AGAINST FREE SPEECH

We all are devoted supporters about having the right of public opinion,
however, we just don’t believe that free speech is the solution to use. We’re
just tired of hearing hate speeches filled with black and white arguments,
which almost all free speech fundamentalists defend.

Take the word Freedom as an example. An apparently simple concept that

you’d think people understand pretty well, after all it’s a fundamental
human right. But no. It’s probably the concept people abuse and misuse
the most when discussing about politics, law and the role of the state.
People defend all sorts of nonsense in the name of freedom. This madness
must stop. So we have to take some time to think about it.

But, before we start talking about free speech, let’s make sure we have the
basics clear. What is freedom after all?
According to the Online Cambridge dictionary, freedom is “the condition
or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want
to, without being controlled or limited”.

So Beautiful. Clearly, freedom is good. After all, we all know that any concept
can only be one of two things: good or bad. Nothing in between. Easy, right?
Of course not. That brings us to our first argument against free speech,
which basically says that Freedom does not have absolute value.
So, “Your rights end where mine begin”. Everyone has heard this piece of
conventional wisdom and I guess it’s pretty safe to assume that most agree
with it. Of course, there must be limits to freedom, one can’t simply kill
whoever he want. But now wait. Should we conclude that freedom is bad!?
Of course not. Freedom is one of those things that are good in moderation,
but that may be dangerous if taken to an extreme. But where do we draw
the line between legitimate and illegitimate limitations of people’s
freedoms?

Why is killing people illegal? Because generally it’s conceived that people
want to live and don’t want to die and that somehow the right to live
trumps the right to kill. There is a wide enough consensus that killing

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innocent people is immoral and therefore modern democracies concede
the monopoly of violence to the state. If you don’t want all hell to break
lose you must enforce some boundaries on people’s freedoms. It would be
immoral not to. Why is punching people illegal? Also, except for a couple
of freaks, nobody likes to be punched. It hurts. It doesn’t feel nice. So it’s
fair enough to make it illegal. What about tickling people on the streets
though? What about disturbing them by making very loud noises in public
spaces?

Very quickly we’re not only talking about freedom anymore, but about
ethics and the relative value of freedom when compared to different
actions which cause different degrees of discomfort. Clearly, if the
suffering caused by a person’s actions crosses a certain threshold, curbing
their freedom to do so is not only morally legitimate, but imperative.
That’s why it’s illegal to kidnap people and torture them, even if you let
them live in the end.

Now you may accuse us of being overly utilitarian , but as imperfect as

vanilla utilitarianism may be, we still haven’t heard of you that you are
managing to deal away with utility, thinking about the correct way to work
with your useless creation. So, what do you have to say after our little
lesson of what is freedom?, I mean not your freedom, the REAL FREEDOM!

(let them speak)

We just think that your solution is not willing to help and solve all kinds of
situations, because free speech is already limited and you’re not trying to
change it.
So, Free speech. By far the most trendy freedom nowadays. If you tweet “I
hate nigas” and anybody dares to criticize you, there will quickly be legions
of supporters coming to your rescue, defending your freedom of speech
and condemning the PC-police. Many seem to live this binary illusion that
“we still have free speech for the moment, but we’re about to lose it if we
don’t stop the social justice warriors”. But is it really that binary?

Of course not. The extent to which freedom of speech is protected is in a

spectrum, and varies from country to country. Some countries grant very
little freedom of speech to their citizens, while some grant quite a lot. But
no country allows 0% or 100% free speech.

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It’s hard to even imagine what something like that would mean. Here are
some examples of situations in which pretty much all modern, liberal
democracies limit free speech:

• Incitement to genocide is illegal under international criminal law;

• Most developed countries have some criminal regulation against
“crimes of honor”, such as defamation, calumny, slander and libel, all
of which may have slightly different meanings in different legislations;
• Tobacco ads are illegal in most developed countries;
• Alcohol advertisement is highly regulated;
• Child targeted advertisement is regulated and even illegal in some
countries;
• Pornography depicting minors is considered child pornography and is
therefore illegal in most countries even if the production didn’t involve
real children;
• Harassment laws criminalize several behaviors around the world;
• Personality rights protect people from having identifiable images of
them exposed in public against their consent;
• As much as I may like street art, protecting property is often
considered a priority and vandalism laws in many cases criminalize
graffiti and other forms of unauthorized street art.

So no, if someone suggests, for example, that body shaming ads inside the
subway shouldn’t be legal, it doesn’t mean that they’re against free
speech. It just means they would add an item to that list. Does adding this
one item make us cross the threshold between legitimate limitations of
free speech and dictatorial censorship? You could argue that it does, but it
would be a subtle point that would require very good justification. It
wouldn’t be sufficient to say “you sick bastards are no better than North
Koreans or Saudi Arabians!! This is an affront to free speech!! I just care
about myself and my white skin! F.U.C.K your opinion and F.U.C.K you if
you’re offended!!” ! And that’s all folks, this is still free speech! Did you find
any polite sense in it? It just seemed like pure racism to me, but wait, IT'S
ACTUALLY FREE SPEECH!

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(let them speak)

We just think that your ways of thinking are surely wrong! For example,
Freedom of expression was not secured in order to protect commercial
speech, do you know that?

As democracy started to gain popularity around the world after the

Enlightenment, free speech was often evoked as fundamental part of it. Of
course, the citizens must be able to criticize the government in a system
whose name comes from “rule of the people”. In a world with a history of
persecution of religious heretics, political dissidents etc., it makes perfect
sense.

Other philosophers and intellectuals defended freedom of expression as

part of the broader notion of freedom of thought. In order for society to
progress, people should be free to disagree with the church, with the
academy, with the scientific consensus of the time, and should have the
right to expose these ideas in public (freedom of speech) and to associate
those with similar views (freedom of association).

But mass media didn’t exist back then. The most advanced media
technology was the printing press. Does it really make sense to religiously
apply the same rules created then to our 21st century media saturated
society? Would that really contribute to human flourishing? Would that
really protect us from tyranny?

As your opponents, we really don’t see how it would. As much as we may

think the Westboro Baptist Church, for example, is run by hate-mongering
lunatics, I don’t hesitate to defend their right to protest and express their
ideas. Do they want to write a book about how wrong it is to be a lesbian
for example? Go for it. Do they want to make a gory movie with explicit
scenes of gays being tortured in hell? I guess I’d be ok with that, but at the
same time concerned. The same principle that guarantees their right also
guarantees my right to go and do the similar things in favor of LGBT rights
or whatever cause I support. But if a protein supplement company wants
to increase their profits by exposing large posters that exploit people’s
insecurities to sell their products, does that really have to do with free
speech? I mean, what is the idea they’re trying to promote?

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Of course, as telecommunications and technology started to evolve each
other and advertisement started to gain relevance, several companies
have resorted to the principle of free speech to defend themselves from
advertising regulations, some with a certain degree of success, but not
much. After all, historically, the motivation for free speech has never had
anything to do with a company’s right to advertise their product.

So, In summary, you may help a person with your technique, but at the
same time you are helping one, you are harming or humiliating the life of
another.

(let them speak)

You may not be absolutely wrong, but free speech just guarantees that you
can express your views publicly, but not that you have the right to use any
possible means to do so, it is just like getting back to the previous example,
where we can think about the freedom of expression that assures
Westboro Baptist Church’s right to create a gory anti-gay movie. But what
if they wanted to organize public screenings of their movie in areas of high
circulation in the city? They can criticize the government, they can
promote their ideas, they can freely assemble with their homophobic
phelows, Christian fundamentalists, but using state of the art mass
communications technology to shove your ideas down everybody else’s
throats is not a fundamental right.

Even for the activities that are most clearly protected by the principle of
free speech, there are regulations that must be respected. You can’t go in
front of a hospital at 2 a.m. with a loudspeaker and criticize the
government. For a real world example, recently there has been quite a lot
of discussion regarding mosques that use loudspeakers to issue their calls
to prayer. Free speech doesn’t necessarily trump the right to peace and
quiet and all visual and noise pollution regulations. Needless to say, it is
only natural that commercial speech be subject to even more control.
What do you have to say about that? Are you even aware of these kinds of
events?

(let them speak)

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Ok, very well but it is quite extremely wrong! Free speech is just another
strategy to calm down people and at the same time hurt them!
Free speech was instituted to guarantee that you can protest against the
government and that it can’t stop you. But if you criticize the company you
work for or the NGO you’re a member of, they legally have the right to fire
or remove you from the organization. Of course, many of them claim to
abide by democratic values and criticizing the leadership of an NGO you’re
a member of should ideally not result in your immediate expulsion. But the
voluntary nature of an NGO membership makes the protection of free
speech much more lenient in the former case. So, If you act like a brat and
constantly provoke the president of the organization, post derogatory
cartoons or tell stupid jokes that harm the image of the organization, I
wouldn’t be too alarmed by your expulsion. The same attitude towards the
president of a country, however, we would always be defend, OF
COURSE… How can you explain that with your free speech???

(let them speak)

Conclusion
Just to clarify, we are against free speech as you know it, but we are just
huge supporters of freedom, fraternity and well-being. We tend to
oppose laws that limit artistic expression, security patterns and lack of
equality. We are very skeptical to anti-defamation laws that aim to protect
public figures, especially politicians, and we are absolutely appalled and
deeply worried about the new tendency of disinviting speakers from
American and British university events and other conferences over
legitimate ideological differences and negligible diplomatic slips such
as Richard Dawkins’ tweet criticizing regressive left tendencies within
feminism, and stuff like that. We care about the future of our nation, the
future of our kids and grandsons and great-grandsons.
Just to close our debate, I hope you have understood our perspective on
the subject, and that we only want a better future, in which we can give
our opinions, however, thinking not only about ourselves but about
everyone in general.

THE END!