Progressive values vs traditional liberal values

There are consequences to forcing a narrative and censoring those with differing opinions, when the Coronavirus broke out instead of the Western world acting with the appropriate amount of caution, they started to ban anyone who suggested this might be man made and a serious threat, when Trump put a ban in place in travel from China political correctness dictated everyone call him a racist and went out and demanded everyone hug an asian.

The obvious conflict of interest people like Fauci had were know in January 2020, what WHO was saying looked at odds to what people were seeing yet everybody was was trying to raise the alarm was called a bigot and silenced, no one should call the virus the WuHan or China virus, that might hurt the feelings of the Chinese. THAT was the important thing.

Then the entire world had to deal with the worst pandemic in living memory.

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If I switch this around, you’ll see how empty it is


Again, there is another foot here. Which of the following is frothing and jumping around?
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The one-sidedness is becoming as boringly predictable as the emoji selection :brain:

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Funny, from where I sit, it’s the equivalency drawing.

Things that threaten my way of life, as a progressive:

-People who try to overthrow democracies
-Evil superpowers like Russia and China
-after these immediate dangers to democracies, maybe climate change

Regressives:

-Dr. Seuss race issues
-Mr. Potatohead pronoun issues
-emojis? :sweat_smile:

This can be your sig:

As noted in the article, they do still defend people they don’t like. They’re just not quite as gung ho about it as they used to be, i.e. they’re slightly more selective now.

My point was, they’re not some fourth branch of government with a constitutional mandate to be everyone’s idea of True Neutral. If there’s really a pressing need for legal advocacy for, what’s the term?.. “non-progressive” issues or something, the sort-of-free market can – and by libertarian thinking should – fill that gap. One organization (or techincally more than one in the ACLU’s case, but anyway one brand) is never going to make everyone happy.

Nothing to do with the ACLU, just a random thing going on in the world that might as well be in this thread (“traditional values” people feeling threatened and responding by threatening “progressive” people).

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Did you read that article? I just did. So am I blind, or is there not a single link in it to actual news about the case Mr. Turley is raving about?

He’s not afraid of links per se, as the editorial includes 12 links to his own blog, 1 link to a BBC report about a law under which the person in question is not being charged, and 1 link to a Vox article.

Note the very first sentence:

There is a free speech fight brewing in Scotland where a prominent feminist, Marion Millar, 50, has been charged with the crime of “malicious communication” due to tweets criticizing gender self-identification.

Also note that there is nothing to back that up other than general fearmongering about loony lefty laws and loony lefties on the loose… and then these little tidbits, the last sentence of the 5th paragraph plus the 6th paragraph:

The charges against Millar do not appear to have been brought under the new law.

There are believed to be six tweets that were cited in the complaint, including pictures of the green, white and purple suffragette ribbons tied around trees to support Millar’s cause. The accuser reportedly said that the ribbons looked like nooses and were therefore threats.

So, to sum up, this person was not arrested under some evil new lefty hate speech law like the first 4+ paragraphs of the editorial insinuate, but the person allegedly (double-allegedly since facts are so lacking here) made a death threat and was presumably only arrested for that.

In other words, severely misleading headline and opening paragraph, basically no real content, waste of time. If this criticism is unfair, provide some factual information to the contrary.

The icing on the cake is the banner at the top of the page:

Jonathan Turley

I hope you can grasp the irony. :cactus:

Oh and the actual law he’s talking about that doesn’t apply (but that he hopes people will get confused about and blame anyway)? Here it is. If you actually care about free speech, take note of subsections 4 through 6.

I don’t post things I don’t read. Don’t be so rude. So, you couldn’t find anything related to this in the news yet when I search this womans name the first thing that comes up is a Guardian news article.

It doesn’t matter if it is the left or the right doing censorship, I remember being on the left arguing against the right trying to censor music and standing up for the principle of free speech decades ago, your characterization of “loony lefty laws and loony lefties on the loose” is a cheap trick tactic, those are not my words

No one used the word “evil” that’s you grandstanding again, she was arrested and yes for an existing law for mean tweets apparently.

I am not surprised to see you running to the defense of creeping authoritarianism, I remember it was you who dismissed the idea anyone would ever get arrested in Canada for not using the right pronoun, yet that happened

Progressives never listen, ever, if there is one thing that is constant it is no amount of reasoning or examples or evidence just how much damage they are doing will ever make an iota of difference or change their mind in the slightest or even give them pause for thought or wonder if those making the case might actually have a point, so supremely smugly and usually condescendingly wrong are they in their opinions. Never once pausing to think where the path they are on leads to.

image

Sound familiar? Progressives who will list Republicans and their supporters as their biggest concern in the world, hurl every obscenity they can dream up at them, the enemy in their mist, egged on by the media, who are increasingly telling people what they can and can’t say along with big tech that deplatforms anyone and anything they deem verboten.

The society turns on itself, yup, that’s exactly what the intersectionality crowd want to happen as they pit one tribe against another, that’s not a good idea. But again, Im sure this is all falling on deaf ears.

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Dan Ackroyd being reasonable? I’ll take it.

I didn’t claim to have searched the news. I claimed to have read the article you posted. I’m not going to search the news every time someone posts a bullshit fearmongering editorial just to see what smidgen of truth there is in it.

Not your words in that particular post, but (1) you are known to use the term loony left, and (2) it’s the overwhelming flavor of the editorial.

He doesn’t use the word evil (he goes with chilling instead), but anyone can see what his point is. Not rocket science, man.

For threatening tweets, not mean tweets. Yes there is a difference. Death threats have been illegal for a long time, for good reasons.

What we discussed previously were the so-called pronoun laws, i.e. amendments to the human rights codes of the provinces and the country, which are enforced by human rights tribunals/commissions. The theory was that these administrative bodies would declare people to have violated the law by using the wrong pronouns, and their refusal to accept the findings would lead to court challenges and then court orders and then contempt of court which could include imprisonment. That’s not what happened in the case you cite and is not known to have happened in any case ever (if it had happened I’m sure people here would be talking about it, a lot).

It’s hard to get facts from a blog that only cites other blogs that only cite other blogs… but here’s the real news.

Tldr: He defied a court order regarding the child’s gender identity and a publication ban.

I don’t see any real news saying he was arrested at all (despite what the blogs keep repeating), but if he was, it would be for contempt of court and/or what the (confusingly named) provincial Supreme Court called family violence in the form of misgendering (under the Family Law Act), but the appeal court ruled that definition incorrect and instead gave him a conduct order which the police can’t enforce. So he is still ordered to respect his child’s court approved change of gender, but again, it’s not about the so-called pronoun laws, and no he is not in prison as far as I can see. (And it’s not the novel pronoun dystopia of Jordan Peterson’s nightmares either, because the child transitioned to a traditionally recognized gender, namely male, with traditionally recognized pronouns, just not the ones the father wanted the child to have.)

If you want to argue about whether minors should be permitted to consent to such things – or whether adults should be permitted to, for that matter – that would be a different argument.

That’s a bit strong, coming from a mod. :2cents:

Getting back to the Scottish tweeter, now that you’ve posted real news about her (though sadly the headline and lead are misleadingly sensationalized)…

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “A 50-year-old woman was arrested and charged in connection with online communications offences. She has been released on an undertaking to appear at court at a later date. A report will be sent to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.”

Since news of the case became public, there has been some confusion over whether the police were investigating Millar under Scotland’s controversial new hate crime legislation, which was passed in April and which some women have argued could be used to prevent them advancing their gender-critical positions. The relevant provisions of the Hate Crime Act 2021 are not yet in force.

So to repeat, no she was not arrested for tweeting about gender issues, and no she was not arrested under a novel law.

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Thank you for toning it down, as you noted it was strongly worded, as a response to what I considered missing the point or not seeing the forest for the trees while getting a little on your high horse if you don’t mind me saying.

The main point of contention which was my point of posting was this.

The principle here was/is “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” which progressives have replaced with “hate speech is not free speech”

The cases cited are the trees, in the UK at least I could make it about how the police have turned to wusses policing language on the internet, but that’s not all that interesting and is painfully obvious that is where they are trending.

I could have made it about silicon valley and attempts to silence opinions they don’t like, but that is fairly obvious to everyone too, as is the increased authoritarianism, which during Covid is abundantly clear.

No, the thing I wanted to discuss is how the progressives throw out conventional wisdom that has served us well for centuries

“I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

For a new mantra.

“hate speech is not free speech”

Because like many ideas coming from the progressive’s they seem to be like the emperor has no clothes. Weak ideas that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Hate speech is such a generalized term it could mean literally anything.

Since it’s the progressives pushing these ideas shouldn’t they at least defend and explain them?

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Nice anecdote. I hear the term “open borders” get thrown around alot. What do you mean by that? I haven’t seen any argument that would truly classify as open borders so when I hear the term it seems hyperbolic.

In your mind, it means whatever you want it to mean. Your mind is not the mind of a judge or bureaucrat, and yes that matters.

In an actual law that deals with hate speech, you will find a definition, and then if you dig deeper you will find jurisprudence behind it and also in front of it. This is normal. It’s how law works. If the concept is too abstruse for you to grasp, ask an expert to explain it to you.

Anyway you’re hopelessly idealistic if you believe there has ever been such a thing as absolute freedom of speech or that such a thing would be in society’s interest.

Imagine a crowded theater where someone shouts FIRE!. Someone else shouts back, that’s the asshole who’s always crying wolf, please tell him to shut up, but you stand up and proudly proclaim, no, I will defend to the death this man’s right to shout FIRE!, and then you promptly get your wish as you get trampled to death by the hysterical crowd trying to get out of the room they mistakenly think is on fire.

This is an old argument that has been done to death. Why relitigate it?

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We’re not getting into free speech, are we? Incitement to violence, slander, libel are bad. Everything else goes regardless of offence. Including hate.

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i hate hate speech

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Right. There also needs to be a distinction made, on Forumosa we don’t allow rude or overly profane comments, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms I have no problem doing the same.

But the legal side of it, shouldn’t be criminal. For saying mean things. But the UK police at least are encoraging people to report mean things said on the internet and that will get you a visit by the police even it’s not criminal.

I think if you won’t actually defend to the death people’s right to say whatever the hell they want, then saying the line about defending it to the death is silly. Even if you add on a disclaimer like except for slander and incitement to violence.

The trouble with hate speech (in the legal sense, not what some people imagine it to mean) is that it functions as an incitement to violence. Think along the lines of ethnic group X are vermin. It’s technically not a death threat, but it’s not hard to draw a line from that sort of thing to a pogrom or an all out genocide.

It’s impossible to find a definition that will satisfy everyone all the time, so it’s a difficult balancing act. Like I said though, people who really care about freedom of speech should pay attention to the details of these things.

For example:

This is what people should be talking about, not sensationalized echo chamber garbage.

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So, I clicked on the DM link and got asked which “legitimate interest” cookies I want to approve/reject and saw how long the list on the second tab is and that there’s no “reject all” button. Pass. :yawning_face:

Alright @yyy lets go a little deeper. We are talking general principles here, let’s use the trans issue as an example, I have nothing against the trans community or anything against anyone in general, just looking at a general principle.

It seems the trans community are insistent to make their existential reality the objective reality as observed by everyone.

If you doubt what I just said, give an example where it is not true, because I can give countless examples where it is true. But it gives rise to the next question.

What right do the trans community have to demand the rest of society adapt their existential view?

Also and as it relates to free speech, since any departure from the trans existential reality is deemed transphobic can I say there are only two sexes and people can’t actually change their sex? Or is that deemed transphobic and hate speech deserving of a visit by the police?

Awaiting your considered reply with much interest.

this circles right* back to poor jordan peterson’s free speech rally before he became globally famous, dunnit?

*no pun intended

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I disagree with you to a point where there’s nothing to discuss.

General principles? You keep citing specific examples to define those general principles, often in the form of sensational headlines, and in recent memory your track record is pretty lousy. How many times do these things need to be debunked before people question their own willingness to accept them?

I won’t presume to speak for a group of people like that.

I could give you the examples of trans people I have known in real life who have never committed existential assault on my concept of reality, but what’s the point? You’ll just reach for something of the opposite tendency in the bottomless pit of echoes called the internet.

If you care so much and have no interest in reading the law like the bit I just posted (linked to in my earlier post), go ahead and ask the police.

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