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[Hate Speech]: how America (and the world) deals with it
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And the unspoken "lol" part is "and speech can never be demonstrated to caused harm even when people who are cyber-bullied hang themselves so we can just continue with the status quo of 'say whatever the fuck you want whenever you want regardless of who gets hurt you can't prove anything lolz'.
I don't have a the answers to this problem, but piss on you for claiming there isn't a problem.
In the US that is covered under freedom of expression as well as freedom of religion. But once again we no true scottsman our way away from European countries that have banned minority political parties, prosecuted people for "Scientology is a Cult" signs, and is restricting minorities expression, because....
And if the legislative body is composed of idiots then I submit that poorly written hate speech laws are only one of very many worries you should have.
Well firstly sometimes you can prove harm, and we already restrict speech where there is a clear line. We just don't pre-preemptively ban the entire class of speech. We don't ban all bare tits because of Hustler, and we don't ban all homophobic speech because of Shepard.
But more importantly: I'm not claiming there is no problem.
I'm saying that speech codes are not the solution - they are a new, different problem that will harm people while fixing nothing.
The solution is to counter bad speech with good. Stop looking to the government to solve this - it can't do so without breaking the 1st Amendment. Use your speech, and I'll join with you, and hopefully we can continue to turn the tide without also divesting ourselves of critical freedoms in the process.
Don't conflate idiocy with bigotry.
e:
cause once again:
THE LEGISLATURE FINDS AND DECLARES THAT PUBLIC SCHOOL PUPILS SHOULD BE TAUGHT TO TREAT AND VALUE EACH OTHER AS INDIVIDUALS AND NOT BE TAUGHT TO RESENT OR HATE OTHER RACES OR CLASSES OF PEOPLE…
A SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL IN THIS STATE SHALL NOT INCLUDE IN ITS PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION ANY COURSES OR CLASSES THAT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. PROMOTE THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
2. PROMOTE RESENTMENT TOWARD A RACE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE.
3. ARE DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PUPILS OF A PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP.
4. ADVOCATE ETHNIC SOLIDARITY INSTEAD OF THE TREATMENT OF PUPILS AS INDIVIDUALS.
+ 70 pages of blah blah
to torpedo 1 Hispanic history class.
You're just not grasping this. It's not about the quality of the law at any given point - it's about giving the authority to the Congress to start trying. Poorly written hatespeech laws are one of very many spech-related worries we should have, and thank goodness somebody thought of that a couple hundred years ago and fixed most of them with the 1st Amendment.
... No one?
I feel like if you're here advocating for a no-hate-speech law, and you cite Europe as an example, then you really should cite a specific law...
Would nonphysical bullying not based on race, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity or other protected categories considered hate speech? Should it be?
Would calling someone an epitaph of a group that they don't actually belong to (calling a cheap atheist a 'jew' for example) fall under the umbrella?
These are some of the clarifications I would like to see in hate speech legislation.
This leads us right back to the very beginning of the thread.
Why is it that countries that aren't the U.S. don't descend into 1984 levels of speech restriction?
Even the few examples of lack-of-1st gone awry that have been presented fall short of this totalitarian hellhole which the 1st amendment is, ostensibly, the sole barrier holding us back from falling into.
Headscarf ban in France? Rooted in French xenophobia. The 1st amendment hasn't stopped the U.S. from having to confront bad laws dealing with our immigrants. These issues will find a way to express themselves as long as they exist.
The UK's Public Order Act of 1986 has good examples of both well and poorly-written hate speech legislation. The catchall provision of Section V has caused a lot of controversy and there's a big campaign in England to change it. However, the more specific portions, such as the racial hatred provisions of Section III, don't seem to have caused much controversy since they were enacted.
Why do you trust the judicial branch to manage the exceptions to the free speech clause that currently exist more than the theoretical ones proposed in this thread?
But yeah speech codes are BAD and NAUGHTY and also They Are not the Solution (instead, here are some ineffective and toothless suggestions, to show I am not just complaining and crossing my arms) and will Do More Harm than Good (TM).
You can find the text of Canada's criminal law regarding hate propaganda here.
This is the meat of it:
And if anyone is wondering, "identifiable group" is defined as "any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation."
I... no?
I suppose that a judge is part of the Dutch government, so you can kind of lay the decision to evict at the government's feet. But you can't lay the entire proceedings there, much less call that "rescinding" her protection.
Your Hitchens piece also contains this delightful note:
Doesn't that suggest that when Hitch met Hirsi Ali, she was still being protected?
I don't - they cock it up sometimes. That's part of why I don't want any further grey areas open to interpretation.
Is there any further explanation about what "promote hatred" actually means?
I can kind of see that in 319.d, where it says, "matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group" -- can I assume that that's what they mean exactly?
Would this mean that, say, South Park's episode on the Church of Scientology would be illegal? How would we know?
It does suggest that, but suggestions don't really mitigate how she was treated by the Dutch. She has since had her Dutch citizenship challenged (revoked, and reinstated by request of the parliament) and moved to the USA.
That sounds more like harassment. Hate speech has to be about something bigger than just one person.
Doubtful. Hate speech laws are not typically designed to prevent people from saying a couple of mean things every now and then. They're typically oriented more towards long, detailed screeds--your Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the like--that paint a particular group as subhuman, sinister, threatening, and otherwise deserving of fear and hatred.
Right.
The government can't be trusted so the solution is less government as opposed to a less shitty government.
Down with the bad things I say.
Maybe, if you replace instances of the word "hatred" with "laughter".
Her citizenship was challenged because of lies she told while seeking asylum. We're getting further and further away from your earlier claims that she was "forced to leave the Netherlands" and that "the government declined to protect her".
We can implement laws that punish the effects of hate speech, if it can be proved the words did actual harm, but the speech itself is a protected right of this nation.
This post doesn't even make sense.
The bolded is easily contradicted by Europe that you even acknowledge in your next sentence. A sentence that doesn't actually make sense btw.
I'm sure the US has has a worse crime rate per pop than Sweden, but what are the relative numbers for hate crimes, per pop as well as a percentage of all crime? (excluding hate speech from both sides of the equation)
According to your logic, every functioning government on Earth is not a society of free speech, including the United States.
That's the part of this I don't get: the reasoning. We aren't experiencing some new and terrible epidemic. Our society has been improving. We're advancing. I know liberals like to be all doom and gloom, but seriously, wake the fuck up to this rather bright and sunny day. The trend has been decidedly positive.
So I'm left wondering why you want to fuck the whole thing? I know you don't see it as fucking the whole thing up, but from even the most neutral angle, it's a fundamental change to how we view free speech in this country. What disaster makes you want to go down this road? I mean, I just don't see it. As a society, we've taken on the idea that the best way to combat "bad speech" is by overwhelming it with "good speech". We overpower the ideas we don't like by supporting the ideas we do like. And you know what? We've done really well with that. Shit's been getting done.
So why does this system suddenly not work? When did it break? When did you give up and just decide to hand the government carte blanche to put value judgements on speech and censor/silence it as they see fit?
I just don't get the reasoning.
This is a very good question, @Melkster
I shall do some digging.
I think that the Amendment certainly helps, but I think a big chunk of why America's speech laws are (generally) as liberal as they are is because of a broad political consensus that comes from some unique traditions.
The commonality of the "I disagree with what you say but..." Voltair-notion I think is at least if not more important than the 1st Amendment.
EDIT: To be sure though, the Bill of Rights is a cultural touchstone that also partially informs our traditions.
Seriously, those of you arguing for hate speech restrictions are not only playing with fire, you have forgotten the faces of your fathers. Here are some reasons why y'all should shut the fuck up.[/intentional irony]
Innocence of Muslims This is some hateful, hateful stuff that in some cases caused protests and, I have no doubt, violence. It was blocked on Youtube in roughly a dozen dozen countries. Should its makers have been prosecuted here in America just producing it?
Absolutely not. Here, let John Kennedy tell you why:
My immediate point here is that these protests were motivated by the very idea of "less free" speech you're proposing. When the government makes any judgement call based on content to ban or censor any individual piece of speech, it makes the government complicit in all other forms of speech. Which is exactly what the Mid East protestors believed: if the government allowed Innocence of Muslims to exist and be distributed, the government must actively approve of it. If you subscribe to this point of view, you must realize that it gets to the heart of the matter: a government which makes judgements about the content of speech cannot be impartial with respect to that speech. And with the certainty of partiality comes the possibility of bias in a direction of which you do not approve.
The larger point is that America and it's "pretty fucking free" speech is a city on a hill, with all eyes on us. As the world's greatest superpower, we have the world's greatest responsibility, not just to use that power responsibly but to be an example to the rest of the world. This means not torturing prisoners, even if it means not saving American lives; it means not using chemical weapons, even if we could probably do so with impunity; and it means allowing our speech to be as free as we can stand it, so that nations are inspired by our speakers, our thinkers, our artists, our satirists, and by the mercy and strength with which we treat those who rail and invect against all our most fervent beliefs.
It's really goddamn difficult to adhere to that ideal. It's difficult because there will be people whose words make you want to stab them in the face, from Limbaugh to Bachmann to NAMBLA to another few hundred million douchebags and assholes. It's difficult because words can hurt, and language can affect lives profoundly (why else do we fight so strongly for the word "marriage" over the word "union"?). It's difficult because speech can express and enforce a culture of bigotry and bullying that in turn can push a healthy person into instability and an unstable person into suicide. And it's difficult because when people are in pain, we automatically turn to that most powerful tool, government, in order to shield them and punish the ones responsible. But when wielded inexpertly as a cudgel, government will invariably rebound on those who once controlled it, or find targets they did not intend for it. To use it in this way is dangerous; more than that, it's shameful. We are much better than the people who hate us because it is they who would silence us; it is they who would shout us down, while we have the strength as a country to endure--and not only that, but to listen in good faith and respond peacefully with reason and compassion, believing that in the end it is those traits which will ultimately win out. We owe it to our fathers, to our neighbors and to ourselves to strive toward that goal and not falter along the way, even out of what seems like reason and compassion. It's difficult. But of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Loren hit the nail on the head. While I would be amenable to (and stand in favor of) hate speech laws, I don't see us ever getting them. Our cultural tradition of Free Speech Forever is probably too ingrained at this point for me to expect to see a change any time soon.
I mean, you can certainly believe as you wish, but don't act like you are setting an example for anyone.
PS - the Innocence of Muslims thing argument also doesn't work since even if you assume restrictions on free speech imply some level of approval of the content, if the US was restricting speech in such a way that you think that said perception existed, the movie wouldn't exist, would it? And thus there wouldn't be anything for them to think the US approved of.
There are speech restrictions everywhere. It does work the other way, and has been for a very long time. Don't believe me? Find your nearest local politician's office and start shouting death threats outside the door. Come back and tell us how that turns out.
A lot of people tend to react strongly against the notion of restricting "Hate Speech" strictly because there's the word "speech" in it and people interpret it vaguely due to it being a vague term.
Many see any restriction on speech under the "slippery slope" lens, which is a laughable argument. If you asked anyone if they support restricting "direct incitement to commit violent acts/genocide", most people would agree, despite incitement being a form of hate speech, and being banned by in the US since the 60's iirc? I have yet to see the US or any other country slide down to that 1984 scarecrow people like wave around
The real argument isn't whether we should have Hate Speech Laws or not, but rather "What constitutes Hate Speech" and "Which of these elements should be restricted, how and by how much?
In that case...
Death to all Transmetropolitan fans who refuse to put ice in their soda!
I'm actually arguing that even if you don't like our level of free speech, we have an interest in maintaining it so that other countries have an ideal to live up to. We have to be the shiny symbol (Batman, if you will) and not just people who muddle along making mistakes and applying best principles and situational ethics. We need to be capital-F Free and not just free.
I think there is a wide, wide selection of things which are not specifically hate speech but which the US would rather not be seen as endorsing, including non-hateful criticisms of our allies, disturbing but not quite obscene art, the output of our successful porn industry, and so on.
Secondarily, I'm not just speaking perceptions; if you're going to use the censor's pen, I believe you actually are endorsing (and thus morally responsible for) anything you choose to let through, the active word there being "choose," the word choose there being an action. And there is plenty of shit I personally don't want to be morally responsible for.
--
Edit: Speaking of Transmetro, I find somebody with a Spider Jerusalem avatar arguing for speech restrictions to be super ironic.
What can I say, I'm a Dark Tower fan. It's the best "shame on you" insult I have that won't get replaced with the word "goose."
I complained that when American forumers discuss hate speech laws in other countries they do it in a culturally jingoistic way: "The American stance on free speech is the best and everyone else is wrong to some degree because they are unlike us."
And yes, I am intentionally amplifying the language; people here usually don't say it quite that priggishly, but the sentiment is there.
Somehow this morphed into a discussion of hypothetical hate speech laws in the U.S. (not happening, probably ever) and that's fine.
But other countries have them and they manage pretty well. Obviously, St. Petersburg, Russia has a problem, but I suspect that that problem exists between the user and the chair, and the law in question is a symptom of serious social issues in the country and a poorly functioning democracy and not merely that they lack a 1st amendment.
Nothing presented here has in any way persuaded me that hate speech laws trigger an inevitable decline into draconian restrictions on a nation's discourse.
Obviously, it's perfectly fine to be proud of our American values and institutions. I just hate seeing that pride turn into a conceit.
Why? Why do you care when fairly obviously, no one else does? This is kinda silly reasoning. Don't pretend you are doing it for the rest of us. We don't care.
And yet it happens anyway. Apparently the US's stance isn't doing any good on this issue.
And I believe you are completely wrong. Saying "This is wrong" does not mean that everything not covered by "this" is, in your mind, right.
Given the current state of human rights in this country, the idea that we're the poster child for the rest of the world is incredibly fucking conceited.
"Hay guys check out our 1st amendment! Something for you lesser peoples to aspire to!"
Psst, just ignore Gitmo and the death penalty and our inability to recognize that guns are sort of dangerous and our watery stance on habeus corpus kkthx
USA USA USA
That doesn't leave much room for discussion, especially when it comes up against someone with an opposing, but equally moralistic position.
I still want to know if such laws have any appreciable effect on other hate crimes (specifically violent hate crime). Without that, there is almost no chance of you convincing me the cost could ever be worth the benefit.