I’m not at all convinced of that. Would the party of Trump agree to make it illegal to say you wanted less illegal immigrants in America? Or less Mexicans or less Muslims? Would your religious right agree to ban holding up a placard saying “Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism”? They’re more likely to be the ones holding it.
I’d like to know if any of those people would have been convicted under US law. I agree they were bigoted, but I disagree that should be the standard for making speech illegal. Why do you object to the burning royals? You believe it wasn’t an incitement to violence or you think only groups should be protected and not individuals?
That’s nice for you. We still had blasphemy laws until 10 years ago. What about other freedoms that aren’t in a protected class? And if you want to limit freedom of speech, what makes you so sure that freedom of religion would never be challenged?
Not at all, why would I be? But I don’t agree with the principle that it’s okay to ban the expression of ideas because they might cause harm to someone, or even many people. Firstly harmful ideas are not necessarily wrong. What if a scientific study gives a result that could harm people? Should it be illegal to publish the results? Secondly, while I might agree with you that some idea is wrong and harmful, so much so that it contributes nothing to the public discourse, I’m not so confident I’m right that I want to stop other people from even hearing about it. I can imagine other governments in the past who might have banned ideas I do agree with, on those exact same grounds, and without being able to hear them, why would I ever have changed my mind?
He says, based on our massive amount of experience with hate speech laws that tread the line on religion carefully and reasonably.
Oh wait exactly the opposite has happened. Existing hate speech laws have been notoriously terrible at bridging that gap, being too protective towards religion by a mile and a half. I’m reminded of this case:
In the Netherlands, a state-funded hotline, run by the anti-discrimination bureau MiND, said that it could not act on a complaint about death threats against homosexuals posted to an online forum, in which the Muslim poster called for homosexuals to be “burned, decapitated and slaughtered.” The reason why this anti-discrimination watchdog group could not act on the complaint was that, “The remarks must be seen in the context of religious beliefs in Islam, which juridically takes away the insulting character.” MiND concluded that the remarks were made in
[INDENT] “the context of a public debate about how to interpret the Quran… some Muslims understand from the Quran that gays should be killed… In the context of religious expression that exists in the Netherlands there is a large degree of freedom of expression. In addition, the expressions are used in the context of the public debate (how to interpret the Koran), which also removes the offending character.”
So, while Geert Wilders was prosecuted in the Netherlands for talking about “fewer Moroccans” during an election campaign, a state-funded watchdog group says that threatening homosexuals with burning, decapitation and slaughter is just fine, so long as it is Muslims who are making those threats, as the Quran tells them that such behavior is mandated. This might be one of the most astounding examples of voluntary submission to sharia law in the West thus far.[/INDENT]
Granted, that’s a particularly egregious case, and the decision was later determined to be wrong after MiND’s funding was threatened, but in most cases, hate speech laws have been extremely kind to religious opinions.
Oh? So is it bigotry to point out that Islam is an incredibly dangerous, harmful religion, responsible for most of the terrorism across the world, and whose holy book contains disturbing calls to violence as well as numerous things that are simply utterly incompatible with modern western civilization (let alone liberalism), and that we therefore should probably think twice before inviting massive numbers of Muslims from a region known for internecine Muslim violence into our country?
Absolutely none of this is wrong. Other than the conclusion, these are all facts, albeit cherry-picked and selective facts. Is this bigotry? Is this hate speech? Should I be banned or sanctioned for this? Because I guaran-fucking-tee you that facts like these are harmful to Syrian refugees. These are the kind of facts that are leading to an increasing wave of far-right anti-immigrant candidates winning in European elections.
How about this: “African-Americans have an average IQ of about one standard deviation below white Americans.” Ooh, yeah. There’s a touchy one. Or “More than one in five American blacks have an IQ below 75; whereas around one in twenty whites have an IQ below 75. An IQ of 70-75 is considered borderline retarded by psychologists.” This is (probably) true. Again: harmful, offensive, and also true. Is truth a defense? Sure didn’t matter to the people who shouted down Charles Murray.
What universal principle will you use to determine what is and is not bannable hate speech? If we’re presented with a case where we aren’t sure if it’s hate speech, how will we be able to tell?
I pointed out already that BLM deserved to be kicked out and to continue to notice that the meet was not canceled because of them. (IMHO this incident would not had made any waves if only BLM was removed, this only got attention because right wing sources need to tell others that BLM ‘did stop the meet’)
Having said that, I do think that it is good to keep reminding the moderate conservative leaning ones that** do know** that Trump and the current enabling republicans are poison; and they are indeed not the ones that should be there being arbiters.
No they don’t. They lack historical knowledge and they lack insight into human nature. And that’s a generous assessment of their motivations. Otherwise they do know and yet participate in advocating an evil policy in hopes to be the beneficiaries.
Oh, and another thing: if you try to silence facts like these with hate speech laws or taboos on politically incorrect speech, people tend to get mad. Like, really, really, really mad. It doesn’t work. All it does it push the discussions out of public view, and allows them to fester.
Well, I can agree with that, but we should notice that in this case right wingers have stretched what took place on the matter at hand; point being that, at least in my case, I’m getting mad when right wing groups are not giving the whole story to their readers, or that they give their readers a very twisted version of what took place.
I was over BLM pretty much from the beginning, when they decided to make their poster child the one “victim” of a high profile police shooting in recent years who was not a victim at all but a maniac who attacked a cop (shortly after doing the same, in plain view of surveillance cameras, to a store proprietor just to get some cigarillos) and tried to take his gun. BLM could have focused on Eric Garner, or held off until they had cases like Tamir Rice to build a movement around. By picking Mike Brown, they fatally compromised their credibility from the jump.
I’d like to know wgat you mean by “harms”. Not just, “what you say offends me”. I mean real, actual harm. (And keep in mind, incitement or calls to commit violence are already illegal)
And yet again, you refuse to acknowledge that the ACLU does not support your idea of freedom of speech. It has nothing to do with a “moral backbone” – it’s that their morals are different than your’s.
The problem is agreeing on what is right. People have been fighting over that since time began.
Because all minorities think alike. You honestly think outlawing hate speech is going to stop people from being bigots?
No, you’re not for freedom of speech. And who gets to decide what “hate-speech” is, BigT? Be careful what you wish for.
Oh, that’s definitely a factor, don’t get me wrong. At least a solid half of all “point and get outraged at this PC nonsense” reporting is pure unmitigated horseshit. It’s the other half that lends it credibility to people who are… let’s say “less careful” with their news consumption. Attempts to silence legitimate critiques of Islam, for example. Cases where anti-hate-speech groups side with the Muslims advocating death to homosexuals rather than homosexuals. These are good arguments against hate speech legislation, but they provide (admittedly bad) reasons for people to turn against anyone supporting moderation of tone or caution in reporting on instances like this. It kind of sucks.
Yes, this is exactly what happened to my cousin. He saw that liberals and the mainstream media tended to be politically correct about Islam and Muslims, and not skeptical enough about BLM, so that drove him right into the arms of Breitbart et al. Pretty soon he was spouting all kinds of insane alt-right nonsense and voting for Trump. I have reeled him back in to a much more tenable place by sharing with him Sam Harris’s podcasts, along with stuff from Bill Maher’s show on occasion. But beyond those two, unfortunately, it’s slim pickings on those issues. So my cousin has a hard time letting go of the idea that almost everyone left of center is basically Melissa Click.
Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general, and Ian Calderon, the Majority Leader of the California State Assembly, are both Democrats (and I’d bet they’re both pretty liberal, even for Democrats). They were scheduled to have a Q&A session with members of the public at Whittier College, but the event had to be ended early after pro-Trump hecklers shut down discussion with “a continuous and persistent chorus of boos, slogans, and insults”.
It is, of course, wrong when pro-Trump right-wingers pull this bullshit, just as it is when left-wingers do it. I would say to the Trump supporters exactly what I say to the BLM supporters: Go inside and ask your political opponents tough questions; or, if you believe that some politician or public figure is simply beyond even talking to, then by all means, congregate outside the venue and wave signs and chant slogans and hoot and holler. Or express your opinions in any of many, many other ways: Congregate and demonstrate somewhere other than where us evil America-hating libtards are speaking; wear hats; wear T-shirts; put bumper stickers on your cars; write letters to the editor; post on the Internet; tweet; re-forward e-mails to all your friends and relatives; put up yard signs; rent a billboard; get on cable access; fly the American flag upside down in front of your house; fly the American flag right-side-up in front of your house; pass out leaflets on the sidewalk. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But no one gets to shut down the free speech of people they disagree with.
That’s pretty interesting. I agree with most of the “stop saying” parts, as I do believe most of that stuff is overwrought. However, I think there’s more “there there” in terms of Trump’s racism and especially the racism of his biggest fans than this blogger is allowing for. I’d say the truth as I see it is about halfway in between.
This is pretty much exactly as bad, if not worse, as again we are deplatforming elected officials. This sucks for pretty much all the same reasons that the case in the OP sucks - worse on the object level because, being democrats, these two probably aren’t as awful as the republican who got deplatformed, or at least not in the same ways.
To those who support the deplatforming of racists (and who have a hard time distinguishing “republican” from "racist), my response is: what the fuck did you expect was going to happen? That right-wingers were going to see this obnoxious, semi-effective brute force tool being used against them and say, “Yup, I see no reason to reply in kind”? This is where we’re heading - any speaker more partisan than the ACLU (which is just about everybody) getting shouted down by partisan assholes who don’t understand that “free speech” doesn’t mean “shout over people you don’t like at venues that aren’t yours”.
This doesn’t seem like BLM to me. Seems more like agitated SJW. We have seen a lot of increased activism among SJW in the face of a more brazen alt. right/KKK
The recent thread about ACLU staffers who think that the ACLU should only care about free speech for liberals is just another symptom that will pass with the virus.
My problem with BLM has largely been their violent tendencies. That seems to have stopped when they realized that violence was counterproductive. Almost like they had the ability to prevent violence all along and just didn’t bother because they thought the violence was bringing them much needed publicity.
I distinguish the pre-Trump kneelers from the post Trump kneelers. I fully support the post Trump kneelers who kneeled after POTUS tried to chill their speech by trying to get the NFL owners to fire the pre-Trump kneelers.
Kaepernick OTOH…
I don’t like the protesters shouting down dissenting voices but that’s just asshattery
That is a lot easier to do when you and the 80% of you that are white are leaving the MLK speech than when you are a minority protesting a speech given by a guy that wants to convert that 80% to his way of thinking.