> EFF has always supported freedom of association and free speech, no matter who is doing the talking.
This sentence worries me the most. Anyone means, including those we believe are threat to society (mass killing killer for example). Also those who make racist remarks intentionally to embarrass others in public.
The right to free speech is meaningless if it encompasses only the speech with which we already agree. Unless speech represents an imminent danger to society, restricting it is wrong and an abridgment of fundamental western values. This principle applies to hate speech, bomb-making instructions, and reviews of prostitutes. Distastefulness and moral indignation are not legitimate grounds for restricting speech.
I am going to have to disagree with everything but your first sentence. Free speech is more about what kind of society we want to create. I don't want to live in the kind of society where hate speech is unrestricted or where instructions on how to make bombs to destroy people's lives and/or property are unrestricted.
You mentioned moral indignation, which is a pretty strong, and rare, kind of reaction. I assume you are not talking about the reaction of religious people when a rule is broken, but that spontaneous combination of disgust, revulsion, and outrage that comes when something egregiously violates basic decency. I don't want to live in a society that is so weak-willed that it can't even stand up for its own values and say "this is wrong!"
I think your right to free speech ends somewhere around the place where my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness begins.
I don't really want to live in a society where intimacy is so distorted that society accepts buying and selling the most intimate act as totally acceptable. You can't buy and sell intimacy (sexual or otherwise). True intimacy is rare and a little fragile, and is something I hope that society feels is worth taking a stand to protect.
If you can't buy or sell intimacy, then how can society accept it? Your position is nonsensical. Prostitution doesn't sell, buy or endanger intimacy; it only trades sex. Conflating the two is a result of people's own insecurity.
I think your right to free speech ends somewhere around the place where my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness begins.
As long as my pursuit of happiness doesn't involve acts that you dislike, right? "You're free - to act as we tell you"
I limited myself to moral indignation, and tried to be very clear that moral indignation is not simply what a person happens to dislike. But, since apparently I was not clear, I specifically support your right to say a broad range of things that I dislike. If someone merely dislikes it, I feel like it is probably protected.
Regarding your comment on intimacy (by which I mean relational intimacy, not a euphemism for sex), all I can say is, there are some things that money can't buy, nor can be valued in money. Trust is one of them. True friendship is another. If you think that intimacy must be priceable or marketable to have a value, I submit that perhaps you have not experienced what I am talking about.
And unfortunately, without a long comment, I don't know how to explain my opinion that prostitution devalues intimacy. I will say that there are many people who feel that sex is more about relational intimacy than just a physical act or pleasure, although they may be a minority here (and quite possibly in the U.S. culture at large).
I limited myself to moral indignation, and tried to be very clear that moral indignation is not simply what a person happens to dislike. But, since apparently I was not clear, I specifically support your right to say a broad range of things that I dislike. If someone merely dislikes it, I feel like it is probably protected.
People can find moral indignation at anything. People from certain countries find women with uncovered heads truly indignant. It might have a difference from merely disliking, but in the end, it's just as subjective and meaningless.
Quoting Eminem, which is something I don't think I've ever done before, You find me offensive; I find you offensive for findin' me offensive.
And I'm not making a rhetorical point when I say attitudes like yours, who consider themselves superior to others and therefore worthy of deciding how others should live their lives, absolutely disgusting. Does that mean your opinions should be banned, as causes of moral indignation?
If you think that intimacy must be priceable or marketable to have a value
I don't see how you can possibly read that from my comment.
And unfortunately, without a long comment, I don't know how to explain my opinion that prostitution devalues intimacy.
How can see how prostitution devalues intimacy for the participants. But you're going to have to explain to me how does prostitution happening to other people devalues your intimacy.
And guess what: prostitution is still happening, even while illegal.
I will say that there are many people who feel that sex is more about relational intimacy than just a physical act or pleasure
Sex is just a physical act. Lobsters have sex. What your sexual activities are about is for you to decide. Just stop trying to impose your views on others. Because you won't accomplish it, you'll just hurt a lot of people and make sexual traffickers very happy.
I generally agree with your ideas of what makes a good life and a good society, but you need to recognize that societies and not governments are responsible for these things. Governments are great tools for exercising collective purchasing, collective bargaining, and collective defense. Just about everything else they do is a harm on society justified by the benefits of other government activities.
Free speech is great because social consequences not government laws keep it check. Free speech is not about what kind of society we want to create. It is about not going to jail for your opinions, regardless of what kind of society someone else wants to create.
That's typically what "incitement" is taken to mean, particularly in a legal context: the "request, encouragement or direction of one person by another" to undertake some specific course of action, usually criminal in nature.
Amazing, after the most naive and historically inaccurate characterization of the EFF's defense of freedom(s), you're worried? NOT SURPRISING.
PS: Felons are already prohibited from associating, and racist remarks intended to embarrass is a perfect example of protected speech. Just don't confuse legal defense with social acceptability. The public isn't as exacting as the law.
This sentence worries me the most. Anyone means, including those we believe are threat to society (mass killing killer for example). Also those who make racist remarks intentionally to embarrass others in public.