I keep hearing people - be it in opinion pages or comments threads or on TV or whatever - say 'hate speech is not free speech'.
Yes, it is.
Hate speech is free speech.
You see, if you remove any kind of speech you have eliminated the concept of free speech full stop.
Never mind the whole unnecessarily spooky angle of what constitutes hate speech and nominating the people to determine degrees of hate.
It's all so eerie and it won't end well. One day we'll put someone in prison for the most harmless of comments. It's already happening in the UK where the police roam around Twitter arresting people for speech.
It's asinine as it is disturbing as it is flat out evil.
If you think otherwise, you abandon the right to claim you're for free speech.
It's all or nothing I'm afraid.
Yes, it is.
Hate speech is free speech.
You see, if you remove any kind of speech you have eliminated the concept of free speech full stop.
Never mind the whole unnecessarily spooky angle of what constitutes hate speech and nominating the people to determine degrees of hate.
It's all so eerie and it won't end well. One day we'll put someone in prison for the most harmless of comments. It's already happening in the UK where the police roam around Twitter arresting people for speech.
It's asinine as it is disturbing as it is flat out evil.
If you think otherwise, you abandon the right to claim you're for free speech.
It's all or nothing I'm afraid.
You can have "balanced speech", but mainly if you rig it somehow: edit it; prioritize what's "most important" out of what was overall said and just stick to that; regulate it---keep only the "catchiest" most mind-manipulating aspects of said speech and omit the "awkward" spots ...
ReplyDeleteLike that.
Well, therein lies where things get tricky and arbitrary. Who gets to determine all those 'parameters'?
DeletePlus: It's then easy to infuse any kind of subtle censorship with greater ease.
DeleteThe cops in the U.K. have nothing better to do than monitor the insipid dialogues of "Twitter twits"?
ReplyDeleteNo unsolved murders? Rapes? Gang activities?
Obviously crime must be at an all-time low in the U.K. for the authorities there to have that much time to kill.
The UK is sunk. And the stories ain't much better in Germany. Or Sweden. Or France. It's a full blown war on their own citizens for effen speech. It's absurd.
DeleteOr Canada. Here, I argue, the USA has everyone licked by a country mile. Americans are far more vibrant and thick skinned and tougher minded where free speech is concerned and they take it far more seriously than Europe does that's for sure. Same with Canada.
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