• kaffiene@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Good. There’s no good reason to burn books. Free speech doesn’t require absolutism, it requires that we are capable of expressing our ideas. Yelling the N word doesn’t express an idea, it’s just offense. Ditto book burning. People who are absolutists are pretty much always being assholes.

    • Moghul@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Burning other people’s books is of course bad. Burning your own books? Idk man, you bought it.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        If I build my own cross and burn it in front of your house, that’s cool then? I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you imply

      • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Silly argument at the level of “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you”. It’s not about how you choose to dispose your personal property, it’s about regulating a particular political act.

            • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              As a free speech advocate I will claim your post is an incitement to violence and therefore you should be arrested.

              • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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                11 months ago

                Sure. Call back when this is regularly a source of widespread social disturbance.

    • Silejonu@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Blasphemy and racism are two very different things.

      Blasphemy is a human right.

      Besides, there are already laws against hate speech.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Different issue. I’m not debating categories of speech. I’m saying that speech that expresses no ideas but that is significantly hateful to a group of people shouldn’t be protected. There are trade offs here: offensive speech that expresses political ideas (beyond “we hate you”) is worthwhile and should be balanced against offense it may cause. I know this isn’t a nice simple black and white answer but I think the real world isn’t nice a simple. There are shades of grey. Other countries might weigh the tradeoffs differently and that’s fine. Doesn’t make this decision wrong, just that the tradeoffs are weighed differently to your intuitions

    • Trantarius@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Book burnings are bad when they are used to prevent the free sharing of information or ideas. It is a form of censorship. Burning the Quran is not censorship, because this is not an attempt to ban the Quran or prevent anyone from reading it. Its an entirely symbolic gesture. Its comparable to burning the American flag, which I’m guessing you’re not so against.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Burning religious texts isn’t far off burning crosses. It’s stochastic terrorism

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I don’t disagree but I feel like they should just ban publicly burning books for reasons other than waste disposal. I think it’s weird to make an exception for one particular religious book