Comment by zimablue | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zimablue | Hacker News Reader

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"Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech"

That's not true, it doesn't even really make sense. Freedom of anything is freedom from consequences for it. If I say I believe in freedom to have an abortion, noone would reasonably be said to agree if they said they also believe in freedom to have an abortion, and then immediate execution by the state afterwards.

Freedom of speech in the constitution is freedom from reprisal by the government

Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society.

Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.

It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen.

I've noticed a trend with the woke side of the debate to get into like high-school level semantics - redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way - does anyone understand why this seems to be a trend?

>Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society.

"a certain level" implies the existence of an acceptable level of consequence, unless by that you mean "absolute." If so, why not simply state that?

>Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract.

You're just moving the goalposts around the definition of "speech" so that it conveniently doesn't include the contradictions to your premise. Racial slurs and directed harassment are obviously speech. If you believe there should be consequences for that, then you believe freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

It's not moving the goal posts, you seem to be creating a false dichotomy between: "support free speech" -> must support lack of reprisals for all free speech, including directed racial slurs "do not support free speech" -> must accept the current level and form of reprisals.

Where most people who say they support free speech are, is this statement: "support free speech without reprisals, excluding directed harrassment, with some level of acceptable reprisals in employment and socially, depending on the context, but at a much lower level than is currently the case, with less arbitrary application of mob justice and employer discrimination"

It's not catchy but nor is it inherently contradictory. It's what I imagine JK Rowling, Chomsky et al would say if you spoke to them about their letter.

I really think it would be useful if the anti-free-speech side of the debate stopped with this semantics and straw men about freedom from reprisals, monarchies, directed racism. I think that a person should be free to discuss eg. spaces for trans vs non-trans women and where to draw the line on sports etc, to what level the BLM is a useful movement, the relative weight of cultural vs economic vs discrimination in explaining different outcomes across ethicities and genders, positive discrimination, without being fired, cancelled or becoming unemployable. That's what most free speech people think, and all these semantic points, false definitions and straw men are kind of a waste of time

You seem to believe the phrase "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" implicitly justifies all possible consequences. It doesn't, it merely implies that speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that the consequences of speech often, themselves, are as much a manifestation of free expression as the original speech.

Your own counterclaim, however, that "freedom from anything means freedom from the consequences of that thing" does not even allow for the reasonable, non-arbitrary consequences you're supporting, here.

You, I and tw04 are actually in violent agreement, but it seems your politics doesn't allow you to concede the possibility that the "other side" can hold a reasonable opinion.

It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

We also need to consider whether it is just to fire someone for something offensive (but not illegal) they did offline that was surreptitiously recorded and uploaded to the Internet to feed mob outrage.

> It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

>For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

That's exactly the sort of thing "a lot of us here" accuse progressives or "the left" of doing to them.

> I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

Fair enough.

> I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

I disagree that it was unreasonable or extreme. "Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" is mutually exclusive of the statement "free speech does mean freedom from at least some consequences". You cannot logically support both statements.

It's also the slogan that is very commonly used to justify these cancellations. I think it's worth point out that the initial comment by wGeF7H8Z59y985y (not zimablue) was clearly framing things in the context of people losing their jobs over their political opinions.

The implication that "abstract" discussion is acceptable seems to condone dog whistling, especially given that protesting much of that speech could be considered "redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way", as that coded redefinition by the speaker is literally what dog whistles require, but seems disingenuous outside of that context.

That's true and the nature of language is such that there are constantly evolving dog whistles and methods of expression, but dog whistles aren't directed harrassment so I would basically allow them. Feel free not to vote for a dog whistling politician but I don't think one should not employ/fire/cancel someone for dog whistling that they believe some unfashionable or objectionable view.

> Feel free not to vote for a dog whistling politician but I don't think one should not employ/fire/cancel someone for dog whistling that they believe some unfashionable or objectionable view.

I mean, that's literally what not voting for someone is - choosing to not hire them. But that's semantics.

I'm not sure how you draw the lines on all this - if someone is spending all day tell their Jewish co-worker they need to stop the "international bankers", is that OK? Is speaking hatefully in the abstract about a group of people acceptable?

"Jew bankers" is a nasty slur. But is it a slur because It's unfair to Jews to call bankers Jews, or to call Jews bankers, or unfair to bankers to call bankers Jews, or to call Jews bankers?

If you attack a person or a race by accusing them of misbehaviors, that doesn't mean it's wrong to oppese misbehaviors!

But that's not the dog-whistle - that's too overt. There's apparently a line here when things switch, when things switch from "direct harassment" to simply "objectionable". I'm curious as to where that is.

I think that elected representatives are a special category in this, whilst technically you employ them they’re operating democracy not capitalism, so it’s different in many ways- it’s more reasonable to judge their character, the power imbalance is in their favor, positive discrimination for elected representatives seems more reasonable etc etc.

The lines will always be a little blurred, but international bankers isn’t a synonym for Jews, it might be a dog whistle but it would only be a problem for me if they know the colleague is Jewish and do this day in day out after being asked to stop.

I think so much of this discussion is wasted, and we’d be more productive just to pick a few examples and argue on them about whether we shift the line.

Eg. For me Damore shouldn’t have been fired and that’s when I realized that the woke thing wasn’t a right wing straw man, it really was running big Corp America

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