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As much as I love that people are opening and are shown affect and caring by other users, I believe the whole "debating" part of Serious Discussion has been quite dead, and I have seen some people feel worried about that.

What is this thread? What is its objective?
In this thread I will put topics that I feel are worthy of debate for people to do just that, and hopefully get some good arguments, some good exchange of opinions and some good progress on the subjects themselves. I will update this weekly, but if I see that the debate is still going on, I am just gonna wait until it stops before proposing a new subject.
What I want with this is revive the people's intrest in expressing their opinions about polemic or complex subjects, because I personally believe that is the best way to get closer to a solution.

For a reason of trust and respect in you, I am NOT going to put rules for the debate. We know they are, and I am very optimistic right now. Just to remind you, all rules that apply to the rest of the forums apply here. If I see that people are not respecting them (or if I see that a lot of people want me to do so), I will post them, but for now I have a lot of trust that won't happen.

Also, your opinion is always apriciated. Nobody is going to insult you or laught at you because of your opinion, you can be sure about that. It is always good to express what you think, and you should never feel intimidated by longer or apparently better formed posts, because your opinion is just as right as they are.

So that's it! I will move on with this week's subject:

After the protest of the Westboro Church in a funeral of fallen in war (read this for more information), a discussion was born. Do you think there should be a limitation of freedom of speech? What is the limit between freedom of speech and verbal abuse? When should the State interfiere, if it should at all?

Also I apologize if you find any grammar mistakes, my English is not precisely top notch.
Thanks to Venexis for the support!

EDIT: Also, if you have any suggestions for a topic, just PM me.

CURRENT DEBATE:
Do you think traditions are necesary/beneficial for a society? Which kinds of traditions should be kept/updated/remvoed, if at all??

Topic proposed by Raz, thanks Razzy!



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~Doram

I don't care what people believe or think about these more controversial subjects. Just don't say it if it's going to horribly slander someone or a group of people. What people need to learn is how to respect the beliefs of others -- freedoms and rights are not free passes to attack and bash everyone else. I understand that drawing the line is difficult. It really depends on the situation. If it goes so far as to attempt to convert someone's personal values, there's something wrong. If it's an emotional attack aiming to vilify and degrade another group/individual, it needs to be stopped. Plain ignorance and stupidity is irritating, but it's usually coming from a defensive position rather than offensive. Obviously, the government can't supervise everything at once (well, maybe it can), so I'm thinking in the mindset of a justice/jury member if a case is taken that far. The whole Westboro snafu is far ahead of any line that could be drawn and definitely deserved the attention it got. I personally think that the verdict was fair considering the questionable wording, even though it goes against my moral values. More importantly, this is how changes are made. Everyone (in the US) knows about the Miranda case. He was let go (at first), but the whole thing spawned a landmark change to the way law enforcement works. That's what this new case seems to have sparked. In the future, these issues can hopefully be resolved rightfully, or prevented entirely.

Sometimes it's tough to find a good inbetween when it comes to freedom of speech. Hard to know how much freedom is too much.

Even though there is that section in the first amendment that does not consider libel or hate speech as free speech, sometimes (like in the case of Westboro Baptist) it's hard to say whether we need to limit it or keep it as is. If freedom of speech is limited, people will obviously start getting angry about it, and believe me, there are a lot of people who would rather keep free speech as is rather than limit it. On the other hand though, Westboro Baptist Church gets away with borderline hate speech simply because they've protested at many other funerals before this one. Maybe not as close to hate speech as some may believe, but what they say out there does negatively affect the people they protest against.

Of course, the things they protest for/against are a part of their beliefs, but the way they convey those beliefs causes emotional distress for people who just want to bury their deceased loved ones in peace.

Again, it's hard to say, as I for one would hate to have my freedom of speech to be taken away, but it's hard to see people get away with the stupidest things, and emotionally hurting others in the process. That poem they wrote though, that ♥♥♥♥'s awful, as it was much more direct. It's bad enough they cause a lot of grief as it is, they had to go and intrude on their own personal matters.

Still torn between the two though...

It's impossible to draw every line by law - so many problems would be fixed by mere common sense.

People picketing a funeral and disrespecting nearly every boundary present? Law said it was fine, common sense said it was absurd. The government's solution? Instate more laws.

<3 lordpat, I love you~

But uh, pretty sure this was a topic in chat a while back, and I pretty much gave my opinion on it then. Still, I really want this topic to do well (Serious Discussion needs more discussion, people), so I might as well record it here too.

Basically, the whole US freedom of speech thing seems a little strange from my perspective as a Canadian. It seems just about anything besides physical violence is allowed for a "protest group" like the WBC- police don't seem to be able to get involved, regardless of how offensive and disrespectful they are. End of discussion. Here, our freedom of speech laws are slightly different:

A case in Alberta challenged the violation of freedom of expression and an issue of group libel. James Keegstra, an antisemite, taught Holocaust denial to schoolchildren in Alberta—in which Keegstra challenged his violation of new freedom of expression. Keegstra was convicted and prosecuted for violation of the laws of group libel which promotes the disadvantage of unequal groups through hate propaganda. Similar to white supremacy, antisemitism promotes inequality of Jews based on religion and ethnicity.

Hey, I live there. And actually know about this. What a perfect example.

So basically what happened was, a teacher tried to use his position to spread his belief in an international Jewish conspiracy, the goal of which was to destroy Christianity and establish a world government. When taken to court, tried to claim that he was entirely within his right to freedom of speech- despite intentionally trying to promote hatred.

There's very clear parallels to the actions of the WBC here, and yes, having the law intervene would ultimately be a form of censorship. I very strongly believe it's justifiable, though. Freedom of speech should only extend to the point at which it does not threaten or discriminate against another human being, in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

And there you have it. If everyone has the right to security of the person (that is, the right to interact on a daily basis without attacks that would otherwise damage their physical or mental well-being), an organization such as the WBC should not be able to negatively impact the the mental state of others by willfully disrupting a funeral with hate speech. By all means they should have the right to think whatever they wish, and discuss it in a private location. As soon as it's done with direct malicious intent, though, it is an attack on the right to security of the person- and a blatant violation of the rights and freedoms inherent to every person.

Sorry for not updating this. It is not that I forgot or anything, I am just trying to think of good themes.

Anyway, right into it:

Illuminist see reason as the ideal. However, after the World Wars, people started to doubt about reason, seeing how so much progress also meant so much destruction. Do you think reason will take us to a better place?

This question, standing on by itself, sounds somewhat odd. You seem to regard reason as a factor that propells the need to invest on technology, which on its turn, caused the creation of more efficient weaponry, ultimately leading to mass destruction devices. Next, by declaring the full development of reason as the epithome of Illuminist ideals, you indirectly link the rising of this train of thought to the consequences that great conflicts in between developed countries brought.

First off, illuminist ideals came to fruition on a moment in which the standard European ideal was composed of conservative principles, all the way to the extreme scenario in which the Church had a greater influence over territories and a distribution of power than feuds. Still, depicting religious beliefs by themselves at the other side of the scales either then or today is a completely erroneous statement. Illuminism did not question a specific set of dogmas in benefit of another, it questioned the whole system of unconditional acceptance of acquired information, which happens even today - such as when a person does not cite the sources of the references of a research or does not question a possibly incoherent information on a lecture.

For the contemporary generation, reason is often defined as a cold manner of depicting the world and taking other people's feelings and achievements on today's microscopic point of view of society for granted, and emotion the ability to connect and feel empathy toward people, ideals and even animals. Applying such anthetical views to the common attitude of leaders and subordinates alike, to justify the need of a wide change of absolute attitudes to the latter, using casualties and cultural losses as a catalyst, doesn't seem only illogical, but also incorrect.

By the time the twentieth century had begun, most of the Americas had achieved political independence over their former metropolises, most of the African territory was already under influence of pioneering European nations, as well as select territories in Asia and Oceania. That, however, happened before emerging European countries had a chance to exert colonial or trading activities. Additionally, those activities, as well as expansionist and nationalistic policies, such as the Russian interest over a territory beside the southern seas that made the creation of alliance groups relevant on that moment. What's more, the increase in military investments was a way to intimidate rival potencies and delay the warfare's beginning. Lastly, the progress of military technologies on the second war resulted in a number of casualties far inferior to that of the first, and even the deaths of both World Wars were less than those during the American Civil War.

Greater or not, however, the deaths of a thousand times less people than that would still be unacceptable by today's values, or those of a century ago.

And that, in my opinion, is the true issue.

Neither irrational values nor a completely objective mindset, by themselves, will possibly lead us to a better scenario in reality. And, even if the equilibrium of such ways was achieved, the means of achieving progress, as well as our concept of progress itself, could lead us closer to a dystopian world.

How, then, could we take advantage of a balance between ideologies to do the right change in both society and the whole civilization?

Reason can destroy us, or benefit us. It's all up to us.

Best answer EU

If people were to use their heads and understand the meaning of reason, they wouldn't have had to go through that much damn destruction unless if it was dedicated towards Nazi Germany's regime and attempting to dethrone Hitler.

Regardless, reason needs to be interpreted to the point where it does not cause conflict. Otherwise it's not reason. Sure one can say that America was only involved in WWII because of oil and Japan and not because of Hitler, but in all honesty WWII gave nobody progress. It destroyed Germany and left millions of Jews dead, it hurt France, I'm surprised it didn't destroy America itself, it hurt Japan and forced open trade, it killed many Russian soldiers, etc.

How can this question be answered without reason? Reason may have caused much sorrow and destruction, but that is only because of how others have chosen to use their reasoning (or lack thereof). Without reasoning, the wheel would be as far away as time travel. Only with reason can we improve. It is because of reason that we see destruction as bad. This is a thought process in our current situation, in which mankind has reasoning capacity:

My friend has fallen gravely ill, and this gives me great grief. What if my friend passes away, and I never see him again? I want to go visit him and talk to him, maybe try to console him, and assure him that he's likely to get better. However, his condition is very contagious, so this is out of the question, unless I wish to fall ill myself. Maybe I should write him a letter. Yes, that's what I'll do. I will write my friend a very heartfelt letter about how much I miss him and how worried I am. I'll go and get the necessary materials right now.

This is a though process in a hypothetical situation in which mankind does not have reasoning capacity:

I AM HUNGRY. I NEED FOOD. I SEE AN ANIMAL. I WILL TRY AND KILL IT, AND THEN I WILL EAT IT.

Reason may have seemed to cause destruction, but it is also why we see destruction in such a negative light. Reasoning, when used properly, is not only one of mankind's most powerful weapons and most useful tools, but also the basis of most of mankind's other weapons and tools.