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[Hate Speech]: how America (and the world) deals with it
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I also think you put too much emphasis on the deterrent effect here. Very few people need to actually be restrained from doing the bad things that we make illegal. Most people have no desire to do anything that approaches committing a crime in the first place.
I don't know how it works in the US, but in Canada, we have plea bargains, where a defendant agrees to plead guilty and the crown and defence put forward a joint recommendation to the judge regarding an appropriate sentence. The judge is not bound by this recommendation, but judges typically don't deviate from them (because the recommendations are typically reasonable and balanced, and because if judges did their own thing all the time that would undermine plea bargaining). So it's my understanding that lawyers can tell their clients something close to what you suggest.
My bad it was the Netherlands not Norway.
Here's the original post:
They arrested someone for a "Scientology is a Cult" sign. That chills speech. And in Geert Wilders case, arrested charged, eventually overturned.
Add to them all the places with banned political parties. I don't know how you get speech more chilled than "you cannot participate in the political process".
Horses with horns.
Thank you for giving us a strict definition, defined for a country, using real examples.
First of all, I'm surprised that there was no mention here of what I thought hate speech laws tried to address, which is the rise of a political faction in which the violent persecution of some minority group is a core goal or rallying cry. To me, that's the practical danger of "hate speech." It could be argued that hatred of minority groups is a sort of "mind virus" that for some reason human beings are especially vulnerable to. Given that Canada is a democracy and those afflicted with the "mind virus" of racial or religious hatred could rise to power, it may be reasonable to address that risk with legislation. But you haven't made that argument, so perhaps I should say no more on that.
Second of all, I'm worried that there may actually be legitimate grounds to make statements intended to disempower an identifiable group, and that this law will unjustly prevent those statements. For example, imagine that a religious group comes to power that believes bad and harmful things. It seems reasonable to try and persuade the general public that that religious group is bad and that people should stop believing in it.
What may be a more narrowly-tailored alternative is a law that forbids the expression of statements intended to cause others to do actual violence towards an identifiable group. But currently, the law as summarized by you, is about disempowerment -- but to me I could imagine a situation where it would actually be reasonable to want to disempower an identifiable group.
I suppose the real trouble I have is with this word "hatred." In reviewing Wikipedia on the court decisions you talked about, it comes up again and again: Whether or not a person or group is "attempting to promote hatred" is the core question. Now, certainly in the two cases that you cite, it seems pretty clear. But what concerns me is that I tend to want laws to be quite clear: Either person X committed a specific crime or he did not, and the only trouble is in knowing the facts of the case -- but here you have a crime where you can know all the facts but still be uncertain. In the imagined scenario I outlined earlier, where a legitimately bad religious group comes to power, when a person criticizes them harshly, it might be difficult to say whether or not they are "attempting to promote hatred" or not. It would be more clear, once again, if the law was about promoting violence instead.
Hate speech is speech whose content is considered discriminatory towards a group or group such that "exposes them to hate" or "seeks to delegitimize a group." It says that people might be swayed by expressions that claim homosexual sex is immoral (or that women are inferior or minority groups dumb etc) and that the negative effect of people being convinced is enough to ban the speech.
In Canada, their Supreme Court recently ruled that it was explicitly about "curtailing public expression" of positions they think are distant "from the core values" and "because it does little to promote, and can in fact impede, the values underlying freedom of expression."
They have defined an orthodoxy ("core values"), decided a position is harmful to those core values, and forbidden it from being expressed even when "expression falls within political speech", if its "part of a larger public discourse," even if true because "[t]ruthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech", and "not all truthful statements must be free from restriction", that cannot be "excused by a sincerely held belief" or if in a greater work contains valuable content because "even one phrase or sentence" is enough to ban the entire work.
"Hate speech" is a new way to say blasphemy to the orthodox position in a multicultural society. That being multicultural is good is no more than the point than whether or not Christian (or Muslim or whatever) theology is correct/good/beneficial. Its a class of speech that is prohibited, punishable and banned because people might listen and agree with it. In a modern, tolerant culture the damage is people would become less tolerant and minorities may feel less accepted by the majority. In a previous iteration, the majority may become less pious and non-religious may feel less incentive to have their "souls saved".
In each paradigm - multiculturalism and religion - there's a deep moral reason that the unorthodox position is harmful to hold which provides a justification for prohibiting its expression. But the restriction of unorthodox/minority positions is also antithetical to the actual core, underlying philosophy of those paradigms.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I think your (2) is the problem. A legislature does not have carte blanche to define "hate speech" however they see fit. There is non-binding precedent as to the meaning of the term, and I would think that deviating from that understanding as significantly as you're suggesting would not go over well on judicial review.
hmm
HMMMMMMM
How come you never mention that part?
What's the word for the opposite of a pollyanna?
In the US plea bargains are a mess. No idea of how to get rid of them, but they are a mess.
I'll charge you with : ten offenses many of which are grossly over exaggeration of what you did, and could get you 50+ years. Or take this please for a 5.
The prosecution stacks so much crap on the charges side, that even if you are innocent it's almost insane not to take the plea. Because one bad trial and you are in jail for the rest of your life. And this is all 10x worse if you are black.
It's possible to have a good government while not giving it massive leeway and hoping it believes your sob story when you end up catching its attention.
R.I.P. Aaron Schwartz, victim of prosecutorial overreach.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Remember that truth is a complete defence, at least when it comes to the criminal law. So if there was a religious order that actually killed babies and used their blood to bake a sort of ritual cracker thing, it would be totally fine to tell people about that.
Because eventual legal exoneration doesn't change the unjustness of being arrested. The Canadian Communist party regained its rights after 13 years of court, so clearly their rights weren't effected. Many of the protesters in the US Civil Rights marches were arrested, held for a few days, then let go w/o charges being filled, was that okay?
Additionally, it's still a refutation of the UK having this perfect speech code, so narrow as to effect no one but the most vile of bigots.
Actually the truth as an absolute defense to defamation is only an American thing. And as I linked above, truth is not a defense in Canada in regard to hate speech laws.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I just want to point out that Whatcott related to a provision in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code, not the Criminal Code of Canada, so the penalties involved in that case are not the penalties anyone was discussing earlier.
I also want to take issue with your characterization of hate speech as "the new blasphemy". Blasphemy laws are designed to protect entrenched and dominant views against challenge by marginal and radical groups. Hate speech laws are designed to protect marginal and radical groups from further marginalization by members of entrenched and dominant groups. Moreover, if we take "multiculturalism is good" to be the orthodoxy then I wouldn't the equivalent of a blasphemy law be "no insulting multiculturalism" rather than "no promoting hatred"?
And in a lot of countries the police can arrest you if they think you have committed a crime, regardless of if you actually have, and suffer no consequences for it. This is how things work. The law was tested, the person was found to have not committed any crime, the police were advised that this is not a crime in the future.
Lots of speech has no ascertainable truth value. examples:
"Honk if you hate gypsies", “Canada is not a Trash Can”, “You’re a cancer to Canada”, “G.S.T. — Gypsies Suck Tax"(maybe ascertainable, not really a sentence),“Gypsies Out”, “How do you like Canada now?” and “White power”
In this case "someone else" meaning some other state, one which you are probably not familiar with and have likely never even visited.
But we're talking about the state both you and I live in, and I certainly am within my right to have an opinion on the mores of my own home country.
You'll notice that nearly everyone doing the arguing in this thread is American. We've had a few europeans pop in to offer a comment here and there or an example, and I think there are one or two Canadians who have mainly confined themselves to explaining and defending their own laws.
But the bulk of this thread, the vast majority of it, is Americans talking about America.
And Americans are the only ones who have suggested that our 1st amendment is what everyone else should be because "it's the best".
All I've seen so far is a lot of concern that we're so very much not "the best" that without the 1st amendment we'd rapidly become the worst.
The staunchest defenders of the absolute right to free speech also seem to have the worst opinion of the government and the electorate. Americans cannot be trusted with a flexible government or the power to make laws which restrict speech which almost no one actually wants to suffer to hear.
Because...
We're so "the best". Or something.
It's quite disheartening really.
And then 2 years later they arrest someone for "Homosexuality is a Sin", a statement that is not hate speech, and is as true as anything theological can be called true.(I know all the other Leviticus shit, I'm just saying the government cant rule on the trueness of religious belief)
“You’re a cancer to Canada” - False.
“G.S.T. — Gypsies Suck Tax" - That's not what GST stands for, so that's false, and if the idea being expressed is that Roma people are a particular drain on Canadian tax revenues, that's also false.
“Canada is not a Trash Can” - Insofar as it compares Roma to garbage, false.
The rest are indicative of intent (i.e. this was not a friendly conversation debating the merits of different immigration policy).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/8687395.stm
No one seems to feel a hate speech law is a viable possibility in the U.S. which leaves this a hypothetical discussion.
Whereas here in the U.S. when the police make mistakes it involves kicking in doors and hosing down little old ladies with automatic weapons fire.
No one gets released unharmed later because whoops they're dead.
But the U.K. has such a police state problem that we're all so very chilled by it.
ooooooh it's scary.
*hard eyeroll*
we clearly have a different understanding of true and false.
You're a cancer to Canada- can't be 'False'. Except in the most literal sense, since you know Canada lacks organs. It's a non-literal comparison between two things.
Acronyms can in fact stand for more than one thing. Do you have a study on the tax revenues vs expenditures of Canada on Roma?
And once again, comparing people to something isn't a provable statement.
The Chinese are like cardboard. Cause they are stale and without humor? Or cause they ship stuff all over the world? It's a comparison of a group of people and an inanimate object, it can be true and false in many non-literal senses simultaneously.
Even something simple like "Having Gypsies makes Canada Worse" is not something that can be disproven, since 'worse' is subjective.
The US police are terrible. We should use the police in the US to regulate peoples speech. Spot the flaw.
It doesn't matter. Under that law posted, the defendant has to show truth to use that as a defense. It doesn't matter that Grouch can't prove them false, he doesn't have to, the person who said it has to show they are true.
True, unless there are mass arrests we shouldn't concerned. Which is why Lawrence v Texas was such a waste of time.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Actually, I think this is a weird example because he's a teacher; while that's a good example of hate speech, it's specifically hate speech coming from a government employee (unless this was a private school). I'm perfectly fine with policing the behavior and speech of government employees differently than we do regular citizens, because government employees speak with governmental authority. Put Keegstra on a street corner talking to a group of students on a field trip and I don't give a shit; put him in a classroom, with a teacher's authority and (assumed) monopoly on truth to his students, and now you have a problem.
I'm also, for the third or so time, not arguing that Canada should get rid of its speech laws. I don't think they're good, certainly; but if Canada wants to have less free speech, it's not my place to tell them so (or rather, it's such a minor human rights issue that I just don't care compared to everything else going on in the world; there are much worse countries in general and many that are much worse specifically in terms of speech).
My argument that they're not good is that they restrict the free expression of ideas, something I believe to be of fundamental importance to a functioning democracy; that they set a bad example to nations struggling to establish the principle of free speech; and that deliberately suppressing ideas lends those ideas a legitimacy they would not otherwise have in the open marketplace of speech, as well as preventing hate groups from having a peaceful way to express their beliefs.
I'm thinking specifically of some WBC counter protests. Here's a link to some signs from one of them. These include calling them "dicks," telling them to "drink the Kool-Aid already", saying "they suck" and "Fuck Westboro", holding up a sign pointing to them that says "Free Hand Jobs", and otherwise insulting, deriding, and mocking them. Another from a different link reads "God Hates People Who Say They Know Who God Hates." Does this fall under your definition of hate speech?
The law you quoted refers to statements, but the body of expression you quoted included both statements and a lot of people merely identifying with a racist subculture ("White Power", the Hitler salute, Confederate flags) and behind my joke, I'm wondering how that factors into these considerations. It seems to me very problematic for a government to decide that a particular group is evil and that identifying with that group can be considered at the very least contributive to a determination that certain statements fall under the hate speech statute.
If your police are indistinguishable from a group of gangsters and your government is an alien entity that looms over you without even understanding you, let alone reflecting your values, then once again:
You are surely correct that you cannot be trusted with the responsibility to write laws however you have such serious systemtic problems that you should probably consider moving and possibly burning the country down on your way out. Free speech is the least of your converns; you are living in a failed state.
The police made a legal arrest in that case, did they not? If it had to be argued up to the supreme court it's a reasonable thing to say that the police weren't exactly off base.
Was it a terrible law that had long, long since fallen into sketchy enforcement and near disuse? Yes. Yes it was.
But given that three justices were happy with the status quo, I'm going to go with "police procedures were not the chilling thing here".
I find it very disingenuous that you are framing people's concerns about government/police overreach in this way.
Your concern has been duly noted.
I can guard against government overreach without living in 1984.
Likewise, i can be uncomfortably hot and turn on the AC even if not on the surface of the sun.
Ahh yes, Prove your innocence, the corner stone of a working legal system. And once again, trivial easy to prove. Gypsies are a cancer to Canada. Show a map of the spread/growth of Gypsie communities. Boom its 'true', cancer spreads so do Gypsies. Canada is not a trash can is literally true. To then accept a non-literal interpertation as the actual one to prosecute some one on is pretty sketchy.
And the way he phrased it was:
Puts the onus on the government to show their falseness.
e: Remember with Libel is specific claims that can be challenged.
No, no. You tell me. Work it through.
I'm not sure that there is any governmental edict that says "All members of white supremacist groups are hereby declared evil" or anything like that. Do you really find it problematic that a judge would look at a person's membership in a given group for insight into what their beliefs might be?
The definition of a working government is not one in which the judicial system shows mercy on you in its oppression and doesn't impose the draconian legal penalty it could, out of a sense of kindness.
It is one in which draconian legal penalties aren't possible and the government has no power to impose them. The closer we get to restraining government such that it does what we need and cannot inflict excessive harm on us in the process, the better off we are.
Yes, you're very clever and the best kind of correct. I'd be pretty proud if I could argue as well as that.
You did make one mistake, though. I'm not the government, so my definition of hate speech doesn't really put any onus on anyone.