• admiralteal@kbin.social
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    1 month ago

    Literally everyone censors speech, and is fine with it. Everyone, with exceptions so scant that may as well not exist at all.

    Laws that prohibit workplace harassment. Defamation. Laws that punish incitements to violence. Laws that punish fraud and confidence scams. Laws against insider trading. Even things like RICO. These are ALL, in varying forms, limits on speech that are basically uncontentious to most normal, well-balanced people. These are limits on speech so ubiquitous and accepted that people have actually somehow convinced themselves that somehow “free” speech is clearly categorically different than these other things even when it plainly isn’t.

    The only people sincerely for (edit: total) free speech are honest-to-god anarchists. True “free speech absolutists” basically do not exist, and when someone claims to be one it really just means they want to be able to get away with using racial slurs in public.

    • theprogressivist @lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I completely agree, I was just thrown off by OP’s statement that progressives censor hate speech since I am not aware of any legislation specifically passed that makes it illegal for the common person to make hate speech.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Not at all. I don’t need laws to be a respectful person. Do you need religion to be a good person?

      I’m educated enough in political science to know that one of the most common ways to create a dictatorship is to leverage fear of the right to enact socially controlling legislation with the support of the left, then slowly begin to leverage that same legislation against the leader’s enemies. It’s prevalent throughout human history, and a proven system for inevitable authoritarian control.

      Incidentally, the other most common way to create a dictatorship is by leveraging the military and police forces against the people, as Trump plans to do in Project 2025. Just food for thought.