keda wrote:
Do you not find it strange that there are no pencil laws?

A pencil can be used to harm someone, yet there is no law that specifies them, likewise most entities known to mandkind, yet specific entities are singled out. Does not the law of parsimony apply as well, to avoid all the bureaucracy that we can all refer to the law that to harm anyone is wrong?

Reformed Nihilist wrote:
The example that is usually given is about shouting "fire" in a crowded theater (which is an I believe should be illegal). We can attribute physical harm fairly directly (through a fairly straight and short causal chain) to that action. As causal chains get longer and less straight, the call becomes more difficult. Law involves trying to get specific where there are lots of grey areas. Speech that incites violence (hate speech) is not ewntirely unlike yelling fire in a theater. The speech causes other people to act in ways that cause tangible physical harm.

That said, I think that any legal limits that encroach on one's freedom of speech should be carefully crafted and enfocred sparingly. In my new city, with a population of about a Million, the enitre Aryan guard rallied on city hall. There were recriminations for "allowing" these people to do that, and evenb for local police showing up to protect them. It was in the papers for a few days. Want to hear the funny thing? The entire Aryan guard in my city of a million is 15 people. 15 nutbars played dress up and spouted nonsense at City hall, and we gave them days worth of media attention.

The trouble is that once unleashed unqualified free speech can bring about more than mere offense. The traditional way of illustrating this is to imagine someone screaming 'fire!' in a crowded cinema, or shouting 'bomb!' in the London underground. Whispers can also inspire torture, death, even genocide, when delivered in the right ear and at the right time. Rumour can lead to concentration camps. Such injudicious expressions of hatred seldom lead nowhere…the purposes they may be intended to serve, might not be purposes they actually do serve. Not so long ago in a small city in the UK in fact, a fever of hatred aimed at paedophiles led to physical attacks upon a local paediatrician.

7 wrote:
If I say 'so and so is really a jerk, you know?' ...

Glypt wrote:

Because your examples in (1) and (2) employ different forms of regulation regarding maliciously shouting fire in a theatre and are thereby not unqualified>>>


(self regulating)

and

(proprietorially regulating).

e.g. >>>

Glypt wrote:
...it would ...constitute a loss of reason, a self-defeating response, where everyone involved is made to feel worse...

So you see no difference between being attacked and someone merely annoying you?

In what sense can 'not defending' yourself from someone annoying you cost you more than 'not defending yourself from attack?

...Ultimately there is no such thing as unqualified free speech because if everyone demanded its full extent we would all end up in chains of our own making.