Free Speech should be limited:

I see his point aswell, but I'm going to add to it, Its a great idea for any system of rule to keep down any talk of revolutionary thinking and junk like that.

And I believe that the 'free' in freespeech simply means, the ability to say what you choose without consiquence. So it will still be free, just regulated if you define it the same way I do.

 

Speaking of 9/11 jokes... http://www.buffalobeast.com/106/51_funniest_things_about_9-11.htm

I love free speech. Oh, and by the way most jokes that are disgusting are that way because that's what makes them funny. You can tell a racist joke and not be a racist. It's the fact that they are so preposterous that makes them funny. Until someone comes up and says "Yeah, I hate niggers too."

 

Actually, lately, it's Bush and his whiney bunch of GOP, religious-neo-conservative, Christian ultra-rightwing nutcases who have nocturnal wet dreams in their obsessive desire of changing the Constitution.

 

Thank god not easily, so that ever ultra conservative can impose their limited/profit centered views on the general public.

There have always been inherit limits to free speech. You can't scream fire just for fun.

And individuals should look more at the freedom or choice to choose, then try and impose restrictions on everyone else. If you don't like it on the radio/tv/movies don't use those venues of media. You have a choice also.

Conservatives are always telling us the market is the ultimate nirvana/god, then don't buy into what you don't agree with, but don't try to limit the access or voice of those that disagree with you.

 

I agree with gardener.

Actually, it's more like a social contract involved.
As caring and responsible citizens of society, the responsiblity of censorship falls on the individual citizen.

Yes, there is free speech, but you can't just scream fire in a movie theatre just for the heck of it.

 

my thoughts exactly in fact.

 

For those who didn't twig yet, this is kind of a joke.

Re the "shouting fire" thing, well, that kind of illustrates our point. Freedom of speech is an odd idea, because the implication is either that you can say what you want, or that you can say it without fear of reprisal. The two are different; the former is simply impractical to challenge without cutting someone's tongue out, but the latter is altogether more complicated.

Reprisal from who? Essentially, we are either talking about reprisal from the government, or reprisal from ANYONE. That's how free speech seems to be invoked. It's one thing to stop someone saying something, or to try and erase any record of them saying it. But if someone wants freedom of speech at the expense of the freedom of others to respond to that speech, sorry, I'm not down with that.

Generally, it seems to be best to allow people freedom of speech, and grant them the freedom not to listen.

 

Haha, nice. Which bastion of human rights are you from, out of interest?

 

It's completely possible with enough public support. Promise some people security and they'll give you anything.

 

I forget who said it, but a man who gives up liberty for safety deserves neither.

 

That should be heard from the roof tops and on ever frontpage these days.

 

My thoughts are:

let everyone, and I mean everyone, have their say
so love and compassion may win in a fair way

Love and tolerance can't be forced, by their very definitions.

Let everyone say what's on their minds so we may understand where we're all coming from, find out where our society needs help. Don't ever suppress and repress, for any reason. The truth must be allowed to come out!

 

Allow humanity to reach self actualization, and put the masses in a position where they actually come to their own conclusions about what they want. Then we will rule ourselves.

I am for the enlightenment of all people and until that happens we are limited to governments that are all just varying degrees of fascism.

I don't believe that oligarchy is our only option. A new education process needs to begin, that teaches youth self empowerment and responsibility, with the end result being not merely a diploma and marketable skills to allow one to exist in a capitalistic state, but a sufficient level of understanding of the universe and of ones own personal power to transcend the need for a government.

I guess at heart I'm what you would really define as a libertarian, but I don't think we're ready for that system currently so I consider myself a liberal who is at the same time very wary of liberalism. To arrive at a free state, we cannot allow out government to collapse yet, we need to pour our efforts into moving future generations towards a position where the jump to complete social freedom is possible.

Right now I believe we have the potential to move our society in that direction, where we can safely govern ourselves because we will possess the wisdom and power to do so.

I believe that one day laws against murder will cease to exist because we will have almost completely ceased murdering each other. Those who still commit murder will be safely and humanely contained as we try to rehabilitate their damaged psyche, yet during this process, making a strong effort to retain their individuality.

I think we currently need a liberal government that can work to provide dignity, health, and sustenance for all people, but one day I know we can shed this protective chrysalis, flex our wings, and take flight.

 

No probs, but nah, our civil liberties and human rights are only being eroded as quickly as they are in America. We're big on ID cards and security cameras at the moment, but when I say "we", I mean the government, and I'm pretty sure they're only pushing that so there's a difference between the two main parties come the election. I really hope, I mean, I pray every night, that the country will show a united front against ID cards, because the very idea of them sickens me a bit, and that's ignoring how inept government technology usually is.

 

Far as I can see, the best solution is to enable everyone to shout back and give as good as they get. Discourage people from hiding behind censorship and hate-crime laws and what-not. Sticks and stones and all that. I don't see that political correctness has to be an immediate side-effect of liberalism, but then, I believe in tempering ideology with pragmatism, which seems to be more and more unpopular an idea the nearer you get to any kind of fringe.

Free speech is a mixed blessing, but it's a blessing nonetheless. If we can say what we want, it's likely that, with 6 billion people and counting on the planet, we're going to be disagreed with at some point. We need to know how to deal with this, and because we suck, we want the government to tell us how. The government has two options to answer:

• To protect the right to free speech by saying "you have the right to speak, but you don't have the right to be listened to". Sounds harsh, but what it basically means is, no-one has impunity. If someone says something, and you disagree with it, you can respond by saying what you thought about it.
• To protect the right to free speech by saying "you have the right to speak, as long as it's not offensive". So you can say anything you like, as long as everyone agrees. Or at least, enough people agree. Or just a few important people.

OK, so maybe there is a stronger case for the latter than I'm making, but I can't really defend a world where freedom of speech makes us to frightened to disagree, i.e. to speak. Given the choice, I choose to potentially offend and to potentially be offended, rather than avoid offending and expect the same of everyone else, and I deeply resent anyone who tries the "how would you like it if someone said [whatever]" response to a something they've taken exception to. Communication is a good thing, and we need to learn to deal with it, because it's all we have, really.

 

Free speech in the US is already protected.

I've lived through the PC years when you didn't know what was acceptable to say, but that was actually better than today. In the eighties and nineties we worried about being offensive to others. It wasn't legislated it was a societal thing. Now a days we are more concerned with fitting within the confines of some conservative acceptable doctrine. And with the new Patriot Acts hell we could get arrested for saying the wrong thing.

But Bush hasn't totally dismantled the Bill of Rights.

 

Yeah, you guys need to sort that out. It's kind of embarassing having to suck up to a country that can barely look after itself.

I guess what I meant really is that, societally, freedom of speech is invariably tempered by people's reactions to it (like you said in the 80s and 90s, although I know in this country legislature has been gradually introduced regarding language likely to offend and so forth). Language and communication are constantly evolving, and what's okay to say today is not what is okay to say yesterday or tomorrow. Because of this, the government needs to have a light touch. You have the thing these days, where people are starting to get interested in the various cultural double standards regarding language (e.g., how come it's okay for a gay guy to say "queer"?), and they're starting to question whether we can really censor a word or an image absolutely, irrespective of the context it's in.

I guess it's a bit different here, because we don't have a constitution beyond the Human Rights Act (which needs a serious looking-at). All our laws are based on legal precedent, and we seem to do alright that way. The downside of having a constitution is that you allow it to be changed. I don't see any logical reason to have a document with that much implied decalogic authority, and then be able to dick around with it.

 

Well you and Tony Blair went right along with us, and from what I've heard you have fewer rights than we do.

 

Haha, well, I personally have never voted for Blair, and didn't even trust him when everyone else was in love with him (I was about 12, so it can't have been that convincing).

I dunno, we don't have the right to bear arms, but we've done alright without that for a while. Our lot are big on surveillance, but yours probably would be too if it weren't so completely impractical, but we do have the right to abort pregnancies and various other things. I'm pretty sure sodomy isn't illegal anywhere in this country either. It's not just a question of being more or less free on some sliding scale. We have freedoms you do not, or are happy enough to give up.

 

"Free Speech should be limited"

Yeah, and Free Food should cost money.