political correctness talk

[marooned]

hate speech vs. free speech. i think that to me there is significant conflict in this area like my robot brain cannot compute. i don't like hate speech. i like free speech and consider it absolutely essential (freedom of expression and speech is our most important right). i have noticed a waning of intellectual diversity and increasing censoring of speech. the notion of "safe spaces" really disturbs me on multiple levels. i fear any society where a person cannot speak their mind (regardless of their opinion). i know that hate speech is damaging, especially if one already feels vulnerable. hate speech against free speech is still however hate speech. i feel safer when people can say whatever the fuck they want. i don't believe that blocking "bigoted speech" solves any problems because it creates an underground. with any painful knot of resentment in my mind, being able to talk about it and have my ideas challenged helps me to untangle the knot. it cannot fester when it is exposed. i don't currently know how to resolve this conflict as i have strong feelings regarding hate speech but also strong feelings regarding free speech. my feelings regarding free speech are stronger, because if you don't have that, you are not safe and you are not free. it is essential for any social change. i've missed out on a lot of the generation of social justice warriors. i'm in my 30s not my 20s or teens. i think there is something disturbing going on; it *is* conflicting with free speech. the conflict has been growing inside of me even for a while, so i didn't even need to see it outside of me. mainly i think that this isn't a clear cut matter. bigotry does exist in the world and there are people who say hateful things who would really like to also act on it if they had the means or the guts. but if you censor what one person can say, you censor what all people can say. if free speech is held as the priority, society must bend around it. it's supposed to be so simple. there is the constitution. it says what rights *everyone* should have. there shouldn't need to be a speech police or a thought police to further protect those rights just because our society is too weak to properly honor them. throughout history it has been too weak denying certain groups the rights the fucking constitution says they should have with little secret caveats about *who* it applies to and who it does not. i am so tired of it even though i was born after the worst of it. there are so many people on earth now, so many individual ideas... and part of me does fear a need arising to *control that* for fear there will be too much chaos otherwise. i can't really resist the bottom line that i also agree with in my deepest self: hate speech is wrong but suppression of free speech is even more wrong. censorship is also wrong.

ps. now that i've been watching the entire video, i have the following objections:

1) the need by both of the "right" speakers to say the right is innocent, that everyone on the right supports free speech, everyone on the right is not racist or sexist, etc. is simply ridiculous (because it is virtually impossible lol). one of them acknowledged not liking extremists on both sides, which means there is an understanding that there are extremists and well, extremists tend towards the "isms" of their likings.

1a) just because you have sex with people of another race doesn't mean you can't be racist. bad argument. although i don't think what's-his-name is racist, so it doesn't really matter all that much. except for in the case of institutional racism, which i think does exist--to claim simply that "sjws" are the cause of racism alone is really lame.

2) the claims regarding islam from both the "right" speakers is lame. one of them said that 1 in 2 american muslims think that homosexuality should be illegal. if that is true, that means 1 in 2 *disagrees*. to judge all muslims as haters who want to kill gays and oppress, rape and kill women, is unreasonable and untrue. and it's not fair. you could also ask people to look through the bible and read a bunch of the shit in that book about how you should stone people to death for adultery or whatever. i mean, you have to understand that some people are thoughtful and some people are empathetic, and both camps will not accept extremist statements from their religious texts. some people will put those statements in their historical contexts. i was also disappointed that 9/11 was brought up as justification. religious extremism is dangerous. perhaps there are more muslim extremists than in any other religion, i don't know. but what i care about is not judging a person just because of their religion. if we could see people as individuals we wouldn't have to resort to such stupid simplifications. i think that both of the "right" speakers can see people as individuals especially that crowder person, but it doesn't change their absolute statements regarding islam.

a student brought up the point ~1:25:00: that he is muslim and he is not an extremist who wants to rape and kill people. crowder however flunked in his answer to this. i mean there was a time that christian nations burnt people to death and so on. there is a distinction between an individual and a nation, and i am annoyed when people can't make that distinction. i personally think the entire judeo-christian-muslim tradition arises out of a history of bloodshed, so it is not at all surprising that such bloodshed continues into the present. the religious texts of all three religions can be used to justify violence because all three contain extremist laws and statements reflecting their origins of strife and struggle. does that mean i want these three religions obliterated or put them before the individual who practices them? absolutely not.

and i find it funny that both of the "right" speakers are either christian or have said great things about christian values (in other videos), and everyone knows christianity and islam have been in a bloody dispute for over a thousand years. how is this not simply a continuation?

oh and further, i'm annoyed at claiming christianity isn't involved politically. of course it fucking is. our politics in the u.s. are full of christians who make decisions based on their religious ideology. i feel like as a non-christian i have the outside perspective where i can better see how much it bleeds into everything. why did it take so long for gays to be able to marry in the u.s. for instance? christianity. what american politician doesn't mention their belief in god with great fervor in every other damn speech? blah. i am deeply annoyed also when christians claim that they are so oppressed. it's like, you are the political majority. just shut up.

i guess though it is possible that it's a dwindling political majority and i haven't bothered to try to find evidence. i mainly go by my feelings when i watch these people on tv. i felt a little better when they all finally backed off gay marriage because to me that represented a significant win of state > church. i don't want church involved in state, period. and it's because it *will* oppress people based on their beliefs or for not conforming to its "morals"; it cannot help it. that said, i know there are some shitty atheists out there who certainly would be willing to oppress people for religious beliefs. i want a government that makes no such judgments: you are free to have your beliefs, whatever they are. this sounds quite pretty in a lot of ways, but i also definitely oppose not teaching evolution in schools, and it is for the following reason: if it is untrue, it can be proven through science (real science, not shams that pretend to be science). it is about something larger, based on evidence and fact. and if we can't do that, if we can just believe whatever we want because we can't tolerate an alternate reality, we are screwed.

(i added all this p.s. stuff after verb liked my post btw )