Can you generally tell the difference between hateful speech and a direct threat?
I can.
I fully support the individual, nature-conferred freedom of expression called "free speech." As an anarchist, I recognize that this does not mean anybody can barge onto my property and start spewing hate.
What I do recognize is the nature-conferred ability of every individual to vocal and written self-expression, and the necessity of individuals to be free to do so within Voluntaryist property norms.
I am not a Nazi, but it is wrong for me to "punch a Nazi" because of what they have simply said. If, however, a Nazi says "I am going to kill you tonight," then most competent arbiters would construe my punch to be a self-preservativory one, done in self-defense.
When speech is restricted, there is NO FREEDOM. Speech literally shapes and creates the reality we experience in so many ways.
Many say that the free speech of "Nazis" should not be respected. This is absurd. To respect free speech for one individual is to respect it for all. To use the violence of the state to keep a Neo-Nazi from simply speaking is to eventually advocate state violence against yourself when the tables of social and state norms turn. This is natural law and "karma" in action.
The real problem here, is the idea of "public property." Now we have a million people claiming to own the same property, and all trying to decide the rules for said property. This is why privatizationof everything is a necessity. Nature itself is essentially a private enterprise. There is order and propriety (property).
For now, free speech must not be met with violence on said "properties."
We must fight the real enemy. The state.
(Please enjoy the video at the top of the page.)
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
In the end, Trump was right. There were two sides in Charlottesville. But the MSM could never bring itself to admit there are two sides.
And for clarity, I believe Naziism is abhorrent, KKK is abhorrent, etc. And wrong.
But even then there can be two sides.
The folks that were using violence in Charlottesville, to try to stop speech they don't like, were also wrong.
there is always two sides of a statement :')
Upvoted, shared... Thank You for saying it... The double edged ax swings both ways and folks need to engage the brain before their mouths when trying to control everything.
Fitting quote: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. by Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I think this sentence sums it all up.
"To respect free speech for one individual is to respect it for all."
To be offended by someone freedom of speech is a choice. Tolerating free speech is a necessity.
Have a nice day, man.
You too!
Sometimes I find it hard to balance between what I really want to say and what I should say. It just slipped through my mouth, then ended up with an awkward situation. Free of speech... but everything free comes with a price.
Very true. And "price" is the right word.
I'm glad somewhere in the world reason still exist. it seems very absent these days in the USA. This week has been like a twilight zone episode and I really dont care to see its conclusion.
Peace be with you
Thanks, and you too, @truthseeker314.
You raise some good points. I like how straightforward you are. Along the same lines as your video on freedom of speech, here is a 2-minute video link to Steve Hugues' hilarious skit on "being offended". You've probably seen it already... just adding a little touch of humour to such a sensitive/serious topic.
I like how you write, and how straightforward you are. Your video reminded me of Steve Hugues' hilarious skit on "being offended"... Just adding a humorous note to a somewhat sensitive/serious topic
Thanks a lot, @osm0sis. I appreciate that. I also really like this skit!
Brilliant talk on free speech. Everyone has a right to their opinions so long as they don't impinge on others rights.
This is why I love this platform man :) Freedom is everywhere!
All the best bro ❤︎.
You too, @vangelov. Cheers!
I think it's generally easy to tell the difference between hateful speech and a direct threat. I agree that whoever says it isn't is playing stupid.
Really?
"I would kill them if I could" - is that hateful speech or a direct threat? (From this video)
https://steemit.com/politics/@lennstar/history-is-repeating
For the Alt-rights in this video, at least those in the bus, that is cleary only the use of Free Speech. At around minute 7f.
It is basic needs of people, if we do not find the opportunity to express ourselves, then we are not free citizens of a country. Private property, privatization are the dynamic concert ,govt should not established bindings on the people. As a child is born free, so it is our birth right to have freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of private property. Very good post and video ,you look very handsome in the video, have a great day friend.
Thank you, my friend.
Please go and have a look, I had wrote a poem," only feelings are immortal, "please tell me do you like it or not. Thanks for the sweet reply and looking forward for your reply again, because I have to make a decision. Please reply. Wish you a great time friend.
I fucking love this video! thank you for sharing this on the interwebs!
I fucking love this comment! Haha. Thank you man. Cheers!
I believe in free speech. Sticks and stones for the most part. But I think as a group who is generally walking a thin line between hate speech and threats, who are supposed to have a peaceful assembly to say what they want. The tone and the interpretation of the hate speech is going to change when the group comes fully loaded with weapons. I don't know if you saw the interview Vice did with the alt right but what in the world did they need that many guns for? Speech alone sure, no harm no fowl. But take some of those same statements and say them with a gun in your hand. You've created a threat.
I definitely agree that there are grey areas to this sometimes, that need to be worked out. That said, basing the foundational system on individual self-ownership would at least make this a morally legitimate endeavor.
I did see the Vice documentary, and yes, the alt-right crowd appeared to almost want violence at many points.
That said, ANTIFA is committing actual, direct violence out there and the MSM doesn't seem to care.
I didn't hear any direct threats from the alt-right folks on that video, I don't think, but I may have missed some. The weapons they were carrying were legal, so that technically cannot be construed as one (a threat). I don't know if any of them drew their weapons.
I still feel the difference between free speech and direct threat is pretty clear, at the end of the day.
Both groups are brainwashed statist zombies, at the end of the day, though, don't get me wrong, and I do believe there are grey areas at times.
Well said. Excellent post. Resteemed.
Thanks, @dwinblood. Much obliged.
Nice article. I'm generally for more privatization, but we can't privatize atmosphere, can we?
Haha. I 'm not sure that would be a good idea.... I'll be thinking about that one for awhile now.
Unfortunately, government regulation might be necessary in some such situations, where tragedy of the commons applies.
http://www.gametheorystrategies.com/2011/06/01/tragedy-of-the-commons/
If everything is private property, then the tradegy of the commons cannot occur. The coercion-based state creates and encourages said tragedy.
Thanks Graham, I feel like I been taken to school a little bit and learning. Very interesting video and I hope to hear more from you @kafkanarchy84
Yeah no point punching Nazi's unless there's a threat of genocide, you shouldn't attack someone for just being a dick.
There are too many fucking cry babies in this world and the scales are tipping in the direction of hurt feelings over true freedom of speech. We are merely one step away from Orwellian thought crime laws.
Sadly I have to agree 100%.
I am not sure that anyone is advocating taking away the Nazi's right to free speech. I have not seen anything like that anyway, so I do not see Nazi free speech as being threatened.
What I have seen, is the Nazi's get outnumbered 100 to 1 at the more recent demonstrations. A little bit of public shame goes a long way. They have free speech but so does everyone else. So if they are harassed 100 to 1, verbally, then it too is free speech that drives them away from demonstrating.
You have not seen the videos of demonstrators getting punched and pepper sprayed, or of the direct death threats being made?
I think most everyone agrees that such behavior is illegal, and wrong. Those folks at the demonstrations are emotionally charged and lost their temper. That is a different case. I don't see anyone saying it is illegal to simply dress like a Nazi, or even admit to being a racist.
Rather, many people just disagree with the Nazi message. That is not illegal either. It is also well protected, free speech to denounce Nazi behavior in every way possible if you feel it appropriate.
Kinda like this guy born in Austria, 1947!
Arnold Schwarzenegger message for President Trump and Neo- Nazis on Charlottesville violence.
Now he should address the Communists as well.
thumbnail is freakingly funny hahaha that face :O
I consider myself much more of a libertarian than anarchist, for what it's worth.
Your discourse about free speech and public v private property is absolutely spot on. Very clearly communicated. Thank you!
Thank you!
Very good post thanks. The one thing I really dislike is the term hate speech. You can be offended by speech yes, but you cannot be hated by speech. It is used for everything by the left. Either they have a very limited vocabulary or they are stupid. Having your feelings hurt is so far away from being subject to actual hatred that it is ludicrous to think that speech can be equated to hate in any way.
All this is absurd. Free speech is free, until it gets political. Your metaphor about punching a Nazi threatening to kill you applies at the higher political level. If a GROUP of Neo Nazis threaten to kill or enslave another GROUP of people, how does your metaphor stand? It's not personalized hatred, it's politically generalized hatred. The worst crime of Nazis in Germany wasn't that they INDIVIDUALLY threatened each and every jew of death, it is to generalize, once in control of political power, the extermination of jews. How do you punch a State in the face?
The real question about free speech and it's limits is where you set the boundary between voicing your personal opinion and joining a well defined group with a political agenda which, if realized, will restrict the freedom of others. Now we can debate when is the right TIME to censor or crack down on a group of people whose aim is to kill the freedom of others: is it when they first voice it? When they start to gain power (be elected in a parliament), once they have voted laws that restrict freedoms of others? But once you get to that stage, how do you fight back? In your ideal world, I take it you are an anarchist, since there is no state to fight over, there is no abuse of the "legitimate use of force" (aka the police/judicial system) and therefore, hate groups cannot gain traction or implement their ideas.
But this is extremely naive.
You postulate that without a State, the vacuum of power created will NOT entice groups of people to band together and realize their political projects given that there is no higher authority to restrain them. In other words, in anarchy, how can you even remotely believe that there will not be some form of authority which emerges, one way or another? You can already see that in failed states, (many African states, which have not successfully achieved a full control over their territory), local mafias, militias and other forms of violent groups bully citizens in one way or another. Anarchy is therefore simply the "survival of the fittest", and by no means a "free" society. You can never guarantee that in an anarchic state, a group of people won't band together to conquer power through violence. That is the story of the formation of Nation States in Medieval Europe!!! Also, if you studied a bit anarchy and the movement, you will find that even during the Spanish civil war or in the Zapatist movement, there IS some form of sovereignty and control, simply it is not institutionalized, but there ARE people being judged for crimes or excluded if they hamper society, and your definition of private property probably does not exist in the way you imagine it (in Spain during the civil war, it was a collective ownership of the means of production for instance).
Ah, you are here, too. Should I just copy/pasta my YouTube replies to this exact same comment you left on the my YouTube channel?
yes sir u r right and am agree with u that is eveything and also freedom is i think everything in every condition everywhere in speech or even every where and in every work and freedom of speech is a basic human right but only with positive not negative @kafkanarchy sir
Thanks, @shencoin. You don't need to call me "sir!" :)
Do not forget this: the difference between private and public property is just a state of mind.
I have to disagree with you, respectfully. My body is my private property, and this is a nature-conferred reality: I am the highest executive agent in regard to my body (and mind) according to biological design. Nature.
Unowned property that I create, homestead, or acquire as a gift or through voluntary exchange, through the labor/actions of this body is thus mine by extension. Any other system not based on this natural reality (independent self-ownership) always is violent, and always falls apart. Indeed, it objectively cannot work if peace is held as a value due to the economic reality of scarcity.
To put it simply: everybody understands this natural law reality. Some may deny it in word, but never in deed (unless they are physically neurologically damaged).
If I walk into a restaurant and take your food from your hand, that you have just paid for, you either consent or do not consent. There is no in between. Most likely you will react in shock and yell: "What are you doing!?" You may even get physical and attempt to stop the theft.
Even if you said, "Well, that is not my property, because property is only in the mind," then you have proven my point again. You had to choose to allow me to take it. This is because you own yourself, and you recognize the food as yours, properly (property). You recognize what is ap-prop-riate, i.e. what is proper.
With public and private the issue is the same. Two or more people can voluntarily agree to share property, and it can be jointly owned, but to say "everyone owns it" without getting the express consent of each individual party to the "contract" requires that some of the individuals accept others using their "property" without their consent.
i.e.
This is public property so I can call you racial slurs all I want!
I want to use the tax money you paid to build a park here! To hell with what you want to do!
You see, you don't have to have folks vote on whether or not someone can use racial slurs in your own house, or use your money to do renovations. You decide, because you own it.
If you cannot even use the public "property" you pay for--even in part, oftentimes--how can you be said to "own" it? It is a preposterous proposition (not that you are making said proposition).
Your body is not your property, it is you. You cannot give it to someone else (which is a necessary property of property) without losing (parts) of yourself.
Semantics. I have nature-conferred, highest direct executive capacity over my body and mind.
Not semantics, but necessarily definitions.
It is not property if you cannot transfer it.
That is e.g. the reason why you today you only get a license to play a game, but not property of a copy of a game. So that you cannot transfer it, that is the whole point of that construct.
You can still do everythign esle with that game that you can do if it is your property. The only thing you cannot is to transfer it. (Okay, and change it, but that is also true of your body, or can you grow a third leg if you want to?)
You are honestly telling me my body is not proper to me? It's laughable, Lenny.
Prostitutes do not surrender (transfer through time and space) their sexual organs for money?
I do not exchange my body being at home for being at work moving to make money when I teach?
It's right there in the language. My body. You sound crazy, Lenny.
Well, can you imagine that you send your body out to do it while you do something else? Of course not, that does not work. Because your body is not your property but you. Back to square 1: Property is transferable.
Lennstar argues that human bodies cannot be treated as property. This is contradicted by the institution of slavery. Slavery is the ownership of people's bodies, i.e. people's bodies are property that can be transferred. If someone can "own" another person as property, why can't someone "own" themselves? I don't get it...
Semantic fields cannot be isolated and treated as monolithic truths, they tend to overlap with or be overlapped by facts they cannot adequately encompass in and of themselves. It may be worth pointing out 'property' has at least 10 definitions; one of which is "a person, especially one under contract in entertainment or sports, regarding as having commercial value". This is why when arguing with syllogisms based on semantic fields we frequently use the qualifiers of 'some' not just 'all'. Here the qualifier of 'all' is the root of your disagreement with lennstar.
Let's write it out then: (A) Property is (B) transferrable. Your (C)body is not (B) transferrable. Thus your (C) body is not (A) property. Simplified: A=B, C≠B therefore A≠C : I believe this is a syllogistic fallacy known as the fallacy of the undistributed middle. If am in error, please correct me!
Thank you! Yes, you nailed it!
:D
Freedom of speech is a basic human right .. everyone is entitled to freedom of expression and opinion; This right includes the freedom to hold on to an opinion without any intervention, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of territorial boundaries.
No, people also have the right of free speech to tell you you are an idiot.
And funnily enough I know of no instance e.g. from courts where you have a right to receive. Only to utter.
good post and video
Nature is the opposite of a private enterprise, it is owned by no one and does not produce out of selfish interest.
In fact private property, especially on anything you cannot around yourself, is a relatively new legal fiction, younger then communally owned things.
And there is no private property that has survived to serve a certain purpose as long as communally managed and non-owned "institutions".
Good, then as I have said to you before, I'll be over around five for dinner. Glad there is no such thing as private property or I couldn't freely raid your fridge, Lenny!
I have never said there is no private property. I said that the idea of private property that extents on things you cannot carry around yourself is a (historically looking) new idea. Even today human tribes exist that would laugh at the idea that you can own land, a tree or a river.
Yes, and I'm sure @kafkanarchy84 will laugh at the idea that you can own a fridge filled with food, just as you laugh at the idea of owning people, or laugh at the idea of owning a cow, or a taco tree, or whatever else.
If all real estate is private, where it the orphan alloweed to stand? Where can he eat, drink and sleep? Where is he even allowed to speak?
If you expell him from your land, whose land will you be putting him on? Aren't you contributing to the violation of that others property rights?
He can't even earn without the permission of an existing owner... sounds like tyranny by the encombants to me.
Right. Animals don't have territory, rivers don't have banks, and your internal organs are not contained within your body as an independent system, separate from the systems of other organisms, essentially. Also, I can magically stand in the exact same space in which you are standing. It's magic.
The dog has a territory, but he does not own the land or the river.
That part of me is inside me does not make it my property. It is me. My table is not me.
And yes, you can stand in exact the same space as me, just wait, I make a step to the side ;)
You can't be so obtuse as to not know what I meant, Lenny. I meant at the same time, of course. Have a good day. ;)
There is a very narrow border. For example, a person did not say: I'm going to kill you in the evening. He said differently: I think you should be killed, the world would become purer. What then?
He freely expressed his opinion, and, it seems, did not touch you. And someone with an unbalanced psyche will read it, come and kill you.
Didn't excacty that happen 4 month or so ago? A Nazi nut heard one of his racist heroes say that and killed somebody?
There will always be the. red for discretion and even arbitration. I have no problem with these things. We have senses that understand beyond mere text. The above things could be said in various ways.
As it stands now, the state is a horrible arbiter, and my sense has been pretty decent in this area. Most people's is.
I very much appreciate your post, found you over @dwinblood's resteem, you got a new follower! Dwin has pollinating a lot of my posts with his ideas and it has resulted in a rich dialogue that treats many of the issues you raised here. Might interest you. Cheers!
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