40% of Millennials OK with limiting speech offensive to minorities | Hacker News Reader

40% of Millennials OK with limiting speech offensive to minorities

pewresearch.org

24 pointsstriking17 comments

I wish this study would have first asked the question "Should the government be allowed to limit free speech?", record that answer, and then ask "Should the government be allowed to limit free speech if it is offensive?", record that answer, and then ask "Should the government be allowed to limit free speech if it is offensive to the majority or those that are "privileged" in some way?", record that answer, and then lastly ask "Should the government be allowed to limit free speech if it is offensive to minorities?"

Those numbers would be interesting to see.

That's got to be the most depressing statistic I've seen all day. It's terrifying how we've fought for years for freedom of speech and rights, then this generation seemingly want to chuck it all away for political correctness.

Change the question and time. Ask people if the government should be able to ban the desecration of the US flag. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Desecration_Amendment , about 1/2 of Americans would agree, even after the Supreme Court said it was protected free speech.

Ask if the government should be able to ban blasphemy or speech which insults a religion. (For more fun, name specific religions and see the differences in responses.)

Ask if the government should be able to punish people falsely claim they were awarded a military medal.

Or to go back 100 years, to prevent people from protesting the draft.

To be even more contentious, ask if businesses have a right to free speech, and if the government can regulate 'purely commercial advertising' or their views on Citizens United.

I think you'll find that this isn't some sort of special political correctness issue, but a long history of people thinking "The Government Should Do Something" about things they think are wrong, including for many things which are far from PC.

That doesn't mean it's a good history, only that I think you're highlighting the wrong thing.

Still though you could write it another way - 60% of millenials support the rights of free speech even when it is offensive to minorities.

It's not so dire. That's a solid majority.

That's how I look at it. Those of us who cherish freedom are winning. :)

In a survey but not the country as a whole... (sighs)

It's hard to tell in this study if it's a generational behavior or if it's just something people learn as they age.

This is certainly an interesting question to ask periodically so we could do such an analysis.

I must be one of the minority that finds it offensive when people talk about limiting speech...

Me too, but I'll support their right to speech about limiting free speech. Once they try to pass something as law, then the gloves come off.

The people who want to ban speech justify it by saying things like "tolerance doesn't include tolerance of intolerance." I wonder how they'd react to passage of a law criminalizing their discussion of limiting free speech.

I wasn't saying that they should be censored. I was saying that recursion indicates that their position is self-contradictory.

If you don't want content-neutral time-manner-place restriction, and you don't want any of the existing limitations on commercial free speech, then I can assure you that you are in a very small minority.

Glad it didn't get over 40%. I'd hate to be creatively analyzing all of my writing or speech trying to guess if someone might take offence in a million different ways. Burden should be on them to grow up and accept people will have opinions they don't like.

Very good illustration here:

http://jokes2go.com/poems/5205.html

Most millennials I know are ill-informed on all matters of politics/civil liberties. As such, this does not surprise me one bit.

Would you say the same of "non-whites?" Because 40% of them said the same thing.

Alternative headline: 40% of Non-White OK with limiting speech offensive to minorities

Mala tempora.

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