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How much do you really value free speech?

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    #32
    davyjose
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,287 ✭✭✭davyjose


    Jakkass wrote: »
    It seems that free <SNIP>

    FYP


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    #33
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    lugha wrote: »
    Ok. Did not know that. I assumed religion was included?

    It is. At least the State doesn't meddle in suggesting that one should respect one attribute of ones identity above another.


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    #34
    minidazzler
    Registered Users Posts: 14,739 ✭✭✭✭minidazzler


    Not when it offends me
    Jakkass wrote: »
    I used to think this more too, there is a problem though. Everyone is going to suggest the limits lie where it offends them personally.

    Yeah, but this isn't about personal offence really. If some guy goes on the radio or on the streets and says something like "Kill a Garda, Kill Brian Lenihan" That's targeting specific people, while I believe some people deserve to die, the guy is inciting people to violence and should be detained.

    It's not about offending people personally, more about offending common morals, the ones the majority hold.


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    #35
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    livinsane wrote: »
    Take internet blogs, facebook, whatever, you have the power to express whatever opinions however depraved/ignorant they may be, but that's not to say that you won't get the s h i t kicked out of you as a result.

    Nobody is arguing that people don't have a right to challenge anothers opinion. That's a part and parcel of free speech.

    If you share your opinion with anyone, you should expect to be challenged. If you do not wish to be challenged any more you can simply leave and go about your business. Some people might wish to do this if people were unmannerly, started cursing, started being threatening etc. That's their personal decision.


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    #36
    Lux23
    Registered Users Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    Jakkass wrote: »
    Nobody is arguing that people don't have a right to challenge anothers opinion. That's a part and parcel of free speech.

    If you share your opinion with anyone, you should expect to be challenged. If you do not wish to be challenged any more you can simply leave and go about your business. Some people might wish to do this if people were unmannerly, started cursing, started being threatening etc. That's their personal decision.

    Well why do you have a problem with people who set up a facebook account to challenge the Islamic march that was held in the UK?


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    #37
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    I disagree with it, and I am voicing my disagreement at their hypocrisy. It's basically, saying I agree with free speech until it offends me. Just because people say something doesn't mean I have to agree with it. They weren't just trying to challenge the march, they were trying to suppress it.

    Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom not to be challenged.
    minidazzler wrote: »
    It's not about offending people personally, more about offending common morals, the ones the majority hold.

    This is scary in some respects. If a minority want to voice their opinion about something, and they disagree with something that the majority hold, they should be put down? This is already happening but do you really feel that this is right?

    Edit: There is a difference between moral and legal discouragements. For example, I would deem it offensive, and unmannerly to blaspheme in public. I don't consider it something that should be illegal.


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    #38
    livinsane
    Registered Users Posts: 1,090 ✭✭✭livinsane


    Jakkass wrote: »
    Nobody is arguing that people don't have a right to challenge anothers opinion. That's a part and parcel of free speech.

    If you share your opinion with anyone, you should expect to be challenged. If you do not wish to be challenged any more you can simply leave and go about your business. Some people might wish to do this if people were unmannerly, started cursing, started being threatening etc. That's their personal decision.

    You could argue that speech isn't free if there is the possibility of having to pay the price of your words.


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    #39
    minidazzler
    Registered Users Posts: 14,739 ✭✭✭✭minidazzler


    Not when it offends me
    Jakkass wrote: »

    This is scary in some respects. If a minority want to voice their opinion about something, and they disagree with something that the majority hold, they should be put down? This is already happening but do you really feel that this is right?

    That isn't what I was on about at all. But calling people to immoral and illegal behaviour (Such as Murder or other serious offences) Should result in an arrest IMO.


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    #40
    Kold
    Registered Users Posts: 12,778 ✭✭✭✭Kold


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    I actually think it supercedes everything. I don't even draw a line at incitement. Words hurt no one. Actions should be punished.


    -oh, apart from things posing as fact like advertisement. Downright lies should be punished too.


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    #41
    Reflector
    Registered Users Posts: 380 ✭✭Reflector


    Not when it offends me
    I believe in free speech, in private you can have whatever opinions you want but I believe that if you are using public forums to incite hatred and discrimination then there should be consequences.

    All blacks should be deported or imprisoned

    Vs

    The immigration laws in Ireland should be revised

    Now I dont agree with either statement but the person saying them could have the same opinion.
    Free speech is fine......but not hate filled speech, should be a "shut the f*ck up" council of Ireland.


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    #42
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    What one considers hateful differs from person to person. I personally wouldn't consider the first statement you made to be hate speech, rather just ignorance. It would be hate speech in my opinion to threaten or to insist the death of certain individuals.


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    #43
    jif
    Closed Accounts Posts: 340 ✭✭jif


    Id tell you but *they* would 'hear' me and wouldnt like it very much


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    #44
    WooPeeA
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭WooPeeA


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    I value free speech a lot, but Ireland has no 100% free speech when it comes to journalism by the law.


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    #45
    irelandrover
    Registered Users Posts: 3,705 ✭✭✭irelandrover


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    How can you have free speech with restrictions? Surely if there are any restrictions to what you can say then it is not free speech.


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    #46
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,965 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    Not when it offends me
    I think the USA situation is interesting, and this kind of thing has been up before the US Supreme Court before. In Schenck v. United States (1919), a case about anti-draft pamphlets during World War I, Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said:
    The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
    In my view, the the key phrase is "clear and present danger", a phrase that (since 1919) rings alarm bells in the USA whenever it is used by a politician. (Tom Clancy looked at this in his novel of the same name, in which politicians misuse the phrase to get approval for a covert operation.) The Supreme Court judgement has been read by some as offering a way to override Constitutional free speech rights.

    In Ireland, what is a "clear and present danger"? Blasphemy, apparently, poses an existential threat to the Republic, one that must be prosecuted by law. What kind of country would Ireland be, today, without the Catholic Church to give it a moral compass? Is it Blasphemy to end this post with :confused:, :eek: and :mad:?

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



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    #47
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    It's not just Ireland. In practice countries might have brilliant laws concerning free speech, but they may fall short in practice.


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    #48
    slipss
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,025 ✭✭✭slipss


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    I value free speech highly, I think anyone should be allowed to express any opinion they want. So if someone wants to say, for example, that they oppose abortion, fine. But if they lie down in the middle of the street to try and attract attention to thier opinion and I'm late for work, I will drive straight over them. If they decide to disrupt my family members funeral to shout thier opinion, whatever it may be, I will kick them till their face looks like thier intestines. Seems fair to me.


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    #49
    lugha
    Registered Users Posts: 3,235 ✭✭✭lugha


    slipss wrote: »
    I value free speech highly ....
    I will drive straight over them ....
    I will kick them till their face looks like thier intestines.
    Just as well you are not agin free speech. :eek:


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    #50
    WooPeeA
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭WooPeeA


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    slipss wrote: »
    I value free speech highly, I think anyone should be allowed to express any opinion they want. So if someone wants to say, for example, that they oppose abortion, fine.
    That's correct. We have that kind of freedom of speech in Ireland but law doesn't protect the journalists here.

    For example, if you as an journalist will discover some scandal in the government then you and your source risk a case in court and maybe even a jail sentence if you're try to write about it in this country.


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    #51
    TPD
    Registered Users Posts: 7,814 ✭✭✭TPD


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    Jakkass wrote: »
    Someone posted a video a pro-Palestine demonstrator on this forum a few months ago, and the Gard was quoting the Public Order Act, and it is actually amazing how much freedom of speech is limited in public in this country. You really ought to take a look at it for yourself particularly section 7 and 9.
    http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1994/en/act/pub/0002/print.html

    Cheers for posting that, just had a read. Mad that you could get a £500 fine and 3 months in jail for holding a sign in public which offends someone.


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    #52
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Yes - with minor restrictions
    livinsane wrote: »
    You could argue that speech isn't free if there is the possibility of having to pay the price of your words.

    What is the "price" of your words?

    Jail, or other people criticising what you say. I'm fine with the latter, but I am not okay with the former.


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