Comment by MangoToupe
2 days ago
Has any country ever functioned like that? The idea seems absurd. Of course you should be held legally accountable for what you say. You can see trivial examples in American culture with defamation law, laws against calling for violence, laws about when and where you're allowed to protest. Agree with it or not, we don't have a right to say what we want with no consequence. The devil as always is in the details. But people need to actually agree what sort of values we should have represented as a people to write those laws, and america has never figured out how to do that without either violence or a massive river of cash to distract us from each other.
For an instance of how bad free speech can get, look no further than the role RTLM played in the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994.
> You can see trivial examples in American culture with defamation law, laws against calling for violence, laws about when and where you're allowed to protest.
Defamation is extremely hard to stick in the US.
You also are allowed in general to call for violence in the US. Incitement is very specific and not merely "calling for violence."
> we don't have a right to say what we want with no consequence.
Yes, in the US you absolutely are allowed to say what you want with no state-sanctioned consequence. There are extremely, extremely narrow exceptions. Way, way narrower than most people on either side of the political aisle intuit.
For an instance of how great free speech can get, look no further than the role the 1st Amendment has played in creating a highly adaptive society that, despite the internal chaos, conquers most of its challenges.
I understand quibbling about specifics, but I'm still unconvinced "free speech" is a meaningful term or that it's necessary for industrialization with private investment. It's a bone given to morons to get them to not demand real rights. I would also not ever willingly live in a society with truly free speech.
> Yes, in the US you absolutely are allowed to say what you want with no state-sanctioned consequence.
When has this ever really benefited us? We complain endlessly but fix nothing. What value have unanswered complaints?
wat.
You're going to have to more fully flesh out whatever train of thought you just showed the caboose of.
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