The Concept of Free Speech

[VirginiaCat]

I swear, it is like the Progressive side has forgotten you have the right to say what you feel and believe whether someone else wants to hear it or agrees with you. The other side of that argument is The other person has a right to disagree and debate with your point of view.

Stunned we are at this basic of an argument in this country.

[CitizenBBN]

It's unreal. The ACLU was the center of the civil rights movement for decades, now they sue to shut people up calling it "hate speech". Government calls it "dis-information". That's scary as hell.

Like you I never thought we would be at the point where people would be against free speech. It's especially surprising as traditionally liberals have been the most vocal supporters of fee speech.

Even many in the media are calling for limitations on free speech, of course not ever including what they say or believe.

They really just want to silence disagreement, and have become so convinced of their own righteousness that they now act as religious zealots in the name of leftism, and anyone who disagrees is a heretic to be silenced.

Does their view hold so little strength they are afraid of opposing views and open debate?

The end is surely coming to this Great Experiment in liberty, when so many are so happy to give up the very core principles that hold this together in the goal of forcing their views on others.

The greatest irony of all is that those are the people who claim anyone else is a "fascist". They keep using that word. It does not mean what they think it means.

[bigsky]

The ACLU famously defended the rights of Nazis to hold a parade through Skokie, the home of (not sure Jewish Defense League?) and tens of thousands of Jews.

That may have been the high water mark for defense of free speech in this country—the 1960s.

There is no doubt the left and the ACLU have abandoned free speech, and other issues, in favor of social justice and a
Notion of safety from being offended.

Remember it is only offensive speech that needs defending.

[CitizenBBN]

I've checked Locke, Rousseau, the Federalist Papers, Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Can't find the right to not be offended anywhere.

[dan_bgblue]

Does their view hold so little strength they are afraid of opposing views and open debate?

They have such weak arguments that the only way they can be sure to win a debate is to repeat their point over, and over, and over, again until the weak minded will finally just accept their point of view.

The greatest irony of all is that those are the people who claim anyone else is a "fascist". They keep using that word. It does not mean what they think it means.

No it does not, but it sounds bad, just like racism of which they lack understanding a true meaning as well.

[CitizenBBN]

Very true Dan. The world of the Leftists (not liberals but leftists) is upside down.They are fascists who decry fascism and they engage in horrific levels of racism in the name of stopping racism.

There's an article up on Fox about some biology teacher who hates capitalism and praises bacteria as the "original anarchists", and sees capitalism as more like a cell with a centralized core that manages everything. Yet she's a socialist.

Huh? Socialism is the system with a centralized core that manages everything through force if necessary. Capitalism is the original anarchist's economic system where no King or Congress is required to give permission for someone to pursue whatever business or economic endeavor they may choose.

She has it utterly and completely backward in every possible way, and has no clue. I'm sure if confronted with this obvious truth she would say that capitalism is really centralized and an exploitation of the working class by elites, when of course it is government run systems that do this far better than any capitalism, and regardless the capitalist system is, even in our modern corporatist world, still more decentralized than the system she says she prefers. Her analogy would still be wrong on its face.

Free speech is the same way. People are claiming to be for diversity but want to stop whatever they define as "hate speech", which ends up being any speech that offends their views. So this is embracing diversity?

I keep trying to figure out how people can be so intellectually naive as to not see the glaring hypocrisy of such positions. No luck so far.

Maybe they should read more Voltaire (actually this quote is likely not his, but written about him, but still gets to the point):

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Clearly the days where that is taught in our schools are long gone.

[dan_bgblue]

I have seen that quote inaccurately attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but I think this quote is properly credited to him, "Jefferson once wrote, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost". While I fully agree with his thought, I do believe he would be aghast today to see what has become of much of his idea about the "free" press. I doubt that he would ever have thought that persons of the press would ever become so weak minded as to become co-opted by the socialist members of government, higher education, and dishonest business people.

[CitizenBBN]

One of the unwritten pillars of our system is the Fourth Estate, a free press keeping check on the whole system and especially ideally government and government corruption.

This is as the center of the Alien and Sedition Acts which was the first real political schism in America with the Federalists wanting to silence Jefferson and what was then the Democrat-Republicans. Specifically the Sedition part, which limited the ability to publish criticism of the government. it was a particularly proud time for the state of Kentucky, which along with Virginia voted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (penned by Jefferson and Madison secretly), but Lexington for example was the scene of a huge public protest over the Acts.

Imagine, huge protests in what was then basically a borderland of this nation over passage of laws that limited free speech and freedom of the press.

The Acts were widely unpopular and were a big factor in the Federalists losing the government in the next election, and they expired and were never revived. They did however help establish those early principles of free speech and press through their political reactions, as SCOTUS had not yet put forward the ideal of judicial review.

Essentially now we have the major media actually working to implement the Sedition Act with no formal legislation required. Opposition to government views on vaccines, or economics, or social justice, whatever, are now suppressed and "cancelled" with glee from the "free press".

What do you do when the people who should be most outraged at tyranny cheer for it in support?

[bigsky]

Burn American flag — okay
Burn Rainbow flag - Hate speech not okay

Current Brandon approved speech

[CitizenBBN]

Burn American flag — okay
Burn Rainbow flag - Hate speech not okay

Current Brandon approved speech

Sums it up pretty well.

Line from a Clash song, "Know Your Rights":

"You have the right to free speech
As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it"

Ironic since The Clash were very Leftist and anti-establishmentarian, that they have come full circle to actually be the repressors of speech.

[VirginiaCat]

Chuck, have you read throught the Twitter releases of internal communications and the Actual story in the Free Press yesterday.

It appears Musk understands the concept of the Fourth Estate based on him saying if only 1 breaks rank, the other press will be forced to do so as well.

[dan_bgblue]

It appears Musk understands the concept of the Fourth Estate based on him saying if only 1 breaks rank, the other press will be forced to do so as well.

I am not sure he understands as much as he thinks he does. don't get me wrong, the guy is really smart and very well connected, but Fox news, the most read, most watched major news network has been on the other side of the fence for years and the other msm outlets have thumbed their nose at FOX and done everything they could do to discredit them.

[VirginiaCat]

I am not sure he understands as much as he thinks he does. don't get me wrong, the guy is really smart and very well connected, but Fox news, the most read, most watched major news network has been on the other side of the fence for years and the other msm outlets have thumbed their nose at FOX and done everything they could do to discredit them.

Fox is Repu. It is about powerbase...and the R&D are the same there. McConnell is one of the worse but Romney et al the same. Ryan running Fox and he is their butt boy.