Christopher Hitchens - Free Speech

First, the First Amendment protects the speaker from being punished by the State for his speech. That's it. It does not protect the speaker from losing their job, or social ostracism, or anything else. Second, no one is rationally a "free speech absolutist," which is an absurd position. For example, no one thinks their doctor has a right to lie to them, and that deliberate lies by a doctor to a patient must not be punished by the state. Third, Christopher Hitchens summarized my own opinion when he gave this speech, and he did it far more eloquently than I ever could, so I'll just link to the speech here: [VIDEO]

I would much rather live in a world where this person may be heard than likewise. "Don't take refugee in the false security of consensus." [VIDEO]

Back in 2007 Christopher Hitchens argued that Canada's hate speech laws are not only immoral but self-contradictory. The motion: "Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate." Hitchens was fully in favor of that statement.[1] His argument has three parts. First, freedom of speech isn't about the rights of the speaker. It's about the rights of people who want to listen to that person's ideas. Every time you silence someone, you are infringing upon the rights of that audience. The audience might not agree. Maybe they want to understand the speaker's ideas so they can refute them. But if you prevent the audience from hearing those views, they can't refute them, and the bad views continue to spread. Second, censoring requires delegating a censor. But if you follow the first argument, you'll see that a censor decides for you what you are allowed to read or hear. I'm an adult and can decide that for myself, thank you very much. Third, if you are going to censor hate speech, then you must censor every major religious text. The bible and the quran contain passages encouraging hatred of homosexuals, subjugation of women, and taking of slaves. By our standards, they are utter abominations and any impartial application of a hate speech law would see these books banned. The oration by Hitchens is his best. He starts off by yelling "Fire!" to the audience, and explains just why the analogy of yelling fire in a crowded theater is a terrible one. (Mainly that it was coine

Christopher Hitchens yells fire in a crowded room here: [VIDEO] More importantly, his talk is worth watching for a strong understanding of why free speech is so vital.

There is a brilliant speech by the late Christopher Hitchens [0] on free speech that I must have seen a dozen times. An excerpt: “The freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently... Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be okay because you're in the safely moral majority. ...Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that every time you violate or propose to violate the free speech of someone else, you, in potentia, are making a rod for your own back.” [0]: [VIDEO]

> a century-old law passed in order to criminalize dissent to US participation in WWI Christopher Hitchens references that in the opening of his defense of free speech: [VIDEO]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; it's the same justification that has been used to justify moves away from democracy. "Those poor dumb plebs, they just don't know any better, we, the elites, know whats best, so we should reduce the amount of democracy!" [1] 1. [LINK] You say "some moderation is required to prevent the apparent acceptance of some pretty hateful views along with conspiracy theories", but the entire point is that then you are giving over to some other person or entity the power and ability to decide what you get to read. I think this should be rejected as a slippery slope made of ky-jelly. "Don't take security in the false refuge of consensus and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be okay because you're in the safely moral majority." "It is not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen, and to hear, and every time you silence somebody, you make yourself a prisoner of your own action, because you deny yourself the right to hear something." - Christopher Hitchens [2] 2. [VIDEO] bonus (the whole speech is quotable): "Dr. Johnson was waited upon by various delegations of people, to congratulate him of the nobility of the quality; of the Commons; the Lords; and also by a delegation of respectable ladies of London, who tended on him in his Fleet Street lodgings and congratulated him: "Dr. Johnson," they said, "We are delighted to find that you have not included any indecent or

> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; ... The rule of law is a myth, a fig leaf hiding the fact that we are ruled by the whims of people in power. Edit: Shadowbanned. Neat. Related to the Espionage Act specifically, here is an excerpt from Christopher Hitchens [1]: "Everyone knows the fatuous verdict of the greatly overpraised Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who, asked for an actual example of when it would be proper to limit speech or define it as an action, gave that of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. "It's very often forgotten what he was doing in that case [2] was sending to prison a group of Yiddish-speaking socialists -- whose literature was printed in a language most Americans couldn't read -- opposing President Wilson's participation in the first World War, and the dragging of the United States into this sanguinary conflict, which the Yiddish-speaking socialists had left from Russia to escape. "In fact, it could be just as plausibly argued that the Yiddish-speaking socialists ... were the real fire fighters, were the ones who were shouting "Fire!" when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed." [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

To add to the sibling comments, Christopher Hitchens literally yelled "Fire" in a crowded room [0]. [0] [VIDEO]

Christopher Hitchens (a Brit, can we still call them European?) would disagree with you. If you have a few minutes, check the beginning of this talk [1] about free speech. He treats the exact "fire" example at the very start of the talk :-) [1] [VIDEO]

My point is that you are then deigning someone to have the power to decide what is tolerant and what is not, when that is not nearly as acceptable or uncontroversial as you seem to be assuming. For example: > If progressives are pushing for more freedom, more tolerance, then to oppose it you have to, by definition, advocate for less of those. The framing of this is not correct. The problem is that not all "progressives" are pushing for that, which then undermines the assumption that opposition is therefor automatically intolerant and therefor automatically bannable/deplatformable. Some of the real progressives I follow such as Graham Elwood and Jimmy Dore have frequently had issues with their platforms giving them a hard time (demonteizing, etc) just because their positions or even topics of conversation are controversial, and many of them frequently mention they wouldn't be surprised to be deplatformed for said reason. To me, the real crux of your position, is that by completely bucking the standard of free speech in which we have legal definitions for speech that isn't tolerable, positions like yours seem to want to expand those definitions (libel, defamation, imminent incitement to violence, etc) to a point that you must now designate some non-legal entitiy as the moral arbiter of what is intolerant/tolerable, and that is indeed a most slippery slope. I think I have rewatched these two videos of Christopher Hitchens on the topic a good half dozen times each in the last yea

I like Christopher Hitchen's take on matters like these: "And one person gets up and says, “you know what, this holocaust, I’m not even sure it happened. In fact, I’m pretty certain it didn’t. Indeed, I begin to wonder if the only thing is that the Jews brought a little bit of violence on themselves.”—That person doesn’t just have a right to speak, that person’s right to speak must be given extra protection. Because what he has to say must have taken him some effort to come up with. Might contain a grain of historical truth; might, in any case, give people to think why do they know what they think they already know. How do I know I know this except I’ve always been taught this and never heard any thing else? It’s always worth establishing first principle….don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus and the feeling that, whatever you think, you’re bound to be okay because you’re in the safely, moral majority" [VIDEO]

This is why everyone should read RMS's Right to Read story. Its not just about censoring the output, they want to censor our inputs too! While the RMS parable is less about censorship and more about drm its still relevant. [1] Unfortunately there are a lot of people who are so bought into the tribalistic dialectic that, in the more recent version, they heard about all the censoring, they saw the people being censored were "those evil others" and said "yeah thats ok with me!", failing to understand the lack of principle would/will come for them next. The beauty of it all is that I think the oligarchs are overplaying their hand to the point they are going to force a pendulum swing back the other way at some point. The counter-point to that is that with techno-tyranny at some point the oligarchs are going to be able to stop the pendulum swing. 1. [LINK] bonus: Hitchens on freedom of speech, [VIDEO]

>Hitchens on freedom of speech, [VIDEO] Interesting to watch this with hindsight and see how wrong he was about Religion and why they were censorious.

That is the lowest possible bar for free speech, which as a philosophical principle goes way further. Here's a good talk from Hitchens on the topic: [VIDEO] I'm not a free speech person, but since I think you're unwittingly falling for a strawman I think I can help. Contrapoints also made a really good response (against) hitchens you can find here: [LINK]

That's ludicrous grouping the first (free speech) with the other two violent things. Quite a bit of effort goes into blurring these lines. It's not good. [VIDEO]