— Musings —08.17.2017 09:45 AM
Sums it up nicely
I just did (yet another) interview with a reporter asking about whether tolerating neo-Nazis like Bannon is the price we pay for free speech, etc.
I said chants of “death to the Jew” aren’t speech. They’re expressions of hate, and anyone with a brain their head should be able to discern the difference.
Everyone needs to read Primo Levi. I can think of no other author who has written so poignantly about Nazism, the holocaust and the human condition. If you read Primo Levi’s SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ or THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED, you cannot not want to fight these bastards with every fiber of your being.
Everyone needs to read this.
I think the debate is whether it should be illegal for hate speech or just condemned. In Canada we allow under section 1 reasonable limits on all Charter rights and due to the harm hate speech causes that is why we restrict it. Note our laws on hate speech are actually laxer than many European countries, for example in Germany they have some of the toughest hate laws out there. Carrying a Nazi flag or flying one will land you in prison in Germany whereas here it will not. The US Constitution however has rights as absolute unless one exercising their rights harms another. Some like the ACLU who go after bigotry quite hard will still defend racist types arguing you defeat them through speaking out. I admit I am torn on this as I absolutely want these bigots gone, but does banning them get rid of them or do they just go underground. One advantage of them speaking out as at least we know who they are and can name and shame them, just look at the one guy at the Unite Rally in Charlottesville who got fired from his job. Certainly Trump’s defence or willing to say some were decent people is appalling and he absolutely must be censured at minimum and in fact I think 25th amendment should be invoked to remove him from office due to being mentally unfit.
Thank’t Warren, for stating the obvious, to the ignorant, in a manner the moron’s might understand.
Everything up until now didn’t mean a whole lot in removing President DT from office in regards to impeachment, until a few days ago. Dems and Lefts can sit back and watch as the President carries on a feud with the Senate Majority Leader from his own party. He has now officially begun the unstoppable unraveling of his Presidency.
OH! OH! Houston we have a problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-amendment-trump-charlottesville.html
This is bad! Banning run amuck! What’s next?
It’s quite a jump to say tolerating the intolerant leads to them taking over. The idea is out constitutionally protected tolerance would prevent them from implementing intolerance even if they did take form the government.
The Paradox of Tolerance argument is always misused to argue for censorship. That is only using a portion of Popper’s arguments.
Also from Karl Popper:
“I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.”
In other words, so long as idiot neo-Nazis are just running their mouths you counter them with argument, derision, ostracizing… but not active government suppression or censorship of speech unless actual violence is being done or encouraged.
It’s not unreasonable to ask how far does this go and what people would consider an “intolerant” view worthy of censorship; Pro-life? Pro-gun? Flat Earthers? Anti-vaxxers? Vegans? Naturopaths? We could go on and on and starting shutting up half the population depending on whomever feels someone else’s words are “violent”. We’re already seeing this on campuses. Richard Dawkins – as progressive as they come – was barred from speaking for “anti-Islamic views”.
Nobody has the moral authority to deem what is allowable speech therefore free speech must be maximized.
Exactly. The problem is that as soon as you agree that Nazis should be silenced, people will try to render the definition of “Nazi” to extend to anything they don’t agree with. I’ve already seen some people claim that the Google manifesto guy must be a supporter of eugenics and express a wish to “beat the shit out of him”.
It always amazes me that people in favor of censoring offensive speech make the naïve assumption that the people in power will never see their own speech as offensive.