The moment you censor that first call to exterminate all jews, no matter how justified you think you are, you oppress everyone.
That counts as speech crime. Freedom of speech isnt just good speech or the speech you like or even the speech that isnt horrible, its all speech. Otherwise, its not free at all.
To quote Picard, “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”
The moment you censor that first opinion, not matter how justified you think you are, you oppress everyone.
kandoh@reddthat.com 3 months ago
horsey@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Plenty of “speech crimes” that are illegal in the US already. For instance, threatening people. If you say to someone “I am going to assault you”, yes, that’s a crime, and you can be prosecuted and face prison time.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Okay but in the US people can go to jail for death threats. Is that speech crime? Is that the first link in the chain? Or is that a reasonable law?
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Yeah, speech can’t cause a reasonable person to have a reasonable fear of harm. Like, calling in a bomb scare. I don’t know the exact parameters, but it’s established that there are forms of speech that are not permissible.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Right. So there are forms of speech that are not permissible.
The argument then isn’t “I don’t agree with this law banning calls for genocide because I’m against all forms of speech restrictions”. The argument is really “I don’t agree with this law banning calls for genocide because I don’t see calls for genocide as something that should be banned.” The latter argument is difficult to justify though, which is why the former argument is used by a lot “free speech absolutionists”.