Free speech

[Jazzy]

Where does free speech end?

 

[Lamb]

It ends when it's a threat, is child pornography, fraud, obscene and some other things I can't remember this morning.

 

[tango]

Is the question intended to ask where we think it should end or where it actually ends now.

Where it actually ends now seems to be that if anyone, anywhere, claims to be offended by something then it crosses all sorts of lines and the speaker deserves to be cancelled for ever and ever, amen.

Where it actually should end has nothing to do with people being offended. There are obvious merits in prohibiting clear incitements to violence and reining in slander and libel (differentiated from what some legal systems refer to as "mere vulgar abuse").

Potential gray areas would relate to things like consent issues - posting pornographic content featuring someone who did not consent crosses lines but that in turn raises questions like the definition of "pornographic content" and "consent". If it's not OK to post a picture of a topless woman, what about if she is wearing a very small bikini? What if she was topless in a public place and therefore had no reasonable expectation of privacy? What if she performed freely and consented to publication but subsequently changes her mind - can she withdraw consent and if so should she be expected to refund some or all of her fee if she was paid for her performance?

What about the iconic matter of being allowed to shout "FIRE!" in a crowded theater? Some would say it shouldn't be allowed because of the potential to incite panic. But the people in the theater could see for themselves that there is no fire posing an immediate danger and it doesn't take a genius to figure if you run from something you can't see you have no way of knowing whether it even exists and whether you're running into greater danger by picking the wrong exit.

 

[Albion]

Is the question intended to ask where we think it should end or where it actually ends now.

Where it actually ends now seems to be that if anyone, anywhere, claims to be offended by something then it crosses all sorts of lines and the speaker deserves to be cancelled for ever and ever, amen.

Quite so, except that it doesn't actually apply to "anyone, anywhere."

About half the population is fair game for whatever the speaker chooses to call them, even if it's completely absurd (think "white nationalist" and "Russian asset").

 

[tango]

Quite so, except that it doesn't actually apply to "anyone, anywhere."

About half the population is fair game for whatever the speaker chooses to call them, even if it's completely absurd (think "white nationalist" and "Russian asset").

Sure, if you're white, conservative, Christian, or some combination you are an unperson and therefore aren't included in "anyone, anywhere"

 

[Albion]

Sure, if you're white, conservative, Christian, or some combination you are an unperson and therefore aren't included in "anyone, anywhere"

Ether that, which I'm not discounting, OR you are a deliberate oppressor, racist of course, and well-off, etc.

It doesn't matter that you probably are actually none of these because, you see, you are SUBCONSCIOUSLY oppressing others who are unlike yourself, thanks to being (probably or possibly) related to someone from 300 years ago whom you'd never heard of.

And if that doesn't apply for some reason, you are nevertheless said to BENEFIT, even unknowingly, from something left over from the past.

That's the claim, even if you were actually born in poverty, suffered rejection from the more prominent people in society, were stigmatized as having been from the wrong side of the tracks, were denied a good education, and were disadvantaged in a dozen other ways that the spokesmen for Wokeism never experienced themselves.

 

[tango]

Ether that, which I'm not discounting, OR you are a deliberate oppressor, racist of course, and well-off, etc.

It doesn't matter that you probably are actually none of these because, you see, you are SUBCONSCIOUSLY oppressing others who are unlike yourself, thanks to being (probably or possibly) related to someone from 300 years ago whom you'd never heard of.

And if that doesn't apply for some reason, you are nevertheless said to BENEFIT, even unknowingly, from something left over from the past.

That's the claim, even if you were actually born in poverty, suffered rejection from the more prominent people in society, were stigmatized as having been from the wrong side of the tracks, were denied a good education, and were disadvantaged in a dozen other ways that the spokesmen for Wokeism never experienced themselves.

Of course, because the white boy growing up in the projects with an absent father and a drug-addicted mother has white privilege and male privilege, while the black girl growing up in a mansion with married parents who love her and have the means to fund the best education money can buy has neither of those privileges. Obviously that privileged boy is oppressing that poor downtrodden girl.