We are talking about freedom of speech, you can't have half a freedom of speech.


I disagree.

If there are restrictions, it's not free. You can be part way to freedom, or most of the way, but it's not "mostly free" or "partly free".

Your disagreement on the basis of 'freedom indices' is meaningless. They measure aggregate or total freedom, and use terms like "partly free" only for convenience.

An oligarchy based on relevant education is not the same as an oligarchy of professional politicians.


Whether on purpose or not, I think you are confusing the political right with the semantics. Yes, countries have 'freedom of speech' and they put restrictions on it. In that way freedom of speech is entirely binary.

If the restrictions are different they are different, but to say one country guarantees more freedom of speech is definitely incorrect. This is not a question of more freedom, but of less restriction.

Of course.

Though I wonder why you would bring that up, as no one was saying otherwise...


Incorrect, under today's system I am entirely allowed to argue this position. Under the system I proposed experts would take over and could well create a better system.

You can't just go around pretending that things are they way you want them to be!

D'oh! Less restriction is more freedom.

Unfortunately you missed both the point being made and the irony.



lol

I don't think that's true.

Freedom is freedom, restrictions are restrictions.


No shit mate, I got the point and your attempt at irony.


Just because a government is authorative doesn't mean that the right to self-determination is violated.

Your freedom argument is a distraction to the discussion being made and such minutia of the definitions of words are irrelevant to the actual argument. It is clear that Eli was talking about another kind of freedom to you and that your definitions severely differ. Since neither of you are going to change your views on what constitutes "freedom" any time soon I would advise you just accept to understand each other's definitions while not embracing them.

Agree to disagree, then. Sick of arguing this point with you.


Yes, it is. It's a system where power is in the hands of a few. It's an oligarchy. The only thing you're changing is who the few are. This is an irrefutable point.

You can't just go around pretending that things are they way you want them to be!

You keep SAYING that, but you haven't provided any actual argument that backs it up. We're all saying that something is either completely free, or it is not, similar to if you went into the grocery store and something was "buy one get one 50% off". You wouldn't say that the item is 50% free. You're still paying SOMETHING for it.

As I mentioned earlier. You are using a different meaning of the word "free" to Ele.

I guess you can't keep spamming argument from authorities all day long lol.


Ok? It's a meaningless point, but you're right, it's irrefutable.

I thought you were trying to make some kind of meaningful argument before, but apparently you just wanted to express that not everyone will be in power...

I think you need to look up what an oligarchy is though, it's not merely having a small number of elected officials. Not that anyone ever said there would be a 'few' only.


No shit Ele. Are you making meaningless statements to try and get my to disagree? Do you expect me to say that "well actually it's possible and I'm sure people do it"?

Why do you keep making random statements without any context or explaination? Do you even have a cohesive argument behind your posts or are you just posting whatever happens to come to mind?


No, we are not. He has just misinterpreted some information he has read, and I explained previously where his mistake comes from.

Firstly, accept people's arguments as they are even if they don't include a footnote of reliable sources, arguing that people are arguing, against your way of arguing, against them, in the wrong way does not lend itself to interesting developments in the discussion. Sometimes it seems like you focus more on how people phrase their argument than what they actually mean in the first place. I very rarely find you in a discussion where you don't disagree about what the person mean in their argument. Either everyone except you is terrible at conveying their point or you need to start trying to understand other people more.



I take your point that a authoritarian government can be good, but I believe that Ele's suggestion is comparable with authoritarianism if you consider it. Just because an entire population votes on a law doesn't mean that the law is enforced any less strictly. Although it is fair game for you to attack Ele after he rebutted your authoritarian argument, I still think you are missing his central proposition by quite some way.

You are arguing that we should elect from a trusted pool of experts for each subject of government. How many sections would there be pools for, what happens when one of the experts dies and if they get replaced who is it by and who are they chosen by?
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Is the only way to have less freedom of speech, to live in a completely mute country?
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I would like to apologise if I misunderstood your point. On rereading the last page for the second time this hour I realise that you are saying that what matters is not what you can't say, but whether you can say anything at all/ generally what you want to say. I believe that just being allowed to speak does not constitute a full fledged freedom of speech and a large enough quantity of restrictions can amount to a human rights infringement for not allowing people to speak about things. I also think that there is a difference between countries with occasional restrictions which you will not notice if you live your life conscientiously and countries with large restrictions which do not infringe human rights but still have a noticeable effect on their people.

I know why you believe freedom of speech is binary and as I made apparent in my first few posts, I think Ele had taken freedom to mean something which it wasn't, I just do not share your view when I examine it under close scrutiny.

I would ask you to ignore a lot if my rant examples found in the spoiler about freedom of speech.

Thank you.
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Was understanding other people always such hard work or am I getting stupider?

This is some pretty serious commitment to ignoring rationale in favor of arguing a triviality. It's kind of weird.

Then why are you pretending not to? That your proposed system bars laypeople such as yourself from proposing it for serious consideration in the first place is both ironic and undermining to its legitimacy.

An "authorative (sic) oligarchy," in your own words, is by definition violating of the principle of self-determination for the people.


lol