Nick Dol­gy Free Speech and The Left

This is my dis­cus­sion with Nick Dol­gy about laws against hate speech.

You can read my com­ment here:

My com­ment on Youtube

That is an ut­ter straw man of what the left wants. Es­pe­cial­ly be­cause it was al­ways the left who called for equal rights for gays and pro­tect­ing them against dis­crim­i­na­tion, and the re­li­gious right al­ways want­ed to dis­crim­i­nate them and take away their rights un­der the dis­guise of “free­dom of re­li­gion”. Your right of free speech does­n’t in­clude the right to harm oth­er peo­ple. Your rights end where my rights be­gin. Hate is speech is speech that harms me. And it’s not my feel­ings that are harmed, it’s sub­stan­tial harm. For ex­am­ple, if you call for the ex­ter­mi­na­tion of Jews on Face­book, that’s harms peo­ple who are Jew­ish. That’s hate speech. If you call black peo­ple Nig­ger on pub­lic fo­rums, that’s in­val­i­dates black peo­ple as peo­ple, thus harms them. Would you think that that’s is not hate speech: https://​me​di​a1​.fd​ncms​.com/​i​n​d​y​w​e​e​k​/​i​m​a​g​e​r​/​u​/​m​a​g​n​u​m​/​5​0​5​2​0​0​6​/​s​c​r​e​e​n​_​s​h​o​t​_​2​0​1​6​-07 – 20_at_6.21.59_am.png https://​www​.ush​mm​.org/​p​r​o​p​a​g​a​n​d​a​/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​/​p​o​s​t​e​r​-​g​u​i​l​t​y​-​w​ar/ Well, it’s just free speech I guess.

First Part of my Essay

First of all I don’t un­der­stand why you are con­fus­ing pri­vate and pub­lic or­ga­ni­za­tions with is­sues of the law and hu­man rights. Acad­e­mia and oth­er pri­vate and pub­lic or­ga­ni­za­tions make their own rules and are sep­a­rate from the gov­ern­ment and hu­man rights in gen­er­al. You are giv­ing me some unique cas­es, that you cite as an ex­am­ple of the mis­use of those laws, but you are not show­ing the whole pic­ture. It was an­ti-ha­rass­ment and hate-speech laws af­ter all that en­abled mi­nori­ties from en­ter­ing the pub­lic space and hav­ing a civ­il dis­course in the first place.

Mi­nori­ties were al­ways his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, be it blacks, women, Jews or oth­er mi­nori­ties. You are ar­gu­ing against those laws just be­cause in some places it have neg­a­tive con­se­quences to­day. But with­out those laws we wouldn’t have our mod­ern West­ern so­ci­ety. Of course I’m not agree­ing with those stu­dents who bul­ly pro­fes­sors, but bul­lies were al­ways there and are not an in­ven­tion of SJWs and the left. Peo­ple who like to bul­ly join a move­ment that gives them pow­er over oth­er peo­ple. Stu­dents in Acad­e­mia were al­ways some­what re­ac­tionary, the on­ly dif­fer­ence to the past is just that to­day they have more pow­er at the col­leges, I guess.

On the oth­er hand, I re­al­ly don’t know what is hap­pen­ing with Acad­e­mia and pro­fes­sors and the stu­dents. All I hear are re­ports. Who knows what is re­al­ly the is­sue? All sto­ries have al­ways two sides and I don’t think that such sim­plis­tic black and white think­ing like you dis­play is good for any­body. Yes, We­in­stein was bul­lied and ha­rassed and I don’t con­done that. But, We­in­stein was al­so a provo­ca­teur and maybe Ever­green was just not the cor­rect place for him to be. Again, I don’t know the full sto­ry and nei­ther do you. We­in­stein al­so filed a $3.85 mil­lion tort claim and set­tled for $450,000 with the col­lege, thus show­ing that an­ti-ha­rass­ment laws are al­so pro­tect­ing him. The case of We­in­stein shows that we need laws to pro­tect the civ­il so­ci­ety for all, and not that we were bet­ter off without.

Just be­cause some peo­ple call it “hate speech” who dis­agrees with theirs views, that doesn’t mean that it makes it hate speech. That is ba­si­cal­ly what Jor­dan Peterson is do­ing. He thinks that he proves some­thing by de­bat­ing the most ex­treme and a lit­tle bit crazy in­di­vid­u­als and pro­vok­ing them to say the most rad­i­cal views, but all he is do­ing is show­ing how rad­i­cal and crazy those par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­u­als are. He is not show­ing any­thing that is fac­tu­al. The same ap­plies to your think­ing. They can call it “hate speech” all day long, it doesn’t makes it so.

The side of the more rad­i­cal Left be­lieves that We­in­stein and oth­er so­cial is­sues like Hal­loween cos­tumes are mak­ing the so­ci­ety a hos­tile place for mi­nori­ties and thus not al­low­ing them to study and be suc­cess­ful in life. What else but opin­ion can you of­fer to dis­prove them?

To sum­ma­rize. If you would have made a video crit­i­ciz­ing the so called SJWs on cam­pus­es and the cur­rent ab­sur­di­ty of rad­i­cal left, then I wouldn’t have any prob­lems with your opin­ion. But you are con­flat­ing the law and hu­man rights with the rad­i­cal left, and al­so the au­thor­i­tar­i­an laws of the right with an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion and hate-speech laws. Rus­sia have laws that tar­get the ho­mo­sex­u­al com­mu­ni­ty. Those laws have noth­ing to do with an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion and hate-speech laws. See https://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​R​u​s​s​i​a​n​_​g​a​y​_​p​r​o​p​a​g​a​n​d​a​_​law. Those laws are spe­cif­ic laws against a par­tic­u­lar group of peo­ple. It’s like Nazi Ger­many had laws against Jews and then you make a video how pro-Jew­ish ac­tivists are ar­rest­ed by Nazis and say “see, that is what hate-speech laws can lead to”. But in­stead of at­tack­ing the Russ­ian laws that are di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ar­rests of gay ac­tivists, you have cho­sen to at­tack a straw man and en­gaged in slip­pery-slope ar­gu­ments. Be­cause we have laws that pro­tect mi­nori­ties, there­fore we will soon ar­rest ac­tivists? No, that doesn’t fol­low. Hate-speech laws are not laws against be­ing of­fend­ed. They are laws against harm. No mat­ter how many times the rad­i­cal Left mis­rep­re­sents those laws in the pub­lic, hate-speech laws do not give them pow­er just be­cause they got offended.

Point by Point Re­ply to Nick

Nick Dol­gy What have Amer­i­can acad­e­mia to do with hate laws? Noth­ing. If you don’t like the poli­cies in Amer­i­can acad­e­mia then make a video about that. Those have ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with an­ti dis­crim­i­na­tion or hate-speech laws. 

Oh, and please make a video how the cur­rent right wing Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment is al­so sup­press­ing speech and free­dom of the press. I would think that how the pres­i­dent of the USA is sup­press­ing free speech and free ex­pres­sion is more im­por­tant than some SJWs on campuses. 

Last­ly, Trump threat­ened Google, Face­book and Twit­ter just be­cause he does­n’t like the search re­sults. What was it, that the left is threat­en­ing free speech? Trump is the left now? Es­pe­cial­ly be­cause Trump and the gov­ern­ment have im­mense pow­ers. Trump alone could cause hav­oc via ex­ec­u­tive or­ders, for ex­am­ple. What can SJWs on cam­pus­es do? Protest some Hal­loween costumes. 

https://​www​.cn​bc​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​8​/​2​8​/​t​r​u​m​p​-​a​c​c​u​s​e​s​-​g​o​o​g​l​e​-​o​f​-​r​i​g​g​i​n​g​-​s​e​a​r​c​h​-​r​e​s​u​l​t​s​-​i​n​-​f​a​v​o​r​-​o​f​-​b​a​d​-​c​o​v​e​r​a​g​e​.​h​tml

> “The same is true about Nazi sym­bols in Ger­many. If you al­low them, then soon­er or lat­er there will be a crit­i­cal mass of id­iots un­der those ban­ners who will desta­bi­lize the sit­u­a­tion to the point of an ex­plo­sion. I al­so think that the op­pres­sive sym­bols of Is­lam should al­so be banned every­where in the world” 

What about Nazis and the KKK mak­ing speech­es? What about Spencer talk­ing about racial geno­cide in America? 

> “hav­ing grown up in the USSR, know­ing the his­to­ry I would say that Red Scare was justified.” 

So, ba­si­cal­ly, you are for free speech on­ly if you agree with the speech? 

Or, let me rephrase it. You are for free speech on­ly if it’s not So­cial Jus­tice War­riors? I think that’s it. 

> “This is not a sta­ble environment.” 

Ac­cord­ing to whom? 

> “Peo­ple in Seat­tle chant “gas the rich”, and I feel it’s too much, and that’s some­thing that should re­al­ly be ad­dressed, be­cause it cross­es the line.” 

“the rich” is not a par­tic­u­lar group of peo­ple. So, I would say it falls un­der free speech. 

> “How are you go­ing to prove your in­tent with words like “nig­ger” or “white-boy”?”

How would you prove self de­fence? How would you prove in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter? How would you prove first de­gree mur­der? You are pre­tend­ing here that hate speech laws are some­thing en­tire­ly new and un­chart­ed grounds and that our ju­di­cial sys­tem is so in­apt. Usu­al­ly, the courts are de­ter­mine the in­tent. Just like a mur­der would say that he is in­no­cent and the courts would not par­don him just based on his tes­ti­mo­ni­al, but the judge or the ju­ry is de­ter­min­ing the in­tent. It’s the same with hate speech laws. You are ac­cused, you can de­fend your­self, the courts finds you guilty or not. 

> “you’ll have thou­sands of ca­su­al­ties, ex­act­ly like they have in Rus­sia today.” 

Where are all of those thou­sands of casualties? 

Rus­sia have laws against ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. https://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​R​u​s​s​i​a​n​_​g​a​y​_​p​r​o​p​a​g​a​n​d​a​_​law It has noth­ing to do with hate speech laws or dis­crim­i­na­tion laws. That is a spe­cif­ic law against a spe­cif­ic group of peo­ple. It’s like Nazi Ger­many had laws against Jews. And then you make a video how pro-Jew­ish ac­tivists are ar­rest­ed by Nazis and say “see, that is what hate-speech laws can lead to”. 

> “and then it’s not called “mur­der”, but it’s a killing or manslaughter.” 

Yes. And some is hate speech and some is artis­tic expression. 

> “you are us­ing two ex­treme examples.” 

Yes, be­cause all ex­am­ples of sup­posed mis­use of hate-speech laws I saw are an ap­pli­ca­tion of ex­treme ex­am­ples. I nev­er saw hate-speech laws use in “peo­ple talk­ing to each oth­er in the streets” or some­thing like that. Be­cause there are no hate-speech laws that would ap­ply to pri­vate forums. 

> “you don’t see ex­am­ples be­cause you are ev­i­dent­ly look­ing away and not try­ing to find in­for­ma­tion, which is avail­able. Part of the prob­lem is that the mes­sen­gers who de­liv­er such in­for­ma­tion of­ten get smeared and rep­u­ta­tion-de­stroyed when they start hav­ing a civ­il dis­course about such cases.” 

How about you just give me one ex­am­ple and then we can see? 

> “It is you who thinks that those ac­tivists are help­ing peo­ple. This is a mod­ern moral zeit­geist in the West.” 

Yes, so what? Be­fore you said that in your opin­ion we should ban Nazi sym­bols. That is al­so a mod­ern moral zeit­geist in the West. Nazi Ger­many in the 1930s would dis­agree with you and those Ger­mans back then thought that the West is a Jew-Top­ia and ruled by Jews. Al­so, ear­li­er you said that the Red Scare was jus­ti­fied. Just like me you are ap­ply­ing your own moral stan­dards to who is good and who is bad. 

But, again, what is go­ing on in Rus­sia have noth­ing to do with hate-speech laws. There is a spe­cif­ic law against gays. 

> “I just re-up­loaded my video on Cuck­oo bird af­ter it got flagged and ter­mi­nat­ed last year.” 

Have noth­ing to do with hate-speech laws. 

> “The two oth­er ar­ti­cles of Russ­ian pe­nal code that I men­tioned in the video — Ex­trem­ism and Of­fend­ing the Feel­ings of Re­li­gious Peo­ple — gen­er­ate hun­dreds of cas­es a year” 

Great. Have noth­ing to do with hate-speech laws. And I would­n’t cared and liked your video if it was on­ly about that. 

 — Ayaan Hir­si Ali be­ing on the SPLC’s list of an­ti-Mus­lim extremists 

Have noth­ing to do with hate-speech laws. The SPLC is a Pub­lic-in­ter­est law firm and Civ­il rights ad­vo­ca­cy or­ga­ni­za­tion. Who they put on what list is their prob­lem and no­body has to list­ed to them. 

 — The UK: decades of groom­ing gangs be­ing cov­ered by the po­lice who was to­tal­ly par­a­lyzed by fear of be­ing ac­cused of racism 

Have noth­ing to do with hate-speech laws. The po­lice was in­com­pe­tent and the blame is on the politi­cians. In Ger­many there are mul­ti­ple Is­lam­ic or­ga­ni­za­tions watched by the gov­ern­ment as an­ti-con­sti­tu­tion­al and we stopped Turkey lead­ers from speak­ing here, and Aus­tria will ex­pel 60 Imams. 

 — Lat­est Tom­my Robin­son ar­rest and in­car­cer­a­tion in vi­o­la­tion of the UK laws, with­out any for­mal charges 

His ar­rest was 100% jus­ti­fied. https://​in​ews​.co​.uk/​o​p​i​n​i​o​n​/​w​h​y​-​w​a​s​-​t​o​m​m​y​-​r​o​b​i​n​s​o​n​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​a​n​d​-​j​a​i​l​e​d​-​a​n​d​-​w​h​y​-​w​e​r​e​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​i​n​g​-​r​e​s​t​r​i​c​t​i​o​n​s​-​i​n​-​p​l​a​ce/

 — Lau­ren South­ern ban from en­ter­ing the UK de­spite her be­ing a very civ­il, fact-dri­ven, brave journalist 

lol… ok, what­ev­er. https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​v​k​A​8​7​6​B​6​TFY

Lau­ren South­ern was de­nied en­try be­cause “Bor­der Force has the pow­er to refuse en­try to an in­di­vid­ual if it is con­sid­ered that his or her pres­ence in the UK is not con­ducive to the pub­lic good.” https://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​b​l​o​g​s​-​t​r​e​n​d​i​n​g​-​4​3​3​9​3​035

The UK gov­ern­ment rep­re­sents all peo­ple, not just white blond people. 

 — Pro­tect­ing the ghet­tos in Aus­tralia and else­where, — Ac­tu­al no-go zones where a mod­ern-look­ing woman is con­sid­ered too provoca­tive for the lo­cals — hu­man rights vi­o­la­tion to­wards non-Mus­lims- Be­cause of hate speech laws in Eu­rope women in Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties keep be­ing abused and dis­crim­i­nat­ed — no­body in Eu­rope is al­lowed to crit­i­cize Is­lam­ic an­ti-women doctrines. 

No ci­ta­tions giv­en, hence no da­ta is giv­en. All just opin­ion. Prob­a­bly from Lau­ren South­ern and Alex Jones? 

> “be­cause calls to vi­o­lence are a mea­sur­able and im­me­di­ate way to ac­tu­al­ly get vi­o­lence, and ac­tu­al­ly get peo­ple hurt.” 

You missed the point of my ques­tion. Why should we set the bar here? Sounds ar­bi­trary. But you al­ready said that your stan­dard of free speech is ar­bi­trary and that it’s ba­si­cal­ly “SJWs bad, right wing good.”