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I mentioned the "God-given right" phrase as a simple acknowledgement that many people fervently believe that concept.
I was not attempting to dissect its relevance and I think that just mentioning it is how your confusion started--my bad.
"Free speech is important, but it should never be confused with some sort of God-given right."
"Just to be clear (because I don't want my previous comment to be misunderstood), I do not believe freedom of speech is a God-given right."
If I confused those statements with an attempt to "dissect the relevance" as to whether free speech was a God-given right, I apologize. It seemed at first blush that you were offering an opinion on the subject.
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Interesting enough, some people can not speak at all. Either from birth, born mute, or through a trauma encountered in life. Is a supposed Creator robbing them of their freedom to speak? Thankfully that same Creator (or creators) halted the Tower of Babel and spread us all far and wide with our own methods of communication. Even for those who cannot speak due to an act of God.
Don't take "speech" so literally. If we all did, no one could freely write their thoughts here. Even deaf, dumb, and blind Helen Keller had the "right," if not the ability early on, of free speech.
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My point was that those without the fortune to speak have still been able to find a way to do so. Whether through divine intervention or human spirit to overcome the inequalities which a Creator besets upon the Created.
Agree.
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I've made my meaning clear about my references to the moral implications by floating the aspects of how free speech and hate speech differ.
OK, we'll play in your ballpark. At the outset, let me say that, from a legal standpoint, at least in the U.S., "hate speech" can often fall under, and be permitted under, the concept of "free speech." But you are concerned with the moral distinction, and not the legalities.
First, the definition of "hate speech" will vary widely by person, country, society, racial group, etc. So, just reaching a common understanding of what "hate speech" is will be difficult. If two people agree on the definition, those two people can probably also agree to condemn a particular remark as hate speech or accept it as not being hate speech. When it comes to hate speech within a whole country or society, however, there is unlikely to be a unanimity of opinion as to what hate speech is.
If society is to formally restrict hate speech then, we must unfortunately resort to the law. In a democracy, the majority will decide upon a definition of hate speech and, like Canada for example, codify prohibitions on hate speech into law. There are also ways to informally tamp down hate speech without resorting to the law. These methods are pejoratively referred to these days as "cancel culture." People who believe that others have engaged in hate speech may, if they have the power to do so, fire them from their jobs, toss them off of social media platforms, denounce them in the press or on television, cancel contracts or agreements with them, etc. People that have the power to do these things become the ultimate arbiters of what is moral when it comes to speech, even if the law takes no action, and even in a country like the U.S. which has free speech rights and no laws against hate speech. How moral is it that only the powerful get to determine what is moral when it comes to speech?
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Whenever someone says "hate speech", it usually just means "speech someone hates". And that’s exactly the kind of speech that is and should be protected. No need to protect speech everyone loves.
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Posted: |
Oct 1, 2023 - 10:24 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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While I'm at it, I would say that what Nuts posted above ("hateful rhetoric, cultural defamation, and other pejoratives that attack elements of people's life like race, gender, or sexual preference over choices they make ideologically") would stand as a pretty damn good definition of hate speech. Quite well said.
I think that's a good starting point of a definition of hate speech. It's putting it into practice that's difficult. Let's apply it to a real-life case.
An assistant professor at State University opines that transgender women should not be competing on the university's women's swim team. He believes they are still biological males and have an unfair advantage over biological women. Is his expressed opinion "hateful" and "defamatory" against transgenders, and if so, should he be censured, have his position lowered, or even be dismissed from his position at the university?
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Spoken like someone who has never had to endure widespread hateful rhetoric, cultural defamation, and other pejoratives that attack elements of people's life like race, gender, or sexual preference over choices they make ideologically.
It just means I tend to rate the right to free speech much higher than the understandable wish to not endure such things. As I said, no one needs to defend speech everyone likes. Because what is constitutes hateful rethoric and defamation isn't the same for everybody.
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Posted: |
Oct 2, 2023 - 4:31 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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One can usually tell from verbiage and/or tone if the intent is to threaten or harm.
Likewise, an honest and benign intent would be just as self-evident.
Another case: A conservative spokesperson urges at a rally that migrants that illegally entered the country should be rounded up by the government and deported to the countries they originated from. He doesn't call them any names other than "illegal immigrants" but he is threatening them with loss of livelihood, uprooting of their families, and removal from a country they may have been in for many years. Is that hate speech?
It may not be hate speech itself, but the intent of the speech is without any question to inflame hostilities against immigrants.
That used to be not so tolerated. The term "rounded up" has clear inflammatory, and dehumanizing intent. At crux, the issue to me, is that a lot of Americans have gotten so fat and indulgent with their 'freedoms' that the do not care who gets harmed in the process. They are aggressively nihilistic about it. Yes, you can talk conspiracy nonsense lies about how a political party kidnaps children for cult rituals, you can talk nonsense about how the covid vaccines is harmful, you can talk about how the election was 'stolen'. And, we have seen direct harm come from all of it. A lot of the nation now lives in a deluded brain soup and do deranged things like threaten election workers and librarians and hit old men with hammers in the middle of the night, school board members and teachers get death threats. Over a million people died from Covid in the US, many of them totally pointlessly because they were wrongly convinced by 'freedom of speech' that the vaccine would not save them, when, it certainly would have, Yes, we have that 'freedom' of speech, but it has become perverted and deranged in use, and it is toxic to the nation, and I suspect little better will become of this now. The toxic speech is so redolent across our land.
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Posted: |
Oct 2, 2023 - 4:54 AM
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By: |
Marine Boy
(Member)
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you keep assuming “Creator” is referring to a “Christian” God.
I won’t get into the other amendments since they’re clearly not based on biblical standings.
As I noted earlier, I accept that one's "religion" may or may not have a God, a deity, a guru, or whatever. I don't assume that "Creator" refers to any person's "God" in particular and I don't believe the Framers meant it to. But obviously, by their use of the word "Creator," they believed that some supernatural force existed beyond the ken of man.
The fact that the "rights" in the Bill of Rights aren't also enumerated in the Bible (and here you are assuming a relationship with a particular religious text), doesn't mean that they don't emanate from the higher power referenced by the Founders.
Take free speech, for example. A child's speech is unbridled, until a parent or teacher tells them "Don't say that," or "You can't say that." Who gives children the initial right to say anything that enters their mind? No one. They were born with the right, "endowed by their Creator" as the Framers put it. Only later, do other people try to restrict or censor what they say. The Framers, of course, weren't concerned with the speech of children, but with the political speech of adults--and the insidiousness of the Government trying to restrict or censor what they say.
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(Edit: we agree man’s grants or takes away rights.)
No we don't agree. There are many fundamental rights that man does not grant. But only man can take away those rights.
I appreciate the clarification and our ability to be civil with the discussion.
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Posted: |
Oct 2, 2023 - 5:02 AM
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By: |
Marine Boy
(Member)
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How moral is it that only the powerful get to determine what is moral when it comes to speech?
Short answer: it is not moral that only the powerful get to determine what is moral when it comes to speech.
I would normally have assumed that such a question was rhetorical, but I answered anyway.
While I'm at it, I would say that what Nuts posted above ("hateful rhetoric, cultural defamation, and other pejoratives that attack elements of people's life like race, gender, or sexual preference over choices they make ideologically") would stand as a pretty damn good definition of hate speech. Quite well said.
_________________________________________________________________________
Once upon a time, the ACLU defended neo-Nazis' right to free speech:
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/4156_ri_1978.pdf
That makes a lot of sense considering their mission statement and history of defending pretty much anyone who needs their public charity voice to support their specific First Amendment cause. Just make the check payable to ACLU, 22 East 40 Street, NY, NY 10016.
As gross as it is I think Neo Nazis and KKK have a right to walk down the street, hold hateful signs and have their little pathetic parades. In fact, at one time it was encourage because "we" knew who the potentially dangerous people were. More so, it wasn't (isn't) illegal under free speech.
Its different when you get into hate groups online because most online activity is owned by private companies and they have every right to ban "hate speech" groups. Of course they do that because (a) they don't want to end up liable for supporting hate groups, (b) advertisers back out and they lose money as a company.
I do believe I have a right to hate my politicians, billionaires, law enforcement (and other hateful/harmful people) and express that without fear of being retaliated against or imprisoned.
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Posted: |
Oct 2, 2023 - 5:09 AM
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By: |
Marine Boy
(Member)
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One can usually tell from verbiage and/or tone if the intent is to threaten or harm.
Likewise, an honest and benign intent would be just as self-evident.
Another case: A conservative spokesperson urges at a rally that migrants that illegally entered the country should be rounded up by the government and deported to the countries they originated from. He doesn't call them any names other than "illegal immigrants" but he is threatening them with loss of livelihood, uprooting of their families, and removal from a country they may have been in for many years. Is that hate speech?
It may not be hate speech itself, but the intent of the speech is without any question to inflame hostilities against immigrants.
That used to be not so tolerated. The term "rounded up" has clear inflammatory, and dehumanizing intent. At crux, the issue to me, is that a lot of Americans have gotten so fat and indulgent with their 'freedoms' that the do not care who gets harmed in the process. They are aggressively nihilistic about it. Yes, you can talk conspiracy nonsense lies about how a political party kidnaps children for cult rituals, you can talk nonsense about how the covid vaccines is harmful, you can talk about how the election was 'stolen'. And, we have seen direct harm come from all of it. A lot of the nation now lives in a deluded brain soup and do deranged things like threaten election workers and librarians and hit old men with hammers in the middle of the night, school board members and teachers get death threats. Over a million people died from Covid in the US, many of them totally pointlessly because they were wrongly convinced by 'freedom of speech' that the vaccine would not save them, when, it certainly would have, Yes, we have that 'freedom' of speech, but it has become perverted and deranged in use, and it is toxic to the nation, and I suspect little better will become of this now. The toxic speech is so redolent across our land.
I thought the internet would open up the world and people would see all sides of things and discover the world is much bigger than their little bubble of existence. Instead people have taken this great opportunity to learn and grow intellectually and decided to stay in their little "online" bubble instead. While there was a lot of gross and sick misinformation and it lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths Ive also come to the conclusion you can't fix stupid.
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