I don't limit the value of free speech to political speech. Sure that's an important kind, but the right to produce whatever art I want is just as important - even if that 'art' is just BDSM porn. As is the right to broadcast that art through any medium that's willing to without interference from the government.
Hell the anti-nazi-symbol law in Germany even includes a specific exception for artistic works - you're perfectly free to put as many swastikas in a painting as you want.
The reason the German law has stood in court so far - is exactly because what it aims to achieve is a good justification for a limitation, there doesn't seem to be a less intrusive way to achieve the same end - and the law is already limited to the bare minimum that can achieve that end.
People can, and should, retain the right to argue otherwise, lobby for change in various ways - but while the law stands, profit-making companies should be obliged to follow it. Whenever you waver on that principle you are setting yourself up for a two-tier society where the rich are soon ENTIRELY above the law.
Oh come on. The highest number of refugees in Europe is in Germany - and they are far less than 1% of the people. Germany could take ten times as many refugees as a year as they do, and the refugees would not be a noticeable amount of people for the next 50 years.
Hamburg has all of 13000 refugees - they basically disappear in a city of 4.6 million people.
In every other European country the number is far lower.
Unless you are from Jordan (40% refugees) you're talking flat-out bullshit.
There IS no refugee crisis in Europe. It's a mathematical fact that there are not enough to threaten the culture, have any kind of political influence whatsoever, or even to take anybody's job.
In that case nowhere on earth does free speech exist, and a damn good thing it is too, because nobody will want to live in a country where fraud is legal.
Which definition of 'republic' are you using ? Because the kind that exists in say, the USA, is a form of democracy. The kind that exist in the People's Republic of North Korea is decidedly not.
You tell me which one works better, the democratic republic or the non-democratic one ?
> So there you go: the very laws you advocate push corporations to be solely profit driven Yes. That's my point. I have no problem with corporations who engage in honest, ethical business within the rule of law. But I have a problem with organisations that have enough power to flagrantly ignore laws you and I have to comply with. I believe in equality before the law.
We won't have that till every person who dies from black lung means some coal mining corporation's CEO is about to charged with murder.
>Except they can't. Take Germany for instance where one of these laws exist. Now I strongly disagree with these laws, but short of actually voting in a neo-Nazi and with all the fucking up of the entire country that will cause what are my actual options?
You have plenty of options. You could sue the government and try to convince the courts that your rights are being excessively curtailed. If Germany is like most free countries the court will then ask: - Is there a justiifcation for the limitation of rights ? - If this justification is strong enough, is there no less intrusive way to achieve the same end ? And only if the answers to both support the restriction will the law be allowed to stand.
You could form a single-issue free-speech focussed political party, if enough people agree you'll win a seat or two in parliament - then you can form a coalition with larger parties to adopt your issue in exchange for your vote on policies they want to pursue. Much like the pirate party did all over Europe.
You can protest in the streets.
You can even, as you yourself said, flaunt the law in act of highly visible civil disobedience and even though I happen to agree with this particular law I will defend your right to do so.
What I will NOT defend is a profit-making corporation doing that. Especially when it's making absolutely no attempt at civil disobedience - the policy says nothing about 'flaunting' it - it, in fact, limits breaking the law to "cases where it won't get caught". That's not civil disobedience - that's just standard corporate lack of respect for the rule of law and breaking any and all laws whenever they are inconvenient and they thinkthe punishment is likely to be smaller than the gains. That's the exact kind of thinking that gets people's drinking water poisoned.
>But what is a company if not a group of people? A group of rich shareholders with NOTHING in common except a desire to make money. That is not a basis for any kind of positive action.If you want that, you need voluntary cooperation groups who share the specific principle/goal you are trying to pursue. A corporation whose sole interest in that issue is how it affects their bottom line is definitely not an example of anybody acting in the public good. Hell in most countries the vast majority of shareholders didn't even choose to BE shareholders, they never bought a share - they invested in funds to save for retirement and fund managers chose where to invest. That means the vast majority of shareholders don't even have a vote in what the company does. Hell in my country only 6% of all shares in trade on the ENTIRE STOCK EXCHANGE are owned by private individuals at any given moment !
>Am I only allowed to campaign at home? You don't need to invent strawman and argue things I never said. I specifically said you can use democratic processes to change the law. There is no sane person who would interpret that as "campaigning at home".
>Does that mean I should sit at home and fight against government's demands to read my most private internet history while at the same time coding backdoors to my applications for them at work? Nope, but your odds of convincing your company not to take that lucrative government contract is... er.. about a gazilion to one. Your only viable protest there is, in fact, to quit your job. Great "representation" there, an organisation where your only chance of them giving a fuck about your views is if you threaten to leave it (and even then they'll only listen if they think your continued service will make more money than the contract you're protesting).
>Corporations have humans and therefore should have rights. Bullshit. The humans in them already HAVE the rights. At best your arguing for letting some people double-dip and get twice the rights everybody else does.
>Just because the humans group together and colllectively cooperate doesn't deviod them of anything. Nobody IS devoiding them of anything, we're just not allowing them to double-dip and demand double-rights. Every share holder in a corporation already has all the human rights, there is no reason for the collection they formed to have human rights as well - it doesn't advance freedom, and in fact it greatly undermines it by effectively chaning "one person one vote" into "one dollar one vote". It's oligarchic and plutocratic in the extreme.
So now you're arguing that free speech can be legitimately limited in some senses - after arguing that even a single, narrow limitation meant people "had no free speech".
You're ignoring one key difference between a democracy and a corporation. In a democracy - all the citizens get to vote.
In a corporation - only the shareholders get to vote, the people who work there, they get no control over the corporations' political activities. Indeed we frequently see corporations lobbying for laws that will harm their own workers.
You're conflating two issues globalism and multiculturalism which have less than fuck-all to do with each other.
Multiculturalism is a great thing, globalism has a crapload of downsides (you correctly identify one) but the two are not similar, not related, and not in any way the same thing.
Banning one, very specific, type of speech does not mean "there is no free speech".
You've taken the slippery slope fallacy to a whole new level by not just assuming that any reduction must lead to absolute loss of a right, but that it must have already happened. Basically you took a stupid argument, and made it stupider.
In reality, most of these countries have rather MORE free speech than America does.
Do you live in one of those countries ? If not, then you are unaffected by these laws and you, in fact, are the one trying to impose your will onto other people and dictate what THEY are allowed to think.
If you are, then use the democratic process to try and convince people to change the law.
And while democracy has it's flaws, every other system is even worse.
Oh, and contrary to his expectations, the small, conservative denier movement in the country is almost entirely and exclusively made up of wealthy whites. Black people, rich and poor alike, are by and large accepting the science.
Even the more conservative, pro-market, political parties don't deny it here - it's such a fringe movement that the few people who do subscribe to denialism can't even get a voice WITHIN a party, let alone start one themselves. There was an attempt to start a libertarian party (which had denialism in it's platform) a few years ago but it pretty much flaundered because 1) They couldn't get enough money donated from their "only self interest is real" potential membership to pay the party registration fee (considering that there are dozens of parties with barely enough members to get a single seat in parliament and more than a few that ONLY EVER run in a single town for the council of that town who ALL managed to get the nominal fee collected, that's just pathetic) 2) They couldn't agree if 'legalize it' should be above or below 'burn the coal'* 3) They pretty much couldn't agree on anything else except 'guvmints are all evil' and then arguing about why the hell they are trying to run a party to join 'evil' guvmint.
It was rather humorous to watch.
*Ironically their 'help' in terms of legalizing marijuana was not needed, all it took was some persistent people willing to fight the battle in the courts that the marijuana laws as written were unconstitutional violating freedom of religion and privacy rights. A recent high court ruling found in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that there is no reason to criminalize posession or growing of small amounts for personal use by adults. Government was given one year to change the law to legalize such adult personal use. Though it remains illegal in the meantime, and it is only becoming legal on your own property - that battle is won. We don't allow drinking in most public places either - because your right to get drunk sort of ends before the point where you become a public nuisance.
You're absolutely correct there, my point was that since conservatives are such a tiny minority in South Africa the GP's suggestion that South Africans are likely to be deniers is... silly.
Every single country in the world where holocaust denial is a crime is a liberal democracy - so pretty much your entire post is nothing but strawmen.
And every one of those nice legitimate forms of civil disobedience you listed as if I hadn't spent a paragraph addressing the issue were people acting, corporations are NOT people.
And in this case the corporation is not even a citizen of the country - it's a foreign company. It has absolutely no stake in the future wellbeing of that country, it would hapilly cause a civil war if it would make the company more profitable since nobody at the company would experience any of the downsides. It is therefore, doubly precluded from a legitimate right to protest as it has absolutely no skin in the game.
Ghandi was a person, not a corporation. The right to protest is a human right. A right humans have (whether or not the law acknowledges this right). Corporations re not humans and do not have human rights.
They can and will - and if a corporation is 'standing up for it's customers' it's only because it's more profitable to do so (or they believe it will be) than to comply.
You can't rely on corporate good will - there is no such thing.
And hoping your interests will remain aligned with theirs is... well let's just say you're hoping on something very, very unreliable.
Slashdot Mirror
Really ? You all speak Navajo there ?
I don't limit the value of free speech to political speech. Sure that's an important kind, but the right to produce whatever art I want is just as important - even if that 'art' is just BDSM porn. As is the right to broadcast that art through any medium that's willing to without interference from the government.
Hell the anti-nazi-symbol law in Germany even includes a specific exception for artistic works - you're perfectly free to put as many swastikas in a painting as you want.
The reason the German law has stood in court so far - is exactly because what it aims to achieve is a good justification for a limitation, there doesn't seem to be a less intrusive way to achieve the same end - and the law is already limited to the bare minimum that can achieve that end.
People can, and should, retain the right to argue otherwise, lobby for change in various ways - but while the law stands, profit-making companies should be obliged to follow it. Whenever you waver on that principle you are setting yourself up for a two-tier society where the rich are soon ENTIRELY above the law.
Oh come on. The highest number of refugees in Europe is in Germany - and they are far less than 1% of the people.
Germany could take ten times as many refugees as a year as they do, and the refugees would not be a noticeable amount of people for the next 50 years.
Hamburg has all of 13000 refugees - they basically disappear in a city of 4.6 million people.
In every other European country the number is far lower.
Unless you are from Jordan (40% refugees) you're talking flat-out bullshit.
There IS no refugee crisis in Europe. It's a mathematical fact that there are not enough to threaten the culture, have any kind of political influence whatsoever, or even to take anybody's job.
In that case nowhere on earth does free speech exist, and a damn good thing it is too, because nobody will want to live in a country where fraud is legal.
Which definition of 'republic' are you using ? Because the kind that exists in say, the USA, is a form of democracy. The kind that exist in the People's Republic of North Korea is decidedly not.
You tell me which one works better, the democratic republic or the non-democratic one ?
A corporation is not a human, corporations are not people. There are people who own a corporation - they ALREADY HAVE rights.
> So there you go: the very laws you advocate push corporations to be solely profit driven
Yes. That's my point. I have no problem with corporations who engage in honest, ethical business within the rule of law. But I have a problem with organisations that have enough power to flagrantly ignore laws you and I have to comply with.
I believe in equality before the law.
We won't have that till every person who dies from black lung means some coal mining corporation's CEO is about to charged with murder.
>Except they can't. Take Germany for instance where one of these laws exist. Now I strongly disagree with these laws, but short of actually voting in a neo-Nazi and with all the fucking up of the entire country that will cause what are my actual options?
You have plenty of options. You could sue the government and try to convince the courts that your rights are being excessively curtailed. If Germany is like most free countries the court will then ask:
- Is there a justiifcation for the limitation of rights ?
- If this justification is strong enough, is there no less intrusive way to achieve the same end ?
And only if the answers to both support the restriction will the law be allowed to stand.
You could form a single-issue free-speech focussed political party, if enough people agree you'll win a seat or two in parliament - then you can form a coalition with larger parties to adopt your issue in exchange for your vote on policies they want to pursue. Much like the pirate party did all over Europe.
You can protest in the streets.
You can even, as you yourself said, flaunt the law in act of highly visible civil disobedience and even though I happen to agree with this particular law I will defend your right to do so.
What I will NOT defend is a profit-making corporation doing that. Especially when it's making absolutely no attempt at civil disobedience - the policy says nothing about 'flaunting' it - it, in fact, limits breaking the law to "cases where it won't get caught".
That's not civil disobedience - that's just standard corporate lack of respect for the rule of law and breaking any and all laws whenever they are inconvenient and they thinkthe punishment is likely to be smaller than the gains.
That's the exact kind of thinking that gets people's drinking water poisoned.
>But what is a company if not a group of people?
A group of rich shareholders with NOTHING in common except a desire to make money. That is not a basis for any kind of positive action.If you want that, you need voluntary cooperation groups who share the specific principle/goal you are trying to pursue. A corporation whose sole interest in that issue is how it affects their bottom line is definitely not an example of anybody acting in the public good.
Hell in most countries the vast majority of shareholders didn't even choose to BE shareholders, they never bought a share - they invested in funds to save for retirement and fund managers chose where to invest. That means the vast majority of shareholders don't even have a vote in what the company does. Hell in my country only 6% of all shares in trade on the ENTIRE STOCK EXCHANGE are owned by private individuals at any given moment !
>Am I only allowed to campaign at home?
You don't need to invent strawman and argue things I never said. I specifically said you can use democratic processes to change the law. There is no sane person who would interpret that as "campaigning at home".
>Does that mean I should sit at home and fight against government's demands to read my most private internet history while at the same time coding backdoors to my applications for them at work?
Nope, but your odds of convincing your company not to take that lucrative government contract is... er.. about a gazilion to one. Your only viable protest there is, in fact, to quit your job. Great "representation" there, an organisation where your only chance of them giving a fuck about your views is if you threaten to leave it (and even then they'll only listen if they think your continued service will make more money than the contract you're protesting).
>Corporations have humans and therefore should have rights.
Bullshit. The humans in them already HAVE the rights. At best your arguing for letting some people double-dip and get twice the rights everybody else does.
>Just because the humans group together and colllectively cooperate doesn't deviod them of anything.
Nobody IS devoiding them of anything, we're just not allowing them to double-dip and demand double-rights. Every share holder in a corporation already has all the human rights, there is no reason for the collection they formed to have human rights as well - it doesn't advance freedom, and in fact it greatly undermines it by effectively chaning "one person one vote" into "one dollar one vote". It's oligarchic and plutocratic in the extreme.
Hobby Lobby is a privately held company. Get your facts straight.
So now you're arguing that free speech can be legitimately limited in some senses - after arguing that even a single, narrow limitation meant people "had no free speech".
You're not much for consistency, are you ?
I said greatest not only.
Without multiculturalism every country on earth is doomed to a civil war forever.
But if you truly oppose it I suggest you give your property to an apache family and get your ass back to whatever country your ancestors came from.
The entire history America and Canada.
Tyranies fail worse and a corporation is just a private tyranny
Hardcore bdsm porn on public tv at lunch time. You can't even say "shit" on TV
You're ignoring one key difference between a democracy and a corporation.
In a democracy - all the citizens get to vote.
In a corporation - only the shareholders get to vote, the people who work there, they get no control over the corporations' political activities. Indeed we frequently see corporations lobbying for laws that will harm their own workers.
You're conflating two issues globalism and multiculturalism which have less than fuck-all to do with each other.
Multiculturalism is a great thing, globalism has a crapload of downsides (you correctly identify one) but the two are not similar, not related, and not in any way the same thing.
Banning one, very specific, type of speech does not mean "there is no free speech".
You've taken the slippery slope fallacy to a whole new level by not just assuming that any reduction must lead to absolute loss of a right, but that it must have already happened.
Basically you took a stupid argument, and made it stupider.
In reality, most of these countries have rather MORE free speech than America does.
Do you live in one of those countries ?
If not, then you are unaffected by these laws and you, in fact, are the one trying to impose your will onto other people and dictate what THEY are allowed to think.
If you are, then use the democratic process to try and convince people to change the law.
And while democracy has it's flaws, every other system is even worse.
Oh, and contrary to his expectations, the small, conservative denier movement in the country is almost entirely and exclusively made up of wealthy whites. Black people, rich and poor alike, are by and large accepting the science.
Even the more conservative, pro-market, political parties don't deny it here - it's such a fringe movement that the few people who do subscribe to denialism can't even get a voice WITHIN a party, let alone start one themselves. There was an attempt to start a libertarian party (which had denialism in it's platform) a few years ago but it pretty much flaundered because
1) They couldn't get enough money donated from their "only self interest is real" potential membership to pay the party registration fee (considering that there are dozens of parties with barely enough members to get a single seat in parliament and more than a few that ONLY EVER run in a single town for the council of that town who ALL managed to get the nominal fee collected, that's just pathetic)
2) They couldn't agree if 'legalize it' should be above or below 'burn the coal'*
3) They pretty much couldn't agree on anything else except 'guvmints are all evil' and then arguing about why the hell they are trying to run a party to join 'evil' guvmint.
It was rather humorous to watch.
*Ironically their 'help' in terms of legalizing marijuana was not needed, all it took was some persistent people willing to fight the battle in the courts that the marijuana laws as written were unconstitutional violating freedom of religion and privacy rights. A recent high court ruling found in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that there is no reason to criminalize posession or growing of small amounts for personal use by adults. Government was given one year to change the law to legalize such adult personal use. Though it remains illegal in the meantime, and it is only becoming legal on your own property - that battle is won. We don't allow drinking in most public places either - because your right to get drunk sort of ends before the point where you become a public nuisance.
You're absolutely correct there, my point was that since conservatives are such a tiny minority in South Africa the GP's suggestion that South Africans are likely to be deniers is... silly.
Every single country in the world where holocaust denial is a crime is a liberal democracy - so pretty much your entire post is nothing but strawmen.
And every one of those nice legitimate forms of civil disobedience you listed as if I hadn't spent a paragraph addressing the issue were people acting, corporations are NOT people.
And in this case the corporation is not even a citizen of the country - it's a foreign company. It has absolutely no stake in the future wellbeing of that country, it would hapilly cause a civil war if it would make the company more profitable since nobody at the company would experience any of the downsides.
It is therefore, doubly precluded from a legitimate right to protest as it has absolutely no skin in the game.
Ghandi was a person, not a corporation. The right to protest is a human right. A right humans have (whether or not the law acknowledges this right). Corporations re not humans and do not have human rights.
They can and will - and if a corporation is 'standing up for it's customers' it's only because it's more profitable to do so (or they believe it will be) than to comply.
You can't rely on corporate good will - there is no such thing.
And hoping your interests will remain aligned with theirs is ... well let's just say you're hoping on something very, very unreliable.