[FRIAM] Freedom of opinion or fascist trap

[Gary Schiltz]

Freedom of speech is a tricky thing. I spent 50 of my 61 years in the USA,
where it is almost a national religion. It is certainly baked into our
psyche. It is nonetheless tempered by a variety of laws, most of which
appeal to Americans' common sense (whether or not we do indeed have much
common sense is debatable, though my biased view is that we do). The
quintessential example given as a limit to freedom of speech is yelling
"fire" in a crowded theatre, causing people to stampede with resultant
injury or death. US law also penalizes libel (written damage to someone's
reputation through false statements) and slander (verbal version of libel).
We also have laws against false advertising.

The interesting thing to me is in the differences by country in the
interpretation/enforcement of these laws and the attitudes of the people
toward freedom of speech (I suppose laws feedback to attitudes and vice
versa). Being nearly a national religion, we Americans feel we have the
right to say basically whatever we want about anything (I suppose we feel
speech is simply aural/written expression of our opinions, which we love to
express, loudly). Paradoxically, we are pretty thin-skinned, and easily
take offense when we are on the receiving end of such tirades. Our
attitudes towards governance in general (mostly against) is also baked into
our psyche.

In Ecuador, slander and libel are taken much more seriously than in the
USA, both in the culture and the laws. Consequently, people are much more
reticent about complaining publicly about something. Social media is
changing this a lot, making it much more common to call politicians corrupt
(maybe the consequence of having their rights to political dissent squashed
for a decade under Rafael Correa, now ex-president and indicted criminal on
the run). But libel (or whatever it is called when it applies to writing
about a business) is still quite easily prosecuted. I've heard of many
cases where someone is charged and convicted for simply writing publicly
(i.e. on social media) about a bad experience they had with a business.

What insights do other folks on the list from different countries besides
the USA and Ecuador have?

On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 10:10 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:

> oh sorry, I overlooked your post. When does an opinion become propaganda?
> I think this happens when you repeat one-sided opinions. In this sense the
> NY Times tried to do the right thing, but failed nevertheless :-/
>
> -J.
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com>
> Date: 6/5/20 16:15 (GMT+01:00)
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Freedom of opinion or fascist trap
>
>
> New York Times says senator Tom Cotton's op-ed did not meet editorial
> standards
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/05/new-york-times-says-tom-cotton-opinion-piece-did-not-meet-editorial-standards
>
> As I tried to say in my previous post:
> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/credibility-tp7596748.html
> The NYT has lost its Op-Ed credibility. For me, Bret Stephens was the
> trigger. I'd already been miffed that I couldn't simply suspend my
> subscription for a little while. You have to call them on the phone, which
> is irritating for someone who doesn't like talking on the phone. So, hiring
> Stephens was the 2nd justification. And I've considered re-subscribing
> since their GitHub covid19 data came online. But then the Cotton Op-Ed
> changed my mind. With their backtracking and now admitting the Cotton Op-Ed
> was a mistake, I'm more likely to resub before the elections. Their
> election tools are great.
>
> But their credibility has taken a huge hit, however you cut it.
>
> On 6/5/20 4:32 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> > The NY Times op ed from Tom Cotton named "Send in the troops" has caused
> a bit of a controversy, even inside the NY Times
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html
> >
> > The NY Times is trying to represent the whole spectrum of politically
> significant opinions. If they only print opinions that fit to one worldview
> they are making propaganda. If they publish all kinds of opinions, they may
> support fascism, authoritarianism or racism.
> >
> > How do you solve this dilemma? Did they fall into a trap now because
> they have supported the rise of fascism by printing this opinion, as Jason
> Stanley, the author of "How fascism works" says?
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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