https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
"I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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A-are you actually comparing Elvis conspiracies with racial supremacy? Sounds like your logic doesn't go further than "freedom of speech = good"
You say rights exist until they encroach on others' freedoms. But promoting ideas of racial supremacy directly encroaches on others' basic freedoms and safety. By your own logic, those views forfeit their protection.
You argue it's important to demonstrate opposition to harmful views. That's exactly what content moderation is - society collectively demonstrating opposition to ideas that threaten democratic values and human dignity.
You claim repression breeds hate and echo chambers. But platforming hate speech (by claiming they're something to be "debated") creates echo chambers of hatred and drives away the very people you claim should be engaging in debate. Your approach actually reduces genuine dialogue.
You reference people being killed for scientific beliefs. But you're comparing the persecution of evidence-based scientific inquiry to the restriction of propaganda designed to harm others. These aren't remotely equivalent - you're actually trivializing historical persecution.
You're basically saying "we must protect Alice's right to a safe home by platforming Bob's right to debate burning it down."
Also your whole "But people who know better are also free to debate them - and prove them wrong" - completely disregards the physical reality of the burden of proof - it takes 0 effort to say "yggstyle hates people of color and that's why they argue for people to have the freedom to say anything" - and now it's on you to prove me wrong - but every time you spend time trying I'll just claim a new ridiculous thing - absolute "freedom of speech" is a godsend for bad faith actors.
I hope you can see why this rhetoric is bullshit and why people should not support anybody's "freedom of speech" to debate people's rights to exist.
Does it? I've never seen that proven convincingly. It goes against my experience lived embracing the tired old saying sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me around detestable assholes spouting particularly offensive ideas at me. Realizing that expression gave me power: their words matter not a damn to me as long as they don't turn into action. Once they turn into action, however, a warning to call the authorities usually settles the matter uneventfully.
Words are bullshit. Anyone can put words together: they're just noise. People can spout nonsense forever & form their nonsense echo chambers as long as nothing comes of it. Their words are not the problem, they're an indication. Actions are the real problem.
If you don't want people putting their offensive ideas into action, then stop them, not their words. Block that legislation from getting through. Argue their ideas are garbage. Change the minds of those in power. Educate more people to your side.
I'm disappointed so many people detract a key civil liberty so easily & need the obvious explained.
Language doesn't exist in a vacuum. It spreads ideas and therefore effects attitudes and behaviors. Suggesting the usage of racist languages doesn't have an effect on the minds of those who hear it - especially those who are malleable or otherwise primed to hear it - is an asinine argument to make. You think people randomly started accusing Haitians refugees of eating pets in the Midwest?
Where's the part where they act on these detestable ideas & we're powerless to stop these acts & hold people accountable for their actions? Behaviors are acts (distinct from speech) and I see only claims to defend speech.
Unless you exterminate everyone you disagree with, people with ideas you disapprove of will always exist. Better to know who they are by letting them tell us. Civil liberties & a right to exist apply as much to them as to you.
As you wrote, people are malleable. They don't need the input of others to develop incorrect ideas & common biases on their own especially from an early age. As that article on early childhood development of racial prejudices points out, avoiding talking about discriminatory biases or delaying the topic is not the answer. Early intervention with active, explicit conversation is important to correct biases & misconceptions acquired from implicit social factors, which suppression of speech will not prevent. With appropriate work, people can & often need to be corrected.
Agreement through suppressing opposing ideas is unreliable & inadequate. It doesn't correct self-learned biases. It assumes people will only hold unopposed ideas, which indicates they never reliably held them. If an idea has any merit, people should hold them despite flawed challenges, because we did the work of educating them properly & they know better. Choosing to compromise freedoms instead is flat out lazy & an insult to everyone's dignity.
Finally, it's pretty asinine to assume we need to sacrifice civil liberties to gain civil liberties. In the United States, the free speech & civil liberties movements gained together. That happened despite worse racism then with Jim Crow laws & white supremacists speaking freely. If we were able to gain civil liberties then under harsher conditions, then we shouldn't have to sacrifice them now.