Stuff I Have Said On FB Today
Sep. 16th, 2010 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiat_knox1:-
Two monks walking along a Nevada road one night encountered lights in the sky.
"Look! Unidentified flying objects!" said one monk.
The other monk picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could.
...
"That object doesn't know what it is either," he said.
2:-
Fear and panic are a useful tool,
When wielded by anyone not a fool.
A man who wails that all shall soon die
Shall find truth in his own words, by and by.
Ignorance kills as much as a gun,
But in the end, all will be One.
3:-
I looked up the particularly useless definitions of free speech and censorship on dictionary.com, but a little further digging produced some more refined definitions:-
* Free speech is the right to express any expression in public, and the c...orresponding right to experience anybody's expressions in public, without being pressured, denied access, arrested, or otherwise punished by anyone, subject to somewhat fuzzy, but fairly well-understood exceptions.
* Censorship is the act of changing a message, including the act of deletion, between the sender and the receiver, without the sender's and receiver's consent and knowledge.
http://www.jerf.org/writings/communicationEthics/node5.html
I've heard so many rabble-rousing demagogues argue that they were just "exercising free speech" when they incited the crowd to go out and plant a burning cross on some black guy's lawn, set fire to a black church or go out and look for gay people to harass and murder. "I was just talking out loud. Guy's got a right. Ain't my fault if someone overheard me and was stupid enough to want to go out and actually do what I said, is it?"
It doesn't wash, because the man has the equal right to stand up and say "I want all of you to come up on stage and anally rape me before smashing my head in with house bricks and planks of wood!" Yet somehow, despite the fact that it's the same thing, only directed at himself rather than at someone else, they never quite have the courage of their convictions to actually try and see what would happen if they did say that.
Where does free speech end? If I say something like "You know what I think? I think we should blow up the Hollywood sign!" it's an opinion. People can take it or leave it, laugh at it and jokingly cheer if I suggest tying up LiLo and Paris Hilton to the sign, but even if I was a complete psycho my speech was not an order, or a command, or a request. Just an opinion.
If I say "You ought to go and kill some random guy coming out of that bar over there," again it's a suggestion, not a request or a demand.
If I say "I want you all to go and find some synagogue and paint nazi slogans on it," that's a request. If I tell someone "Go and blow up the Chrysler Building," or "Put anthrax into Lake Michigan," that's a demand. Hell, even an imperative command.
Requests, demands, even suggestions have nothing to do with speech, dialogue, conversation and exchange of ideas. Even the clever expression of a mere opinion, if accompanied by pressure from the side like minions going around handing sticks of dynamite and Molotov cocktails to undecided followers in the crowd, is still a veiling of the fact that the expressor of the "opinion" is actually telling people what to do.
And that is not free speech. That is incitement. That is words spoken with an intent to cause things to happen. That is speech where the listener is placed in the position, not of saying "I disagree with you," but "I refuse to do this thing that you want me to do."
That is where free speech has its limit - when it ceases to be speech at all, and becomes desire, impulsion and coercion.
Two monks walking along a Nevada road one night encountered lights in the sky.
"Look! Unidentified flying objects!" said one monk.
The other monk picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could.
...
"That object doesn't know what it is either," he said.
2:-
Fear and panic are a useful tool,
When wielded by anyone not a fool.
A man who wails that all shall soon die
Shall find truth in his own words, by and by.
Ignorance kills as much as a gun,
But in the end, all will be One.
3:-
I looked up the particularly useless definitions of free speech and censorship on dictionary.com, but a little further digging produced some more refined definitions:-
* Free speech is the right to express any expression in public, and the c...orresponding right to experience anybody's expressions in public, without being pressured, denied access, arrested, or otherwise punished by anyone, subject to somewhat fuzzy, but fairly well-understood exceptions.
* Censorship is the act of changing a message, including the act of deletion, between the sender and the receiver, without the sender's and receiver's consent and knowledge.
http://www.jerf.org/writings/communicationEthics/node5.html
I've heard so many rabble-rousing demagogues argue that they were just "exercising free speech" when they incited the crowd to go out and plant a burning cross on some black guy's lawn, set fire to a black church or go out and look for gay people to harass and murder. "I was just talking out loud. Guy's got a right. Ain't my fault if someone overheard me and was stupid enough to want to go out and actually do what I said, is it?"
It doesn't wash, because the man has the equal right to stand up and say "I want all of you to come up on stage and anally rape me before smashing my head in with house bricks and planks of wood!" Yet somehow, despite the fact that it's the same thing, only directed at himself rather than at someone else, they never quite have the courage of their convictions to actually try and see what would happen if they did say that.
Where does free speech end? If I say something like "You know what I think? I think we should blow up the Hollywood sign!" it's an opinion. People can take it or leave it, laugh at it and jokingly cheer if I suggest tying up LiLo and Paris Hilton to the sign, but even if I was a complete psycho my speech was not an order, or a command, or a request. Just an opinion.
If I say "You ought to go and kill some random guy coming out of that bar over there," again it's a suggestion, not a request or a demand.
If I say "I want you all to go and find some synagogue and paint nazi slogans on it," that's a request. If I tell someone "Go and blow up the Chrysler Building," or "Put anthrax into Lake Michigan," that's a demand. Hell, even an imperative command.
Requests, demands, even suggestions have nothing to do with speech, dialogue, conversation and exchange of ideas. Even the clever expression of a mere opinion, if accompanied by pressure from the side like minions going around handing sticks of dynamite and Molotov cocktails to undecided followers in the crowd, is still a veiling of the fact that the expressor of the "opinion" is actually telling people what to do.
And that is not free speech. That is incitement. That is words spoken with an intent to cause things to happen. That is speech where the listener is placed in the position, not of saying "I disagree with you," but "I refuse to do this thing that you want me to do."
That is where free speech has its limit - when it ceases to be speech at all, and becomes desire, impulsion and coercion.
