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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?
If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.
That is not going to be a problem, Kirth. Stop putting up straw men, please. And even outright lying is covered by freedom of speech. The exceptions to this are specific and few.
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1. Stop putting up straw men, please.
2. And even outright lying is covered by freedom of speech.
1. It's not a staw man if people are outright advocating it.
2. See #1. If you don't like my example, pick another one. Slander, libel are actual things, for example; I believe they should remain so. YMMV.
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Nope. I never had the freedom to engage in conduct that is likely to result in the breach of hte peace; I'm not giving up anything.
When tyrant rise to power, opposing them is breaching the peace. if tyrants rise as they have and will, you will be a slave. You give up liberty for an illusion of safety and thus deserve neither
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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.
And thats the beauty of it, will you sit silently when someone says your views are lies? Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other? What you advocate is nothing less than giving tyrants what they NEED for the next Hitler or Stalin to rise and silence those that dare question. THAT is how millions die, not in disagreement over opinion but in silence as people dare NOT question.
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When tyrant rise to power, opposing them is breaching the peace. if tyrants rise as they have and will, you will be a slave. You give up liberty for an illusion of safety and thus deserve neither
Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts in your head? Or did the slogans take up all the space?
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And thats the beauty of it, will you sit silently when someone says your views are lies?
Probably not. That's why we have, you know, trials....
Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other?
The judicial process, through rule of law as implemented with the consent of the governed via the democratic process.
What you advocate is nothing less than giving tyrants what they NEED for the next Hitler or Stalin to rise and silence those that dare question.
Closer to "nothing like giving tyrants what they NEED for the next Hitler or Stalin to rise and silence those that dare question.[/QUOTE=]
THAT is how millions die,
By following ideologues based on slogans instead of thought, and based on rules instead of reason.
Smith nailed you above:
ideology, in general, seems to me to be rooted in an ultimate fear that humans are not capable of making reasoned judgements in a given situation and/or that people will generally make decisions we don't agree with. The response, then, seems to be to set up a system of "rules" to try and remove the onus of decision makers from actual human beings, and instead to rely on some external guiding principle to absolve us of the need to make a reasoned decision (and thus risk being wrong). Ultimately, I think that is an act of moral cowardice - to me, the "optimal" ideology is one of reasoned pragmatism. This means that sometimes it is okay to regulate speech, and other times it is not. The risk that people will accidentally go to far is simply the price we pay for living in a world with other, imperfect humans.
You're afraid of moral reasoning, and would rather die pointlessly according to rule rather than have to work to make a decision.
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Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts in your head? Or did the slogans take up all the space?
When tyrant rise to power, opposing them is breaching the peace. if tyrants rise as they have and will, you will be a slave. You give up liberty for an illusion of safety and thus deserve neither
I see that freedom is meaningless to you so be it. you can be a safe coward, i would rather man had liberty. That is a greater thought than you will ever know.
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You're afraid of moral reasoning, and would rather die pointlessly according to rule rather than have to work to make a decision.
Quite the opposite i would rather a man makes his own moral reasoning than bow to that of some master telling him right from wrong. Your way is abdicating that choice and work to another. I would rather die with the point of making the decision for myself than be told
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And thats the beauty of it, will you sit silently when someone says your views are lies? Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other? What you advocate is nothing less than giving tyrants what they NEED for the next Hitler or Stalin to rise and silence those that dare question. THAT is how millions die, not in disagreement over opinion but in silence as people dare NOT question.Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.
The German law doesn't silence dissent and questioning. It silences propaganda intended to cover up massive crimes.
Why are you in favor of propaganda covering up massive crimes?
If you think it isn't propaganda, please feel free to show the value in Holocaust denial.
Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.
Well, how does a large entity like a government sort out malfeasance from mere stupidity?
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That is not going to be a problem, Kirth.
Actually, it is and has been. That's why laws like the Pure Food and Drink Act (q.v.) exist, because people were deliberately mislabelling stuff. Still is, in fact. A lot of the various "naturalistic" products on the market are filled with God-knows-what, including off-license use of various regulated pharmaceuticals. Here's a relatively recent example. The product in question is marketed as "completely herbal" but contains up to four times the maximum regulated dose of various synthetic drugs.
And here's a similar example from the United States, dated only last month.
Nothing at all about Kirth's situation is a "straw man"; it is, in fact, an all-to-common business practice.
And even outright lying is covered by freedom of speech. The exceptions to this are specific and few.
Yes, and Holocaust denial (in Germany) is one of those specific exceptions, along with slander, libel, fraudulent advertising, incitement to riot, conspiracy to commit a crime, and so on.
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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.Well, how does a large entity like a government sort out malfeasance from mere stupidity?
There's this thing... I think it's called a "trial,"....
I see that freedom is meaningless to you so be it. you can be a safe coward, i would rather man had liberty. That is a greater thought than you will ever know.
Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts in your head? Or did the slogans take up all the space?
As I suspected, that's a "no, no thoughts, just slogans" then.
Thanks for confirming.
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And thats the beauty of it, will you sit silently when someone says your views are lies? Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other? What you advocate is nothing less than giving tyrants what they NEED for the next Hitler or Stalin to rise and silence those that dare question. THAT is how millions die, not in disagreement over opinion but in silence as people dare NOT question.Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?If I make sausage filled with rat poison and toxic waste, can I market it as "fresh, wholesome, 100% organically-grown pork sausage with no fillers"? After all, you have no right to take away my freedom of speech. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech, but even I stop when it becomes outright lying.The German law doesn't silence dissent and questioning. It silences propaganda intended to cover up massive crimes.
Why are you in favor of propaganda covering up massive crimes?
If you think it isn't propaganda, please feel free to show the value in Holocaust denial.
There is none. just as there is none in many made up religions, many foolish philosophies. Just like there is no value in many idiot politically correct attempts to control our lives. But who are we to stop them from saying it? After all if we stop them why not stop every value less, foolish and maybe dangerous opinion? Again i ask, where do you stop? I say stop at the government EVER having the power to silence. YOU know they are nuts, most of us know they are nuts. Teach those that do not know the difference but do not give the government the power to decide and silence. NOTHING good will come of that in the end
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Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other?
Um, there are things called "facts." They can be demonstrated by independent people, using stuff called "evidence." Philosophically-speaking, you can't prove them 100%, but you can get way past any standard of evidence ever required in a court of law.
"The Earth is flat" is not an unverifiable opinion; it's an outright falsehood. "Your 1-week-old blastoid looks like a baby and has a heartbeat" is another.
Opinions involve sentiments that are not testable hypotheses. "David Hasselhoff is cool" is not a testable hypothesis, so it's an opinion.
The fact that lies are so important to some people that they constantly "forget" the difference between fact and opinion is quite telling.
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I see that freedom is meaningless to you so be it. you can be a safe coward, i would rather man had liberty. That is a greater thought than you will ever know.
Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts in your head? Or did the slogans take up all the space?As I suspected, that's a "no, no thoughts, just slogans" then.
Thanks for confirming.
If the notion of liberty is just a slogan to you then you are already lost.
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Who decides the truth of belief and opinion and who gets the right to silence the other?Um, there are things called "facts." They can be demonstrated by independent people, using stuff called "evidence." Philosophically-speaking, you can't prove them 100%, but you can get way past any standard of evidence ever required in a court of law.
"The Earth is flat" is not an unverifiable opinion; it's an outright falsehood. "Your 1-week-old blastoid looks like a baby and has a heartbeat" is another.
Opinions involve sentiments that are not testable hypotheses. "David Hasselhoff is cool" is not a testable hypothesis, so it's an opinion.
The fact that lies are so important to some people that they constantly "forget" the difference between fact and opinion is quite telling.
Then educate on the truth rather than sacrifice freedom to speak.Once you give up a freedom you will never get it back, it is not worth the risk.
That is not going to be a problem, Kirth.Actually, it is and has been. That's why laws like the Pure Food and Drink Act (q.v.) exist, because people were deliberately mislabelling stuff. Still is, in fact. A lot of the various "naturalistic" products on the market are filled with God-knows-what, including off-license use of various regulated pharmaceuticals. Here's a relatively recent example. The product in question is marketed as "completely herbal" but contains up to four times the maximum regulated dose of various synthetic drugs.
And here's a similar example from the United States, dated only last month.
Nothing at all about Kirth's situation is a "straw man"; it is, in fact, an all-to-common business practice.
And even outright lying is covered by freedom of speech. The exceptions to this are specific and few.Yes, and Holocaust denial (in Germany) is one of those specific exceptions, along with slander, libel, fraudulent advertising, incitement to riot, conspiracy to commit a crime, and so on.
You know, way to try to understand someone's point. What I meant - while being respectful of your homecooked version of what I meant - was that fraudulent advertising by the company making a product is a simply delineated issue. It pertains only, specifically in the situation where someone is trying to sell something and lies about the product. Thus, it's not a matter that can conceivably be used to stifle debate through various precedents and other legal processes. That is where it differs from the argument that the state should be allowed to decide who gets to say what is holocaust denial - and put those on one side of that law in jail for it. Certainly, fraudulent advertising is a problem, but saying it's a free speech problem is missing the point completely.
As for the last passage, it's sad debating with someone who lacks reading comprehension. I said the exceptions to lying being illegal are specific and few. The problem with slander, libel, incitement to riot and conspiracy to commit a crime isn't that people are LYING per se, rather that they are breaking the limits for free speech. The instances where lying is illegal are things like committing perjury.
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Then educate on the truth rather than sacrifice freedom to speak.
Unfortunately, research shows that, paradoxically, efforts to debunk myths only strengthens belief in them, because people's brains don't logically process information the way we think they do.
If I spend $10M on an ad campaign about the Earth being flat, and the meme catches on, after that, everything NASA does to prove me wrong does nothing but strengthen my ad campaign. That's one reason "money = speech" is so pernicious a concept.
But the Earth being flat is not an opinion; it's an incorrect fact, and, ultimately, a lie. It can be proven wrong using evidence, even if 99% of the population biologically cannot get past the sound bytes to the contrary. Widespread acceptance of a flat earth would disrupt flight plans and confuse a lot of people, but isn't anywhere near as dangerous, on the whole, as the anti-vax movement (of which I can only assume you're a supporter).
Well, how does a large entity like a government sort out malfeasance from mere stupidity?
Further to previous. Are you at all familiar with the David Irving trial? Because this very point came up.
Quotations are from the trial numbers, with paragraph numbers intact.
13.4 If the charge of misrepresentation and falsification of the historical evidence is substantially made out, there remains the question whether it was deliberate. Irving rightly stresses that the Defendants have accused him of deliberately perverting the evidence. For their part the Defendants recognise that it is incumbent on them to establish, according to the appropriate standard of proof, that the misrepresentation and falsification were motivated by Irving's ideological beliefs or prejudices. In this context, I shall consider the submission made by Irving that he has been guilty, at worst, of making errors in his handling of the historical record. As I will explain in assess Irving's motivation, I will also take into account the evidence of the public statements by Irving in which he allegedly denied the Holocaust; the evidence upon the basis of which the Defendants accuse him of anti-semitism and racism and the evidence of his alleged association with right-wing extremists.
When it became obvious during the trial that the weight of factual evidence was strongly against the historical accuracy of Irving's claims, one of his last, desperate cards to play was the "it was mere stupidity and not malfeasance" argument. So it's directly relevant to the question you asked -- how does the decider-of-fact distinguish the two?
13.12 I am satisfied that in Goering and to a lesser extent in Hitler's War, Irving misrepresents Hitler's role in the putsch. The evidence does not support the claim that Hitler was seeking to maintain order. Irving embroiders the incident when the ex-Army lieutenant is disciplined in such a way as to present Hitler as having behaved responsibly. But the evidence of Hitler's role in the putsch suggests otherwise. Irving ought to have appreciated that Hofmann's allegiance to Hitler rendered his testimony untrustworthy.
This is just one of many examples of Irving's poor conduct as a historian. I'll omit the rest, but present this just to point out that the factual inaccuracies had been proven.
13.47 Irving quoted the material part of this speech in full in Hitler's War. I do not accept the Defendants' argument that his prefatory comment amounts to misrepresenting or twisting Hitler's words. The reader can judge for himself.
... and not all of the alleged inaccuracies were accepted as such in the trial judgment.
13.91 Having considered the various arguments advanced by Irving to assail the effect of the convergent evidence relied on by the Defendants, it is my conclusion that no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that they were operated on a substantial scale to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews.
But enough inaccuracies were established to destroy Irving's credibility as a competent historian.
13.140 Historians are human: they make mistakes, misread and misconstrue documents and overlook material evidence. I have found that, in numerous respects, Irving has misstated historical evidence; adopted positions which run counter to the weight of the evidence; given credence to unreliable evidence and disregarded or dismissed credible evidence. It appears to me that an analysis of those instances may shed light on the question whether Irving's misrepresentation of the historical evidence was deliberate.13.141 I have found that most of the Defendants' historiographical criticisms of Irving set out in section V of this judgement are justified. In the vast majority of those instances the effect of what Irving has written has been to portray Hitler in a favourable light and to divert blame from him onto others. I have held that this is unjustified by the evidence. Examples include Irving's portrayal of Hitler's conduct and attitude towards the events of Kristallnacht and the importance attached by Irving to Hitler's attitude towards the Jewish question as he claims is evidenced by the Schlegelberger note. I have seen no instance where Irving has misinterpreted the evidence or misstated the facts in a manner which is detrimental to Hitler. Irving appears to take every opportunity to exculpate Hitler. The same is true of the broader criticism made by the Defendants' of Irving's unwarrantedly favourable depiction of Hitler in regard to his attitude towards the Jews, which criticism I have found in section VI above to be justified. Irving sought in his writings to distance Hitler from the programme of shooting Jews in the East and from the later genocide in the death camps in a manner which the evidence did not warrant. Irving has argued, unjustifiably as I have found, that the evidence indicates that Hitler was unaware of any programme for the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz. In his account of the bombing of Dresden Irving (as I have found in section X1 above) persistently exaggerates the number of casualties, so enabling him to make comparisons between the number of civilians killed in Allied bombing raids with the number of Jews killed in the camps.
13.142 In my opinion there is force in the opinion expressed by Evans that all Irving's historiographical "errors" converge, in the sense that they all tend to exonerate Hitler and to reflect Irving's partisanship for the Nazi leader. If indeed they were genuine errors or mistakes, one would not expect to find this consistency. I accept the Defendants' contention that this convergence is a cogent reason for supposing that the evidence has been deliberately slanted by Irving.
Here's the meat of the question. Against Irving's contention that these were mere incompetence, the Defense argued that they were systematic and deliberate misrepresentations with the intention of whitewashing Hitler. As the judge noted, all of Irving's mistakes pointed in that same direction, a noteworthy coincidence if they were genuine errors.
13.147 I recognise that it is not always easy for Irving to cast his mind back over the years so as to explain why and how his mistakes were made. In my view, however, in many instances, including those set out in the preceding paragraph, the explanations which he offered were unconvincing. The absence of credible explanations lends further support to the Defendants' argument that Irving's misrepresentation of the historical record was not inadvertent.
Irving was unable to provide an explanation for his errors (and, stripping this of traditional British reserve of phrasing, lied on the stand to cover them up). This further casts doubt on his honesty.
13.150 As I have already observed in the course of dealing with the historiographical criticism of Irving, there is a comparable lack of even-handedness when it comes to Irving's treatment of eye-witnesses. He takes a highly sceptical approach towards the evidence of the survivors and camp officials at Auschwitz and elsewhere who confirm the genocidal operation of gas chambers at the camp (Tauber, Olere, Wisliceny, Hoss and Miller). But in relation to other witnesses (such as Hitler's adjutants, Christa Schroder and Voigt), where there is greater reason for caution about their testimony, Irving appears to adopt it uncritically. I accept that Irving had interviewed personally many of the witnesses in the latter category and so could form his own assessment. Even so, the contrast in approach is remarkable.13.151 The double standards which Irving adopts to some of the documents and to some of the witnesses appears to me to be further evidence that Irving is seeking to manipulate the evidence rather than approaching it as a dispassionate, if sometimes mistaken, historian.
He treated evidence with clear bias amounting to a "double standard."
And finally, the money shot:
13.163 Having reviewed what appear to me to be the relevant considerations, I return to the issue which I defined in paragraph 13.138 above. I find myself unable to accept Irving's contention that his falsification of the historical record is the product of innocent error or misinterpretation or incompetence on his part. When account is taken of all the considerations set out in paragraphs 13.140 to 13.161 above, it appears to me that the correct and inevitable inference must be that for the most part the falsification of the historical record was deliberate and that Irving was motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence.
Having considered the idea of "innocent error or misinterpretation or incompetence,"..... no.
This is the way decisions are supposed to be taken under rule of law. A neutral third party carefully and deliberately reviews the arguments of both sides in conjunction with the supporting evidence and makes the best decision available to him or her. In the event that the decision goes the wrong way, there's an appeal process available (a process, by the way, that Irving used but did not succeed with).
The idea of distinguishing between malice and incompetence is not actually that controversial in law. That's one of the decisions that the jury has to make every time there's a murder trial -- whether the killing was intentional (and hence murder) or accidental (and hence manslaughter, or perhaps even mischance). No one bats an eye at the idea that a person on the stand might say "I was cleaning my gun and it went off" and be lying about it. I don't have any problem with the idea that Irving's statement that "these were honest mistakes" was equally a lie.
Then educate on the truth rather than sacrifice freedom to speak.Unfortunately, research shows that, paradoxically, efforts to debunk myths only strengthens belief in them, because people's brains don't logically process information the way we think they do.
If I spend $10M on an ad campaign about the Earth being flat, and the meme catches on, after that, everything NASA does to prove me wrong does nothing but strengthen my ad campaign. That's one reason "money = speech" is so pernicious a concept.
But the Earth being flat is not an opinion; it's an incorrect fact, and, ultimately, a lie. It can be proven wrong using evidence, even if 99% of the population biologically cannot get past the sound bytes to the contrary.
So tell us, Kirth: Should it be illegal to lie in all circumstances? Or just when you're committing OUTRIGHT lies? How should such a massive new legal principle be encoded for maximum utility?
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Then educate on the truth rather than sacrifice freedom to speak.Unfortunately, research shows that, paradoxically, efforts to debunk myths only strengthens belief in them, because people's brains don't logically process information the way we think they do.
If I spend $10M on an ad campaign about the Earth being flat, and the meme catches on, after that, everything NASA does to prove me wrong does nothing but strengthen my ad campaign. That's one reason "money = speech" is so pernicious a concept.
But the Earth being flat is not an opinion; it's an incorrect fact, and, ultimately, a lie. It can be proven wrong using evidence, even if 99% of the population biologically cannot get past the sound bytes to the contrary.
Would you then advocate people only hearing the official government endorsed facts, opinions and religious views to be safe that they do not believe the wrong thing? If not why not, given what you just said about the power of a lie to be so easily accepted as truth?
Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts in your head? Or did the slogans take up all the space?
When tyrant rise to power, opposing them is breaching the peace. if tyrants rise as they have and will, you will be a slave. You give up liberty for an illusion of safety and thus deserve neitherI'm also amused by the idea that a tyrant, having risen to power, will just look at the existing laws and say "Oh, it's legal for them to criticize me and oppose me, so I guess I'll have to let them."
If he's a tyrant, he'll change the laws as he wants anyway.
Ummm... what if our laws as written allow someone more leeway than they should have in the tyrancy department? Exceedingly rare is the government that will NOT use whatever laws they have available to push its will, because of something as flimsy as principles.
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Would you then advocate people only hearing the official government endorsed facts, opinions and religious views to be safe that they do not believe the wrong thing?
Let me keep trying, since my point seems to be sailing right by you (and Sissyl, for that matter). No government or church gets to decide what "facts" are correct. Evidence does. Things that are demonstratively false -- that are disproven by the evidence -- are false. Opinion has nothing to do with it.
I don't care if you like Fabian better than Elvis. I might not agree, but that's an opinion, and it's off-limits for any person or organization to dictate. I do care if you claim that Fabian invented the toaster oven, and start charging me royalties for toaster oven sales on that basis. We have a legal system in the framework of which I am allowed to prove you wrong and stop your "free speech" there. And, to reply to Sissyl as well, I don't see why that shouldn't apply to the anti-vax claims as well -- they have been disproven by evidence and acting on them is harmful to the population as a whole; saying they're "just an opinion" or "OK because free speech" is pushing the boundaries.
So... if you can provide evidence that someone is going to say something that is untrue, you get to prevent them from saying it?
So... if you can provide evidence that someone is going to say something that is untrue, you get to prevent them from saying it?
I have no idea what evidence could possibly demonstrate that. Claims of clairvoyance are not evidence, and I'm not in the business of though crimes, Sissyl. But if you claim you are really me and I'm impersonating me, I get to tell you to stop it, and if I can prove I'm right, there actually are, finally, statutes for identity theft -- although in the past they were considerably looser. I don't think that made them "better."
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Would you then advocate people only hearing the official government endorsed facts, opinions and religious views to be safe that they do not believe the wrong thing?Let me keep trying, since my point seems to be sailing right by you (and Sissyl, for that matter). No government or church gets to decide what "facts" are correct. Evidence does. Things that are demonstratively false -- that are disproven by the evidence -- are false. Opinion has nothing to do with it.
I don't care if you like Fabian better than Elvis. I might not agree, but that's an opinion, and it's off-limits for any person or organization to dictate. I do care if you claim that Fabian invented the toaster oven, and start charging me royalties for toaster oven sales on that basis. We have a legal system in the framework of which I am allowed to prove you wrong and stop your "free speech" there.
Ok so only facts can be legally enforced. It is a fact that evolution happened. outlaw all religion that disagrees with that fact. goodbye first amendment. It is a fact that guns kill, it is also a fact that gun are used in self defense and national defense so guns must be non-existent or completely available. It is a fact that laws against search and seizure make it harder to gather evidence so those should go. See, simply enforcing facts gets rid of freedoms fast. How many other freedoms can we lose in the name of enforcing facts?
I don't care if you like Fabian better than Elvis. I might not agree, but that's an opinion, and it's off-limits for any person or organization to dictate. I do care if you claim that Fabian invented the toaster oven, and start charging me royalties for toaster oven sales on that basis. We have a legal system in the framework of which I am allowed to prove you wrong and stop your "free speech" there.
Something else that you need to consider -- and Sissyl as well -- is that you need "standing" in order to do that. Courts won't generally intervene in private disputes unless there's an actual injury or some other legal reason for them to intervene. If I say that Fords are better than GMs and you disagree with me, we can't ask the Supreme Court to referee. On the other hand, if I fire you for liking GMs, that might be a wrongful dismissal claim (because you've been injured by the loss of a job).
In criminal cases, the people collectively have authorized the state to take action on their behalf, providing the state with standing to act in just those case where the authorization has been provided.
So, answering Sissyl,
if you can provide evidence that someone is going to say something that is untrue, you get to prevent them from saying it?
Sometimes. If I can establish that what is going to be said will injure me personally, yes, of course I can. If I can establish that what is going to be said will injure a group of which I am a member,.... I can under German law, but not under US law. (You can't slander groups in the US.) If I can establish that what is going to be said will injure a dead person, then I'm out of luck in the US, but I can still do something in Germany if the person involved was a close relative of mine.
And in some specific cases, such as fraud (or in Germany, Holocaust denial), the state is specifically authorized to step in without any specific person complaining.
Kirth: If... I claim that I'm you... and you're impersonating you... ummm...
My point, that seems to be whizzing by above YOUR head, is that you are trying to discuss lying in a debate about free speech. Certain specific forms of lies are illegal, certainly, but the truth of a statement has, up to now, not been a matter of free speech, as far as I know. The US has the exception to slander and libel laws that if you can prove what you said was actually true, then no crime has been committed, but that's not what we're discussing either.
Andrew, man, you're ranting. You've gone from "the nation directly responsible for the Holocaust has laws against denying its existence" to "facts make seizure of firearms from civilian owners inevitable." Just chill, man.
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Andrew, man, you're ranting. You've gone from "the nation directly responsible for the Holocaust has laws against denying its existence" to "facts make seizure of firearms from civilian owners inevitable." Just chill, man.
No i have stayed the course that i disagree with restricting freedom of speech because that is the first step in losing freedoms as a whole. I would rather hear awful opinions than risk us being allowed no opinions at all.
My point, that seems to be whizzing by above YOUR head, is that you are trying to discuss lying in a debate about free speech.
Of course I am; I could hardly have missed that. As you keep pointing out, in many of those cases (slander, libel) people have agreed with me for time immemorial. In other cases which I have pointed out (food ingredients, identity theft) the laws originally did not, but they eventually caught up. In more cases (refusal to vaccinate) I trust they'll eventually catch up. All of these examples have a common theme, you'll notice, which I've taken some pains to point out.
So... if you can provide evidence that someone is going to say something that is untrue, you get to prevent them from saying it?I have no idea what evidence could possibly demonstrate that.
Well, if you have a preprint of an article that libels you, you can seek a permanent injunction against its publication. And, yes, you can do that.
If you have a preprint of an article that claims that the toaster was invented by Alfred Nobel,... you can't do much about that, as you don't have standing.
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I would rather hear awful opinions than risk us being allowed no opinions at all.
I agree. But again, facts =/= opinions.
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Andrew, man, you're ranting.No i have stayed the course
I see no reason to disagree with either of these statements.
If you have a preprint of an article that claims that the toaster was invented by Alfred Nobel,... you can't do much about that, as you don't have standing.
Currently, that is true. I don't really agree that evidence-based reality can be considered "none of my business," but I am coapable of comprehending that, in a nation of 300M people, potentially allowing 299,999,999 of them to file the same suit independently would be somewhat of a burden on the courts, so some means is needed to keep that manageable, even if I'm not 100% sold on the method chosen (standing).
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My point, that seems to be whizzing by above YOUR head, is that you are trying to discuss lying in a debate about free speech.Of course I am; that's the whole point. In a lot of cases, I don't think it should be, and with time the support seems to be moving in that direction.
As you keep pointing out, in many of those cases (slander, libel) people have agreed with me for time immemorial. In other cases which I have pointed out (food ingredients, identity theft) the laws originally did not, but they eventually caught up. In more cases (refusal to vaccinate) I trust they'll eventually catch up. All of these examples have a common theme, you'll notice.
And to the militant vegan they are hoping that some day you lose the freedom to eat meat and advocate for such and to some religion they are awaiting the day you can no longer question their teachings. etc etc. Which is just right and proper and which is too far? The common theme is that for the current accepted majority it makes them happy, but right here we can say that many think you go too far with wanting to enforce vaccines. i would love to see more people get them but do not think it right to force them.
And to the militant vegan they are hoping that some day you lose the freedom to eat meat...
Have them demonstrate that my eating meat is directly harmful to them. That's susceptible to evidence. If they can prove it using evidence, I'll give up that right -- but I really don't think they can. Until then, their opinion that "eating meat is bad" is just that, an opinion.
Can you really not tell the difference between facts and opinions? Or are you just stonewalling me?
So, again, where would you draw the line? Who gets to judge the evidence?
After the swine flu furor in Sweden, we discovered that there was a large number of cases of narcolepsia among children. Sure enough, going through the records showed that all of these children had gotten flu vaccine shots. Narcolepsia is a very rare condition, so it wasn't just statistical noise, but was eventually judged to be a very real side effect, probably permanent, of the vaccine as it was distributed.
Would you consider this too to be anti-vacc screed, fit to bury under a law on what's okay to talk about and not?
Traditional vaccines are well-known, unchanging entities. The new flu vaccines are new drugs for each specific epidemic, using various preservatives and boosters each time. This lies inherent in the method of production we need to use to get them out in time, and doesn't seem likely to change in the near future. Nevertheless, a law saying you're not allowed to criticize the use of vaccines will mean that we aren't going to learn anything about the side effects of each new vaccine - something I am sure Big Pharma would have a happygasm about.
Is that what you want?
Nevertheless, a law saying you're not allowed to criticize the use of vaccines will mean that we aren't going to learn anything about the side effects of each new vaccine
I don't see how that follows, given that it's childishly easy to demonstrate that Vaccine A =/= Vaccine B. While in a messageboard post I may have carelessly stated the case in more general terms, I don't think that intentionally conflating all vaccines with each other is a reasonable interpretation of what I'm saying. Nor do I think that, if Snake Oil Q is proven to cause renal failure, then all medicine should be discontinued.
If you really think that I think that, you either haven't been paying attention or else are not in any way trying to have an honest discussion. Based on past evidence, I'm assuming the latter.
And to the militant vegan they are hoping that some day you lose the freedom to eat meat and advocate for such and to some religion they are awaiting the day you can no longer question their teachings. etc etc. Which is just right and proper and which is too far?My point, that seems to be whizzing by above YOUR head, is that you are trying to discuss lying in a debate about free speech.Of course I am; that's the whole point. In a lot of cases, I don't think it should be, and with time the support seems to be moving in that direction.
As you keep pointing out, in many of those cases (slander, libel) people have agreed with me for time immemorial. In other cases which I have pointed out (food ingredients, identity theft) the laws originally did not, but they eventually caught up. In more cases (refusal to vaccinate) I trust they'll eventually catch up. All of these examples have a common theme, you'll notice.
That's a matter for the population as a whole to decide, in accordance with the rule of law and the accepted principles of democratic government. If someone can actually produce evidence that convinces the majority of people that eating meat is a sufficiently grave matter of public health and safety, it will be outlawed, just as drunken driving was outlawed.
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There is none. just as there is none in many made up religions, many foolish philosophies. Just like there is no value in many idiot politically correct attempts to control our lives. But who are we to stop them from saying it? After all if we stop them why not stop every value less, foolish and maybe dangerous opinion? Again i ask, where do you stop? I say stop at the government EVER having the power to silence. YOU know they are nuts, most of us know they are nuts. Teach those that do not know the difference but do not give the government the power to decide and silence. NOTHING good will come of that in the endFirst error - the part in bold is factually wrong. There is a difference between "no positive value" and "no value at all" - for example, something could have NEGATIVE value. That is to say, it could be an idea that is actively false and whose spread is actively detrimental to individuals and society at large. Who are we to stop the spread of dangerous, harmful ideas? Responsible humans, that's who.
Second error - again you fall into the ideologue's fallacy of appealing to a universal rule rather than trusting to the human capacity to reason. Of course there is a risk that government, tyrants, etc will go to far, but the check on that is not to deny them necessary powers, it's to maintain a vigilant watch over the reach and extent of those powers all the time. If that sounds exhausting or risky to you, well, nobody ever promised that life would be easy and safe. Since you're big on slogans, here's one for you: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".
Third error - your proposed solution is horrifically inadequate, largely because humans are devilishly hard to teach. I should know, I'm a professional educator, and a highly successful one. The idea that we can simply "teach" away the problem of ignorance seems... well... ignorant, given humanity's long history of utterly failing to learn (or learning the wrong lesson)....
You talk about "human capacity to reason" then advocate removing anything but what you want them to know and believe. How is that trusting them to reason?
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance is in not giving up freedoms, not handing them over and hoping you can fight for them back when you want them. And your "expertise" as an educator means you should know too well how easy it is to teach only the "facts' those in power want heard until the truth no longer exists. After all worked well for Hitler
Nevertheless, a law saying you're not allowed to criticize the use of vaccines will mean that we aren't going to learn anything about the side effects of each new vaccineI don't see how that follows, given that it's childishly easy to demonstrate that Vaccine A =/= Vaccine B.
Soooo... first you think that we need someone to tell us what is true and what is false, because we can't decide that for ourselves... then you say that it's childishly easy to demonstrate, apparently so people do understand, which vaccines are safe and which are not? I must confess you have me confused here.
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And to the militant vegan they are hoping that some day you lose the freedom to eat meat...Have them demonstrate that my eating meat is directly harmful to them. That's susceptible to evidence. If they can prove it using evidence, I'll give up that right -- but I really don't think they can. Until then, their opinion that "eating meat is bad" is just that, an opinion.
Can you really not tell the difference between facts and opinions? Or are you just stonewalling me?
So why are drugs not legal? Can you prove that someone else using drugs is inherently going to hurt you? And there are studies that "prove" lots of things. then we get the fun of proving proof....
Soooo... first you think that we need someone to tell us what is true and what is false, because we can't decide that for ourselves...
Except I didn't say that; you did. I said that, if a thing can be proven to to be false, then thereafter we can legally call it false (unless new evidence somehow comes to light that would overturn it). Which is more or less how the court system already functions, with notable bizarre exceptions.