Cav's Place

With this topic being so frequently brought up lately, including by some who are worse threats to it than those they claim to want to defend it from, I’ll just quickly state my position once again. I did it last week as well and this post isn’t exactly meant to be more detailed, but it is meant to deal with the matter itself, and also with some of the disappointing messages some of the activists I deal with have posted recently.

To make matters clear from the beginning, my position is that freedom of expression, in any form, needs to be pretty much unlimited when it comes to opinions, no matter how wrong, immoral, unethical, offensive, insulting, blasphemous, shocking, extremist or appalling others consider those opinions to be. In turn, said “others” obviously have the same right to express their opposition to said opinions, which will simply lead to a public debate, no matter how heated. And to clarify it even further, yes, this means I definitely extend freedom of expression not only to any kind of humor or lampooning, no matter how crude or harsh, but also to things like supporting harmful behaviors or discrimination, including actual hate speech, and have in the past spoken out against attempts to censor opinions that I myself vehemently opposed.
As I have stated in that previous post as well, if those opinions turn into actual actions, are used to create laws or regulations, or are otherwise imposed upon others, an entirely different set of rules applies, as that has nothing to do with one’s right to simply have and express an opinion. In addition, if a person claims that what they are expressing is a fact, not merely an opinion, then action may be taken against them if they persist in doing so after their claim is proven false, or obviously if it is proven that they knew it was false in the first place. But as long as it remains within the confines of expressing a personal opinion, there should be no real limits and all I can say to anyone bothered by this is that they should grow some thicker skin.
Obviously, that applies to those expressing such opinions in equal measure, since if anyone has the right to express any opinion, anyone who disagrees with it has the same right to express that opposition as well, including by calling it ridiculous or by saying those who believe it to be true are fucking morons or even need to die, for example. Nobody should have the right to kill or otherwise take action against another for an opinion any more than anyone should have the right to take action against another solely on the basis of their religion, sex, sexual orientation, race, nationality or any other such traits, but anyone who believes this should happen should be free to express said opinion and anybody else should be free to express theirs about it, and about them and their traits.

To add a personal example, I’ll remind you that my opinion is that human overpopulation is by far the world’s worst problem, having a child under the current circumstances is the worst single crime anyone may commit and no other major environmental or social issue may be solved without first drastically reducing the population, most preferably not by killing people or allowing them to die unnecessarily due to lack of access to needed resources or services, but by drastically limiting the number of births by any means necessary to the minimum needed to avoid a genetic bottleneck and carefully selecting those few who’d still be allowed to breed according to objective criteria meant to ensure the improvement of the human race without sacrificing diversity. Needless to say, expressing such a wildly unpopular opinion tends to be a bit of a problem, to put it mildly, and I have even been told that I need to be killed for it. However, I for one would never call for action to be taken against another for merely speaking out against this opinion of mine or against me for having it.
In fact, when I do end up detailing my view of what should be done when it comes to this, I even make sure to specify that even after the whole system required to solve this problem will be put in place and set in motion, people should still have every right to speak out and protest against it. The limit is obviously, as I keep saying, if it’ll go beyond expressing an opinion, as anybody trying to modify the laws in ways that’d make such a system less effective or less just, plus of course anyone trying to get around it and have unapproved children, should be dealt with most harshly, and I am known to use the phrase “get medieval on their ass” to describe what I mean by that, to be made an example to all who’d think of doing the same. But as long as it’s merely expressing an opinion, whether it’s done now when it’s the prevailing one or if it’ll be done in a hypothetical future when mine would be, there should be absolutely no restrictions or penalties… Just like I sure hope there won’t be for expressing mine.

But I was saying this was meant as a quick post and I got a bit carried away with it already despite not exactly saying anything new… Plus that I did bring up the overpopulation issue and, as it always happens, got even more carried away the moment I did that, so I’d better end this now, before I completely lose focus and switch topics.
The bottom line is that thoughts can’t be restricted, and definitely shouldn’t be even if this would be possible. And if people think, they should be able to express those thoughts completely freely as well, without fearing any reprisals other than others expressing their own in return. There can be no limits, no taboos, no censorship when it comes to this, and this is something that probably the large majority of those who claim to fight for rights and freedoms, including most of those who honestly believe they truly do so, still need to learn.