Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences. If you say awful things people will use their free speech to tell you you’re an awful person. That isn’t hating free speech. It’s hating you. Hating you isn’t illegal.
Homie, I’m Canadian, it’s beyond the constitution of the US. We don’t have unlimited free speech because it fucking leads to genocide and violence. I will fight to the grave to ensure that tolerance only extends to the tolerant. This is what generations fought a nearly world ending world war over. It’s worth fighting over, you don’t have to agree with me.
That’s why I used the word “if”. It’s a conditional set of thoughts that follow from accepting a premise.
My point is that free speech is not just a thing government does. Free speech is a thing like … eating. There are laws about food, but eating is a real-world phenomenon. It exists independent of government and any laws that may control or shape how people eat.
Free speech is a state of affairs. Like “war” or “party” or “rainstorm”. Free speech is an attribute of a social environment, in which a person is free to speak.
“Free to speak” can mean many different things:
It can mean having a mouth and knowledge of a language
It can mean not being physically gagged. As in “When the killer removed the gag and he was free to speak again, he said ‘you can kill me but then you won’t get the gold’”
It can mean sitting at the dinner table knowing your parents can hear about the ugly parts of your inner life without suddenly getting angry and punishing you
If can mean disinhibited, like closeness or new trust in a person allows you to open up to them
It can mean not targeted for punishment by your boss for talking about salaries with coworkers
It can mean not facing ostracization from your neighborhood for revealing that your gay
It can get more extreme and mean not being beaten up or killed for telling people you’re gay
It can mean not going to jail for publishing articles about the USA being corrupt
Basically free speech can exist or not exist legally, physically, culturally, socially, organizationally, and psychologically.
It is true that organizational free speech, like companies that can fire you at will for saying something, is a different domain than legal free speech, like the government putting you in jail for criticizing the president.
The term “free speech” can, and does, in this conversation (as in the whole meta conversation between the Two Sides on the issues of free speech being discussed right now), refer not only to the governmental role in protecting or squashing free speech, but also to the state of affairs within groups of friends, within families, within cultures, neighborhoods, and companies.
Saying that “My government doesn’t protect free speech” only covers like 5% of the ground. Yes you’re legally allowed to either promote or oppose the non-legal, cultural atmosphere of free speech around you, as you see fit.
But there’s so much more to discuss. Now that we know the government is not going to force anyone to allow anyone else to speak freely around them, without doing all the legal things they want to “discourage” (ie punish) that kind of speech, such as firing, shunning, gossiping, then the question arises: is it right to do so? Is it healthy? What are the pros and cons of free speech as a cultural atmosphere?
Only if you definite it to be limited to there. Free speech or the lack thereof is a condition of existence for a group of people.
Free speech is just that the government shouldn’t be able to punish you for what you say. Nothing else.
What you describe is governed by the social contract. Noone should be forced to listen to what other people say, and people can freely decide to distance themselves if someone says something they don’t agree with.
Also there can be social consequences from what you say, free speech does not protect you from that, despite some people thinking that it does or that it should.
You’ve conflated punishment and consequences. You have the freedom to hold some morally repugnant view like white nationalism, and your freedom of speech protects your right to express those views. But your family can hear those expressions, and cut you out of their lives, publicly condemn those views, or you for holding them, without affecting your freedom of speech. A company can refuse to allow you to use their platform to spread those views without affecting your freedom of speech.
What can’t happen is a politician or government official use their powers to suppress your speech, arrest you, unless your speech act harms people, like shouting fire in a crowded theater. People disagree about exactly what those exceptions should be, but except for a few small but loud conservative groups trying to censor things like LGBTQ content, this basic premise is pretty uncontroversial, at least in the US.
The government punishing people. I am not the government. I can point out that you are a fool to think you are otherwise immune from the consequences of what you say.
What in the world ever made you think that was a reasonable thing to say? Do you really believe that its your right to not only say what you want, but also never have anyone have a negative opinion of it? That is completely insane. Like actually I’m worried about your mental health. Seek help.
Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences. If you say awful things people will use their free speech to tell you you’re an awful person. That isn’t hating free speech. It’s hating you. Hating you isn’t illegal.
Of course it is. What on earth could “free speech” possibly mean if not “you won’t be punished for what you say”?
What do you think free speech is, other than a commitment to refrain from punishing people for speaking?
Punished by a government. That’s where free speech begins and ends.
Only if you definite it to be limited to there. Free speech or the lack thereof is a condition of existence for a group of people.
If you consider the US constitution, the rule government must adhere to is to refrain from interfering with free speech.
Homie, I’m Canadian, it’s beyond the constitution of the US. We don’t have unlimited free speech because it fucking leads to genocide and violence. I will fight to the grave to ensure that tolerance only extends to the tolerant. This is what generations fought a nearly world ending world war over. It’s worth fighting over, you don’t have to agree with me.
That’s why I used the word “if”. It’s a conditional set of thoughts that follow from accepting a premise.
My point is that free speech is not just a thing government does. Free speech is a thing like … eating. There are laws about food, but eating is a real-world phenomenon. It exists independent of government and any laws that may control or shape how people eat.
Free speech is a state of affairs. Like “war” or “party” or “rainstorm”. Free speech is an attribute of a social environment, in which a person is free to speak.
“Free to speak” can mean many different things:
Basically free speech can exist or not exist legally, physically, culturally, socially, organizationally, and psychologically.
It is true that organizational free speech, like companies that can fire you at will for saying something, is a different domain than legal free speech, like the government putting you in jail for criticizing the president.
The term “free speech” can, and does, in this conversation (as in the whole meta conversation between the Two Sides on the issues of free speech being discussed right now), refer not only to the governmental role in protecting or squashing free speech, but also to the state of affairs within groups of friends, within families, within cultures, neighborhoods, and companies.
Saying that “My government doesn’t protect free speech” only covers like 5% of the ground. Yes you’re legally allowed to either promote or oppose the non-legal, cultural atmosphere of free speech around you, as you see fit.
But there’s so much more to discuss. Now that we know the government is not going to force anyone to allow anyone else to speak freely around them, without doing all the legal things they want to “discourage” (ie punish) that kind of speech, such as firing, shunning, gossiping, then the question arises: is it right to do so? Is it healthy? What are the pros and cons of free speech as a cultural atmosphere?
Free speech is just that the government shouldn’t be able to punish you for what you say. Nothing else.
What you describe is governed by the social contract. Noone should be forced to listen to what other people say, and people can freely decide to distance themselves if someone says something they don’t agree with.
Also there can be social consequences from what you say, free speech does not protect you from that, despite some people thinking that it does or that it should.
You don’t get to change a definition just because it doesn’t suit you.
You’ve conflated punishment and consequences. You have the freedom to hold some morally repugnant view like white nationalism, and your freedom of speech protects your right to express those views. But your family can hear those expressions, and cut you out of their lives, publicly condemn those views, or you for holding them, without affecting your freedom of speech. A company can refuse to allow you to use their platform to spread those views without affecting your freedom of speech.
What can’t happen is a politician or government official use their powers to suppress your speech, arrest you, unless your speech act harms people, like shouting fire in a crowded theater. People disagree about exactly what those exceptions should be, but except for a few small but loud conservative groups trying to censor things like LGBTQ content, this basic premise is pretty uncontroversial, at least in the US.
Negative consequences deliberately chosen to discourage others from speaking up is called punishment.
I don’t agree that’s true in general, and it’s also not relevant to free speech
The government punishing people. I am not the government. I can point out that you are a fool to think you are otherwise immune from the consequences of what you say.
What in the world ever made you think that was a reasonable thing to say? Do you really believe that its your right to not only say what you want, but also never have anyone have a negative opinion of it? That is completely insane. Like actually I’m worried about your mental health. Seek help.