Protesting free speech is why we don't yell fire in a theater. Yell fear when it can make foreseeable unpredictable harm.

Protesting free speech is how people may face consequences for slander.

We simply protest free speech just making and interpreting laws.

You should protest people calling and implying that protesters who didn't riot are rioters.

Protest bad ideas, not speech itself. There are laws against incitement, slander, etc., but they are very specific and they are applied without regard to viewpoint. Those restrictions are politically neutral.

You are advocating shutting down "hate speech" which is neither specific nor neutral. If it were to become acceptable, I promise you would come to regret it. Imagine how your political opponents would define hate speech to silence your ideas.

Foldn, there are laws against hate speech in many western nations. Most of these countries are more liberal than the United States. Care to cite how these laws have been abused or how society has degraded with their introduction? All these countries have lower rates of crime, hate crimes etc fwiw.

You're simply fear mongering that if we don't allow people like milo and spencer to operate exactly how they want, eventually we'll be locking up dissenters en masse. There are plenty of developed nations that have thread the needle very well. Perhaps you should research them at this time.

You say it's wrong, but then you make an argument about effectiveness.

I don't understand why you would think it is wrong to use speech to silence people. If they were libeling someone, would it be okay to silence them? Or should people wait until the libel has been spread and hope for redress from a court? There are already all kinds of limits of free speech that we accept.

Further if someone just starts ranting about a topic on the street or something then they have no right to expect to not be shouted down. In the example cases people usually bring up the people shouting down are breaking the rules of the venue, and so they can and should be removed if the venue so chooses.

An interesting case, but is seems like the conspiracy was the issue.

What if a speaker says something ridiculous and the crowd spontaneously boos him off the stage? That seems fine to me and it would be absurd to arrest the entire crowd. Do you really want to criminalize booing?

I don't believe that countries in Europe have "threaded the needle" well at all. After starting two of the worst wars in history, they've managed to stay peaceful for 75 years largely because of NATO and great US military support, but far right parties have been gaining power and influence precisely because free expression is stifled, which only drives hatred underground to fester until it boils over. Threading the needle, my ass. Freedom of speech is a farce in Euroland

That can't end well in Europe, and efforts to do the same in the US will only end in revolt. Trump owes much of his popularity to such attempts. Thank goodness we have the 1st Amendment.

Free speech and large scale wars are two very, very different political topics foldn. That's about as large of a non sequitur as you could have made in your response. It's basically gibberish that ends with a "that's why trump won!"

Your argument is actually:
Thank God we don't have the same laws as much of Europe
These laws won't end well for Europe
That's why trump won

This is done without any irony. American democracy is clearly facing a bigger threat than anywhere in Europe. How you can be arguing both sides of this seems lost on you.

See above posts to Spanky regarding libel and other unprotected speech. You're right, conspiring and organizing to stifle political speech is a much bigger deal than spontaneous rowdy crowds.

Dude, your position is essentially "never argue or else" when it comes to speech confronting speech. Speech is ideas too my friend.

You say I am advocating shutting down and that is a mistake to say. I don't have time to debate the 'morals and ethics of Germany editing nazis out of video games' because I have done that before.

And significantly people are using their free speech to lie about protesters, Muslims, Immigrants, Natives, Protectors, Inner-City dwelling Blacks, and the Holocaust to name a few, which is a much bigger priority in all of our face immediately to use free speech to confront free speech.

And, if a fear-monger gets "shut down", and they didn't have a reasonable concern that lasted beyond the mongered fear- I did not cause that fear being mongered, but it is in my world.

Don't yell fire in a theater metaphorically or you might draw a huge crowd and corner authority into knee-jerking around.

If you can't see how allowing more free expression is better for civilization and leads to the best political outcomes overall, while censoring political speech is detrimental to civilization and leads to the worst of political outcomes, then I can only hope you'll read up on the value of free speech. There are many good sources in many threads in here, like the Hate Speech thread Zeno started.

On the contrary. My position is to argue more, not less. I've been criticising those who advocate not arguing, but instead advocate shouting down and trying to prevent argument.

I'm worried about US democracy because of Trump, but ultimately I expect our institutions to protect us, like the courts, the constitution and freedom of the press.

I'm more worried about Europe over the next couple decades. They have less protection when far right leaders gain power. Hungary is already lost, and Turkey is falling to authoritarianism. Austria and France have far right nationalist parties gaining power fast.

Foldn, that's another complete non answer comparing the likes of usa/Europe to third world countries rather than comparing the USA to canada/germany etc.

Genuine question for you: for the last few months haven't eroded your opinion of American exceptionalism, what will?

Which is great until fearmonger comes along and then the theater has to be extremely vetted for burning pants.

Does actually arguing with fear go anywhere? How often is it honestly expressed fear with an inarguable basis of fact? Is a fear mongering argument ever honest enough to honestly argue?

So what else can we do besides argue that is free expression and speech?

I think you just have to have faith in your better ideas, and promote them. Let your better ideas speak for themselves and don't succumb to the temptation to try and silence others. Doing that only deteriorates your position, makes your arguments look weak, and gives your opposition something to be right about.

I'd also like to point out that foldn is simultaneously arguing that checks and balances will stop trump from doing anything too bad, but that hate speech laws are a slippery slope that would lead to unjust arrests and civil disobedience that checks and balances couldn't stop.

Are there more recent examples of leaders gaining power than abusing it or hate speech laws going overboard?

That's an okay answer. I have lenghty answers to these topics but shorter is funner:

Don't don't as often as Do can Do.

In my opinion you are biased to think people are trying to silence others, so you miss stuff, some that is not all obvious. Do make sure not to mistake that everybody is doing the same thing on a 'team' of diverse identities and brains.

Others may happily silence themselves if they got caught fear mongering and have nothing to say.

Here's my current podcast pull list. Which shows in particular are rotting my mind?

Since making this post I've also added:

Talking Politics - which is a very good educated politics pod by some chaps from Cambridge.

Which shows are rotting your mind? Paul Joseph Watson's youtubes.

Hey, that's a great list. But you also consume Paul Joseph Watson, right? It's like saying "Here'a a comprehensive list of all the vitamins I take." when someone questions your meth use.

No I don't typically watch Watson, just a one-off really that popped up in a suggestions list.

He made a good point for the firt 5 minutes and then sort of lost me with immature and juvenile nonsense towards the end.

I'm surprised the last part didn't appeal more to you.

It seems clear to me that the level of understanding here isn't due to a lack of intelligence. You people simply refuse to admit that you're wrong. A teenager can understand why it's so important to allow other people to have different opinions.

The arguing of the difference between protesting and shutting-down speeches earlier was lol, too.

Amazing.

Wil, nowhere did I get close to saying that "they're not allowed to have opinions." Reading is hard.

Will, we were arguing whether the hate speech laws in liberal democracies like Germany and Canada have helped their multiculturalism and lower crime rates compared to similar liberal democracies that did not have similar laws that see an uptick in violence against minorities and alt right movements. Instead of arguing against these larger points that require an actual thesis, you misinterpret the easiest part in the dumbest way. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

If you want to deliver an actual argument against the hate speech laws in liberal democracies that have similarities to the USA politically but have seen less violence as a result without ad hom attacks, go ahead. You're absolutely incapable of this though.

I was speaking in general terms. 13balls posts were included in my assertion.

I don't really have much interest in arguing with you over anything at the moment. Just reading your posts is enough to make me laugh.

Something worth sharing. KEY post.