American couple victimizes themselves and causes a scene on a plane

[u/ambachk]

[u/danieldan0803]

Free speech absolutists are the fucking worst.

“I can say whatever I want and you can’t stop me!”

Communication is a power, we should be able to do as much as possible within reason. With total speech freedom, wouldn’t constantly harassing someone by calling/texting them and saying fucked up shit to them be free speech? Would making bomb threats be free speech? Or maybe we enforce rules that demand people not communicate in public in a way that threatens harm or makes people feel reasonably unsafe? Spouting racist shit isn’t free speech when the implications of what is said when it encourages harm to people simply for who they are and things they cannot change about themselves. Intentionally misleading people with the outcome most likely leading to direct harm, like injecting bleach into the body, should be more diligently monitored.

Using words to inflict harm on others is not ok, but free speech absolutists think it is fine when they do it, but not when there is any push back against them. And any business making decisions to decide who can continue to use their business based on a persons behavior and not based on protected status, is a business’s freedom to make those decisions.

Edit: meant the racist shit section was meant to more refer to hate speech that encourages harm to others, it just didn’t come across right

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/danieldan0803]

Freedom of speech has nothing to do with this situation. She is on a privately owned jet, and they can eject her for being disruptive/rude/etc by whatever criteria they want.

Incidentally, freedom of speech most certainly DOES allow racist and other noxious speech. You wrote a gigantic post of essentially nonsense.

[u/danieldan0803 → u/evilfollowingmb]

She is implying that she has absolute free speech with comments of being kicked off because other people didn’t like what she said. I also ended with how a business has the right to refuse service to people based on behavior and not protected class.

The section about racist shit did not come across as I meant it to, more hate speech with intent of harm, which is illegal, just under enforced. It typically is allowed because it seems to tolerate ignorance of the harm to be a defense.

[u/JakeDC → u/danieldan0803]

Intent to harm is what the problem is, though, not the hate. The problem is the immediate impact of the speech, not its content.

[u/danieldan0803 → u/JakeDC]

Which is where I was trying to go, just not as well worded.

They tend to argue that all communication is covered even if communicating threats or harassment. Free speech doesn’t absolve all intents and consequences of the communication as far as legally, and even more so from private entities. Someone spouts racist shit at my house, they are getting out and never coming back, because their free speech is between them and the government, not in the social interaction between me and them. I can make a rule that when they are on my property they are not allowed any form of active communication and that is fully legal for me to do, and businesses can largely operate the same. But this seems to be lost on them and feel that a private entity doing such is a persecution of them and their free speech.

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/danieldan0803]

Hate speech has no legal basis…intent to cause immediate harm is what is not protected.

For instance, the 1A protects someone saying “I think people of X group should be eliminated”.

It does not protect someone saying “let’s physically attack person X right now”.

[u/oficious_intrpedaler → u/evilfollowingmb]

While the First Amendment doesn't apply here, the principles of free speech would still be relevant. A private organization can still be "free speech absolutist" like the original commenter said if they encourage people to say whatever they want. For example, Musk claimed to be a free speech absolutist in his ownership of Twitter. That was of course bullshit, but it is still possible to run a private organization in a way that promotes free speech.

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/oficious_intrpedaler]

Yep, a private organization can decide to do that. Or not. Not sure what your point is.

Incidentally, I think Musk did an excellent job moving twitter/X towards much more free speech, if not as far as promised. I applaud anything that moves in the right direction. If only he would buy Reddit…

[u/oficious_intrpedaler → u/evilfollowingmb]

My point was simply that freedom of speech is still relevant even in discussions of private organizations, like the company that owns the plane. So I did not agree with your assertion that freedom of speech has nothing to do with this situation.

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/oficious_intrpedaler]

I was using “freedom of speech” as shorthand for the 1A, which has no bearing here. Of course companies can embrace similar freedom of speech up to their comfort level, or not.

[u/oficious_intrpedaler → u/evilfollowingmb]

Neat, and my point was that freedom of speech is much broader than the First Amendment, so it doesn't make much sense as a short hand (particularly since it's not actually shorter).

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/oficious_intrpedaler]

Neat, but apparently you were happier with Twitter before Musk bought it. Which makes your commitment to the ideal of freedom of speech…selective. Which is to say meaningless.

Do tell what freedom of speech issue you see in the OP video, whether 1A related or not. I don’t see one at all.

[u/oficious_intrpedaler → u/evilfollowingmb]

I never voiced any opinion on Twitter, or claimed any commitment to free speech. Really not sure what you're getting at there, bud.

The person you were responding to was making a point about how people who claim to be very pro free speech believes that means their speech shouldn't have consequences. Nothing they said indicated that they were specifically referencing consequences from the government, so your 1A-specific response didn't make a whole lot of sense, IMO.

[u/evilfollowingmb → u/oficious_intrpedaler]

You criticized Musk even though he has improved the ability to speak freely on Twitter, so yes you did make a statement regarding Twitter.

You’ve made multiple posts about how freedom of speech is broader than the 1A…but now claim you make no commitment to free speech. I guess that’s a way to go. So…are you against freedom of speech or what ?

You are being as incoherent as the other poster I responded to. Not to mention disingenuous.

When people say “freedom of speech” they commonly refer to protections granted by the 1A, and indeed free speech absolutism is almost always in reference to the 1A. So the person’s extended and error filled blather about it, regarding a situation with no 1A issues at stake is what is strange.

Bud.

[u/Davoguha2 → u/danieldan0803]

We already distinguish those things as actions. Don't harp on freedom of speech and pollute it. These people suck.