Xkcd: Free Speech (2014) (opens in new tab)

(xkcd.com)

20 pointsacadapter2y ago11 comments

11 comments

11 comments · 5 top-level

throw3108222y ago· 3 in thread

My counter-argument is this: you could make a more extreme version of the statement like: "the government can't arrest you for what you say, but the people are free to reach for their pitchforks and lynch you". Which isn't true, the government must also protect you from arbitrary violence. The fact that violence perpetrated via social media (harassment, stalking, mobbing) cannot realistically be prosecuted, doesn't invalidate the principle that people should be protected from it.

devb2y ago

> Which isn't true, the government must also protect you from arbitrary violence.

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm"

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

pmdulaney2y ago

How could the Court have ruled otherwise? It would just defy common sense to say that the police are responsible to prevent physical harm coming to any person in their jurisdiction. Unless you were to have a police officer stationed at each resident's house, there would be no reasonable way to hold the police responsible.

A separate but related issue: If I see a toddler walking on the railroad tracks and I see a train coming -- but with plenty of time to intervene without placing myself at significant risk -- am I obligated to save the toddler. I think inaction is such a situation is not against the law, at least for an ordinary citizen, but anyone who hears the particulars of the incident will hold me in deep contempt.

al_borland2y ago

It may not be a constitutional duty, as outlined in the case, but it’s still their job. If they aren’t enforcing the law and court orders, what are they doing?

I do my job because it’s my job, not because of a constitutional obligation.

acadapterOP2y ago· 2 in thread

It's been nearly 10 years since this famous perspective on free speech was published and circulated.

How do you think it has aged?

tanseydavid2y ago

“We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.”

― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

pmdulaney2y ago

It never was a helpful point of view; it was and is a cynical, sad, low side compliance moral principle. One might as well say: "You know, the government and businesses are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, but it has never been the case that I'm not permitted to be a racist in my own heart, in my own thoughts. I'm free to think that black and brown people are lesser humans." That is a legally correct statement, but abysmally immoral. Similarly, yes it is true that the constitution only protects my free speech vis-à-vis the government, but there has always been a prevailing ethos of free speech in America, in the spirit of the maxim often attributed to Voltaire: "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it."

At one time it was a sign of a cultured, educated person that they did not bristle at the expression of points of view contrary to their own; they realized that in a pluralistic society we all have our points of view but no one can or should assume that their point of view should reign supreme. The increasing polarization of our society can be traced to notions such as this one expounded on Xkcd.

jevoten2y ago· 1 in thread

The comic contains an important factual (not legal or ethical) error. It claims "the people listening think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door."

This is incorrect - it's not "the people listening" that are showing you the door, but the corporations mediating your speech, despite having willing listeners.

Edit as reply because I am "posting too fast": RPM didn't write "your listeners", just "the people listening"?

"The people listening" is not an accurate or honest term for "social and other media corporations", even if some of their board-members sometimes listen to some of the speakers they eventually censor.

0823498723498722y ago

RPM didn't write "your listeners", just "the people listening"?

(although note that for me this whole free speech brouhaha seems massively overblown, as I have the great fortune to live in a country with a late 20th century constitution instead of some creaking 18th century legacy)

spacedcowboy2y ago

Seems there are more limits on "Free speech" than I recall, these days, at least according to Florida's attorney general [1]..

“In a brief submitted by the State of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to "convey the government’s message," and that can be accomplished through "the removal of speech that the government disapproves."

oldnetguy2y ago

https://newsadvance.com/opinion/cartoons/the-free-speech-umb...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

11 comments

11 comments · 5 top-level

throw3108222y ago· 3 in thread

devb2y ago

> Which isn't true, the government must also protect you from arbitrary violence.

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm"

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

pmdulaney2y ago

al_borland2y ago

It may not be a constitutional duty, as outlined in the case, but it’s still their job. If they aren’t enforcing the law and court orders, what are they doing?

I do my job because it’s my job, not because of a constitutional obligation.

acadapterOP2y ago· 2 in thread

It's been nearly 10 years since this famous perspective on free speech was published and circulated.

How do you think it has aged?

tanseydavid2y ago

“We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.”

― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

pmdulaney2y ago

jevoten2y ago· 1 in thread

The comic contains an important factual (not legal or ethical) error. It claims "the people listening think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door."

This is incorrect - it's not "the people listening" that are showing you the door, but the corporations mediating your speech, despite having willing listeners.

Edit as reply because I am "posting too fast": RPM didn't write "your listeners", just "the people listening"?

0823498723498722y ago

RPM didn't write "your listeners", just "the people listening"?

spacedcowboy2y ago

Seems there are more limits on "Free speech" than I recall, these days, at least according to Florida's attorney general [1]..

oldnetguy2y ago

https://newsadvance.com/opinion/cartoons/the-free-speech-umb...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse