One of my less popular opinions in the queer community is that I AM a free speech absolutist (or close to it), even if it does result in some discrimination. (Even against me.) Of course we should minimize and work to eliminate discrimination in society, but that isn't the only value we have, and unfortunately social policies are always a case of trade-offs.
I also prefer to let the homophobes be open about it so a.) I know what they're saying and can undermine it and b.) so I know who to avoid. All pushing it underground does is make me nervous that everybody's a closet homophobe and means I can't change anybody's mind. (Which I have done on multiple occasions).
This is a good point! I think that the concept of "who do I want to associate with" is a different way to view things than "everyone I see in the world needs to treat me with agency"
I have a hard time knowing where that line is. Like you said,
> I AM a free speech absolutist (or close to it), even if it does result in some discrimination. (Even against me.)
People out there, due to their agency, may not agree with where my agency ends and theirs begins. I think if we have the privilege and feel able to "choose to avoid" those that we disagree with, we could have these discussions in the open without fear and actively change people's minds.
I don't know how to though. I've written about it here [1] but I still don't have a good answer for how do we draw that line of where your agency ends and mine/theirs begin.
I also tested well enough (I was the top scorer in the county on all of our standardized tests) that it was worth shutting up about my being a big fat homo.
That's a very different situation from a gay kid in an Evangelical home in rural Alabama in the 90s, or (moving outside of sexuality) an African American family in the US South in the 50s.
Agency is very tied into a person's individual circumstances, and trying to legislate rules and policy around that is a nightmare, particularly given it can change on a dime. (My MS diagnosis knocked out a fair chunk of my agency).
I think most people's instinct is to try to protect the most vulnerable, but that may end up stifling conversation to the point where the group dissolves/can't hold itself together OR opening people to being poached away to other groups OR other groups with different norms outcompeting or attacking that group.
We need to be careful not to monkey's paw ourselves.
I genuinely dislike this label. It is not an absolutist stance at all. If anything, it is simple a stance based on the foundational values of US as a country. And there is a reason for it. If you cannot express your real thoughts, the conversation gets confused with attempts to evade censor or completely incomprehensible since language gets too distorted to mean anything at all.
It is getting tiring. I am saying this as an immigrant from the old country, where censorship was a thing ( with author writing cringy articles in defense of it -- sounds familiar? ). It is sad for me to see US going that route.
> old country, where censorship was a thing. It is sad for me to see US going that route.
Why does this keep coming up? Nobody, absolutely nobody, is advocating for government restriction of free speech. That is the foundation of the US as a country.
Twitter didn't exist back then but newspapers certainly did. Town squares certainly did.
If the founding fathers wanted to say "if someone is speaking in a town square you can't throw tomatoes at them or shout them down", they would have.
Twitter moderating its content has zero to do with the foundations of America or censorship in other countries.
It is all fine and dandy to say 'build your own public square', but its point is somewhat lost, when you have a hard time even getting basic materials.
We Live In A Society. If you come to a public square - physically or on twitter, and scream something that the rest of society doesn't want to hear, you are exercising your free speech, and they are exercising theirs if they say they don't want to hear you.
I think there may be a disconnect between what we are trying to convey.
Public square is by definition.. public. It is not a possession of any one person. Anyone can grab a soapbox.
What I see now.. is soapbox oligopoly. That is an issue.
They don't because they want the tools and reach offered by private platforms, but don't want to follow their rules.
You can't have it both ways.
More to the point, so anyone can have a soapbox, but that soapbox will be kicked from under you in the form of hackers, ddos, and so on unless you use those tools. What is the next advice? Build your own Cloudflare? Your own ISP? It is madness and leaves us exactly where we are now.
You can't tell me everyone can have a soapbox if the soapbox is only theoretical in nature and in production deployment does not survive a day.
Edit: snarky comment removed.
Right. Just like a real-life soapbox.
I don't think you understand what it would mean to go into a public square - at ANY point in history, and start screaming the kinds of things that get you banned by Cloudflare, ISPs, and AWS.
We're not talking about stuff like "I have a different perspective on who should be chief of our tribe". The kind of political rhetoric that will inspire future generations of enlightened intellectuals to say "I disagree with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it".
We're talking about content that has NEVER been acceptable to be preached in a public sphere. The kind of content that societies have always intolerated. Nothing is different. Nothing has changed about that.
I think we fundamentally disagree despite sharing the same initial assumptions.
My argument is effectively that EVERYTHING is a matter of perspective and therefore a matter of opinion and as such protected, because people will disagree about everything, but, if they are indeed enlightened, they will defend it as an opinion. Just by saying that some topics are off-limits, you squarely place yourself as the arbiter of truth, which is a tricky position to be in, because some ideas are just too dangerous to impressionable minds.
Here is the fun part. That is true. Ideas can absolutely wreak havoc, but the appropriate, albeit labor intensive, approach is to help people work through them and not try to suppress it or worse, force it into the shadows.
<< We're talking about content that has NEVER been acceptable to be preached in a public sphere.
I don't want to belabor the point, but there were tons of things that were not acceptable and now are acceptable precisely because some decided to challenge status quo of what is 'never acceptable'. If examples are needed, note how quickly question of homosexuality moved from barely whispered to openly celebrated in US society.
And that is a problem. Our communication depends on being able to articulate ourselves. Quality of our thoughts depend on the language. The quality of our discourse suffers, because our thoughts are being trained to offer 'safe' language.
If you do not see it as a problem, we have a problem.
Now compare it to Twitter or Facebook. You don't know what you signing up for. Their TOS effectively say they can ban you for things they deem wrong. It is only recently that we know how they evaluate it ( see CNN discussion of FB speech violence tiers ).
Free speech is just that. It is free speech. There is no TOS. It includes all sorts of nasty bits too, because that is what being human is. Trying to pretend otherwise is, at best, counterproductive.
But here we are. Entire nation scared of reality and in dire need to cover it up with soft language.
<< But the founding principles have always had restrictions build in.
Do they? I am reading the constitution and I don't see those restrictions. You may get a visit from some agencies, but that is to make sure you were not joking.
On the other hand, I do see a mention of when slavery is ok in US and yet people seem surprised when it is pointed out.
You can say what you want. Just don't make it look like the army is saying this.
It may sound like a contradiction, but it is not. You voluntarily join the army. You join that specific group and accept their 'rules'. It is harder to argue ( not impossible since there are naturalized citizens, who clearly opt in to become citizens ) that citizens by right of birth voluntarily opt into that set of rules. That is the where constitution comes in.
What I am saying is that army argument is flawed.
edit: changed typical to average
[1]https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/...
My argument is every one believes there are limits to free speech they just place the boundaries at different places. And I stand by my position that the soldier example is on a fundamental level a restriction on free speech.