Free Speech - Is There a Limit?

But that is your choice to make. You don't have to make others not have any weapons of their own just because you don't believe in them. I assume from your sig. that you dislike authority like I do. Then why advocate that some authority take away from people the freedom to own a weapon? I understand that it's for the sake of keeping them away from the hands of those who are willing to use them for evil and that regular citizens will not need them, but these criminals do not follow the rules and will strive to find a way to get a weapon from the black market/whatever and then rob people while they have no means of defense. You can't rely on cops for defense cause by the time they show up people are dead.

It's all just a matter of the responsibility of having a weapon. Even though there are people who do not follow this responsibility, it doesn't mean that it helps to restrict the freedoms of those who do.

Free speech is fine by my morals. So long as kid's learn properly moral ethic's and proper etiquitte. Then \i could care less. We as humans are at the basest form naturally what wed consider evil due to our animalistic instincts. So have it, show the daily murder's, rape's, robberies, genocide's, and death's all voer the television, newspapers, and magazines. It's my own reason's that get me through the day.

It really depends on the situation, what type of political structure you are in, if you are living within an authoritarian dictatorship then getting a weapon would most likely be illegal anyway. To be honest, I'm not that comfortable with people having weapons partly because the temptation is there to use them. I don't particularly like this ruling I've made myself, but in the end, you wouldn't want a weapon unless you were prepared to use it.

This imo is not a good thing, not something to be encouraged: I don't think you would argue the point that most humans are stupid. I'm trying to take something away from them that they can and most likely would cause a lot of damage with. It wouldn't be a matter of saying: you can't have these or we will arrest you. But more to destroy every weapon so people can't get their hands on them.

Essentially a gun is a tool of destruction, what do you gain from using it? It is a negative item, an implement of selfishness, I suppose I'd like to think that people who understand who bad people can be would try to rise above their level themselves.

I don't know what the punishment may be, but I sure as hell know that if a motherfucker said he was going to kill me, for whatever reason, I'd like to be able to call the cops and have him arrested, for my own protection. And that's why the law's there, right, to protect?

Perhaps nine out of ten people who threaten to kill someone don't do anything, but what about that one person out of ten who does do something? How am I to know that the guy who threatens me isn't that one person?

There's a quote people love to throw around, that anyone willing to sacrifice freedom would safety doesn't deserve either, and I agree with it to a point, but I don't agree with it in every way imaginable. Yes, people shouldn't have to give up basic privacy for the sake of safety, but people should be protected from people who seem extreme and dangerous, and a person threatening to kill someone seems like a pretty good example of an extreme and dangerous person. A rational person wouldn't threaten another's life, even if it was for the sake of free speech.



The thing is, if the military of the United States turned on its citizens, there's no way the citizens would be able to win. Simple fact. So, citizens having guns to protect themselves from the government is a bunch of bullshit. If the government wanted to, they could bomb every city in the country. But they wouldn't even have to do that. They could send in tanks, and that would be enough to quell any citizen uprising.

Citizens protecting themselves from police makes a lot more sense, but it's still crazy. The police are the ones who protect us, and if we expect them to turn on us, then why are we here? Why not move to a different country, where the police are good? And if police aren't good anywhere, what's the point of living, if they could always turn against us? Why can't we just have faith that every police officer won't shoot us for no reason?



That sounds good, but one thing bothers me.



If a person has a bumper sticker that says "Fuck people," it's because the person believes that there is nothing wrong with the word "fuck," or he believes it should never be covered up. By having the bumper sticker in plain sight, isn't he imposing his will onto others? He may have the right to display the word "fuck," but don't others have the right to not see the word "fuck"? No matter what, someone's freedom is going to be restricted. So whose freedom shouldn't be restricted?

The idea of law is I understand it; is not only that the strong do not harm the weak but also that the strong shall stay strong and the weak shall stay weak. With the former being the definition that is "thrown around". I follow my own philosophical path, regardless of the law of the land. Would you use a system you disagreed with in order to protect yourself?

Say for example: You are living in a ruthless dictatorship that kills anyone who speaks out against it, and the police carry out random killings for the sake of terror alone (Soviet Russia, China) say if someone threatens to kill you; do you go to the police and tell them (knowing full well this would probably mean torture/death for the person in question) or do you leave it?

Would you have someone arrested for a crime that you did not know the punishment for? Something that "9/10 times" (I would say that the odds are longer than that - but maybe it's where i live) would be a mistake, this little mistake may cost that person their livelihood and future because of people being unwilling to hire ex-convicts? You may say: well it's their fault for doing this to you in the first place; but in this situation it is you who holds the power, the power to let them get past their "mistake" and go on with their lives. More than likely, the guy who is going to murder you will never tell you he is going to kill you.

It is our responsibility to make the choice which is the most "just" in each situation, imo it isn't justice to kill someone because he/she killed someone else. The best kind of justice would be for the person to have not committed the act in the first place. To conclude; if you don't want people to want to kill you, don't do nasty things to them. :)

It may be a way of expressing his will/idea, but it's not using force. It's not like the bumper sticker is so huge they have to look at it, so I'll use the ol', "no one is forcing them to look at it" excuse.
What I was thinking when I wrote this was how people who don't like something use force to impose their censorship on others. Like the FCC for instance. Perfect example of using duress on others to make sure that their lobbyists don't hear something that just might offend them on the radio. The government gave them the right to shut people up(against the first amendment) by making them pay bullshit fines.
So ultimately I don't believe the parent should be able to have someone forcefully make the offending driver censor himself on behalf of her child, that he is not responsible for.

This is a slippery slope argument that provides no justification for your point. If someone threatens to kill you, they can use that intimidation as leverage to force you to do something, for one example. Furthermore, following social contract theory, I think the vast majority of people are willing to give up their freedom to threaten someone with a deadly weapon in order to be protected from others doing the same to them. Ultimately, arresting someone for such a threat will result in a punishment more lenient than actually committing the act, or they may just be arrested and released, but the fact is, incidents in which someone threatens to kill someone with a weapon have a much higher probability of leading to injury or death than random occurrences. We police these threats in order to prevent actual injury.



Well, if you have some magical way to make everyone love each and conform to your utopian collectivist dream world, then maybe this would work. However, considering the world as it is now, this is pure folly. Even if we decide we want to move in that direction(I don't want to live in a single massive socialist collective personally), it has to be done in small increments to have any chance of success.



If the government controlled everything . . . well, we have generally seen how that works out. Historically, not very well. Market economics and private property have the nice property of inherently discouraging a number of negative things: racism, incompetence, corruption, etc. If you are dealing with your own property, you are more likely to try to manage it well, hire the people that will make you most competitive, regardless of race, etc, have a system of accountability that weeds out corruption, and so on. One of the problems that has always faced pure socialist governments is that it was difficult to get people to do their best work caring for property or producing results that were owned by the state and would be redistributed anyway.



You are forced to pay reparations. We have economic experts who attempt to calculate equivalent monetary value of all sorts of things, and since slander can't really be undone, one must pay reparations in the form of money as calculated by such experts and decided by the legal system. I agree with the notion that slander is a civil offense moreso than a criminal offense.



Who determines this? Government appointed art critics? Even setting aside all the problems with socialist property ownership, art is always controversial within its own field. Under this system, much of the great art of the past would not exist, simply because it would have been deemed "bad" and destroyed. Often, great artists challenge conventions and this can create controversy and cause some time to elapse before their art is examined in a more reasonable light and fairly evaluated.



People can and will claim anything is a form of expression. Indeed, the US Supreme Court has upheld the idea that spending money is a form of speech/expression. It's difficult and perhaps narrow minded to claim that something unorthodox can't be intended as a method of expression, still, expression that harms others or society should not be protected. I think this is a better solution than tasking government with deciding what qualifies as expression of an idea and what doesn't.

Child porn could be used to express some artistic idea(Duchamp signed "R Mutt" on a urinal and that is considered artistic expression. The point has never been whether the concept was stupid or not, but that the artists believed they had something to say.), but it should still be illegal because it harms minors.

I suppose claiming that "speech" only refers to speech in the literal sense of things imparted via words is possible, but this is also clearly not a good solution.

Frist I dont really care for freedom of speech. I love athority and think people should be controled more. This is because no body is truly free. Why should we control some things and not just control everything. There would be less crime and people would be alot safer if we controled their lives more




Also I hate to say this but this is fucking retarted. I am offended by this maybe it could happen in a non civilized culture. But in the U.S or Britian ect... that would never happen cops and soldiers have minds and would not just go on killing sprees because they were ordered.

And fuck you with the soldiers have no individual thoughts and are simple pawns.

If the founding fathers were like you, there wouldn't be an America. If more people were like you Ireland or India and many other countries for that matter wouldn't exist. Your "we don't need weapons" only opens the common man to be oppressed under the heel of a tyrannical government or another oppressive group. You would spend your life rotting in a jail cell because you only took a half arsed stand against the dictator. I'm sure Stalin would have stopped butchering his people if everybody just asked nicely. While someone like me would rise up in armed rebellion to remove the dictator like the Italian resistance movement. I wouldn't spend the rest of my life in jail because I would either succeed or die in the process. My method would draw more people to the cause. Nobody ever wins or succeeds by doing nothing.



Anything that can logically fit under the three above rules should be protected. Just think about it a little bit. Criticizing politicians such as saying "Tim Geithner is a tax cheat and I wouldn't trust him with money" (which under your definition would be counted as "slander" even though it is true). He cheated on his taxes in the past which is a fact but, you wouldn't protect it under the freedom of speech. Graffiti on a train car would be protected as long as they are expressing an opinion, an idea or information. So something like "east side rules" would be protected while "Blood 4 Ever" wouldn't be. Saying George Bush was an inbred hick would be protected (opinion) while telling someone to kill George Bush wouldn't be.

Your stance only shows that you approve that the government can tell us what we can say, read, watch, listen to.

Your method would draw more hypocrites to your cause, you say if your founding fathers were like me there would not be an America? Then America was born through injustice. I would spend my days rotting in a jail cell because that is better than being a murderer, which is what you aspire to be. Or so it seems, I can understand your point of view, but by saying that my way is half-arsed, you're not taking any kind of moral high ground. I would do my utmost to oppose said dictator, but I would do it my way, without killing people. I would be just as likely to be killed as you would be if I stood up in open defiance of a dictator like Stalin or Mao.

You would rise up in armed rebellion? So you don't care about the methods? You only care about the end result? You may justify it by saying: well I was liberating people from a bad situation. But the truth is that you would be nothing more than a common murderer, there is no difference in my eyes. Anyone can come up with a "good reason" to kill someone, I could come up with a "good reason" to kill just about anyone on this planet, after all Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot they were all selfish humans like the rest of us, they were just better at it than most.

Your ignorance shines brightly when you equate non-violent protest to doing nothing, that's pretty sad imo.

So you holding up a little sign with some witty statement against a dictator like Chavez, Stalin, Mao, Jong-Il ,etc is somehow going to get them to stop being dictators? You accomplished what? Getting thrown in jail because you half-assed resisted the government? Sit ins, love ins, etc only work when the government actually cares about the opinions and welfare of it's people people. Especially when they can't just kill you for speaking out (which is why the civil rights movement was successful. Their opposition couldn't just kill them). When a government is only concerned about gaining and maintaining power. Your pathetic attempts to protest will only serve to crush the hope of potential followers when you are crushed under the heel of that regime.

My armed rebellion would be along the lines of fighting propaganda, spreading the truth and revealing the lies to the people. Attacking the methods the government uses to oppress the people whether it is propaganda through TV, radio, etc (attack & disable the stations) to using the military as a weapon against the citizens. I wouldn't butcher people nor would I wait around to be butchered either. I would gladly die being called a devil if it meant that I gave freedom to my fellow countrymen.

You call their methods injustice. I call them justified. It was liberty or Death. You can choose death if you feel like it but, it only shows that you have no spine to take a firm stand. Your tactics would only serve to make the world oppressed under the European Empires. Liberty and Freedom don't exist unless people are willing to stand up to protect them.

Call me ignorant if it makes you feel happy but, you are no Gandhi. Nor would Gandhi's tactics work when trying to resist someone like Stalin, Mao or Hitler. His tactics would work somewhere like modern day Europe or America. This is why I equate it with nothing because nothing would get accomplished. The government wouldn't be removed, their opinions wouldn't be swayed. You treat the world like some Saturday morning cartoon where everything works out in the end. Your ignorance shines bright champ.

This is utter nonsense. If you read what I wrote carefully, in order to slander Tim Geithner, you must
1) Say something that isn't true
2) Be shown to have known that is wasn't true when you said it
3) Cause Geithner some sort of tangible loss
I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that you can slander someone with true information. I've been reiterating this repeatedly in this topic. The point of slander as something that can be taken to court is not to prevent people from criticizing others. It is to prevent people from ruining the reputations of others through malicious and untrue rumors, and the burden of proof always lies with the person claiming to be slandered.

Graffiti is not protected if you deface the property of someone else. That is what I wrote in my previous posts. Writing "East side rules" on a train car would not be protected unless you owned that train car. If owned that train car, you could write whatever you wanted on it, and it would be protected.

The case of telling someone to kill W. Bush is borderline, but in a sense it's similar to going around saying you are going to blow up X building. It's your own fault if you are taken seriously and face consequences.

I think my stance reflects the idea that simply letting everyone do whatever they want, even in speech and expression, is not a viable system for society. The government is sometimes justified in telling us how we can't express ourselves when our self expression would harm others.

I think your stance of "strictly what the constitution says" is sort of the right idea, only it is ruined by the fact that the constitution doesn't cover most of the instances that commonly come up in any meaningful way. Part of the purpose of the government is to protect citizens from each other. In an imperfect world, I think the US's system of "strict scrutiny" as performed by the courts is a reasonably good way to go about things. In cases of constitutional rights, the burden of proof is always on the government to show that the particular instance of curbing the right is directly necessary for the safety of its citizens. There will always be some controversy, but the system of elections and judicial challenges ensures that there will always be opportunities to revisit these cases and reconsider them.

Murder can certainly qualify as a form of self expression, and thus speech(Murdering the upper management of GM would certainly be a way to express and impart to others a concept of dissatisfaction with the company). Still, clearly the right to freedom of speech does not extend this far. This isn't stated specifically in the constitution, but it is both common sense and the heritage of English common law on which the US was founded.



Congratulations, you are a terrorist. I say this with some level of incredulity, but what you wrote are basically the ideals of a terrorist group. While some don't care about killing civilians, most groups do believe they are fighting for justice and freedom. And would you really be able to carry out any of your objectives without any collateral casualties? There's a fine line between freedom fighter and terrorist/insurgent, and very often which side of the line a group is decided to lie on is determined by what those making a judgment think of the group's interests. This is sort of the romantic view of terrorism.

The IRA is a good example. They were responding to legitimate oppression by the British government, but they are generally still remembered as a terrorist group. If they had killed fewer civilians, might they have been great freedom fighters for their cause? Maybe, but it's easy to say, hard to do.

Organized, gallant resistance movements like we see in movies such as V for Vendetta or shows like Code Geas are mostly fantasy. In reality, these groups have inferior resources and find it very difficult to be organized. Such a lack of organization often also results in a lack of control over the movement or accountability concerning objectives. Unaffiliated insurgents often attach themselves to an established movement without any sort of formal approval process from the leadership, since this is not logistically feasible, and prove impossible to control. The US military has been fighting many groups in the middle east that call themselves Al-Qaeda but are completely separate from Bin-Laden's Al-Qaeda. They simply chose to take up the mantle of Al-Qaeda and adopt it to their own goals.

Insurgent groups generally face a choice between trying to keeping their cause "pure" and effectiveness. Those that don't at least make some sacrifices in the name of effectiveness generally don't achieve anything. Destroying a military base is incredibly hard. Bombing a government building is both easier and often gets more attention.

So Fiery, if your resistance movement faced the choice of having to compromise its ideals or be ineffective, would it be morally justified in refusing to compromise its morals and failing? I think this is similar to Ambivalent's insistence on nonviolent resistance, which you seem to suggest is actually morally deficient. He refuses to compromise his moral values in the name of effectiveness.

i think thers a limit to it.

Seriously? So, you think it's fine if the government throws people in jail just for saying that the government sucks? If a person suggests that the government should not use taxpayer money to buy senators beach houses, that person should be thrown in jail?



It may seem horrible, but typically, soldiers are mindless pawns. That's the way it's been for millennia. They follow orders, because if they don't follow orders, operations might fail and bad guys might win. (That's the idea, at least.) One thing soldiers are told is that they are one part of a big picture, and though their orders may seem odd, the commanders know what they're doing. That's why disobeying a commanding officer's carries a very strict punishment.

A victory won by unjust means is no victory at all, are you honestly trying to say that your methods are better based on the end result? I don't see it that way, if you kill to uphold the principles of freedom, then that quite simply makes you a murderer, liberty and free speech are one thing, how can you propagate liberty by taking away the lives of other people, therefore destroying any liberty they had or would ever have, just because you disagreed with who they were working for? It is your attempts to overthrow a dictator that are pathetic... how can you say that what he is doing is wrong when you are doing the same thing?

Your armed rebellion would have failed miserably under Stalinist Russia or Maoist China; you'd all be dead before you could change anything, and you'd die knowing in your heart that you were no better than the dictator you opposed. You do understand that 99.9% of the population would turn you in at the first sight of you. That is the extent of fear, now I'm not saying that your method does not have a better chance of success than mine, but you can't judge an operation based simply on it's end result, atrocities will take place in between.

You are the person who is giving yourself that ultimatum, if you made yourself into a model citizen, well I'm sure that would lessen the chance that you would be killed by the government ;) I have the spine to stand up for what I believe in, I don't believe in killing people. It is never justified.

So, what you are trying to say is that you make judgments based on what the end result is: okay, I'll tell you right now, against Stalinist Russia or Maoist China, you would have failed. and murdered people in the process of failing (that is unless you were turned in by the first person you made your "counter-revolutionary" comments to). My tactics would also fail to depose the dictator, but I would not be a hypocrite, I would not be a murderer. My methods would be justified, that is the difference.

I don't believe that everything would be solved by my protest, but that is not how I would categorize success. If i had stood up against the dictator in my own way, then that would be right and more of a success than you will ever achieve with a gun in your hands. In the end, not everyone is going to follow my creed, if they did; the end result would work itself out without any need for violence. I'll still continue to follow my philosophy regardless of who else does, because it is right; it is a solution. Your philosophy will only ever be part of the problem.

Politicians would easily twist your words so that criticizing anything would be slander. I can't tell a person they are a douche bag otherwise I'll get slapped with a lawsuit

If protecting the American people from an oppressive government means being a terrorist then so be it. The world isn't a pretty place where cute little ideals and little moral high grounds like "I'm not a hypocrite" mean shit. The continental army and the Founding Fathers were able to defeat the British Empire and we don't call them terrorist. We think of them as larger than life heroes. Peaceful means should be used first but, one should never rule out an armed conflict especially when freedom and liberty are on the line.



So fighting to protect something is part of the problem? People like you are the problem. You have no passion for a cause. I equate your philosophy vs mine as

You = The guy who sits on his couch at home complaining about the government doing it pathetic job to those around him. While making no actual effort to change anything. Just sitting around with his thumb up his ass

Mine= The guy who organizes the protests, contacts his local representatives and even his state representatives, tries to have discussions with them, works to get the truth out into the open.

The funny truth is, I'm actually like that. I have contacted Saxby Chambliss & Johnny Isakson on numerous occasions. I attend rallies such as the one for the FairTax that was held in Atlanta a couple years back and various other things. Ireland and other countries wouldn't have become free if men like William Wallace weren't hypocrites. Everybody is a hypocrite and by saying you aren't one, makes you a hypocrite. I have one life on this rock and I'll be damned if I'll spend the "blink" of my life under someones heel. Taking a "moral high ground" accomplishes nothing. You can smile with your accomplishing your cute little ideals while the people around you suffer. I'd call you a bastard

This is how society functions currently. It is possible to sue for slander, but it's usually very hard to prove. Politicians have had years worth of opportunities to make you suggested circumstance a reality and have not done so.



Part of the point is that, considering the criteria we use for determining terrorist groups today, many of the people affiliated with the American revolution would be considered terrorists. Consider someone like Francis Marion, who is, in a sense, breaking the rules of warfare. Also, it was not exactly uncommon for the supporters of the revolution to "commandeer" resources from citizens, or to abuse citizens, especially those who disagreed with their ideas. Many people labeled "tories" were harmed or had their property destroyed or stolen simply because they refused to support the revolution, even if they didn't do anything to harm the revolutionary cause or help the British. Many of these people weren't so much British sympathizers as people who simply thought that things done by the British simply didn't warrant or were not yet worth full scale war. Violence against those who disagree with you isn't exactly and affirmation of freedom of speech.

The American revolution was very much a minority movement, and while there was some British oppression of the colonists, the rallying cry of "No taxation without representation" was mostly just an excuse. The supporters of the revolution were more interested in freer trade so that they could make more money.

Personally, I think that the greatness of the American revolution doesn't lie in the fallacy that it was some especially noble revolution fought for especially noble causes by especially noble people, but rather that it created the US and it's government and put into action much new and progressive political philosophy. The result ended up being the creation of one of the first great monuments to democracy and rule based on personal liberty and limited government powers.


The point of commenting on the moral questions brought up by the discussion of various methods of opposing government oppression is not so much to show that anyone is a hypocrite, but to show that it's a difficult question. We can probably all agree that doing nothing is not admirable, but how far is one morally obligated to go in the name of opposing oppression? Risking your own life? Sure. Killing combatants for the other side? Personally, I don't think this is necessarily wrong, but is one obligated to give up on peaceful protest if it isn't working after some period of time? Even if one eschews violence against others, one is still risking one's own life and standing up for freedom from oppression. If results are what matters, then is it really wrong to kill some citizens and innocent people if it will be more effective at stopping the oppressive regime than refraining from civilian casualties?

Personally, I don't think it's wrong to harm enemy combatants, but I also don't think every is morally obligated to give up peaceful methods, even if they haven't started to work yet. Oftentimes it takes both in conjunction. Fighting creates an opening, but negotiations and sincere peaceful expression are often necessary to create a solution, such as in northern Ireland.

Killing civilians is where I start having qualms, because it leads down a dangerous path of justifying a goal at any cost, and often insurgent "freedom fighting" groups prove unable to be flexible in their goals, even when it be advantageous.

I never stated that civilians should be dragged into it. Property damage was really what I was pointing out. Government and military "targets" would be the only thing. A radio/tv station is putting out propaganda then we'd destroy the tower or the satellite dishes. The government puts armed forces patrolling the streets to "maintain law and order" in which they are just oppressing and harassing their citizens more. I.E.D's would probably be our weapon of choice for that. I see it as very cut and dry

Enemy-Oppressive Government, Military, supporting groups
Neutral- Neutral citizens and non-violent activists

I actually had a double take and read it again. They let ignorant people like this have a say in society? Well of course, since that is another thing freedom of speech lets people do.

If government had total control and said "no vulgarity or you go to prison", you wouldn't be able to say "FUCK YOU!" to me now would you, dipshit? And what's with all this "we" bullshit? There is no "we". You will be the government's little bitch just like the rest of the people. The ones who will change and control the lives of millions will tell you exactly how to live your life as well, whether you like it or not. What would be even more entertaining is them telling you to do something you absolutely hate and you have to do it or it's prison for your ass. Oh yeah, you also prove my fucking point. If this absolute authority were able to use the threat of prison enforced by the police and the army, and the individuals in the army and police didn't realize that maybe having their families under absolute fascist and totalitarian control is a bad thing, then I believe it's safe to say that those people have no individual thought and are just mindless little pawns. Kinda goes against your little self righteous phrase:

The truth stings you like a whip to the back doesn't it?

It's argued that distributing or possessing pictures is a form of free speech. It's not just child porn enthusiasts who say this, but also fans of lolicon, as has often been seen on the Fakku forums.

But child porn actively harms the subjects of said pornography, lolicon is just a drawing. Porn, when it is concerning consenting adults or drawings would not be restricted because of the slippery slope principle. Yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater actively threatens other people, and the production of child porn actively harms children, thus nether are defensible by free speech.