If there is a penalty for saying what you wish, do you really have free speech or the resemblance of such?

Are you kiddin’? As a married man I can personally attest that there is no such thing as completely free speech. Anything you say has a consequence, and there is no mirth permitted.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. It is a protection against criminal penalties. Being sued is a civil penalty. It is logically impossible for a right to free speech to entail freedom from all negative outcomes since that would mean that other people would not be free to speak their minds about what you have said (a rebuke being one of your own examples of a negative consequence). Therefore, we must conclude that free speech does not require freedom from consequences.

As a parallel case, consider the case of making a free choice. It is no argument against the existence of free will that sometimes our actions have unintended consequences. Just as it is illogical to say the choice wasn’t really free if it had an outcome we don’t like, it is illogical to argue that our speech isn’t really free if we are rebuked for it or suffer some other sort of negative consequence.

There are consequences to everything, some known, some unknown, and some never dreamed of.
We’re free to tape marshmallows to our heads and walk up to Grizzly bears, but…would that be wise? lol

Freedom of speech is a right and carries a responsibility to be prepared to back up the message you may wish to share with the world. The second you spew your words and then run for cover… you should no longer be afforded the protection of the second amendment.

@SavoirFaire Just as it is illogical to say the choice wasn’t really free if it had an outcome we don’t like, it is illogical to argue that our speech isn’t really free if we are rebuked for it or suffer some other sort of negative consequence.
If I jump off a three story building trying to use an umbrella as a parachute, which logically won’t work 98.5% of the time, and I break my leg, physics is not subject to opinion. There is also no one to get offended. If someone says something about short people that is their opinion, maybe factual, or totally incorrect, and some short person gets fired from his/her job that was a consequence of what was said. If there were injury to the short person and relief is sought from the person that said it, then their freedom to say what they said was not free. How can it be free for me to fly a paper airplane if I am being told where or how, or at what time I can fly it? I may have a lot of liberty to fly it in most occasions, but if there is some person, government, etc. restricting my will to use it the way I wish, how I wish, when I wish, then it is not 100% freedom, not like I would have writing entries in a journal, I can write what I wanted, say what I pleased about anyone or anything, and write it whenever I pleased with no one to place limits on it.

@Cruiser The second you spew your words and then run for cover… you should no longer be afforded the protection of the second amendment.
Then free speech is only free if it fits inside a certain criterion? Even if one says something they can’t or won’t back up, if they are free to say it, why would anything else matter. If I told you that you were free to mow a lawn, your own or another, do you really have freedom to mow it if I tell you what mower you must us, what time a day you can, even how you have to do it, for example, you had to do it crisscross like a baseball diamond, is your freedom to mow the lawn really free, or just less restrictive?

@Hypocrisy_Central The owner, editor and artists at Charlie Hebdo paid a heavy price for their choice to voice their views…are you will to pay that same price? Or would you rather cut grass?

@Cruiser Indeed they did, reminds of an old song…

….Don’t tug on Supermans cape. don’t spit into the wind, don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lone Ranger and don’t mess around with Islam.

@Coloma So true…if you mess with Islam you are indeed then messing with Christianity and more so Judaism.

@SavoirFaire is right. A lot of people believe free speech means that nobody can criticize you or disagree with you, no matter what you say. Free speech actually means that you won’t suffer criminal consequences for speaking out.

@Haleth ” Free speech actually means that you won’t suffer criminal consequences for speaking out.”

But these days you do stand a good chance of getting shot, blown up or beheaded if you blaspheme Allah.

Then there is answering the dreaded ‘should I wear this <something> I think it makes my butt look big’.

What I don’t agree with is crying “victim” when you willfully antagonize dangerous people or animals. In Charlie Hebdos case there are no victims, only volunteers.
I do not condone violence of any kind but I also don’t agree that they are “victims” in the truest sense of the word. If I deliberately tease a known vicious dog and it rips my face off I am not a victim.

@majorrich haha..yeah, you risk getting beheaded over that statement too.

The concept of free speech, IMHO, refers to the ability to say or express anything without legal consequences. Freedom from other consequences such as social, or commercial, are not usually covered by law.

As noted in this Wikipedia article, the US Supreme Court has recognized that several different types of laws may, under specific circumstances, restrict speech.

@Cruiser The owner, editor and artists at Charlie Hebdo paid a heavy price for their choice to voice their views…are you will to pay that same price? Or would you rather cut grass?
If I knew for fact I did not have freedom to mow the lawn as I pleased, the logical thing would be to mow the lawn the way they allow me and deceive myself that it was the way I wanted to do all along.

@Haleth A lot of people believe free speech means that nobody can criticize you or disagree with you, no matter what you say. Free speech actually means that you won’t suffer criminal consequences for speaking out.
And people wonder why we need lawyers, how can we know what ”free” in free speech actually means without a lawyer explaining that free doesn’t really mean _”free”, but actually closer to nonrestrictive. Sound a lot like if I placed a ”free” sign on the car but won’t allow you to take it off the lot unless you buy me roadside service where I will be in your pocket for as long as you own the vehicle.

@Hypocrisy_Central I don’t think the “free car” comparison makes sense. Languages are complicated, and one complication is the existence of words that have more than one meaning (which one might argue are actually homonyms—distinct words that are spelled and pronounced the same way but mean different things). Let’s take “f-r-e-e” as an example. This might be used in the following ways: free speech, free car, free radical.

In each case, the set of letters means something different. Taking them in reverse: “free radical” is a chemistry term meaning “a molecule with an unpaired electron”; “free car” is a commerce term meaning “a car that can be had at no market cost”; and “free speech” is a legal term meaning “speech that is not subject to criminal penalties.” Here we see the letters “f-r-e-e” used in three different ways—to mean “unpaired,” to mean “at no cost,” and to mean “not subject to criminal penalty.”

Again, this is just how language works. “Free speech” is, and always has been, a legal term; and a legal freedom has never been anything other than a protection from certain types of government interference (specifically, freedom from criminal penalties). To bring us back to your earlier response, then, the fact that others can react to your speech in no way entails that it is not free because all “free” means here is “not subject to criminal penalties.” To object that one’s speech is not free because it is not free from consequences is simply to reveal that one is confused about how language works. It misunderstands what the word was intended to convey in the first place.

Of course, many issues arise out of precisely this sort of linguistic confusion. Indeed, Wittgenstein characterized philosophy as “a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.” I’m not convinced this captures the whole of the discipline, but it is certainly a very important aspect of it.

@SavoirFaire Again, this is just how language works. “Free speech” is, and always has been, a legal term; and a legal freedom has never been anything other than a protection from certain types of government interference (specifically, freedom from criminal penalties).
Then I take that as validation to what I said, true free speech doesn’t exist. What exists is a restrictive speech but one in which criminal or other legal impairments will not occur so long as the speech remains above an artificial benchmark. All speech above the legal benchmark people convinces themselves it is free speech when they in fact cannot really use it like they want. Unlike a free radical, free speech is mated to the legal definition.

“Then I take that as validation to what I said, true free speech doesn’t exist.”

No, because that’s the persuasive definition fallacy. Just because the word doesn’t mean what you thought it meant doesn’t mean that the thing to which it refers does not exist.

@SavoirFaire Just because the word doesn’t mean what you thought it meant doesn’t mean that the thing to which it refers does not exist.
I am all hears, how a part from some legal distinction does free speech occur, or exist; free speech with NO STRINGS attached?

@Hypocrisy_Central How hammered are you when you make your comments?

I don’t know….I may not be free to say without some penal;ty real or imagined. ;-)

@Hypocrisy_Central Fair enough…I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee some time just to shoot the shit.

If you pick me up in your cherried out 1968 Chevelle SS Super Sort, let’
s go for it.

Now…..how and in what way does free speech exist without any strings attached?

@Hypocrisy_Central Free speech will always carry the baggage of each and every soldier, LEO and civilian who stepped forward to protect and ensure that you, I and anyone else can say what they want to…those are the strings that come with this freedom.

@Cruiser Free speech will always carry the baggage of each and every soldier, LEO and civilian who stepped forward to protect and ensure that you, I and anyone else can say what they want to
That sounds more like Republican Speak, (not saying you are of the party of Twiddle Dumb), for saying soldiers dies to have the opportunity to freely speak, but even though I can freely speak I cannot just say what I want unencumbered.

@Hypocrisy_Central You can speak freely all you want and do bless yourself for that privilege but your answer tells me you would be the first person to duck and cover if you were ever directly confronted to defend this right.

@Hypocrisy_Central “I am all hears, how a part from some legal distinction does free speech occur, or exist; free speech with NO STRINGS attached?”

You still don’t seem to understand. The term “free speech” means “speech that is not subject to criminal penalties.” That’s all. So your “no strings attached” rider makes no sense. You aren’t actually interested in free speech. You’re interested in consequence-free speech. That, of course, does not exist—but no one ever said it did.

So here’s the short version: You do have the right to free speech. You don’t have the right to consequence-free speech. But those are very different things.

You are always responsible for what you say, even when you are impaired, so there is no such thing as speech with no strings attached!