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[Hate Speech]: how America (and the world) deals with it
Posts
Example.
1. "I will open the front door, to let the cool breeze in.”
2. “Opening the front door will let flies in, I don’t want flies, don’t open the front door.”
^THIS IS NOT A ‘SLIPPERLY SLOPE’. Arguing that a single action has an undesired consequence is not a ‘slippery slope’.
Example
1. I will open the front door, to let the breeze in.
2. If you open the front door, you’ll want to open the back door, and then soon ALL THE DOORS WILL BE OPEN and chaos will ensue.
^This is a slippery slope.
To further clarify.
1. I want hate speech laws, to stop asshats from saying hateful shit.
2. Hate speech law can be used to stop not asshats from saying unpopular things.
^Not a slippery slope.
1. I want hate speech laws, to stop asshats from saying hateful shit.
2. If we get hate speech laws, then tomorrow we’ll have to get mean speech laws, and then the day after we’ll have to make laws preventing moderately irritating speech.
^Is a slippery slope.
Well, there you go. Then again, some of those posters might be more humorous than hateful, so maybe it isn't. It's not always easy to work these things out. At any rate, is it bad that a hate speech law could make a counter-protest to a non-existent protest illegal?
Don't be ridiculous. This isn't guilt by association, it's "if he walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, he's probably a racist fuck". Guilt by association is "we don't have anything else on you, so now you're in trouble for hanging out with these people".
All of it is a religious belief? That (some) gay and lesbian people "want to ... proselytize vulnerable young people [and] socialize your children into accepting something that is clearly wrong"? That doesn't seem religious. That "[o]ur children will pay the price in disease, death, abuse"? The "eternal damnation" part I'll give you.
I'm always a bit leery of attempts like yours to "boil down" claims that run afoul of hate speech laws, because inevitably, the simplification starts to look a lot more like whitewashing. You can't reduce "the sodomites are going to indoctrinate your children into their filthy ways" to "homosexuality is immoral and there will be consequences as it becomes increasingly accepted" without losing a lot of meaning. If the claims were stated in your banal and benign tone, then maybe there wouldn't be such a problem. But they weren't, so there is a problem.
Yes, we know. But you haven't shown any actual harm or any reason why I should view the incidents in a bad light. Your whole argument was "I don't buy the argument that hate speech laws don't lead to tyranny so here's some examples from Canada of hate speech laws not leading to any sort of tyranny".
You find them unacceptable. I don't. And you haven't shown any reason why I should.
And nothing happened. No one banned anything.
Except you haven't shown an example of them being misused. In fact, you've shown an example of them being used properly and an example of someone trying to misuse them and it not working.
See my response above. You're favouring a grossly oversimplified interpretation of the quote over the quote itself. It actually uses language that characterizes gay people as sick and predatory ("proselytize vulnerable young people").
Here's another quote for good measure:
Is that a religious claim?
Oh right. I guess I should've known th-
http://current.com/technology/89398676_kids-who-photograph-themselves-naked-are-child-pornographers-and-sex-offenders.htm
Oh shit, where did that come from?
But hey, I'm sure that's the only time peoples lives have been destroyed by legislation. Oh, you mean to say sex offenders are living in what amounts to refugee camps in Florida because they can't find a job or a place to live?
Man, that would suck, eh? Good thing everyone thought this would never happen when they made the laws.
Slippery slope schmippery schmope, doesn't exist.
Except the actual step two for this part is "they will be used to stop not asshats from saying unpopular things." which is a slippery slope.
It's not really that important if the view is religious in origin or just his opinion. The point is that even if you believe in restriction of speech, he should still be free to express his opinion unless he is causing harm to other people. Unless you're prepared to say that insulting someone is causing harm, I don't see how what he printed in his pamphlet meets that criteria. Again, he isn't asking for violence or hostility he is simply stating what he believes (in a negative way) and then saying that the current laws should be changed.
Put it this way, should you be fined and banned from posting fliers that say something like "racists are despicable worthless human beings, and are indoctrinating our children into accepting something that is clearly wrong. Our children will pay the price in abuse, hostility, and death"? I would say not. But I don't see how that would be arguable different than what the above example was talking about, other than we all agree that LGBT is not an immoral life choice, but being racist is bad.
/looks at thread title
Nope, not the sex offender thread. I guess you are the one that posted in the wrong spot then.
The canadian examples I posted are examples of people being refused their right to express their beliefs. I'm not sure what else there is to show here. The whole point is that the hate speech laws are not being limited to cases where there is a clear instance of preventing harm. It's being used to suppress ideas that those in power disagree with. As is shown by the examples. The fact that you don't care that bigoted religious fanatics are being censored doesn't have anything to do with my point. The reason you should care is because this sets a clear precedent. If your ideas are not inline with the majority, it's ok for the Canadian government to suppress them, even in the absence of any proof that they will have any negative affects at all.
The last point is exactly an example of DMCA being misused. The whole point of the article is to point out how it was severely twisted for business gains that had nothing to do with preventing piracy. This is a direct example of a law being used in ways not intended by its creation. If you are going to keep claiming that it's obvious that hate speech laws will never be misused, then explain to me why they are different then anti-piracy laws.
You can't just ignore all the cases where legislation had unintended effects and was misused. In the face of several other types of legislation that has been misused I would say that it's up to you to prove that this type of legislation is significantly different.
Or they send an example that a central government can actively protect the rights, lives, and property of ethnic, racial, religious, or other minority groups.
Oh, I forgot, allowing unrestricted hate speech in nations that face long-standing internal cultural divisions could never have any negative consequences that might outweigh the chilling effect of censorship.
Granting, for the sake of argument, that "racists" is an identifiable group, I think that calling them "worthless human beings" tips the scales from legitimate social commentary to problematic and potentially hate speech. Personally, I have no desire to call any identifiable group "worthless human beings", and I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that.
At this point you are just arguing for insults to be illegal if they are directed at an identifiable group. While I appreciate the ability to have civil discourse I do not think outlawing insults is the way to go.
I'm not trying to put words in your mouth but you said "I am prepared to say that when we're talking about historically oppressed groups that still struggle with a legacy of hatred and oppression, insults directed at members of those groups can cause harm." and "if the claims were stated in your banal and benign tone, then maybe there wouldn't be such a problem. But they weren't, so there is a problem." I'm not sure how else to interpret what you are arguing for other than insults of minorities is harmful and should be restricted.
But... you gave an example of a hate speech law working as intended (homophobic douchebag told to cut that shit out) and an attempt at overreach that went nowhere. There haven't been any examples of actual effective overreach, or of people with legitimate expression being silenced. Like, I understand that you would have preferred that Whatcott be allowed to continue his campaign against gay people, but it's still a case where the law worked exactly as intended.
The entire point of hate speech laws is to employ the chilling effect that people in this thread are mocking, to stop people from saying mean things about groups they support (I phrase it like that because no one in here is arguing that we should arrest everyone who posts in r/atheism but if the shoe fits dot dot dot).
Hate speech laws with no chilling effect on speech are completely ineffectual. Either there is a chilling effect on speech and some people will fear punishment and self-censor what would otherwise be allowable statements, or no one will be deterred and the hate speech continues unabated.
Where is the harm in the pamphlets the dude passed out? Why would we even want this to be illegal?
All of it was legitimate expression.
Why do you get to define what is legitimate? And, having answered that, why do I not get to define it?
Finally: what happens when you don't like my definition?
I don't understand what you think hate speech laws are intended for then. I was under the impression that they were to prevent people from encouraging hostility or violence towards minorities, not to prevent people from insulting minorities or expressing negative opinions of minorities. Trying to prevent crimes and hostility is a noble goal for a government, whilst preventing the free expression of ideas is a bad one. What happens when the majority of people think that your artwork is offensive, should you be banned from creating it? Should you be banned from making jokes in a comedy club about minorities? If I insult someone at a bar should it be totally legal if I just call them a goosemonger, but illegal if I call them a gay goosemonger? Who gets to draw the lines about what is an insult and what isn't an insult?
Some insults directed at some minorities may be harmful, and have few, if any, legitimate uses in the wider public discourse. On occasion, it may be appropriate for the government to intervene and mitigate calls for (or that amount to) further victimization.
What kind(s) of harm do you care about?
Yes and no. The point is to have a chilling effect, but the question is what ideas/speech are being affected. Suppressing the propagation of ideas that promote violence and criminal activity is not the same as suppressing any idea that isn't in agreement with those in power. The pro hate speech side is saying that you can do one without the other, whilst I am saying I don't think you can. I'm also saying that the fact that canada hasn't spiraled into a complete totalitarian dictatorship is not evidence that you can.
I'm just going to quote from the majority decision in Keegstra:
Actually, what observers of white nationalists will tell you happened is that the trappings of the Klan were rejected, not the actual viewpoint. Basically, individuals who would have been drawn to the KKK in the 60s instead gravitate to other similar movements, like Christian Identity. And let's not forget that the Klan was a target of one of the FBI's greatest oversteppings ever, as well.
Don't get me started on that. The tech community hasn't exactly covered itself in glory there - it's convenient how they leave out how Lessig pretty much threw Swartz under the bus, for one...
In short, his case is a poor choice for prosecutorial misconduct.
I don't, you don't, and nobody cares, respectively.
These people are racist geese.
You associate with these people.
Therefore, you are a racist goose.
That style of logic is one thing in the social forum (I don't want to hang around geese who hang around racist geese). It is something entirely different when you start talking criminal charges.
So this is exactly, 100%, about making a determination about someone based on what they said and did.
Actually I can ignore unrelated cases of bad legislation. Because the alternative is saying "This law is bad, therefore all laws are bad".
The reason we don't do that is because we admit that not all other types of laws are applicable to the ones we are talking about now. In this case, this specific example is in no way applicable to the question of laws against hate speech. It's only being brought up to prop up a bad argument with no support.
Actually it's the entire point. They are expressing bigoted hateful ideas that are harmful to others. There is no gain to letting them speak. Even your own argument admits that.
What you are actually worried about is a chilling effect from the intended action of the law. The problem is, you haven't established that at all. If you feel telling those people to fuck off will have a chilling or unintended effect, maybe you shuld actually give an example. Since so far, all you've done is shown the laws working as intended.
Why are they similar? It's not my job to establish your analogies for you.
That's nice, but I wasn't responding to that post, which might be, incidentally, why I didn't quote that post. On the other hand, the part where you said,
Was quoted and is illustrating guilt by association.
White supremacists groups were on the decline till somebody just had to get elected while being all black.
All kidding aside the membership in white supremacy groups has been pretty much on the down slope for quite a bit. Which is a good thing.
Unfortunately the end result has been systemic racism due to certain things being off limits to say publicly. I just see another set of regulations governing what and what isn't hatespeak as being yet another tool for those who have basically rigged the system to begin with. It won't protect anybody or anything but the status quo.
Okay, let's look at that article.
This here is a political viewpoint, the free expression of which should be protected.
This could go either way, it's hard to tell without the context (I could pull two phrases out of any day of Fox News that would sound as bad).
Oh, hey, look: speech which incites people to violence and should be fucking prosecuted, regardless of its target.
In fact, I am happy to add additional penalties to already criminal speech that is directed at a protected class, just as we do for assaults and murders. What I'm not willing do is criminalize speech that was not otherwise illegal based purely on its target and content.
Look, speech has power, but it takes two to tango. Nobody was hypnotized into genocide. If "I was just following orders" didn't work at Nuremberg, "The man on the radio suggested it" sure as shit doesn't either. You know what would have had a significant impact on the course of events? If Rwanda wasn't chock full of ethnic conflict and people willing to murder over it. That speech was not harmful, those actions were harmful.
Yes, if you remove the context, it totally changes the meaning. Good job.
Yeah, but I didn't. There really isn't any reasonable context where, "a person's membership in a given group" is automatically interchangeable with "a person committing overtly racist acts."
You're wrong. You (and those who agree with you) do get to define legitimate speech. In nations with speech codes enforced by the state, allowable speech necessarily changes with the political winds.
In America, this is largely impossible.
Specific harm, perpetrated by an individual, with an identifiable victim who can demonstrate he or she was actually harmed by the speaker.
Not really, because in reality hate speech laws aren't actually used to suppress political ideas unpopular with the current government.
Except that speech was harmful, since it incited a genocide.
Oh, I forgot, the media has no real impact on how people think. That's why advertising and propaganda are so pointless.
But since it's impossible to simply wish away decades if not centuries of ethnic conflict in a whole bunch of places, I'm still wondering why protecting hate speech should be prioritized over the protecting the security of minority populations in these nations that are theoretically transitioning towards a freer society. Why should they look to the United States (and Rwanda) as models instead of looking towards Canada or various post-WW2 European nations?
You do know that one of the men sentenced to death at Nuremberg was a newspaper publisher, right?