> The idea that there should be no consequences for spewing vitriol and using lies to back it up is insane.
Is that what we have? Michael Richards seems to have seen consequences for vitriol. Tom Brokaw literally lost money due to broadcasting gross speculation.
Maybe those sorts of things should be more common?
Sure, those are examples, however what about people like rush limbaugh? Michael richards should be in trouble for what he did and he suffered the consequences, but somebody like rush limbaugh has an active listener base where he essentially lies about every group under the sun and there are no consequences. Here is his Wikipedia page which lists all his views, many of which are just abhorrent and factually incorrect (he doesn't belief that we damaged the ozone layer, this is a non political example)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh
And there was the pedophile ring pizzeria conspiracy theories floating around a few years ago that had real consequences not just for the politicians implicated but the pizzeria owner themselves
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
It doesn't seem like there were consequences for any of these the people who spread lies (in pizzagate people were arrested, but not the spreaders of the rumors).
Imo, we should be intolerant of the intolerant as they say. I have nothing against obscene language, pornographic ideas, dark humor, etc. But speech has influence and the second speech is used to infringe on the rights of people, it should really be stamped out.
I've seen some names you've named, and I don't like or follow those individuals, but I assume you don't like what they have to say.
So as a thought experiment, ask yourself, is there anyone you like and follow that you believe is feeding you misinformation? Or are you the only person that is not basing your worldview on misleading information (or, maybe not alone, but others very much like you)?
If the answer is no (and how could it be otherwise) then you start to see the problem: where is the practical distinction between people spreading misinformation and people simply disagreeing with you? In every disagreement over fact, one person is wrong. One person is basing their view on some flawed premise or information. How is banning misinformation any different, tangibly, than banning dissent?
I don't like what they have to say because its inherently not fact based. I am totally susceptible to bias and I do not claim to be otherwise, but there are certain ground rules we can set. Rush Limbaugh always starts off his rants and problematic messages with straight up incorrect statements. As in statements that are verifiably false. He then constructs arguments around these false ideas. The issue is, to the average viewer its difficult to know that those ideas are false (how are you gonna do that after working for 40+ hours a day doing manual labor, commuting, cooking, taking care of a kid, etc).
and now guess what, oklahoma for example is experiencing increasing covid cases and now local officials are advocating for lockdowns, which is something scientists were advocating from the start. He was clearly wrong, however people DO listen to him. I know because I've lived with people who do and think he knows everything.
We even have a president who dog whistled a terror plot against the governor of Michigan. Trump is a white supremacist and white supremacism is inherently a non fact based ideological stance, yet it leads to stuff like the terror plot.
I am advocating for clamping down of purposeful disinformation. America itself knows how powerful purposeful disinformation is given its experiences with it during the cold war. What we should probably do is punish purposeful disinformation that has an intent to harm a specific group, the general public, or for the gain of an entity at the expense of the public (tobacco companies and polluters come to mind here. Lots of disinformation regarding health effects). Its generally very difficult to prove things like hate crimes (which the spreading of disinformation to harm a group is) and even cases like the michael richards incident wouldn't involve a punitive action. He was angry because he was bombing his set and said something wrong out of a moment frustration. He might truly be racist (or not, who knows other than him), but he doesn't seem to be actively working to advance his life at the expense of other's. He didn't actively work to disenfranchise a group of people, unlike people like David Duke who actively works to disenfranchise specific groups of people and has never suffered the consequences of it in America (he went to jail for tax fraud, but not for his awful actions funnily enough).
Well you didn't answer my questions, which is OK, you appear to be partisan, which is also OK. What you're advocating I very much disagree with, even though I'm not sympathetic to any of the names you named I think it is very short sighted to advocate restricting speech of any kind and will inevitably lead to victimization of more people than any speech could. Also, particularly, I think classifying any sort of speech as a hate crime like you have done is irresponsible at the very least.
> We even have a president who dog whistled a terror plot against the governor of Michigan. Trump is a white supremacist and white supremacism is inherently a non fact based ideological stance, yet it leads to stuff like the terror plot.
It wasn’t a white supremacist plot. It was a bunch of anarchists (notice the flag in the background) who think Trump is a tyrant[1], who hate the police and everything related to the government and one of them even attended a blm rally.
> One of alleged plotters, 23-year-old Daniel Harris, attended a Black Lives Matter protest in June, telling the Oakland County Times he was upset about the killing of George Floyd and police violence." [2]
A good example of how every side has its disinformation.
Is that what we have? Michael Richards seems to have seen consequences for vitriol. Tom Brokaw literally lost money due to broadcasting gross speculation.
Maybe those sorts of things should be more common?