Comment by mapontosevenths
6 days ago
> there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip
I understand that you're being facetious here, but this is literally true.
Words kill people sometimes, and in the same way that my right to swing my arm stops where your nose begins your right to say whatever you want stops where my safety begins.
Or to rephrase it, nobody can have free speech at all if others are allowed to threaten your health and safety for it, which automatically implies that violent and hateful speech must be curtailed. It is a variation on the paradox of tolerance.
Yes, there is room to debate exactly where the line is, but the fact that there is a line is fairly well settled except amongst the rabid.
I dont need Thierry Breton or Van Der Leyen to tell me which podcasts I am allowed to listened to, but thanks for the well-intentionned thoughts for my safety anyway.
I dont care at all for your safety, I care for mine and that of my family and I think it's fair to insist that you don't get to put my life in jeopardy because you feel like you should be immune to the consequences of your speech.
I would be very interested in hearing some of these words capable of killing. I have only heard of such words in fiction so I am quite surprised to learn they are real.
In the 1950s, the Reverend Ian Paisley would organise rallies in the streets of Belfast and when speaking at those rallies, read out the addresses of Catholic homes and businesses on those streets. The crowd would then attack those homes and businesses.
I don't know the exact context or what was said, but I know one thing the words didn't attack somebody. People attacked people and property.
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We've had several World Wars (so far) thanks largely to words. I'm not sure what your contention really is, except that maybe you dont like the idea of freedom coming with responsibility for the ways in which you use it.
Nobody died from the words? Did Hitler say millions should die and millions dropped dead? It was the war, the concentration camps, etc that killed people.
Yes, words led to that, but the onus of the deaths are on those who did the killing, not the words. Could the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials have used the excuse that it was actually the words doing the killing and as such they were innocent?
If you want to say words kill, in the way you are saying, then words have killed most people that have been killed. If we take an example where somebody gets turned down and then gets killed for it, would you say words killed that person? Should we ban turning people down? You do want words that kill to be banned after all.
I'm reminded of a phrase I leaned as a kid that starts with sticks and stones...
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You’re advocating for a censorship regime that would put me in jail for words that you happen to think are dangerous.
Ergo, your words threaten my safety.
Google the paradox of tolerance. Essentially the only thing that cant be tolerated is intolerance.
>"[...] But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
The paradox of tolerance is not about censoring others. If anything, censorship lands on the side of the intolerant of this paradox.