By the same token, your insistence on lumping threats of violence in with racial slurs is similarly inane. I don't hear anyone defending rape threats here.
I do. The person I was responding to is saying that you have to defend those if you wish to be a proponent of free speech. I reject that absolutism in it's entirety.
Nobody said you have to defend rape threats. Credible threats of violence are illegal. I believe you are ignoring or misunderstanding the argument (and the detailed reply was posted an hour ago). It seems you’re conflating racial slurs (and other deplorable speech) with threats of rape (or other horrific actions) as being equal. They are not.
There is a huge difference between these two:
> Get fucked, bitch.
> I have your address. I’m going to find you and rape you till you’re dead, bitch.
The second statement is absolutely illegal, as it is a credible threat. The first is a disgusting statement from an asshole that shouldn’t have ever been said.
Since 1998, I’ve been aware of a group of so-called christians who like to go to funerals and public events holding signs that say “god hates fags”. No doubt these people might be inclined to tweet, “We should round up all the fags and kill them.” Absolutely, without a doubt, deplorable as fuck. Still protected speech, as uncomfortable and disgusting as it is. These people nauseate me. They make me want to punch their teeth in. If I then reply to one of these assholes with, “Found your address. Coming for you. Better call your dentist.” I’ve wandered into credible threat territory, and illegal speech. I’m wholly unprotected by the First Amendment now.
Defending free speech means defending the constitutional right to say deplorable, yet wholly legal things. And it’s exceedingly difficult. Intellectually, I know it’s protected speech. I can type these words and say it’s legal and protected. I don’t dispute it at all. Emotionally, and as a human who believes in trying to do no harm because the world is chaos and it’s better to be kind, I can’t stand it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to read it. I want it gone. I want it to never have been said. I want people to have ways to escape being the targets of such speech. People shouldn’t feel unsafe. They shouldn’t feel attacked for who they are. And yet, we shouldn’t take away anyone’s right to speak their mind, no matter how disgusting.
In all these cases, the principles remain the same:
- there is no end to the vile things humans think and say, yet saying them is a right we’ve granted is, in sum, a net good
- anyone who veers outside mere speech and begins to incite, threaten, or engage in illegal action should be swiftly punished
- where lines get crossed or blurred and clarity is needed, we establish laws to do so (and they should pass constitutional muster)
What I find most difficult is having to defend from the assumption that my defense of speech means that I agree with the speech.
This is untrue and a non sequitur.
I can't stand Nazis. I'm not white and they'd harm me, if given opportunity to do so. They are truly horrible people.
As horrible as they are, they still deserve basic human rights up until they violate the law. We don't preemptively punish people. We don't take rights away without due process. We operate with the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Well, we used to...
So, when I stand up for the rights of the deplorable, I'm assumed to be a deplorable. Never mind that I'm standing up for the rights of all, I'm now counted as one of the deplorable.
And defending against that takes some time. To be fair, I didn't have anything better to do, most of the time. Still, I've had this conversation so many times that I could probably script it and automate it.
Seriously, a sibling post noticed that I have this verbiage figured out. They aren't the first to notice. I've been having this same conversation since before the Internet was world wide. Someone has to stand up for free speech while not actually being deplorable. It's more tasteful to hear it from me than to hear it from a KKK Grand Wizard. The reception is much better, put it that way. ;-)
Of course I'm willing to allow it. That's what defending free speech means. Free speech means allowing the deplorable, the horrible, the hateful, and the hurtful.
It does have limits, and those limits are already encoded in the laws. I've already been over those.
I like all of my rights, even if I'm not using them. I not only want them for myself, I want them for you.
I'm sorry, but we will never agree on this topic. Rape threats are not free speech, and saying I don't defend them does NOT mean that I am against free speech.
Just as you are allowed to say things considered insulting, oppressive, and intimidating by other (unfortunately large and growing) groups of people. Nobody complains about being marginalized more loudly than the nativists and white supremacists, and they use the exact same arguments as you do to demand that their critics be silenced.
