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Huge news from South America today.
A single judge in Brazil has not only blocked X in the country, but is requiring Apple and Google to remove VPNs from their phones, and is imposing a $9,000 daily fine (basically a year's salary) for anyone in the country caught using a VPN.
Elon Musk attracted the ire of this particular judge, Alexandre de Moraes, when he posted about the judge's previous autocratic attempts to silence free speech and to jail opponents of the current regime led by Lula da Silva. The legal system is very strange in Brazil, and apparently Supreme Court judges have huge unilateral powers to try cases and enforce laws as they see fit. This particular judge has done so thousands of times.
Now X is banned.
With dissent being silenced, and a corrupt socialist in charge, it seems that yet another Latin American country is set on the path to tyranny.
Many people will be opposed to this move on Brazil's part, but for the wrong reasons, chief among which is national pride. As a free speech absolutist, I'm opposed to this move because I believe any speech whatsoever should be legally permitted. This includes not just "wholesome" speech, but:
The justification is simple: sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you. To which the standard reply is: "but words can hurt too". To which my reply is: "no it can't, because to hurt is to cause pain, and pain is purely a physical sensation. There is no such thing as non-physical pain, the kind people talk about when they talk about e.g. losing someone they love. That talk of 'pain' is merely a figure of speech. ". To which the reply may be: "but phantom limb pain is non-physical". To which the reply is: "no it's physical in my sense. For pain to be physical it's not necessary that it's triggered by a physical stimulus. It suffices that it's experienced as physical, i.e. it has the distinctive qualia associated with pain and is locatable in some specific part of the body or a generic region of the body. And phantom limb pain meets those conditions."
Interesting. What do you do if a resourseful enemy defames you, suck it up? What do you do if a bunch of people openly conspire to kill you? It appears that you cannot legally defend yourself until they act, which they're free to do at the moment they pick.
If you're physically struck but not hurt, have you been assaulted?
Presumably conspiracy is a crime because planning crimes is also a crime.
I could see the argument that a threat to commit a crime is not a plan. A threat is usually contingent on some condition.
If the threat is to be believed (presumably threats are punished because we think they are credible) then there's no stated plan as long as the condition isn't fulfilled.
I suppose as soon as the victim ignores the threat, then perhaps the threat can be assumed to be a plan.
I'd presume so, yes, but they're claiming they're a free speech absolutist and that any speech act is just speech. Planning to inflict pain doesn't inflict pain itself.
Even if speech is not a crime it can be compelling evidence of another crime. If I confess to the cops that I committed a murder, that can put me away for murder ... unless I was actually on video with a dozen witnesses at the time of the murder, in which case my exact same speech would not get me convicted, because the speech itself isn't the murder.
(Though I'd say it should get me convicted of making a false police report, but I assume this is where @reconnaissent and I differ)
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