267
Right-wing fearmonger about a “day of jihad” coming to the US despite a lack of evidence
(www.mediamatters.org)
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
267 points (94.4% liked)
politics
19241 readers
1690 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We have a history of shitty censorship going back to the colonial era. We have good reason to not put the power to criminalize viewpoints in the hands of government.
You don't criminalize the speech, you add accountability for the outcomes.
Then you've gotta be patient and wait for there to be some outcomes, instead of clamoring for the speech to be shut down in advance.
We call that distinction "prior restraint". In US law, government doesn't get to silence speech, but can still prosecute harms that happen after the speech.
The outcomes keep happening and nobody is penalized.
So we shouldn't do anything because something bad might happen? That's like claiming the 8th amendment could lead to lawlessness because we will treat criminals too nice
Yeah, you shouldn't hand the current administration the power to silence speech, because the next administration might use that power against you. That seems like a pretty damn good precaution in a multicultural society.
The administration doesn't decide what is or is not abhorrent speech.
That's who runs the enforcement, though.
I don't think you grasp the difference between "the law" and "law enforcement."
Every democracy that I can think of has laws against hate speech, including all of the ones that score higher on the freedom index than the US. Outlawing hate speech increases freedom. All of the questions about who gets to define what constitutes hate speech and where to draw the line have already been answered. Different countries have arrived at different answers, but the US clinging to the right to continuously blast hate and weaponize far-right ideologies into terrorist attacks in the name of “liberty” is idiotic. A Nazi group marching down Main Street chanting about how they want to kill the Jews doesn’t make society more free. It terrorizes society. It makes it less free.
And in any case the US regulates the crap out of speech. Theres no lack of regulation as to what constitutes legal and illegal speech. There’s laws against libel and slander. Many on the far right - including Donald Trump have both taken very liberal advantage of those laws and have called for them to be made stronger. They are the ones calling the press the enemy of the people. We also have laws against making false statements, against deceptive advertising, against counterfeiting, against passing bad checks. We have laws against verbal assault. We have laws against making terroristic threats. We pass those laws because speech can and does produce harm. If you falsely and maliciously accuse someone of rape, if you write a bad check and defraud someone out of their car, if you call in a bomb threat, you are causing harm with speech.
250-odd years ago, they were still figuring that shit out. We’ve had a couple of centuries since then to better understand democracy and political dynamics.
Somehow, it’s only hate speech that people want to hold up as the linchpin of liberty. Hate speech decreases freedom because it increases fear and because it empowers the enemies of freedom. It is the paradox of tolerance. No country is perfect and everyone is dealing with a bizarrely well funded and strangely internationalist far right, but at least hate speech laws offer the opportunity for at least some level of control.
We put the power in the hands of the government to criminalize, well, basically everything we consider criminal, including speech.
Well, now you’re building a history of dumb fucks being manipulated in to violence by lying fucks and it’s seeping across the border in to my country.
So smarten the fuck up and do something about it.
Incitement to violence isn't a viewpoint.
Awww but sedition! And espionage!
As with a lot of other stuff, this sounds nice in theory, but the implementation is that instead of putting the regulation of speech, healthcare, taxes, whatever else on shittily elected officials, the US instead puts it in the hands of completely unelected corporations.
Democratic oversight is very flawed and not perfect by far, but it's way better than corporate oversight which is authoritarian by its very nature.