Twitter agrees to Elon Musk buyout, a reminder we're on Mastodon

Quoting: Mountain ManIn other words, you are opposed to freedom of speech because you wish to place arbitrary limits on what others are allowed to say.

Think the hypocrisy is a good point, though. There are people saying that you enable freedom through limitations on many different sides, but that's not really the case, it's all authoritarian in nature and overreaching.

Quoting: namiko

Quoting: EikeAs purple, I don't agree with you (there's other important harm), but it's at least a consistent standpoint.
Just the other day I saw someone thinking they would be defending freedom by forbidding gender aware speech by law.

Are they in a position to make their wishes happen on a governmental level or not? A lot of inflammatory words from people in general can be safely ignored unless this person has the power to implement change you're against.

Ah, it wasn't meant as an example for harmful, it was meant as an example for an inconsistent "conservative" standpoint.

Quoting: namikoThat's why I was suggesting actively trying to make changes to laws in the first place. If it's disturbing you, DO something about it instead of worrying that people say or believe things antithetical to your beliefs, since those people will always exist. It's turning something you can't do anything about into something you could possibly change for the better.

I'm fine with the laws we've got in Germany, disallowing e.g. insults. (It's just hard to actually enforce it in antisocial media.)

Quoting: namiko

Quoting: Mountain ManIn other words, you are opposed to freedom of speech because you wish to place arbitrary limits on what others are allowed to say.

Think the hypocrisy is a good point, though. There are people saying that you enable freedom through limitations on many different sides, but that's not really the case, it's all authoritarian in nature and overreaching.

Well, obviously, disallowing murder protects my freedom to live (and all other ones, as I couldn't use any when being dead). Enabling freedom through limitations is very, very broadly agreed upon. So the question usually is not if we want to limit peoples' freedom to protect other peoples' freedom, but just to what extend.

Quoting: EikeWell, obviously, disallowing murder protects my freedom to live (and all other ones, as I couldn't use any when being dead). Enabling freedom through limitations is very, very broadly agreed upon. So the question usually is not if we want to limit peoples' freedom to protect other peoples' freedom, but just to what extend.

That's where most people differ, true. I'd prefer to maximize freedom and limit restrictions and government to a smaller, less bureaucratic state, but also acknowledge that every noble idea is capable of becoming corrupted over time, so there wouldn't ever be any perfect solutions. That said, if we were all cooperating more and seeing our similarities instead of differences, the sky's the limit for what we could accomplish.

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy...it's generally obvious the modern conservative conception of free speech involves nobody else being able to have it.

The irony here is that this comment comes after two lengthy rants about what you think conservatives shouldn't be allowed to say.

It's not ironic at all. Conservatives make a huge kafuffle about free speech being their total main thing and how absolute it should be. I believe in balancing speech rights with other rights in a sane way, with those other rights including positive economic and social rights like say to adequate shelter or education. When someone who professes to believe in balancing different rights tries to balance different rights, that's just consistent.

When someone who professes to believe in absolute free speech in practice routinely muzzles it, that's ironic. And the thing is, conservatives don't even pretend to support many other rights--private property for rich people, maybe, or the right to shoot people--so if they don't even genuinely support the one right they pretend to be massively passionate about, do they actually stand for anything positive at all?

In other words, you are opposed to freedom of speech because you wish to place arbitrary limits on what others are allowed to say.

You can claim that believing other rights exist and/or should exist is arbitrary, but I don't see what makes other rights arbitrary but speech rights not arbitrary.
Anyway, everyone is opposed to unlimited freedom of speech. Including you. Do you push for the repeal of libel laws? Do you back permitting death threats and open calls for assassinations? I'm thinking no. So, we both back limits on freedom of speech. You just apparently find constraints on racism and gay-bashing, by private rather than governmental entities, to be where you draw a line, where that's not particularly something I have a problem with.

Quoting: namiko

Quoting: Purple Library Guy... it's generally obvious the modern conservative conception of free speech involves nobody else being able to have it.

I don't care what you choose to say or where you choose to do so, you should be allowed to say it without any arbitrary limitations. So long as that speech doesn't cause physical harm to someone else, it should be permitted.

There are two possibilities here: Either you are decidedly out of the mainstream of modern (and, really, historical) conservatism, or I don't believe you.
Who burns books? Why, that would be conservatives. Who gets people sacked from universities for saying positive things about Palestinian rights? Why, that would be conservatives. Who is obsessed with purging curricula of anything that happened in history that might make white people uncomfortable? Why, that would be conservatives.

Conservatism is all about social control and enforced homogeneity. Historically, free speech was never a major concern of conservatives; to the contrary, they prefer to regulate speech strongly when they are in charge, to purge expression which deviates from the accepted norm. Threatened by new norms which explicitly accept diversity and aim at reduced social control, in part by rejecting bullying as a way of enforcing social norms, conservatives have discovered freedom of speech as a weapon to re-enable bullying so they can try to re-establish control. But they don't mean it. It's just a weapon that is useful because it's an idea broadly accepted by liberals, so it's harder for them to argue against it.

If you do believe it that's fine, but you're naive about your own side.

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: namiko

Quoting: Mountain ManIn other words, you are opposed to freedom of speech because you wish to place arbitrary limits on what others are allowed to say.

Think the hypocrisy is a good point, though. There are people saying that you enable freedom through limitations on many different sides, but that's not really the case, it's all authoritarian in nature and overreaching.

Well, obviously, disallowing murder protects my freedom to live (and all other ones, as I couldn't use any when being dead). Enabling freedom through limitations is very, very broadly agreed upon. So the question usually is not if we want to limit peoples' freedom to protect other peoples' freedom, but just to what extend.

The crime of murder exists because killing someone without just cause deprives them of their fundamental right to life. I really don't see how this is analogous to speech.

Suppose you joined a religion that required you to wear pink pajamas with purple polka dots in public, and suppose I made a disparaging remark about your attire that you found offensive. What fundamental right have I violated? The right not to be offended? Please, if that was a fundamental right then humanity may as well cease to exist because no matter what the circumstance, you are guaranteed to find someone in the world who is offended by it.

Offensive speech is protected speech by definition, because inoffensive speech doesn't need protection.

Quoting: namikoThat's where most people differ, true. I'd prefer to maximize freedom and limit restrictions and government to a smaller, less bureaucratic state,

Mind you, none of this is actually about government. What's under discussion here is, again, the actions of a private corporation--as it has been in most similar controversies. I've never heard of a situation where it was a government social media portal which was regulating speech. Nor are the actions of these corporations generally triggered by the existence of laws--if anything, they usually respond to upset customers, actual people.

I'm perfectly willing to agree that corporations have too much power, and in specific too much power over our discourse and over what we see, read and so on. But conservatives seem to insist, whenever they have problems with the actions of a corporation, on pretending that the problem somehow is the heavy hand of government.

There is no government in this story. And the only way to get the kind of unfettered speech conservatives say they desire in this situation, would be precisely by bringing the government in, having government pass laws and regulations enforcing lack of speech limits on corporate speech platforms. And again, I have no problem with the basic idea of government regulating the actions of corporations, although I might not favour the same kinds of interventions conservatives do. But we should be clear here that the problem is not the actions of a large, bureaucratic state. Rather it is the absence of a large, bureaucratic, democratic state, one which could actively defend our freedoms against the encroachment of unaccountable private power.

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: namiko

Quoting: Mountain ManIn other words, you are opposed to freedom of speech because you wish to place arbitrary limits on what others are allowed to say.

Think the hypocrisy is a good point, though. There are people saying that you enable freedom through limitations on many different sides, but that's not really the case, it's all authoritarian in nature and overreaching.

Well, obviously, disallowing murder protects my freedom to live (and all other ones, as I couldn't use any when being dead). Enabling freedom through limitations is very, very broadly agreed upon. So the question usually is not if we want to limit peoples' freedom to protect other peoples' freedom, but just to what extend.

The crime of murder exists because killing someone without just cause deprives them of their fundamental right to life. I really don't see how this is analogous to speech.

Suppose you joined a religion that required you to wear pink pajamas with purple polka dots in public, and suppose I made a disparaging remark about your attire that you found offensive. What fundamental right have I violated? The right not to be offended? Please, if that was a fundamental right then humanity may as well cease to exist because no matter what the circumstance, you are guaranteed to find someone in the world who is offended by it.

Offensive speech is protected speech by definition, because inoffensive speech doesn't need protection.

See, this is the kind of reason laws are complicated--because they always have a bunch of careful wording so as to avoid exactly the kind of trivial problem you're referring to. So you can pretend that hate speech laws lead to this kind of problem, just as you can pretend they are arbitrary, but they don't and they aren't, because they're carefully worded and generally err on the side of caution. So for instance, Canada has hate speech laws, but the only people who have ever been prosecuted under them are far-out neo-Nazis with extensive public records of holocaust denial and Jew-bashing. Libel remains way more common and a lower bar when it comes to going after people for unacceptable speech.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyYou can claim that believing other rights exist and/or should exist is arbitrary, but I don't see what makes other rights arbitrary but speech rights not arbitrary.
Anyway, everyone is opposed to unlimited freedom of speech. Including you. Do you push for the repeal of libel laws? Do you back permitting death threats and open calls for assassinations? I'm thinking no. So, we both back limits on freedom of speech. You just apparently find constraints on racism and gay-bashing, by private rather than governmental entities, to be where you draw a line, where that's not particularly something I have a problem with.

I find that liberals define terms like "racism" and "gay bashing" broadly to the point of absurdity such that statements that are neither of those things are often targeted for censorship, and that's the problem. For example, if I were to point out that according to FBI statistics, blacks in the US commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes compared to whites, I bet you would call it racist and demand it be censored even though it's nothing more than a plain statement of fact. Or if I were to point out that according to the Bible, being actively homosexual is a sin, you would decry it as gay bashing even though it is, again, a plain statement of fact. In both instances, I should be allowed the freedom to say them without fear of reprisal, but liberals would demand that I be punished in some fashion, either by having my comments removed, my posting privileges revoked, or, most probably, both. Some of the more extreme brand of liberals might even try and to "dox" me and get me fired from my job.

It comes down to this: I believe that one's fundamental rights should be protected only to the point that they do not infringe on someone else's fundamental rights. So what are these fundamental rights? I believe the Declaration of Independence has as good a definition as any: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Notice that "not getting your nose out of joint because someone said something that offends you" is not on the list.