politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I suppose I just don’t appreciate the nuance between “go do evil“ and “I think people should go do evil“.
It got even narrower in [im terrible with case names]
The Supreme Court basically said unless there is imminent harm, it is free speech. Which is nuts when stochastic terrorism is rampant.
At least in the US, speech is a protected right. So protected that it's actually the first part of the bill of rights. So naturally, any limitations on speech must be limited. This changes from place to place. For example in Europe you don't have such strong speech protections so something like showing a Nazi flag can get you years in prison.
Having said that, I think speech is one of the very few things that the US actually does better than Europe. While it may allow for people to say obscene hateful things, I believe it is dangerous to give the government the power to interpret what is valid and non-valid speech. Right now the government, while having many problems, is more or less reasonable. It doesn't take much imagination, however, to envision a future where a couple radical strongmen politicians (or even just one) fundamentally changes the nature of the federal government to a point where any dissent can be considered "hateful"
I say "white families have 10x higher net worth on average than black families" and all of a sudden it's a hateful statement because some government official claims I'm trying to guilt all white people. I go to jail or otherwise get censored.
How come Alex Jones was not allowed to state that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged?
It wasn't a criminal charge so he never was at risk of going to jail. He got sued for defamation.
Essentially if he had said "I think sandy hook was a hoax" he would have been fine. I think the judge also wanted to make an example out of him, given the nature of his statements.
Thanks for explaining
He was allowed to say that. It just turned out there were financial consequences for doing so.
Right. He could still say it. No one is stopping him. Speech is free, but it is not free from consequences.