Last night I saw a post calling freedom of speech a liberal idea, and that as communists we should not believe in it. Overall it got mixed responses, and personally I thought it was a little reductionist :very-smart:. But that's besides the point. Earlier that same night, I had been thinking about how freedom of speech and censorship exists in the United States. Seeing that original post prompted me to write this down, and here we are.
Freedom of speech is enshrined in the first amendment of the US bill of rights. However, this freedom is and has never been absolute. You've probably heard the stereotype of not being able to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theatre, or not being able to say direct threats of violence :pit:. These exceptions are meant to protect people from dangerous speech. However, there are also mechanisms that exist to protect the State from dangerous speech, the speech that we would all like to say openly with our chests :sicko-yes:. This isn't just in the US either, it applies to all countries to some degree.
So why do American's specifically believe that freedom of speech is a uniquely absolute thing in America? Why do people wrongly believe that even if the material conditions are becoming worse here, at least we live in a country that guarantees our opinions? This is because while censorship exists in the US, it is often obfuscated from the State, so people do not make the connection. I've thought of three levels of censorship in the US, 3 societal mechanisms that allow the State to obfuscate censorship from itself, and I would like to share them. Think of this as one of those iceberg charts that goes from surface level to borderline conspiracy :pepe-silvia:.
In the first level, there is private censorship. Like everything else in the US, even the authority to censor opinion has been privatized. This is something I'm sure all of us are familiar with, given our history with R*ddit. Private companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit are freely and openly allowed to censor whoever they want, and sometimes, if necessary, they have people tell them special opinions of the state of what can and can't be said :fedposting:. Even when these companies don't listen to the state and work independently, they are still biased towards capitalist interests, and will privately censor leftist opinions. To the average American, this infringing of free speech is perfectly acceptable because these are private companies, and therefore perfectly falls in line with their liberal ideology :brainworms:. Unless of course they love our big wet orange boy :tromp:.
In the second level, there is something I like to call the "Screaming to the Wind" effect. Basically, it's when you're allowed to speak about something, but your voice is so minimized that no real action will come from it. "What freedom of speech does a homeless man have?" I say as I try to remember that one Stalin quote :stalin-approval:. In the same vein, you can have as many Trot newspapers as you could possibly read, but that still won't change the fact that FOX News :live-tucker-reaction: is the most popular news source in the country. In this level of censorship, you don't have to directly censor enemies of the state, you just have to dominate the space so that they get no traction. If traditional censorship removes your mouth :gamer-gulag:, this level removes everyone else's ears.
The third level, which I'm sure you've all been waiting for, is traditional, direct, state censorship. This level doesn't happen as much anymore because of the first two level, but when its needed the State pulls out the heart attack gun :gun-hubris: and gets to work. Let's say, hypothetically :shapiro-gavel: , someone is able to get around the first two levels. They work around private censorship, and build enough of an audience that they're no longer screaming to the wind. If the State believes them to be a legitimate threat, they will be censored in some shape or form. Their organization could be infiltrated and neutered :cpusa:, they could be sent to prison for bogus charges :debs:, or they could just be straight up assassinated :fred-hampton:. Often, it is all three, and many more I didn't bother mentioning. This level is the most direct form of censorship, and in order to maintain its image, the State must use extensive propaganda to limit blowback when it uses it :1984:. Luckily, it has the previous two levels of the censorship iceberg to invent reality and minimize public dissent. And then a week later, everyone will have forgotten, and we move on to the next story.
So, does freedom of speech exist in the United States? I'd say no, or rather, at least not to the degree that its meaningful. Freedom of speech isn't just something that lets you share cute doggos :swole-doge: and complain about your b*tch ex-wife. It's something that allows you to voice dissent to the State, with the ultimate expressed goal of the overthrow of the regime. If this change is never allowed to come, just how free was your speech in the first place? Of course, if this is true, then does freedom of speech really exist anywhere?
That's the end of my little spiel, hope you liked it. This wasn't based on any specific theory, so all of this is probably already in a book written by someone smarter than me, but thanks for reading my forum post instead of actual theory. People like it when they can make clean, concise universal models of things, and I'm no exception, but reality's a lot messier than political scientists want it to be, so there's probably something somewhere I forgot about. If you've got anything to add, feel free to share.
I didn't say all liberal ideas were all bad, just that free speech is a liberal idea as well as a bad one. And I didn't say anything else you're saying here, so I'd appreciate not having words put in my mouth. When I criticize the liberal concept of "free speech", it's not an invitation for you to grill me over every past socialist project's actions, either.
People's individual rights aren't worth anything when they're the individual right to trample others. Free speech means freedom for the rich and powerful to say what they want and suppress opposition. It's like freedom to own private property: anyone can buy a factory if they so wish! You don't actually have free speech, and you never have - the OP is literally about this.
I said freedoms, not rights (and I didn't say either should be "done away with"). Jesus, that's a pretty big extrapolation from my post. I think you've sort of invented an opinion to get angry at here, because no one is saying people don't deserve rights.
In any case, the liberal concepts of both rights and freedoms are laughable. Society must guarantee everyone a safe and prosperous life as much as possible, and to do that it's sometimes necessary to prevent certain people from doing certain things. That's just how it works, and even most liberals acknowledge this in reality. You can get lost in the weeds of what that means, but it's always going to mean you're not allowed to say whatever you want, whenever you want.
Rights/freedoms are commonly used interchangeably, quit imagining slights against you.
Again, the fact that freedom of speech is what it is under Capitalism isn't an argument against the concept itself.
You said that individual freedoms are laughable and don't work in reality, if you meant something else then you should've written something else.
Any rights/freedoms have limitations obviously, that's not the issue here.
Honestly, I think we just have a communication issue here. Everyone here is saying the same thing - you shouldn't be allowed to say whatever you want. Which is explicitly limiting speech, and therefore runs counter to the concept of "freedom of speech".
As for individual freedoms, what I said:
I see how that can come off that way, but what I meant is that any philosophical justification that relies on every individual being free to XYZ and rationally exercising that freedom, without considering that it affects others and their freedoms is clearly worth less than the paper you write it on. Arguably, that means there's no such thing as "individual freedom", but it sure as hell doesn't mean no one has rights. Which brings me to:
Debatable that they're the same, and the semantics are relevant in an argument like this. You can have a right to water and food, you'd never say a "freedom" to water and food unless you were trying to frame it like an AnCap.
More than communication I think we share two very different perspectives and have little common ground the more of your edits I'm noticing, so this argument is unproductive.
Sorry, I tend to hit post a bit early and go back to edit things until I'm completely happy with them. I'm not trying to do a gotcha or anything, and I certainly wouldn't edit a post after you reply to it without marking what was edited.
I think this discussion is needlessly heated, and I already don't appreciate a lot of what's been said. We should probably both step away. Have a good day.
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