Obvious as it may sound, people with authoritarian beliefs hiding behind free speech actually consider it as a weakness akin empathy. It allows losers like them to amplify their reach despite not being in power. They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment they think they are in power.
Here is what free speech is:
Fuck the USA, Fuck Russia, Fuck China, Fuck France, Fuck the UK.
Here is what free speech is NOT: [Racial Slurs]
Honestly, the latter is absolutely free speech. They are 100% free to say that shit if they want. They are not free however from consequences, i.e. getting hit in the mouth, fired from their job, etc.
They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment
they think they are in power.you ask them why they support malicious advertising, impersonation and pedophiliaFix’d. Because those things would be protected under “absolute” freeze peach.
The only free speech they like is their own – unopposed and the only thing heard.
Fascism is incompatible with any kind of freedom. Free speech is co-opted by conservatives and fascists so that they can promote bigotry without consequence. There is no reason that members of the KKK should be legally allowed to recruit people. That should be against the law. It should be against the law to promote xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and queerphobia. The only people who benefit from a system where you can espouse those beliefs without legal consequence are bigots and fascists.
laws will never protect the people who need it. every community should be on the lookout for this shit. everything should turn against you when you do a fascism. if you want to spread fear of everything as an excuse to murder the weak to make you feel good, there should be no inch of the world where you are safe.
like, a lot of the nazi shit here in the united states WAS against the law. that didn’t help. just a bunch of wrist slaps.
Communal action > government “protections”
Every time.
Does anyone?
The closest I can think of to “real free speech absolutists” is the old-school doctrinal libertarians. Even they have limits on what they believe should be allowed and specifically state that contracts should be legally enforceable.
You don’t need to be an “absolutist” to believe in free speech. Open exchange of ideas is valuable. Not needing to be suspicious of everyone hiding what they really think out of fear is valuable. Censorship powers are very tempting to abuse and the consequences of their abuse are terrible. Believing in free speech can just be understanding this stuff and having a bias against shutting people up as a go-to solution.
Does anyone?
Yes, old-school liberals, the ACLU, etc.
It’s bizarre & disappointing that newer generations seem to associate freedom of speech with right-wing authoritarians when freedom of speech has been a firmly liberal value advanced through the enlightenment & civil rights movement. Everyone ought to defend it.
Claim it, twist it, poison it, ruin it. Hate groups and vile scum always do that with things people used to care about or that used to be innocuous.
Claim it, twist it, poison it, ruin it.
Nothing new historically. You don’t have to accept their false premises by surrendering ideas to them.
things people used to care about or that used to be innocuous
Free speech is power, not innocuous: authorities fear it. It belongs to the people unless they surrender it.
Used to care about? Only if you let them stop you.
yeah it’s a philosophical question the answer to which changes with the times (like, does free speech/expression even mean the same thing in the 1700s as in the present era where “speech” is delivered and amplified by machines without even the necessity of direct human involvement).
It’s insane to me that somehow free speech has been successfully twisted into a dog whistle to basically just spread disinformation, actively call for extermination of minority groups and openly attack and threaten other people. That shit is not free speech those are malicious actions - and they should absolutely not be tolerated under some vague guise of free speech.
Which is intensely frustrating for people who actually care about free speech. Can’t talk about it without setting off everyone’s “that guy is probably a nazi” alarms.
It’s absolutely an intentional trap to attempt to get people to support moves against free speech by tainting the concept through negative association.
We shouldn’t tolerate hate speech. But I’m concerned about where we end up in a few decades if the concept of free speech keeps the current connotations.
And people might consider even this comment as sealioning or something.
Meanwhile we have people unironically using phrases like unalive and censoring swear words in screenshots so they don’t trip the automated content filters on mainstream social media. That should be more concerning than people seem to take it. People joke about “literally 1984”, but unalive is blatant newspeak.
yeah, I can’t say ‘libertarian communist’ or people will be like ‘do you mean ephebophile communist? how does that even work?’.
they have to steal our names for shit, because they always do horrible shit under their own.
This is what the fascists do: hijacking legitimate terms of discourse and abusing them so they become meaningless. It’s a deliberate strategy to subvert their opponents’ ability to talk about the issue by poisoning the terminology. See also what they’ve done with “fake news”, “critical race theory” and “DEI”.
Precisely. That’s why the most important mantra we can recite is “this is not normal”. No matter how normalized it gets, fascism is not normal.
the conflation of ‘normal’ with ‘okay’ is sickening to me. unfortunately, this is normal now.
and that should set off fucking air raid sirens in every single person’s head.
If you pay attention to the reactionaries, they always steal ideas from the left. Fake news, media bias? That’s Noam Chomsky. Incels stole the idea of critical examination of gender from feminists. Racists are banning books on the theory that they target people based on their race.
That’s why they’re called reactionaries. They cannot organize and ideology or a movement except as an opposition to the left dragging society forward. And like anyone motivated by spite and envy, they study us closely.
It’s insane to me
How?
This isn’t the first time, won’t be the last time.
It’s not even a Nazi thing, it’s a human thing.
Reddit said you can’t say “Luigi had a good idea” so idiots try to find the furtherest they can take it without repurcussions, and when they face repurcossions they screech that their free speech was violated because they were dog whistling to advocate for murder
So people get banned from reddit for it, and come here and they’re *still stuck on trying to find the line in every situation so they can put their toes on and screech “freeze speech” like teenagers playing the penis game.
Obviously the people saying “Luigi was right” and the Nazis are different.
But it’s the exact same human instinct to push boundaries and see what they can get away with, then claim innocence when faced with consequences. Little kids do it constantly, and with our education system lacking on critical thinking since No Child Left Behind, people aren’t learning the critical thinking to internally make the call on what’s ok, they just try shit and see if there’s negative consequences. That’s all that matters: can I get away with saying this.
We just saw it on a national stage where trump kept talking about tarrifs on Canada, he wanted them to engage in a bad faith conversation about fentanyl while his tarrifs were active and free of consequences. Instead Trudeau finally ovaried up and hit back with retaliatory tariffs.
trump got consequences and he’ll stop. But if there wasn’t he’d have kept pushing it.
Luigi and nazis are not even close to the same thing.
Obviously not, which doesn’t matter because the behavior isn’t unique to either group:
It’s not even a Nazi thing, it’s a human thing.
I thought that by stating that nice and clear in the beginning would prevent confusions like yours, but I forgot some people read something and instantly forget it.
Just because you make an argument, doesn’t make it true. One is a group who came to power through hate and used that power in an attempt to exterminate political enemies, dissidents, and as everyone is well aware, the entirety of the Jewish population. The other is someone who got screwed over by our Healthcare system and decided to do something about it. Comparing the two and saying they are the same is either intentionally disingenuous, or just stupid.
Just because you make an argument, doesn’t make it true
Mate…
I “made an arguement” that it wasn’t just Nazis that did this …
And used an example of people who were not Nazis doing it to show that …
And you accused me of saying both groups are the same.
After I literally said:
Obviously the people saying “Luigi was right” and the Nazis are different.
You felt the need to say almost verbatim the same thing back to me like it was something I didn’t know.
There’s not an easier way to explain this, I’m sorry but I’m not helping you anymore.
When our opponents say: “Yes, we used to grant you freedom of opinion”, yes. You did, that is no reason why we should do the same to you! Your stupidity need not be contagious to us! [Laughter.] That you have given this to us - that is proof of how stupid you are! [Laughter.]
- Joseph Goebbels
That’s why we have to treath them the same way they would treath us.
Remember that smile gave Moscow Mitch gave when they confirmed Trump’s lame duck Supreme Court nominee, despite rejecting Obama’s?
Goebbels must have felt really clever when he killed his children and wife. Right Goebbels?
Goebbels? (Gore)
Oh.
What’s the story here? I thought Goebbels was among those tried at Nuremberg
A better fate than what he deserved, IMO.
Reported for untagged gore. Blocked for being a shitbag troll.
Mod her: Nah, that stays up.
You just sear that image into your brain and think about it every time you hear the word Nazi, remember what they did to human beings (even their own).
If you haven’t seen them, look up pictures of the holocaust because those horrors should never be forgotten.
To be fair, the gore part I kinda understand. How do I tag a comment with gore? I mean he could have told me himself but he was so scared of what I might reply, he blocked me.
Hide it as a spoiler that is titled what it is and that it has gore.
deep fried goebbels (gore)
Pretend there was gore here
Thx 👍🏿
but also, and im not a mod of anything and this would probably get you banned a lot of places:
nazi shit needs to be shown for what it is. no more looking away. a century of looking away and pretending it couldn’t happen here, that it wasn’t happening here, that it was just about ‘ethics in games journalism’ or whatever bullshit is what got us here. show that shit.
if we keep looking away, we will keep letting it happen. I would rather see a few old photos of gore a bunch of times than have to smell them, or risk being them, every time I go outside. a state of affairs which we are perilously fucking close to.
edit: so please; post more gore. you might just be saving lives!
Fuck you. This shit is traumatic for me. had family members murdered by the actual Nazis. Blocked you and this shithole community.
I had great uncles and an aunt I never got to meet because of Nazis. This picture is soothing, being a reminder of what happens to all Nazis. They all die. Every single one of them is removed before their time. It’s comforting to know that this too shall pass.
hey, yeah, so, my people were also slaughtered by the nazis. some of the first, actually. and again by reaganites. I have watched loved ones die slowly and horribly with my own eyes in non-nazi-related deaths. like actually seen smelled touched it, not just heard stories from grandma.
and I would rather see this shit if it reminds people the stakes of current politics. also, that’s a nazi in the pic, it just happens it also got kiled because of nazi shit.
Yes, the holocaust was an extremely traumatic event, that’s the whole point.
I’m not whitewashing history for you, sorry.
I would have reported the pic for gore, but I think hiding it under spoiler is fair game. What humanity should have learned from this story is that just because ideologies that consider fairness or empathy a weakness might appear viable and effective to grab power quickly, we have plenty of gory evidence that they do lead to the annihilation of millions, including those initially benefiting from them.
A spoiler would be OK by me, but I would still encourage everyone to look at what they did if they have not seen it. Visit a holocaust museum even. Frankly, I don’t know that everyone understands, there are an increasing number of people who downplay or outright deny the horrors of World War II and everything that led to it.
You know that’s a Nazi in the pic, right?
He doesn’t. But now nobody can tell him. Because he blocked everyone 😔
🤷♂️
Sorry to hear about your family.
If the world is going to blatantly ignore history, then the atrocities should become more abundantly available as a reminder. Censoring history is re-writing it.
never cry over spilled nazi.
The far right are well-practiced at co-opting and twisting concepts. It’s classic doublespeak.
It’s why you have “Christians” who are staunchly opposed to feeding the hungry, or treating the sick. (See: school lunches.)
It’s why “capitalism” now represents the complete lack of meaningful competition, when that competition is the only thing that ever made capitalism worthwhile in the first place. (See: Microsoft getting away scot-free after being found guilty of illegal, anticompetitive business practices all throughout the 90s.)
It’s why “free speech” proponents are laser-focused on creating new and terrifying mechanisms for censorship. (See: *gestures widely*)
I could go on.
It’s sad how little resistance has been made against this corruption. How easily our natural allies have been turned into our greatest enemies.
christianity, since the roman empire adopted it at the very least, has been mostly a tool of appropriating warm fuzzy feelings and directing them towards a king.
capitalism was always been into lack of competition. it’s not about markets, that’s a more modern bullshit invention. it’s about valuing ownership over labor. caring about the nobility rather than the peasants’ labor, but with more contrivance.
mood on the free speech.
Which is why liberalism in a not so democratic country can do little to stop this type of decline. Too non violent, too careful, too scared
Ideally one would vote out authoritarian candidates, but what to do when it’s a taboo to criticize electronic vote counting? Vote counting on electronic platforms run by the very people the liberals oppose? Vote counting supported by a steadfast belief of state governments not being corrupted, and not being in cahoots with the wealthy families running said platforms?
“There are safeguards”, ”I trust in the process”
Then when voting fails what to do but use free speech to oppose what is happening?
“Surely they will allow my voice to rise and be heard and I can use reason”
Yes people will hear you but it won’t do much.
They only like free speech because it lets them claim to be censored.
Jean Paul Sarte articulates my feelings on this better than I ever could.
Interesting read.
They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antisemites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
This is what we see these days. Trump and his followers lying is normalized, i.e., they are not “obliged to use words responsibly”, whereas anybody argues against trumpists is.
They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.
This is what changed since then. They no longer fear being seen as ridiculous or stupid. They embrace it.
That’s why I claim all conservatives are pig fuckers. I don’t care if it’s true. It’s up to them to argue with me. And they won’t do that because they have their full 3" stuck in some pig.
deleted by creator
I think they still fear being perceived as ridiculous, but they’ve been very successful at making the bar really fucking high.
I think they only fear looking weak.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They like free speech that doesn’t get them immediately banned, not free speech for everyone else’s ideas
Free speech for me, but not for thee!
Is this a “we need to censor them because they don’t believe in free speech” kind of a thing?
no. it’s a “don’t believe them because they are lying” thing.
I see, so we need to stop them from imposing censorship. How are they going to do it though?
Jewish attorneys actually advocated for Nazis to be able to have marches. The phone you use has technology aided by Nazis… Anyone hear of Operation Paperclip? Wernher von Braun?
People dressed in Swastikas, speaking or marching are not violent acts themselves, those people may never become violent & may have no intention of being violent.
Most of them don’t even believe Hitler murdered a bunch of Jews and that history was written by powerful Jews. It doesn’t exactly help when Republicans & Democrats are loyal to Israel over America.
All & all, free speech laws in America are not rights to commit crime. Threats & violence are still criminal, and that goes both ways. Don’t punch someone just cause they are wearing a Nazi outfit and think it is legal to do so… You may end up paying their medical bills & restitution.
America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I’d suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.
If you don’t like it then file a lawsuit to change the law & make your case like normal productive people do instead of whining on the Internet about how you don’t like things. If you don’t like it then share the docket number of the lawsuit you’ve already filed to show you’ve done the work like countless people before you did to get the free speech we have today.
I see posts like this all the time, especially now that Trump & Republicans are trying to claim protesting Israel or their actions is antisemitic & should result in deportation. Nazism has went from being about being against Jews to being a Republican who loves Israel. Weird the people making a big deal about Nazis don’t realize the irony.
America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I’d suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.
You are assuming ignorance from others while projecting ideas from other discussions you’ve had in the past onto my original post. I purposely avoided making any statements on how to approach or resolve the tolerance paradox because it’s complicated. Nazis lying about their affinity for free speech isn’t.
What else I find weird is that almost the comments like yours appear to be a script where the first thing you do is mention paradox of tolerance. I really find it statistically baffling how many times that is the first response. I guess wrapping counterarguments up into sophisticated sounding titles works for you until you actually have to explain things.
I really find it statistically baffling how many times that is the first response…sophisticated sounding titles works for you until you actually have to explain things.
The point of my post is that some of the loudest proponents of free speech have ulterior motives. No more, but definitely no less. I’m not here to relitigate the limits of free speech no matter how hard you want to steer the discussion in that direction.
On the other hand, if you come to discussions with this many preconceived notions and generalizations wrapped in a metric ton of condescension, then perhaps you might be the driver of your own “statistical bafflement”.
The point of my post is that some of the loudest proponents of free speech have ulterior motives.
So what? Free speech is still right: everyone should fervently defend it. Whether they’re sincere about it or not, free speech is indispensable to a liberal democracy.
The problem isn’t free speech. The problem is people who want to take it all away. If you fall into the trap of abandoning basic values from the enlightenment when they make it inconvenient, then you play into their game & help them set back society.
Free speech is still right: everyone should fervently defend it. Whether they’re sincere about it or not, free speech is indispensable to a liberal democracy.
If you fall into the trap of abandoning basic values from the enlightenment when they make it inconvenient, then you play into their game & help them set back society.
Look, statements like this are very easy to make but nearly impossible to implement in the era of LLM-powered bots riding the Algorithm. Unless you simply give free rein to the bots, which is often the goal and ultimately eliminates actual humans’ free speech. I don’t pretend that I have a perfect solution, but there is sufficient historical evidence to point out the threads’ original statement on absolutistic terms. For the rest, I’ve used the word “some” because not everybody has ulterior motives, but the most motivated ones in the present era tend to.
That’s just technology & fearmongering. Socrates was critical of writing out of concerns it would deteriorate minds & make superficial thinkers. Critics were concerned the printing press would lead to widespread moral degradation with the abundance of low-quality literature. People criticized television & media for brain rot.
Guess what you’re the next iteration of?
Technologies change, yet good principles hold regardless.
You know what you can do with free speech? More free speech. No one has a monopoly on LLM, bots, or algorithms. If people were inclined, they could launch these technologies to counter messages they oppose. People can choose to tune out & disregard expressions. Much more can be done with free speech.
Guess what you’re the next iteration of? Technologies change, yet good principles don’t change with them.
Technologies and ethics continuously change and adapt to new technologies, and I’m not interested in discussing the analogies of going from codexes to printed books vs. going from printed hard copies to human-human interactions being hijacked by human-passing bots, because to me these are evidently not comparable.
No one has a monopoly on LLM, bots, or algorithms.
The fact that this discussion is taking place on Lemmy and not Xitter tells plenty about the actual complexities of this story.
The point of my post is that some of the loudest proponents of free speech have ulterior motives. No more, but definitely no less.
You’ve provided no supporting evidence of this. The loudest, or most successful supporters, appear to have been Jewish attorneys that advocated & won cases on free speech allowing even Nazis to gather, march, speak, etc. Are you suggesting these Jews were actually crypto-Nazis in disguise? Your title indicates you’re referring to Nazis in particular.
I know reading comprehension is harder when you’ve already made up your mind about what I think, but you’re better than this. I hope.:)
Nazism has went from being about being against Jews to being a Republican who loves Israel.
It sounds ironic, but that’s only if you adhere to an almost caricature-like (or surface-level) view of what a Nazi is.
Of course, it’s better to refer to them as Fascists – that’s the more accurate term that fully refers to both of those groups. It’s just that “Nazi” is the more recognizable term to the layperson.
Fascism is slightly more diverse and thus adds more opportunities for apologists to relativize. Hence the specific choice.
