What the F***? - Why We Curse | Hacker News Reader

What the F***? - Why We Curse

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21 pointsrms12 comments

"Very, you would never hear the dialogue How brilliant was it? Fucking."

He obviously doesn't know my friends. Some would also say "Fuckingly."

Yeah, mine too. I guess we're on the cutting edge of swearing.

I realized after reading this (and 'Lies We Tell Kids') that we may not want children to use profanity for the same reason that we don't want them to use drugs or have sex: they're more likely to exercise bad judgment in how and when to use it.

The downside consequences are much more limited, of course, but whereas George Carlin will make us laugh while dropping 'fuck,' children are more likely to use the word in ways that make us cringe.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

- C.S. Lewis

We don't want to keep kids from swearing really, we want to keep them from swearing at the wrong moment and making themselves (and us) look foolish. Since this is impossible, we'd really just prefer if they didn't even know those words until they've developed the judgment required to use them correctly.

First of all, I hope we all understand that "free speech" in its purest sense doesn't really exist. The proof is in "Falsely shouting fire in a theatre." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_thea...)

Point being: Some people do believe that there is a minimum amount of decency required on the nation's airwaves to preserve ethical standards particularly of children whose values are highly malleable. It is justified as not being a violation of free speech with the same idea as that of the schenck ruling, that there indeed are limits to what a person can say without punishment.

Personally I feel people have a right to their belief in something like this, while others feel it infringes on our rights. But again, no matter what society we live in our rights are always limited by boundaries anyway...and boundaries serve a good purpose in shaping the morality of a nation. Morality...is often useful. I'll leave it at that?

Shouting fire in a crowded theater is wrong because you don't own the theater, so you are violating the property rights of the theater owner. If you did own the theater and shouted fire anyway, you'd be defrauding your patrons out of a show they paid to see, and you'd be liable if anyone got trampled.

Nowhere is 'free speech' involved here. Free speech is the idea that the government will not use force to prevent or punish you for speaking on your own property or on the property of someone who is willing to have you.

If you break into an auditorium and give a speech with a stolen microphone, your ultimate arrest has nothing to do with the 'limits of free speech.' Likewise, if you use a pen or your mouth in the commission of a legitimate crime (such as fraud, assault, or murder), then free speech is not the issue.

Linking free speech to property rights carries a bunch of political and philosophical assumptions that are divorced from the legal history and realities of 1st amendment law in the U.S. Thats not just not how it works from either a legal or policy standpoint.

Heres a question for you then: Who owns the airwaves?

That's a fascinating question, actually. There are a couple of well-regarded approaches to including radio spectrum in a principled political framework.

The most historically congruent approach is to apply the principles of homesteading and private property rights, and allow courts to develop a common law framework for resolving disputes. Courts were beginning to do this successfully in the 1920s until the FCC was foisted upon us, with the effect of nationalizing the radio spectrum.

In practice today, this approach would mean privatizing the entire spectrum and allowing market forces to work, just as they do with all other forms of private property.

You can read Declan McCullagh's informed analysis of the modern harms the FCC causes and his detailed rationale for a property-based market approach here:

http://www.news.com/2010-1028-5226979.html ('Why the FCC should die')

To better understand the importance of homesteading and property rights from a 'first-principles' analysis, I would recommend Murray Rothbard's _The Ethics of Liberty_, which you can freely read or download here:

http://mises.org/rothbard/Ethics/Ethics.asp

In Rothbard's _For a New Liberty_, he addresses specifically the origins of the FCC and how the market approach was thwarted and replaced with bureaucracy:

http://blog.mises.org/archives/002532.asp

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp

http://mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf

An alternative approach is to treat the radio spectrum as a non-scarce good (like air), which perhaps is not that far from the truth in light of modern radio technology. Under this view, radio spectrum need not and should not receive recognition as property, nor should it be 'managed', regulated, or conserved by government.

Here's the libertarian take:

There are lots of things we aren't free to say, such as shouting fire in a theatre, threatening others, etc. But they all come down to measurable harm. As the Wikipedia article you linked says, they are "directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action." It's unquestionable that we as a society have a right to censor if the person's speech has no artistic value and causes physical harm to others, because in so doing, they violate other people's civil liberties, which is what the law is designed to protect. It's the same as murder, though to a lesser degree.

So for swearing on television to fall into the same category as shouting fire, it would have to be proven to harm others. There's no evidence that this is the case whatsoever, let alone proof, or even a rational argument. Thus there should be no FCC censorship.

Some do make the case that it is harmful to children however in that they become cultured toward using strong language.

I'm not really sure what to believe at this point, but I'm just putting that point of view out there.

If I could get one cent for every time I heard that....

oooo, sounds like a startup idea!

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