[MD] Intellect on trial

[Steven Peterson]

> dmb continues:
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> As I see it, the right to free speech is supposed to prevent this kind of tribalism, this kind of religious hostility. This intellectual principle is supposed to protect freedom of expression but this freedom is not served when it's used to muzzle the expression of others. As William James puts it, a pluralistic society like ours is supposed to tolerate anything that is not itself intolerant. Wilders seems to be a bigot-provacatuer. He uses what even the law recognizes as "fighting words", and I don't just mean when he's talking to his poker buddies. And our right wingers just love him for it. This kind of us-vs-them mentality is not intellectual or principled and it's not about freedom. It's about defending white supremacy and christian dominance in an increasingly multicultural world. It's part of larger pattern of reactionary paranoia. It is the social level's immune system overheating, acting out against perceived threats.
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> Everybody knows that people are likely to get hurt if you shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. If you shout "food fight!" in a crowded cafeteria, everybody knows that people are likely to make a mess. And so it's not at all a stretch for me to believe that inciting hatred is a real act, one that's very likely to cause real harm to real people. There is a wide array of crimes that can be committed with nothing more than speech. Inciting a riot and perjury spring to mind. Slander and treason are punishable by law. One can be convicted for conspiracy to commit a crime, even if the crime itself was never carried out. To make these things illegal does no harm to the principle of free speech, none whatsoever. Neither does the law against inciting hate. Tolerance is not served by tolerating intolerance. Free speech, Mein Ass.

Steve:
It seems to me that it _does_ do harm to free speech as a _principle_
to be served in itself. And the idea that free speech is such a
principle is one that ought to be dropped anyway to avoid the madness
of such nonsense as "corporations are persons" with such rights and
"money = speech." Instead we need free speech as a rule of thumb or
pretty good slogan for getting at some of our concerns about some
other more difficult to nail down good that free speech aids. Same
with tolerance. "Tolerate anything but intolerance" is only an
apparent contradiction when one loses sight of what tolerance is a
slogan to support. That more difficult to nail down thing is often
called "freedom," but freedom isn't supposed to extend the freedom to
take away other's freedoms. Those quick to point out that tolerance is
self-contradictory often don't recognize that their treasured freedom
has the same problem if you want to view it as a problem. (The thought
only occurred to me last night during the tenth refrain of "America,
f#$@ yeah!, Freedom is the only way" in Team America.) Pirsig also
makes the point in one of his afterwords or forewords to one of the
many anniversary additions of ZAMM. Freedom is a negative. It says
that there is something that we don't want. What is it we _do_ want?

I like to say, "democracy," but it often gets taken too literally in
terms of voting. What I think we ought to want , and what I mean by
democracy, is a system where political power resides with the people.
Words like tolerance and freedom are words for our best ideas about
how to get such a system--how to keep the rule of the majority from
becoming tyranny over the minority, how to best respect and balance
the needs of all, how to have the good life.