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Robert M. Price bit of controversy- Can anyone confirm?

arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
Looks like I am in a minority when I support freedom of any kind of speech.
I also support freedom of any kind of speech. That does not mean that speech does not have consequences outside of government censors. The answer to bad speech is good speech.
Well, looks like this forum is not really for me.
You get challenged on your beliefs by people on a forum, and you feel that means the forum is not for you? I guess if you were expecting an echo chamber, this forum is not for you.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
This is actually a hilarious observation.
You hear that, do you? I wonder where you hear that. Is it on the internet, by chance? You can hear a lot of things on the internet depending on where you go looking. It's the modern equivalent of 'bloke down the pub says, so it must be true'. Recall what I said about substantiation? How is what you hear substantiation? [Emphesis addded]
What motivated me? well, probably I was influenced by discussions with friends, one friend of mine who lives in Paris said there are people who don't even let you joke about some things like. Hearing all the cancel-culture amplified my paranoia. Recently Facebook and Twitter decided to shut down the account of a clown who was about to fade away anyway. [Emphesis addded]
That is the actual order those posts appear on the first page of this thread.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Looks like I am in a minority when I support freedom of any kind of speech.

Well, you might be a minority when it comes to what you conceive of as an understanding of what freedom of speech means. Having been an advocate of legitimate freedom of speech for decades, I can report it is sad to see the rise of the euphemistic version where agitators want to redefine it to mean 'consequence free speech'.

The only relevant concept when it comes to freedom of speech is with respect to speech being free from legal sanction or government censorship. There has never been a time or place where freedom of speech means that a person can say whatever they like, wherever they like, and other people have no right to tell them to sling their fucking hooks.

If anything, in fact, there is far more protection today from governments, if you walked into someone's private property and started ranting obnoxiously in decades gone, you'd be lucky to just get thrown out rather than being carried out. Today, we universally agree that people shouldn't be hurt for their obnoxious expressions, but there is no credible argument to be made that people should have unrestricted access to other peoples' private property, or that companies are legally or morally obliged to provide a platform or megaphone to views that are inconsistent with their own.

Let's keep freedom of speech to mean what it always meant until vacuous internet culture got frothy over it.


Well, looks like this forum is not really for me.

Doesn't really follow. It's not for you because you've got a minority opinion? That would suggest you want to find a forum where other people think just like you.


What motivated me? well, probably I was influenced by discussions with friends, one friend of mine who lives in Paris said there are people who don't even let you joke about some things like.

So yet more hearsay then? And this is hearsay multiple times removed.

I tend to find that the people who complain about not being 'allowed' to say things are usually arseholes who have found that no one likes them or wants them round when they keep being arseholes.

Given how much this has motivated you, may I suggest you spend a little time and effort skeptically scrutinizing the idea rather than just being led by hearsay?


Hearing all the cancel-culture amplified my paranoia. Recently Facebook and Twitter decided to shut down the account of a clown who was about to fade away anyway.

So you'd advocate that private companies have a responsibility to allow their platforms to be used for the incitement of violence?


And that's all. I do understand the need to distance yourself from things do not agree with, so when they explained is not really about canceling things I recognized my error.

I don't understand a need for anyone to distance themselves from things they don't agree with, although I can certainly imagine specific circumstances that would more than justify that; but 'need', not so much.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Just to expand on the above while I await yet another interminable Zoom meeting.

I live in a country where criticism of the monarchy is penalized with up to 15 years prison sentence for each count. An opposition politician is currently facing up to 40 years in prison solely for criticizing the government's (not the monarchy's) response to the coronavirus pandemic. This is what a legitimate concern of freedom of speech is about - not being penalized and incarcerated by the government for expressing a view.

The suggestion that being banned from posting on Twitter amounts to censorship of freedom of expression is just abject bollocks. The service is not an inalienable right - it's a product that a company offers which is a 'free to user' service. In order to use that service, you agree to a series of rules, and if you willfully break those rules, the company has every right to suspend your use of that service.

We can wring our hands about how being banned from Twitter impacts freedom of expression, but why do we never seem so concerned about why some people can't engage a little self-discipline and stick to their side of the agreement? Trump could have continued to use Twitter to blather at his cultists as long as he wanted: all he had to do was not incite violence. Is that really meant to be an onerous, unfair expectation? The man's supposedly sufficiently competent to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, but suddenly he's not meant to be responsible for his own behavior?

It's nonsense. We live in a world polluted by misinformation; euphemisms get a wider audience to subscribe superficially to a position that seems reasonable on the surface, but which actually is created solely for the pretense of a degree of public credibility; below the surface, far worse things are occurring. No freedom of speech protects the 'right' of individuals to incite harm; that's not 'freedom of speech' - that's actually setting fire to the theatre.
 
arg-fallbackName="leionaaad"/>
I guess if you were expecting an echo chamber, this forum is not for you.
Wasn't expecting an echo chamber. Certainly wasn't expecting the spaish inquisition.
So yet more hearsay then? And this is hearsay multiple times removed.
Not really. the discussions were sparked by an event where a romanian soccer coach was accused of being racist. So even if everything my friend told me is a lie, that event really happened. It was ffuckin hilarious.
The suggestion that being banned from posting on Twitter amounts to censorship of freedom of expression is just abject bollocks
Call it whatever you want. i see it as part of the tendency to silence people and cancel events for highly subjective reasons. While the short term consequences are ok, I doubt it will have any real effect for the long term. I saw some facebook posts people saying they moving to another thing, I forgot it's name. Highly motivated aggressive people will find their way to exchange ideas - now they will do it out of sight.

Trump was hilarious though, I will miss him.
No freedom of speech protects the 'right' of individuals to incite harm
I agree only partially. I don't see any problem letting people bark all they want. However, people inspired by it are responsible 100% for their actions.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
Wasn't expecting an echo chamber. Certainly wasn't expecting the spaish inquisition.
CA8F7566-8003-431D-93AD-B0246359129E.jpeg

All jokes aside, that is a bit hyperbolic, no? This is just two people pointing out flaws in your posts. This is a public forum after all. What else were you expecting to happen when people see flaws in your posts?
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Wasn't expecting an echo chamber. Certainly wasn't expecting the spaish inquisition.

Nobody expects... oh damn, HWIN already got this one! :(

Regardless though; all that's actually happened is that your views have been challenged. I am not sure how this analogizes well with the torture and execution of heretics on religious grounds.

Not really. the discussions were sparked by an event where a romanian soccer coach was accused of being racist. So even if everything my friend told me is a lie, that event really happened. It was ffuckin hilarious.

Not sure exactly what this is meant to substantiate. A football coach was accused of racism. And? Either the accusation was justified or it wasn't. Not sure how this relates to the point at hand about censorship, cancel culture etc.


Call it whatever you want. i see it as part of the tendency to silence people and cancel events for highly subjective reasons.

I would imagine that the vast majority of what you see doesn't come from actual events, rather it comes from particular channels of dubious information that keep repeating claims like the above, and you've accepted them as fact without attempting to verify the claims or look further into it - like you did above. Hearsay & anecdote are not good data on which to build beliefs.

While the short term consequences are ok, I doubt it will have any real effect for the long term. I saw some facebook posts people saying they moving to another thing, I forgot it's name. Highly motivated aggressive people will find their way to exchange ideas - now they will do it out of sight.

Hasn't that always been the case? And isn't that enough? Half a century ago, public racist abuse was common and unremarkable. Nowadays it's not. No one believes that all those people have stopped being racist or stopped making racist remarks, but racists know that saying it in public nets them social stigma and possibly the attention of the police. Similarly, no one's actually trying to stop them doing whatever the hell they like in private - they can scream racist abuse until they're hoarse in the privacy of their own homes - they're only forbidden from doing it in public; the same space in which it can cause actual harm.

So they're out of sight - which seems quite fine for everyone concerned - but people can still go and join those sites if that's what they want. They're out of public sight, but they're not actually hidden. You can bet that national and international agencies keep tabs on online violent extremist rhetoric wherever they congregate.

Trump was hilarious though, I will miss him.

I don't really think that the humour value outweighs the damage he caused.

I agree only partially. I don't see any problem letting people bark all they want. However, people inspired by it are responsible 100% for their actions.

Fortunately, that's not a position shared by any governments who protect minorities - barking in public to incite hatred is not what freedom of speech is meant to protect.
 
arg-fallbackName="Collecemall"/>
It seems Dr. Price has stepped in it deep enough that most people are distancing themselves from him after the appearance on Pinecreek's channel a few days ago. To some this was a surprise but as this thread details this isn't new ground for him. He's just openly saying some pretty horrific things now. When given the platform to back away from some of this stuff he's doubled down instead. Free speech doesn't mean the rest of us have to listen or continue to platform him.
 
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