The Free Speech and Its Repercussions Thread

[bell110]

The problem with free speech in America is that it's used as a sheild now. Almost 99% of the time when someone prefaces something by saying they are exercising their right of free speech it's because they know they are about to purposefully say something offensive.

America as a whole just simply doesn't have any sort of decorum when it comes to speaking, honestly.

Hmmm, no. It's not a shield. It's a right. That's like when people complain about suspects "lawyering up". Like it's somehow a bad thing and only used when the person knows they are wrong.

 

[SuperFerret]

It's just usually used when somebody knows they're wrong.

 

[Burgundy LaRue]

Hmmm, no. It's not a shield. It's a right.

In which case, the rest of us have the right to call someone out on their BS if they say something inflammatory or just plain stupid. Action, consequence. Both are in the playing field when it comes to rights.

 

[Dr.]

If you haven’t seen it, this 20min video by Christopher Hitchens (University of Toronto, 2006) on “hate speech” is worth a look.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Hitchens makes a great point, you do have to love religious people using hate speech laws, when their own religions are full of hate.

If you're in a hotel room, look inside the nightstand, take out the bible, and read the part about putting gays to death.

 

[Commodus]

Free speech at any cost, no matter who it offends, no matter how much blood is spilt, it doesn't matter. It's a small price to pay to be free.
The world does not run on your feelings, it does not bend and sway to your protestations of discrimination, men will say what they will and all you can really do is say your piece and hope to win the day.

Anyone defending the stifling of free speech on grounds of 'sensitivity' or 'tolerance' should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

 

[Shemtov]

I don't believe her group would recognize a difference.

I believe that you need some evidence before you should say that.

I agree and it pisses me off. They're so preoccupied with whether or not they can, they don't stop to think if they should. To paraphrase Dr. Malcolm.

It's like people simply don't understand the difference between "socially unacceptable" and "illegal"

 

[Spider-Aziz]

As far as the situation in the Middle East and North Africa is concerned... I said it once, I'll say it every time. Average Muslim Joe is not the one who is supposed to condemn violence of extremists but religious leaders of Islam. So far they haven't done it and they won't because this extremism is fueled by the same religious leaders (don't confuse religious leaders with a puppet politician acting as a president. Religious leaders in Muslim countries carry far more weight than these puppets.)

This actually describes Iraq and Iran, and Syria to a degree. Not all the countries in this region follow the description you gave

 

[charl_huntress]

This doesn't really pertain to the conversation above, but I'd thought I would share since it does deal with free speech.

Okay, so I was reading an article online about a guy named Michael Brutsch. I won't link to the article or any of the associated stories because some of the links connect to some...not so worthy content. I'm sure if you Google the name you can find this for yourself.

Anyway, this guy Michael was a moderator at another MB like site that allows users to share all types of information. In particular, this guy was the mod for a sub-forum devoted to posting pics like things of upskirt shots of unknowing women, jailbait pics, nazi/racist pics, etc.

Michael came under the radar of Gawker after a teacher was fired for posting an upskirt, jailbait pic of one of the students in his class in the sub forum Michael moderates. The teacher was promptly (and rightly) fired, but after a bit of digging Gawker was able to discover Michael's real identity and outed him to the public, which caused Michael to be fired from his job. I'm assuming he was fired for breaking the company's ethics clause, which most companies add into the employee contract.

Anyway, I'm curious to what people think about all this. The guy did have the right to free speech (regardless of the disgusting things he said). Gawker, on the other hand also had the rights of free speech on their side too.

As it is....this is certainly interesting because I'm sure the guy had no idea that things he said on a MB would lead to the total disruption of his life. As he said, he just "liked to rile people up" on MBs and didn't see his conduct as wrong since his identity was supposedly protected by the anonymity of the MB. LOL...yet the guy was fired for being a troll.