Slimebeast said:
It's sad what the US has become, if those views are regarded as "extremely politically onesided". As a Swedish medical doctor I am very critical of lockdowns. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. It's sad how the covid pandemic became so politicized over there. Sweden never imposed hard lockdowns. In my view, the whole basis for Black Lives Matter is extreme, to claim that the US is a systemically racist society that must be deconstructed, to demand that the police must be defunded. BLM is much more about revolution against an entire society than it's about racial justice. Positive news about the president of the USA shouldn't be controversial! Trump has politically acomplished many great things. Trump tries to withdraw the US from foreign conflicts, he tries to correct the US support to questionable organizations and treaties (the UN, WHO, Nafta, NATO, the Paris Agreement), he has improved the US economy, he actively tries to confront cancel culture and the threat from big tech giants against Western democracy. |
Clearly you have not studied First Amendment jurisprudence. Freedom of speech means the government can't make laws restricting speech regarding matters of public concern. It means that when a company or an individual says something that another company or person feels is fucked up, they can say "that's fucked up and you shouldn't say it". And that company is free to either agree with them and stop saying it or say fuck you we're going to keep saying it. If the company feels pressured by public opinion to change their ways because they feel it will hurt their business that's what is called the free market.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want and nobody can say you're an asshole for it. The right to call someone an asshole for saying something is just as important as the right to say the thing in the first place. Criticism is not antithetical to free speech it's the whole damn point.
So for instance when Trump tells everyone to cancel their subscription to New York Magazine because he doesn't like what they're saying (I'm assuming that's part of what you mean by cancel culture) his right to call for cancelling things he doesn't like is part of Freedom of Speech. I don't know about you, but while I disagree with Trump calling for cancellation of things he doesn't like (in his capacity as a private citizen at least), I fully support his freedom to do so.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/fact-check-trump-cancel-culture-boycotts-firings/index.html
Last edited by JWeinCom - on 29 September 2020
