<story><title>Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-19/protests-free-speech-first-amendment</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ngngngng</author><text>I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now that we&amp;#x27;ve deemed him a heretic unworthy of work?&lt;p&gt;The answers of her and her friends bounced between &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t care what happens to racists like him&amp;quot; and calling me a racist for &amp;quot;defending&amp;quot; him. One participant said that he&amp;#x27;ll just have to work a job making far less like &amp;quot;the rest of us.&amp;quot; As if there&amp;#x27;s a cap on how much money racists are allowed to make. I read everything he said that offended people, and I didn&amp;#x27;t see anything racist, as far as I can tell, he just hates protesters and &amp;quot;PC&amp;quot; culture.&lt;p&gt;I just can&amp;#x27;t shake the first 3 words of The Constitution from my thoughts lately. Very nice of the LA Times to include a picture of it at the top of the page. We are not two separate entities in this country, the government and the NOT government. We are all The People. And we should all uphold the rights guaranteed in The Constitution to all of our fellow citizens.&lt;p&gt;Shoutout to Paul Grahams ever applicable &amp;quot;What You Can&amp;#x27;t Say&amp;quot;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;say.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;say.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gwd</author><text>&amp;gt; I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now that we&amp;#x27;ve deemed him a heretic unworthy of work?&lt;p&gt;As someone who&amp;#x27;s a devout Christian, it&amp;#x27;s quite interesting to me to see how the same anti-patterns which plague zealous religious movements -- intolerance, judgementalism, lack of an avenue for repentance &amp;#x2F; rehabilitation, unquestionable dogmas, inquisitions to root out heresies, factionalism, etc -- plague the progressive movement as well.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.&amp;quot; - The Apostle Paul</text></comment>
<story><title>Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-19/protests-free-speech-first-amendment</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ngngngng</author><text>I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now that we&amp;#x27;ve deemed him a heretic unworthy of work?&lt;p&gt;The answers of her and her friends bounced between &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t care what happens to racists like him&amp;quot; and calling me a racist for &amp;quot;defending&amp;quot; him. One participant said that he&amp;#x27;ll just have to work a job making far less like &amp;quot;the rest of us.&amp;quot; As if there&amp;#x27;s a cap on how much money racists are allowed to make. I read everything he said that offended people, and I didn&amp;#x27;t see anything racist, as far as I can tell, he just hates protesters and &amp;quot;PC&amp;quot; culture.&lt;p&gt;I just can&amp;#x27;t shake the first 3 words of The Constitution from my thoughts lately. Very nice of the LA Times to include a picture of it at the top of the page. We are not two separate entities in this country, the government and the NOT government. We are all The People. And we should all uphold the rights guaranteed in The Constitution to all of our fellow citizens.&lt;p&gt;Shoutout to Paul Grahams ever applicable &amp;quot;What You Can&amp;#x27;t Say&amp;quot;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;say.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&amp;#x2F;say.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>raxxorrax</author><text>The thing is that these groups (yeah, yeah, always with the generalizations) preach empathy but have no trouble to get people fired, their families too if possible. I think they behave this way because of pressure from social media and racism and sexism are used as some form of emotional sink.&lt;p&gt;Maybe that is too harsh on them in contrast of people just flaming random people by random characteristics, but they do have real institutional support.</text></comment>