Comment by pessimizer

Comment by pessimizer a day ago

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Because in a free country you have the right to be a climate skeptic and a racist?

Being a racist is mostly useless and self-serving, but if you make any particular scientific position illegal, it's identical to having state defined science. That's how we got people passing bills to define pi and Lysenkoism. It's how we institutionalized chattel slavery and sometimes teaching black people to read punishable by death.

The goal of government isn't to promote your "correct" opinions. The goal of government should be summarize the beliefs of a fully-informed public in order to act on their behalf.

jay_kyburz a day ago

>The goal of government should be summarize the beliefs of a fully-informed public in order to act on their behalf.

I fully agree with your position here, but do you think the government has a roll in making sure the public is not misled or believes things that "experts" consider to be false? Do you think expert opinions should carry more weight that the average Joe?

I think my position is that the government is a tool we, the taxpayer, should use to investigate things and educate us of its findings. That this should be done in an open and transparent way so that we can trust the results. I don't think for profit companies should responsible for educating people. (sorry for the tangent)

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mcdonje a day ago

You're kinda missing the point. It's quite common for "free speech absolutists" to defend racism and other forms of bigotry, but not much else.

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  • mikkupikku a day ago

    It is the most unpopular speech which is at the greatest risk of being censored, and so there is it also the best place to hold the line on free speech. If you don't defend the right to say racist things, then you've already conceded the fight for free speech and are now just negotiating your surrender.

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    • mcdonje a day ago

      Again, missing my point.

      I'm generally in favor of free speech, so your argument is not new to me. It's also not relevant to what I said, since you missed the point.

      Also, you think racism is unpopular?

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      • mikkupikku 21 hours ago

        Racism will get you fired from virtually any company in America, thrown out of virtually any business or school, etc. If you don't think it's deeply unpopular then I don't know what to tell you. It is the speech which is closest to being outright banned everywhere. It already is in most developed countries, probably most of the developing ones too (at least on paper), America stands out as one place it remains technically legal even though it will get you blacklisted from almost everywhere. The only reason it's still legal here is because the first ammendment is unusually strong. Chip away at it, and I guarantee you'll lose more than you're bargaining for.

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        • mcdonje 16 hours ago

          Racist thought and language is everywhere. People supporting racist institutions and language are everywhere.

          These days, bigots are getting their teachers thrown out of school. It just happened at OU.

          Universities are dropping DEI because Trump asked them to. Many companies are acting similarly, obviously in some sectors more than others.

          Ask minorities if racism and other forms of bigotry are unpopular. You'll probably get a different perspective than the one you gave me. That is unless the only minority folks you know are Clarence Thomas and Vivek Ramaswamy.

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  • nephihaha a day ago

    The problem is in the definition. The British Government has accused Pro-Palestine protestors of it in the last few months.

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