I support conspiracy theorists. I think they are canaries in the coal mine of free speech. Right now we seem to be wrestling with the fear that someone can write something online, someone else can read it, buy a gun, and go do something illegal. While I find this worrying, I think any cure would be worse than the disease.
(Needless to say, the US is not the only country with skeletons in its closet. Many others are worse.)
Some so-called "conspiracies" -- not all, not even most, but some -- ARE true. They are usually pretty horrible, and they deserve to be exposed. Do we really want to suppress conversations that could uncover these kind of institutional crimes? It's not like the bought-and-paid-for media is going to do it.
My opinion: violent people are going to find something to lash out no matter what. It might be an obsession with a celebrity, an ideology, a conspiracy theory, a religion, a politician, a neighbor or coworker, or something else. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with possible "triggers" for violence, realize that potential triggers are everywhere and adjust strategy accordingly.
Don't believe me? Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
I am an adult survivor of this abuse. So when you tell me that you support conspiracy theorists it makes me sick. Fuck them, they ruined me and my mother's life. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to undo the indoctrination and brain washing I basically went through? And its not like these are your run of the mill conspiracy theorists that believe in aliens and JFK grassy knole shit. This ruins lives. When I see people like QAnon who front ideas like Pizza Gate and Alex Jones claiming Sandy Hook was a false flag and ruining the lives of people that lost their kids with death threats. Fuck them. And if you support them, fuck you too.
If you want further reading I recommend reading Satan's Silence
I empathize with you and understand that your experience must have been very difficult. That said, there are fundamental freedoms that must be defended even when the group in question is distasteful. Freedom to speak your mind -- and possibly propagate dumb conspiracies -- is one of them.
It is true that fundamental rights must be preserved even when used distastefully. But the fundamental right of freedom of speech is not a right to say whatever whenever, and it is not at all clear to me that propagating dumb conspiracies in a way that leads to violence is within the line. (Nor propagating smart conspiracies—since it's not the conspiracy itself that makes it questionable here.)
> I have no right to say "Hey, so-and-so is a cheat, don't do business with them," however strongly I believe it, when they're not.
Who gets to say they are or are not a cheat? Spreading false rumours is reprehensible, but within your right to speak freely: just like the so-called cheat has the right to sue the rumour-maker for defamation.
> I have no right to say "You should rob a bank, and I'll teach you how."
It's illegal to encourage/enable illegal actions, but you have the right to do illegal things - just like you have the right to bear the consequences of your illegal actions.
> I have no right to say "This herb will cure your disease" merely because I believe it, if nobody has convinced the government to also believe it.
What if the herb (or cutting-edge treatment developed in some other country) works beautifully in another country, but the FDA in the US doesn't recognize it yet? You've set up the US government as the referee who gets to decide when we are allowed to have our right to free speech.
> I don't even have the right to repeat your comment, except in specific ways and circumstances.
You have the right to repeat the comment however you like - but you also have the right to be sued under copyright and defamation laws.
> fundamental rights must be preserved even when used distastefully
They are also, as recognized in the US declaration of independence, unalienable: the government has no say in whether we get to have them.
> not at all clear to me that propagating dumb conspiracies in a way that leads to violence is within the line...since it's not the conspiracy itself that makes it questionable here
As you point out; someone theorizes about a Bad Person, someone reads that conspiracy stuff online, and decides to 'do something' about it, and tries to shoot that Bad Person. In the US Code, inciting to commit a crime looks like this: "whoever...solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct".
So what exactly do you mean by "in a way that leads to violence"? Because what the US code describes is vastly different from "theorizing about the existence of a conspiracy", however 'out there' the conspiracy is. And in at least the example of the pizzagate shooter, he persuaded himself of his actions - the conspiracy just made him think that a Very Bad Thing was happening there. And there is nothing wrong with theorizing about the existence of a conspiracy of people doing Bad Things.
What word would you like to use for "the ability to do X without legal consequence from the government"? Because that seems like a more interesting discussion.
This is a completely useless definition, as it means literally everyone has a right to everything. E.g. I have a "right" to murder you and then face the legal consequences for doing so.
That would be, 'it's not illegal'. I think there are four different things in play here.
a) a fundamental right, because you are human; this is something that a government ought to respect.
b) something which the government has said is legal to do; i.e., something the goverment says is OK.
c) the responsibilities which a citizen must bear; or, what happens if you break the law
d) the rights to which a citizen is entitled: the respect which the government actually gives you.
I guess I conflated some of those things.
> If you define "right" as "you have the ability to do X and face legal consequences for having done it,"
That would be a combination of (a) and (c), where you have the human right to say what you please, but as a citizen you have to deal with the consequences. That's different from, say, murder, where you don't have the human right to murder and you also broke the law (and have to face the consequences). It's a trivial distinction in most cases, but not all.
>You're making the same class of mistake made by people who support (for instance) the death penalty against criminals in group X because their loved one was a victim of one of those criminals.
First, I am not making a statement for or against capital punishment. That is a strawman argument and false dichotomy. Second, there is no overlap between criminal and civil jurisprudence and capital punishment here.
>That said, there are fundamental freedoms that must be defended even when the group in question is distasteful. Freedom to speak your mind -- and possibly propagate dumb conspiracies -- is one of them.
There is not a unlimited waiver of consequences for making false statements defined anywhere in the first amendment. Defamation, libel and slander are examples of speech that can be prosecuted under the law. Defamation in my case would be false statements that an individual made specific criminal allegations as well as engagement in certain sexual misconduct. To suggest that this is protected speech is not only wrong but dead wrong.
It seems like designating anyone as a terrorist or stating that any ideology is a root cause of a national security threat is a direct risk to the freedom of speech. Yet it seems valid and important for a country's executive to do so.
the problem right now is that there are probably around 20 gatekeepers for nearly all broadcast in the country. if you want the massess to hear you, you need to convince some of those 20 to lend you broadcast space. (facebook, google, twitter, disney, verizon, att, sony, microsoft, comcast, charter, iheartradio, nationalamusement, sinclair, tribune, gannett, hearst, advanced publications, associated press, thompsonreuters, discovery. who did i miss.) if you have a propaganda message to get out, you just need to feed it to those 20 places and get your generals up on their screens.
those twenty companies conspiring (either directly, or just being aligned because taking the same side benefits them) to silence a message does violate the principal of freedom of speech in some way, but can we really compel them to offer conspiracy theorists equal air time? forcing them to displace speech they prefer for speech they down violates their own speech. im not sure telling these companies what they should and shouldnt be allowed to say is the right way forward, vs decentralizing communication platforms and dealing with the repercussions of a system that cant be censored.
I would imagine that a future decentralized platform would end up similar to something like ublock filter lists. Some sort of default "these are the servers you want to follow to see most of the world news." For it to work, the default setting needs to be something most people can just click NEXT on and never think of again.
I guess where I am going is, do you favor their equal access to private broadcast services? If no, then its functionally equivalent to suppression their speech rights, given our current environment, because all public speech needs to exit out 1 of those 20 megaphones.
Otherwise its like supporting everyones right to their own billboard, but saying the government or an oligopoly gets to control the land access of who gets to place one hear a highway.
A billboard away from a highway is like a tree falling in a forest without someone to hear it, from an auditory perspective, it didnt happen.
I think al-Qaeda's speech acts are difficult to distinguish from a genuine homegrown resistance/revolutionary movement, and I worry that laws that criminalize advocating its ideology can also be used to crush a budding resistance movement and censor the spread of material the government finds embarrassing.
Interesting take on it. I remember years back Chomsky had defended the right of some despicable Holocaust denier to publish his stuff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair. I always wonder if he would do it again today.
Takes courage to stand up to a mob, online or in person. We need to defend the right to discuss distasteful things, and even to wonder if they are true (should I add a holocaust disclaimer here?).
The people whose speech you're defending aren't interested in intellectual discussion or good-natured adversarial debate. They want to kill people, deprive them of rights, shout down everyone who disagrees with them, and justify all of this with a tissue of lies and conspiracy theories grounded primarily in bigotry and self-importance.
> They want to kill people, deprive them of rights, shout down everyone who disagrees with them, and justify all of this with a tissue of lies and conspiracy theories grounded primarily in bigotry and self-importance.
You're talking about a vocal / violent minority of conspiracy theorists. Most are investigating their theories about possible conspiracies. Is there anything a conspiracy theorist could say, to try and prove they aren't against you?
Because your blanket description of 'the people whose speech I'm defending', and your implication they should be denied the freedom to speak their theories, makes you look disinterested in an intellectual discussion with any conspiracy theorist.