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Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

Except Free Speech is a Binary, and that is exactly what Canada is doing,... punishing thought crimes.

>Lots of Americans like to think that as soon as you moderately curtail freedom of expression, you've crossed some threshold

You have crossed a Threshold

>and you're now North Korea.

Nice strawman you have there.....

>it's possible to have reasonable constraints on expression!

Proving you do not have or support Free Speech, you support "Reasonably Restricted Speech" which is not the same thing

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> Proving you do not have or support Free Speech, you support "Reasonably Restricted Speech" which is not the same thing

See, this is exactly what I said. I didn't need to build a strawman. You did it for me.

I'm free to run down the street swinging your fists, but if I swing my fist into someone's face and break their nose, that's bad. I think we can all agree on that, right? What if I told you that swinging my fists was a form of "artistic expression", or was part of my religion? Should I be free to express myself at the expense of the rest of society?

If I claim that red is my favorite color, but I actually prefer orange, does that I mean I get to call orange "red"?

The fact that restricting the verbal equivalent of "swinging fists into others' faces" may be a good thing doesn't mean that can be redefined as free speech, because everyone has their own idea of what these reasonable restrictions are. Free speech is free speech, even if it's in practice a bad idea.

> Except Free Speech is a Binary, and that is exactly what Canada is doing,... punishing thought crimes.

A "spoken crime" is not a "thought crime". There's no chip in your head, you're free to think whatever you like, even if you're not necessarily free to say anything you like.

"thought crime" is a term from Orwell's 1984--worth a read

You cross the line into thought crimes when you ascribe intent and presume to know the state of mind and thought process behind a given piece of speech.

Hmm, do you think there are some things you can say that would classify as an action you could be arrested for rather than an idea?

For example, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded building, offering a bribe, and threatening someone all seem like actions you could be arrested for in the USA where the only evidence is your speech (or a recording of it). Would these qualify as thought crimes to you and if so do you think there is a developed nation with free speech where they are accepted?

How about threatening violence against a member of a protected class? Is the crime worse because of that persons protected status, even if that didn’t matter to the perpetrator?

There should not be protected classes..

All people should be treated the exact same under the law

The intent isn't relevant to actually breaking the law in this case. At best, it might be relevant to sentencing. So no thought crime.

I disagree that free speech is binary.

For example, I think that a country can be said to have free speech if it disallows people from promising to compensate someone in exchange for murder.

Free Speech that is restricted is no longer Free, so how can it not be binary? Either you're free to say things - including politically repugnant things - or you are not free to do so.

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