Freedom of Speech and the recent unpleasantness

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These things do happen, and it is usually because one or both people believe they do not have to be held responsible for something that can be claimed as an "accident".

Sorry, kids, but if you make a baby, you are responsible for supporting it, even if someone else raises it instead (except for adoption, in most cases).

I agree with that. And that is what I mean like sure I am sure everyone has a story of a time they felt discriminated against...but yeah I don't buy for even one second that white christian males have less rights than minorities.

Are you seriously blaming only one side for this?

If you make a baby and your ex lets their new partner adopt it, I think you are exempt of paying child support.

I knew one teacher who would not let her husband adopt her daughter because then the father would no longer have to pay child support. The father had never met his daughter and he lived in a different state.

I think the idea comes from believing in the "Zero-Sum Game", where there is only so much to go around, and in order for one person to have more, someone else must have less.  Examples of this fallacy include, but are not limited to:

• One person must be made poor in order for another person to be made wealthy (when anyone who is both able and willing to earn a wage may do so, even if the work is unpleasant or boring).

• One person must be unemployed for another person to have employment (when employers cannot find enough qualified people to fill all available positions).

• One person must go hungry in order for another person to be fed (when tons of surplus food are thrown away).

• One person must go without a relationship for another person to have a relationship (when there are large numbers of people of both sexes and all genders complaining about a lack of interested suitors).

• One person must be denied their rights in order for another person to exercise theirs (when all people of every persuasion have the same rights under the law -- except convicted felons, of course).

Unless you are shipwrecked on a desert island and must ration all food and water with at least one other person, there is no "Zero-Sum Game".

They should try China

So much oppressed men there not being able to find a relationship because they have a shortage on women. Sorry, that is what you get when you oppress women there and have way too much of male privilege. Everyone wants a boy. All the female babies get abandoned in the orphanage and they have a shortage on staff so most of them starve to death because they are too overwhelmed to care for all these kids. Also, the one child policy is to blame but it's also prejudice on women too. If people there would change their attitudes on women, they wouldn't be dealing with a women shortage so they are comitting femalecide.

Now in the US, women have a lot more privilege here than they would in China. Or maybe it's because we don't have that 1 child policy. Don't be like China.

It stops being free speech in America when it presents Imminent danger.

I'm convinced now that when it comes to politics, WP is effectively devolved into just an echo-chamber for "left=well meaning, right=dangerous lunatic".

Thank you for sharing.  Have a nice day!

Well, I'm pretty convinced of it, for one.

Well, of course you are!

The argument to curb free expression revolves around the slippery slope argument or if you let them take a piece you just started the inevitable process of them taken the whole thing. In the current context if we allow hate speech Nazi rule will follow.

There is a slippery slope argument that goes the other way. It is based on a speech given by Martin Niemöller a German Lutheren paster, versions of it are displayed in various Holocaust museums.

At this point we are not speaking of the government literally taking you away but losing your ability to be employed, get bank loans if you hold certain views.
Whom except for white supremacists feels sorry for white supremacists losing these things? Not me.

First they muzzled those whom openly supported the insurrection, I did not mind those f*****s are traitors.
Then they muzzled those that said the election was stolen, I did not mind they directly inspired traitors.
Then they muzzled Trump supporters, I did not mind, while they might not have supported they way Trump comported himself or that the election was stolen they were complicit.
Then they muzzled conservatives, I did not mind some of their ideas morphed into Trumpism, why let that danger still be out there?
Then they muzzled me because I agreed with some things conservatives agree with. NOW I minded. There were people who would like to speak for me but the is price too high to be associated with “hate speech”. Boo-Hoo.

The problems with slippery slope are 1. It does not come to fruition plenty of times 2. Even when it does it often is not the disaster envisioned making you look like a hysteric 3. And yeah, bigots hide behind it a lot.

OTOH it happens way too often to dismiss it as “nothing to see there”. Even if as usual when the worst case scenario does not happen avoidable bad things do.

What it comes down to is judgement of an individual situation, fraught predicting the future. What concerns me about slippery slope now is a lot of the current push is based on emotion and those using emotion for profit. Facebook has made billions manipulating emotion, now they are suddenly woke?

Also concerning is as noted above is lack of understanding of the basics of free speech due to the deemphasis of civics education.

There is and old saying “the price of freedom”. It was about mass sacrifice, of life and limb in wartime. What is being asked for and increasingly rejected is a price while is often very painful is considerably less.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 19 Jan 2021, 4:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The right wing have their own echo chambers too.

I agree totally.

That makes seven.