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In Canada freedom of speech and religion is against the law, sometimes.

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Joel View Post
    Even the famous "falsely crying 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" exception has been generally criticized by free speech thinkers. The example originated from Justice Holmes, who later was convinced he was wrong. More recently Christopher Hitchens severely ridiculed the supposed exception.

    Joel, just admit that you are evil and that you smell bad then we can all move on!
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Joel View Post
      The arguments, like those of Jefferson and Mill here, are strong arguments even against slander and libel laws.
      You can say this, but you haven't shown this.


      Originally posted by Joel View Post
      My understanding is that saying those things is already legal in the U.S. The Supreme Court has held that merely advocating violence is not illegal incitement, and cannot be banned. The Court has even held that advocating violent overthrow of the government cannot be banned. Incitement has a higher standard of intent, imminence (clear and present), and likelihood. And even on this, other Justices, like Hugo Black and Douglas, have taken a stronger view that even the case of incitement is not supportable (or doesn't have a high enough bar), and has been used to dismiss many legitimate free speech claims.
      Incitement should require a high level of proof, but that does not translate into allowing it. Likelihood should not be a factor. It does not affect intent.


      Originally posted by Joel View Post
      Even the famous "falsely crying 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" exception has been generally criticized by free speech thinkers. The example originated from Justice Holmes, who later was convinced he was wrong. More recently Christopher Hitchens severely ridiculed the supposed exception.
      Everything can be criticized. So what?
      I'm not here anymore.

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
        Originally posted by Joel
        The arguments, like those of Jefferson and Mill here, are strong arguments even against slander and libel laws.
        You can say this, but you haven't shown this.
        My understanding is that criminal defamation originated in suppressing criticism of the government. Any criticism is defaming, and truth was not a defense. If anything, true criticisms are even more defaming, and thus were punished more severely. Even today, some U.S. states still have exceptions to being able to use truth as a defense. But then allowing truth as a defense runs into the problem of making the government (or some part of it) responsible for officially judging and declaring what is true and false, suppressing statements that it may judge to be false.

        And we saw strong arguments against suppression of opinions judged to be false. Men are fallible, and these laws may suppress/punish opinions that are true. Mill goes into a lengthy discussion on this, beginning with "the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging [by excluding them from even hearing it]....All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument."

        A couple highlights:

        "The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right [i.e. freedom of inquiry and discourse] are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious."

        "The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a "devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed."

        "if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility."

        And I already quoted Jefferson making this point, "Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons."

        But even if we infallibly knew the statements to be false, it's still the case that the best protection against falsehood is freedom of speech. As I quoted Jefferson, "Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error...Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

        Mill goes into a lengthy argument that allowing freedom to put forth even false claims is essential to the pursuit of truth. One argument along this line is that "though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. "

        I've seen others also make the argument against the basis of defamation laws: the idea of a right to a reputation. The argument is (1) that a damaged reputation is not in the same category of injury that warrants laws (e.g. theft or breaking your legs), and (2) there is no right to a reputation. Your reputation is in the minds of other men, so a right to your reputation would be able to justify thought-police.

        As for the state of affairs today, most U.S. states don't have criminal defamation laws, and criminal libel is rarely prosecuted in the U.S. and, I think, those rarely succeed because it is difficult to prove the statement false, and prove that the speaker/writer knew it to be false.

        Incitement should require a high level of proof, but that does not translate into allowing it. Likelihood should not be a factor. It does not affect intent.
        That it does not affect intent does not matter. The "Brandenburg test" has three distinct elements: intent, imminence, and likelihood. They are distinct and each must be present. I think the reasoning is that if the speech is unlikely to incite violence, then the speaker is not putting others at significant risk. E.g. the rantings of an obscure writer with no audience to speak of is injuring no one and putting no one at significant risk. So on what grounds should his speech be suppressed? Or likewise if someone is unpersuasive and thus unlikely to incite anyone to violence, then he is no danger (regarding incitement).

        Everything can be criticized. So what?
        You may disagree with the Brandenburg test. You may disagree on shouting "fire". But the point is this: Starlight's argument seemed to be along the lines of: here are examples of speech that is illegal and obviously should be illegal, and so therefore it is reasonable for similar hate speech (in the OP) to be illegal in Canada. But his examples are actually legal in the U.S., and even some more extreme examples are doubted or rejected by some intelligent people (including Supreme Court Justices). Thus casting doubt on Starlight's implication that they are things that obviously should be illegal. Which undermines his whole line of argument.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          My understanding is that criminal defamation originated in suppressing criticism of the government. Any criticism is defaming, and truth was not a defense. If anything, true criticisms are even more defaming, and thus were punished more severely. Even today, some U.S. states still have exceptions to being able to use truth as a defense. But then allowing truth as a defense runs into the problem of making the government (or some part of it) responsible for officially judging and declaring what is true and false, suppressing statements that it may judge to be false.

          And we saw strong arguments against suppression of opinions judged to be false. Men are fallible, and these laws may suppress/punish opinions that are true. Mill goes into a lengthy discussion on this, beginning with "the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging [by excluding them from even hearing it]....All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument."

          A couple highlights:

          "The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right [i.e. freedom of inquiry and discourse] are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious."

          "The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a "devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed."

          "if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility."

          And I already quoted Jefferson making this point, "Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons."

          But even if we infallibly knew the statements to be false, it's still the case that the best protection against falsehood is freedom of speech. As I quoted Jefferson, "Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error...Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

          Mill goes into a lengthy argument that allowing freedom to put forth even false claims is essential to the pursuit of truth. One argument along this line is that "though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. "

          I've seen others also make the argument against the basis of defamation laws: the idea of a right to a reputation. The argument is (1) that a damaged reputation is not in the same category of injury that warrants laws (e.g. theft or breaking your legs), and (2) there is no right to a reputation. Your reputation is in the minds of other men, so a right to your reputation would be able to justify thought-police.
          I fail to see how any of this is relevant to slander/libel. Preserve free speech in the interest of criticism, yes. Preserve free speech in the face of harm to another, no. The latter is what's under question.


          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          As for the state of affairs today, most U.S. states don't have criminal defamation laws, and criminal libel is rarely prosecuted in the U.S. and, I think, those rarely succeed because it is difficult to prove the statement false, and prove that the speaker/writer knew it to be false.
          Joel, libel and slander are criminal defamation. You're totally wrong here. It's very difficult to prove, sure, but those laws do exist.


          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          That it does not affect intent does not matter. The "Brandenburg test" has three distinct elements: intent, imminence, and likelihood. They are distinct and each must be present. I think the reasoning is that if the speech is unlikely to incite violence, then the speaker is not putting others at significant risk. E.g. the rantings of an obscure writer with no audience to speak of is injuring no one and putting no one at significant risk. So on what grounds should his speech be suppressed? Or likewise if someone is unpersuasive and thus unlikely to incite anyone to violence, then he is no danger (regarding incitement).
          Intent always matters. It's a determining factor for what the crime is considered to be in the first place.


          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          You may disagree with the Brandenburg test. You may disagree on shouting "fire". But the point is this: Starlight's argument seemed to be along the lines of: here are examples of speech that is illegal and obviously should be illegal, and so therefore it is reasonable for similar hate speech (in the OP) to be illegal in Canada. But his examples are actually legal in the U.S., and even some more extreme examples are doubted or rejected by some intelligent people (including Supreme Court Justices). Thus casting doubt on Starlight's implication that they are things that obviously should be illegal. Which undermines his whole line of argument.
          The accuracy of Starlight's argument is pretty irrelevant when I'm questioning what difference it makes that "some intelligent people" criticize current attitudes. Again, so what?
          I'm not here anymore.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            I feel like that misses the point.

            The importance of "free speech" IMO is about one's ability to freely express opinions that are critical of those in power. It is about being able to say in public that you don't like Obama. It is about the media being able to print a headline saying that Obama's policies on drone-strikes is wrong. It's importance hence stems from the fact that we have a democracy: In a democracy it is essential to be able to openly discuss your views of the current political leaders and their actions, without fear of them punishing you for it. (Historically, it was this notion of free political speech that motivated Madison to put the freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the first amendment)

            By contrast, countries like Russia and Turkey, where a person who publicly expresses negative opinions of their leaders can currently expect to be killed or imprisoned, lack freedom of speech. It's pretty hard to have a meaningfully functional democracy if people are not allowed to publicly express a negative opinion of their current leaders.

            IMO, the importance of free political speech is rooted in the importance of having a properly functioning democracy. People must be able to express political opinions that their leaders dislike.

            However, that doesn't mean that other types of speech shouldn't be prohibited. Where individuals are, through their words, causing harm to and impinging upon the freedoms of, other individuals, the state can legitimately interfere. Just as the state should prevent me enslaving you or stoning you to death, so too it should act in cases where my words are causing you serious harm (asking others to kill you, inciting violence against you, sexually harassing you, libel and slander etc).
            Well then, it sure is a durn good thing YOU didn't write the American Constitution or the First Amendment.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Starlight View Post


              However, that doesn't mean that other types of speech shouldn't be prohibited. Where individuals are, through their words, causing harm to and impinging upon the freedoms of, other individuals, the state can legitimately interfere. Just as the state should prevent me enslaving you or stoning you to death, so too it should act in cases where my words are causing you serious harm (asking others to kill you, inciting violence against you, sexually harassing you, libel and slander etc).
              So if someone says something that hurts your feelings (causes "harm") or that you disagree with (this is now enough on some college campuses to be viewed as an aggressive act), the full force of the law should be brought to bear on that person.

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • #37
                Quite unfair response to Starlight, ignoring the quite apt parenthesis.
                Near the Peoples' Republic of Davis, south of the State of Jefferson (Suspended between Left and Right)

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                  I fail to see how any of this is relevant to slander/libel. Preserve free speech in the interest of criticism, yes. Preserve free speech in the face of harm to another, no. The latter is what's under question.
                  The only harm covered by defamation laws is harm to one's reputation (not harm to their person or property). So that would include suppressing criticism, which is defaming.

                  Originally posted by Joel
                  As for the state of affairs today, most U.S. states don't have criminal defamation laws, and criminal libel is rarely prosecuted in the U.S. and, I think, those rarely succeed because it is difficult to prove the statement false, and prove that the speaker/writer knew it to be false.
                  Joel, libel and slander are criminal defamation. You're totally wrong here. It's very difficult to prove, sure, but those laws do exist.
                  Libel and slander are defamation. I didn't say otherwise.

                  "There are no federal criminal defamation or insult laws of any kind. On the state level, 17 states and two
                  territories continue to have criminal defamation laws 'on the books'." (http://www.osce.org/fom/41958?download=true) So about 2/3 of the states don't have criminal defamation laws.

                  In the U.S. "There were 41 attempted and actual criminal defamation prosecutions from 1992 through August 2004." Only 6 of them were convicted. And in 3 of those six cases, the law was declared unconstitutional on appeal.

                  "From 1965 through August 2004, 16 cases ended in final convictions."

                  (You may be thinking of civil.)

                  Originally posted by Joel
                  That it does not affect intent does not matter. The "Brandenburg test" has three distinct elements: intent, imminence, and likelihood. They are distinct and each must be present. I think the reasoning is that if the speech is unlikely to incite violence, then the speaker is not putting others at significant risk. E.g. the rantings of an obscure writer with no audience to speak of is injuring no one and putting no one at significant risk. So on what grounds should his speech be suppressed? Or likewise if someone is unpersuasive and thus unlikely to incite anyone to violence, then he is no danger (regarding incitement).
                  Intent always matters. It's a determining factor for what the crime is considered to be in the first place.
                  I didn't say intent does not matter. On the contrary, I said that it is one of the three required elements of the test.

                  Originally posted by Joel
                  You may disagree with the Brandenburg test. You may disagree on shouting "fire". But the point is this: Starlight's argument seemed to be along the lines of: here are examples of speech that is illegal and obviously should be illegal, and so therefore it is reasonable for similar hate speech (in the OP) to be illegal in Canada. But his examples are actually legal in the U.S., and even some more extreme examples are doubted or rejected by some intelligent people (including Supreme Court Justices). Thus casting doubt on Starlight's implication that they are things that obviously should be illegal. Which undermines his whole line of argument.
                  The accuracy of Starlight's argument is pretty irrelevant when I'm questioning what difference it makes that "some intelligent people" criticize current attitudes. Again, so what?
                  The question "so what?" asks me for the reason for what I wrote. The reason was to undermine Starlight's argument. Far from being irrelevant, addressing Starlight's argument was the point. If you want to go into a deeper discussion of the morality of finer points of the edge cases, we can, but it wasn't really the point.

                  Also, it's not that people criticize current attitudes. The Brandenburg test is the prevailing doctrine in the U.S. And the case in which Justice Holmes made the (non-binding) yelling-fire-in-a-theater analogy, was later overturned (by Brandenburg), and is widely considered to be a bad 1st Amendment ruling (that upheld suppression of a pamphlet proposing repeal of the draft). If you disagree on these points, it is you who is disagreeing with the "current attitudes".

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Adam View Post
                    Quite unfair response to Starlight, ignoring the quite apt parenthesis.
                    We already have laws against those

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment

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