You misunderstand me. I thought it was clear that I was talking about ideas, not threats or inciting mobs. You'll have a hard time finding any self-described free speech absolutist who thinks those should be permitted.
I think everybody agrees that freedom of conscience is both good and necessary in an open society. However, it's incorrect to think that absolute freedom of speech necessarily follows.
> You'll have a hard time finding any self-described free speech absolutist who thinks those should be permitted.
I've debated people who believe this. You and I don't have to agree with them, but they exist.
Second, how can anybody discover facts about the world if they haven't been discovered yet? Truth and thought are not contingent upon prior art; at best, they just speed it up a bit.
I'm sorry but you don't. (Also, don't I get to decide that, not you?)
> Freedom of conscience seems pretty uncontroversial, and it's what Paine is talking about in the quote you gave (on my interpretation).
Paine and Mill weren't just talking about freedom of conscience or thought. Paine thought it crucial to hear others' ideas so that he could avoid being wrong. That requires the ideas be expressed. Likewise with Mill. Chapter 2 of On Liberty is titled "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"[1]. Throughout the text, Mill defends expression as well as thought, and condemns the silencing of any expression of opinion:
> But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.
Yes, you do. Sorry if that came off as blunt - I only think that I understood you.
You're right that Mill considers both thought and speech in On Liberty, which is why I said Paine and not Mill.
That being said, Mill should be taken holistically -- he's a Utilitarian[1], and is firmly committed to his version of the principle of utility (the "Greatest Happiness Principle"). Reading a practical prescription of free speech as a moral (or even lesser, legal) prescription would lead to a contradiction in any circumstance where the GHP says that restricting speech would promote happiness (e.g., where incitement leads to murder).
[1]: Specifically, on my interpretation, he's an act utilitarian. I've seen him read as an rule utilitarian (and parts 4 and on of his Utilitarianism can support that reading), but his first formulation of the GHP is pretty unambiguous:
> [...] actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness [...]
The issue I have with the whole rational argument thing is that having to argue constantly and entertain every other opposing view requires me to expend time and energy to understanding viewpoints I disagree with. Why is the onus on me to understand others instead of them having to convince me?
This is a debating tactic: you put the other chap on defense, forcing them to respond, which puts them in a weaker position. White supremacists, racists, climate deniers, and the like use this tactic online all the time, they pose dumb questions and make challenges, citing obscure sources that take time to prove false, all the while, they get what they want: they put you on defense taking time to defend the consensus while they have to demonstrate nothing in the meantime. These arguments get nowhere, because the people who posed them never were genuine in the first place. The intent was always to spread FUD and convince the uninformed that there's enough doubt to at least entertain the idea, and by the time you post your multi-paragraph reply (like I am here), most of the crowds' eyes have glazed over and the trolls already accomplished what they set out for.
It gets to a point where these tactics are so tired that internet communities silence these voices wholesale, like here on HN, we don't rehash emacs vs vi or things like that over and over again and admins generally flag political threads. I know dang says they do it to keep the community from turning toxic, but the reason it gets toxic is because ideologues aren't really interested in an honest conversation, toxicity is their goal as I alluded to above. On a more personal level, you learn to not really entertain people when they bring up the Bell Curve or how "global cooling became global warming", and that isn't being close minded, that is not choosing not to feed the trolls.
I don't see how you can limit that quote to freedom of conscience. He is clearly talking about the spread of opinions and debate on them i.e. speech.
> I think everybody agrees that freedom of conscience is both good and necessary in an open society.
No, everybody doesn't This is why we have a supreme court cases about forcing businesses to make wedding cakes for gay marriage. We have pretty uncontroversial laws preventing people who have racist believes from discriminating based on those beliefs.
Freedom of Conscience and Speech both need limitations. This article isn't really about that at all anyway. This article is about talking about the reasons why we should value Free Speech.
Say I'm very popular on twitter, and say I don't like somebody for whatever reason. If there's a reasonable expectation that this will result in them being mobbed by my less personable followers, does that count as incitement?
Or at what point does aggressive banter in good faith become an actual threat in [favorite multiplayer video game]?
And who decides what's an "idea" and what's "threats or inciting mobs"?
Would you be happy for the British government to say that of course the colonists have the right to free speech, but many of them are advocating threats and inciting mobs, which isn't allowed? Or for the king of Thailand to say the same thing about those who insult the king? Or for the Spanish government to say the same thing about Catalonian politicians? Or for Trump to say this about the women's march?
What is a threat or a mob? Is a group of Nazis in Nazi uniforms marching down the street saying Nazi things somehow not a threat or a mob? The ACLU believes they have a right to free speech!
I argue that banning speech (as a speech act) and banning ideas are different things. To pick a sort of pedantic counterexample, banning me from yelling a racial slur at you in public more than once isn't making anything unthinkable. I can yell it once, other people can yell it at you, I can yell it at others, people can record the yell on YouTube, etc.
So, I agree with OP's argument that we should not ban ideas, and I do agree that speech is necessary to communicate ideas (of course), but I think that banning some speech acts can be entirely defensible.
(Also, remember that every functioning advanced society bans several forms of speech already - a good example is that I am banned from using a trademark without authorization from the trademark holder, or from reproducing copyrighted material, or from making defamatory claims.)
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...
It's usually pretty clear
Seems to me if I wanted to preach hate I'd wrap it in allusions, hypotheticals and you-know-what-I-mean
Maybe letting that stuff through is the cost of free speech?
Neither "The Jews will not replace us" nor "euthanize the rentiers" constitutes an imminent threat of violence.