The overuse of emergency/urgent care is a problem, though not really specific to a public health system. Even with private insurers you do not want them to make an unilateral call that your visit to the ER was not needed. I think money is a bad skin to have in the game here; it will help, but at the cost of people's lives. In my opinion the solution is two-fold:
Better education on health matters
Effective triage
People with sniffles and no other symptoms should just have to wait longer that someone who is running a 41° C fever. With this your time (which should be valuable to you) becomes your skin in the game.
Regarding the cost: first off, many studies have already shown that a public system would likely reduce overall costs. Using a standard progressive income tax instead of paying for health insurance would not change much. People with insurance already subsidize the ER room visits for people without insurance.
Secondly, the US needs to get a grip on their insane costs in health care. I have heard claims that the US supposedly subsidizing research for other countries (as pharma companies can only make a good profit with their drugs in the US) & about better outcomes in a narrow range of cancer types. Regardless of the truth of these claims, these are not the real cost drivers.
For example, prescription drugs make up only about 10% of the health expenditures. Standard items of care like delivering babies, routine lab tests, ambulances and overnight hospital stays are often insanely overpriced in the US. This may be somewhat independent of public vs private health care, but with a public system you gain a very powerful negotiator on behalf of the patients to bring costs down.
Dear Lord, it is the Jordan Petterson of the 1800th (or whatever) century, covering up a lack of substance with fancy words, overly convoluted sentences and an aura of smugness.
As it happens On Liberty is usually considered as more to the left than the right of the political spectrum. The Liberal Democratic party's (a left leaning party in the UK) leader is presented with a copy on their election for example. It's fairly typical of the writing style for the 19th century.
Secondly, the US needs to get a grip on their insane costs in health care. I have heard claims that the US supposedly subsidizing research for other countries (as pharma companies can only make a good profit with their drugs in the US) & about better outcomes in a narrow range of cancer types. Regardless of the truth of these claims, these are not the real cost drivers.
For example, prescription drugs make up only about 10% of the health expenditures. Standard items of care like delivering babies, routine lab tests, ambulances and overnight hospital stays are often insanely overpriced in the US. This may be somewhat independent of public vs private health care, but with a public system you gain a very powerful negotiator on behalf of the patients to bring costs down.
As a biomedical engineer that's not completely untrue even in the device business...
A lot of comments for one night . I don't have time to respond to everything I'm interested in, but thought I would do a quick response on hate speech.
The UK has had hate speech legislation since 1986. That was controversial at the time and there's still an ongoing debate about this. A particular issue that may be relevant to the posts here is whether it should be a potentially criminal act just to insult someone else in a way that could stir up hatred (on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation) or whether it's necessary to threaten them. At the current moment the UK law is odd on this question - the original offense of racial hatred retains the use of 'insult', but the newer offenses added of religious and sexual orientation hatred refer just to threatening. There are also some detailed differences associated with whether the behavior was intentional harassment or not.
Personally I would be more comfortable if the law was entirely restricted to threats rather than abuse or insult, but I do think it's right to have a law in some form. Addressing the question posed in this thread several times of how do you distinguish hate speech, I would do that on the grounds of the move from opinion to threat. So to give an example:
the opinion "black people are less intelligent than white people" is now generally reckoned to be an obnoxious view, but would not be hate speech
the threat "any black men that come sniffing after our womenfolk should be strung up" would be hate speech
I accept that there will always be grey areas and that those will shift over time, but (as I was saying yesterday in relation to gun control) I don't think that's a bad thing. The reinterpretation of laws is an ongoing process and it seems perverse to me to take the view that the meaning of the law should (or even can) always stay exactly the same while the situations, people and opinions the law was originally designed for change so greatly over time.
I think there was a discussion a few months back about the line between opinion and action in relation to politics. One point of view was to say that opinions are meaningless unless they are translated into action. I don't really agree with that. I think it's clear that forcefully expressed opinions (which of course in one sense does represent taking action) can result in actions that would not otherwise have taken place - whether that's a hate crime or a new bit of legislation. There clearly is a balance required between the rights of one person to express their opinion and of another not to be harmed by that opinion. While I don't believe either the UK or the US has that balance correct at the moment, I'm more comfortable with the UK position.
At what point am I inciting violence though? What is the hard line where it stops being a crapp opinion and becomes dangerous? How do you prove that I somehow incited violence? What is to stop someone from calling out any random person as pushing them to violence? Marilyn Manson was the scapegoat for Columibine even though the shooters didn't even listen to him (some people still insist its his fault). Do you think he would have gotten a fair shake in the emotionally charged aftermath? Again, how do you enforce this? Should I be jailed even though I did not order anyone to go out and commit violence? Do I share capital punishment? What does enforcing this and punishment look like? Because every scenario I can think of is disturbingly familiar to how many dictatorships handle dissenters.
It is of course a very complex question. Lots of countries have hate speech laws and have enforced them for decades without devolving into dictatorships though. I have no statistics here, but it seems to me that these laws are usually only used in extreme cases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Hate_speech_laws_by_country
This made me remember when I was a member on another forum for Heroes of Might and Magic back in the early 2000s. We were three guys from Sweden there, and one of the others was a full-fledged Nazi. At one point, he told people how he and his friends had gone to their school with Swedish flags and how they sang a song about how much they loved their country. And the police came by, because according to him, Sweden was an oppressive country that had phony laws to censor and silence patriots.
He was of course talking about the hate speech laws, but was very careful to avoid that term. Now what I found really insidious about this was how he knew that the mostly American members on that forum were unfamiliar with both hate speech laws and Swedish society (and they didn't know he was a Nazi yet). To them it sounded horrible, of course. Oppressed and censored for loving your own country? So he got some sympathy from people who assumed it was like being arrested for singing the Star-Spangled Banner at a BBQ.
Of course, it didn't take much prodding to reveal that he was bending the truth quite a lot. They had apparently been marching through the school halls with their flags, yelling Nazi slogans. And the song they sang was the anthem of the Swedish Nazis back in the 1930s. So more about loving the supreme race than about loving your country. I assume they weren't even arrested for that (considering how much he complained about the cops just showing up at all), but just removed from the scene. It's not like every Nazi gets tossed into jail around here.
I've written here before about how Swedish Nazis have been allowed to participate in the country's largest political gathering two years in a row, because of freedom of speech and all that. And they just used that opportunity to threaten and bully others into silence and to disturb other speakers by screaming that they were the classic "enemies of the people". That's exactly the kind of thing I think hate speech laws are supposed to prevent. When you use your freedom of speech to severely limit someone else's freedom of speech and calling for their deaths.
Dear Lord, it is the Jordan Petterson of the 1800th (or whatever) century, covering up a lack of substance with fancy words, overly convoluted sentences and an aura of smugness.
As it happens On Liberty is usually considered as more to the left than the right of the political spectrum. The Liberal Democratic party's (a left leaning party in the UK) leader is presented with a copy on their election for example. It's fairly typical of the writing style for the 19th century.
Why do you think it lacks substance?
Ok, let me translate the gibberish for you; 1. Let the rube speak 2. But pay him no attention, because he is full of shit and also he isn't civil enough
There, I did not need 5000 words to say it. Hmmm... but now that I think about it, it is sound advice if the principles where to be applied across all media platforms. No more Trump on the telli, he'd be just rambling on and on Grampa Simpson style in front of his 50 paid actors and that would have been the end of it.
I'm glad you found some substance to it . Sadly it seems like Mill was a bit optimistic about how persuasive extreme language can be though- these days adherents for 'minority' opinions like conspiracies can easily form networks and become self-reinforcing. It also seems as if persistent use of language over many years can shift the 'Overton Window' of what it's socially permissible to say...
One other interesting thing is that Mill was big on the public/ private distinction which has also become blurred- e.g. If I am recorded saying something hateful to friends at home and the clip is posted to YouTube. Some TV personalities haven't known when to stop talking when they think the cameras are off either...
I concur with Grond0 that a law applying mainly to threats makes more sense than those which ban anti-semitic, racist, homophobic etc slurs.
Rachel Maddow did a segment on this two nights ago. The polling place used to be at the Civic Center in the middle of town. Officials said that it had to be moved because construction had made the Civic Center totally inaccessible. So she sent a camera crew down there to check it out. There is no construction happening at the Civic Center. The parking lot is completely accessible. It's all a total lie. They moved the polling place a mile away from the nearest public transportation route because they don't want poor people to vote. God I hate these people.
Here is a resident of Dodge City with a 4 minute visual representation of the place that was shutdown for "construction" and where it was moved to. Unconscionable:
https://youtu.be/N3zMy5QpTKg Call me crazy, but I find it hard to get worked up over hypothetical speech laws when people's very right to vote is being conspired against all across the country, which is by FAR the speech that matters the most.
I'm glad you found some substance to it . Sadly it seems like Mill was a bit optimistic about how persuasive extreme language can be though- these days adherents for 'minority' opinions like conspiracies can easily form networks and become self-reinforcing. It also seems as if persistent use of language over many years can shift the 'Overton Window' of what it's socially permissible to say...
Indeed. And that shifts the overton window of what is permissible to do as well as it might fuel unhinged individual desire for violence and help them pick the scapegoat that should be the target for said violence. But more importantly, it lessen the push back politicians encounter when trying to pass legislation for both 1) punishing the scapegoats* and 2) anti-democratic (we need these laws to protect ourselves from the scapegoats). Which changes the attitude of law enforcement - which increases the risk of supporters getting away with hate crimes towards the scapegoats. Which may lead to the scapegoats taking revenge, whether it be by petty acts or dissidence - which further fuels the hate. which further lends support to the politicians. Et cetera. It is interesting how intolerance walks hand in hand with authoritarianism. Can't you just hate minorities, women and the LBTQG community without simultaneously wishing for violent oppression of the media and the opposition? But no, all empirical data suggest these things belong together.
USA is on the path Germany was on - it just has not escalated as quickly and may never, because there are more checks and balances in place, and more opposition. It is also possible the bottom of the barrel is not as deep, and child cages is the worst we will see, even if they retain power in 2018 and 2020 and bypass more checks and balances, (from the government - what unhinged people might do is another issue, we already, after all, had a synagogue attack) because Trump and his lackeys simply just does not have more than that in them. I mean, he keeps calling the press the enemy of the people over and over, but maybe he is just a shit-talker and will stop at words.
That said, USA is definitely playing with fire. It's like the frog and slowly increasing the temperature of the water**; freedom is diminished one babystep at a time, law enforcement becomes more lax towards the powerful but more oppressive towards the powerless one babystep at a time, the leaders powers are increased one babystep at a time*** so none really notices how or why or when it happened, but all of a sudden a coup d'etat occurs, and the police and the military does not interfere despite the fact that it is legally bound to do so. It looks like the country was taken in one fell swoop, but in reality it wasn't. It was years, decades, into the making, babystep by babystep weakening the opposition to the usurpers.
* Note that there may be a kernel of truth in the scapegoating. 9/11 fueled anti-Islam sentiments - moderate Muslims had no part in it, but Al-Qaida are Islamist's and that's just the way it is. The supporters of divisive politicians often do not make such refined distinctions, leading all Muslims to be painted with the same brush. In fact, scapegoating works the best when there is a kernel of truth, or at least perceived truth (regardless how unfair it may be). ** Except that that is actually an urban myth. As a biologist who went ahead and tried it put it "If the walls are not to high for the frog to jump over, it will". But you know, it is still a good metaphor, so it does not really matter that it isn't true. *** (Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/17144198/gerrymandering-brennan-center-report-midterms-democrats-house-2018)
Now, hate speech laws have certainly been misused (see: Pug Nazi fine of 800 GBP) and abused (see: legitimate criticism of Israel is a form of anti-Antisemitism) but we also cannot be naive. It's all fun and games until you get decapitated by government thugs because you voiced your opinion against the dear leader (which is nowhere near comparable to getting deplatformed because you incited violence, so stop your victimization already).
The fact is, there are no hate-speech laws in the US. There are hate-crime laws, but those are effectively basically just a supposed "deterrent" just like the death penalty is, and only apply after a heinous act has already been committed.
The only consequences in this country for speech are in the court of public opinion, which is simply other people exercising their speech against yours. And the only actual laws I have seen proposed on this topic in the last two years have all come from Republican state legislatures.
I want to thank @JoenSo and @Grond0 for giving actual examples of what hate speech laws look like and how they would be applied, rather than just vague "we need to punish people for what they say."
@LadyRhian Your Hitler example is not remotely close to what I've been asking. Hitler was in a place of leadership. Even if he didn't draft anything, EVERY decision on policy still had to go through him. He was DIRECTLY responsible for everything that happened under him. I also don't recall not answering any of your questions, do you wanna state them for me again so I can address them?
The only consequences in this country for speech are in the court of public opinion, which is simply other people exercising their speech against yours.
That's probably true if you are a progressive, and thus your ideology is in line with the ruling elites. It is most certainly not true for everyone else. Institutions come down on you with the fire and fury of a thousand suns for speaking anything less than the progressive official narrative. You can't even be a Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, as milquetoast as milquetoast gets, without institutional backlash. The precious sensibilities of Silicon Valley and others in positions of power to censor are not the court of public opinion, they are simply the ones whose opinions are rigidly enforced, and all public figures have to fall in line because all are dependent on their platforms for any sort of far reaching voice and any sort of impact in public life. These people have audiences, have masses of people who want to hear them. No greater freedom of speech exists in the academic world in our media culture or any place where ideas should be discussed and where that freedom really matters. Jordan Peterson isn't my cup of tea, but if someone could nearly get fired for showing his work since it is like "neutrally showing a video of Hitler", only saved by a recording of the argument, I don't want to hear about freedom of speech. I realize this particular example is Canadian, but it's emblematic of the same stifling authoritarian ideologues we face here who think they are in a position to decide who is and is not fit for public life but who really are just enforcing their own hegemony by whatever means they can. The EU and it's Article 13 meme bans come to mind as an expression of this impulse.
the opinion "black people are less intelligent than white people" is now generally reckoned to be an obnoxious view, but would not be hate speech
the threat "any black men that come sniffing after our womenfolk should be strung up" would be hate speech
I wouldn't put it under the banner of hate speech, but I think it is reasonable to support criminalizing the advocating of violence in general, and not just the imminent call to violence that US law criminalizes. That would be as far as I would go though.
The court of public opinion should really be reserved for trying ideas and public figures, not the personal lives of normal people. It shouldn't be legal for a crowd of people, hiding behind the safety of anonymity, to gang up on a private citizen for disagreeing with them. Sending hate mail en masse, or trying to get someone fired by pressuring their employer, should constitute harassment.
We live in a time when a random stranger can hunt down your identity down to your home address and call on thousands of people to issue violent threats and destroy your reputation, an attack for which a private citizen has absolutely no defense. This is especially cruel in an age when your online reputation is so important that a public attack can make you unemployable.
How are Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson not being heard?? I could pull up hundreds if not thousands of videos of each of them on YouTube in seconds. Being immune from "institutional backlash" is not a right. Also, the "ruling elites" is this country are all conservative and have been for the last two years.
Public figures are a different story. They have older, sturdier reputations backed by other events, and supporters who would counteract any attacks on them. Their lives aren't going to be ruined by a single controversy, and since they play a big role in the free marketplace of ideas, being criticized is part of the package. And public figures who have political power (that is, those who hold office) need to be scrutinized.
But some construction worker or computer programmer posting an opinion on Facebook? Keep them off the battlefield; they don't have enough armor.
That's probably true if you are a progressive, and thus your ideology is in line with the ruling elites. It is most certainly not true for everyone else. Institutions come down on you with the fire and fury of a thousand suns for speaking anything less than the progressive official narrative. You can't even be a Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, as milquetoast as milquetoast gets, without institutional backlash. The precious sensibilities of Silicon Valley and others in positions of power to censor are not the court of public opinion, they are simply the ones whose opinions are rigidly enforced, and all public figures have to fall in line because all are dependent on their platforms for any sort of far reaching voice and any sort of impact in public life. These people have audiences, have masses of people who want to hear them. No greater freedom of speech exists in the academic world in our media culture or any place where ideas should be discussed and where that freedom really matters. Jordan Peterson isn't my cup of tea, but if someone could nearly get fired for showing his work since it is like "neutrally showing a video of Hitler", only saved by a recording of the argument, I don't want to hear about freedom of speech. I realize this particular example is Canadian, but it's emblematic of the same stifling authoritarian ideologues we face here who think they are in a position to decide who is and is not fit for public life but who really are just enforcing their own hegemony by whatever means they can. The EU and it's Article 13 meme bans come to mind as an expression of this impulse.
Take anything and everything Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson claims have happened to them or to other conservatives with the biggest grain of salt you can find. Conservatives LOVES playing the victim, and they exaggerate, misrepresent, lie and obfuscate... meanwhile, they stay absolutely silent or actively call for deplatformization of their political opponents. As hypocritical as you can get. For instance, if Peterson had been called for a talk, asking him to explain why the f*** he showed a video celebrating Hitler, that at most would have resulted in a warning, there is only a 110% chance that he would claim that they actually planned to fire him, but he heroically saved the situation using his genius. Obviously, I was not then and there in that room, but I know for a fact that professors are not fired willy-nilly, not even in Canada. They are warned only about a million times for minor infractions but that is as far as it goes, a warning, until it is discovered they violated some ethics boards recommendation for their research... and even then it takes half a year on paid leave until the matter is thoroughly investigated until they are fired for real.
Further, EU:s article 13 does not have any ideological bent. It has a corporate bent, because corporations want to maximize profit. Corporations are machines, they care naught for right and wrong or for any ideology, except making more profit (if that can be considered ideology). EU politicians are A) stupid and B ) shysters. Some of them are woke, EU is not nearly as bad as USA. Still, corporations usually get their way and this is an example of that. Got nothing to do with authoritarianism.
Silicon valley is also private companies and they do as they please, just as Breitbart, Infowars and the Drudge Report probably would not keep a Bernie Sanders supporting journalist for very long, if they had accidentally managed to hire one.
Finally, the ruling elite, at least in Murka, is quite clearly conservative.
How are Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson not being heard?? I could pull up hundreds if not thousands of videos of each of them on YouTube in seconds. Being immune from "institutional backlash" is not a right. Also, the "ruling elites" is this country are all conservative and have been for the last two years.
To be clear, the original goal post I was responding to was the claim that there are no consequences for speech besides the court of public opinion, and not what is and is not a legal right, which I feel is a meaningless defense of the indefensible and not accurate in many of the cases.
I believe I gave an example centered around Peterson, but not about him, in my first post. This isn't some public figure like the man himself with money and resources to defend herself, this is just some ordinary university professor essentially being accused of acting like a Nazi sympathizer for showing a debate where Peterson was involved. There would have been no recourse, no way she could have defended herself if she didn't record the incident and let the public spotlight be her shield. As for Shapiro, there are a multitude of examples to choose from, Depaul, UC-Berkeley, CSULA, Concordia, and this is the ultimate moderate. If I can even cite one example it's an issue.
You do have a right to be free of the backlash i'm speaking of, actually. It is settled law that public universities have to abide by the first amendment, where many of these events including ones I mentioned take place. They can not filter for content, not try to prohibit them by exorbitant security fees or other means. This is for obvious reasons, places of education should be the safest places to discuss and dissect ideas and come to the best conclusions, free of the social censures from outrage mobs or other would-be thought police. To quote one Supreme Court case (Sweezy v. New Hampshire) about free speech rights in universities:
"The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation… Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die."
That is the attitude we should be encouraging, not the silencing of rival ideas by whatever legal means possible.
It's useful that John Stuart Mill has been brought up here in this discussion, because whenever you make the point that free speech enshrined in the Constitution protects only against government retaliation, you'll often be told " go read John Stuart Mill". Which would be fine if I was interested in the CONCEPT of what free speech means rather than in actual laws that seek to limit it, of which the US has basically none.
It's useful that John Stuart Mill has been brought up here in this discussion, because whenever you make the point that free speech enshrined in the Constitution protects only against government retaliation, you'll often be told " go read John Stuart Mill". Which would be fine if I was interested in the CONCEPT of what free speech means rather than in actual laws that seek to limit it, of which the US has basically none.
That depends what you mean by laws. There are quite a few exceptions to the doctrine of free speech, but pretty much all of those have been introduced by the courts - this article provides a summary.
In a recent post @WarChiefZeke said "I wouldn't put it under the banner of hate speech, but I think it is reasonable to support criminalizing the advocating of violence in general, and not just the imminent call to violence that US law criminalizes." That could be done very easily through a Supreme Court judgment. In fact the Supreme Court used to take a much more interventionist approach to speech advocating violence. Though the progression isn't a clean one this article sets out a broad trend towards fewer restrictions on free speech as follows: - 1868 doctrine of 'bad tendency' - 1919 doctrine of 'clear and present danger' - 1969 doctrine of 'imminent lawless action'
Currently then SCOTUS only prohibits speech which is likely to lead to immediate violence. However, have a look at the dates. Every 50 years or so SCOTUS decides it's about time to refine what is meant by restrictions on free speech in relation to violence. We're thus probably about due for another doctrine now - which way will it go?
I guess many of you will have seen Trump's announcement of increased Iranian sanctions using a Game of Thrones meme. HBO weren't too pleased about that, but there have been some nice social media posts in response.
I've mentioned it before, but I'll say again that this unilateral action by the US could cause them major problems in the future. It's not just the diplomatic damage associated with ditching existing international agreements, trashing alliances and attempting to bully other countries into line. There's also the possibility of serious economic damage. The US has dominated the international settlements system for many years and gained hugely as a result. However, the other parties to the Iran deal have agreed that they will protect firms that wish to continue to trade with Iran. Part of that is legislation that's already in force to block the extra-territorial US sanctions (and this legal competition is likely to be a significant source of international tension in the future). In addition though, alternative settlement systems are likely to grow quickly as a result of this. It's not particularly difficult to envisage such arrangements quickly rivalling the traditional ones - particularly if that allows companies to bypass the more onerous aspects of existing US compliance legislation (which can apply to non-Americans, doing deals not involving the US other than through the settlement system).
It's useful that John Stuart Mill has been brought up here in this discussion, because whenever you make the point that free speech enshrined in the Constitution protects only against government retaliation, you'll often be told " go read John Stuart Mill". Which would be fine if I was interested in the CONCEPT of what free speech means rather than in actual laws that seek to limit it, of which the US has basically none.
That depends what you mean by laws. There are quite a few exceptions to the doctrine of free speech, but pretty much all of those have been introduced by the courts - this article provides a summary.
In a recent post @WarChiefZeke said "I wouldn't put it under the banner of hate speech, but I think it is reasonable to support criminalizing the advocating of violence in general, and not just the imminent call to violence that US law criminalizes." That could be done very easily through a Supreme Court judgment. In fact the Supreme Court used to take a much more interventionist approach to speech advocating violence. Though the progression isn't a clean one this article sets out a broad trend towards fewer restrictions on free speech as follows: - 1868 doctrine of 'bad tendency' - 1919 doctrine of 'clear and present danger' - 1969 doctrine of 'imminent lawless action'
Currently then SCOTUS only prohibits speech which is likely to lead to immediate violence. However, have a look at the dates. Every 50 years or so SCOTUS decides it's about time to refine what is meant by restrictions on free speech in relation to violence. We're thus probably about due for another doctrine now - which way will it go?
"Free speech causes violence? Nah. Case dismissed, GTG."
That's how I see it if it were to come up in the next few years.
Look at that progression. Fom "tendency" to "clear danger" to "imminent action". What can be less restrictive than "If we don't block this, someone is going to break the law NOW."?
@WarChiefZeke You used Progressive as a kind of synonym for establishment. That is not the case. Progressives want progress - not the status quo. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ocasio-Cortez are progressives and they all want change. ---------
Now on the topic of hate speech. Matt Shea, a five term Washington State representative, wrote a manifesto calling for "war" against enemies of the Christian religion. The document, a four-page explanation of how to establish Christian law through armed struggle, calls for the end of same-sex marriage, abortion, and the death of all non-Christian males in the U.S. if religious law is not upheld.
"If they do not yield - kill all males," the document reads.
Isn't this just Sharia law wearing a different shirt? The matter was referred to the FBI. I would think this is the type of thing that should be prosecuted, no?
You only get two guesses which party the guy represents but you should only need one guess.
Look at that progression. Fom "tendency" to "clear danger" to "imminent action". What can be less restrictive than "If we don't block this, someone is going to break the law NOW."?
The progression is indeed telling. Over the past 140 years, it seems that the standards for what constitutes the limits of acceptable speech are getting increasingly weaker. If the trend were to continue like this, the next step would be, well, nothing. Even speech advocating imminent violence would be allowed. Anything less restrictive than "imminent action" would be restricting nothing.
Comments
The overuse of emergency/urgent care is a problem, though not really specific to a public health system. Even with private insurers you do not want them to make an unilateral call that your visit to the ER was not needed. I think money is a bad skin to have in the game here; it will help, but at the cost of people's lives. In my opinion the solution is two-fold:
- Better education on health matters
- Effective triage
People with sniffles and no other symptoms should just have to wait longer that someone who is running a 41° C fever. With this your time (which should be valuable to you) becomes your skin in the game.Regarding the cost: first off, many studies have already shown that a public system would likely reduce overall costs. Using a standard progressive income tax instead of paying for health insurance would not change much. People with insurance already subsidize the ER room visits for people without insurance.
Secondly, the US needs to get a grip on their insane costs in health care. I have heard claims that the US supposedly subsidizing research for other countries (as pharma companies can only make a good profit with their drugs in the US) & about better outcomes in a narrow range of cancer types. Regardless of the truth of these claims, these are not the real cost drivers.
For example, prescription drugs make up only about 10% of the health expenditures. Standard items of care like delivering babies, routine lab tests, ambulances and overnight hospital stays are often insanely overpriced in the US. This may be somewhat independent of public vs private health care, but with a public system you gain a very powerful negotiator on behalf of the patients to bring costs down.
Why do you think it lacks substance?
The UK has had hate speech legislation since 1986. That was controversial at the time and there's still an ongoing debate about this. A particular issue that may be relevant to the posts here is whether it should be a potentially criminal act just to insult someone else in a way that could stir up hatred (on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation) or whether it's necessary to threaten them. At the current moment the UK law is odd on this question - the original offense of racial hatred retains the use of 'insult', but the newer offenses added of religious and sexual orientation hatred refer just to threatening. There are also some detailed differences associated with whether the behavior was intentional harassment or not.
Personally I would be more comfortable if the law was entirely restricted to threats rather than abuse or insult, but I do think it's right to have a law in some form. Addressing the question posed in this thread several times of how do you distinguish hate speech, I would do that on the grounds of the move from opinion to threat. So to give an example:
the opinion "black people are less intelligent than white people" is now generally reckoned to be an obnoxious view, but would not be hate speech
the threat "any black men that come sniffing after our womenfolk should be strung up" would be hate speech
I accept that there will always be grey areas and that those will shift over time, but (as I was saying yesterday in relation to gun control) I don't think that's a bad thing. The reinterpretation of laws is an ongoing process and it seems perverse to me to take the view that the meaning of the law should (or even can) always stay exactly the same while the situations, people and opinions the law was originally designed for change so greatly over time.
I think there was a discussion a few months back about the line between opinion and action in relation to politics. One point of view was to say that opinions are meaningless unless they are translated into action. I don't really agree with that. I think it's clear that forcefully expressed opinions (which of course in one sense does represent taking action) can result in actions that would not otherwise have taken place - whether that's a hate crime or a new bit of legislation. There clearly is a balance required between the rights of one person to express their opinion and of another not to be harmed by that opinion. While I don't believe either the UK or the US has that balance correct at the moment, I'm more comfortable with the UK position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Hate_speech_laws_by_country
This made me remember when I was a member on another forum for Heroes of Might and Magic back in the early 2000s. We were three guys from Sweden there, and one of the others was a full-fledged Nazi. At one point, he told people how he and his friends had gone to their school with Swedish flags and how they sang a song about how much they loved their country. And the police came by, because according to him, Sweden was an oppressive country that had phony laws to censor and silence patriots.
He was of course talking about the hate speech laws, but was very careful to avoid that term. Now what I found really insidious about this was how he knew that the mostly American members on that forum were unfamiliar with both hate speech laws and Swedish society (and they didn't know he was a Nazi yet). To them it sounded horrible, of course. Oppressed and censored for loving your own country? So he got some sympathy from people who assumed it was like being arrested for singing the Star-Spangled Banner at a BBQ.
Of course, it didn't take much prodding to reveal that he was bending the truth quite a lot. They had apparently been marching through the school halls with their flags, yelling Nazi slogans. And the song they sang was the anthem of the Swedish Nazis back in the 1930s. So more about loving the supreme race than about loving your country. I assume they weren't even arrested for that (considering how much he complained about the cops just showing up at all), but just removed from the scene. It's not like every Nazi gets tossed into jail around here.
I've written here before about how Swedish Nazis have been allowed to participate in the country's largest political gathering two years in a row, because of freedom of speech and all that. And they just used that opportunity to threaten and bully others into silence and to disturb other speakers by screaming that they were the classic "enemies of the people". That's exactly the kind of thing I think hate speech laws are supposed to prevent. When you use your freedom of speech to severely limit someone else's freedom of speech and calling for their deaths.
1. Let the rube speak
2. But pay him no attention, because he is full of shit and also he isn't civil enough
There, I did not need 5000 words to say it. Hmmm... but now that I think about it, it is sound advice if the principles where to be applied across all media platforms. No more Trump on the telli, he'd be just rambling on and on Grampa Simpson style in front of his 50 paid actors and that would have been the end of it.
One other interesting thing is that Mill was big on the public/ private distinction which has also become blurred- e.g. If I am recorded saying something hateful to friends at home and the clip is posted to YouTube. Some TV personalities haven't known when to stop talking when they think the cameras are off either...
I concur with Grond0 that a law applying mainly to threats makes more sense than those which ban anti-semitic, racist, homophobic etc slurs.
Fact checkers identify increasing rates of false claims by the president
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fact-checkers-identify-increasing-rates-of-false-claims-by-the-president?fbclid=IwAR1SL0zdwcfIiVJL2aWiluZ1VH7XWUnGQyvu7Z-SzTq9gpNPKLlik6FnXKUPolice asking parents to call FBI if Ohio photographer took their kids' picture
https://www.wowktv.com/news/ohio/police-asking-parents-to-call-fbi-if-ohio-photographer-took-their-kids-picture/1567060122?fbclid=IwAR3jJPPds7LbluV92A1sSyLw09tVKkJFGi_vo_blsGcVzjC245hSkf6Fr3cTrump is lying to scare voters. Migrant caravan families are desperate, not terrorists.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/10/24/dont-believe-donald-trump-migrant-caravan-not-terrorist-threat-column/1750612002/?fbclid=IwAR0Z8T3xu7gu5xXfIeutqOkO64qR_O7P_uLy-W3l7258FO20vYjPkSuDtNwRachel Maddow did a segment on this two nights ago. The polling place used to be at the Civic Center in the middle of town. Officials said that it had to be moved because construction had made the Civic Center totally inaccessible. So she sent a camera crew down there to check it out. There is no construction happening at the Civic Center. The parking lot is completely accessible. It's all a total lie. They moved the polling place a mile away from the nearest public transportation route because they don't want poor people to vote. God I hate these people.
Here is a resident of Dodge City with a 4 minute visual representation of the place that was shutdown for "construction" and where it was moved to. Unconscionable:
Call me crazy, but I find it hard to get worked up over hypothetical speech laws when people's very right to vote is being conspired against all across the country, which is by FAR the speech that matters the most.
USA is on the path Germany was on - it just has not escalated as quickly and may never, because there are more checks and balances in place, and more opposition. It is also possible the bottom of the barrel is not as deep, and child cages is the worst we will see, even if they retain power in 2018 and 2020 and bypass more checks and balances, (from the government - what unhinged people might do is another issue, we already, after all, had a synagogue attack) because Trump and his lackeys simply just does not have more than that in them. I mean, he keeps calling the press the enemy of the people over and over, but maybe he is just a shit-talker and will stop at words.
That said, USA is definitely playing with fire. It's like the frog and slowly increasing the temperature of the water**; freedom is diminished one babystep at a time, law enforcement becomes more lax towards the powerful but more oppressive towards the powerless one babystep at a time, the leaders powers are increased one babystep at a time*** so none really notices how or why or when it happened, but all of a sudden a coup d'etat occurs, and the police and the military does not interfere despite the fact that it is legally bound to do so. It looks like the country was taken in one fell swoop, but in reality it wasn't. It was years, decades, into the making, babystep by babystep weakening the opposition to the usurpers.
* Note that there may be a kernel of truth in the scapegoating. 9/11 fueled anti-Islam sentiments - moderate Muslims had no part in it, but Al-Qaida are Islamist's and that's just the way it is. The supporters of divisive politicians often do not make such refined distinctions, leading all Muslims to be painted with the same brush. In fact, scapegoating works the best when there is a kernel of truth, or at least perceived truth (regardless how unfair it may be).
** Except that that is actually an urban myth. As a biologist who went ahead and tried it put it "If the walls are not to high for the frog to jump over, it will". But you know, it is still a good metaphor, so it does not really matter that it isn't true.
***
(Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/17144198/gerrymandering-brennan-center-report-midterms-democrats-house-2018)
Now, hate speech laws have certainly been misused (see: Pug Nazi fine of 800 GBP) and abused (see: legitimate criticism of Israel is a form of anti-Antisemitism) but we also cannot be naive. It's all fun and games until you get decapitated by government thugs because you voiced your opinion against the dear leader (which is nowhere near comparable to getting deplatformed because you incited violence, so stop your victimization already).
The only consequences in this country for speech are in the court of public opinion, which is simply other people exercising their speech against yours. And the only actual laws I have seen proposed on this topic in the last two years have all come from Republican state legislatures.
@LadyRhian Your Hitler example is not remotely close to what I've been asking. Hitler was in a place of leadership. Even if he didn't draft anything, EVERY decision on policy still had to go through him. He was DIRECTLY responsible for everything that happened under him. I also don't recall not answering any of your questions, do you wanna state them for me again so I can address them?
That's probably true if you are a progressive, and thus your ideology is in line with the ruling elites. It is most certainly not true for everyone else. Institutions come down on you with the fire and fury of a thousand suns for speaking anything less than the progressive official narrative. You can't even be a Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, as milquetoast as milquetoast gets, without institutional backlash. The precious sensibilities of Silicon Valley and others in positions of power to censor are not the court of public opinion, they are simply the ones whose opinions are rigidly enforced, and all public figures have to fall in line because all are dependent on their platforms for any sort of far reaching voice and any sort of impact in public life. These people have audiences, have masses of people who want to hear them. No greater freedom of speech exists in the academic world in our media culture or any place where ideas should be discussed and where that freedom really matters. Jordan Peterson isn't my cup of tea, but if someone could nearly get fired for showing his work since it is like "neutrally showing a video of Hitler", only saved by a recording of the argument, I don't want to hear about freedom of speech. I realize this particular example is Canadian, but it's emblematic of the same stifling authoritarian ideologues we face here who think they are in a position to decide who is and is not fit for public life but who really are just enforcing their own hegemony by whatever means they can. The EU and it's Article 13 meme bans come to mind as an expression of this impulse.
I wouldn't put it under the banner of hate speech, but I think it is reasonable to support criminalizing the advocating of violence in general, and not just the imminent call to violence that US law criminalizes. That would be as far as I would go though.
We live in a time when a random stranger can hunt down your identity down to your home address and call on thousands of people to issue violent threats and destroy your reputation, an attack for which a private citizen has absolutely no defense. This is especially cruel in an age when your online reputation is so important that a public attack can make you unemployable.
But some construction worker or computer programmer posting an opinion on Facebook? Keep them off the battlefield; they don't have enough armor.
Let me just check... yep, googling "Ben Shapiro free speech hypocrisy" yields only about half a million pages. Same thing for Jordan Peterson. Let's just click a link at random;
https://globalnews.ca/news/4287272/jordan-peterson-sues-wilfrid-laurier-for-defamation-following-ta-case/
Yep, has merit.
Further, EU:s article 13 does not have any ideological bent. It has a corporate bent, because corporations want to maximize profit. Corporations are machines, they care naught for right and wrong or for any ideology, except making more profit (if that can be considered ideology). EU politicians are A) stupid and B ) shysters. Some of them are woke, EU is not nearly as bad as USA. Still, corporations usually get their way and this is an example of that. Got nothing to do with authoritarianism.
Silicon valley is also private companies and they do as they please, just as Breitbart, Infowars and the Drudge Report probably would not keep a Bernie Sanders supporting journalist for very long, if they had accidentally managed to hire one.
Finally, the ruling elite, at least in Murka, is quite clearly conservative.
To be clear, the original goal post I was responding to was the claim that there are no consequences for speech besides the court of public opinion, and not what is and is not a legal right, which I feel is a meaningless defense of the indefensible and not accurate in many of the cases.
I believe I gave an example centered around Peterson, but not about him, in my first post. This isn't some public figure like the man himself with money and resources to defend herself, this is just some ordinary university professor essentially being accused of acting like a Nazi sympathizer for showing a debate where Peterson was involved. There would have been no recourse, no way she could have defended herself if she didn't record the incident and let the public spotlight be her shield. As for Shapiro, there are a multitude of examples to choose from, Depaul, UC-Berkeley, CSULA, Concordia, and this is the ultimate moderate. If I can even cite one example it's an issue.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/heres-the-full-recording-of-wilfrid-laurier-reprimanding-lindsay-shepherd-for-showing-a-jordan-peterson-video
You do have a right to be free of the backlash i'm speaking of, actually. It is settled law that public universities have to abide by the first amendment, where many of these events including ones I mentioned take place. They can not filter for content, not try to prohibit them by exorbitant security fees or other means. This is for obvious reasons, places of education should be the safest places to discuss and dissect ideas and come to the best conclusions, free of the social censures from outrage mobs or other would-be thought police. To quote one Supreme Court case (Sweezy v. New Hampshire) about free speech rights in universities:
"The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation… Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die."
That is the attitude we should be encouraging, not the silencing of rival ideas by whatever legal means possible.
In a recent post @WarChiefZeke said "I wouldn't put it under the banner of hate speech, but I think it is reasonable to support criminalizing the advocating of violence in general, and not just the imminent call to violence that US law criminalizes." That could be done very easily through a Supreme Court judgment. In fact the Supreme Court used to take a much more interventionist approach to speech advocating violence. Though the progression isn't a clean one this article sets out a broad trend towards fewer restrictions on free speech as follows:
- 1868 doctrine of 'bad tendency'
- 1919 doctrine of 'clear and present danger'
- 1969 doctrine of 'imminent lawless action'
Currently then SCOTUS only prohibits speech which is likely to lead to immediate violence. However, have a look at the dates. Every 50 years or so SCOTUS decides it's about time to refine what is meant by restrictions on free speech in relation to violence. We're thus probably about due for another doctrine now - which way will it go?
I've mentioned it before, but I'll say again that this unilateral action by the US could cause them major problems in the future. It's not just the diplomatic damage associated with ditching existing international agreements, trashing alliances and attempting to bully other countries into line. There's also the possibility of serious economic damage. The US has dominated the international settlements system for many years and gained hugely as a result. However, the other parties to the Iran deal have agreed that they will protect firms that wish to continue to trade with Iran. Part of that is legislation that's already in force to block the extra-territorial US sanctions (and this legal competition is likely to be a significant source of international tension in the future). In addition though, alternative settlement systems are likely to grow quickly as a result of this. It's not particularly difficult to envisage such arrangements quickly rivalling the traditional ones - particularly if that allows companies to bypass the more onerous aspects of existing US compliance legislation (which can apply to non-Americans, doing deals not involving the US other than through the settlement system).
That's how I see it if it were to come up in the next few years.
Look at that progression. Fom "tendency" to "clear danger" to "imminent action". What can be less restrictive than "If we don't block this, someone is going to break the law NOW."?
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Now on the topic of hate speech. Matt Shea, a five term Washington State representative, wrote a manifesto calling for "war" against enemies of the Christian religion. The document, a four-page explanation of how to establish Christian law through armed struggle, calls for the end of same-sex marriage, abortion, and the death of all non-Christian males in the U.S. if religious law is not upheld.
"If they do not yield - kill all males," the document reads.
Isn't this just Sharia law wearing a different shirt? The matter was referred to the FBI. I would think this is the type of thing that should be prosecuted, no?
You only get two guesses which party the guy represents but you should only need one guess.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/414450-fbi-investigating-washington-state-rep-for-manifesto-urging-all-males?amp