Oddbean new post about login | logout The most awful disgusting violent hateful misinformed speech you ever read or heard was still free speech. It’s all free speech. There are no restrictions.
The cool part about it is, we are all free to listen, or not.
And we can choose to not act on what we hear.
I have tried to make this exact same argument with ppl but I think the biggest issue that advocates of "speech moderation" fail to grasp is that any form of regulation or moderation inherently requires someone to decide what is permissible and what is not. Even if the designated gatekeepers are democratically elected, it doesn't guarantee they’ll make the right choices—or that a universally "right" decision even exists. The subjective nature of filtering speech introduces a constant risk of overreach and bias, regardless of the intent.
Yes! Hayek basically says the fatal conceit of man is thinking we can control and guide the future. We have no way of knowing what is good or bad speech since we don’t know the future. Language, money, math, and law are naturally emergent and we shouldn’t think we have the ability to centrally control them. Check out this podcast to learn about Hayek’s thoughts. @breedlove22 https://fountain.fm/episode/n5v2B0Qnmt6qPt6VAKDG
The irony is that side makes call, “silence is violence”, right after saying we should censor hate-speech. You just gotta make sure you embrace what narrative they’re pushing and you’re good to go.
So is child porn free speech? Because if so, wow, do you have a tough position to defend; as in, you’re going to end up losing the war to win a pedantic battle that only ends up making you look bad. There is no such thing as “free speech”. There is a Constitutional amendment that the US government shall not make a law restricting free speech, but some Libertarian types have taken that dictate to RESTRICT THE GOV’T and turned it into an all-powerful god. Stop worshipping dumb maxims.
Child porn is criminal evidence and should be impounded by law enforcement.
Free speech can mean openly committing a crime in public, and there are consequences for that that have nothing to do with free speech.
“porn”: an abbreviated form of the word “pornography”, which is defined as “wicked writing”. It is my understanding that prior to the advent of nearly free cost (as in beer) of publishing of both written and photographed works, pornography covered any kind of written or lithographed printed work which advocated illicit, wicked writing. Therefore, child porn is not simply evidence; it’s wicked speech in printed form. It shares in the wickedness of lying about COVID vaccine effectiveness to increase one’s profits on the backs of the dead who take your vaccine, along with a variety of other speech which results in wickedness being perpetrated on others in order to produce and disseminate more wicked speech. Therefore, I contend it is not wise to attempt to protect any speech whatsoever without any discernment being used just to protect the supposed ideal of “free speech”.
Truth!
The real reason we need free speech is because the legal system isn't prosecuting violent criminals if they belong to Democrat / Left Wing aligned special interest political groups / lobbies. If we cannot verbally express our concern about the prosecution of violent criminals in the legal system, the only way to fight for rights left will be with the 2nd amendment. And at that point violence will become a part of every day life for every American. The choice is simple, choose free speech, and vote politicians who promise to police speech in any way shape or form out of office.