The New American Politics thread

[Cube Inmate]

<Free speech alert!>

This thread has gone down the ####ter. Thanks for ruining the entertainment value of watching the Republican car crash. Buster--this means you.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by Cube Inmate

Buster--this means you.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Right... and that's a crime. And should be. If you actually go to the extent of harming people, you're guilty of assault. That's how it's supposed to work.

Only if it directly encourages violence. Which Trump has done a couple of times at his rallies. "Facilitates" is too broad a term.

And this is why the word privilege gets tossed around. It's very easy to be in favour of unbridled free speech when you stand almost zero chance of being impacted by the negative aspects of it.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Until you defend your claims of Hillary as a warmonger (which good lord, is that ever rhetoric and hysterics if I've ever heard it) I honestly refuse to respond to another post you make double- or triple-ing down on your support of Trump's awful statements.

I'm not going full Buster here, and I absolutely don't support Trump over Clinton (or at all), but Hillary is pretty hawkish. That isn't a controversial stance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/ma...me-a-hawk.html

This is a pretty good recent article on it.

It was July 2010, four months after the North Korean military torpedoed a South Korean Navy corvette, sinking it and killing 46 sailors. Now, after weeks of fierce debate between the Pentagon and the State Department, the United States was gearing up to respond to this brazen provocation. The tentative plan — developed by Clinton’s deputy at State, James Steinberg — was to dispatch the aircraft carrier George Washington into coastal waters to the east of North Korea as an unusual show of force.

But Adm. Robert Willard, then the Pacific commander, wanted to send the carrier on a more aggressive course, into the Yellow Sea, between North Korea and China. The Chinese foreign ministry had warned the United States against the move, which for Willard was all the more reason to press forward. He pushed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, who in turn pushed his boss, the defense secretary, to reroute the George Washington. Gates agreed, but he needed the commander in chief to sign off on a decision that could have political as well as military repercussions.

Gates laid out the case for diverting the George Washington to the Yellow Sea: that the United States should not look as if it was yielding to China. Clinton strongly seconded it. “We’ve got to run it up the gut!” she had said to her aides a few days earlier. (The Vince Lombardi imitation drew giggles from her staff, who, even 18 months into her tenure, still marveled at her pugnacity.)

"Gates" is Robert Gates. W's last Secretary of Defense.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Just to play devil's advocate, why shouldn't there be limits on free speech?

Ever since humans started banding together into communities, whether it be tribes, towns, nations and countries; there is an intrinsic social contract where you don't do things that are detrimental to the good of the community.

Because for the vast majority of this time, this social contract implicitly included restrictions on speech in order to protect the status, sensitivities, dogma or firmly-held beliefs of those in power, leading to dissidents being tortured, killed, and as a result intimidated into silence. This in turn ######ed the progress of the species as the search for new truths was hampered or prevented.

Basically, we have all of human history until about 200 years ago without free speech, and 200 years to present in Western society with it. The former involved a lot of killing people who said things one didn't like. The latter involved almost all of human progress. The latter hasn't been perfect, but I'll take it over the former.

And there are still restrictions on speech. They just require really strong reasons. You shouldn't be allowed to get on T.V. and give a speech detailing how to make genocide-enabling biological weapons from easily obtainable household materials, even if you've truly discovered a method for doing so that actually works. But minimizing those limits as much as possible and setting them at "really, really bad consequences will result" - worse ones than what we had before we started this project - is the best way for us to progress as human beings.

That's my 2 minute case.

Originally Posted by rubecube

And this is why the word privilege gets tossed around. It's very easy to be in favour of unbridled free speech when you stand almost zero chance of being impacted by the negative aspects of it.

I'd like to think you're smarter than this. The negative aspects simply outweigh the positive, for everyone in the long run. If the negative aspects are currently hurting peoples' feelings, the positive procured the civil rights movement, gay marriage and a policy of opposition to torture. The whole point is to prevent a tyranny of the majority. I know you think there were other factors involved in those social advances, but if the privileged, powerful class can just shut people whose ideas they think are immoral up, none of these things happen over time.

What you're really proposing here, it seems to me, is that your idea of what's right and moral and whose causes and values should be championed is unquestionably correct, and so anyone who stands in opposition to it can be silenced on moral grounds.

[jammies]

Warmonger is to hawk as racist is to bigot.

Free speech is already limited. You can be punished for slander, libel, and hate speech. Private entities can and do censor. You can have a broadcast license revoked by the government for inappropriate content. Somehow, democracy has survived.

The question of how to lawfully yet not tyrannically limit free speech has a multitude of answers. One might even say that the answers partake of considerable nuance.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I'd like to think you're smarter than this. The negative aspects simply outweigh the positive, for everyone in the long run. If the negative aspects are currently hurting peoples' feelings, the positive procured the civil rights movement, gay marriage and a policy of opposition to torture. The whole point is to prevent a tyranny of the majority. I know you think there were other factors involved in those social advances, but if the privileged, powerful class can just shut people whose ideas they think are immoral up, none of these things happen over time.

What you're really proposing here, it seems to me, is that your idea of what's right and moral and whose causes and values should be championed is unquestionably correct, and so anyone who stands in opposition to it can be silenced on moral grounds.

Nah, I'm saying your post was incredibly dismissive of the suffering enacted on the victims. I also think your faith in the legal system as a useful recourse comes across as incredibly naive.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Neither you nor anyone else is qualified, competent or entitled to decide what constitutes "proper responsibility". Inevitably, this just ends up with censorship of views that the person doing the censoring finds objectionable, offensive, hard to listen to or otherwise doesn't like. We've got a criminal law that basically prevents people from whipping up lynch mobs. That's about the end of the discussion on what constitutes a reasonable limit on public discourse in the political sphere.

You seriously can't determine if someone is abusing their freedom of speech? We do have hate speech laws. We do have discrimination laws. We have libel laws. Do you have a brain in your head? Do you have comprehension skills? Do you have a moral compass? If have all three of those you can judge if someone is using their freedom of speech and displaying a proper level of responsibility. Good lord man, if someone is standing there in front of you and is making a comment that is covered under either of the legal frameworks suggested, and is doing so with the intent of eliciting a response, that is not displaying any responsibility in exercising that right. The issue is intent, and if someone is using inflammatory rhetoric with the intent to elicit a negative response or cause mayhem, that clearly falls under an irresponsible use of your 1st amendment rights.

Originally Posted by sworkhard

Ignoring for a moment the other issues with this, by what standard do you propose to objectively measure if free speech is being used responsibly? What does it even mean to use the word responsibly in the context of free speech?

As I just mentioned, intent, and intent to harm others. If your intent is to generate a negative response, inflame a situation, or piss off people in general, you should be forfeiting your right to your 1st amendment protections in that particular instance. Not a permanent suspension, just for that particular instance. That or you live with the consequences that come your way.

Is BLM chanting about killing the cops using it responsibly? How about Donald Trump using it to save money by saying outrageous things? How about Deepak Chopra spreading post-modern word salad?

Excellent examples. Go ahead an apply the standard I just discussed. There are also other outcomes that can take place. The media could do their job and report the outrageous things these groups say and promote the ideal that this is not socially acceptable. See, there is where the biggest problem is. People think it is socially acceptable to be a horse's ass and say repugnant things. Our society needs to turn on that stuff and make it socially unacceptable. Punish that person or group by making them an outcast. A little shaming can go along way to correcting negative behaviors. Also, the authorities should be curtailing this stuff by dropping a hate crimes charge every now and then. The biggest problem in the United States is this asinine belief that the 1st amendment allows for any speech, regardless of its intent. If the authorities would just enforce the laws on the books the 1st amendment abuses would likely sort themselves out. But this is the United States and the Bill or Rights is sacrosanct.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by jammies

Warmonger is to hawk as racist is to bigot.

Free speech is already limited. You can be punished for slander, libel, and hate speech. Private entities can and do censor. You can have a broadcast license revoked by the government for inappropriate content. Somehow, democracy has survived.

The question of how to lawfully yet not tyrannically limit free speech has a multitude of answers. One might even say that the answers partake of considerable nuance.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

If someone wants to say that Hillary is better referred to as a hawk, rather than a warmonger, I'll listen to that argument.

There are good arguments against having slander and libel and slander rules. Either way, those are civil cases.

There should be no rules against hate speech, unless it specifically calls for specific violence.

Private entities can do what they want in terms of limiting freedom on their platforms (ie Twitter).

Government licensing of broadcasting should not exist (other than perhaps setting initial frequency auctions).

All of the above weaken democracy, they don't strengthen it.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by New Era

You seriously can't determine if someone is abusing their freedom of speech?

Nope.

Neither can you.

[Looch City]

Jesus Christ you are relentless.

It's like trying to argue with peter12 about his belief that Christianity started human rights.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Buster

If someone wants to say that Hillary is better referred to as a hawk, rather than a warmonger, I'll listen to that argument.

There are good arguments against having slander and libel and slander rules. Either way, those are civil cases.

There should be no rules against hate speech, unless it specifically calls for specific violence.

Private entities can do what they want in terms of limiting freedom on their platforms (ie Twitter).

Government licensing of broadcasting should not exist (other than perhaps setting initial frequency auctions).

All of the above weaken democracy, they don't strengthen it.

You need to make the warmonger case. You haven't yet. You have applied a label which you object to doing and offered no nuance that you demand from others with trump.

[fatso]

Exceptional troll job by Buster. I can't remember a poster singlehandedly ruining a strong thread so thoroughly. Top-notch work when you think about it.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by GGG

You need to make the warmonger case. You haven't yet. You have applied a label which you object to doing and offered no nuance that you demand from others with trump.

Anyway, I'm comfortable referring to her as a Hawk instead of a Warmonger. And if it is important to people, I will do so without any issue whatsoever. If people want to carry on a conversation about the distinction between the two terms, and which one might better apply to Clinton, I'm happy to just go with the consensus. I'll probably skip over the posts, so someone pm when it's settled.

[V]

Originally Posted by fatso

Exceptional troll job by Buster. I can't remember a poster singlehandedly ruining a strong thread so thoroughly. Top-notch work when you think about it.

I agree. The echo chamber in here was air-tight before Buster got here. Shame.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by fatso

Exceptional troll job by Buster. I can't remember a poster singlehandedly ruining a strong thread so thoroughly. Top-notch work when you think about it.

A fire not stoked eventually burns out.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by fatso

Exceptional troll job by Buster. I can't remember a poster singlehandedly ruining a strong thread so thoroughly. Top-notch work when you think about it.

Naw man:

This is me, vs a bunch of liberals who have been spoon fed facile talking points, and simply regurgitate them.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by New Era

You seriously can't determine if someone is abusing their freedom of speech? We do have hate speech laws. We do have discrimination laws. We have libel laws. Do you have a brain in your head? Do you have comprehension skills? Do you have a moral compass? If have all three of those you can judge if someone is using their freedom of speech and displaying a proper level of responsibility. Good lord man, if someone is standing there in front of you and is making a comment that is covered under either of the legal frameworks suggested, and is doing so with the intent of eliciting a response, that is not displaying any responsibility in exercising that right. The issue is intent, and if someone is using inflammatory rhetoric with the intent to elicit a negative response or cause mayhem, that clearly falls under an irresponsible use of your 1st amendment rights.



As I just mentioned, intent, and intent to harm others. If your intent is to generate a negative response, inflame a situation, or piss off people in general, you should be forfeiting your right to your 1st amendment protections in that particular instance. Not a permanent suspension, just for that particular instance. That or you live with the consequences that come your way.



Excellent examples. Go ahead an apply the standard I just discussed. There are also other outcomes that can take place. The media could do their job and report the outrageous things these groups say and promote the ideal that this is not socially acceptable. See, there is where the biggest problem is. People think it is socially acceptable to be a horse's ass and say repugnant things. Our society needs to turn on that stuff and make it socially unacceptable. Punish that person or group by making them an outcast. A little shaming can go along way to correcting negative behaviors. Also, the authorities should be curtailing this stuff by dropping a hate crimes charge every now and then. The biggest problem in the United States is this asinine belief that the 1st amendment allows for any speech, regardless of its intent. If the authorities would just enforce the laws on the books the 1st amendment abuses would likely sort themselves out. But this is the United States and the Bill or Rights is sacrosanct.

Your post is insanely terrifying. Like legitimately terrifying and borderline fascist.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by New Era

You seriously can't determine if someone is abusing their freedom of speech? We do have hate speech laws. We do have discrimination laws. We have libel laws. Do you have a brain in your head? Do you have comprehension skills? Do you have a moral compass? If have all three of those you can judge if someone is using their freedom of speech and displaying a proper level of responsibility. Good lord man, if someone is standing there in front of you and is making a comment that is covered under either of the legal frameworks suggested, and is doing so with the intent of eliciting a response, that is not displaying any responsibility in exercising that right. The issue is intent, and if someone is using inflammatory rhetoric with the intent to elicit a negative response or cause mayhem, that clearly falls under an irresponsible use of your 1st amendment rights.



As I just mentioned, intent, and intent to harm others. If your intent is to generate a negative response, inflame a situation, or piss off people in general, you should be forfeiting your right to your 1st amendment protections in that particular instance. Not a permanent suspension, just for that particular instance. That or you live with the consequences that come your way.



Excellent examples. Go ahead an apply the standard I just discussed. There are also other outcomes that can take place. The media could do their job and report the outrageous things these groups say and promote the ideal that this is not socially acceptable. See, there is where the biggest problem is. People think it is socially acceptable to be a horse's ass and say repugnant things. Our society needs to turn on that stuff and make it socially unacceptable. Punish that person or group by making them an outcast. A little shaming can go along way to correcting negative behaviors. Also, the authorities should be curtailing this stuff by dropping a hate crimes charge every now and then. The biggest problem in the United States is this asinine belief that the 1st amendment allows for any speech, regardless of its intent. If the authorities would just enforce the laws on the books the 1st amendment abuses would likely sort themselves out. But this is the United States and the Bill or Rights is sacrosanct.

Sound like you think society should be one big cult where your opinion of good and upright is the only moral opinion and any other should result in immediate casting out unless the opinion is expressed on bended knee while begging for forgiveness from the great high priest of the cult of New Era. The use of ridicule, mockery is to be banned unless it is used against an opinion or idea that New Era believes is not good and upright, and only with the purpose of making the persons that expressed that opinion an outcast.

Honestly, this is terrifying and reeks of fascism.

And they wonder why the US is becoming so polarized

[Lanny_McDonald]

MOD EDIT: Over the line.