Anybody speak Maori ? What does tatau tatau mean ? I thought tatau meant tattoo ?
…to my eternal shame I’m not fluent in either Maori or Samoan, despite my mum being Maori and my dad being Samoan. My understanding is that in this context it means “all of us.” You can hear it here, in a very famous Maori folk song, with translation:
Its also a word in Samoan, with a more complicated meaning, that includes tattoo.19 minutes. This board is awesome.
I think, in context, that it’s an abbreviated restatement in Maori of the “We are one, they are us” idea.
The Maori phrase “Tūtira mai ngā iwi, tātau, tātau” appears to mean to “come together as one”.
(Non-Maori speaker… so YMMV.)
ETA: D’oh, didn’t follow the Youtube link first. 
In the Mass shooting in at least one mosque, Christchurch NZ thread in MPSIMS, after post 64 and post 65, Loach moderated thus:
So, here it is.
My post 64 included the following:
That was in response to Gray Ghost’s post 61 in that thread.
I’ve snipped the majority of your post asahi, but you raise good points, and eloquently state your position. I accept that the issues you raise are potential downsides and risks of a permissive free speech position. I’d never claim that it was anything other than painful, difficult and messy.
I’m just not convinced that those downsides outweigh the benefits. Legitimise the ability to shut people up for the ideas they hold and neither you nor I can know where that leads.
The UN were not a million miles away from a resolution on the defamation of religion not so very long ago and there is no reason why it won’t be attempted again.
We are both liberal people I’m sure, we want equality, harmony and peace. In the current climate it is trivially easy for us to agree that far-right propaganda could be suppressed with a net reduction in the hate expressed. That’s very easy. And we can’t imagine how such a process could ever go wrong but the lawmakers of today are not the lawmakers of tomorrow and it is not a issue that exists in the realms of the abstract. (see the UN activities above)
What would Donald Trump have done had he had free reign to censor speech and ideas? What does Putin do now regarding criticism of the state? What did Islamic theocracies want to happen in the wake of the Danish cartoon incident?
You have to ask yourself what you would think of restrictions on what you want to say and you can’t comfort yourself with the thought that you have no ideas that could possibly be worth censoring. If you have any important thoughts at all (and you do) then you have thoughts that are dangerous to someone and you’d better hope that they don’t take a shine to your restrictions on free speech.
Free speech exists as a protection for the weak more than as an enabler for the strong. it helps more than it harms and we wouldn’t even be in the luxurious position of pondering and complaining about its misuse if we didn’t have it in the first place.
I’ll respond to this point particularly.
And it is also a perfectly natural reaction to want to shut up those who offend you or hate you in the short term and disregard the long term implications.
Also, I have been a target of terrorism. Not a general threat such as all British people were under during the IRA bombing campaigns or Islamist extremist attacks but a specific threat, checking under my car sort of threat. I still supported the right of free speech for those who would harm me then and I still do now.
I always think that sort are looking to use the court proceedings as a platform for their cause. Which, to my mind, is a good reason not to allow video/sound from the proceedings to be allowed. Text reporting fine, and of course there will be an official record in the court records, but we don’t have to help this asshat out with free access to mass media.
Rights are not unlimited. Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins. You’re not allowed to shout words in a crowd that will cause a stampeded or riot and thereby endanger people. Direct death threats to another human being are actionable.
As a start, I think we can argue for a restriction on free speech that advocates the elimination (i.e. death and extinction) of entire ethnic groups or religions, or advocates the subjugation of large categories of people, and the denial of historical instances of attempts to do just that because history shows that such attitudes are dangerous to other people.
Now, just what penalties should be for various levels of such speech, and for repeat offenses, can be debated.
I don’t think books like Mein Kampf should be banned, but I don’t think people should be encouraged to read them, either. They should be available for research purposes, not on the bestseller rack at the local store.
That’s a crock of shit.
While you’re at it, consider how you’ve contributed to the kind of propaganda I describe in post 200, how multiple people explicitly called you out on doing so, and consider whether your presence in this thread isn’t a gigantic fucking slap in the face, you expired jar of cheap mayonnaise.
I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t “lead” places in the way you think it does. Most european democracies have laws against holocaust denial; there has been no mission creep on these laws and people have not taken them as an excuse to pass further speech-limiting laws. Even in the case of anti-speech laws that we can all agree are pretty awful, like anti-blasphemy laws in Ireland or Canada, we have not seen similar mission creep - those laws are just bad all on their own. They don’t lead to further infringement. The lesson from recent history is simply not what you want to make it out to be. You talk about Putin - did his crackdown on journalism, protest, etc. stem from a gradual worsening of laws that infringed on free speech, or are they just things he did because he was an autocratic dictator and nobody would stop him?
The reality is that nobody advocates unfettered free speech. Even Hitchens supported and made use of libel/slander laws. Free speech is like bodily autonomy - unquestionably an important right to uphold and protect, but if I swing my fist into your face, we’re going to have a problem. The debate on “should we limit speech of type X” is not trivially resolved by shouting “Free speech!” louder.
Why “for research purposes”? and are you able to judge what is a genuine area of academic research and what is being done purely for personal interest? and why would that matter anyway?
Would you trust me to decide what books you, personally, should and shouldn’t have free access to?
I have great misgivings about the problematic writings in various other political and religious works. Happy to restrict those to research purposes only?
Exactly - good post.
The idea that taking away extreme speech leads to abuses of power is largely myth. If you look at the history of sedition laws, they come from a place in which authoritarianism has already been accepted to some degree. Restrictions against extremist speech don’t usually lead to a rise in authoritarianism; rather, it’s the reverse that usually occurs. Authoritarianism motivates those in power to restrict criticism, which leads to things like sedition laws or ‘anti-terrorism’ laws. Sure, things can go too far, but the imperative is to challenge ideas that foster authoritarianism more broadly.
You can also look at it from an utilitarian point of view : what is the societal value of allowing or defending the spread of false information ?
Not morally reprehensible ideas or sacrilegious ideas or ideas I don’t like (that’s an entirely different kettle of fish), nor fiction or parody clearly or implicitly labelled as such, but the spread of information that is factually, demonstrably incorrect and has been conclusively proven to be incorrect. Slander and libel is spreading damaging lies about people. Holocaust denial is spreading damaging lies about history. What is gained there ? Why should *that *be protected ?
Go one further, and you have the thorny issue of fake news. Not Fake News in the Trumpist sense of the word, that is to say “anything I don’t like” or “spin that looks bad for me”, but hoaxes. Things that are not true, events that did not happen but are purported to be, either out of ignorance or malevolence or plain not caring whether they’re true or false. Dancing Arabs on 9/11 for example. Or the Bowling Green Massacre. Or, to get away from politics, false advertising (which, to my knowledge, is also a form of speech that, even in that hallowed bastion of free speech that the US purports to be, is unlawful). To my mind, these kinds of speech are problematic because they corrode the fabric of ALL speech, not to mention waste everybody’s time. And the laissez-faire, libertarian argument of “oh but the marketplace of ideas and critical thinking and making one’s own research” demonstrably does NOT work, because while you and I and every other brainiac out there is naturally entirely immune to such false information (yes, that is sarcasm) there are plenty of subpar brains who ARE swayed by them. And those people vote at the very least. It can of course go even further - Pizzagate might very likely have (and still might) cost innocent people their lives. Antivaxxers are now a public health menace even to you or me or every other brainiac out there - not out of malice or hatred for us or their children, just because a kernel of dangerous assholes spread convincing lies to a passel of well-meaning albeit terminally uncritical people. And then there’s the climate change denial…
So why not collectively try and save ourselves by actively, officially stating that things that are demonstrably not true are, in point of fact, not true and that people who deliberately try and say that they are regardless should be discouraged from doing so in some way ? Freedom of opinion is contingent on freedom of speaking said opinions, but what’s the value of an opinion that is based on false facts ?
You mean it hasn’t lead there yet. And let’s both hope that you are right and I’m wrong. BTW, France did criminalise denial of of the Armenian Genocide but repealed it.
We certainly did see an attempt at mission creep with the proposed resolution in UN. it is only fought off by upholding the concept of free speech and don’t expect it to go away anytime soon.
You say “pretty awful”. I’m not convinced that anti-blasphemy laws are any different to holocaust-denial laws and nor might a ideologically-motivated executive.
I’m not sure concentrating on recent history tells us too much at all about where this leads. I certainly don’t think there is a single “lesson” that tells us how much suppression is too much. We’ve had centuries of free speech restrictions on ideas and opinions and only a fleeting glimpse of what it looks like when that is relaxed. I’m very wary of taking even a baby step backwards, I think we all should be.
The suppression of free speech is a tool employed as a means to silence criticism and jail dissenters as the leadership requires. It is a tool employed by despots the world over and to normalise its use by appealing to noble intentions leaves the way open for such as Putin’s egregious abuses.
There is a phenomenon in economics where the leap from “completely free” to “paying a nominal amount” is a much bigger hurdle than from “paying a nominal amount” to “paying a lot more”
Can we not agree that Russia would benefit from removing the current restrictions on free speech?
Language is broad, nuanced and complex. Your ideas can be distasteful or contrary but your rhetoric should be able to stretch to expressing yourself without straying into hate speech. If you cannot express your views without speaking hate, then it’s not your ideas we object to it’s the hate you want to spread.
In civilized nations with hate speech laws, usually the hate speaker gets a first pass on what they’ve said. The national dialogue now shifts to the veracity of the remarks. If it appears that it is inaccurate and designed to promote hate, it will be nationally reported exactly why it is grossly inaccurate and that person is warned to not be repeating it. (I believe this is so much more valuable to the citizens than just republication and encouragement for more and more outrageous, over the line sound bites.) Now the speaker can, of course, continue on with their viewpoint, but the spreading of known and demonstrated falsehoods, WILL be considered hate speech. They will have to use better language, not lies and misrepresentations.
Or you can watch your nation going off the rail while a guy is holding weekly rallies to spread hateful lies and gross misrepresentations, fanning intolerance and empowering white supremists etc, etc. Till he’s got those crowds frothing with righteous anger. If you can look at America today and not be a little frightened by the power of hate speech I think you’re not paying attention.
Every nation has the right to value free speech slightly differently. Full, unfettered, free speech isn’t looking all that attractive these days, in my opinion.
Sorry, perhaps I should have specified that I have no problems with people doing their own personal research for their own gratification, that I do not limit it to professionals.
Put a copy of Mein Kampf in the library, and a copy on Project Gutenberg, and I’m sure there will be copies in used bookstores (yes, they still exist) but I don’t see a need to print and publish new copies, advertise or promote it in any way, and certainly don’t see a need for anyone to profit off it. All profits that do arise from it should be donated to a worthy cause like, I dunno, Amnesty International or something.
I wouldn’t have a problem with any of that as a general principle, it allows access to anyone and no censorship is in place.
Is it mission creep, though? Did they bring up things like holocaust denialism as justification? Or is it just an attempt to restrict free speech that is basically completely unrelated? Serious question, it’s not very clear from the wikipedia article. Or is the argument that any law that would infringe on free speech that comes after another law, however unrelated, is somehow “mission creep” on the first law? Because that’s definitely not what I’m talking about and I’d reject that concept outright.
I’m not touching this paragraph with a 10-foot dildo in the shape of christ on the cross.
So do you oppose libel laws? Do you oppose laws against spreading ISIS propaganda? Do you oppose laws against false advertising? Laws against impersonation, stolen valor, etc.? Every single one of these laws restricts free speech. Every single one of these laws is “a step backwards”, as you might put it. And I don’t think anyone would honestly make the case that these laws aren’t important and valuable.
For some reason the page keeps crashing and taking my responses with me.
Why yes, restrictions on free speech can be poorly-crafted and abusable. Again, is there any evidence that well-crafted restrictions like bans on holocaust denial lead in that direction? At all? All available evidence is that it, in fact, does not. That’s just not how a breakdown of free speech rights in democratic society works.
But we’re already paying a nominal amount. I cannot impersonate you, cannot lie to you about what a product I’m selling can do, and cannot go on the news and accuse you of fucking your dog. All of these restrict my free speech, all of these are utterly uncontroversial.
Of course. Nobody disagrees with that. But that’s not just because Russia’s laws infringe on free speech. It’s mostly because they’re bad laws, written with the intent of squashing dissent by autocrats. There was no earnest weighing of public interest in allowing vs. disallowing dangerous speech; the goal upfront was to quash dissent. This is what makes them materially different from laws like those banning holocaust denial.
It’s not enough to just appeal to a reduction of free speech. We have plenty of laws that do that. You have to explain why that specific reduction isn’t worth the tradeoff we receive.
A lot of this argument over free speech is missing the point. It doesn’t matter if there’s no “slippery slope”. Banning the expression of certain ideas is already bad in and of itself, without it being relevant whether there will be any slippage down a slope.
The Hitchens video NB linked is spot on regarding this point; but for those disinclined to watch a twenty minute video, I’ll again quote the key sentences from the John Stuart Mill quote I referenced upthread:
So the main point is not the rights of the person or people expressing the offending opinion. Neither is it primarily about a slippery slope that might lead to “good” opinions being suppressed. It is simply the “clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
Here’s more Mill, fleshing out this notion:
And:
FYI, Canada repealed its blasphemy law last year and no one had been prosecuted under it for 90 years.
Well, aren’t you sweet? 
In all seriousness, though, this is a good illustration of what I’ve been talking about. BB has talked all kinds of shit to and about me over the years (despite the claim that they had been previously “playing nice” with me). I was not predisposed to expect any wisdom from one of their posts, certainly nothing that would make me reexamine in any significant way any of my beliefs. But no matter how worthless I may have found every single previous contribution from someone I encounter, I’m always open to the possibility, however remote, of finding something valuable in the next thing I read or hear from them. And that is what has happened here: I can’t criticize Australia barring Milo from entry based on his ideology and public statements, while supporting a ban on entry to the U.S. by conservative Muslims (FYI, I never had a problem with welcoming liberal/secular Muslims). So if I have to oppose both or support both, I choose opposition to both bans even if it is painful to do so.
That’s not a good example of what you’re talking about. Pizzagate (which you reference later in the post) would be much better.
[In my salad days in the late '90s, I lived in Jersey City–in fact, in the same Journal Square neighborhood where apparently both the original WTC bombers and then the hijackers lived. I never realized until just now that they were my neighbors! :eek: I took the PATH over to the WTC station every weekday for work. I wonder if I ever crossed paths with any of them.]