In your opinion, which things out of the following list should be criminalized? Note that none of these things involve physical force, only words, and if we criminilize them, the result would be the use of force against individuals who didn’t use force.
Here is the list:
Extortion.
Publishing the name of a rape victim in the papers.
Detaining a man who is a suspect of a crime.
Shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater with malicious intent and when there is no fire.
Publishing the details of an ongoing murder investigation which can significantly hurt the investigation effort.
Extortion makes you a standing threat, it is the use of force.
Publishing the name of a rape victim in the papers.
Shouldn’t be criminal.
Detaining a man who is a suspect of a crime.
If they have strong reason to believe the person is guilty and remains a standing threat this is fine, though if they are wrong he is right to be compensated by whoever holds him.
Shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater with malicious intent and when there is no fire.
A matter of implicit agreement with the theater owner.
Publishing the details of an ongoing murder investigation which can significantly hurt the investigation effort.
Shouldn’t be illegal. If you want to keep stuff private that’s your job, no one has a ‘right’ to privacy.
Defamation
Shouldn’t be illegal, no one has a ‘right’ to reputation.
Extortion doesn’t make you a “standing threat”. You threaten someone with releasing sensitive information. So the threat is not to use force, but merely to use freedom of speech.
Extortion is a crime when it involves coercion. Threatening to air someone’s “dirty laundry” doesn’t involve coercion, so it isn’t a crime. However, threatening to make false allegations about someone is.
Publishing the name of a rape victim in the papers isn’t a crime - how could it be?
Detaining a man who is a suspect of a crime does involve coercion. As Ricky James Moore II wrote, this should only be done at most when the person is reasonably believed to be a standing threat, such as in the case of a serial killer. If the man is found innocent, he may be entitled to compensation.
Shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater with malicious intent and when there is no fire is, again as Ricky James Moore II wrote, a matter of implicit agreement with the movie theater. An analogous situation is falsely and maliciously claiming that there is a bomb inside a school.
Publishing the details of an ongoing murder investigation which can significantly hurt the investigation effort - this raises the question of how such publication can “hurt” the investigation effort.
Defamation is only a crime when the information presented is demonstrably false.
Really? George W. Bush is a poopy pants transvestite who has been to Mars several times and has a martian family with martian kids. I would say this is demonstrably false and I have certainly defamed his image. Do you think what I just did is or ought to be a crime?
What do you guys think about advocating violence to be carried out by a 3rd party? for example “you guys should go lynch some jews!”, “barry go mug that guy and give the money to paul” or “i’m off to vote!”
what about advocating for voilence to be carried out by a third pary, for example “You guys should go lynch some jews”, “barry go mug that guy and give the money to paul” or “i’m off to vote!”
Should be illegal only if a threat of force is used.
If we allow publishing the name of a rape victim, a lot less women will complain, and criminals will walk. I see no benefit in allowing the name to be published, and I see huge drawbacks. So this should be illegal. And its not that this can be kept private. The raper has every incentive to extort the victim not to go to trial or otherwise he will publish her name.
Should be legal. Otherwise potential criminals will walk. I want a society with as minimum violence and aggression as possible, for that we need to catch all the aggressors, even if some innocent people will suffer some temporary inconvenience on the way.
Regardless of whether this happens in a theater or in some public territory, it can lead to physical harm, so should be illegal.
Society cannot be free if violence is a matter of routine. To create a peaceful and free society we need to be tough against aggressors. For that we need a strong police and support from the community. Some censorship is fine with me as long as criminals and aggressors are caught and dealt with.
On one hand I don’t like the government to decide what is true and what is a lie, and I don’t like criticism to be silenced. On the other hand in some very rare cases I think a law against defamation can be the only possible recourse. For example if someone stands with a sign next to a restaurant that says that the cook uses rat meat to prepare his meals, the restaurant owner is helpless without laws against defamation. Its not a property violation, he doesn’t even know who is the person who holds the sign, yet customers stop coming. Although most people don’t really believe the sign is truthful, but they either don’t want to take the chance, or they are just disgusted so much with the thought that they lose their appetite.
Balderdash. You have no obligation to provide correct information toanyone; and you can use your voice box to emit any combination of sounds you want. Absurd. No one has any right to the truth unless they’ve got a contract with you. If someone asks you ‘is this bridge safe?’ and you say ‘yes’ well knowing it will collapse if they walk on it, you’re not the least bit liable.
For example if someone stands with a sign next to a restaurant that says that the cook uses rat meat to prepare his meals, the restaurant owner is helpless without laws against defamation.
The owner can put up counter signs.
The owner can speak to whoever owns the land the picketer is standing on and ask them to deal with it.
The owner can hire someone to deal with the situation in a way that can’t be traced back to the owner (this discourages future picketers as well).
The owner can find out who the guy is and do something similarly bad but legal to them.
Personally, I would go with 2, then 1, then 3, then 4, though it depends on the exact circumstances.
You can’t trace who is the guy, someone hired him but he won’t tell you who.
This would probably be the city major, which would in practice entail that the city major sets up rules against defamation. In practice (if not in theory) this is not very different from state laws against defamation.
You can’t trace who is the guy, someone hired him but he won’t tell you who.
This would probably be the city major, which would in practice entail that the city major sets up rules against defamation. In practice (if not in theory) this is not very different from state laws against defamation.
This would probably be the city major, which would in practice entail that the city major sets up rules against defamation. In practice (if not in theory) this is not very different from state laws against defamation.
Sorry, I was coming from the ancap perspective. From a more current political perspective it’s all very murky and, in my opinion, it’s simple situations like this that lead to massive amounts of over regulation. In order to minimize regulation I say let him do what he wants and the owner just has to suck it up. I would rather suffer through picketers than suffer through regulations.
In my scenario the city major would be a private individual who just owns the land on which the city is located and provides services to the population for fees. So most likely city majors will create laws against these things, which in fact is a regulation. What do you think about the rest of the points?