What if the "hokey pokey" is what it's all about?
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Free Speech

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I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
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tarheelz
3863 days ago
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Durham, North Carolina
popular
3864 days ago
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20 public comments
pavlov02
3858 days ago
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Just seems like common sense to me but that seems in short supply.
merlinblack
3862 days ago
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Not applicable in Canada but a good lesson I'm discourse.
ÜT: 53.542319,-113.494597
Romanikque
3862 days ago
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Alt text is better than the comic for this one...
Baltimore, MD
tewhalen
3869 days ago
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Wikipedia: "The Citizens' Councils used economic tactics against African Americans whom they considered as supportive of desegregation and voting rights, or for belonging to the NAACP; the tactics included 'calling in' their mortgages, denying loans and business credit, and boycotting black-owned businesses. In some cities, the Councils published lists of names of NAACP supporters and signers of anti-segregation petitions in local newspapers in order to encourage economic retaliation. For instance, in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1955, the Citizens' Council arranged for the names of 53 signers of a petition for school integration to appear in a local paper. Soon afterward, the petitioners lost their jobs and had their credit cut off." -- Apparently, no free speech rights were violated.
chicago, il
grammargirl
3869 days ago
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Yup.
Brooklyn, NY
stefanetal
3869 days ago
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This strikes me as an 'argument from definition'. But the definition itself is contested. Lot of rights don't work this way, for instance there are non-retaliation laws asociated with many rights (especially in labor law -- say the right to marry includes the right, for the most part, not to get fired for getting married).
Northern Virginia
tewhalen
3869 days ago
Like, remember this comic when your supervisor shows up to your cubicle and asks you to donate to the "Conservative Victory Fund PAC" or lose your job. At least you'll have the comfort of knowing your free speech rights weren't violated.
chrisamico
3869 days ago
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I'd love to post this at the end of every news site's comments policy.
Boston, MA
diannemharris
3869 days ago
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I have to save this for future postings, everywhere
satadru
3869 days ago
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It's dawning on me that wikipedia needs Tl;DR links pointing to the relevant xkcd pages.
New York, NY
ChrisDL
3869 days ago
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You haven't lived until you've shared an XKCD online
New York
sfringer
3869 days ago
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Couldn't be better stated on free speech...
North Carolina USA
neilcar
3869 days ago
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Eventually, XKCD will be the answer for every ridiculous argument.
Charlotte, North Carolina
karmakaze
3869 days ago
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Alt text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
07974
darastar
3869 days ago
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THIS X1000
ktgeek
3869 days ago
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Yet another xkcd that will be reposted and reposted until the sun burns out.
Bartlett, IL
Michdevilish
3869 days ago
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Free to leave
Canada
JayM
3869 days ago
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.
Atlanta, GA
[deleted]
3869 days ago
...
aaronwe
3869 days ago
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There should be a "BUT FREE SPEECH!" corollary to Godwin's Law.
Denver
mindspillage
3869 days ago
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This was basically designed to be passive-aggressively linked to in mailing lists/forums/IRC...
north bay, California
stavrosg
3869 days ago
I can't count how many times this would have been useful in the past...
sulrich
3861 days ago
and for that reason it's getting an expansion snippet.
jtgrimes
3869 days ago
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Alt text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
Oakland, CA

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beautiful meta-Breakout lets you play 16 tiny Breakouts at once  
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tarheelz
4143 days ago
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Durham, North Carolina
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