Freedom of Speech and Freedom from Consequences.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
The only restriction is personal choice and responsibility.

You will need to elaborate on that sentence. It is way too broad in scope to be considered the only legitimate example.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I got you.

You are not saying that the killers ar not at fault but that the victims could have played it safe.

OP says that he shouldn't have to play it safe.

Even if we agree it isn't going to help if he ends up being a victim.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

You're right, of course. But what you face are essentially two types of people.

One type lacks the emotional maturity to accept responsibility for their own actions. "I didn't want to break my wife's arm, but she shouldn't have called me a lazy bum. It's her fault because of what she said." These people just have a natural or learned propensity towards violence and cruelty, and they don't need much provocation to act on it.

The second type seems to have the philosophy that rights are granted by the government, and the government has the authority to take those rights away as it sees fit. Maybe they fear the responsibility of freedom. Maybe they fear other people being able to think for themselves and make up their own minds. Whatever the case, I think if you look deep enough you will find that fear is the root cause.

Unfortunately, societal conditioning has caused these groups to grow. The government, through the media, encourages people to make decisions based on emotion rather than reason. Emotional people are easier to manipulate and control than logical, thinking people. You will continue to see an increase in the number people who will say, "Anyone who says that should expect a brick to the head." You will see a decrease in the number of people who say, "You shouldn't hit someone in the head with a brick because of what they said."

Welcome to the future of America.

originally posted by: daskakik
I got you.

You are not saying that the killers ar not at fault but that the victims could have played it safe.

OP says that he shouldn't have to play it safe.

Even if we agree it isn't going to help if he ends up being a victim.

No, that is NOT my exact argument.

I am saying there was no legal obligation for the cartoonists to draw the cartoons. This means they were doing so within the eyes of the law. Just because something is not illegal does not mean it should be done. Just because you can offend somebody else doesn't mean you should offend them (unless perhaps you know them personally.)

When you have full knowledge that people that have been murdered in cold blood before for doing something similar in the past (not once, not twice but at least 5-6 times and the motive has always been the same), then you are ignoring your sense of reason and choosing to do so on emotive grounds (they will not be allowed to scare me into silence!). From THAT point onwards you DO have partial, NOT full, NOT most, but at the very least partial responsibility for what happens after.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

That is actually what I said.

originally posted by: daskakik
That is actually what I said.

No, you are trying to imply in this particular situation that the reason the cartoonists were shot was because they refused to "play it safe." How can taking an uncalculated risk which you are 100% aware has caused violence and murder multiple times in the past and are not putting yourself at risk of when you are not being forced to or pressured by the government to do so? We are not talking about drawing something that most people need to go out of their way to find offensive here. We are talking about mocking something another culture with over a billion worldwide followers (some who live in the West) would find offensive - only most would handle it in the correct way - but others would not. Expecting only a reaction from those who handle it properly when we know there are extremists among us who will not is stupid.

How can that be considered not "playing it safe"?

Freedom of speech is a myth that's often presented to the unthinking sheeple as a "right".

Those not asleep know full well that saying the wrong thing can sometimes land you in jail, even in certain "democracies" and "progressive" nations.

Free speech comes with consequences.

Dont ask me to explain. You think about it. Take all the time you want.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Guess we see the phrase "play it safe" differently.

It is rather general and I believe it covers those who choose to be offensive.

originally posted by: Dark Ghost

The trouble is you don't want to be in the position where you are able to agree with me. If anything I am saying is correct, then you would have to take responsibility for your own actions (or those of the government of the country that represents you) and that is a compromise you are unwilling to make.That in itself is not a problem, I don't want the actions of the government that represents me to make me responsible for what they do without my consent.

I have no idea what you are referring to here.

But you go further and demand Muslims should have that very right you are referring to taken away from them. Because those Muslims that did Charlie Hebdo cannot then be seen as representative of all Muslims or a problem with Islam itself.

I don't see how you could say that I argued that. I said nothing about whether all Muslims or Islam itself is or isn't responsible for anything.

You are essentially using an emotive argument (Dark Ghost is justifying what the terrorists did!) to support your claim that what happened was objectively 100% the fault of the perpetrators while ignoring that reasonably, it was not. But you want to deny Muslims the emotive argument (hey, I didn't and never would do that! why are you blaming me!) and expect them to accept your argument (publishing the cartoons did not in ANY way cause the terrorists attack) which is NOT based on reason. It's a clear double standard.

I don't think it is emotive to say that you are, on some level, saying that the cartoonists are partially to blame. It is what your are rationally arguing, isn't it? I don't deny Muslims the emotive argument, though I don't believe they would claim one. They would claim a religious reason. However, I believe an emotive response would occur immediately, or within a reasonable period of time, while one is under the passion of the moment. When one takes the steps to plan, organize and execute a complicated attack, I think the emotive argument is gone. The fact that the manpower and munitions were seemingly in place, or at least the supply lines were, then how can you argue that the attack would've taken place anyhow, just with a different target, if the cartoons were never published?

That is a horrible analogy and in no way relates to what we are talking about. A FAR more relevant analogy would be that if there was a history of robberies occurring from the same group over and over and it had finally been established the reason they are robbing you is because you have a sign up that says "Islam should be banned" and from THAT point onward you do not take away the sign and another robbery by the same groups occurs, then YES you are partially responsible. If you take the sign down and THEN a robbery by the same group occurred, THEN you would have a point.

The reason for the robberies has to be something to do with Islam? So you are only arguing this point relative to issues that have to do with Islam? If that is in fact what you are arguing, it has no basis in law or reason. Our right to free speech is not limited to certain topics.

To me the analogy stands up. There is harm committed for a certain stated reason, because you committed heresy or because you have money I want. The given reason for the harm is a protected right, the right to free speech or the right to personal property. The act has been committed before, not by these particular people and not on these particular people. The people committing the acts are criminals by any definition.

Then it must seem there is a problem with French radical Muslims? So why blame all Muslims outside of France?

I didn't blame Muslims for anything. You are the one who brought it up. To be honest, I hadn't even thought about Muslim extremism until you brought it up.

a reply to: Zimnydran

no the purpose is to protect people from being silenced by the state, it is naive and unrealistic for you to think there will be no consequences just because of a written law, the constitution doesn't protect you from other people nor does it change human nature.

humans are conquerors and followers of the strong, we live to propagate and expand just like every other creature in existence and opinions can be dangerous or be seen as such in many ways and danger is never tolerated by our instincts, it triggers anger, fear and aggression.

life is never safe for anyone in the end.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
You're right, of course. But what you face are essentially two types of people.

One type lacks the emotional maturity to accept responsibility for their own actions. "I didn't want to break my wife's arm, but she shouldn't have called me a lazy bum. It's her fault because of what she said." These people just have a natural or learned propensity towards violence and cruelty, and they don't need much provocation to act on it.

In that particular case, you are failing to put what happened into context so we should not automatically assume you are correct. I know the conditioning of an "irrational, big burly agitated man hitting his fragile innocent wife because she said something he didn't like" has become the go-to imagery whenever domestic violence is brought up, but realistically we should wait for all the facts and put the incident into a reasonable context before passing judgement.

There are literally people (both male and female) who believe there is no just scenario where a man ought to use violence towards women — not in self-defence, not as a reaction to years of continuous emotional abuse, not in response to being physically assaulted a number of times before, not because she will not respect your right to stop harassing you and keep arguing when you are not required to do so and tell her multiple times that you are losing control of your temper and you don't want to talk about it at that time...but NEVER. In their minds, any reason I just mentioned means you support violence against women. It is a ludicrous mindset and people who do have this mindset should NOT be in a position to discuss domestic violence in a public forum where they can effect political changes.

The second type seems to have the philosophy that rights are granted by the government, and the government has the authority to take those rights away as it sees fit. Maybe they fear the responsibility of freedom. Maybe they fear other people being able to think for themselves and make up their own minds. Whatever the case, I think if you look deep enough you will find that fear is the root cause.

There are only 3 possible arguments on the issue you are alluding to:

1) Either we give full trust to every individual that has not yet done anything wrong and dismantle the government and see how things go
2) Or we make the government so big that it becomes close to impossible for us to even be in the position to exercise individual freedom
3) Or we accept a small government is at the very least what we need to keep the general population in check and still be able to punish the few who abuse their rights.

I believe 3 is the best option, how about you?

Unfortunately, societal conditioning has caused these groups to grow. The government, through the media, encourages people to make decisions based on emotion rather than reason. Emotional people are easier to manipulate and control than logical, thinking people. You will continue to see an increase in the number people who will say, "Anyone who says that should expect a brick to the head." You will see a decrease in the number of people who say, "You shouldn't hit someone in the head with a brick because of what they said."

I fully agree. The trouble is you cannot eliminate emotion completely when addressing these issues because then we would not be humans, we would be robots that cannot feel, express emotion or have compassion.

Just got back from Bridge night.

Finished reading through all the replies.

Never did I ever think that a conspiracy site would argue so much against free speech.

originally posted by: daskakik
Guess we see the phrase "play it safe" differently.

You may be correct. However, I do believe in my last reply I made it more clear by how I viewed it and my definition can be reasonably applied to the example in question.

It is rather general and I believe it covers those who choose to be offensive.

It is FAR too general. Play it safe how? According to the law? According to social norms and expectations? According to global opinion? According only towards your own opinion or your country's opinion? It only covers those who choose to be offensive by taking a calculated risk (this has never happened before, I have no reason to expect that it would happen so I'll do it) versus an uncalculated risk (I know this has happened multiple times in the future and is a possibility if I go ahead and do it, but since I want to, I will go ahead and do it and hope nothing bad happens.)

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Just got back from Bridge night.

Finished reading through all the replies.

Never did I ever think that a conspiracy site would argue so much against free speech.

Because you don't want 100% freedom of speech, you THINK you do, but you don't. If you think I am wrong, please give me your definition of 100% freedom of speech or point to the law or constitution or something, but give me a baseline in support of the argument you want to support.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Excellent presentation. This was the point I was attempting to make in a recent thread about flag burning or some such nonsense. People purporting to support the US Constitution were cocking their fists in anticipation of seeing someone burning a flag or refusing Mom's apple pie. Attempting to justify violence due to someone saying or doing a thing with which they did not agree but is not illegal---it's a mystery to me.

The most egregious violation of freedom of speech that I've witnessed in a while was the Milo debacle. If I don't agree with what some guy on campus is saying, it is my duty, yeah, my obligation as a good citizen to avoid giving him an audience. So it is my duty to stay away from his venue---not my duty to show up at his venue and make a fuss because I don't like what he's saying and get his name splashed all over the world. If I truly disagree with what he's saying the last thing I want to do is to bring him more attention. The consequences of allowing free speech in a public place should not be destruction of property and injury to humans.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Fair enough but I was thinking of the OP in general and not just the cartoon deal.

Either way the OP won't agree with either of us.

originally posted by: daskakik
Fair enough but I was thinking of the OP in general and not just the cartoon deal.

Either way the OP won't agree with either of us.

Ok, thank you for clarifying that.

In fairness to myself and you, the author of this thread did mention Charlie Hebdo in the second paragraph of the opening post. Since he used it as an example to establish his argument, it is not off topic to examine it.

a reply to: daskakik

Either way the OP won't agree with either of us.

I understand the OP's point. If they decide to be offended and violent with us, that's their decision. Not our fault.
Our position is that if we say something to offend them and get hurt, that's on us.
It's like stirring up an hornet's nest or bothering a lion and expect them to be nice to you. I really wish this world is an ideal world but it is not. So you have to expect the risks and consequences.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

If you need to define what free speech is, then that tells me that you don't want it.

originally posted by: diggindirt
Excellent presentation. This was the point I was attempting to make in a recent thread about flag burning or some such nonsense. People purporting to support the US Constitution were cocking their fists in anticipation of seeing someone burning a flag or refusing Mom's apple pie. Attempting to justify violence due to someone saying or doing a thing with which they did not agree but is not illegal---it's a mystery to me.

There is no reason to resort to violence unless there is a just reason to do so. There is no need to restrict freedom of speech unless there is a just reason to do so. Yours is a good example of my philosophy: Because something is not illegal does not mean you should do it, and just because something is legal does not mean you shouldn't do it.

The most egregious violation of freedom of speech that I've witnessed in a while was the Milo debacle. If I don't agree with what some guy on campus is saying, it is my duty, yeah, my obligation as a good citizen to avoid giving him an audience. So it is my duty to stay away from his venue---not my duty to show up at his venue and make a fuss because I don't like what he's saying and get his name splashed all over the world. If I truly disagree with what he's saying the last thing I want to do is to bring him more attention. The consequences of allowing free speech in a public place should not be destruction of property and injury to humans.

It is an absolute disgrace that students who take part in that kind of behaviour are not given an initial warning, then if they refuse to comply are not dealt a swift and decisive punishment for their behaviour which is depriving others of the opportunity to exercise their own right of freedom of speech. It is breathtaking that University administration show no backbone and no conviction because they fear what their students might do if they don't. What a horrible situation.