Comment by runarberg
5 years ago
Lets get this straight: When did I actually say “immigration can’t be discussed”? I said it might be annoying to an immigrant when people play the devils advocate to argue for limits on immigration. And I said it might be threatening to an immigrant that is at risk of deportation.
I know I didn’t word it perfectly and I understand you might have misunderstood me. English is not my first language and I’m sometimes not as clear as I could be. Particularly in this case I left out the word ‘might’, hoping that it was implied from this being a hypothetical scenario. Sorry for that.
I’m sorry if I left you thinking that all immigrants think this, or are of a certain opinion, I don’t believe this my self and it certainly was not my intention to claim any such thing.
I also don’t hold the opinion that some topics can’t be discussed. Only that it is natural to be insulted if certain opinions in said topics are expressed. Since you mentioned slavery, imagine a public forum about in Pennsylvania in 1849. Some people might think the debate about abolition is only theoretical and might play the devils advocate, imagining and stating arguments that make sense in a theoretical scenario. Who is this helping? Is Fredrick Douglass gonna walk by this forum and think: “I’m glad people are having this debate, I hope this person that argues for slavery keeps posting.” Say John Brown replies stating this for-slavery person “is an idiot” and “should keep silent, for their own good,” do you think that Harriet Tubman would be thinking: “Oh my, I hope John Brown—though well intentioned—will not silence this anti-abolitionist. In fact why is John Brown speaking on my behalf? he was never a slave. We got to keep this debate going if we want to end slavery.” Finally Harriet Ann Jacobs walks by and simply says to her self: “Well, I’m free now, I don’t need to participate in this forum. I’ll just leave it.”
No, this is ridiculous. We don’t stop these humanitarian disaster by allowing bigoted views to persist. If someone comes with an insulting argument based on a bigoted view, the normal thing to do is to insult back and hope they never speak of this again.
> "Only that it is natural to be insulted if certain opinions in said topics are expressed."
Again, so what? It happens and is entirely subjective, and whether it's shared by millions of people or specific to an individual is an irrelevant detail.
> "Who is this helping?"
Who cares? Discussion happens. There is no imperative that it must be helpful, whatever that means. That's yet another subjective judgement.
> "We don’t stop these humanitarian disaster by allowing bigoted views to persist."
Discussion is what determined they were wrong views in the first place. Speech from the opposing side that, at the time, was considered rebellious and wrong eventually won and created change.
> "the normal thing to do is to insult back"
Yes. Counter speech and ideas with better speech and ideas. That is the opposite of (self-) censorship and limiting expression because of potential offense.
You're comparing immigration limits to being against abolition? What a strawman.
No I’m not. Here I was expanding on the point the parent made where abolition was an example:
> [S]elf-censorship is never good. People holding views that you find offensive don't need to stop doing anything, and this has both exposed bad people and led to revolutionary new ideas
This is a silly argument given the above example.
Remember the topic is about self-censorship and whether getting offended about certain rhetoric is natural, not about any specific topic which might offend people.