consistent with the amendment. You cannot slander someone, you cannot incite violent and there are already hate speech laws in the States and elsewhere. The guiding principle is that your freedom of speech doesn't protect you from the damage your words cause. So we get the old "Fire in a theatre" example.

Hate speech laws are ruled on whether your actions are likely to cause imminent harm - not the quality or content of what you say per se. There are no laws that protect you from being offended or outraged in terms of what others say, but I am protected from someone cheering on a pitch fork wielding mob to burn down my house. The laws that are actually on the books to protect us from being offended, like public nudity laws, porn laws etc .. I completely disagree with on the basis that they attempt to dictate morality and are devoid of rational merit.

In all cases where freedom of speech is restricted - including hate speech laws, the exemptions are made on the basis of imminent harm . The longer view you take on the potential for that harm the more you are playing directly into the Slippery slope mentality and the more arbitrary or unquantifiable the basis of the law becomes.

So, fine, lets just get rid of high level provisions that are specifically designed so that the law remains as thin and unobtrusive as is humanly possible in dictating what can and cannot be said in the market place of ideas and move to a system where you nominate a specific list of things that are illegal to talk about because you feel that some where down the track there may be a risk of these ideas gaining a foothold and now - because we let people speak their minds we all now live in Nazi Germany - are you telling me that a law drafted on this basis isn't absolutely rife for abuse ?

Well, freedom of speech might be a personal principle

Its not a personal principle - its a founding principle of pretty much every single democracy in existence and for good reason, not the least of which is that in a free society, the people attempt to retain as many liberties and as much power as is humanly possible - you can't simply abandon that idea as being potentially dangerous because some ideas may or may not take hold so that the only reasonable response is to set up a system that makes certain ideas illegal without taking away these profoundly powerful checks and balances as to how much intrusion the legal system has on your life.

If you think the WBC should have that right, you're just a zealot and a moron

Yeah - you really need to not do this, believing in freedom of speech as a protected right hardly makes me a zealot or a moron. Believing that the government should be kept In check when it tries to intrude in this space also does not make me a zealot or a moron. Ignoring the consequences of changing these laws from existing guidelines to making illegal any speech that you feel could potentially be dangerous makes you seriously uninformed as to how laws are currently made, and more importantly, the reasons why these laws are both in place and so strongly protected..

The only merit in your argument for why we should ban certain opinions being unrestricted is that you feel that these may gain a foothold if they are not and so, more harm will come our way if we don't act now .. which could literally be applied to any given number of conversations on both sides of the coin. So - what exact checks and balances do you propose should be put in place so that this change doesn't get co-opted to support anyones specific narrative? ..

Your options here are - the government gets to set a specific list of ideas that it is illegal to talk about or we set a guiding principle that gets ruled on on a case by case basis as we do now - only, you need to tell me what that guiding principal is .. and "it may result in harm at some distant future point" seems a bit problematic to me.

So - no zeal - I simply recognise that the world is an imperfect place and that you have the right to be a dick in it. You have a right to be uninformed, ignorant, misguided, hysterical or alarmist but that right exists in a market place where I have a right to call you out and explain why you are wrong and hopefully this market place of ideas holds itself together on the basis that the best argument will eventually win and despite current set back State side, that is overwhelmingly what happens.

To be honest, I find it a bit amazing that we are actually having a discussion, on this board, about why we should be giving the law more power over what we can and can't say - just saying.

And all this is a long way away from the original question - do I think its right to punch a nazi - no I don't. I understand why one would want to, and I may even ne tempted to do it myself but I wouldn't go about thinking I'm setting a moral example of righteous behaviour when I do so.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

Over here we've got the other extreme where saying racist things publicly on the internet can land you in jail, but nowadays I'm not so sure it's a bad idea after all. The censorship here is a bit too much, but sites like Stormfront would have been instantly shut down before they had time to get a following.

The government has restricted freedom of speech and freedom of the press and has limited other civil and political rights. Censorship of political and racially or religiously sensitive content is extensive.
In Singapore, under the Public Order Act 2009, outdoor public processions or assemblies require police permits. Without police permits, such outdoor assemblies are illegal.[7] Indoor assemblies, however, can be held freely without the need to apply for police permits.[8] The only place in Singapore where outdoor public assemblies do not require police permits is at the Speakers' Corner which is modelled on Hyde Park, London. However, one must still register one's personal details with the National Parks Board online before speaking or protesting at the Speakers' corner, and there are also many CCTV cameras in the park, a situation that some Singaporeans and Singaporean MPs have commented on.[9][10]
Government pressure to conform has resulted in the practice of self-censorship by journalists.[11] According to Amnesty International, in 2010 laws were tightened to limit the freedom of expression and assembly, and used to threaten critics and opposition activists. Lawsuits were taken out by the authorities against dissidents. Government critics and human rights defenders nevertheless held public gatherings.[12]
A British journalist, Alan Shadrake, was convicted in Singapore in 2010 of contempt of court for scandalising the Singapore judicial system, through his published views on the country's criminal justice system, sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment and a fine of $20,000.

Singapore might not be last on my list of "Countries I wish we would emulate in terms of freedom of speech" but its right down there.
Your government also shuts down pro-gay rights movements and a whole slew of other public displays of discontent because your freedom of speech laws are so intrusive. I'd rather live in a country that protects my right to protest on public land than one that shuts down sites like Stormfront - the net bad vastly outweighs the net good, and the door is open for even more freedom of expression intrusion.

[BruceSmith78]

Did Az just say he has faith in the population?

[Gendo]

Well, it appears the yays have it.

Well, some of us might not like it, but this is a democracy, so starting next week it is our official policy that we must punch any nazis on sight.

[Derived Absurdity]

and I didn't even vote

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

Well, it appears the yays have it.

Well, some of us might not like it, but this is a democracy, so starting next week it is our official policy that we must punch any nazis on sight.

This is going to cause me some issues. I've always been a terrible judge of character when I first meet people. I fear that I may let some nazis get past me without being punched and other non-nazis might end up getting punched by accident...

Can I propose a second motion that we force all nazis to wear some sort of identifying badge or marker at all times when they're in public to ensure I don't punch the wrong people?

[Derived Absurdity]

For the law to do what you want it to do (Assuming you would issue a ban of free speech for a list of activities that you disapprove of based on some personal "this is just to terrible" criteria) you would have to completely rewrite the 1st amendment

Not really, you'd just have to ignore it, like the United States has done for the past two hundred years whenever the government encountered speech it didn't like. Despite our fetishization of the concept the history of this country is infested with the government legally restricting freedom of speech. The Smith Act of 1940, the Sedition Act of 1918, the Communist Control Act of 1954, the Levering Act of 1950, the Palmer Raids, the Internal Security Act, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs for opposing conscription in WWI, the imprisonment and exile of Emma Goldman and hundreds of other leftists for expressing their political opinions, and of course COUNTELPRO and the murder of hundreds of Black Panthers and other radical activist group members. For some reason people are really protective of the free speech rights of homophobes and Nazis, but when it comes to leftists, it clearly doesn't matter.

This country has never held up free speech as a kind of universal principle. Ever. The government has always been more than willing to crack down on the rights of leftists, and the public usually went along with it. Denying free speech rights to Nazis would only be a break in principle in one respect, and it's not the inalienable right to free speech.

There are exemptions but those exemptions need to be consistent with the amendment.

When people talk about freedom of speech they often equivocate between the First Amendment and "freedom of speech" as simply a societal principle, the legal definition versus the social or cultural definition. This country has never truly cared about the first, so I'm just talking about the second. When people say that you shouldn't be fired for expressing racist views, that's obviously outside the purview of the First Amendment but it's still part of "freedom of speech" as an abstract principle, which is what I'm talking about.

So, fine, lets just get rid of high level provisions that are specifically designed so that the law remains as thin and unobtrusive as is humanly possible in dictating what can and cannot be said in the market place of ideas and move to a system where you nominate a specific list of things that are illegal to talk about because you feel that some where down the track there may be a risk of these ideas gaining a foothold and now - because we let people speak their minds we all now live in Nazi Germany - are you telling me that a law drafted on this basis isn't absolutely rife for abuse ?

Yeah, that's how it's been for a century or two now.

Its not a personal principle - its a founding principle of pretty much every single democracy in existence and for good reason

Um, no it's not. There are several democracies that stringently limit freedom of speech. Including the United States.

Yeah - you really need to not do this, believing in freedom of speech as a protected right hardly makes me a zealot or a moron.

Did I say that? Because, again, I thought I was pretty clear. Saying Nazis don't deserve free speech doesn't necessarily make you a non-believer in free speech as a protected right, just like saying abortion is okay in certain exceptional circumstances doesn't mean you're not pro-life or that killing someone in self-defense doesn't make you a hypocrite if you claim that killing is wrong. You don't have to uphold a principle 100% of the time even in self-evidently ridiculous circumstances to uphold the principle in general. You can still be all for freedom of speech while also restricting it for Nazis and fuckheads who want to protest funerals.

There is simply no social or cultural good to come out of allowing Nazis to march down Skokie or for picketers to disrupt funerals. If they were restricted from doing that, nothing bad would happen and a lot of good would happen. That's essentially my view.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

Not really, you'd just have to ignore it, like the United States has done for the past two hundred years whenever the government encountered speech it didn't like. Despite our fetishization of the concept the history of this country is infested with the government legally restricting freedom of speech. The Smith Act of 1940, the Sedition Act of 1918, the Communist Control Act of 1954, the Levering Act of 1950, the Palmer Raids, the Internal Security Act, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs for opposing conscription in WWI, the imprisonment and exile of Emma Goldman and hundreds of other leftists for expressing their political opinions, and of course COUNTELPRO and the murder of hundreds of Black Panthers and other radical activist group members. For some reason people are really protective of the free speech rights of homophobes and Nazis, but when it comes to leftists, it clearly doesn't matter.

It's not correct to say that the Government simply ignored the 1st amendment in these cases but rather, the tests for what constitutes protected acts of freedom of speech changed. I'm not going to go thru the history of every single one of these bills or court actions because its largely irrelevant to my point - but by way of example, the Smith Act in trials was deemed constitutional when tested in the supreme court on the basis that it passed the "Bad Tendancy" test - later courts found this test too ambiguous and instituted the "Clear an present danger" test - which was later abandoned for the "imminent lawlessness" test.

In short, that bill would never have been passed today and if someone was to be charged under it, the act would fail as unconstitutional.. And all of this represents an effort to allow more public speech freedoms, not less.. Law evolves, even statutory law evolves and if the move is in the direction of greater liberties and less government intrusion, then consider this to be a good thing.

WIth relation to everything else - my position remains unchanged. If any of the above "exceptions' work to restrict freedom of speech were no imminent violence can be seen if allowed, then I'd argue as strongly against these laws as I would in this case. Citing examples of where your government has acting to restrict rights wrongly does not make a case for doing the same thing again.

So - employing the spirit of this thread, just because I CAN punch someone in the face doesn't mean I should and just because the government can screw around with your rights doesn't mean they should.

Um, no it's not. There are several democracies that stringently limit freedom of speech. Including the United States.

And again - this does not speak to my point. That some countries do not implement democratic processes equally well does not mean these processes aren't fundamental principles of democracy. At one extreme, any country that has some sort of representative voting system can loosely call itself a democracy, even one that restricts voting to say "White males" as America did when it first started calling itself a democracy. It doesn't mean that access to voting for all levels of society isn't a principal of a democratic society . More than that the point I was addressing was you claim that Freedom of speech is a personal notion in context of this discussion, While it may be a personal notion, its not simply a personal notion, its in your constitution as the first amendment and so, demonstrably is not seen as a personal opinion but is enforced as a root underpinning on how your founding fathers wanted your democracy to work .. That's the context of my response and I'm not about to get into the weeds of how well this has been implemented because I'm specifically referring to it as a legal principal and what I see as the dangers of removing checks and balances, its not a commentary on how well its been implemented.

Did I say that? Because, again, I thought I was pretty clear. Saying Nazis don't deserve free speech doesn't necessarily make you a non-believer in free speech as a protected right

You are once again, missing the point. You cited examples, one being if someone beleieves the WBC protesting funerals should be allowed makes one a zealot and a moron. I don't agree. As written, and as has been tested in the courts, under the first amendment provisions, the WBC does have the right to stage protests anywhere on public land. I know that there have been states that have stepped in to enforce how close to the actual funeral they are allowed to stage their protests but this has been allowed not based on a restriction to their freedom of speech but as a way of protecting the right of those gathered at the funeral to grieve unmolested (In the case of the "Let them rest in peace act" or the "Respect for Americas fallen hero's act" . Now, you can agree with these bills or not but the point is that its not a restriction of freedom of speech based on the content of that speech but acts designed to protect other people in a specific situation from being harassed given special circumstances.

So yes - I do agree that the WBC should ostensibly have the right to protest funerals under the Freedom of speech provisions but I am also satisfied and would encourage the law to look at other "rights" that may be violated and act accordingly .. I Do not agree that the freedom of speech provisions be ignored or modified as a response to the WBC .. so, my response here is more complicated a simple unfettered "This class of speech should be allowed per se, if it is to be disallowed then it wouldn't be on the basis of their opinion, but on the basis that there are other relevant factors that come into play.

You don't have to uphold a principle 100% of the time even in self-evidently ridiculous circumstances to uphold the principle in general

No one has been arguing that freedom of speech should be an unfettered right or ever has been an unfettered right - the point I am making is that we should set principles in place for when it is reasonable for the government to intrude and its THESE are principals that should be adhered to 100% of the time .. not this fabricated notion of unabridged freedom of speech. The problem when you argue for when its appropriate for the government to intrude on your freedom of speech is that this principal has to be portable. If it can be used to silence one form of speech then you need to think about how it can be applied when the government wants to silence other forms of speech.

At the moment, in the united states, that limitation is the Imminent harm/imminent lawlessness test. There is no "I really don't like what these guys are saying" Test and there shouldn't be given how open for abuse anything drafted on that rational would be. So, the question remains, what would you propose be put in place to restrict say a nazi spruking nazi ideals that would also protect what you consider to be reasonable provisions for freedom of speech that would also protect all the classes of freedom of speech that you would like to see remain free?

Unlike your argument, this is not a slippery slope thing, there is an immediate harm done by changing the rules to close down freedom of speech based on simply the content of that speech with no actual merit. The harm isn't that at some point down the track terrible things might happen, the harm here is that you have removed the checks and balances that prevents this from happening down the track.

The ultimate point here - that is made even pointier by your examples above, is that there should be checks and balances that restrict the governments intrusion to your freedom of speech and these should be enforced as strongly as possible. If you feel that these checks and balances have been circumvented in the past, you'd think your response would be to tighten them up and use the supreme court better to enforce the constitution, it doesn't suddenly become an excellent idea to recommend we just ignore them more..

I really have no idea what else to add to this. You haven't proposed any positive changes that would actually work in the real world.. What you have proposed is a system where one government arbitrarily gets to decide what ideas can and can't be spoken about in a public space because of how you feel about Nazis with absolutely no checks and balances in place to stop any other idea from being branded unacceptable ..

If you can't see why this is a bad idea - then I'm out of ideas on how to make that point any clearer .

[Anakin McFly]

Your government also shuts down pro-gay rights movements and a whole slew of other public displays of discontent because your freedom of speech laws are so intrusive.

Not when they're in the Speakers' Corner. I've been to a few. It's a tiny country, so that park is very accessible and it can hold tens of thousands. The registering of details from the organisers is primarily to book the space and not clash with another assembly, as well as to ensure that they aren't there to promote hate speech against a group - this once also meant rejecting a Westboro-style anti-gay rally set up to protest the pro-gay rally, which was allowed.

The restrictions are still terrible, particularly for anti-government activists, but not to dystopian levels yet. Much of the time the laws are also more of a safety net so that the government has legal recourse if things go bad. It's the same with our anti-gay laws - gay sex is technically illegal, but they have stated they won't prosecute unless you go out of your way to be obvious with it, like having a mass gay orgy in public or something. The more damning impact from that law is that there can be no anti-discrimination regulations in place related to sexual orientation. The top people in govt actually skew liberal on the topic and had considered doing away with the law, but backed down after it caused a lot mass public outrage fuelled by the growing Christian Right, who have now made it their mission to start infiltrating the government and basically do what's happening in the US now.

[Derived Absurdity]

Well, that has never exactly been my proposition, and I'm sorry if I ever gave off the impression that it was. I agree that there should be principles in place for when it's reasonable for the government to intrude on freedom of speech and that they should be adhered to at all time; I don't think restrictions should be subject to the arbitrary whims of whomever is in office at the particular moment. I think one standard besides the imminent harm test should be anyone who, say, advocates marginalizing or outright murdering entire groups of people based on their ethnicity, gender, nationality, or any other immutable characteristic they have no control over. Meaning, there should be limitations on anyone advocating that idea. That covers Nazism and white supremacy in general. That seems like a clear-cut principle, one not more subject to arbitrary and dangerous changes than the imminent harm test, and it would say good things about the society that implemented it. I would not mind in the slightest living in a society which upheld that principle.

Another probably good principle is to restrict the speech/actions of anyone who is purposely attempting to antagonize or emotionally harm vulnerable groups. That would include a group of Neo-Nazis attempting to march and demonstrate in a town where an estimated one in six residents was a Holocaust survivor. Or a group of thirty inbreds protesting a funeral and yelling at the grieving family members that the deceased is in Hell. It doesn't take a lot of thought, or any thought at all, to recognize those actions as obviously deranged, and for the well-being of the community, or for the principle of social cohesion, or for the principle of "just not being a completely deranged worthless asshole", they shouldn't be allowed. Whatever you want to call it, that can also be a good clear-cut principle for any society to follow.

It's too bad that anti-racism has never been "a founding principle of pretty much every single democracy in existence", otherwise it wouldn't be necessary for me to be arguing any of this. But that says more about humanity than about anything I've proposed here.

[Chuckles_Otoole]

I voted "yay" because there wasn't an option for "Shoot them instead."

[Derived Absurdity]

You punch them really, really hard.

[Anakin McFly]

Another probably good principle is to restrict the speech/actions of anyone who is purposely attempting to antagonize or emotionally harm vulnerable groups.

Yes. Which is relevant to the stuff about Milo Yiannopoulos' book deal and how people are invoking freedom of speech again.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/prin ... ustry.html

[Derived Absurdity]

Just to let everyone know salmon posted a comment a few days ago after my latest one is which he basically admitted I was right and agreed with every major thing I said, but he deleted it for some reason. This sounds like something I would make up but I'm not. So basically, I won.

Okay, continue.

[CashRules]

If you really need someone to argue with you just let me know.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

Just to let everyone know salmon posted a comment a few days ago after my latest one is which he basically admitted I was right and agreed with every major thing I said, but he deleted it for some reason. This sounds like something I would make up but I'm not. So basically, I won.

Okay, continue.

Yes I did - nothing too nefarious, essentially I had no real issue with putting some extra limitations as per your suggestion but was thinking thru any potential ramifications and posted the same - then figured, that as sentiment, it seemed ok so me looking at the actual wording seemed redundant and deleted it with the intention of coming back to post a more general "yes I don't have any issue with this particular kinda restriction, while going on to expand on concerns regarding some of the terms ..

I then didn't post an actual reply because I decided I would take a few days off work to finish off some renovations to my house.

So - essentially, this sort of thing doesn't sound like to bad of an idea and we actually have "Hate speech Laws" that kinda sorta do the same thing - bit even with pretty restrictive legislation, we still see frivolous cases being brought to the courts that eventually get thrown out, but cost a fortune leaving people with enormous court costs.. Soooo - executive summary, I agree in principal.

I dunno if that's technically a win tho given I still don't agree with assaulting someone and I've never argued against reasonably drafted restrictions to free speech.

[Derived Absurdity]

If you really need someone to argue with you just let me know.

Communism will win.

[Derived Absurdity]

I dunno if that's technically a win tho given I still don't agree with assaulting someone and I've never argued against reasonably drafted restrictions to free speech.

So we never even really disagreed in the first place? Why does that always happen with me.

[CashRules]

If you really need someone to argue with you just let me know.

Communism will win.

Communism and support for gun control are the only two crimes that should carry an automatic death penalty. I would include animal rights activism but that's just a stupid phase that some people go through. But it should be legal to punch animal rights activists in the face since they are Nazis.

[Gendo]

HA!

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

Hahaha! That made me laugh!

[Cassius Clay]

What do you think?

[Raxivace]

Rational debate didn't defeat the Nazis the first time- I'm not sure why anyone would think it might do the trick this time.

[BruceSmith78]

I dunno if that's technically a win tho given I still don't agree with assaulting someone and I've never argued against reasonably drafted restrictions to free speech.

So we never even really disagreed in the first place? Why does that always happen with me.

At several points in this thread I nearly posted, "Isn't it weird when two people are arguing and you agree with both of them?" I quickly realized the two of you weren't really disagreeing, but I was enjoying the discussion too much to intervene. Also, have I mentioned I'm lazy?

[aels]

Troy! You're baaaaack!

[Gendo]

Woooooo, Troy!! Glad to see you. Heard about IMDB forums shutting down?

[Cassius Clay]

'Sup.

*acts aloof and takes a drag of cigarette*

[Derived Absurdity]

Yay! Punching Nazis is now twice as popular as not punching Nazis! And I didn't even vote! I'm so proud of you guys!

[Anakin McFly]

I found this interview that NPR did with Richard Spencer: http://www.npr.org/2016/11/17/502476139 ... nistration

I am happy he has been punched twice. This may be morally wrong, but if so I'm more than willing to take one for the team.

[Raxivace]

Wait when was the second punch?

[aels]

Same day! http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/27/neo-nazi- ... n-6409291/

[Raxivace]

Same day! http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/27/neo-nazi- ... n-6409291/

Beautiful.