A problem I have with the alt-right (and some anti-SJWs)

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Lots of alt-righters (and a portion of the anti-SJW community), when you criticize them for what they're saying, will use free speech as a defense. If you call them racist because they're saying blatantly racist or terrible things, they'll go, "But my free speech!"

I'm sorry, but freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism or judgement, last time I checked. All freedom of speech means is that the government cannot punish you or censor you for your speech. It does not mean you can just say whatever you want without being called out on it or criticized. And it also does not mean what you're saying should be validated or congratulated.

If I see somebody saying things that are downright ignorant, barbaric, and stupid, I'm likely going to challenge what they're saying. I'm not going to yell and scream at them, but I will criticize them. And if you're not going to respond with an actual argument, but call me an "SJW" or "feminazi", then you're doing exactly what SJWs do which is call you a bunch of buzzwords without any substance.

Sure, I have quite a few problems with modern third-wave feminism, but I'm also not going to deny history. If it weren't for feminism, women wouldn't be able to vote, work, or have nearly as many opportunities as they do now. It's also silly to deny that there are still double standards in society when it comes to gender, for both men and women. It's silly to deny that women have a much higher risk at being raped, kidnapped, or stalked than men do.

Freedom of speech isn't just about the government not being able to punish people for their speech its also a cultural value. As a culture people should be free to say what they want and risk being criticised or mocked, but they shouldn't be silenced through threatening their jobs or harassing them.

People should be free to love who they want, imagine we had a system where gay sex was legal but hotels could refuse gay couples, people could be fired for being gay, bullied into quitting etc. We wouldn't say they were free to be gay just because the government left them alone.

When people complain about feminism most of them are not complaining about equal rights for women but are complaining about how a lot of modern feminism is anti male. Yes women are more likely to get attacked by men then men are by women, is this because men are more violent or because stronger people are more likely to pick on weaker people, I don't know.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from being seen as an a**hole.

A lot of those types are the ones to get offended by people being offended.

I agree that harassing people isn't the way to go. It's wrong, period.

I do understand the point you're making, but I sort of disagree. Being gay is a protected class. People don't choose to be gay, but you do choose what you say. At work, there are and there should be limits to what you talk about at your job. When you talk, you're not only representing yourself but the entire company. So, if somebody calls their coworker racial or homophobic slurs, they do deserve to face the consequences for what they're saying. They could be fired, or they could be reprimanded, but I don't feel that's against the principle of freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech (I'm talking about the legal right) simply means tolerating what other people say in public forums; it doesn't apply to private places. Tolerating doesn't mean liking what someone says or validating it, it just means letting it exist without trying to violate their right to freedom of speech by violence, harassment, or threats.

As far as what you're saying about freedom of speech being a cultural value, I do think it's valuable for people to get out of their echo chambers and listen to people with differing views (if the views are actually worth listening to because some views are indeed garbage and not it). People on all sides of the political spectrum can learn something by listening to other people's experiences and knowledge.

I have a lot of issues with third-wave feminism. One problem I have with it is that it keeps trying to insist that women are paid less than men because they're women. That's been debunked thoroughly.

As far as women being more likely to be attacked by men, I do think that's true. Men have higher testosterone levels than women, and testosterone is known to increase aggression. Of course, that's only one factor out of many, but that's one of the reasons why men are more likely to be violent to women than the other way around. It's also quite possible that men do not report violence committed by women nearly as much because there's still a double standard.

Obviously people should behave professionally at work and try to be polite in general so intentionally insulting people is undesirable.

I don't really understand the protected class thing, people don't choose to be gay but do people choose to be homophobic? How does the protected class thing work? If someone makes a homophobic joke should they be fired? What if they say Gays should burn in hell, even though that's much worse is that protected because its religious?

I don't understand how there can be protected classes, how some people can have more rights than others.

People don't choose to be raised with homophobic beliefs being taught to them, but they do choose to share those beliefs with other people. And they have a right to do that, but if they do it at the wrong place or time they could face repercussions. It's generally not wise to share those kind of beliefs at work, because it's a very sensitive topic and it could put you at odds with your coworkers.

As far as your third question, I believe companies should determine that for themselves. Companies are allowed to fire people for a lot of reasons. If there's a homophobic person in a company full of progressives, they're not a good fit for that company.

Onto your fourth question, it's not protected, no. The right of freedom of speech does not apply to privately-owned companies. It only applies to public forums. Freedom of speech doesn't protect people from getting fired.

As far as why there are protected classes, where do you get the idea that protected classes take away rights from non-protected classes? As far as I'm concerned, that's why protected classes were created in the first place, to protect certain groups of people from being discriminated against on the basis of sex, race, age, disability, etc.. That doesn't take the rights away from non-protected classes. All it does it keep them from being able to discriminate.

Free speech laws do not prevent hate speech so long as it does not "incite to violence." This is as it should be because if you're not willing to tolerate expression you find loathsome you're not for freedom of expression.

Free speech laws do not protect you from criticism. In fact criticism is protected by free speech. This is the whole "The solution to hurtful speech is more speech not censorship." I can call Donald Trump a racist a**hole and not get hauled off to the gulag. This is a very good thing.

In a workplace, a person who constantly is spewing hurtful speech to their co-workers is a drain on morale and productivity. They should be fireable based on that. It's unprofessional in most professions to use your work as your political soap box.

That said people should be able to have private lives and not get fired based off of what goes on in their private lives. If someone wants to attend the Westboro Baptist Church on the weekend, but isn't expressing those views to their LGBT co-workers on the job and isn't discriminating against LGBTs in their work then there's no reason for them to lose their job.

You keep conflating freedom or speech with the 1st amendment, freedom of speech is a cultural value, freedom of speech does include protection from being fired, I don't believe there is a law about freedom of conscience but we still have it as a cultural value.

To use a better example than homophobia, Imagine if someone is fired for their opinion on Israel/ Palestine. Their freedom of speech is still being violated, they are not making a hostile work environment just their company has the opposite viewpoint.

I don't think protected classes are taking away peoples rights, but they do have more rights. How is that equality? If a religious persons homophobia is protected by law then why is an atheists persons homophobia not?

The problem of protected classes is they are a misapplication of anti-discriminatory laws. A law that protects black people from anti-black discrimination should also protect white people from anti-white discrimination. This is generally how the laws are written, but not generally how they are applied.

When I'm talking about freedom of speech, I am referring to the First Amendment yes. I think that's where we keep getting confused on. You're talking about cultural, but I'm talking about legal.

Culturally, freedom of speech means different things to different people. There's some people who believe freedom of speech should be limitless, while others believe there has to be limits on hate speech or speech that is considered "dangerous". I am not talking about freedom of speech as a cultural value, but the legal right that is written in the First Amendment.

On your Israel and Palestine example, I do disagree with a company firing someone for their personal opinions if they aren't forcing their opinions on their coworkers.

What additional rights do protected classes have?

I'm pretty sure that homophobia, religious or not, is protected under the law under the First Amendment.

I agree that there are ways that the laws could be improved upon or enforced better, but I don't think the solution is to just get rid of those laws entirely. We have them for a reason. People with disabilities, LGBT people, black people, etc. were commonly discriminated against. There's still discrimination going on now, but it's much less frequent now that the government's passed these laws.

Ideally, nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of their sex, race, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity. If the world was an ideal one, there would be no need for protected classes in the first place. But, what people should do and what people actually do are different things. There are people who gladly discriminated against these groups and still do.

Would black people be less protected by a law against discrimination based on race if the law was also protected white people from discrimination based on race?

Nope.

It's already illegal to discriminate someone based on their race, and that does include white people here in the US. That doesn't mean there aren't people that still do it, but it's been illegal for years.

Personally, I wouldn't get too worked up about it...
Reasonable people will see the nonsense for what it is, tag them as being extremists and move on...

Freedom of speech allows the identification of socially discordant individuals...
The focus "should" be on the education of impressionable minds to reject unjustifiable discrimination...



Let's look at your argument:
-You are trying to have a sensible discussion with people who are: "...ignorant, barbaric, and stupid..."
-Presumably, these people have no interest in changing their views...
-In all probability, they will welcome the opportunity to have discourse with someone who is in variance with their philosophy...

Have you ever convinced an "...ignorant, barbaric, and stupid..." person who has no interest in becoming enlightened, civil, and rejects your assumption that they are stupid?
I haven't and I am convinced I will never influence a closed mind...

So what do you think you are doing?
In this situation, I personally would simply be honing my debating skills...
Do you honestly think you will have some positive influence on people like this?

There's also a thing that usually people fail to consider:
In the past, free speech meant speech ir writing. One is eohemeral, the other needs conscious reproduction.
A library can decide not to stock a certain book and no one really cares, because libraries just can't stock everything in existence, and librarians can decide to take books off the shelf when the majority of the public has lost interest etc.

What I'm trying to say is tgst the internet has changed availability, and information can't be contained. Stupid alt-right videos are available forever, able to shape the views of impressionable people independently of time and space.
You don't even have to look for them, like you have to, say, in Germany, for a copy of Mein Kampf.
This is messing up the relations of how 'free speech' used to function.
In the past, speech could be free and contained at the same time.
In the past, an american anti-semitic rant on youtube couldn't easily encourage polish kids to racism.

I have no solution, by the way.

Actually there are laws that do discriminate on people for race, passed by Obama. I do not believe in protected classes , I believe in segregation of men and women in private places like bathrooms, dressing rooms and sports, I wouldn't say that makes women a protected class though. Beyond that, all people should be equal, including women. People should not be discriminated on for race, gender or sexual orientation. Affirmative action is a law that discriminates on race, "to many skilled white people, a black person must be hired even if they are less qualified", that is not equal rights, that is a protected class. There should only be laws against discrimination, not discrimination of protected classes. Whites make up over 65% of the US, that's why there tends to be more of them in the work place(depending on the work place). All I can say is good luck trying to sue a place for discriminating on someone for being white, not to count that law that enforces discrimination. All that should matter is someone's skill, not trying to met a diverse outcome, it's not equality when a lower qualified person gets a job based on their race and a more skilled person doesn't get a job based on their race. People should fight for true equality, not protected classes.

Last edited by Crimadella on 05 May 2019, 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.