“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” Randy Pausch
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Tim Pool is awful. I doubt he's a leftist. He blames everything on the left. And he has shown his gross bias. He reported on the fake news story about Ocasio-Cortez and the 'empty parking lot'. He defends Steven Chrowder's homophobia yet has no problem calling Ilhan Omar an anti-Semite (while claiming people play the victim too much). He's just awful.
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I don't watch him as much anymore because despite being a center leftist or centrist like he claims, I slowly realized over time that he still reports like a standard conservative to cater to his conservative viewers. He's fine if you want to get a conservative viewpoint on American viewpoints, but if you want a leftist take that is roughly balanced or still being left leaning, but with sufficient criticism of the left and right without being that biased, Jimmy Dore is a lot better in that regard IMO.
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” Randy Pausch
Ne-IEE
6w7 sp/sx
6w7-9w1-4w5
I actually don't see how much of freedom of speech can be a thing, since slander is a crime.
The first amendment and freedom of speech has caused more deaths and more general harm than the second amendment.
I mean, it's legal in America to straight-up lie in order to get yourself (or someone else) elected. The liberty to say anything isn't a harmless vice or automatically beneficial to society, and it is often used to take away other liberties—yet anyone who even suggests regulating it gets dog-piled immediately. I wouldn't support regulating it either.
LOL. C'mon, even as hyperbole this statement is bs.
Lying to get someone elected doesn't equate to killing and/or general harm. You're suggesting that free speech is used to take away other liberties, but what other liberties could there be that are more important? Like I said earlier, free speech equates to free thought, I don't see how taking it away equates to a lesser evil than someone lying to get elected? What are you so afraid of in a potential dictator anyways? You don't want free speech to begin with...
A second point that needs to be made is that you can't regulate free speech without taking it away because to do so in practice would mean a ministry of truth that decides what is lie or not, though you said you don't want to regulate it so maybe it need not be said.
The problem with fake news and such is not that people are allowed to publish such things but more that people believe them, misinformation is not endemic to America, nor to our day and age, freedom does to some extent mean that people are allowed to screw up and fall on their faces. Under authoritarianism people don't screw up because the government or whoever is guiding their footsteps, but the government screws up (because errors are part of being human, and authorities are human, not gods), and the government never pays the price, people who are subject to it do. People occasionally screwing up and saying dumb things seems like a small price to pay to avoid authoritarianism, still, I think such things as people believing fake news could be mostly avoided by better critical thinking, for example in the education system.
Last edited by Ave; 08-19-2019 at 03:25 PM.
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A lone kid with an AR-15 can cause the deaths of 50 people; a malicious actor who seizes the reins of institutional authority can cause the deaths of thousands—this isn't hyperbole or bs. If anything, it understates the impact 'mere words' have to influence perceptions and to mobilize people towards particular outcomes.
Speech can be (and has repeatedly been) used to drum up support for taking away liberties. Vicious propaganda against minority groups (which includes religion) has succeeded in efforts to degrade and limit their speech. War is the greatest evil mankind has ever created, and it was kept going by clever speech carefully designed to dehumanize and degrade the other side. Nefarious governments aren't responsible for all of it; it was common people who spearheaded the transformation of many authoritarian ideas into accepted wisdoms, often with a missionary zeal.
And no, freedom of thought doesn't equate to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is indeed necessary to disseminate ideas, which is why I don't think it should be regulated. But freedom of thought—which is real freedom—is something you acquire over decades of experience, introspection and education. It requires inquisitiveness and the humility to question basic beliefs.
There's a common view that the best defense against bad speech is good speech. I completely disagree. Even if it were true, good speech is deafened by loud speech. The only defense against bad speech is, as you said, education, which requires effort and discipline.The problem with fake news and such is not that people are allowed to publish such things but more that people believe them, misinformation is not endemic to America, nor to our day and age, freedom does to some extent mean that people are allowed to screw up and fall on their faces. Under authoritarianism people don't screw up because the government or whoever is guiding their footsteps, but the government screws up (because errors are part of being human, and authorities are human, not gods), and the government never pays the price, people who are subject to it do. People occasionally screwing up and saying dumb things seems like a small price to pay to avoid authoritarianism, still, I think such things as people believing fake news could be mostly avoided by better critical thinking, for example in the education system.
@xerxe, I'm with you on the point that words have impact, and that they can be potentially dangerous. I'll concede also that I may have been a bit loose with my words when saying freedom of thought equates to free speech. I mean this in practice in a political sense. Obviously intropsection, education, inquisitiveness, experience, and the humility to question basic beliefs - as you put it are not political things, though they can extend to politics. So while free thought is not free speech, technically speaking, I can't imagine a society where free thought exists but free speech doesn't. While obviously anyone in a dictatorship (I'm thinking NK style) can question the regime they live under in their minds without speaking their thoughts, they aeren't likely to have such thoughts because no outside sources of information exist to stimulate them. And even if someone were to encounter material that provokes such thoughts, they won't risk speaking about it to anyone else hence it won't be anything other than a fantasy. It has no impact on reality. That's not "free thought".
Also, to your last point, good speech and educated speech (or at least, informed, critical speech) are very close. I can't imagine a dictatorship that holds up to genuine critical speech, with debate and diverging views. To tie this into education: the role of education should in my opinion be to form critical minds and not just repeat slogans. But forming critical minds needs debate and discussion, and you can't have that if everyone agrees on everything (everyone agreeing on everything happens only in totalitarian states). Loud speech can cloud and obscure good speech, but not everyone actually falls for it.
Not sure what any of this has to do with the first amendment being somehow a facilitator to dictatorship however, I just thought that statement was odd, lol. Since Trump's election I have occasionally heard American liberals talk about how there is "too much free speech" in America, mainly referring to fake news and the like. But this phenomenon has always been around, is not endemic to America, not to mention most Western and Northern European countries (which American liberals see as models to be emulated in thier homeland) protect free speech in their constitutions.
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I don't think it was ever an issue that societies wishing to have free thought ought to have untrammeled free speech—I agree that no other mechanism exists to disseminate thought-provoking ideas.
What I disagree with is the common view that being untethered from responsibility is equivalent to liberty. The truth is that without the effort to discern the truth or relevance of discourse, a person is susceptible to manipulation and effectively less free. Free paint doesn't create a painter; free shovels don't create a farmer; and free speech on it's own doesn't create a free individual.Also, to your last point, good speech and educated speech (or at least, informed, critical speech) are very close. I can't imagine a dictatorship that holds up to genuine critical speech, with debate and diverging views. To tie this into education: the role of education should in my opinion be to form critical minds and not just repeat slogans. But forming critical minds needs debate and discussion, and you can't have that if everyone agrees on everything (everyone agreeing on everything happens only in totalitarian states). Loud speech can cloud and obscure good speech, but not everyone actually falls for it.
Not sure what any of this has to do with the first amendment being somehow a facilitator to dictatorship however, I just thought that statement was odd, lol. Since Trump's election I have occasionally heard American liberals talk about how there is "too much free speech" in America, mainly referring to fake news and the like. But this phenomenon has always been around, is not endemic to America, not to mention most Western and Northern European countries (which American liberals see as models to be emulated in thier homeland) protect free speech in their constitutions.
Bad speech negates good speech. Loud speech drowns out good speech. Only education (through effort and discipline) can develop the ability to distinguish good from bad. Such a person, who is free from intellectual control, is the least susceptible to the spread of authoritarian dogma.
There are 2 major misconceptions when we talk about freedom of speech. One is that the US has the ultimate freedom of speech, while Europe restricts free speech. The other is that speech doesn't harm in the way that actions instead do.
Neither of these points are true when we learn to put things in the proper context. For one, the US can punish hate speech and libel, and it operates censorship, like in Europe and the rest of the world. For the other, well, very simply, speech is an action too.
The main problem, for the free speech defenders, is that "if we were to forbid some kind of speech, the power to decide what is free speech or not wouldn't be in our hands"; which is exactly what happens in the US when the courtrooms decide if an instance of defamation or libel or public dissent constitute a punishable guilt. The fact the US doesn't regulate these scenarios just creates all the premises to be at the mercy of the running political institutions when dealing with these cases.
The other problem is more subtle and is actually behind the first problem, that is, considering speech as a lesser form of action is not only bonkers, but grants to speech the liberty to be misused. As usual, context is important. So here's an example: if I see someone walking down the street, aiming a gun against a group of people, I can't say he's simply walking, although that's what he's doing. Nothing forbids him to walk, nothing forbids him to own a gun, nothing forbids him to walk around with his gun on show. But he's not simply walking, the context makes him a potential danger.
Talking, communicating, expressing our ideas, are all active actions we can do. Thinking that these actions are less important than something else is the symptom of a political indoctrination that told us that's the case, when it's not.
Think of the verbal abuse at the expense of young kids, think of bullying, think of the extremist jihadists, or of all the cultural brainwashing that can transform someone in an offender, think of slander. All these speeches are actions that can damage someone else, concretely and psychologically.
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Actually, I'm not sure that good speech is the only effective answer to bad speech. Ideally it would be, but our society is far from the "decent", inhibited one that our grandparents were living in. The rules to play by, now, have lowered to the point of an accepted degradation, and hate speech, venting all our frustrations at the expense of someone else, are the keys to gain the consent of the miserable masses. The answer to this then is not decency, because it doesn't appeal to anyone, because everyone wants to scream and see a scapegoat's blood running. Just like the ancient gladiators.
A society has always appealed to rules to live by, if we allow anything with no rules (except the ones that, politically, are in our favor), without responding firmly to the real threats that these actions cause, the results will never improve, but go on degenerating.
If respecting each other was such a given that needs no regulation, we wouldn't have constitutions, codes, rules. But we do, and so speech is regulated too, in every country of the world, and those who think their speech is not regulated, totally free, are just made blind by the context they live in.
Freedom of speech is good and should be upheld. It's not so much what you say but the tone behind which you say it, and a lot of what Steven Crowder says he says he's just using his free speech to get away with it - but the background tone of it is just hateful bullying and not very constructive to me. The complete opposite of PC is in and of itself, another version of PCdom. You have the right to say what you want but at the same time you also have the responsibility to accept the professional and personal consequences of just being an asshole.
Its purpose and intent seems to deliberately try to make the other person feel bad rather than have any genuine debate or logically express his views. Then when caught up they play victim like the liberals they criticize, and aren't very good at accepting their role in it. PC SJW Academia people can be very stifling and annoying, but they actually aren't all that powerful or influential to deserve that level of venom. I know a lot of people will view him as 'tough and manly' but to me its insecure... Instead of 'fighting the system' it just comes off to me as self-defeating even? It is very childish and troll-y. It's one thing to defend free speech, but obviously if you use that speech to tear down others or go too far- you will face consequences for your actions. But who we choose to punish and make scapegoats of this often isn't really fair or there isn't good enough objective standards to enforce it.
Also, hatefully and seriously (not joking or teasing him) call a black male the n word- and he is most likely going to get out a glock and shoot you in the head.
Hatefully and seriously call a ****** a fag, he will sadly have internalized homophobia and put up with the abuse- and not even try to stick up for himself or he will say 'stop that' in an ineffectively soft shy voice that the South Park dudes would make fun of lmao.
So... I don't blame people like Steven Crowder completely, as we all teach people how they are allowed to treat us. Gay men need to be tougher as well, as a group - even though there a few homosexual males that would fight back effectively if somebody tries to mess with them. Part of him and his frat buddies kicking fags around is that fags let them. I don't think fighting people that with PC stuff is the way to go most of the time... I only ever stopped str8 male bullies by learning how to be intimidating and hateful myself lol.
Is this really the common view though?
Even if it is, I don't agree with it either - not that I agree with common views for their own sake. Point is, I certianly don't agree that freedom means being free from responsibility, and that extentds to speech. But like @BandD said, people who say stupid things, who practice what you call "loud speech" aeren't necessarily exempt from consequences in society. A person with average intelligence can usually see through such antics, not saying most people are that smart, but maybe they aeren't that stupid or senseless either. But often you can't really tell. It's the loudest ones who draw the most attention, so often it seems those people are winning.
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It's extremely common for a substantial number of people to want to mouth off with little or no critical thinking, all without giving a shit about the consequences.
Are people intelligent or knowledgeable enough to critique the speech they hear? Not in my experience. Frankly, even people with tertiary education like to believe lies or rhetoric that affirm their world view (sometimes more so)―I've certainly fallen into that trap. I just don't have the Libertarians' faith in people's ability (or willingness) to act as rational agents.Even if it is, I don't agree with it either - not that I agree with common views for their own sake. Point is, I certianly don't agree that freedom means being free from responsibility, and that extentds to speech. But like @BandD said, people who say stupid things, who practice what you call "loud speech" aeren't necessarily exempt from consequences in society. A person with average intelligence can usually see through such antics, not saying most people are that smart, but maybe they aeren't that stupid or senseless either. But often you can't really tell. It's the loudest ones who draw the most attention, so often it seems those people are winning.
Last edited by xerx; 08-24-2019 at 05:03 AM.
so weird you brought up Steven Crowder @BandD, I wrote my response after watching his video "is Trump racist" (and so weird that a few days after that Trump made one of the most racist moves ever attempted before! lol)
btw, I thought he was very educated/polite for a guy with such views. limited and obtuse, but still decent.