Comic Strips

another lefty comics on lemmy

Where should the line be drawn?

Where between "I wouldn't date a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in partners) and "I wouldn't socialise with a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in friends) would we draw our boundary? Would it be between these two forms of discomfort,, or would both these ideals be unacceptable, or would both be acceptable?

The issue isn't that such speech should be removed, there is broad agreement there, but where do we start trimming?

Next comes the question, in policing such discourse, what would the cost to privacy be? "Protect the children from the predators" (something everyone can agree with) is already a rallying cry leafing to the erosion of encryption and privacy, shall "stamp out the TERFs" become the next one? Who here remembers what "stopping terrorists" did to privacy?

Overall, I doubt there are many who don't feel open distaste at certain forms of speech, and would rather it not be tolerated. However, the difficulty in where to draw the line, and the fear of the cost such a line would have, is why there is likely more opposition.

Someday the meat eaters will realize this applies to animal oppressors as well, but not this day.

So what exactly is the alternative? Pass hate speech laws? Because that is ripe for abuse.

Yes, of course, this guy is the reason authoritarian dictatorships emerge! Better skip to panel 4 before it happens the wrong way.

I know this is going to be super unpopular, but here I go. Hate speech is free speech. I know that doesn't sound great; but once you start censoring speech for the words alone, it can easily grow out of control and become full censorship.

It is important to remember that free speech doesn't protect you from the consequences of your words; nor should it. Also using speech in furtherance of a crime is illegal; as it should be.

So long as you can use your free speech to oppose hate speech, then I would say the system is working. I too wish it wasn't like this; I too wish for world to be free of hate speech; but sadly this is the best we can do to ensure the right people can be heard

Free speech is the only tool available to the most disenfranchised and must not be infringed.

I had almost forgotten how much I hate political "comics".

The problem is, if you condemn them back to the shadows and basements, they fester and pass their hatreds down within their in-group. They'll just teach their children "the south with rise again" in private, with no pushback because others don't know it's happening.

At least letting them talk in the name of free speech lets you know who the Nazis/fascists/white supremacists are, instead of having them going back to using toxic, slowly indoctrinating dogwhistles and regrouping.

At the end of the day, secrecy just prolongs and exacerbates problems. We should rise or fall as a society on who we all are, not on the basis of who has the most appealing web of lies. Let the Nazis bury themselves by speaking their fucked up beliefs, because otherwise they'll temper their messaging, which will recruit more people than the horror of their actual endgame.

Apparently you can't be a fence sitter in a politically charged climate...

It's literally up to you to use your words to fight their words. As soon as you try to ban words and speech it will immediately be turned around against you. If you cannot fight their words with your words that's your problem not theirs.