Loss of rights through calls for loss of rights

Disclaimers and meta-information

This is a “prototypical” version of a text from my backlog that I have repeatedly found myself wanting to reference, but which could be quite lengthy in its full state and which requires a deterring amount of effort.

In a compromise, I have added a much more basic version to allow such references, with the understanding that I have not spent much time on the quality of the text, that there is much more to be said on the topic, and that what I ultimately say might differ, at least in detail, from what is currently said. Changes since original publication currently include a restructuring (without any significant content changes) and some additions, but not a move to a completed version.

A particular point is that I intend to give some type of label to the three types of reasons below, but have not yet made up my mind what suitable labels might be, and abstain from giving temporary labels to avoid a lock-in effect. (Poor labels can be problematic, as with “type I” and “type II” errors and the problem of remembering which is a “false positive” and which a “false negative”.) Even the current designations might be a bit premature, and should not be viewed as set in stone, but some type of designation is necessary for reference purposes. For that matter, I cannot entirely rule out that the ultimate division will be made differently, e.g. to be more fine grained.

Similar thoughts have already been discussed elsewhere, in shorter form, including (in a side-note) on a page on zero tolerance of the Left, which also contains a strongly related excursion on Marcuse (and otherwise has some overlap). Such contents might or might not be moved here at a later stage.

Introduction and general idea

The general idea of the Golden Rule is that we should treat others as we would like to be treated by them. (With the typical Christian formulation, “do unto others”, only covering one aspect. The more important is the reverse—that we do not act towards others in a manner that we do not want them to act towards us.)

This idea can be generalized further, as with the German saying “wie du mir, so ich dir”. A literal translation is near impossible while keeping meaning, but the intent is “what you do unto me, I do unto you”, in that if you smite me on the right cheek, you have no right to expect a Christian answer of my just presenting the left for a second smiting—on the contrary, I am now entitled to smite you back and you have to live with the consequences of your own actions. (Of course, not limited to physical violence but applying over a much wider range of actions and reciprocity.)

Application to politics and categories of motivation

Such ideas can be applied to politics and attempts to reduce the rights of other for spurious reasons, to have others cancelled for spurious reasons, to ban other parties for spurious reasons, etc. If, then, the one party calls for the ban of the other for a spurious reason, this justifies the ban of the former on a non-spurious basis, because by calling for that spurious ban it surrendered its own right to not be banned. From another point of view, we are only entitled to those human/civil/whatnot rights for ourselves that we recognize for others.

We then have three broad and abstract categories of motivation:

• Spurious reasons, e.g. mere disagreement. (Indeed, many or most Leftist calls for limits on free speech and other revocation of rights, bans of parties, and similar go back to nothing more than the failure of the intended victim to have the “right” opinion.)

• Reciprocal reasons, e.g. in that someone who wants to deny someone else the right to free speech for a spurious reason loses his own right to free speech.

• Non-spurious reasons of other types. In the case of free speech, such will be exceptionally hard to find, outside those cases where speech moves into act (e.g. by asking someone else to perform a heinous act instead of immediately performing it oneself); however, other cases can have such non-spurious reasons, e.g. in that a party that systematically harasses, beats up, steals from, whatnot, Jewish shop owners could be ban worthy.

  A key point is that opinions and e.g. exercise of free speech can never be a non-spurious reason. A focus has to be on actual actions and a non-spurious reason would need to base in a sufficiently problematic action or set of actions.

The idea now is that a call by X for some restriction on Y’s rights or whatnots, for a spurious reason, legitimizes a reverse call by Z for the same restriction on X’s rights—and does so without, in turn, legitimizing such a call directed at Z. (Where Z and Y might be identical, but need not be so.) Indeed, reciprocal reasons are a special case of non-spurious reasons (which, of course, also do not trigger reciprocity). Moreover, in an over-simplified scenario without non-spurious reasons (other than the reciprocal), we land at a very pleasing asymmetry, in which calls for, say, limits on free speech for any other other reason then reciprocity results in an own loss of free speech.

Excursion on differing standards

Another group of complications relate to differing standards. For instance, a common Leftist position is that “hate speech” would not be covered by free speech (and, unlike with the U.S. First Amendment, the laws in many countries, regrettably, agree).

However, “hate speech” is a far too subjective issue and one too often deliberately abused. (In particular, as the Left virtually invariably demands Tolkningsföreträde.) Even something as basic, and scientifically sound, as speaking of two biological sexes has been condemned as “hate speech”—while it, for some reason, is not considered hate speech when a Leftie condemns someone like Charlie Kirk as a Nazi, without providing one shred of proof and in great ignorance of what is what.

Worse, even the motivation that someone might be “offended” by some statement is often given as reason why some type of speech would not be allowed. Well, if that was the rule, very much of what the Left says would also be banned, because those not on the Left can also be offended—they just happen to be much more likely to be tolerant and to adopt a “live and let live” position.

For such reasons, it is important to err on the side of permissiveness. In particular, “free speech as long as you say the right thing” or “[...] do not say the wrong thing” is simply not free speech.

Excursion on length of forfeiture

An important consideration is for how long a particular right might be forfeited by an unjustified call for the removal of the right from someone else.

This is a point that I have yet to think through, beyond that a permanent forfeiture would often be absurd.

One obvious approach would be to go by what calls have been retracted, but this might be too clumsy a tool on at least two counts: Firstly, someone might opportunistically retract a call to regain an own right in the now and with a plan of re-issuing that call later. (We might e.g. have someone who calls for a removal of the right to vote for everyone who has not signed a particular “diversity statement”, retracts that call shortly before an election in order to, himself, vote, and then repeats the call the moment that the election is over.) Secondly, it is virtually impossible to keep track of all statements that we have made at one time or another and that a statement made at 15 has not been explicitly retracted does not necessarily imply that it matches one’s opinions at 50.

The latter also points to a complication in another area: What forms of statements should be considered binding? To include any and all statements made in any and all circumstances would be absurd, say, some casual words spoken during a friendly conversation. Going just by the written word would exclude what is said during a political speech. Etc. This, too, is an area that requires further thought. (Depending on what limits are chosen, we might also have to consider issues like who is obliged to prove what with what degree of certainty in what context.)

Another option would be to follow a more general idea of “statute of limitations” of mine, in that we may only be considered legally/ethically/whatnot culpable for acts done in (hypothetically) the last third of our lives-to-date. This idea could be extended to e.g. such calls, but would risk a reverse problem to above, that a call is considered “expired” even when it still matches the opinions of the caller—who might not appreciate having to keep track of and repeating statements at the right time to prevent expiry. (Some middle ground might be found in that a call is considered valid but no longer leads to forfeiture, after some point of time, but that would open the doors to abuse and might be unnecessarily complicated.)

In some settings, the problems of “how long” and “what form” might both be addressed by some type of explicit and formalized query, e.g. in a judicial proceeding, but this need not always be an option and is, again, a potential opening for abuse. (Say, in that a particular party calls for the ban of another party, is submitted to a formal hearing to judge whether a reciprocal ban is warranted, is queried about its position, and now, for the sole purpose of avoiding an own ban, denies truly wanting to ban that other party.)

More generally, the step from the informal idea described on this page (in its current prototypical state) to a practically working system could be quite long—the more so, as a too formalized system could become a problem in its own right. (Imagine, for illustration and at an extreme, if someone tried to solve such problems by a government-run “registry of opinions” and the dystopian risks and enormous efforts that this would bring.)

Excursion on having the proper target

An important point is that reciprocity must be aimed at the right target. In particular, great injustices can result if a too lose or too irrelevant (for current purposes) connection between X and Y is used to justify actions against Y for the words or deeds of X. For instance, an Inigo Montoya might or might not be justified in “You killed my father. Prepare to die.”, but would not be so in “Your son killed my father. Prepare to die.”. Killing the father of the killer would, in this case, have a certain symmetry and would cause a reciprocal damage of the same kind as the original, but it would do so as an example of “two wrongs do not make a right” and while causing the death of someone innocent in the affair. In particular, the father of the killer had not given cause to believe that he was in favor of killings and any reciprocity must be directed towards the killer, not the father of the killer.

Correspondingly, it is best to remain as targeted as possible—ideally, on the level of individuals. However, entities other than individual humans, including organizations can certainly be subject to reciprocity if some acts/behaviors/words/whatnot are, for want of a better phrasing, “official policy” or sufficiently prevalent with/within the entity at hand. (Consider e.g. those parties that call for bans of other parties for illegitimate reasons.) In those cases, great care must be taken to not over-extended reciprocity towards individuals in connection with that entity. (A party calling for illegitimate bans might it self be banned, but it does not follow that reciprocity extends to all individual party members, who are best judged on their own, individual positions. Party leadership, of course, should usually be presumed to be behind the call and are more justifiably included—but even here some care must be taken.) Likewise, a sufficient prevalence of problems in a greater abstract, e.g. the political Left, some religion, some movement, can make it a legitimate target for reciprocity; however, again, it is better when the reciprocity can be kept more fine grained. (Here, with an eye on the “who”, but the same applies to the “what”, e.g. in that a call for a ban of another party and a call for violence against its members should be treated separately to the degree possible.)