41 ms·

That's an "if" so big I don't know what your point is.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
My point is to keep track of the order of cause and effect. Unlimited free speech may create a tyranny. But tyranny always at least tries to limit free speech. So when you see a limiting of free speech, you should ask "Is this really in defense of liberty? Or is it just tyranny trying to preserve and extend itself?" Note that tyranny trying to preserve and extend itself almost always says that it's in defense of liberty...
- tetranomiga 5y ago
  "Is this person defending free speech in favor of liberty? Or because his anti-liberty extremism won't be tolerated otherwise?". It works both ways so this isn't a practical way of looking at implementation of free speech. You can't keep a system that doesn't protect itself free forever - propaganda travels faster and further than truth, and I doubt the founding fathers wrote the first amendment with mass media in mind. You can start the argument of who gets to decide what should be allowed and what shouldn't, and in the current political climate (at least in the USA) the answer to that is obviously nobody. Ideally those decisions would be made during a time of cultural unity, where a whole nation can say "These are our values that we want to write in stone", like Germany did with the new constitution in the 20th century where it put well-defined limits on what kind of speech should be forbidden. It's doubtful if that kind of unity is even possible in the USA anymore, so I'm worried that, on a long enough time-scale, unfettered free speech will inevitably lead to tyranny of a kind because there is no system in place to protect it.
- jl2718 5y ago
  > Unlimited free speech may create a tyranny. Citation required.
  - Natsu 5y ago
    The usual citation is the Paradox of Tolerance but that posited a right to protect against people using fists or pistols, rather than ideas, to debate and premised it on the right of self-defense from physical harm.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    tetranomiga's claim, not mine. I merely acknowledged that I wasn't claiming to refute it.

My point is to keep track of the order of cause and effect. Unlimited free speech may create a tyranny. But tyranny always at least tries to limit free speech. So when you see a limiting of free speech, you should ask "Is this really in defense of liberty? Or is it just tyranny trying to preserve and extend itself?" Note that tyranny trying to preserve and extend itself almost always says that it's in defense of liberty...

tetranomiga 5y ago
"Is this person defending free speech in favor of liberty? Or because his anti-liberty extremism won't be tolerated otherwise?". It works both ways so this isn't a practical way of looking at implementation of free speech. You can't keep a system that doesn't protect itself free forever - propaganda travels faster and further than truth, and I doubt the founding fathers wrote the first amendment with mass media in mind. You can start the argument of who gets to decide what should be allowed and what shouldn't, and in the current political climate (at least in the USA) the answer to that is obviously nobody. Ideally those decisions would be made during a time of cultural unity, where a whole nation can say "These are our values that we want to write in stone", like Germany did with the new constitution in the 20th century where it put well-defined limits on what kind of speech should be forbidden. It's doubtful if that kind of unity is even possible in the USA anymore, so I'm worried that, on a long enough time-scale, unfettered free speech will inevitably lead to tyranny of a kind because there is no system in place to protect it.
jl2718 5y ago
> Unlimited free speech may create a tyranny. Citation required.
- Natsu 5y ago
  The usual citation is the Paradox of Tolerance but that posited a right to protect against people using fists or pistols, rather than ideas, to debate and premised it on the right of self-defense from physical harm.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  tetranomiga's claim, not mine. I merely acknowledged that I wasn't claiming to refute it.