Total Freedom of Speech is Bad

Kara was more funny funnier when he was uber neoliberal.

Oh, how naive. The government, which is still human, gets to control what people can and cannot say. You seriously think there won't be anyone in said government that at some point thinks the very idea itself is a threat, and therefore anyone with that idea should be locked up.

Also, don't you think it's hypocritical that you're now saying that locking people up for being immigrant or having certain physical characteristics is bad (which I'd agree with), but your idea of locking up anyone who is against your idea or voicing his opinion is for the greater good of society?

It's still quite entertaining, though. I wonder how he'll be like in another few months. Now that I think about it, we should totally get a betting office on it. 10 bucks says he'll be an extremist hippie by August.

We just need a couple of bookies! If only there were more jews in the forums..

Yeah, scaring them all off was probably a bad idea.

You've really gone off the deep end, haven't you?

Why are all communist nations hit with a famine?

Capitalist dogs who don't follow the glorious hive mind.

God dammit, shitstorm inbound.

Ohohohoho, I'm going to enjoy this.

There was more to it than the fucking weather. Don't pretend otherwise. I'm not saying there was some master plan for Stalin to wipe out all the Ukrainians, because that's just bullshit, and contrary to the facts, but the overzealousness of the collectivization plan, from Stalin himself all the way down to party officials operating on the ground was such a shock to Russian agriculture that it was rendered completely incapabable of surviving a famine, which exacerbated the issue beyond compare when it actually hit. This is irrelevant anyway - my point, which you've dodged, was simply that famines happen in communist countries too. So don't blame that shit on 'big bad capitalism', because it's oversimplifying the issue.

So you're just going to 'eliminate' the unbelievers, huh? And then your utopia will be realised? Fucking hell. You're not a communist - you're a cultist.

Could've fooled me.

Same shit, different excuse.

And how is it exactly, that people voicing their opinions free of the threat of violence going to kill "millions", exactly? Please, explain this to me. I could use a laugh.

The historical track record seems to indicate otherwise.

"The historical track record seems to indicate otherwise."

Lock them up for life or kill them - makes no difference to why you did it. This apologism is disgusting.

A simplification on my part - but he did deem them a threat to 'glorious socialism' and therefore treated them in the exact same way as capitalists. Don't believe me? Maybe you should read it from the horse's mouth.

The orchestrator of the entire revolution and consequent civil war was never harm to anyone? To be honest I think even Lenin himself would disagree with you on that.

Does the word "Kronstadt" ring any bells?

Having an opinion is worthless unless you are free to express it to others. That really doesn't take a genius to realise.

AHA! Sir, you are completely dished:

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam[1] (Russian: О́сип Эми́льевич Мандельшта́м; IPA: [ˈosʲɪp ɪˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪt͡ɕ məndʲɪlʲˈʂtam]; January 15 [O.S. January 3] 1891 – December 27, 1938) was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets. He was arrested by Joseph Stalin's government during the repression of the 1930s and sent into internal exile with his wife Nadezhda. Given a reprieve of sorts, they moved to Voronezh in southwestern Russia. In 1938 Mandelstam was arrested again and sentenced to a camp in Siberia. He died that year at a transit camp.

I said nothing about Stalin being a poet. Check your reading comprehension.

Pot, kettle, black.

You're right. You're basing it off nothing. I on the other hand have the entire history of the 20th fucking century to stand as my witness.

POT. KETTLE. BLACK.

Really. Well you can believe that if you like, but remember that you're sitting there right now enjoying all the benefits democracy has to offer, including being allowed to type this trash in the first place.

Go and read a history book. I dare you. I know you're only 13 and probably haven't had much contact with proper studies of history, but go on ahead. You'll learn a lot.

Yeah and a hundred years ago, the world was carved up by european empires - America had only just thrown off the slavery of blacks and people were regularly sent to prison, exiled or executed for sedition. However we didn't need communism to overcome these problems, and we certainly don't need your communism to overcome today's either.

Yes well I don't live in South Sudan, and it has nothing to do with communism so stop being so fucking ridiculous. You're doing your few comrades who have the ability to string at least two coherent thoughts together an injustice.

And stop being 13.

DISPENSING CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA IN:
3....
2...
1..

Eww, Ayn Rand. Somebody make it go away.

Kill it with fire.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GaltSpeaking?feature=gb_p13n_ch_rec

swag

Was there anything substantive to respond to? Scipio's posts are almost comically horrible, in terms of both content and delivery. He takes a topic wholly unrelated to freedom of speech, and uses it as a launching point for his campaign against basic human decency. Even the other reds find his posts disgusting (though I imagine it's more because he voiced their shared sentiment so directly, than because they disagree with the principles behind it), so how do you expect me to come here and not trash him? As I've explained before, ad hominem, while a logical fallacy, is entirely useful as an argumentative tool. Ethos is perhaps the most important part of argument, and discrediting your opponent's character is one of the best ways to show the flaws in their rhetoric, especially when your audience already disagrees with their position.

Furthermore, I cannot personally tolerate a description of that unearthly, misshapen worldview through any other terms than the most unpleasant ones I have available to me. There is simply nothing I hold in higher regard than the freedom of expression, and to those who wish to annihilate it I can share nothing but the most powerful scorn.

I've already explained this, but I have nothing but the greatest contempt for people like Scipio. I will not be forced into a pretense of niceness or tolerance because you feel that people are obligated to like each other. Unlike the wriggling forms that make up the left, I do not and will not treat a brute as a man.

I don't claim to have a one-size-fits-all solution for happiness like the reds do. I don't think something like that could possibly work. I also don't believe that most people should, or would, care to know enough about the intricacies of a long-dead ideology and the pus-oozing, tumorous things that worship it, to have to form an opinion on the matter. However, as I, like many others, carry the burden of that knowledge, there is naught I can do but oppose the creatures and their black speech, wherever they surface.

Thinking in any other way than for yourself is not only impossible, but sadistic. We've only got the one life, and to spend it sacrificing for people you'll never know and for ideals that will never be, is a great heresy. It's possible that you gain fulfillment from doing these things, which is fine. But for the great majority of us, altruism is a burden, and the prospect of affecting some distant, alien future in exchange for our present happiness is not only undesirable, but truly unthinkable.

Again: you cannot learn from mistakes you do not recognize. There is no situation in which anyone benefits by avoiding corrections for the sake of "niceness".

I hate using "again" once more, but I've really got no choice here; AGAIN, the quality of debate (and the resulting education) as a whole will suffer for tolerating simple mistakes. Typos are inevitable, yes, but they're also 100% correctable. Correcting them improves the audience's opinion of all the involved debaters. Lastly, there is no situation in which correcting errors can ever be looked down upon. No matter the benefits or effects, the corrector is in the right 100% of the time.

So basically, you don't like my tone. Oh my, forgive me for being annoyed at an opponent who fails to spell civilization correctly, and yet claims to have the knowledge necessary to lead us into an everlasting utopia. As I've said many times before, I am not nice simply for the sake of being nice. I do not hide behind pretense or mince words; I simply express my opinions in the most obvious manner available to me. If that offends you, you are free to block me or ignore me, but you cannot and should not expect me to change my speech to suit your sensibilities.

That's plainly nonsensical. Correcting the stupid mistakes of my opponents betters them, betters the audience, and betters the debate. I'm personally annoyed with basic linguistic failures, especially when they come from native speakers, so I also achieve some personal satisfaction by correcting their mistakes. That I have self-interest at heart (we all do, in all things) does not detract from the beneficial nature of my actions, or the simple irrefutability of their justification.

Really? Correcting the spelling and grammar of your opponent now identifies you with a political ideology? I wasn't aware that my views on the proper use of language would determine my political affiliation.

You seem to be rather lacking in the reading comprehension department:

"Operating within the status quo world order to maintain the status quo world order"

I do not oppose change. I oppose radical change that would throw the world into chaos. Change within the system we live in is not only desirable, but can actually happen. Without violence, even. There is no need to execute neo-Nazis or re-educate racists. There is no need to annihilate democracy and institute a strong-armed dictatorship. We have the capacity to address problems that actually affect people, like the cost of living or the availability of medical care, without obliterating everything and everyone who opposes those things. I believe that the world works, that people can solve the problems they face today, today. Democracy is the greatest instrument we have to that end, and liberty the most essential ingredient.

We won't get utopia. But then, I don't think we ever would. What we will get is a world that we can live in comfortably, and better comfortably. Or rather, that's what we ARE getting.

Maintaining it is the goal of man. Remaking it is the wish of a child.

The word you're looking for is "elicit".

In a purely semantic sense, yes, the freedom to speak without restriction is being infringed. When you are incapable of using your vocal chords to vibrate air in a pattern recognizable by those around you, your freedom to speak without restriction is infringed. However, the freedom of speech is more accurately described as the freedom of expression. Expression is, at its most fundamental level, the communication of ideas. If your ability to communicate ideas is not being infringed, then your freedom of expression is not being infringed.

The woman here had the capacity to communicate her ideas. She was and is free to talk about how much she hates immigrants or brown people. However, she wasn't doing that. She was not speaking because she wanted her views to be heard, or even because she had something to say. She was using her voice to directly harass those around her. More importantly, she was drunk and disorderly in a public space. She was not arrested because of anything she said, but because of the manner in which she said it (again, manner meaning delivery, not content), and place that she said it.

The reason that this isn't a free speech issue is because her ideas weren't being silenced, only her voice was.

Realistically, yes. I don't personally endorse that kind of behavior, but it's not wrong. There is only one moral compass, and it's internal. You cannot ask a man to do anything more than what he thinks is right, which is why this is an entirely tolerable statement. For the overwhelming majority of us, just as with altruism, pure, hedonistic egoism is undesirable. Whether it's because we get satisfaction from helping others, or because we feel guilt when we gain at someone else's expense, almost no one thinks this behavior is right. Moral hypocrisy is the only kind of immorality, and to that end, most of us will find this behavior immoral. However, there do exist people on this planet who legitimately believe in that sentiment, and who legitimately believe it's right. We have the right to persuade them, but we have no right to call them evil.

Christ, I honestly feel like just erasing this entire post and responding only to this unbelievably childish remark. Fuck, from someone who claims to look down on people who correct the opposition's spelling and grammar, this is just ridiculous. Not only is your remark plainly wrong, you also know that it's wrong. You want to talk about how you have "empathy" and "decency" and "you'd never stoop to my level," and then you go and pull this bullshit. Fuck you man.

"Too" can mean "also," "as well," "and," etc. In the context I used it, it most closely resembles "as well".

There does not exist such a thing. Only the bloated, gurgling, things that worship that unspeakable sentiment believe in such a vile, revolting concept.

Here you go again with that reading comprehension failure. I do not advocate a static, unchanging society. I believe many things extant in the status quo are wrong, and need to be corrected. However, I also believe that the means by which we correct these problems are equally extant in the status quo. Only the great heresies of those writhing, foul masses are unacceptable.

I didn't read all of Kalis' post, and I'm sure I'd disagree with most of it, but one part I did agree with was the bit about radical change being bad.
The problem arises when leaders care more about 'progress' or 'change' than the lives of their people, which is often what happens with Communism, as displayed by Stalin and others like him. However noble your goals for the progress of society are, pursuing them relentlessly, putting them above all else, will always turn out for the worst, as to such a leader lives and livelihoods are not as important as their views and beliefs.

I also think correcting minor spelling mistakes, which have no impact on the understandability of the post, is at best mildly annoying, and at worst disruptive to the thread, rude, and a waste of a post.

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me."

I guess capitalists can, then, since you brought it up as a downside of capitalism.

While I cannot dispute that the Right inhibits the Left from achieving its goals, and the Left inhibits the Right from achieving its goals, this being the basis for your destruction of opposing opinions undermines your "utopia". It is a faux perfect society, because no problems are solved, just concealed, similarly to the society depicted in Huxley's Brave New World. A true utopia only exists without restriction of thought.

I still have yet to find anywhere, in any of these posts, where an global left will create peace, equality, and progress. You seem to have this idea that it is all easily preventible. Maybe it is, but not from any sort of moral standpoint.

Because life imprisonment and isolation away from your utopian society is so much better. There are only three ways you can deal with those who would dissenters: isolation, death (a form of isolation in itself), or changing their mind. With the amount of varying opinion in the world on any given basis, I don't believe that changing their mind will be the most efficient method of control.

So you can have your idea's, just keep them in your head.

That was fine, because capitalist society is a utopian society, they needed to protect it from those who would disrupt the perfect world.

Hmmmmm...let's see. How is the Red Scare portrayed by American Society today?

Even Left ones, so I think we can agree that this has no bearing on the discussion.

You really hide the facts well in this post. I still can't find them, so could you just show it to me.

So.. Much... Space...

Because we're capitalist. Now get back to work! I'm going to be on my boat made of dead baby penguins and kittens while I dump life saving medicine into a volcano because I like the sound it makes.

Man, if the OP had his way, all the founding fathers would have been arrested, and the American revolution would have never gotten off its feet. And also, just because you disagree with it, or you find it offensive, does not mean that person should be locked up because it hurt your feelings or, you dont think she is right. It makes it even worse that you then turn around and say we need to silence the republicans and the fascists and everyone who is not a communist, just because you think they are wrong. You fail to take into account, that they also think you are wrong, but the funny thing is, it is the republicans that are some of the biggest proponents of free speech and they are not gonna lock you up for the exact reason you are locking them up.

I'm not even gonna bother responding to karas stupidity at the moment.