Freedom of Speech and Maturity

[James R]

Moderator note:

milkweed has been warned for goading, baiting and trolling two other members in this thread.
pjdude has been warned for flaming another member in this thread.

It would be somewhat ironic if I were to feel the need to close a thread ostensibly about "freedom of speech". Please try to lift your game a little, people.

 

[river]

To practice the ideal of freedom of speech, where everyone can say anything they want to anyone, requires a culture and people with a high level of intellectual, psychological and emotional maturity.

If one is not emotionally mature, then words and noises can amp you out. Simple conditioned sounds can overload one's feelings, since one lacks the maturity needed for self control. If one is not psychologically mature, people can say things that touch upon your fear and insecurities, which can amp you out. If one is not intellectually mature, new or different ideas can disrupt the niches of the mind and make you all amped out.

Now can those who have something mean and nasty to say to another ; do so face to face, To the , another?

 

[milkweed]

I meant to get back to this quicker, but this last week has been very hectic.

Thats because it was never used solely as an insult; for some it was totally an insult, for others it was a race/class description. Its meaning has always been multi-termed up until the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

Addendum:

The term "Negroid" is still used in certain disciplines such as forensic and physical anthropology. In a medical context, some scholars have recommended that the term Negroid be avoided in scientific writings because of its association with scientific racism. This mirrors the decline in usage of the term Negro, which fell out of favor following the campaigns of the American civil rights movement — the term Negro became associated with periods of legalized discrimination, and was rejected by African Americans during the 1960s for "black".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid#Criticism

 

[Syne]

To practice the ideal of freedom of speech, where everyone can say anything they want to anyone, requires a culture and people with a high level of intellectual, psychological and emotional maturity.

If one is not emotionally mature, then words and noises can amp you out. Simple conditioned sounds can overload one's feelings, since one lacks the maturity needed for self control. If one is not psychologically mature, people can say things that touch upon your fear and insecurities, which can amp you out. If one is not intellectually mature, new or different ideas can disrupt the niches of the mind and make you all amped out.

The premise is flawed. The underlying assumption seems to be that some people cannot be responsible for their own behavior and that is may require some restrictions on those who can. The rights of those with less self-control end where the rights of the self-controlled begin. And most societies already have mechanisms to deal with those members who cannot comport themselves in a legal manner. "Feelings" do not justify illegal behavior nor imposing undue restrictions on others. Laws against "hate speech" trend in this direction. These are just easier for politicians to implement because the self-controlled generally have little need for such speech, whereas there are people always trying to stick up for criminals as a proxy for defending their own irresponsibility. But people should remember the admonition about "using your words" in lieu of violence. If your words become verboten, what other recourse do you have? Rhetoric is never morally equivalent to actual physical violence or destruction.

 

[iceaura]

{of "nigger"} Thats because it was never used solely as an insult; for some it was totally an insult, for others it was a race/class description. Its meaning has always been multi-termed up until the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

It has never been used by white men without denigration, without derogatory implication, without assigning inferiority, in any of its meanings at any time or any place in US history.

Counterexample necessary, for counterargument, and don't bother - there aren't any.

Your attempt to convert this to "solely as an insult" is an attempt to change the subject. Calling someone a thief is not "solely - an insult" either - it's partly a personality/employment description.

The idea that the civil rights movement's objections to the unavoidable and universal derogatory implications of "nigger" in white men's mouths created those implications, or made them universal, is just bizarre. A truly startling, near pathological example of denial. What planet - - - - ?

 

[Randwolf]

Rhetoric is never morally equivalent to actual physical violence or destruction.

Hi Syne... Been awhile...

I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread but I will make the counterpoint again in response to "Rhetoric is never morally equivalent to actual physical violence" [emphasis mine]

Compare and contrast a slap in the face with yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Which is more morally reprehensible? Textbook stuff, I realize - it seems that some people just don't get it though...

 

[Syne]

Hi Syne... Been awhile...

I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread but I will make the counterpoint again in response to "Rhetoric is never morally equivalent to actual physical violence" [emphasis mine]

Compare and contrast a slap in the face with yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Which is more morally reprehensible? Textbook stuff, I realize - it seems that some people just don't get it though...

Please explain how yelling "Fire" falls under the definition of "rhetoric". But to the gist of your point, yelling "Fire", even in a crowded theater, should not be illegal, in itself. If that were true, then the people in the recent Disney park panic who mistakenly yelled about "shots fired" would be equally criminal. I think you'd agree that nothing criminal occurred in that panic. Two things must be taken into account for inducing panic charges. Intentionality and harm/damages. IOW, the warning must be knowingly false and have direct physical-world consequences, be they harm in trampling or as minor as loss of value in the show people paid for. Many people recently like to somehow extend this to rhetoric, but such speech lacks both of these criteria, especially considering that such claims ignore intermediate agency to any consequences.

 

[wellwisher]

If someone yells fire in a theatre, the mature scientific person will look around and smell the air to verify that claim. At the very least, you need to locate the source of the fire, to know the proper escape route. Only a herd animal will make a mad rush to any door and not think to pause for 2 seconds, to figure out which door leads to safety. The yell fire example shows there are a lot of morons, who get all excited when they hear certain buzz words, and will act like a blind herd animals, running without thinking. Laws are needed to protect the morons from hurting each other.

Culture can't create laws that cater to the herd animals and other forms of human immaturity, since it regresses the culture by forcing even the mature to become morons.

The PC language censor is left wing/liberal, right? Why does liberalism want all people to become morons, using force of law? One reason is most of their ideas can't stand up to reason, but only appeal to emotions. PC is needed to help dumb down more people, so these irrational ideas appear more effective. They need to dumb down maturity, in terms of open language and speech, so there will be fewer people who will look around before running blindly to claims of "fire".

Such fire claims are the liberal way, such as the war on women; fire, or the planet is dying; fire, there is racism; fire, etc. These mantra work better on those who run without thinking. Those who sit, look around, and maybe even wait it out, are called the kooks; fire! PC yells fire with all types of buzz words that will cause the herd to stampede and hurt itself.

The liberal induced race riots that burnt down city blocks was due to yelling political fire.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

If someone yells fire in a theatre, the mature scientific person will look around and smell the air to verify that claim. At the very least, you need to locate the source of the fire, to know the proper escape route. Only a herd animal will make a mad rush to any door and not think to pause for 2 seconds, to figure out which door leads to safety. The yell fire example shows there are a lot of morons, who get all excited when they hear certain buzz words, and will act like a blind herd animals, running without thinking. Laws are needed to protect the morons from hurting each other.

Culture can't create laws that cater to the herd animals and other forms of human immaturity, since it regresses the culture by forcing even the mature to become morons.

The PC language censor is left wing/liberal, right? Why does liberalism want all people to become morons, using force of law? One reason is most of their ideas can't stand up to reason, but only appeal to emotions. PC is needed to help dumb down more people, so these irrational ideas appear more effective. They need to dumb down maturity, in terms of open language and speech, so there will be fewer people who will look around before running blindly to claims of "fire".

Such fire claims are the liberal way, such as the war on women; fire, or the planet is dying; fire, there is racism; fire, etc. These mantra work better on those who run without thinking. Those who sit, look around, and maybe even wait it out, are called the kooks; fire! PC yells fire with all types of buzz words that will cause the herd to stampede and hurt itself.

The liberal induced race riots that burnt down city blocks was due to yelling political fire.

You can't be that dumb.

You are trolling. I guess there are deliberate trolls for their entertainment.

 

[joepistole]

You can't be that dumb.

You are trolling. I guess there are deliberate trolls for their entertainment.

Actually, she can be.

 

[joepistole]

If someone yells fire in a theatre, the mature scientific person will look around and smell the air to verify that claim.

Ok, and your point is? The funny thing is ideologues on both the left and the right are guilty of spreading unwarranted fears and misinformation. You, being a right wing ideologue never see the fear mongering on the right even though it is most guilty of fear mongering and irrational thought (e.g. Cruz, Bachman, Levin, Hannity, Fox News, et alia).

At the very least, you need to locate the source of the fire, to know the proper escape route. Only a herd animal will make a mad rush to any door and not think to pause for 2 seconds, to figure out which door leads to safety. The yell fire example shows there are a lot of morons, who get all excited when they hear certain buzz words, and will act like a blind herd animals, running without thinking. Laws are needed to protect the morons from hurting each other.

Well here is the thing, are you going to give everyone architectural plans, re-breathers and flashlights too, assuming they have enough time to use them, so they can figure out the proper egress? These days, most exists in public buildings are clearly labeled as such. So in most situations there is little need to figure out a proper egress route - just follow the exit signs. Additionally, it's very obvious you know very little about fires. They spread very rapidly, and most fire victims succumb to toxic gases rather than the heat of the fire. Having gone through professional fire fighting training in the US Navy I can tell you first hand, that in the invent of a fire victims may only have seconds or minutes to live before succumbing to the gases produced by the fire.

And your belief that someone trapped in a burning building can know the source of the fire is just sheer ignorance. Trained fire fighter investigators are often unable to determine the source of fires without extensive research taking days, weeks and months. So your belief that somehow people trapped in a burning building can somehow figure out the source of a fire is just sheer stupidity. Furthermore, if you you are trapped in a burning building, the fire's source is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is safely exiting the building.

Additionally, people are people. We are all programmed to fear things. We all are subject to emotions, some more than others. Just look at the behavior of stock markets. Panic isn't uncommon in financial markets. It happens with regularity. It happens with professional traders and investors, the smartest of the smart.

The PC language censor is left wing/liberal, right? Why does liberalism want all people to become morons, using force of law? One reason is most of their ideas can't stand up to reason, but only appeal to emotions. PC is needed to help dumb down more people, so these irrational ideas appear more effective. They need to dumb down maturity, in terms of open language and speech, so there will be fewer people who will look around before running blindly to claims of "fire".

Such fire claims are the liberal way, such as the war on women; fire, or the planet is dying; fire, there is racism; fire, etc. These mantra work better on those who run without thinking. Those who sit, look around, and maybe even wait it out, are called the kooks; fire! PC yells fire with all types of buzz words that will cause the herd to stampede and hurt itself.

Well here is the funny thing, political correctness isn't limited to the left.

"Right-wing political correctness[edit]
"Political correctness" is a label typically used for left-wing terms and actions, but not for equivalent attempts to mold language and behavior on the right. However, the term "right-wing political correctness" is sometimes applied by commentators drawing parallels: in 1995, one author used the term "conservative correctness", arguing, in relation tohigher education, that "critics of political correctness show a curious blindness when it comes to examples of conservative correctness. Most often, the case is entirely ignored or censorship of the Left is justified as a positive virtue. ... A balanced perspective was lost, and everyone missed the fact that people on all sides were sometimes censored."[21]

In 2003, Dixie Chicks, a U.S. country music group, criticized the then U.S. President George W. Bush for launching the war against Iraq.[81] They were criticized[82] and labeled "treasonous" by some U.S. right-wing commentators (including Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly).[22] Three years later, claiming that at the time "a virulent strain of right wing political correctness [had] all but shut down debate about the war in Iraq," journalist Don Williams wrote that "[the ongoing] campaign against the Chicks represents political correctness run amok" and observed, "the ugliest form of political correctness occurs whenever there's a war on."[22]

In 2003, French fries and French toast were renamed “Freedom fries” and “Freedom toast"[83] in three U.S. House of Representatives cafeterias in response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. This was described as "polluting the already confused concept of political correctness."[84] In 2004, then Australian Labor leader Mark Latham described conservative calls for “civility” in politics as “the new political correctness."[85]

In 2012, Paul Krugman wrote that “the big threat to our discourse is right-wing political correctness, which – unlike the liberal version – has lots of power and money behind it. And the goal is very much the kind of thing Orwell tried to convey with his notion of Newspeak: to make it impossible to talk, and possibly even think, about ideas that challenge the established order."[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

Conservative Correctness:

Conservative correctness ("CC"), also known as patriotic correctness ("PC")[1] or right-wing political correctness[2] is a term referring to a brand of political correctness practiced by conservatives. Yes, seriously. Whereas political correctness attempts to minimize offense through the rebranding of certain words and terms to be neutral or inclusive, its conservative counterpart rebrands terms to include extreme political bias, removing the meaning and then filling them with scorn, like little Hate-Twinkies.

Concepts which are liked are Americanized or linked with positive thoughts such as freedom or liberty, while the disliked terms are rebranded in the most negative light possible (describing homosexuality as an "unnatural vice," for example). "CC" is especially hilarious considering that the most heated decrying of "PC" usually comes from conservatives. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservative_correctness

Unfortunately, right wingers have used and continue to use the charge of political correctness to shut down rational discourse (e.g. climate change). The left tends to use political correctness in order to be polite and avoid offending people. I don't know about you or your family, but in my family and in our homes we do not use language which we know will offend and degrade folks when there are many other words which would better communicate our ideas and thoughts.

 

[joepistole]

The liberal induced race riots that burnt down city blocks was due to yelling political fire.

Except those "race riots" had nothing to do with liberals. They were protests against what people felt were unwarranted police killings and treatment of black people. And I don't suppose you remember the conservative guy, or any of his predecessors, who recently invaded a Planned Parenthood office and began murdering innocent civilians because he and his fellow conservatives don't like Planned Parenthood. I don't recall a single person died or a single block which was burnt during those "race riots". A building isn't a block, much less blocks. I cannot say the same for your so called conservative fellows.

And unfortunately for you Republicans, people do have the right to freely associate and protest. It's in that Constitution thingy you guys claim to revere. If you want to hear "political fire" just turn into Fox News or Republican talk radio on any give day at any given hour. Political fire is the the manna which feeds and sustains what passes for American conservatism. Unfortunately, American conservatism has become anything but conservative.

And let's remember the Tea Partiers who after referring to themselves as Tea Baggers objected to the term when they discovered what the term meant.

And then let's remember how wealthy individuals are referred to on the right by using the term "job creators" rather than wealthy. And the list goes on and on.

That's conservative political correctness. So to pretend that political correctness is only something the other guy does (i.e. liberals) as you have done is just blatantly incorrect.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/the-new-political-correctness/

The data speaks for itself.

"A separate set of questions asked what kind of books should be barred from school libraries specifically. In almost every category, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to endorse book bans. That includes “books with explicit language” (bye-bye, “Catcher in the Rye”); “books which include witchcraft or sorcery” (to the slaughter, “Harry Potter”); “books which include vampires” (night night, “Twilight”); “books that discuss evolution” (into the bin, Darwin); and “books which question the existence of a divine being or beings” (quit your squawking, Stephen Hawking).

The only school library categories about which Republicans were more open-minded than Democrats were “books that discuss creationism” and, perhaps not surprisingly, the Bible.

These are hardly idle preferences, given recent efforts, predominantly in Republican strongholds, to ban books that supposedly promote Islam or the “gay lifestyle” or include “profanities.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...4d2a62-3f9c-11e5-9561-4b3dc93e3b9a_story.html

Let's not forget how keen so called conservatives (i.e. Republicans) are to ban books. That's political correctness on steroids.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

If someone yells fire in a theatre, the mature scientific person will look around and smell the air to verify that claim. At the very least, you need to locate the source of the fire, to know the proper escape route. Only a herd animal will make a mad rush to any door and not think to pause for 2 seconds, to figure out which door leads to safety.

This example is from the distant past. The theater was likely made of wood, there were no ordinances mandating a reasonable number of emergency escapes, no green arrows pointing at the doors, and it might have taken a couple of minutes to get the lights back on. It would have been sensible to run immediately because those who waited too long might very easily have been killed.

Nonetheless, this particular scenario is always set forth as a distinct exception to the constitutional principle of free speech. Others are fraud, inciting a riot, advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force, collusion in planning a crime, and "fighting words" that can reasonably be expected to cause a brawl. In my opinion, "yelling fire" falls squarely in the category of fraud: the perpetrator is lying to people (there is no fire), to make them do something they would otherwise not do (leave the theater before the movie is finished) at their expense (losing the price of their ticket, possibly requiring medical care) for his own gain (the entertainment of watching the people trample each other).

Back on topic, of course the average citizen of an industrial nation will look around, smell the air, wait for the emergency lights and expect the management to arrive within 15 seconds. So it's not a good example for the topic, and it's not a good example of a type of speech that can be legally prohibited.

Nonetheless, we can all be slaves to our instincts. When movies were invented and the first theater was opened in Africa, the entrepreneur reasoned that the way to turn Africans into moviegoers was to show them a movie that they could relate to. So he got some explorers to shoot a film of lions cavorting in the jungle. When the movie started and the people found themselves staring directly into the face of a lion, magnified several times, they ran screaming from the theater--even though every single one of them clearly understood that it was not a real lion.

The liberal induced race riots that burnt down city blocks was due to yelling political fire.

The first American "race riot" worthy of the name occurred in Tulsa on May 31-June 1, 1921. The Afro-American neighborhood in the Greenwood neighborhood of that city was the home of most of the wealthiest black Americans and was nicknamed "the Negro Wall Street."

The city's white population was jealous of their prosperity: palatial homes, fancy restaurants, clean streets, expensive cars, high-end shopping. So over a 16-hour period they burned it to the ground. The police arrested 6,000 black people; 1,200 homes in 35 city blocks were leveled; 10,000 people were left homeless, and since the two black hospitals were also burned down, the doctors in the city's white hospitals defied orders from the mayor and the police chief, and admitted 800 black patients. The Oklahoma state government recorded 39 deaths, but other authorities insist that the toll was at least 55 and probably much higher.

No white people were arrested. The event was not reported in the news media, so almost no white people outside of the Tulsa area heard about it. Most black and white Americans grew up without knowing about it. It wasn't until 1996, when the few remaining survivors and witnesses were in their 70s, 80s and 90s, that the state government commissioned a report to establish a record of the events. Compensatory recommendations were made, but few of the local government agencies followed through. Eventually scholarships were awarded to descendants of the victims, and a memorial to the victims was finally created in 1910, 89 years after the event.

So in response to your quaint assertion about white liberals being responsible for race riots, it was Midwestern Rednecks who were responsible for one of the earliest and largest, and it was not targeted at white people. You must get your information from the same source as Donald Trump.

 

[Syne]

The first American "race riot" worthy of the name occurred in Tulsa on May 31-June 1, 1921. The Afro-American neighborhood in the Greenwood neighborhood of that city was the home of most of the wealthiest black Americans and was nicknamed "the Negro Wall Street."

The city's white population was jealous of their prosperity: palatial homes, fancy restaurants, clean streets, expensive cars, high-end shopping. So over a 16-hour period they burned it to the ground. The police arrested 6,000 black people; 1,200 homes in 35 city blocks were leveled; 10,000 people were left homeless, and since the two black hospitals were also burned down, the doctors in the city's white hospitals defied orders from the mayor and the police chief, and admitted 800 black patients. The Oklahoma state government recorded 39 deaths, but other authorities insist that the toll was at least 55 and probably much higher.

No white people were arrested. The event was not reported in the news media, so almost no white people outside of the Tulsa area heard about it. Most black and white Americans grew up without knowing about it. It wasn't until 1996, when the few remaining survivors and witnesses were in their 70s, 80s and 90s, that the state government commissioned a report to establish a record of the events. Compensatory recommendations were made, but few of the local government agencies followed through. Eventually scholarships were awarded to descendants of the victims, and a memorial to the victims was finally created in 1910, 89 years after the event.

Tulsa, and Oklahoma in general, was dominantly Democrat in 1921. Remember, the KKK was founded by democrats. And please provide sources for your claim that the Tulsa riots were motivated by jealousy, rather than sensationalized news stories (yes, it was reported on, including death counts by the Tulsa Tribune and New York Times) about an assault of a young girl.

By 1920, Tulsa was called home to almost 100,000 people and 400 different oil companies. The booming town boasted two daily newspapers, four telegraph companies, more than 10,000 telephones, seven banks, 200 attorneys and more than 150 doctors, as well as numerous other businesses.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ok-tulsa2.html

Do you assume the majority of that prosperity was held by blacks? In 1920, Tulsa was 12.32% black, and Jim Crow laws made even shopping segregated.

 

[joepistole]

So in response to your quaint assertion about white liberals being responsible for race riots, it was Midwestern Rednecks who were responsible for one of the earliest and largest, and it was not targeted at white people. You must get your information from the same source as Donald Trump.

Except, I didn't write that. You have falsely or erroneously attributed a portion of Wellwisher's post to me.

 

[iceaura]

Tulsa, and Oklahoma in general, was dominantly Democrat in 1921. Remember, the KKK was founded by democrats

Strange to imagine a time when the racial bigots and "conservative" white trash weren't voting Republican, isn't it. Nixon was a genius, of a kind.

Do you assume the majority of that prosperity was held by blacks?

It wasn't. But the little of it they had managed to accumulate was enough to set off the hate - because it made some blacks richer than some whites, in Tulsa. And that was unacceptable, to the whites.

The campaign to censor or modify the language in which events such as the Tulsa race riots are described to be forgotten, so that they do not reflect poorly on modern day "conservatives", can also be called "CP" - for "crackpot".

 

[Syne]

Strange to imagine a time when the racial bigots and "conservative" white trash weren't voting Republican, isn't it. Nixon was a genius, of a kind.

It wasn't. But the little of it they had managed to accumulate was enough to set off the hate - because it made some blacks richer than some whites, in Tulsa. And that was unacceptable, to the whites.

The campaign to censor or modify the language in which events such as the Tulsa race riots are described to be forgotten, so that they do not reflect poorly on modern day "conservatives", can also be called "CP" - for "crackpot".

Support your assertion that the Tulsa riots were primarily caused or motivated by jealousy, you know, rather than just garden variety racism. Here you've only managed to make an unsupported proclamation. And "described to be forgotten"? I'm sure that means something to you, but describing typically runs counter to forgetting. Whatever it may mean to you, there would be no need for modern day conservatives to gloss over it, as it happened under democrat rule fueled by the democrat-founded KKK. Much like the weekly atrocities of Chicago don't reflect on conservatives.

 

[iceaura]

Whatever it may mean to you, there would be no need for modern day conservatives to gloss over it, as it happened under democrat rule fueled by the democrat-founded KKK.

Even most southern racist trailer trash Republican "conservatives" know that their kind were all Democrats then (many can even remember the 1980s, when most of them first switched Parties for national elections). The amnesia you are trying to pimp here has not taken firm enough hold even in the Tea Party thugs.

They don't want any of that tar on them, so they are going to gloss over it.

 

[Syne]

Whoa. That's quite a little string of ad hominem there, fella. Sounds overly defensive, especially when you haven't even been attacked. Oh, right. Being told to support your own assertions is an "attack" nowadays, right? Should I have provided a trigger warning, so you could find your safe space?

But cling tightly to that myth of yours. Don't want any cognitive dissonance seeping in and upsetting your apple cart.

 

[iceaura]

Whoa. That's quite a little string of ad hominem there, fella.

Not one. Get a dictionary, look up "pejorative", "insult", and "ad hominem". Note the lack of synonym.

But cling tightly to that myth of yours.

It's called history. You can find it on the internet easily - look up "Southern Strategy", "Lee Atwater", "Richard Nixon", "Dixiecrat", the outline of the old Confederacy in the modern voting maps - - - it's kind of common knowledge. There's no way to hang around US politics without running into it. So the only question that comes to mind when reading another one of you guys trying to push the political faction that gave us the KKK off onto somebody as far from the Tea Party that is its modern manifestation as possible, is this one: are they lying, or are they stupid?