What is not debatable? The danger of prohibiting an opinion.

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In a recent thread, an opinion was declared "not debatable" by a group of people. The claim was that any post expressing this opinion should be deleted and that any discussion should prohibited.

If we are going to have such a powerful distinction, where ideas labeled "Not Debatable" become law and dissenting opinions are censored... who makes this decision? This is a great power. A political party that can outlaw contrary opinions from even being expressed will stay in forever.

The argument will be that no political entity can apply the "Not Debatable" label at will, there has to be a good reason. That leads to the question; for what reason can you ban debate of an issue?

The first problem is that this designation becomes an ideological cudgel. People on the political left will ban a certain set of opinions. People on the political right will ban another set of opinions.

I am taking the position that everything is debatable and that banning opinions is a danger to a democratic society. There are opinions that are offensive, counter-factual and even ridiculous. That doesn't prevent them from being debated.

I hold that everything can be debated by people who choose to debate them. Ideas can be expressed and judged openly in public spaces and the good ideas supported by facts will have the advantage. This is the only way to avoid ideological bias from dictating what people can hear. And yes, I am willing to defend this position even for the most troubling ideas. Holocaust denial is both ridiculous, unsupported and deeply offensive. Holocaust deniers still have the right to express their opinion.

But I want to hear an argument from people who would ban discussion of dangerous ideas.

How do you create a set of objective criteria for banning an idea that can be equally applied to the political left and the political right?

Where is the line? I don't hear anyone wanting to ban ghost stories, is it a measure of dangerousness? is it only political ideas?

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[+3] - hightor - 03/12/2021[quote]What they do is promote and commit racial injustice.[/quote] Do you consider that to be proselytization?

@maxdancona,

Quote:

In a recent thread, an opinion was declared "not debatable" by a group of people.

That's a mischaracterization of the discussion. Moderation on the site is, I believe, based on the behavior of people posting, not on their opinions. An opinion only becomes "undebatable" in a practical sense, in that the opinion is unchangeable and evidence to the contrary is rejected.

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@hightor,

How do you prevent that from being a judgment based on your ideology?

The political left has positions they take and reject any evidence to the contrary. The political right has positions they take rejecting any evidence to the contrary. And then there are those of us who don't fit in either of these bubbles. I suppose that all of my opinions are undebatable.

In that case the "undebatable" designation is based on the political bias of the people making this judgement. In my opinion, the moderators here do a pretty good job of avoiding making these decisions.

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@maxdancona,

I'll try to respond to this later but looking at the other thread I noticed that I misread you here:

maxdancona wrote:

Saying that Trump should have won the election is an opinion that people hold. It is debatable.

I thought you said this: "Saying that Trump won the election is an opinion that people hold". And that's why I said this:

I wrote:

It isn't "debatable", it's an article of faith as there are no facts that can change people's minds on the issue. It comes close to proselytization.

But yes, saying Trump should have won is certainly debatable and I'm sorry for my error. I expressed a similar thought in this post.

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@hightor,

You are throwing around terms. But the question is what opinions should be prohibited from being expressed?. I don't see anything wrong with proselytization. The very term "Black Lives Matter" is proselytization.

No one has a problem with proselytization for opinions they themselves share. What seems to matter is whether they have the same political ideology as you do.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

You are throwing around terms.

What do you mean?

Quote:

6) No volume-spam or "soapboxing"

For example, if you start post after post about your favored conspiracy theory or engaging in religious proselytization, you might be over the line. This rule is fundamentally about the signal-to-noise ratio of your posts: if you're posting large volumes of content that doesn't provide value to the community, you might be suspended. Nonsensical or incoherent posts will be removed at any volume.

maxdancona, the problem is not one of opinions being expressed, but the way people conduct themselves when expressing those opinions. JTT/camlok being a case in point.

Quote:

The very term "Black Lives Matter" is proselytization.

No, actually it's the name of an organization which seeks to call attention to racial injustice.

Quote:

No one has a problem with proselytization for opinions they themselves share.

Not true. A2K is a place for discussion, not indoctrination.

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@hightor,

I agree with you on principle. People should discuss their opinions without "large volumes of content that don't provide value...". That isn't the issue. I interacted with JTT for a little bit, then I got bored it haven't really noticed that he stopped posting (until now that you mention it).

1) Anyone who has any opinion should be free to express it and defend it. This is true even for ideas that some people find offensive.

2) On a public space such as this the rules should be applied equally whether the opinion is from the political left or the political right. (To clarify, I use the word "should" to denote a policy that will lead to the most interesting discussion. Obviously the moderators of the forum are free to do whatever they like).

If we agree on these two principles... then my job is done here.

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@maxdancona,

Let see Jews should be wipe out as Hitler was right and black citizens should have their citizenship ended and sold off as slave workers and so on and on.

Lot of opinions are so harmful that they should be pressure out of existence.

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@BillRM,

I don't know how anyone would "pressure an opinion out of existence".

Imagine if someone had the power to pressure ideas out of existence... that would be a truly horrible power indeed. I suppose if they promised to only use their power for good, what could go wrong?

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@maxdancona,

Simple anyone who publicly proclaim Jews should be killed should be fired from any employment just to started with an in some western nations even now such people would be sentence under their nation criminal codes.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Simple anyone who publicly proclaim Jews should be killed should be fired from any employment just to started with an in some western nations even now such people would be sentence under their nation criminal codes.

We have to make a distinction between people who hold offensive ideas without committing any offensive acts, and people who commit crimes. My answer is based on the presupposition that the only crimes here are thought crimes. (Anyone who commits actual crimes should be punished for crimes.

So here is the hypothetical, Elisa (in your hypothetical example) believes that Jews should be killed and she says as much online. Let's assume (for the
sake of argument) that she has a job gluing soles on the bottoms of sneakers.

Are you saying that Elisa should be fired from her job making sneakers because she has offensive views?

Once you have her fired for her ideas, what do you do with her? She has to make money to feed her family. Do you let her starve? Do you put her on Welfare?

If you are going to punish people for thought crimes... how far does the punishment go?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Footnote during the ww1 period people who painted our British allies in a bad light was jail. With special note of one famous movie producer.

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@BillRM,

To answer you question directly. I am very uncomfortable with punishing people for thought crimes. People should be allowed to express their opinions even if there opinions are offensive.

There is a real danger if society can starve people with ideas that it finds dangerous or offensive. I don't want to live in a society where this happens. Sure, the most extreme cases seem easy, but where do you draw the line. Do you starve people who don't want to kill Jews, but question the Holocaust.

And at the other extreme do you starve people for opposing Israeli occupation of the West Bank?

You are suggesting the society can punish people for holding offensive or dangerous opinions. You aren't suggesting a way to make sure that your own ideas are ruled to be dangerous or offensive. If you are ever on the other side of this cudgel, you will find it quite unjust.

Practically speaking... if the person in question is a teacher, then it is easy. I want my educators to not hold Nazi views. This is not to punish them, it is because their views impact their ability to be a good educator.

But what do I care if a Nazi sews my sneakers? Nazi's, I suspect, will be very careful with their stitching leading to a better product. I don't know what the people who made my sneakers think about Jews... nor do I care.

I do not believe in punishing people for thought crimes unless it is specifically detrimental to the job they are doing.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

You define a crime being promoting some idea that the government is not happy over such as the US movies producer promoting anti English feelings or the western nations making it a crime to promote hate toward Jews.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Footnote during the ww1 period people who painted our British allies in a bad light was jail. With special note of one famous movie producer.

And don't forget Joe MacCarthy who starved out people who expressed offensive or dangerous opinions....

I consider this a travesty of American History.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

And now today's progressives are doing the very same thing that McCarthy did.

I've decided to stop paying and start pirating content from Disney because of their participation in McCarthyist witch hunts against conservatives.

They'll still get some money from me when I go to theaters, but I won't be renewing my subscription to Disney+ when it expires.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The political left has positions they take and reject any evidence to the contrary. The political right has positions they take rejecting any evidence to the contrary.

You are correct that the left does this. You yourself do it quite frequently.

But you are wrong to falsely accuse the right of also doing this.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

maxdancona wrote:
The very term "Black Lives Matter" is proselytization.

No, actually it's the name of an organization which seeks to call attention to racial injustice.

Not exactly. What they do is promote and commit racial injustice.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Let see Jews should be wipe out as Hitler was right and black citizens should have their citizenship ended and sold off as slave workers and so on and on.
Lot of opinions are so harmful that they should be pressure out of existence.

Except, you cannot pressure it out of existence. Instead you merely drive it underground and let it fester and become more dangerous.

I think that it is far better to confront such horrific ideas with polite disagreement, taking the time to explain why the idea in question is wrong.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Sure, the most extreme cases seem easy, but where do you draw the line. Do you starve people who don't want to kill Jews, but question the Holocaust.
And at the other extreme do you starve people for opposing Israeli occupation of the West Bank?

That's not the other extreme. That's the same extreme. Both of your examples are antisemitism.

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