Flare Sci-Fi Forums: On provokative speech...

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Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

I was searching the web for anti-spam resources and discovered some very good reasoning. I have adapted it to the arguments sometimes put forth that anyone should be allowed to say anything, no matter how calculatedly offensive.

THE EXCUSE GIVEN BY ALL ANTAGONISTS EVERYWHERE:
Antagonist: Hey, I have the Right to Free Speech!
Forums: Yes, you do. Go stand on a street corner and speak all you want. Free Speech has never included the right to invade private property and spew your views to the folks therein. Stay the hell out of our forums.

[Henry Gibson bow]

Thank you for your attention.

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Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
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Posted by Xentrick (Member # 64) on :

do you have the little Henry Gibson sunflower, too?

I agree on assumptions about Free Speech (living in California, damn near Berkeley, one hears or hears about protests on a regular basis.)

I would also question the "right" of Free Speech users/abusers to impinge on the right of others to go to work, move unhindered on public streets, or in general not be threatened by somebody else's grievence---legitiate or not. (An incident within the past week or two in which janitors closed San Francisco street intersections to protest contract negotiations comes to mind. Hey, ending war, famine, wide-spread injustice is one thing, but where do they get off keeping non-janitors from going home at the end of a work day?) I won't even start on the Critical Massholes that knowingly and deliberately tie-up Friday night commute traffic once a month.

If you have the right to free speech, do I have the right to free hearing? or not hearing? If Ted Kazinsky wants rant about the system, and his chosen form of expression is the parcel-bomb, are we obligated to open it?