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August 24, 2025, 06:58:19 am

Author Topic: Help with Oral  (Read 3196 times)  Share 

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lem

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Help with Oral
« on: November 06, 2012, 10:20:14 pm »
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Hey im having trouble for my oral with finding arguments which connect to the topic 'There shouldnt be boundaries to freedom of speech". Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions for me ? I kind of think that there should be boundaries so Im kind of against the topic, but obviously i need to adress both sides of the argument :)
« Last Edit: November 06, 2012, 11:24:06 pm by lem »
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brenden

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2012, 10:31:04 pm »
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For or against?
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Yendall

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2012, 10:52:33 pm »
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What an awesome topic.

Okay, so you have to take into consideration a few things. What are the limitations/boundaries? sourced: wiki
  • Libel: A published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.
  • Slander: The action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
  • Obscenity: The state or quality of being obscene; obscene behavior, language, or images
  • Sedition: Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
  • Copyright Violation: Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright

Now, the Freedom Of Speech policies are actually political(surprise,surprise), so the government decides what is right and what is wrong.
This can touch on an array of different issues.



Who gives the government the right to tell us what we can and can't say? Well, we do. So you could talk about why people adhere to the governments standards, why over time we adapted this system where things are seen as 'bad' and 'acceptable'. The crux of your argument could go one of two ways.

  • We must adhere to the Human Rights Charter and remain civil about what we say
or
  • We have the right, as human beings, to say whatever we please no matter how derogatory, defaming or condescending it may be

Personally, I would argue that there needs to be limitations to keep 'peace'. One could argue that if there weren't such restrictions than peace would be more likely to prosper. However, we would have less of this:

Before Freedom was implemented, racism was a big problem. When the rights were implemented, racism became less and less common as race equality was brought into light. I have a feeling that if that charter was taken away, it would come back again.

Removing the boundaries of Freedom Of Speech can result in negative consequences. I'm not sure if you heard of Westboro Baptist Church, but they are good example of Freedom Of Speech resulting in disgusting actions.

They had a lot of this stuff, and this caused more problems than it solved. By restricting this eventually, it restored the peace. So you could argue that by removing restrictions, people can develop condescending and derogatory views and exploit them in society.


Hope that sort of helps, it's very basic.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2012, 10:58:31 pm by Yendall »
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lem

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2012, 11:04:46 pm »
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For or against?
Well im kind of sitting on the fence. Im not really sure, I think there should be boundaries and like there should be consequences for those who cross these boundaries.
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lem

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2012, 11:07:35 pm »
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Thank you so much Yendall !!
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Yendall

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2012, 11:34:58 pm »
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Thank you so much Yendall !!
My pleasure, hope it opened up some views!
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BigAl

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2012, 08:43:31 pm »
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Freedom of speech or attack to values? For example youtube was shut down for 1 year in Turkey because some guy insulted the founder of Turkey. Now is this freedom of speech or insult? You can argue both ways
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EvangelionZeta

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2012, 06:44:25 pm »
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In debaterland terms, some quick points on both sides:

Against:
*Freedom of speech can be harmful to individuals, in that it basically allows anyone to say anything, no matter how offensive or derogatory it is.  This can threaten people's sense of self-worth, and especially in some cases (such as when one criticises an entire culture as immoral, for instance), it can be existentially damaging.
*More broadly, freedom of speech can generate wide societal harms as well, when we allow hate speech and that sort of thing.  Often, well-deployed rhetoric with immoral content can lead to widespread immoral behaviour (as people will come to believe the content of said speech, and society's culture will gradually re-orient to accept it) - really lame example, but case in point, Nazi Germany and the slandering of Jewish people.
*By the same token, when individuals are given freedom of speech, they may say things which can (reasonably preditably) incite violent response.  Example - film depicting the prophet Muhammad recently.
*Freedom of speech can detract from legitimate intellectual/rational discussion, in some cases, when people are allowed to say inflammatory things.  For instance, on AN (yes, I'm using this as an example), a conversation might start off as reasonable, but often, as soon as somebody begins to troll or flame people, the on-topic content becomes lost in a sea of emotive/aggressive responses instead; this sort of thing is often inevitable as well, as people tend to respond much more strongly to emotional stimuli than rational stuff.  This is often justification for why we ban trolling/flaming - because it detracts from more important dialogue.

In favour:
*The classic John Milton/John Stuart Mill free speech defence - that we need people to say the wrong thing so that we can, as a society, work out what is rationally right.  Argument often only progresses further or makes sense when there is a counter-opinion put forward - without freedom of speech, society doesn't truly understand why something is legitimate, because we don't have opinions that are outright wrong (such as "Jewish people are all evil") to contrast against opinions/ideas that are good.
*Not only that, but often hate speech is necessary for legitimate dialogue to come forward, not only because it contrasts against good ideas, but because it actually provokes such discussion to begin with.  For instance, Waleed Ali only publishes papers defending the legitimacy of Islam BECAUSE so much anti-Islamic sentiment comes out - he is writing because it has become an issue through the hate speech, not just because he has seen the hate speech and has thought of the opposite argument in the process.
*Slippery slope argument - without lobbying for freedom of speech, we implicitly grant governments the ability to censor things without our consent.  Sure, we can still lobby against them censoring the internet, etc., but it weakens our case if we have to justify this against the fact that so many other things are censored.
*Harms-based argument - more active harms actually occur when we don't have freedom of speech than when we do, regarding discriminatory action and the like.  With freedom of speech, for instance, people can voice their bad opinions, and can be publicly shut down for them.  Without it, these people either hold their opinions and are never told off for it (and thus never understand why they are wrong), OR get told they can't say something and grow resentful, further cementing their illegitimate beliefs.

Check out "Areopagitica" and "On Liberty" - classic texts for freedom of speech.
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lem

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2012, 12:12:13 am »
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Thank you so much EvangelionZeta ! Youre amazing
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tullfrog

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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2012, 03:06:31 pm »
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I think everyone is real missing the most basic issue of the free speech debate. As outlined in Schenck v. United States:
Quote
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.[3]
It's generally accepted that you aren't allowed to shout "FIRE" in a crowded theatre, but there are some issues of free speech that are more contentious.
The 2008 World Youth Day (held in Sydney) became the subject of the free speech case Evans v State of New South Wales after protesters were fined for handing out condoms. It was found in the case that a piece of delegated legislation that created specific prohibition of causing "annoyance to participants in a World Youth Day event" was invalid, as there is a presumption that parliament does not interfere with fundamental human rights, such as the right to free speech. In my opinion, the court was right in this case and we should be allowed to thrust condoms upon catholics to our hearts content.


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Re: Help with Oral
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2012, 03:30:36 pm »
-1
Please don't bump old threads. Lem presented his oral over a month ago.
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