Hi. Thorn again, a Discussion board and Suggestions board moderator (and recently, a Market Squad member!) from Toribash. I made a thread here earlier in this board, and it was somewhat successful, so I decided to give it another swing!

Note: Last time I posted one of my own threads, but this is from someone else. Credit to AikidoXP for the thread.



The original thread can be found here.

My old thread in this board can be found here.

Seeing as I live in America, I don't think there should be any restrictions whatsoever. You should be able to say what you want, when you want, without fear of legal percussion or persecution.

Seeing as I live in America, I'm envious of people who get to say whatever they want without punishment or persecution.
I'm all for free speech. In a utopia, everyone knows everything that is said.

Sure, but calling the president a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ right in front of him may get you in some trouble.

I personally think that free speech is a much better alternative to extremely restricted voicing, IE Chinese laws.
Either way I think that speech should have some restrictions, things like verbal assault, racism, and other forms of discrimination through words should have some sort of penalty. Maybe a fine, a warning, something of the sort, however without a policeman to be there witnessing you there isn't much you can do, and dialing 911 because someone called you a dumb isn't really necessary.
However it would go down I still think something should be done about this sort of thing.

People should keep their damn opinions to themselves, in my opinion.

That sounds so contradictory it made me chuckle.

I'm British, so I think free speech should be thrown out of a window.

I am not a government agent. I'M NOT A CROOK.

I can say with absolute certainty that the rest of the country agree's with our broken Successful parliamentary system.

I know I sound like some sort of elitist conspiracy theorist or something, but most people are naturally gullible creatures that believe most of the things that are "fed" to them (or that they read on the internet).

Free Speech is great until you slander some small business, and the resulting (false) bad press causes it to crash, ruining the business owner's life.

I wish I could say it was as easy as regulating speech about businesses, but as soon as you do that, you have corporations suing for bad reviews of a particular product.
It's very hard to determine whether an accusation is true, and if it isn't, how do we regulate where to draw the line on censoring them?

Such is just one problem introduced with Free Speech.

The idea that free speech means you can say whatever you want is absolute crap.


There's a point where your rights to say whatever you want conflicts with the rights of other people, and the law.

It's a very thin line.

Why would insulting the president get you into trouble? That's just dumb, it's a democracy not a monarchy. And fines for racism and etc is equally dumb, it doesn't solve anything and would only serve to oppress freedom of speech. Plus that's a slippery ♥♥♥♥ slope, you just described the precursor to thoughtcrime. If you admit your idea has faults at least try to address them before espousing it.

Explain.

I'd expect you of all people to know this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel

Lack of free speech is like racism but it disallows different opinions rather than different skin color. You don't actually believe free speech should be thrown out the window, because you have no idea the implications of such an act.

You can say whatever you want so long as it's not defamation.

"Freedom of Speech" is more accurately termed "Freedom of Expression", and there should never, ever, ever be allowed to be restrictions on this act. What may seem outrageous to you could seem completely normal to another, and the converse is true. Why on EARTH would any of you want someone in charge of what you're allowed to say?

I'm in favor of complete freedom of speech. Of course some unpleasantness can arise from this, (A textbook example is just a few blocks away from my mom's house in Topeka, the infamously inflammatory Westboro Baptist Church) but to entrust the government with the discretion to limit forms of expression just to keep things 'pleasant' is certainly not a worthwhile trade-off.

Azukki, as always you astound me with your astuteness. What an excellent way to word that, bravo sir.

I think there is an important distinction to be made- should speech be free on a lawful or moral level? Ideally they should be one and the same, but it can't be so. The context is always such a factor when looking at the morality of specific situations, yet laws in their own definition are far too hard to accommodate this. Having hard laws is important for "fairness" and consistency on a larger scale, being able to account for differences in the people involved in the process and so on. Of course even within the subject of law there are multiple levels to it, but I'll speak in the very narrow sense of by the book law. Of simply, what should be written down on paper as procedure. A law that does not run the risk of assuming intelligence or even sentience on the part of those who will interpret and act on the law. A simplified, blanket, do this in all circumstances kind of law.

As many have said, there is a point where free speech is bad for the general welfare of the people. I am fairly utilitarian in my views, and I think that if someone's free speech interferes with the overall happiness of the people, they are perfectly in the right to punish them (in reasonable limits, but that's another matter). This isn't to say that I believe happiness is the maxim on a more personally level, but I agree with it on a larger scale. Again, multiple levels must be considered, as with moral vs lawful. But certainly from the point of people in charge, who are charged with the task of keeping order and happiness, they are in the right.

And of course, as with many laws this has situations where it has its failings, even within its own logic. There is the ever present question of how exactly to weigh and measure "happiness", even defining the word is a great exercise in philosophy in and of itself, but again those are different matters and its impossible to speak on any subject if you keep branching out to related topics (relevant as they may be). But for example a situation where some young, dashing revolutionary or some other tries to upturn the law for the good of the people. Attempts to repeal a mandate that states that all citizens be given a measure of government issued candy, to use a frivolous example. Candy that is eating (pardon the pun) into government budget, dealing a crippling financial blow to failings in public health care, infrastructure. Obviously a lack of candy will make the wide audience of sugar toothed citizens greatly displeased, but at the same time having doctors to cure their ills and proper roads and transportation that do many things but on the most obvious level they allow people to get around. I acknowledge situations like this but I think that on the subject of law a reasonable government can do naught but shut down the courageous counter candy confederate. There are all sorts of other factors like will this person succeed? Will their changes improve happiness as much as suggested? So many factors that I think lawfully, under the limited scope of hard laws that the best option under utilitarian values is for the government to discourage free speech where it creates a deficit of happiness.

But here is the caveat implied in my words. I think that on a personal moral level, if one has belief in their righteousness one is obligated to say what they think, law be damned. Frankly I think free speech is overrated. If there are no consequences to saying as you please that denies your words a great deal of gravity and leads to a lot of abuse of the privilege, as we have seen. I'll take a moment hear to acknowledge this echoes of my justification of my earlier actions, as I'm sure you are thinking of now. Obviously when you compare the threat of not being able to post on a forum for a few weeks to the atrocities committed by governments against free speech its makes a pretty good mockery of me, even before you consider I'm a spoiled teenage brat who in know way can make promises on his own bravery in the name of truth. But in any case that's what I think and it applies to all magnitudes. But to be clear I in no way think that the government should have death sentences or anything dire for people trying to incite political change, but I think they should definitely discourage unlimited free speech, and have some reasonable wrist slapping.

tl;dr: Governments should discourage free speech that is harmful to the overall happiness to the people. People should speak anyways if they think what they say is right.

Now, by "they", do you mean government, legally punishing those with widely-detested outspoken opinions? If so, I don't think we agree on this matter quite enough for "tl;drer: what Azukki said" to be fitting.

I was suggesting that that sort of problem was an inherent downside of the best option. The revisions that could fix these issues would bring their own downsides, and in my opinion, these downsides would most likely outweigh the benefits. These downsides would likely be of a nature that is counter-active to the original core concept, and perhaps even negate it. If you have the right to freedom of expression, unless enough people are unhappy about what you're saying, it's really more of a privilege than a right, is it not? I consider that distinction to be very important.

Edit in response to below reply: I'm glad to see we came to an understanding of our disagreement and misunderstandings without undue uncivilly.
Also, hurr durr fact: your opinion is wrong, dsgfkijsdfb

I gravely misinterpreted your post. I apologize for the very poor attention to detail on my part.

Yes you're perfectly right there is a great distinction there. Though I think that my opinion is somewhat colored by the connotation of your words, though that's not your fault considering those were the most accurate and concise words for what you were trying to express.

But yes, I think then that free speech without legal repercussions should be a non-guaranteed privilege, not a right at all.

I am one hundred percent for freedom of speech. But as with any right, it is easy to abuse, and can interfere with the rights of other people.


Spreading lies and slander is a clear affront to the right to the pursuit of happiness... you are taking away that person's chance at happiness using deception.
If you accuse an innocent man of a crime with malicious intent, then you are obstructing that person's right to liberty by getting them thrown into jail.
Persuading a country that all of the members of a religion should be slaughtered is a crime against freedom of religion - and, if successful, a tragedy as far as the right to life is concerned.
(Please also note that threatening to kill another human being is a crime in the US.)


This is where the legal system gets involved, allowing citizens to take such abusers before a jury.



Anyway, my opinion on the matter is identical to Azukki's.