A man is shot dead in Utah after posting threats online, hours before Joe Biden visits the state.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1255681

Archived version: https://archive.ph/tAw7a
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230809205032/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66457089

  • M68040 [they/them]
    ·
    11 months ago

    I honestly always thought free speech was a dumb idea that in execution almost solely benefits people who wanna use hate speech and shit anyhow. When was the last time someone actually said something that needed to be said and didn't get torn a new asshole for it?

    At the very least, the American conception's total trash and we're still expected to act like it's the best thing since sliced bread despite it mostly being used to stick up for people that'd get kicked off any self respecting IRC channel in minutes.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.ee
      ·
      11 months ago

      Here's the problem: everyone is fundamentally misinterpreting free speech. It doesn't mean what people think it does: it's not about stopping government oppression, it's about enforcing fundamental respect for human beings, which means hate speech is banned regardless -- because bigotry and hate speech by its nature censors other human beings, because it creates an environment where people are discredited and shunned by their peers for stupid reasons, denying them their right to be respected and heard. Hate speech isn't speech, it's censorship, and needs to be treated as a censoring act and not as speech since it's not speech, it's an action done with intent.

      When people adopt that definition of free speech, we can go back to having our cake and eating it too and we'll start to get back on the right path.

      • silent_water [she/her]
        ·
        11 months ago

        this explicitly not the text of the first amendment, but that document is garbage anyway so it doesn't matter. I agree with you, but with an additional point: money is not speech and any attempt to use it as such must be squashed if democracy is to have any meaning.