I agree that this is a confounding issue when we’re talking about rights. We Americans see Constitutional rights as something important enough to get tear-gassed over, to go to war over, and if it’s not a Constitutional right, then we go back to sleep.
But Scott Adams is an American, so when he talks about “freedom of speech” then we have to evaluate it in the context of Americans’ shared language and beliefs about rights. He’d like someone to go to war for him, or at least agree that this is worth going to war over. So that’s the first thing Americans have to adjudicate here - no, you don’t have a court case, nobody’s taking to the streets or getting teargassed over this. The “rights” in question aren’t that kind of right.
That does leave wide open the question of what sort of “right” has been violated, under what framework it was granted, and whether any kind of redress is appropriate. Is there any framework that says someone has a right to be published by someone else in exchange for money? I can’t think of one. Adams can still speak to whoever he wants, he still has myriad publishing options available to him. He’s obviously still speaking and we can all still hear him.
Has he lost some freedom of speech? Sure, I guess he has fewer degrees of freedom than he used to.
But have his actual rights been violated? He’s lost some privilege, for sure, but I can’t think of any framework where he’s actually lost rights, constitutional or otherwise.
Sure, so pointing out that his Constitutional right to freedom of speech has not been violated is perfectly correct. What’s not correct is implying that this is the absolute end of any freedom of speech debate.
I guess what we’d all like to know here is where you see that debate going here. Regarding “freedom of speech”, however you define it, what do you think Adams is owed, who do you think owes it to him, and why do you think that?
I have a weak devil’s advocate argument in that regard but I’m curious what you’re actually getting at here.
This conversation started in response to someone posting an xkcd coming with the usual Trope that a private entity can legally do what it wants and that’s the end of the discussion, that the norms of free speech in our society don’t matter.
Who said “all”? That’s just a straw man you’ve introduced to avoid being wrong-by-Wikipedia.
Look, in a sense this is just semantics. It’s just that what I see as the flawed semantics here actually leads to flawed thinking. No violation of Constitutional rights? Nothing to see here, no right existed.
it is surely true that Adams’ right to express his ideas freely has been severely curtailed by the actions of a large number of private entities and by society as a whole. And correctly so - but to suggest that it hasn’t happened just seems wrong to me.
Well, it seems to be implied by this, but I may have misread you:
His ability to express his ideas has certainly been limited, but to express it in terms of rights suggests that he’s lost that ability unjustly, and deserves some sort of remedy. The response to a violation of a right should never be, “Too bad, suck it.” It should be either an examination of why no right was actually implicated, or a restoration of the violated right.
If it was never a right, the concepts “just” and “unjust” simply do not apply.
I think he had the same right to express himself that we all have, and it was justly taken away by societal consensus - by violation of civilized norms that apply consistently to everyone.
Actually, I want to walk that back. That’s not quite right - for example, a prisoner’s rights are certainly violated by being placed in prison, but that’s a necessary violation for the protection of society.
I’ll have to work on that bit, but the rest of the post stands.
OK, so that’s a bit clarifying here. You believe Adams was owed something, and he forfeited it through his actions, and that people who behave differently actually are owed something. What are they owed, by whom, and why?
There is no right to shoot, only to own. If I had a right to shoot, then it would stand to reason that I should be provided with something to shoot with.
Same with the car. I have a right to travel, I don’t have a right to drive.
Did Hertz violate any of my rights for banning me just because I smoked and had my dogs in their rental cars? Nothing I did was illegal. (This didn’t actually happen, it’s a hypothetical.)
I mean, it’s not like that doesn’t happen. History is full of people who have been “cancelled” for standing up for what they believe in.
You could get fired for going to a gay pride parade. You could still be fired for going to a gay pride parade.
People who stand up for civil rights know what the consequences can be, and are willing to accept them to stand for what they believe in.
But, for some reason, it only seems like this becomes an issue when someone stands up against civil rights.
I’m saying that the common broad definition of a right that pretty much everyone accepts outside of the U.S. is something that is owed equally to everyone subject only to objectively applied restrictions and rules that also apply equally to everyone. That capricious or malicious or arbitrary removal of a right from a specific individual is unjust.
I do not have a right to attend your birthday party, an invite is a privilege.
But the right to freedom of moverment, the right to drive, the right to post on SDMB or Twitter - these are (or we think should be) all conceptually ethically similar. We think that everyone should have these rights, unless they violate certain objective rules. We don’t think that the way the world should work is that people should be denied the right to drive or the right to post on Twitter based on capricious or arbitrary or malicious action.
Natural rights are the most important subset of all rights, but they are not the only rights that matter.
Comic strips get dropped all the time, and sometimes it is because an editor or publisher likes another strip better. I would say the creator of the strip being dropped doesn’t deserve what happens, but I wouldn’t say any rights were violated.