• licherally@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    As much as I dislike people spitting hatred at women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and POCs, this is still freedom of speech. You don’t have to enjoy it, you don’t have to listen to it, and you’re certainly free to remove these people from your personally owned spaces. But it doesn’t change the fact that people should be allowed to say whatever the fuck they want, otherwise we literally are punishing people for thought crimes and edgy jokes.

    People should be judged for their actions, not their words. Words don’t actually mean anything without action behind them.

    I’m a gay man, and I’ve definitely given out the occasional f slur pass. Why? Because I honestly think it’s funny as fuck when my best friend of 20 years calls me that. He doesn’t hate me, he knows and loves my partner like a sibling, and he is my brother. It would be so fucked if he got in some kind of actual trouble for that…

    • Nahdahar@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The dangerous thing with speech is the ability to radicalize people. I mostly agree with your comment but it’s a more complex topic than “until you don’t do something bad you’re fine”.

    • mugthol@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 months ago

      So if someone says “let’s kill all women, gays and jews” that’s totally fine for you?

      • licherally@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        If they’re just saying that, I certainly don’t want to be around them but I don’t think they should go to prison. If they act upon that, that’s entirely different and should be treated as a hate crime.

        Also, you just said it. Does context matter to you? What about intention?

      • smeg
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        10 months ago

        I think their point is that you don’t throw them in prison just for saying it. If they actually do it or influence others to do it then that’s very different. I always try to think how a law could be twisted or abused, and once you make simply saying something illegal that opens the door to a lot of authoritarianism.

        • mugthol@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 months ago

          Something being illegal does not automatically mean prison. In most developed countries prison is a last resort

      • licherally@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s fundamentally not the same thing, don’t be obtuse for the sake of debate points.

        Insults and general demeaning comments should not be punished in the court of law. Saying offensive things should not be punished in the court of law.

        As I said before, the action/intent is the part that should be punished. Providing private information about someone who you disagree with or want to incur harm upon is an action with malicious intent.

        As a leftist, I fail to understand why we always jump to tone policing and purity politics? We can identify the material conditions that cause radicalization and general bigotry and act upon these things, but we always just jump to punishing people for being radical bigots, which only further galvanizes those positions.

        We’re not making these spaces smaller, we’re making them more volatile by doing this. They see these conversations and think “this is why we have to remove leftism, because they will punish us for crimes we have yet to do” and that’s precisely what this argument is.

          • licherally@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Well I’m holding you in contempt in court for making a joke that I didn’t agree with. I hope you’re ready to pay a huge fine, because this is an open and shut case.

    • LoudWaterHombre@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Why does your freedom of speech cover insulting me? It doesn’t make any sense? Instead of me having to remove myself from public spaces to not get insulted, the people insulting in public spaces should be removed???

      • LwL@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Because what is insulting enough to warrant removal is extremely subjective. Pretty much everyone agrees there’s a line somewhere, where people draw that line is very different. I would never even consider trying to stop people from making bad edgy jokes, but I will tell them the joke isn’t funny and they just seem like a bigot if that’s what I think.

        I also wouldn’t consider 4chan a public place. Someone holding up a sign in a train station that says “gays are an abomination” I would agree should be removed as they are actively making a public space hostile to someone. But then I’d also put different standards on a non-spontaneous demonstration, as those have to be cleared beforehand and won’t happen on a super frequent basis, and there needs to be some way to voice any opinion that doesn’t outright call for violence.

        • LoudWaterHombre@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          Well you guys do realise though, that outside the US, in a damn big ass amount of countries, insulting people is illegal and not considered freedom of speech?

          • LwL@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I am not in the US lol. Insulting people is in fact illegal here, that doesn’t mean i necessarily agree with that in a general capacity. There was a famous case of a politician here a few years ago that sued and had someones house raided over them insulting them on twitter (with a very harmless insult too), which is absolutely ridiculous.