Free Speech Rights Protect US from YOUR Feelings. That is the point, that there are certain freedoms and entitlements that cannot be inhibited, denied, or revoked based on how you feel about something.People often say that our freedoms dont end where your feelings begin but in truth our rights begin the moment you get offended. Think about it, we don't need to enshrine speech rights for speech that everyone agrees with because it faces no threat. But speech that is disagreeable is constantly under threat so we decided to codify our right to self expression and speech so that YOUR feelings would not prevent dialectic and our right to express our emotions.DISCLAIMER: Incitement, Threats, Libel, Slander, are not free speech and cross the boundaries of self expression. SUPPORT JOURNALISM. Become a patron athttp://www.patreon.com/TimcastMy Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnewsMake sure to subscribe for more travel, news, opinion, and documentary with Tim Pool everyday.Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Count Dankula has lost another battle, but the war is far from over.
If you've been following me on YouTube and Twitter, then you probably know exactly who Count Dankula is.
But if you are new to this, the quick background is that he is a Scottish comedian and YouTuber who made a video where he taught his girlfriend's dog to salute the Nazis and respond to gas the Jews.
It was intended as a joke, and he described the Nazis as the least adorable thing he could think of.
He was arrested, charged, and convicted of being grossly offensive.
He was ordered to pay a fine of £800.
This took over two years of his life.
And where we are right now?
The sentence was just handed a few days ago.
But the war is far from over because Count Dankula is appealing.
Now, if you do know all of this, then let me explain what the point of this video is beyond Count Dankula.
A lot of people seem to not understand what free speech really means.
Many people on the left conflate the First Amendment with free speech.
The First Amendment protects free speech, it is not free speech.
But even then, I often hear advocates of free speech say, and I also feel that this statement is kind of off-base.
Because, specifically, my rights begin exactly where you get offended.
Before we get started, make sure you go to youtube.com forward slash TimCast if you're
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But today's video is going to be more of my personal take and my personal opinion on the last little bits of coverage that I did in London and even here in the U.S.
commenting on the Dankula case.
But first, what is a right?
Well, according to Wikipedia, rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement.
That is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people.
According to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory, rights are of essential importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.
Rights are often considered fundamental to civilization, for they are regarded as established pillars of society and culture.
And the history of social conflicts can be found in the history of each right and its development.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived.
Why do we have rights?
Well, I'm sure a historian, an anthropologist, someone who is much better learned than me will give you some more specific examples.
But rights exist to protect us, to say that we are entitled or free to do a certain thing, or to believe a certain thing, or to exist.
The idea of rights protect individuals from things the greater society may or may not agree with, or that more extreme or more fringe individuals may or may not agree with.
You don't need a fundamental right, you don't need rights enshrined in law, if everyone agrees they're okay.
So when it comes to free speech, it is not about where my freedom ends and where your feelings begin.
As I said, people have often stated, my freedoms don't end where your feelings begin.
But the better way to say it is that my rights begin exactly where your feelings also begin.
Because if I were to say something that was not controversial and was at risk of offending basically no one, why would I need to protect my right?
Why would I need to establish that I'm allowed to say it if everyone agrees that I can say it anyway?
If I said something like, I don't like pineapple on pizza, a lot of people are gonna laugh.
A lot of people are going to say, who cares?
That doesn't offend anybody.
You don't like pineapple on pizza?
So what?
Now, that's a meme, and some people might pretend to be offended, but the reality is you can basically say that almost anywhere, and the worst reaction you're going to get is, why?
I like it.
Why don't you like it?
No one's gonna care.
Do you need to enshrine a right to freedom of speech when you say something as non-controversial as your preference for pizza?
No, you don't.
But what about when you say something that is controversial that will offend someone?
That is why we decided free speech is a right.
Because your right to free speech starts As soon as one person gets offended.
And the reason we call it free speech, the freedom of speech, is because someone who gets offended by what you say, who is bothered by what you say, will take action against you, potentially take action against you, to silence what you are going to say.
In which case, we, as a Western society, have decided that sometimes, in fact most of the time, someone will be bothered by a phrase uttered by an individual, Be it intentional or not, in which case we must protect people's right to say things because people get offended.
When you say something like, I like dogs, or I hate cats, most people, even those who love cats, aren't going to be too bothered by the fact that you personally don't like cats.
But insert some protected or marginalized group and all of a sudden you've got a wave of offended people demanding you be arrested because you said something that was grossly offensive, as we saw in the Count Dankula case.
In which case, your rights kick in.
The government, of the United States at least, can't arrest you or inhibit you in any way for saying something that would bother someone else.
In fact, that's how we come to better understand the world, by saying things that probably bother a lot of people.
In fact, if you go and look at Congress, and how they bicker amongst each other, they're probably offending each other non-stop.
Could you imagine if they got arrested because they were saying things that someone else didn't want to hear?
It wouldn't work.
In which case we said, well...
We can't control how people feel, but we need to make sure that there is a right enshrined in our Constitution saying that people can speak about ideas that may or may not be controversial.
Otherwise, you might piss off the government, and the government will come and shut you down.
So let's have something that says the government can't do that.
Unfortunately, private companies don't necessarily work that way, and apparently the UK doesn't either.
I feel pretty fortunate.
The United States has the First Amendment.
But, now let's talk about another misconception.
The First Amendment is not free speech.
The First Amendment protects free speech from the government.
You may have seen this comic, shared time and time again from XKCD, where it says, Public Service Announcement, the right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say.
Absolutely wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, naive and ignorant.
Second panel, it doesn't mean that anyone else has to listen to your BS or host you while you share it.
Now, that's true!
No one has to listen to you, and no one has to host you when you say things they don't like.
For sure.
Then it says, the First Amendment doesn't shield you from criticism or consequences.
Well, hold on.
You were talking about the right to free speech, not the First Amendment.
Those are two entirely different things.
He then says, if you are yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated.
Yes, they are.
Absolutely.
But that has nothing to do with the First Amendment, because the First Amendment protects you from the government.
It doesn't have anything to do with your right to free speech that we agree upon as a society outside of law.
He then says, it's just that people listening think you're an a-hole, and they're showing you the door.
This comic conflates the First Amendment with free speech.
But let's take a look at the First Amendment and talk about what exactly it is.
Amendment number one.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
So right away, number one, freedom of religion.
Or abridging the freedom of speech.
Right, this is saying the government can't abridge freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech already exists.
The government can't abridge it.
Or of the press, the right to be a journalist and to produce news media.
Or the right of the people, peaceably, to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment covers many things, of which the government shall not pass a law abridging freedom of speech.
In which case, they recognize freedom of speech already exists.
So this comic by XKCD, 100% incorrect, and is confusing the issue.
And people share it time and time again as an excuse to say, just because Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or whoever, is telling you you're not allowed to speak, they're not violating your free speech because the First Amendment only protects you from the government, but we're not talking about the government, we're talking about a fundamental principle that human beings have a right to express their feelings without being shut down.
So no, this comic is not a good example.
It confuses the issue and is dead wrong.
But now let's get to the more troubling aspect of the free speech issue as it pertains to the United Kingdom.
In the U.S., we have hate crime laws.
Hate crime laws are all about the motivation for committing a crime.
According to Google, a hate crime is a crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically involving violence.
So what that basically means is that if you commit a crime, and you were driven to do so because you were prejudicial, that would be a hate crime.
However, in the United Kingdom, when we look at what happened with Count Dankula, the crime is the hate.
Now again, I'll clarify.
In the United States, if you commit a crime and it was motivated by hate, you're in trouble.
In the UK, if you do anything and you hate, you have committed a crime.
And I'll give you an example.
At the protest, someone asked one of the police officers that if someone said something, would that be a crime?
And the police officer said something to the effect that we have to take hate crimes seriously.
unidentified
These far-left gangs, these far-left protest groups, I know for years, ever since during the late 2000s and throughout the 90s, they've been pressuring the police, people like you, to take action against people that they deem as hate speech.
But let's be honest, of course I know that.
And now let's take a look at what happened with Count Dankula.
What's particularly scary about what's happened in the UK is that Count Dankula had no criminal intent.
And now let's take a look at what happened with Count Dankula.
What's particularly scary about what's happened in the UK is that Count Dankula had no criminal
intent.
In fact, he was mocking the Nazis.
He specifically stated his side of the issue was that they are the least adorable thing
possible and the context was important as to what he was saying.
However, the courts disagreed and context didn't matter because he said something that was considered offensive.
To who?
I don't know, but at least one person's going to be offended by something, in which case the courts decided to punish him.
There was no intent here.
Free speech is important because if someone stood up tomorrow and said, our government is corrupt and needs to be changed, the government would say, that is sedition.
That is terrible speech and shouldn't be allowed.
If someone came out tomorrow and said, white men are doing this, that, and this, then a lot of people would be offended and be angry that someone said that.
In fact, Facebook actually says that white men are a protected class now because of these same arguments.
If you want to challenge an existing power structure, be prepared to offend those in power.
In which case, if you criminalize offense, You are never going to overthrow tyranny.
And the powers that be will continue to thrive because you, yourself, have argued for the illegality of your own argument.
Take, for instance, this post that I saw on Twitter.
He said, The far right is using freedom of speech to forward their agenda of hate.
I don't care whether it's a joke or not.
There is no context that makes, quote, gas the Jews, end quote, Acceptable.
My response was, what about the context you just used it in?
If you think there is no context that makes the phrase acceptable, then you're criticizing yourself.
So let's think about the idea of a hate crime.
In the UK, it has become a crime to say something with hate.
In which case, it is a crime to express your hate In public, on video, over the internet, and Count Dankula was arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced even though he didn't actually express any hate.
Think about how dangerous that actually becomes.
It's one thing if an individual decides to say that I hate this group of people.
I hate so-and-so.
Okay, we recognize that.
And then they say disparaging things about that group.
In the United States, we say, well, you're allowed to experience hate.
Hate is a real emotion that humans have, and it is terrifying to think that people would not be allowed to express their feelings.
Think about a world where you weren't allowed to say what you didn't like.
That'd be pretty scary.
What's even scarier is that Count Dekulit didn't even hate anybody.
It was just the sentence he used, the string of words, to some people, out of context, would be considered hateful, in which case he is being punished for it.
What that means is that if context doesn't matter, Everyone is going to say something offensive, and you have just empowered your government to arrest anyone at any time for words they say.
Another example is the woman who was guilty of racist snapdog rap lyric Instagram post.
Well, the headline is actually incorrect.
It wasn't an Instagram post.
She posted lyrics in her Instagram profile.
Just, you know, when you go on Instagram, there's some words?
That's where she put it.
And what she put wasn't even offensive by any standard except the courts.
Liverpool Justice Centre, sitting at Sefton Magistrates Court, heard Russell posted the lyrics to her account after the death of a 13-year-old in a road incident in 2017.
This is rather incorrect.
Because, as we learned, is that the word she posted ended with the letter A, and not with the letter ER.
In which case, the rapper was using a common deviation of an old slur in a different context.
And that the context here was that it was not using the hard ER.
It was not directed as a slur.
And even though rapper Jay-Z in front of thousands of people at the Gladstonbury Festival said the same word, it doesn't matter.
Even though this woman was trying to pay tribute to a child who died, she was posting something respectful, a word used very commonly in rap lyrics, a word you will hear non-stop Every day, time and time again, if you live in a major city, is considered grossly offensive because the courts decided it was, even though the context of it was actually compassion.
The context of this speech was more than a joke, was more, much more than hate.
It was compassion.
It was someone saying, these lyrics are in tribute to someone who died.
And even though this word is used as a term of endearment among many friends in many urban environments, the courts decided it was offensive.
In which case, even expressing compassion has become illegal, if the court says it is, in the United Kingdom.
She was given an eight-week community order placed on an eight-week curfew.
I hope the shield that is the First Amendment will always be there to protect us so that we can express our feelings without being charged by the government to silence shutdown in any way.
Unfortunately, public discourse, dialectic, and debate are happening on private platforms that have determined you do not have a right to say whatever you want.
You do not have a right to express yourself.
And this is very dangerous because people are self-censoring.
And it's going to be very much like that episode of Doctor Who.
Are you a fan of Doctor Who?
There's an episode where they go to a colony where all the robots are smiling.
And as soon as you don't smile, the robots kill you.
Because the robots don't want anyone to feel sad.
And if you're sad, you might make someone else sad.
And that's a terrifying vision of the future that we're facing if everyone is forced to put on a fake smile and pretend like nothing bothers them.
YouTube won't allow it, Facebook won't allow it, Twitter won't allow it, and the United Kingdom has already decided that as a Western nation, they will charge, they will convict, and they will sentence you for saying words that even if are intended to be compassionate, it doesn't matter, because they wield the sword, and you will be punished if they decide you will be.
Granted, the UK is not the US.
But the reason I bring this up is that we have to pay attention to what's happening to our neighbors overseas because we share a lot of our culture.
A lot of things that happen in Europe happen here, too.
You know, the Industrial Revolution happened there first.
The Beatles were from the UK.
We share a lot of our culture.
And it's scary to think that there are advocates in the United States arguing that political correctness expands free speech.
Or that hate speech should not be protected.
So let me reiterate the first point that I made in this video.
My rights start as soon as you become offended.
And that's why they are rights enshrined in our Constitution.
And that's why we accept them as rights.
Because there are some things that will bother some people, but you can't tell me I'm not allowed to feel.
You can't tell me I'm not allowed to express myself.
And heaven forbid the government ever come to my house, arrest me, and lock me up because someone didn't like the words that came out of my mouth.
Non-controversial speech doesn't need to be protected because no one is going to threaten it.
But controversial speech is necessary if we are going to progress as a society and grant rights to people who did not have rights in the past.
And if the government is the arbiter of what is offensive and what isn't, then we are all doomed because the government will never cede power.
They will simply arrest you for sedition.
They will say that you offended someone somewhere, somehow.
And that what you said is dangerous and you aren't allowed to say it.
And this is why the founding fathers decided a long time ago we needed the right to not only express ourselves, but of the press, to make sure the ideas can be shared, and of our right for a redress of grievances with the government if they act in such a way that we deem problematic.
So let me know what you think!
To reiterate one more time, a right is there to make sure that no matter who gets bothered, they can't stop you.
You have a right to exist.
You have fundamental human rights, of which speech and expression are one of the most important.
Your ability to feel, to tell people how you feel.
I do not want to live in a world where I am told I cannot hate.
Hate's a negative emotion.
We don't like it.
It's actually pretty crummy to hate.
But it's a real thing.
And we all hate certain things, and hate is a natural part of our existence.
So is love.
We want to encourage love.
We want to encourage compassion.
But we also want to make sure that when people do feel hate, we can address what they hate and why.
Properly.
Sometimes people hate things for really stupid reasons, and it doesn't make sense, and we say, that's not a good idea, go away.
But oftentimes people hate things justly.
They hate terrible people, and they hate terrible governmental policies.
I hate what the UK has done to Count Dankula, and I want to express that in no uncertain terms, because I will never want to live in a world where you told me I'm not allowed to say hate, because the act, the speech that someone commits in the UK is the crime.
If you said something, that's not a crime.
If you say you like something, that's not a crime.
But if you express hate through your words, they have determined that is a hate crime.
And that is scary.
While I don't like to make overtly opinionated videos like this, this one is much too important.
Because what I do in my quest to better understand the world and to engage in a dialectic with people who disagree with me and who I disagree with, freedom of speech and the press are paramount.
And I need to be able to say certain things and to be able to challenge certain things.
And if you want people to understand who is good and who is bad, then that speech needs to be in the sunlight so we can see it and understand what we like or don't like.
