Freedom of Speech to be Returned!!!
- Thread starter Colpy
- Start date
Waxin' down our surfboards
And loadin' up our traps.
Tell the teacher we're shootin'
And never comin' back.
I've got a gun rack in my Chevy
For when the surf and the flak get heavy.
And we'll have fun with our guns until the lifeguard takes our ammo away.
Nick Rivers - Skeet Surfin'
And loadin' up our traps.
Tell the teacher we're shootin'
And never comin' back.
I've got a gun rack in my Chevy
For when the surf and the flak get heavy.
And we'll have fun with our guns until the lifeguard takes our ammo away.
Nick Rivers - Skeet Surfin'
OK, well first you asked me to explain the standard on which I base my position on free speech. I said logical argument and didn't elaborate. But then you changed the parameters of your question and demanded an absolute inalienable standard. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. That this standard cannot be refuted? I think that that would kinda miss the whole point of the logical argument.
Rational inquiry is impossible without doubt. We will never arrive at the truth if we do not challenge our beliefs. Knowledge will not advance and ideas will not improve. That is the basic principle behind free speech. We need it in order to better understand the world, ourselves and our relationships with each other. If certain speech were forbidden we would be cut off from a fuller understanding of that topic. As John Stuart Mill argues, if every person but one believed the same thing, that one dissenter's opinion would be the most valuable of all. Right or wrong the dissenter will keep us questioning and make our understanding stronger.
To suggest that this rationale couldn't be refuted would undermine the logic of the rationale itself.
Humans have a problem separating what they believe from what they perceive.
Disney - I Believe I Can Fly - YouTube
And some have a problem thinking they've said something when they in fact said nothing.
Let's do it! You already know my position, so.... you wanna go first?
I did go first
I'm waiting for your reply.Guess you missed it.
see here:
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/c...37-freedom-speech-returned-3.html#post1508397
Yes I do mean that the absolute standard cannot be refuted. Something is either right or wrong. Period. It has nothing to do with how anyone including myself thinks. If 7 billions humans believed rape was acceptable, rape would still be wrong. Wrong actions are intrinsically wrong, and people's opinions or feelings has nothing to do with it. Therefore, it's wrong to deny someone's freedom not because people say so, but rather it's wrong because it is. But you can still question and doubt the absolute moral standard if wish, that's the beauty of freedom of thought and speech!
Basically, according to you we have freedom of speech because it's a logical argument and it's a recognized importance because we believe in the full marketplace of ideas. But so what? Let's say attitudes change and now the majority says they have a logical argument to ban free speech. How do you know they're wrong and you're right?
You would know because you would take the act of denying free speech and you would COMPARE it with the unchanging, absolute standard of right and wrong written on your heart. How do you know something is unjust unless you have some idea of what justice is? Just as it is for you to point out a crooked line, you would have to FIRST know what a straight line is. This is why human beings don't DETERMINE what is right and wrong but rather we DISCOVER what is right and wrong using the same, unchanging standard that's in all of us.
Without the absolute moral standard it would be impossible to detect what is right and wrong. When you make any moral judgment, whether claiming it's wrong to deny your free speech or denouncing the holocaust, you are in fact COMPARING the act to the absolute moral standard. You're saying "this line is crooked and I know it's crooked because I know what a straight line is".
Without the absolute moral standard there would be no way to measure moral differences. Without the absolute standard statements like "murder is evil" or "racism is wrong" or "you shouldn't abuse children" have no objective meaning. They're just someone's opinion, on par with "chocolate tastes better than vanilla".
Without the absolute moral standard there would be no grounds for human rights. For example, the American revolutionaries wrote in the declaration of independence "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". In other words, the founding fathers believed that human rights are God-given, and, as such, they are universal and absolute - they are the rights of all people, in all places, at all times, regardless of their nationality or religion. The founding fathers recognized that there was a higher authority - the "Creator" - to whom they could appeal to establish objective moral grounds for their independence. Had they begun the declaration with, "We hold these opinions as our own..." (rather than "self-evident" "truths") they wouldn't have expressed an objective moral justification for their declaration of independence. It simply would have been their opinion against that of King George. So the American founders appealed to the "Creator" because they believed his moral law was the ultimate standard of right and wrong that would justify their cause.
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I don't believe that free speech is a moral question. In some arguments there are moral principles from which is follows but ultimately it comes down to utility. Speech can be harmful. Not in the incitement of violence way but in a psychological way. And suppressing some speech doesn't necessarily harm the individual suppressed. A balance can be made and this is what those in favour of hate speech laws argue. However, the argument for the utility of free speech, as I summarized earlier, outweighs the questions of individual freedom and harm reduction. When speech is suppressed, the harm done to all of us is greater than the harm done to the individual suppressed.
It's really flipping the concept around, but I think freedom of speech is really about the freedom of information. The freedom to hear more than the freedom to speak. Speech is just a prerequisite to hearing.
A change of attitudes and the amount of people believing something has no effect on the logic of the argument. I would know which argument was right by which one had the best argument.
Most of your post focuses on morality. I won't respond to it because I said I don't believe this is a moral question and if I do respond, we'd get sidetracked.
I'm not surprised you feel that way. You simply cannot admit a standard that is objective from human feelings because then you would have to answer the question of where the standard comes from (God), and even though you could believe in any god you wanted (free thought) you would have to cease your atheist/secular worldview.
Freedom is a question of morality, and your REACTION to your freedom of speech being denied would prove it. If your free speech was violated you would be *MORALLY OUTRAGED*.
If you don't want to respond because you don't believe in the moral nature of freedom, (I think it's because you won't admit the absolute standard because it wouldn't jive with your unbelief in God - with all respect) I guess that puts us at a stalemate, because I'm way beyond thinking freedom is based merely on opinion or a logical argument.
And here lies the problem with atheist/secular thinking. To you, there is no higher source of determining right and wrong other than what's going on in between your own ears. In your mind, you are God.
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There is no proof of God's existence so there can be no moral absolutes based on a fictitious character. Alley, your whole argument is based on your unsupported and unsupportable belief in God. There are no moral absolutes because there are many different moral standards in the world based on different belief systems. Morals are dependent upon belief, not absolutes. Your belief in absolutes are as fallacious as your belief in your god. Your convictions would only hold water if you were the only person on Earth.
Is that is what is trying to crawl out their skin? Some dance like a worm is trying to squirm out their asses and they have to hold it in or they'll die but I think those are the coke heads because they'll go outside and will stay outside in the daytime. The jib rats slink from nest to nest in the dark.