I wasn't even vaguely calling you that directly. I've never noted your handle before now. I was just giving examples of things that people could say.

>if socially powerful people => They already can. Those with enough resources can get lawyers

I'm talking about a much lower bar for 'socially powerful' than you are. I'm not talking about the Murdochs of the world, but the socially powerful people that everyday folks run into personally. Someone in your apartment block starts lying about you to the tenants committee, for example. Perhaps they are more charismatic and better at getting people onside.

> Official policy has never been a requirement for discrimination lawsuits.

True, but without restrictions on speech, you don't get defamation suits, and discrimination suits become much harder. Penalising someone in a discrimination suit for being recorded saying "I hate black people" means you are restricting their speech by punishing it.

> Being such a core right, any position is that of an extremist.

Nonsense. Since when does being a core right mean any position is extremist? We have core rights not to be murdered or tortured, yet people taking the position that we should not be murdered or tortured are hardly extremist. It's boringly, yawningly mainstream.

> Neither does the very concept of rights. Out in a jungle

Reductio ad absurdum. We don't live in the jungle, in the real world.

> Appeal to popularity?

No, pointing out that people still criticise, discuss, and be democratic - and demonstrably so. You're painting imaginary pictures in an idealised black-and-white world. Yet people are demonstrably able to talk, criticise, and be democratic in western democracies. They yap on in bars, on facebook, on twitter, in knitting circles, at football games. Opposing political teams yell shrilly at each other. Folks can go and vote when elections come up.

You're saying that because there are currently some restrictions on free speech, that those things don't exist - and they demonstrably do exist. It does not follow that having some restrictions makes political discussion disappear.

I was saying that under current law, I've been called far worse (and by people who were serious and not just demostrating their point).

>I'm talking about a much lower bar for 'socially powerful' than you are. I'm not talking about the Murdochs of the world, but the socially powerful people that everyday folks run into personally. Someone in your apartment block starts lying about you to the tenants committee, for example. Perhaps they are more charismatic and better at getting people onside.

Someone in the HOA could already do that. I could potentially sue, but that could also make things worse depending upon the damage done. Even falsely accusing someone of a crime and having them arrested is often not punished except in the case of a repeat offender.

>Penalising someone in a discrimination suit for being recorded saying "I hate black people" means you are restricting their speech by punishing it.

They would not be penalized on that point. It would just add further evidence to a discrimination suit, and if that is the only evidence the suit actually provided, then the suit should fail. Namely, such a statement would be important in showing if a person would have motive, but motive alone is not sufficient to convict someone for discrimination.

>We have core rights not to be murdered or tortured

Depending upon what you mean by murder and torture, we may have far less of such a right than freedom of speech. All laws are enforced at gunpoint proxy (even if the penalty for breaking some law isn't immediately enforced at gunpoint, there is a chain of consequences that will eventually lead to such). And solitary confinement sounds like torture to me.

>No, pointing out that people still criticise, discuss, and be democratic - and demonstrably so.

In the areas that are pre-approved. You think the government really cares about all the fighting about sexism or gay rights? Even terrorism doesn't matter outside of being the trojan horse for draconian laws.

>It does not follow that having some restrictions makes political discussion disappear.

Chillings effects have already begun to be noticed.

I don't think we're going to change each other's minds, but I had to respond to this. It's a standard part of the libertarian rhetoric, and it's intended to make people fear laws just for the sake of it.

And it's intellectually dishonest. In this thread you're arguing that laws should be made to stop the government infringing upon freedom of speech. How, exactly, does that get enforced at gunpoint? If the courts forget themselves and decide to hear a defamation case? Or if the government passes a law that restricts speech, in violation of their free-speech law? Would you have the MPs that voted 'aye' frogmarched off? How does a law limiting the actions of government get 'enforced at gunpoint proxy'?

Similarly, there are plenty of other laws where this doesn't happen. There are laws that companies can break where no person is at risk of prison. It's why there are limited liability companies. And there are laws to give people incentives - here in Australia, the government encourages voluntary payments into your own superannuation, and will co-contribute to some degree. How do you enforce that law at gunpoint? What bizarre chain of events would involve putting anyone at gunpoint because a citizen voluntarily put money into their own superannuation?

There are plenty of laws that aren't 'enforced at gunpoint', even with following a ridiculous, tortured chain of events. Stop spreading libertarian FUD.

>And it's intellectually dishonest.

You haven't demonstrated such.

>How, exactly, does that get enforced at gunpoint?

>How does a law limiting the actions of government get 'enforced at gunpoint proxy'?

Generally a complex system which starts in the courts, wiht the courts making a ruling that applies increasing penalties. Those who continue to ignore such penalties will eventually reach the point of being in contempt of court and either fired or perhaps jailed (it depends upon factors such as who it is). Take the example of a clerk of court refusing to award a marriage license to a gay couple after a federal appeals court struck down a state ban. Something bad is going to happen, which includes losing their job. If they fail to remove themselves from the premise after losing their job, they could be charged with trespassing. If their superior doesn't fire them and continues to pay them, then it gets messier but there are channels, albeit slow moving ones.

Simply put, if there is any point that you can thumb your nose at the court and tell them you are going to ignore them, then it isn't a law, only a suggestion.

Of course, there is a problem when the government does do this (look at three letter agencies ignoring court rulings or otherwise creating secret courts to bypass them). But, at such a point, the laws prohibiting what they are doing are no longer enforced and are thus no longer laws.

>It's why there are limited liability companies.

Who can have their assets seized. What happens when the government comes after an LLC's account due to violations and someone gets in the way?

>And there are laws to give people incentives - here in Australia, the government encourages voluntary payments into your own superannuation, and will co-contribute to some degree. How do you enforce that law at gunpoint?

>What bizarre chain of events would involve putting anyone at gunpoint because a citizen voluntarily put money into their own superannuation?

These are laws about what the government will do if you do X. What happens when someone refuses to credit an account because the account belongs to a minority? They would be fired, but if their supervisor refuses to fire them, it could go to court, where you end up with contempt of court. Refuse to show up in court and you'll be arrested. Resist, and out come the guns.

>There are plenty of laws that aren't 'enforced at gunpoint'

You are making the mistake of considering laws that never get to guns drawn because even unreasonable people don't want to escalate the situation (as well as thinking that 'if A does X, then B does Y' as being laws about A doing X instead of laws about B doing Y).

>Stop spreading libertarian FUD.

Nothing libertarian about it except for how it is worded. If you ignore the rule of law, there will be escalation til physical force is involved. Most people just submit or cut deals long before that happens, but they do so knowing that to resist will escalate.

You missed what I meant by intellectually dishonest. I gave you a few examples of laws that aren't 'gunpoint-enforced', including laws around incentives to do things. Your rebuttal was to invoke a long string of events that eventually resulted in 'trespassing', and invoking 'gunpoint' for that. It's not, however, gunpoint for the original law.

> If you ignore the rule of law, there will be escalation til physical force is involved

This is also part of what I mean by 'intellectually dishonest'. You're claiming that all laws are 'gunpoint' and therefore de facto immoral because you can concoct a long chain of unusual events that ends up with some form of physical law enforcement... but your own requirement for 'all speech should be free' falls into exactly the same pattern. You concoct some government official who refuses to pay into a minority's account, loses their job, refuses to depart the premises. But your own FOS laws do nothing to alter that chain. Slot in a FOS violation for the government official instead of paying into an account, and the chain remains unchanged. From your own reasoning, this means your FOS law is 'gunpoint enforced'.

It's usual for this style of libertarian FUD - claim all laws other than their own proposals are 'violent' or 'at gunpoint', and then skip over the details that their own suggested systems rely on exactly the same mechanisms. And yes, it is libertarian to say things like 'all laws are violent'. No other group takes this baroque standpoint; it's pure libertarian rhetoric. And seriously, laws around governmnet co-contribution are 'violent' because a government employee might lose their job if they don't comply?