> As others have pointed out, the laws against murder/assault already handle that case.
Since I never suggested making any new laws, this is entirely irrelevant. I'm talking about what constitutes free speech and infringement of free speech, not... whatever it is you think would make special laws relevant.
And you are adding extra levels of meaning that are not in the UDHR to suit your argument. If as you say, there are extra levels of (implied) actors (e.g. religious groups, corporations, etc) besides government in Article 19, it would also means there are extra levels of actors for Article 9: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
Was Article 9 put in there because non-government actors such as Mercedes-Benz, or IBM, or religious groups such as Catholics were arresting people and locking them in church prisons? No, the document was a reaction to government abuse (e.g. especially the Nazi government abuse... such as rounding up Jews and killing them.)
You're twisting the UDHR in an attempt to make it fit your argument.
>I'm talking about what constitutes free speech and infringement of free speech,
OK, got it.
Let me put it another way: The government can only realistically protect you from the government itself arresting you. The government can restrain itself from putting you in prison for dissenting opinions.
The government cannot protect you from advertisers dropping you, or business associates distancing themselves from you, or a girlfriend not marrying you... or other negative consequences of "free speech". You called your girlfriend's mother a "fat whale" and now the wedding is called off?!? Yes, your future mother-in-law was truly an obese monstrosity and you were only speaking the truth! And yet, the fiancé cancels the marriage because you expressed your contempt. Therefore, it means that you truly didn't have "free speech"!!! Well, that's how non-government free speech works. There are consequences. If only the government protected you from broken marriage engagements when you used your "free speech" to express The Truth. Yeah, UDHR Article 19 means you can insult your mother-in-law without consequences. Sure.
The government also can't protect you from a crazy suicide disciple of Zeus from inflicting harm because you decide to draw that god getting penetrated by a horse. The government can certainly punish the terrorist after the fact for assault. However, fear of retaliation from a non-government entity is not something the government can stop. What exactly do you expect the government to do? We don't have precognition-guilty-before-the-crime-is-executed technology.
If you define "free speech" as "freedom from non-government consequences", there is no government body on the planet that can provide that privilege to you. None.
Look, it's really not that complicated. When an actor is unspecified, the obvious answer is "anyone". "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (by anyone)." That makes perfect sense. There's no reason to restrict it to governments.
> Let me put it another way: The government can only realistically protect you from the government itself arresting you. The government can restrain itself from putting you in prison for dissent.
So what? I already said I don't care what the government "can protect me from". I'm talking about the definition and societal value of free speech. The fact that people willfully conflate this moral concept with government action that may be aimed at defending (some instantiations of) this concept is the problem.
> Yeah, UDHR means you can insult your mother-in-law without consequences. Sure.
That's what we in the business call a "straw man".
ETA: I now see from reading your other comments that you clearly have a violent case of the Just World Fallacy. My condolences. That makes it perfectly clear why you would think that the premise that the government can't perfectly defend free speech against non-state actors means we should just give up and pretend no such right exists, and (by contrapositive) that me claiming the existence of such a moral right somehow means I think the government can reliably enforce it. Of course, both of these implications are false.
Which then means that Article 15 that doesn't specify an actor when talking about "right to nationality" calls on anyone to provide that nationality. If a stateless person washes up on shore of America, and if the USA refuses to provide citizenship, nsheppard or me (or anyone) gives him that citizenship.
Your (non-government) interpretation of UDHR does not have logical coherence that works for the whole document.
> I already said I don't care what the government "can protect me from"
If so, there is no need to refer to the UDHR in an attempt to back up your argument. That document's preamble is "Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, " which calls on governments to enforce the rights. Since enforcment is irrelevant to you, we can ignore the UDHR and not let out-of-context quotes of Article 19 muddy up subsequent conversation.
> moral right
I'm not proposing we give up. My position is more nuanced than that. I suggest that people don't frame non-government "free speech" as a "moral right". Instead, see it as an "economic puzzle". This leads to clearer thinking. The "free speech" (unrelated to government arrests) that people want has a "cost". Understand what that cost is and analyze how to pay for it. If you're unwilling to pay the cost, you're unwilling to have "free speech".
This is inane. You're inventing a rule for mutilating the statements of the UDHR that I never claimed exists. "Everyone has the right to a nationality" in standard english says that everyone has the right to a nationality. There's no actor to fill in, it doesn't call on anyone to do anything.
The document as a whole is an agreement among member states to (try to) enforce the rights asserted to exist within.
> If so, there is no need to refer to the UDHR in an attempt to back up your argument.
The article asserts (factually / morally) the existence of certain "human" rights, which is exactly what I am talking about.
Incorrect. It does call on someone (the government!) to do something. The "right to nationality" is not to be parsed the same way as "right to exhale carbon dioxide". Nobody has to do anything to enable people to exhale CO2. CO2 is a natural process and just happens on its own. On the other hand, the concept of "nationality" must be actively provided by a sovereign government. Look at the next sentence Article 15.2: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality..." How can anyone "deprive" someone of something if nobody has to do anything to provide it?
If you're not familiar with the concept "nationality", refer to the wiki[1]. So yes, somebody must do something. Again, Article 15 was another response to the Nazi government stripping the German citizenship from Jews and leaving them stateless. If as you say, "nobody" has to do anything to provide nationality, it also means "nobody" including the Nazis could take away citizenship from the Jews. Obviously, that makes no sense.
It doesn't seem like you understand the origins of UDHR or its actual scope. Referring to it to assert that non-government "free speech" is a "moral right" undermines your argument. Instead, frame "free speech" as a puzzle of money and freedom of association.
Yes, I understand that nationalities are granted by governments. This is completely and utterly irrelevant to the basic grammar which is involved in parsing "Everyone has the right to a nationality" as a declarative statement.
The way you are constantly substituting in things that seem "vaguely relevant" for unrelated grammatical terms ("this is a 'government document' so whenever something is unspecified I guess I just put 'government' in there and hope it parses??") defies basic reading comprehension and standard english.
At this point I don't think there's any point in me continuing.
You're reading it incorrectly.
It doesn't mention "government" at that particular line because the document[1] itself was created as an initiative of government (or quasi-government committee if you think of the United Nations that way) ... as a reaction to Nazi government's failings... and it is aimed at an audience of other governments as a baseline for policy. It is not a document for corporations like Facebook or a religious organization of Muslims.
Even in the document's preamble, it states, "Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, "
Notice that it says "member nations" and not "member corporations" or "member schools", or "member social clubs". The "nations" are "governments".
For example, if you don't interpret the UDHR as a "government" document, the text from Article 15 doesn't make sense: "Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality."
That line also doesn't have the word "government." That doesn't mean companies like Facebook were giving out "national citizenship id cards" and shouldn't ever withhold them so people are stateless. It's governments that have that power.
> If people are afraid to speak their mind due to murderous vigilantes, that has exactly the same consequences as the same due to an oppressive "government".
As others have pointed out, the laws against murder/assault already handle that case.
[1]http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/inde...