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What I object to is your argument that just because there are limits to free speech, free speech is a meaningless concept no one really believes in. Your "speech should be free as long as it's not too awful" erases all distinction. If someone argued that all christian or non-christian books should be banned, how would you describe him? “I guess he’s just like everyone else, he doesn’t really believe in free speech” ? I’m not religiously committed to 'absolute free speech', or to classical liberal ideas in general for that matter, I just think they work in almost all cases, and I explained why they don’t here.
I don’t think they could hate jews any more than they already do. Their tremendous animosity has failed to bring about the downfall of the enemies of god so far. The schock between islam’s secular powerlessness and its religious claim of omnipotence is the entire point.
That's because there very obviously is no distinction. There is no objective measure of any of the terms involved in this discussion: "harm", "severity", "threat", "balance" etc and so on. You can call me a postmodernist again if it makes you feel better, but that doesn't change the fact that if someone disagrees with your definition of a word, there's piss-all you can do about it. And the distinction, if you're keeping track, is that actual postmodernists think the language games are all there is, whereas I think that there is a bedrock truth readily available to all men, but understand that I cannot force another to recognize that truth against his will any more than he can force me, because communication is not deterministic. And if we cannot reconcile, what is there left to do but fight?
You cite Islamic calls for attacks on blasphemers as a clear case where speech should be constrained, but I say there's zero need to restrict such speech in any way. Why not respond that such calls are entirely permitted, and if anyone tries to act on them within our communities we will simply shoot them to death on the spot. It worked in Texas, when a pair of heavily-armed Jihadis (escorted by FBI agents, naturally) rolled up to a Mohammed cartoon contest and managed to lightly wound one person before having their limbs unstrung.
I don't think you've actually demonstrated a need to restrict speech, because there never is a need to restrict speech, only a want. And it's okay to want things, and to be honest about the fact that we want them. You can, in this moment, cease from framing your desires and values as some sort of universal imperative, and admit that you want to do a thing because you think it should be done.
I'd describe him as "an enemy", but from the outside view, sure. An example would be the Japanese when they extirpated the Christian faith from their nation in the 1600s. Nothing they did was special or unusual. They perceived a threat, and acted on it. That's what people do. The trick comes in figuring out whether something is or isn't a threat, and finding alternatives to conflict with the former, or winning the conflict with the latter.
It is, in fact, relative. There are people I would prefer to treat as the Japanese treated Christians. My problem with the Japanese is not, to a first approximation, that they used the power of the state against those they saw as a threat to their society. It's how they defined "threat to society".
The vast majority of people want free speech and something at least approximating liberal ideals in "almost all cases". No one suppresses speech they like and consider wholesome. It's the dangerous speech that needs protecting, or none at all. Your "almost all cases" doesn't cover a broad swath of topics of immediate importance to a large percentage of the earth's population. And if you think you're free to "explain why they don't" here, why am I not free to "explain why they don't" somewhere else?
From previous discussions, it seems clear that you understand that we don't actually disagree much on the object level. The disagreement is that you claim to defend speech, but I don't trust your defense to protect me when I need it, because the principles you are basing it on have observably failed to protect me when I needed it. My stance, on the other hand, is an attempt to not imply promises of protection that I won't actually be willing to live up to. "Free Speech" with an invisible asterisk applied is a moral hazard. Better to forego the asterisk and simply be straightforward about what we're actually willing to commit to.
"I don't think they can hate [X] more than they already do" is a poor bet when it comes to humans. Hate is fractal. There is no bottom.
So far.
By my reckoning, Islamic Terror won the War on Terror hands-down. I think they're doing pretty okay.
I’m not in principle opposed to a scuffle, but a failure to communicate on a failure of communication seems like a flimsy reason. How about we just stumble home like two deaf-mute assholes ?
What are you even trying to achieve with all this? If you prove your thesis to my satisfaction, you will have proven that communication works, and the paradox monster will eat us both.
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I think the problem with “just wait until they actually do it” is that it essentially requires an omniscient government. The level of spying on civilians needed to know if I’m going to commit any crime is pretty high.
I would regulate calls for jihad much like I’d regulate any other exhortation to commit a crime. We don’t allow someone to advocate for breaking the law. I can’t get on Twitter and call for the death of a celebrity you’re mad at. Likewise calling for the bombing of buildings, death of groups of people, and other criminal activities should be illegal.
...Or a heavily-armed populace, which we have.
Others have noted that the speech you think should be illegal is not, in fact, illegal.
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I don't think you're correct. My understanding is that only speech which advocates imminent lawless action is illegal in the United States. You can absolutely advocate for genocide, say that a celebrity should be executed, and that someone should bomb this particular building, and no one will arrest you.
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Absent a real threat of imminent lawless action, all the examples of obviously-banworthy speech you mention are (at least in the US) protected by the 1st amendment. So in the US, regulating calls for jihad much like other exhortations to commit a crime means not regulating it at all, except in the rare case for a call for jihad against X where X is sufficiently specific to meet the imminent lawless action standard.
Looking at politics rather than law, whether vague or remote exhortations to commit a crime should be default-banned (the "stochastic terrorism" theory) or default-legal (the US status quo) is pretty much at the edge of the Overton window on free speech. Add culture war toxicity, and it isn't surprising that this topic generates a lot of heat and not much light.
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