this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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There is a distinct difference.
Freedom of speach means that the government can't punnish you for talking shit, except in limited circumstances.
Freedom of consequences from what you say, means that no one should be allowed to let what your say affect them in any way, this means that no one would be allowed to be offended by what you might say, nor that they would be allowed to act on such offence.
In a functional society you want to have freedom of speach, but not freedom of consequences from what you say. This allows you to express opposing views in mostly resonable ways.
As long as the consequences are words and non-violent actions. Advocating violence as a consequence for someone expressing an idea is imho dangerous and should be avoided.
yes, but words that incite violence are also very dangerous. there is a line to thread here.
case in point: i don't think goebbels actually directly harmed anyone, but his speech caused quite a lot of suffering, violence and death. his speech should absolutely not be rebutted with 'just words', there must be actual consequences to what he did.
on top of it we live in a world where his propaganda techniques are still used for harm.
it is dangerous, but so is speech that incites violence even if the perpetrator himself isn't directly doing it. its a fine line to tread.
case in point: i don't think goebbels ever directly killed or harmed anyone, but his speech caused a lot of death and suffering, and someone like him should absolutely not be dealt with just words. keep in mind his propaganda techniques are still alive today.
I agree that speech that incites violence is dangerous too. In theory I can imagine a net benefit if we could silence some voices in various places. The big question then is, who do we trust to decide which people should be silenced? I think governments have historically shown that they can't be trusted. Then private people? Lots of people across the political spectrum feel that their version of truth is so important that they deem it moral to silence others, so what it comes down to is just who does it better. The image of an angry mob is no fun if the mob has decided that you should be silenced, even though you feel like you're on the good side. They probably think they are the good ones. Who then?
The limited restrictions in the US is that you can't for example yell "Fire!" in a room to try and cause panic.
Here in Sweden, we also have hate speech laws, which basically comes down to "You can't incite violence toward an ethnic group"
It's the textbook definition. Using another definition is wrong.
Anyone who thinks Freedom of Speech means "I can say whatever I want whenever I want however I want and you can't do a damn thing about it" is mistaken. Likely guessing what it means based on the words.
Of course, the incorrect usage forgets about the Right to Live in Peace...or the Freedom of Speech that others have to tell someone their opinion is shit. Or the freedom of association for people to exclude from their groups people with shitty opinions (or decent opinions, but an inability to express them decently).