A star effort went into that, well done.
And to you mate! Sorry for the delay; I'm finally back in.
Foresight is a planned view of the future whereas Hindsight is a planned view of the past. But the past isn't applicable to society as it stand right now, foresight is what will decide free speech as life progresses, not hindsight. I referred to hindsight potentially looking good, but at no point to I say it is more useful a tool than foresight.
I think you'll have to explain to me in detail why instance after instance of failed censorship cannot apply to present times. What about history as recent as the 60's-80's? How did censorship fare with the Russians? Or the Chinese?
Worked in what way? Exterminating Jew's worked for Hitler, but is that appropriate for today? Free speech like all things, has worked in the way its desired to, however it does not make it the right way.
This is true, but of course I meant "worked" in the sense of "was an effective long-term solution to society's ills" way.
And exterminating Jews was hardly a long-term solution to Germany's problems.
Of course any freedom can and often will be abused, but there is punishment for those who abuse it, freedom of speech in society as a whole is abused too frequently, which is why restrictions should be put in place. With punishment to those who cross the line.
Okay. So what kind of punishments are we talking about? Where do you draw that line?
Freedom of speech is a privilege, just like a driving license, if that can be took away, then so can freedom of speech. I'm not suggesting all freedoms of speech be took away, but there are various countries where they have been, these two don't make quite the distinguishable pair that others do.
On the contrary, freedom of speech
is a right. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
It is also given preeminence in the United States Constitution as well as those of many other nations.
Driving, you notice, is nowhere present in any of these resolutions.
That is the very point which I was making.
If as you suggest, expressions cannot be changed, then people 'should' over 'must', be rational and diplomatic. The word 'must' makes it sound like some sort of dictatorship, people must be rational and diplomatic if they don't wish to receive punishment, but it isn't a necessity because as you point out yourself, freedoms can be abused.
Precisely my argument. Censorship is exactly that; you
must xyz if you don't wish to receive punishment.
Obviously punishment is due the murderer and the thief. But there is a great difference. There is never any doubt when someone has died or when someone's property is missing. That's obvious.
But can you so precisely define when someone has spoken offensively? Or insulted someone else? No, because it's subjective, and subjective laws are very slippery slopes that will probably if not certainly cause more trouble then the problem they were meant to solve.
Belief influences behavior, belief is a choice and so belief can be legislated. You may not have a belief in murder in the way you describe, but a belief will often have a viewpoint on various things, murder included.
You can't truly force me to believe anything, though. If you outlaw my religion, I might not preach in the streets, but do you think that I would cease to hold my faith just because you said I should? Of course not. A law would never stop me from praying at night or from discussing the matter in private.
Belief = Having faith in something (you may not have faith in murder, you may well have in someones ability to murder something specific)
Behavior = How somebody acts, Influenced by belief
Right. So you can change behavior, but not beliefs. But if it is the beliefs that actually make people act offensively, then you haven't solved any problems by artificially altering peoples' behavior. You've just hastily masked the problem with some legislative duct tape.
Speech therefore isn't 'as much a matter of belief as it is of behavior' beliefs may be concealed or overridden by behaviors, which may be artificial in order to be seen in a particular way.
Of course speech is a matter of belief. If I speak out strongly for propisition X, or if I speak strongly against people of group Y, it is because my beliefs are in line with X and against Y.
Insults generally just don't fly out at random. People insult others whom hold conflicting opinions or positions. I mean of course some people are just dorks and insult for the heck of it, but you get what I mean.
Free speech, can therefore distance people from certain beliefs through behavior. Instead of accepting certain beliefs, all it can do is make people behavior poorly to them, you seem to assume free speech = acceptance, when it usually ends in conflict.
People can be pursuaded just as well as disuaded. I'd hardly agree that "ALL it can do" is create conflict or even that "free speech
usually ends in conflict."
And when there is conflict, it isn't because of free speech. Free speech is perhaps what causes people to realize the conflict, but that isn't what created it to begin with.
Some beliefs simply
don't deserve a voice through there behaviors and ideals, which will often conflict with the law or the vast majority of a populace and breed more hatred.
(Emphasis added.)
That is a dangerously fine line there. You just finished saying how many people have strong, uncompromising beliefs. Have you noticed that each side finds that THEY are deserving and the other guys AREN'T deserving?
It is impossible as well as highly unethical to DECIDE which opinions are healthy for everyone else. See, already you are showing how censorship leads to dictating what people can and cannot think.
Expressing your views in some places could get you killed (for example expressing hatred of Islam in Saudi Arabia), censorship provides protection on some levels.
If you think that the threat of execution has helped Saudi society to advance, then by all means go over there and see.
It's totally the opposite, don't you see? Saudi Arabia doesn't protect anybody, it just oppresses them. So what, making women wear baggy dresses and cover their faces might protect me from my own immoral lusts, but since when does that justify treating women like animals?
That's like "protecting" little children by locking them in your basement 'till they turn 21 dude. It solves...
nothing. Masks? Maybe. Shoves it off for a little while longer? Probably.
In the mean time, the free world sees Saudi Arabia as the closest thing we have to the dark ages in modern times. People flock to the USA, to Britain, and to the rest of Europe to LIVE! Because that's what censorship takes away.
Once again, Saudi Arabia is a perfect reason
for free speech.
It is free speech which creates these conflicts, don't you see? No one would be calling each other droobs if the person didn't admit to being a fully fledged Nazi follower.
So... we all duct tape our mouths closed or what?
I never said it was perfect, but imperfect =/= trash the whole idea then. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
Well, you're right Thermal. If no one said anything, no one would get offended. We would also all be naked, hunt wild animals for a living, build houses out of mud, and make fire by rubbing sticks. Enjoy.
(Naked? Maybe censorship has a few perks after all...
)
You were thinkin' it.
Free speech solves nothing, someone who denies the holocaust ever happened can announce it to the world, whilst most other people rationally disagree with this, is it solved?
And for each of those, we have a few billion issues that we discuss rationally and solve. Which is why we advance. You've picked one hot-button issue which is only hot because it is unusual in that we haven't solved it yet.
No. You can have wars, riots, all other forms of violence created by free speech, does it solve the situation?
Well, let me think about that for a moment. Lessee... free speech solving things...
American revolution? Check.
French revolution? Check.
Civil Rights movement? Check.
Perestroika? Check.
Democracy as we know it? Check.
You know what? This might get long. How about we list the times it
hasn't worked.
...
No. In South Africa the apartheid has long finished. Do people still see black people as inferior there? Yes, do others see them as equals? Yes, is the situation solved? No, they are still discriminated against even now, people will always have different views and so free speech will continually conflict with each other.
And duct tape over the mouth would fix this?
You notice that in the States we used to feel the same way. Yet somehow with our free speech baggage and all we managed to get over that. Well, I can't really say that completely. We have some redneck holdouts. A white supremacist here and there...
And allowing there views to be freely discussed could gather them all the more hate, hiding away provides less resistance, groups such as Islam 4 UK speak out, have even been in interviews and get harassed and booed, free speech is not acceptable when the speech is seen as ridiculous to the vast majority. Censorship both protects the unpopular beliefs and those that would have to listen to them.
Censorship protects unpopular beliefs? Are you sure you don't want to think about that for a minute?
If there was censorship, then, you're right, no one would boo the Islam 4 UK people. Because instead they would all be dead, exiled, or imprisoned by the majority which decides what is censored and what is not.
Overtime, censorship may reduce support for certain ideologies which can is a bonus, letting everyone see them can only add to the ranks...
Censorship can be manipulated, but right back at you AM, free speech can be manipulated in so many ways, many of which demonstrated in my first post.
Right. So are we going to err on the side of having too many ideas or too few? Some whackos on the fringe, or the KGB telling me what I'm not allowed to say or else?
I don't know about you, but I've always noticed that if I get too much, I can cut down to size, but if I get too little I have to start all over again.
Rather applicable concept there.
There are some things which will always be a good idea, such as equality (which free speech certainly hinders)
Um... your whole reason for having censorship is that some ideas don't
deserve to be recognized, ie that they are inferior along with the nitwits that believe them.
When on earth did free speech hinder equality? I hexuple dare you to find a professional legal opinion to back that one up.
Now I'm expecting 'how about the equality of the people being censored' Well if some is preaching activities which threatens equality, then they don't deserve it themselves.
Ah, the old "intolerant of intolerance" bit. So, you've just undermined your whole moral base for censorship.
Doesn't that make you no more tolerant than the extremists? Which means...
you're an extremist. Which means you don't respect other people. Which problably means that by your rules you don't deserve respect either.
Which means that if you have your way you will be arrested and incarcerated for hate speech.
This isn't exclusive to censorship by far, should the world have entirely free speech, in a couple of centuries I would also wonder what people think about us down the road? When enough free speech is spread to enough people in enough areas (baring in mind the vulnerable) perhaps new censorships themselves will come of age, parts of free speech and being successful in that speech can lead to much worse censorship's, its a vicious circle which will always come back round to bite itself in the tail.
Well, we can't really know that, but we can try it the other way around.
Let's see...
1860. America. Blacks want free speech? Somehow I think they would.
1992. Russia. Russians want free speech, freedom of information, freedom of assembly, etc? Yep. Something about tearing down walls and all that jazz.
1789. France. Yup.
1955. America. Again, yes.
Have you seen the encores some of these people get? They gather people, people who probably had few views beforehand and make it seem good to believe in something specific. If anything free speech can make certain beliefs ever more outrageous, with creates pressure on people to shun it more.
A minute ago you were saying that Neo-Nazis having free speech causes more Neo-Nazis.
But if a guy only becomes a devoted Neo-Nazi because of his huge throng of Nazi-followers, as you just now suggest...
How did THEY become neo-nazis? Sounds almost like they didn't need that guy to have free speech in order for them to arrive at their conclusions.
I disagree, freedom of speech allows such time wasting or annoying things to be said, by censoring punishment can be issued.
Again, all you're doing here is poisoning the well.
"See over here you got 5 examples where people mess with free speech. Forget the other 95 cases. And forget the 95 times that people engaged in a horrendous abuse of censorship and drove the government into the ground, and imagine those 5 times it kept annoying people for wasting other people's time."
Sorry, I just don't see it.
Its OK for you to say that in history censorship has hindered us, but as societies and life changes rational choices must be moved on in the best public interest, not influenced by the voice of the more lesser minority. You will never please everyone but you can try your best, expressive free speech will always lead to conflict for everyone at some point.
You don't seem to acknowledge the reality here. OK:
GALILEI was in the lesser minority once.
COPERNICUS was in the lesser minority once.
PLATO was in the lesser minority once.
DARWIN was in the lesser minority once.
JEFFERSON was in the lesser minority once.
...
And heaven knows that the people of those times were extremely uncomfortable about what those men had to say. Yes, chopping these guys' heads off would have made them much more comfortable. And they threatened to do it too.
They wanted to kill Galilei just because he threw a bick rock and a small rock off the top of a tower and proved that big things don't fall faster than small ones! They were angry with him for it!
And to think that they could have been saved from such discomfort. And just a little catch: we'd still be in the dark ages. Yes, we'd still think that the earth was suspended on the back of a giant tortoise, and we'd think that every bright light in the sky was a sign of the apocalypse.
You are grossly overrating the importance of comfort.
censorship can disallow these extreme beliefs.
And how could you possibly accomplish that? The eradication of extremism on all fronts?
Let me guess: wars, violence, protests, and so on.
Hmmm...
well, for one thing that seems remarkably similar to the problem you're trying to fix in the first place, only worse. Not to mention that you'll probably eradicate a lot of really good things along the way. There's the dark ages looming again.
You're still missing it. I assume that if one were to institute censorship, that they would censor those things which the MAJORITY feel is objectionable.
In which case "behead those who insult islam" would be at the top of the list for state policy, not banned topics.
It is interesting that earlier in the argument you say that being oppressed just builds up and mutates the belief, these protesters have freely preached hate toward anyone who isn't Islamic, how exactly has that calmed there hate?
You think that's bad? Try to shut them off and watch your politicians get assassinated and your government buildings blown up en masse.
Unless you execute them all, of course.
Views this strong cannot be allowed in a civilized society (I'm not saying that in a upper class way) even if these ideals were suited in a very specific area, they don't belong in a predominantly Christan country, so they can
off.
Ah, so different countries and cultures are perhaps suited to different ideals and concepts? So, one culture might have different opions on islam than another country?
Uuh-oooooh... I can see where this is going...
See what I'm saying? People ARE different. Cultures are different and that's great. Your censored idea of society could only work in a whitewashed universe of clones and robots.
I don't advocate that kind of censorship.
And yet it happens. I don't advocate that kind of free speech either. Yet it happens.
Which abuse has the worst consequences? Well, there's dark ages, or personal discomfort. (Dark ages, discomfort? Dark ages... discomfort? Hmmm...
)
Free speech is what allowed them to say this in the first place, so it is in fact an argument for either point.
And either way you have no solution.
Bad? Yes. Solution? ... duct tape ... ?
I dunno, after duct tape I'm all out of ideas.
I suppose we could genetically engineer mutations in the human genome until we have no mouths...
We'd still have trouble with those danged sign-language speakers though.
We'd have to take off the arms too. And the eyelids, so that people wouldn't communicate in morse code by blinking. Or by tapping their feet...
Ok say your piece and DON'T EAT ME ALIVE.
Your turn.
I was in a sarcastic mood. Hope you don't mind.