Freedom of Speech: Crash Course Government and Politics #25 

Many of the smaller individual problems in the US on their own wouldn't be so bad, but there are so many individually bad problems that together they create a really vicious circle. For example, because the US has such a strongly two party system, there is nowhere for the anger to go but onto supporters of the other parties and the people who tend to support it, even if they are only there grudgingly (like how many black people don't like having to be in the same party as certain types of businessowners), and so hate speech is really easily directed towards them. Or someone who says that some Jew is running a secret cabal and that anyone in the same policial party must be either brainwashed, stupid, or corrupt. The hate speech is bad enough, but you manage to tick off a hundred million people wirth a statement like that.

Reid Larsen I

Reid Larsen Absolute freedom of speech and liberalism are contradictory

Hi, sorry if you don't want to talk about this [seeing this was written 3 weeks ago] but would it be alright if you elaborated on what you said [Absolute freedom of speech and liberalism are contradictory]? I'm still trying to figure out my opinion on the subject and value of absolute freedom of speech.

ThePoshBoy 1 Hello. No problem, I'm open for discussion. What I meant was, absolute freedom of speech entails ridicule and mockery. While liberalism in a social perspective, is that any action is acceptable as long as there's no harm. So when someone says the "n" word in front of a black person, or make holocaust jokes, that causes harm. Which is why I believe that in order to have absolute freedom of speech, then liberalism is suppressed. And in order to have absolute liberalism, then freedom of speech is suppressed.

Robert free speech for the dumb

Siegfried Kircheis Especially here on RU-vid.

MissNayNay Or you know...real life.

It's funny but it is absolutely true! Whenever you disagree with someone harshly they think you are attacking their free speech! No, others are attacking your stupidity!

but it's also mean the people making criticisms are open to criticisms.

@@SpyrosD Tell that to the antifa idiots.

Viacom

Hey, this whole operation was your idea

This will never be the case with Everchat (everch.at) :P

Ok

Free speech for the dumb!

you shut your mouth when you're talking to me

pretty ironic right

wow

free speech applys to all people even the ones you dont agree with... that is the point...

That is funny. Thank you. I needed to laugh.

:X

:ˆ

"Oh no, it's Jerry!" "Nah, it's only Patrick" "Oh, ok".

Field Marshal Fry auditorium or less specifically theatre. Not trying to be a dick but either uses less key strokes than not knowing does.

ArmageddonAngel It will read if done properly; Every law restraining your ability to own and operate a firearm is a violation of the second amendment.

ArmageddonAngel I did not feel right about liking this statement, as I am not a fan of shit storms, but you are most likely right.

ShoutingCoffee And people like you will be the cause of the shitstorm. The only extant laws that restrain anyone's ability to operate firearms apply only to convicted felons. Anyone of age anywhere in the United States can acquire and use a firearm (provided an acceptable target and reasonable location).

icedragon769 What about New York City? ;D

icedragon769 Lots of things ARE restricted in the FA world. Suppressors, FA Guns, specific types of ammo, types of guns allowed to import. I personally think its ok, could be worse. But a LOT of people hate the idea that the simple and broad idea of unrestricted access to arms is infringed.

Kerry Wichterich That would indeed be a good topic.

Libel and slander has to be blatantly false, have malicious intent, and visibly damage someone's reputation

Kerry Wichterich You're a step ahead of us! We're going to talk about libel next week in our episode on freedom of the press. -brandon

Johto Symphony So like every news channel on TV... LOL

Kerry Wichterich The episode's out, so I'm a little late to the party, but basically if it's blatantly false and is likely to cause negative repercussions, then it's not allowed. i.e. "Obama is a stupid Kenyan" is fine, but a local newspaper printing that someone attempted murder is not.

gnhtd1 The term "political correctness" was coined to make "not being a prat" a political - and thus arguable - thing. It encouraged people to take pride in their terribleness.

gnhtd1 Wait, Eskimo is offensive now? What?

Political correctness preserves free speech; it does not oppose it.

Antenox citation needed.

Robotputty citation needed for your claim for a citation as opinions do not require citation

Juxtavarious Why would a company want to have employees that are actively dissenting against the company?

24680kong There are constructive ways to go about it. I just think it should be acceptable to open discussion from within without being fired because the company has crap policies or is actively working against its own people.

Juxtavarious Then you would never get rid of the lobbying, and such restrictions would be used as justification for lobbying. Also, those constraints would themselves would be up to affect by lobbyists, and would ultimately just create another compiling mess. Essentially, you would open the door for Freedom of Speech to become a tool of lobbyists, the way other laws are used now.

Juxtavarious If its that bad, then quit. You'd be creating a situation where the employee was staying (so they clearly think that working for the corporation is a net benefit) but the employer can't fire them, even though the are causing the Corporation a net benefit by being an active agent against them.

Except that that attitude isn't how we got a limit on the number of hours or days an employer can require someone to work without paying overtime. With that attitude, we wouldn't have had laws passed to aid whistle blowers and hinder discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, disability, creed, and sexual orientation. If "just shut up and go find another job" were an actually viable solution then employees could vote with their feet and companies wouldn't be able to hold onto crap, abusive policies that extort their workers. The fact is, corporations have a strangle hold over the workers where the alternative for many of them is to go starve to death in the street if you don't like being treated like garbage.

No one has the right to insult another person.

Yes they do

Anonymous Top Secret You most definitely have the right to insult someone, but you also must accept the consequences that come out of it

@@dannguyen626 and what should those consequences be in your opinion?

@@dannguyen626 - unless the "consequence" is violence.

If you're Buzz Aldrin, yeah.

The idiot is the barbarian resorting to violence

IllCaesar THIS, THIS, THIS!!! - standing ovation -

Inorganic Vegan People have been fired for their opinions going back pretty much forever. Its part of the reason why secret ballot elections became popular. The difference between that and when some celebrity says something stupid is that most of the companies you find firing people are companies where the higher-ups are legally obligated to shareholders to make the best business decision. Even if they aren't obligated to do so its still generally a fair business move if its deemed a risk to profits to keep them. If somebody potentially pushes away part of your consumer base, you'd get rid of them. Its no different from firing somebody who gets in an argument with a customer or shows up to work drunk. Thats basic business. Its no different from when a company spokesperson says some racist shit as when an employee of a company pulls into a Chick-fil-a drive-through to yell at a minimum wage employee. Whether you like it or not, employees are representatives of the businesses that employ them. Just because one employee doesn't care what somebody thinks of them doesn't mean that a business doesn't likewise care about its perception. As for universities, I hate how they handle speech. While I don't view them as massive indoctrination camps like some folks do, they are harmful in that they don't treat students as adults, they don't treat the university experience as a real world experience. They treat adult students like four year olds, and I'd be less worrisome if not for the fact it happens at universities that accept federal aid. As for their employees, tenure exists specifically so that they can pursue fields of researching and philosophical thought without having to worry about their jobs. Those sorts of firings you mention are literally the primary reason tenure exists. Its why UC Berkely has an AIDS denialist on its payroll.

Freedom of speech is great, because unlike freedom of action, it doesn't harm anyone.

IllCaesar Fuck you fascist. Nobody should be put in jail or fired for their opinion from a university.

If what they're promoting is hateful speech that promotes harmful ideologies and can incite prejudice and harmful action against other classes, then a business or person has every right to fire someone or kick them out. A person's humanity trumps someone else's right to hateful free speech. What a person says has consequences, and it should because it holds whoever saying those things accountable. It was the founding fathers who came up with the 1st amendment and the government to uphold it. So when people say their free speech is being taken away because they're seeing the consequences of it, they're being dramatic.

I wholeheartedly agree. This touches on nothing but U.S. history and policy.

Sponsored by PBS, a US government corporation, made by Americans in the US. Ya, it's our government. Duh

SasquatchBean and the title should reflect that, because i'd guess at least a good number if not a majority of CC viewers are not American :)

MrGeekGamer No, it should be Craig's Course US Government.

SasquatchBean I think you miss my point. Free speech has a history, not just an American context. The title of this video, as well as the content, do not represent free speech as a concept, but rather as an American idea.

Interesting

That was Randall Munroe, in the mouseover text to one of the best installments of XKCD ever. xkcd.com/1357/

It is not an argument to day you have freedom of speech. It is a fact. Freedom of speech does not make you right or wrong... it make you free.

Matthew Prorok He's where I found it, but even that just has "someone once said", so I still don't know where it originated.

+JarinArenos Agreed.

Plagiarizing someone else doesn't make you look intelligent, especially when you plagarize a complete idiot who didn't understand fallacious arguments..

There's a saying in my country:" your freedom ends at the freedom of others" Dunno about other cultures, but this is pretty important around here. You can't just verbally bully someone and claim it's free speech.

Inorganic Vegan You can say whatever you want. People are free not to associate with you because of it. This extends to people speaking out against you (exercising THEIR free speech) as well as not associating with or supporting with your place of employment.

Inorganic Vegan His post didn't have the word "offended" in it anywhere. Please re-read it.

Fifi Steiner You don't have a right to not be offended.

Inorganic Vegan Harrassment is illegal in every state and by the feds if done on an interstate basis. It is not protected speech nor should it be.

Daniel Sobczak I agree.

Daniel Sobczak a boycott of their products. Kind of like how Liberals boycott Israeli goods with the divestment sanctions act

khanalprabhat we don't know much about other people because a lot of them didn't have a written language, in a lot of class rooms you learn about the medieval middle east/Ming China (and yuan china) and usually have something small about the mayas/aztecs and you usually learn about the fatimids and mughals too. the reason why a lot of focus is placed on Rome/Greece is because they had empirical records of almost everything.

khanalprabhat tf? In my school we didn’t learn enough about Eurocentric history. We mainly focused on the North American history and South American history. I could name a dozen Native American tribes and their relations before I could name the leaders in WWll. Trust me, be grateful, Eurasian history is very interesting and basically everything else sucks

*Gets arrested and is sent to Death Row*

General noob Are you black ? if yes : they'll just shoot you and say "self defense" or "he reached for my gun"

***** I've taken a look into all cases the media popularized and from your comment I can read that you're just pretending to have done the same in order to pass on some right wing bullshit - It's sad, honestly

***** while true, CNN is definitely one of the more liberal news companies. (This of course is an opinion... on the internet... I am not willing to fight over this)

***** CNN is leftist? Are you serious? CNN is considered political left in the US?

PsychicChris that's kind of scary, because walmart/google (might) take over the world one day, but their entire wealth is based off currency that is regulated by a (might soon to be) lesser body than them.

***** Actually, property laws generally are written by those with large amounts of property.

GelidGanef No, you telling off your boss IS free speech. You are more than welcome to do that, as far as the government is concerned. You won't get arrested for it.

***** That may be, but the First Amendment doesn't protect you from the consequences of your speech.

@@cj-seejay-cj-seejay Most unfortunately!

Rockerchavnerdemo it can though. An institution that does not randomly apply "consequences" to its members for ideological wrongthink has more "free speech" than one who does. Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. which take money from the Democrats do not support free speech and this is how we can tell you commies want to turn us into western Europe.

If you are not free from systematic consequences then you are not free at all.

obviously, and thats the beauty of it

I concur

Rockerchavnerdemo well from the government, otherwise you could easily say you have freedom of speech but get locked up as a consequence.

Freedom of speech only protects verbal. Snowdens situation is very complex and different

Next episode addresses it, freedom of press.

you can't go in and reveal classified info. Snowden isn't under fire for saying the government is spying on us.. he's under fire for detailing the systems and networks of US intelligence agencies

Snowden was tried on espionage and treason.

pete275 No no, the "fighting words" doctrine doesn't let people off the hook for committing crimes after hearing speech. They're still legally responsible for their actions. They can't claim they were "hypnotized" by someone else's fighting words (well, they can try to claim that, I guess...). The fighting words doctrine just lets the government ALSO punish the person who made the speech that prompted others to commit their crimes. It's not a criminal defense. And it's also never been applied to something like "raping words," don't worry.

What do you know about domestic law enforcement as someone living in a far off country. What do you know about the methodolgy and application of Anglospherian military action (as those troops "killing those people" also include British, Canadian, Australian and more) loving in the very region that can't keep it's shit together? The gall of you people is astounding. The verberations of your dark age, war ridden area affect people the world over, and then you have the gall to claim that responsive action (from the entire world mind you, it isn't just Americans) isn't justified? Simply absurd. I've never seen that kind of conciet so proudly displayed.

Beasty wo wo wo, we Aussies have an incredible track record of NOT killing non-combatants. Cannot speak for the other nations in the Coalition but our army is built around the infantryman and we generally speaking, have highly trained soldiers who follow a strict ROE and place a high importance on civilian protection. This has been the case for decades, not saying we havnt had kills on civvies but we deffs have a lower ratio than a lot of other nations (might have something to do with not using drones and airstrikes as liberally as some military's) so please, dont cite us as a military does have a track record of civilian casualties. And what would he know about your law enforcement? Well he would know what he see's in the media wouldn't he and you have to be frank, US Police have been in the spotlight A LOT for gunning down people who appeared to not be a threat to the Officer doing the shooting which gives the impression that your Police have only 2 modes, polite or trigger happy, whether this is a true trend or not is not the point, it is what gets headlines and again it has been in the news a lot, even in Aus we get the news of most lethal police shootings. Our cops have been cunts too but USUALLY they are cunts using TAZER's or batons because they get into lengthy and very public investigations when ever there is a shooting. And deny all you want, ISIS is ,in a huge way, our fault (our=Coalition Forces that went into Iraq to remove President Hussain. That includes my nation and yours) because we had no really action plan for what to do AFTER we won (Militaries are great at planning for war and action, its what comes after that they have never been good at dealing with) and we left the region in a fucking mess without any real structure of government that represented the people which left the region open to regional conflicts and a power vacuum for ISIS to explode into, as they now have done. All our Gov's share the blame for that as much as the Iraqi people. And he is an Arab, which im assuming means citizen of the UAE. Which while being a Sharia Law guided country, is still a hugely developed and modern state and the only real war the UAE has had in recent history is their repeated efforts to attack Israel and its been awhile since they last tried. Im just saying that he doesn't fit the insults you fling at him because he lives in a state that is quite frankly, doing superbly well considering and is incredibly modern. Basically, calm down, he is saying your GOVERNMENT is something that does seem to not always operate with logic or truth. He has actually said that he supports the very laws and freedoms you enjoy which is more than what I can say for your freedoms (ill agree its true freedom when you choose your President based on the peoples vote, thats my only heckle with the USA's Freedom boasting, that and that its a thing you guys do boast about and its gets old and annoying is all) but still, he isn't insulting your country, simply the people who represent it and run it on your behalf. Though this said, Obama is the first president ive liked since ive been sucking down air (Well liked in a professional manner, Bush i liked cos he just seemed to get into shit.). So again, calm down, the guy is not insulting yo, he actually complemented your nation

***** I agree with you bro. Also, UAE and also Dubai's Police department must wear body cameras since last year and also google glass and i hope this law move to another middle eastern countries and the rest of the world soon.

Allah snackbar

+Lol Problem? | did you just use the first amendment ?, noice.

Naudious so corporations have more power than governments?

PsychicChris That was a rethoricalquestion, right? Of course they do. Bribing politicians is legal in the USA. Hell, even in Europe of all places!

1234kalmar​ Yes, but it is still government action that they bribe for. Google can't involuntarily tax you, or raid your house, or force you to buy a product. The government does have all that power, and in having that power, it is bribed out to corporations. By pretending that you can somehow insulate from corruption the one entity in the United States that can make people do something against their will, with no consequences, you are only compounding the problem with ignorance. You can't grow the federal government to have limitless power to accomplish what you percieve as a good, without seeing that immense infrastructure abused.

Naudious I didn't say governments should be all powerful, in my country, it is, and it has devastating consequences. I just say that there should be a healthy balance, from which America is very far away from.

1234kalmar​ It isnt a balancing act, the more powerful the government is, the more power is available to Special Interests. If corporarions didn't have Legislation and Programs to abuse, they could only associate with you voluntarily