>So you want to be able to yell fire in a crowded theater? Or what - you want someone to be able to yell fire in a crowded theater provided they are powerful enough to get away with it?
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
I refuse to accept the proposition that it is acceptable to quash any form of dissent so long as there is a crisis going on, and you can come up with a catchy aphorism.
I do accept there is stuff you shouldn't say, but that's just it. It's a normative value. That is allowed, and people have vastly different ones. The key is to note the repugnant ones, recognize them for what they are, and don't make of yourself the same shining example of what not to be.
>As much as you might want this magical world where no speech is limited, you can't have it both ways in the real world.
How magical a world is required to facilitate peaceful coexistence other than to by default doubt every single last thing you see on the Internet?
To be aware of the utility of manipulating and instigating people through the use of information warfare techniques? In the world of purportedly honest people, the Liar is king! So understand that around you are so many that endeavor to be Kings! It doesn't take much to question what gets forced upon you informationwise and to take responsibility for the actions you alone embark upon given the information you are shown. Take this personally to heart, and be willing to set the example for your community. When an equilibrium is achieved, you'll have done your part.
The only outcome of silencing something is to give it legitimacy. Let it echo. Let it ring from the rooftops. Let the Jester make a fool of himself and move on. It is in silence and what isn't said that our fears and anxieties hide, that we abandon our higher natures, and succumb to the bewitchment of our primal instincts.
A man can be reasoned with, and reckon his way out of line of Bullshit. An animal is led by the nosering of the passions and instincts of the moment into all manner of barbarism and atrocity.
Is this, this resortment to the treatment of your fellow man as some beast it? Do you truly think so little of your fellows that they need be muzzled? That they be forced to gnash their teeth that the feebleminded around you not fall victim to their spell? Are you so confident that you too are not under the influence of the same hysteria gripping them?
We can only be responsible for ourselves, and those that delegate to us the responsibility of their care. In the execution thereof that responsibility it is paramount to not behave in a reckless
or deplorable a manner, and to return to them the responsibility of their own care when we see we are unfit to discharge that duty.
To inflict such harm as to censor or to deprive of liberty for the mere notion that someone whom delegated to us not responsibility for them, or for whom we did not saddle ourselves with responsibility for them through rite, sacrament, or conception is the most insidious and perfidious of acts to perpetrate on our fellow men.
We accept vigilance, and preserve the notion of inherent liberty because fundamentally, to not is to invite forth all the wickedness of our forefathers and forebearers in all the atrocity they too bore out in the struggle to create a fairer, brighter, better tomorrow.
Bring not silence to the stage of life. Rather let it ring with the sound and fury of your birthright. Should good men cry out over the din of the fools, there can be but peace in the end though the tempest itself of the time be a trial to bare.
I will not stand by and see yet more right carved out. I will not create more "thems". Today's fool is, was, will be later's, yesterday's, tomorrow's sage, and not one man has the right over any other man to determine what he shall or shalt not speak. We have all committed the sin of the fool or cretin at some point, just as we will again and again. The most dangerous among us being those that entertain with cocksurety they won't.
Speak your mind by all means; do with that spoken by others what you will; but don't you dare still another voice the longest day you ever live. Should you try,may the noise of those around you drown you out in their exclamationsof shame and impedance for your impetuousness.