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@RemyBrown
Your OP basically says: is there a point that an authoritarian state can cross as extortion to shut you up?
Most Americans will have one answer to that.
How much do you value free speech?
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@RemyBrown
There are three reasons I don't think your conclusion follows:
1. Some free speech absolutists base their position on an interpretation of the 1st amendment. Even if they don't like the consequences of the amendment being that broad, they believe that it's the law of the land right now.
2. Other free speech absolutists believe there's never a legitimate reason for restricting speech in this reality, but that could be based on a belief that free speech would never result in rape in the real world. In some hypothetical world where free speech means someone gets raped, they might cede to be a free speech absolutist. Similarly, someone could always be against the death penalty because they think it fails to deter crime, but if it did deter crime, they would change their position.
3. Free speech absolutists might voluntarily refrain from speech to prevent rape but also be against the government infringing on the speech of others even for a similar cause.
I don't think free speech absolutists need to value speech above all else, just things they think would ever conflict with free speech. If they don't think the right not to be raped and the right to free speech will ever come into conflict, then they can support always being protecting both rights.
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@Savant
that could be based on a belief that free speech would never result in rape in the real world
What about people who argue for actions which are considered as rape or equally bad as rape? In that case, wouldnt letting people argue for that potentially result in someone being convinced by them and act on it?
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@TheGreatSunGod
Well, not every free speech absolutist believes that letting people argue for things will result in those things occurring.
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@Savant
I agree, but isnt there some small chance such causation might occur? Like, even if chance is 1 in 100000, given enough time and enough people, it could occur at least once.
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@TheGreatSunGod
A free speech absolutist could say:
"The government shouldn't restrict one person's free speech to prevent a 1/100,000 chance of rape. But if it could hypothetically prevent one definite rape by restricting one person's free speech, then it should do that."
In that case, they might value the free speech of 100,000 people over preventing a single rape, but that's different from the example provided in Remy's post, which was one person vs one person. A free speech absolutist might also believe restricting free speech will lead to more rapes or something just as bad by acting as a slippery slope to totalitarianism.
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@Savant
"The government shouldn't restrict one person's free speech to prevent a 1/100,000 chance of rape. But if it could hypothetically prevent one definite rape by restricting one person's free speech, then it should do that."
How does free speech prevent rape?
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@Shila
"A free speech absolutist might also believe restricting free speech will lead to more rapes or something just as bad by acting as a slippery slope to totalitarianism."
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@Savant
"A free speech absolutist might also believe restricting free speech will lead to more rapes or something just as bad by acting as a slippery slope to totalitarianism."
How does free speech prevent rape?
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@Shila
If preventing it increases rape, then allowing it would result in less rapes.
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@Savant
If preventing it increases rape, then allowing it would result in less rapes.
How does allowing it result in less rapes?
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@Savant
In that case, they might value the free speech of 100,000 people over preventing a single rape, but that's different from the example provided in Remy's post, which was one person vs one person
Well, its the best I can come up with regarding free speech causing one rape in real world. Limiting it to speech of one specific person would require knowledge of exactly which person's speech caused someone to commit rape, which is not really possible to determine at all in real world.
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@Savant
A free speech absolutist might also believe restricting free speech will lead to more rapes or something just as bad by acting as a slippery slope to totalitarianism.
Yes, sadly, limiting free speech is a very quick and easy path towards totalitarianism, because once it becomes okay to limit speech, it becomes okay to limit any speech which is considered as dangerous, which then leaves no room for debate. This is especially so in the problem of banning lies, because banning lies actually makes most if not all debates technically impossible. Likewise, anyone can use the excuse of speech being dangerous to supress any speech. All totalitarian regimes did exactly that.
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@TheGreatSunGod
Well, it’s the best I can come up with regarding free speech causing one rape in real world. Limiting it to speech of one specific person would require knowledge of exactly which person's speech caused someone to commit rape, which is not really possible to determine at all in real world.
You admit it is not possible to determine which persons speech caused someone to commit rape.
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@Savant
So hypothetically speaking, If Donald Trump said he would have a woman raped if you continued to criticize him, you would stay silent?
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@Greyparrot
If Donald Trump said he would have a woman raped if you continued to criticize him
I don't think I even took a position myself, I was just saying Remy might be mischaracterizing free speech absolutists. If a politician made a threat like that, giving them what they want is just asking for more threats.
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@Savant
Yes, which is why exceptions to free speech can easily become extortion scenarios.
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@Greyparrot
Same could be said about any law. Some are necessary, like laws against murder. Hiring a hitman to kill someone probably qualifies as speech, but there's a reason it's not free speech.
So hypothetically speaking, If Donald Trump said he would have a woman raped if you continued to criticize him, you would stay silent?
I would report him to Melania.
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@Savant
Do you mean "same thing with any exceptions?"
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@Greyparrot
Well it's the same with laws against theft, murder, etc. They're done to combat a threat.
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@Savant
The op is talking about justifying exceptions with hypotheticals.
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@Greyparrot
I was responding to your statement that exceptions to free speech can easily become extortion scenarios. Plenty of exceptions aren't based on hypotheticals.
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@Savant
Hypothetical exceptions like the one described in the op are.
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@Greyparrot
Don't disagree there. There are decent arguments for exceptions to free speech, but I don't think the op is a great one.
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@Savant
There's decent arguments for exceptions to free speech
It depends on how you look at it. Technically, free speech in some cases can be limited to increase free speech in other cases. Like, if there was robot which killed people if told to. Sure, banning people from telling that to robot reduces their speech, but in total, such ban increases amount of free speech because if robot killed people, it would reduce free speech of those people.
@fauxlaw
I do not respond to filth. You are selling filth. Stop it, petulant child.
What a communist!
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@AdaptableRatman
Too much empathy is not a thing, too much sympathy is.
Then adopt a child from Somalia; if you refuse, then your convinence and life and time matters more to you than the child's life (aka, your empathy is finite).
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@RemyBrown
Read what I wrote carefully.
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@AdaptableRatman
I did. It's one sentence.