...The contagion of moral cowardice followed its usual course, wherein liberal journalists and pundits began to reconsider our most basic freedoms in light of the sadomasochistic fury known as “religious sensitivity” among Muslims. Contributors to The New York Times and NPR spoke of the need to find a balance between free speech and freedom of religion—as though the latter could possibly be infringed by a YouTube video. As predictable as Muslim bullying has become, the moral confusion of secular liberals appears to be part of the same clockwork...

More here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-t ... ginary-god

Yes, what he said. I cannot believe how fast our Western politicians started down the path of restricting freedom of speech.

I don't even know if Obama and Hillary Clinton mentioned freedom of speech when condemning the film.

Does he have any wisdom on tits, or rather nipples, by a chance? I did not get to see any in public in the land of the free. How about some thoughts on FuckForForest? Or how about on Mr Assange? Can he not publish secret documents? OMG secret!? How can there even be such a thing if there is freedom of speech and expression? I am free to say anything ... but not this. I am not sure I get it.

The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.

Dear Mr Harris, something what was nonexistent cannot be lost. So stop being selective and get your shit together.

@tuco:

So I don't have the right to hear/view/read this material and these ideas?

Also, who would you put in charge of deciding?

What what? I am not aware of deciding anything. What does the law say about your rights? I am not lawyer to give free advices.

However, anyone thinking that freedom of speech and expression is absolute, that we can say anything in any way we like, is not following reality closely. It is not and, probably, never was. Let alone the freedom to think out loud without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed. For man of his format - he gets quoted, read, and listened to - to claim there ever was right not to have fear is either some sort of joke or a brain fart.

Nice evasion.

Call it what you will. I am not to decide anything and it is not only empty phrase as I try to put the money where my mouth is in personal and professional life too, admittedly with more or rather less success. I have only one vote. But this is not about me, this is about Mr Harris and his wisdom.

Of course you do not have the right to read any material you wish. I still would like to see the vid from Osama Bin Laden arrest, for example, and I do not think I will get it anytime soon. What kind of materials do you want to read and what do I have to do with it?

Well, as Mill and Paine noted, it's not just the right to speak that's important. It't also the right to hear that speech. Prohibit certain speech and you deprive others the opportunity to hear it. I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out why that's incredibly dangerous for society.

You've now taken a neutral stance. Ok, so let me ask you directly: what is your opinion? Should free speech include freedom to offend? Where would you draw the line on what speech should be prohibited? And who do you think should decide?

In my opinion, not sure why it matters but .., and I would vote accordingly if given a chance, freedom of speech and expression should be absolute. No censorship, no secrets, no copyrights etc.

Answered skip, answered skip, majority should decide.

There you go :) I am sirius.

tuco wrote:In my opinion, not sure why it matters but .., and I would vote accordingly if given a chance, freedom of speech and expression should be absolute. No censorship, no secrets, no copyrights etc.

Answered skip, answered skip, majority should decide.

There you go I am sirius.

Puzzling. The majority deciding would very likely implement censorship quite quickly, which seems to go against your opinion that freedom of speech and expression should be absolute.

@tuco:

So, to clarify, your position is that we should have total freedom of speech. But we don't and never have. So Harris should stop pretending that we do or did.

Is that accurate?

Not entirely. I am too lazy to go through his blog sentence by sentence so I will not claim there are several problematic claims/assumptions/leads/conclusions.

I quoted a sentence where he claims there, ever, was freedom to say anything without fear, which is blatantly not true. Either he should pick his wording more carefully or his thoughts, but since one cannot be, it is impossible and cannot be guaranteed by any law, in control of all variables in reactions to a speech/image one cannot rule out reactions which would instil fear.

When there was a time there was such freedom he talks about? Practical example/specify please. Because from where I sit there never was and, probably, never can be.

Freedom of speech and expression is never absolute in the sense that it never has any (negative) consequences. Sure, we can eliminate legal ones, and that is traditional understanding of such freedom. On the other hand, even here, I am free to say anything I want, but will face consequences, in this case legal ones, so I could say that freedom of speech and expression is absolute in this sense ~ I am free to write it.

Sure he is free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being, and he will have to live with consequences, not legal ones, just consequences of his actions like any other human being. My problem with his blog is that he does not say anything new or ground breaking. He tries to defends the doctrine that freedom of speech and expression is untouchable, and it is clearly not so, while singling out Muslims as oppressors of such freedom and he is not even very good at it.

orpheus wrote:

tuco wrote:In my opinion, not sure why it matters but .., and I would vote accordingly if given a chance, freedom of speech and expression should be absolute. No censorship, no secrets, no copyrights etc.

Answered skip, answered skip, majority should decide.

There you go I am sirius.

Puzzling. The majority deciding would very likely implement censorship quite quickly, which seems to go against your opinion that freedom of speech and expression should be absolute.

It is not puzzling to me. Yes it is against my opinion, but I accept that my opinion is one of many and I am not a holder of any ultimate truths, just as anyone else in open society which is organized on democratic principles. What am I supposed to do? Grab the power and rule because I cannot get it my way? No, thank you.

tuco wrote:

orpheus wrote:

tuco wrote:In my opinion, not sure why it matters but .., and I would vote accordingly if given a chance, freedom of speech and expression should be absolute. No censorship, no secrets, no copyrights etc.

Answered skip, answered skip, majority should decide.

There you go I am sirius.

Puzzling. The majority deciding would very likely implement censorship quite quickly, which seems to go against your opinion that freedom of speech and expression should be absolute.

It is not puzzling to me. Yes it is against my opinion, but I accept that my opinion is one of many and I am not a holder of any ultimate truths, just as anyone else in open society which is organized on democratic principles. What am I supposed to do? Grab the power and rule because I cannot get it my way? No, thank you.

No, but we can create laws - some of them Constitutional - to prevent "tyranny of the majority."

tuco wrote: My problem with his blog is that he does not say anything new or ground breaking.

I take it you're a fan of 'Allo 'Allo

Michelle Dubois wrote: Listen carefully; I shall only say it once.

Don't you think that it is sometimes necessary to repeat things in order to get them into dunderheads? I'm not thinking of the religious maniacs, who of course are deaf because they will not hear, but their fellow-travellers among the politicians and journalists.
You can say one thing, I can say another, and it will do no more than add to the groundswell of our opinions. People might, however, just possibly listen to what Sam Harris has to say and take notice. It's to be hoped so, or we're doomed, all doomed ((c) another UK wartime sitcom.)

It's interesting to see the different depictions of what free speech should look like. Compare Canada and the United States, for instance. Here we have two very similar cultures and people whose nations border each other, and yet we have to very different judicial limitations to free speech, Canada having much more restriction.

The White House response was likely motivated, at least in part, to better the American image to Muslims. You cannot invade two Muslim countries whilst entertaining an attack on a third (Iran) without a PR campaign to help repel charges of some sort of Christian crusade (Bush used the word 'crusade' too!).

This is one reason why I really appreciated the video of Hitch's talk on hate speech - since it was delivered in Canada, in reference to a Canadian law.

Mick wrote:It's interesting to see the different depictions of what free speech should look like. Compare Canada and the United States, for instance. Here we have two very similar cultures and people whose nations border each other, and yet we have to very different judicial limitations to free speech, Canada having much more restriction.

The White House response was likely motivated, at least in part, to better the American image to Muslims. You cannot invade two Muslim countries whilst entertaining an attack on a third (Iran) without a PR campaign to help repel charges of some sort of Christian crusade (Bush used the word 'crusade' too!).

Well, Harris supported one of the invasions, I think (Iraq), so presumably he does support the use of violence in some situations. I find his article very decontextualized, as if the protests against the film are taking place in a vacuum. They're not; they come after massive Western attacks, invasions, occupations, of the Middle East. I'm not really surprised that some Muslims are feeling a bit raw.

Mick wrote:It's interesting to see the different depictions of what free speech should look like. Compare Canada and the United States, for instance. Here we have two very similar cultures and people whose nations border each other, and yet we have to very different judicial limitations to free speech, Canada having much more restriction.

Can you be more specific about those restrictions? AFAIK, the only difference between Canada and the US is that Canada has laws against hate speech. And that is so rarely enforced that, in practice, it presents very little limitation.

The only other limitation on free speech, common to both nations, of which I am aware is that based on obscenity. Even though the Canadian law, as written, is quite vague, in practice case law has left the definition quite narrow, and in order to prosecute for obscenity in Canada it is necessary to demonstrate that material can cause harm to others. In the US, I believe the broader "community standards" test is still applied.

I also never realized before that Canada has a law specifically outlawing crime comics. I think the only reason that one is still on the books is that it has never been enforced, so there has been no opportunity for it to be challenged and struck down.

Dunno what 'Allo 'Allo is nor I care, but I admit I am not a big fan of authority saying: nothing bollocks obvious and followers saying: what he said! ;)

Indeed, the White House quite likely acted with intent to protect those in immediate danger and probably with some longer term goal, while Google politely refused. End of story. What is the big deal? Where is this threat to the right of freedom of speech and expression? I see none. The big deal is that the White House should have not asked in the first place and the fact they asked is scandalous threat to freedom of speech and expression? Maybe, or maybe just Lexaurin.