Sweden raised its terrorism alert level on Thursday one notch to the second-highest, following a recent string of public desecrations of the Qur'an in the Scandinavian country by a handful of anti-Islam activists, sparking angry demonstrations across Muslim countries.
I want to agree with you but I can’t. The world can’t run by true tolerance; at least not in this day and age. There are too many beliefs, cultures, and ideas that are being eroded away by people that spout hatred. Why? Just because they can? Just because they have the right?
If anything, the closest we can be is intolerant of the intolerant. The people that burned the books were an “anti-Islam activist group”. This sounds exactly like other hate groups like the proud boys, westboro baptist Church, the KKK, the EFF, Islamic extremists… These aren’t people that are celebrating their free speech. They are people that are practicing legal hostility as a tool to oppress others. I’d say hate speech is a good line to draw when allowing people to have public demonstrations.
You don’t believe in freedom of speech.
That’s a pretty broad statement.
You can’t go into an airport and shout “bomb” or use a bullhorn in a residential area at 3 AM without someone calling the cops on you and being detained. You can verbally harass someone to the point of being abusive or lie about someone to defame them but you can face repercussions for it. There’s a lot of lines that intersect with freedom of speech. Just because I’m drawing one at hate speech doesn’t mean I’m against freedom of speech.
Just because there is nuanced on the topic doesn’t mean that you were nuanced.
Is it freedom of speech to deliberately provoke an entire religion just because it is your “right”?
It is my freedom to call you all kind of horrible names and slurs, does it mean I have to do it?
Yes to the first and no to the second.
Yes. That is literally the entire premise: the right to say offensive things. The reason this is important is that everything we say is offensive to someone. If we operated under the principle that we may never offend anyone else, we would all have to be silent, all the time. Free speech is the basis for science and democracy, where saying things which offend people is a requirement. We must always be free to challenge the beliefs and values of others, or we’re no better than theocratic dictatorships.
How about we instead respect each other’s beliefs and live happy?
Respecting each other can do great stuff and it won’t prevent your from doing science.
I’m in, but that comes distant second to free speech. If there is a conflict of the two, free speech must always win. Every time.