Liberal, can we talk about hate speech?

The BBQ Pit
1

In this post, you dropped in an irrelevant side comment about the term “fundie” being hateful. (I say irrelevant not because it’s not meaningful grounds for discussion - it is - but because the thread, “Should lying be a bannable offense?” didn’t really pertain to the word “fundie” or to hate speech.)

We’ve discussed the issue before, you and I - and frankly, I felt like you didn’t try hard to justify why it’s hate speech. The idea seems to be pretty axiomatic to you, and you haven’t really taken the time (at least that I’ve seen) to explain why, even in your thread, "Why isn’t ‘fundie’ hate speech?’ (probably because it turned into rather a train wreck before you had much chance.) Personally, I’m probably more open to the notion than you’d imagine - I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong. But here’s where you lose me.

More than once (in fact, in every thread I’ve noticed you discussing the issue) you made an analogy to words used for gay people. I think that analogy falls flat. This is why.

When I hear the word “faggot”, I jump visibly. My heart rate increases. My breathing quickens. In fact, I briefly enter fight-or-flight until I can be sure I’m not in danger. It’s not that I live in eternal fear, but the reptilian part of my brain takes over when I hear that word. Especially if it’s shouted. I’ve never been subject to violence for being gay. Not any serious violence anyway - a few bruises and bloody noses in high school are probably pretty normal, even if the attackers come three at a time. But like most gay people, I’m aware of what “Hey, Faggot!” signifies. Because people I know have gotten the shit beat out of them, even in this day and age. When I hear the word, especially if I’m alone, part of my brain immediately works to decide if my life is in danger, and if so, what I should do.

I don’t mean to revel here in my own (few) bad experiences, or those of other gay people, because all in all, I live a pretty good life. But the power of language is such that it evokes reactions in people that they can’t help.

I don’t think “Hey Fundie!” ever precedes violence. I’ve never heard of “fundie-bashing” besides maybe unpleasant words on message boards. I think fundamentalist Christians, however they may be treated by other groups, are rarely if ever in danger of their safety or their lives because they are fundamentalist Christians.

Hate speech is more than just rudeness; it’s more than just lumping people together and prejudging them. I don’t think you’ve ever experienced having real hate directed at you because of your religious beliefs. Most gay people have felt that hate - the kind of hate that scares you because you know what has happened to others in the same situation.

So that’s why I don’t think the situations are analogous. I realized that last time, I didn’t really bother to explain why I thought your analogy was flawed, but there it is. Liberal, I hope you read this. If you do, please let me know what you think and why the term “fundie” shares the same weight to you. “Faggot” isn’t just impolite, or unconducive to debate, or unfair - it hits me in the gut and fills me with fear. It’s a reflexive reaction. I really don’t think people have that reaction to the word “fundie”.

2

Lib is a “fundie” of course it’s hate speech to him. Give him a break.

If I were unwashed “pigpen” would be hate speech to me.

3

Yeah, this is going to go well.

4

What? I’m trying for constructive here. If I’ve failed, then I better not even try anymore.

Man, I wish I could stand more of the people here on the SDMB who share my politics.

5

I didn’t realize before how the term elicided such gut reactions from people who had actually experienced violence for something they actually were, something I have not experienced. I am sorry for the lousy examples of humanity that saw it morally fit to do this to you.

I have never called a person a fundie, or a faggot, but I will fully think of the violent ramifications when I hear this term in the future. I, too, have a gut reaction to this term that I do not when I hear the term “fundie”, and you have perfectly explained why in a way I cannot. Thank you.

6

Sorry, dude. This is what you have for backup. We all know the SDMB is <cough>left leaning<cough> and anyone not conforming to the liberal ideal will be righteously denounced.

Liberal, as his name change shows, is trying to get the left to return to its progressive history. Not what it seems to be these days. Do I agree with him on policy? Not always. In fact, I’d vote against him. But he at least tries, now and then, to be coherent in his arguments. And just because a person doesn’t agree with a position doesn’t make it wrong. (Holy shit. I just opened myself to a bunch of shit sandwiches) :wink:

7

Reeder, I realize that this is the Pit, but I think it’s pretty tacky to attempt to derail Excalibre’s thread just because you may have some personal beef against Liberal. Given that I can think of no common definition of Fundamentalist Christian that includes, Liberal, your crack does not even make sense.

8

duffer, do me a favor and don’t hijack to complain about Reeder. Folks here are plenty aware of how he operates. I’d like this thread at least ot get a response from Liberal before it turns into a shitfest.

9

I think Excalibre hit the nail on the head. Words like “faggot” and “nigger” and even, in some situations or intonations, “bitch” are words that literally put those persons that they refer to “on alert”…the adrenal glands start working overtime because those words hold a high correlation with violence. When those words start flying, it doesn’t take much for fists to start flying after them.

Even for people in those groups who’ve never even been personally touched in a violent way, it’s scary. Because we KNOW what happens. It may not have happened to us directly, but we know people that it’s happened to. And most of us know of people who haven’t managed to escape the situation alive.

I find even the possibility that “fundie” can be connected with violence against Christians in the United States to be absurd. The analogy does NOT hold.

10

Bravo, for that one, Excalibre, as well as for the OP.

I’d be curious to know if Friend Liberal considers “handstabber” to be hate speech, under his relaxed set of boundaries for the description. My guess would be that he can see it as not hate speech because it is not widely used.

However, far be it from me to put words into his mouth. We await your wisdom, Liberal, and in the event that you have not found the argument in the OP to be persuasive, what say you to the question of whether “handstabber” marches under the same hate speech banner as “Fundy”?

I mean “fundie.” “Fundy” is a bay.

11

Does a word have to elicit fear or “be connected with violence” in order to be hate speech? I think not. Hate speech, by its very definition, is intended to elicit or agitate feelings of hatred (and/or to a certain degree, contempt for or superiority to the subject of its ire). Some forms elicit fear, some do not. It appears to me that Excalibre and jayjay are attempting to redefine the term in order to suit their own interpretation of it, and then calling Liberal to task for not using the term as they, personally, choose to define it.

I can certainly understand how, given the way they’re looking at it, they can come to this conclusion. But words have a certain meaning, and if everyone were free to assign their own definitions to them, then the language itself becomes meaningless.

“Fundie,” in my opinion, qualifies because it’s intended to engender feelings of contempt and superiority on the part of those who use it, and to make those it is applied to feel belittled or inferior. I would feel that people behaving that way toward me were being hateful, even if I felt no physical threat.

Furthermore, such speech, even if it doesn’t carry the threat of physical violence, can over time develop into feelings that are intense enough to result in violence. There are peole on this very board (but not in this thread…so far :wink: ) who would be more than happy to see violence perpetrated on certain Christian fundamentalists simply because of their beliefs on certain issues.

12

I’m not attempting to redefine anything. I’m pointing out that there’s a fundamental difference between words like “faggot” and “nigger” and a word like “fundie”. Personally, I’m not convinced that “fundie” conveys hate at all - but at any rate, the point in bans on hate speech is not to prevent rudeness. After all, hate speech is frowned upon here, but insults are given free reign in the Pit. The idea behind bans on hate speech is to create a safe space, as it were. I just don’t see the word “fundie” as fitting into a category with other such words. Perhaps, in your opinion, it’s rude to use the word. But there’s no rule anywhere in society about being rude. True hate speech is banned because it’s far worse than just rude.

Well, I pointed out that the analogy between “homo” or “faggot” (the two words that Lib has used most extensively in this comparison) and “fundie” is weak. Do you disagree with that? What is the definition of “hate speech” to you? Why should hate speech be banned - or should it? Is the fact that a word is rude enough?

Now this is the part where I lose sympathy. Violence against Christian fundamentalists is rare. Please cite counterexamples (or preferably statistics) if you disagree, but frankly, I doubt you’ll be able to find them, because it just doesn’t really happen. I don’t mean to suggest that you’re unsympathetic, but every gay person knows someone who has been the victim of real life violence, not hypothetical violence. It still happens, and it happens surprisingly often. (Does anyone remember the thread a few months, perhaps longer, about that here? There was a great thread about gaybashing. I can’t remember enough about it to search for it.)

I don’t deny that there’s people who act uncharitably towards those who don’t share their beliefs, but really, you’re trying to justify your point with hypothetical violence here. I say it’s bullshit that the word “fundie” encourages violence, or that there are people on the hoping for violence against fundamentalist Christians because of the fact that such violence, if it happens at all, is exceedingly rare. There is not a problem of violence against Christians, and to claim otherwise is very disingenuous. If there were many folks hoping for violence, and if words like “fundie” encouraged such violence, it would be happening.

Do you agree that “fundie” and “faggot” are essentially different that way?

13

How can fundie possibly be construed as hate speech? It’s just a shortened version of the word fundamentalist. I see it on the same terms as calling someone a leftie, a hippie, or a tighty-righty. It’s a slang word to describe a set of views someone may or may not hold.

To compare it to calling someone born black or gay, a nigger or a faggot, is stupid.

Hell, using that definition, the way some so-called Republican “friends” of mine have referred to me (one said I needed to be hit in the face with a baseball bat because I accused him of being a racist for saying he wished he was in Iraq blowing up “towel heads and camel jockies”) maybe calling someone a liberal/progressive is Hate Speech, because I certainly feared for my safety in that instance.

If you have fundamentalist Christian views, you are a fundie (notice how it has less letters and is easier to type). If you feel people are using “hate speech” by using a slang word to refer to you, you need to learn to defend the beliefs you choose have better, or get over the persecution complex. I’ve been called all kinds of things by people who didn’t even bother to actually find out WHAT my political views are, and just make assumptions because I don’t like Bush, but you don’t see me whining about it or trying to shut my critics up by saying they’re using “hate speech.” I correct them when necessary and leave it at that.

Sheesh. And people accuse Liberals and Democrats of being big PC babies.

14

No problem. I agree. But in my opinion, they still fall under the hate speech umbrella, even though they differ in intensitiy. As recently as fifty years ago, people used terms like “fag,” “homo,” “nigger,” etc. as casually as you are using the term “fundie” today. I have an elderly aunt and uncle who use these terms still, and they do it without an ounce of rancor. To them, Yet, I would wager that you would still regard it as hate speech if you heard them using these terms, even though from their point of view the words are fairly benign.

No. But neither do I believe that because one word is weak relative to another, that the weaker one, ipso facto, does not qualify as hate speech.

I gave my definition in the post you are responding to. To wit, “Fundie,” in my opinion, qualifies because it’s intended to engender feelings of contempt and superiority on the part of those who use it, and to make those it is applied to feel belittled or inferior. I would feel that people behaving that way toward me were being hateful, even if I felt no physical threat."

I did not say that at present in encourages violence. I said that the attitudes its use embodies can in time grow into violent behavior.

15

I can recall quite clearly a time when someone hearing the words “Hey, hippie!” or “Hey, longhair!” could quite legitimately cause fear of violence on the part of the person they were aimed at.

And as I said above, I can remember a time when “nigger” and “queer” were used conversationally and without rancor by a great many people. One could have said the same thing then (and many did when the winds of change began to blow) about their harmlessness as you are saying now about words such as “fundie.”

My take on the word "fundie’ – as it’s used around here – would be someone who in general opposes abortion, hates gays and wants to deny them their rights as human beings, wants to cram their beliefs down everyone’s throats, and favors laws to enforce their beliefs upon those who won’t accept them willingly.

I can see very easily how being regarded in this way could result in a desire on the part of some they oppose to do them violence. And the longer the term is used in this way, the greater the propensity for violence will become…IMHO, that is.

16

Yeah, but when you call a black guy a “nigger,” whether or not you mean it in a hateful manner or it’s just an old person using it from an era where it was more acceptable, that guy didn’t DO anything other than be what he is. Ditto for some gay fellow minding his own business, then getting his ass beat just for being a “faggot.” Those words insult the very essence of what those individuals are. They are MEANT to hurt them in a way beyond simple insults or name-calling.

Fundie being used as a pejorative (to the extent that is is; I still can’t see it as much more than an abbreviation) isn’t about people with a certain belief minding their own business and being attacked purely out of hate. It’s a label that’s given to them (fundamentalist) because they assume that set of beliefs and then are evangelical about it. Saying that is hate speech is like me running around stomping on people’s toes and then saying it’s hate speech when you call me a fucking bitch. If I didn’t do stuff to piss people off, they wouldn’t be saying that.

If you’re going to espouse a certain set of beliefs (particularly if you’re going to try to legislate those beliefs onto others), you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of peer review. And those consequences may include people giving you names you don’t particularly like. If you don’t wanna get called a fundie, then show them you’re a good Christian and you’re a decent person and you’re not like that idea at all. Do something to eliminate the pre-conceived notions.

Now, if you really are that way, but you just want people to stop slapping labels on you instead of questioning your beliefs… well, I guess you can cry like a baby and try to shut them up by calling it hate speech.

It amuses me that you’d even think a bunch of progressive, agnostic pussies like me would even be inclined to violence even if we did hate fundies. They’re the ones bombing abortion clinics and committing hate crimes. Not me. Show me one Christian hanging on a cross in this country, 'cause all I see is King George saying God this and God that every other word in his speeches. I just want them to leave me alone. They’re the ones who’ve turned liberal into a dirty word; if anything, there’s your hate speech. Now they’re becoming the “moral majority” and you want to say calling them an abbreviated version of what they openly admit they are is HATE speech? Even when they’re in the majority, they still want to feel persecuted.

Jesus Christ, save me from your followers.

17

To be devil’s advocate here (I think comparing fundie to faggot is laughable, though From Fundie to Faggot sounds like a GREAT book title), consider comparing fundie to a word like…say…picaninny. It’s a diminutive-now-racist term, but as far as I can tell it used to just mean ‘cute little black kid’. My dear sweet grandmother who wouldn’t hurt a fly has used the word in the past five years, though it’s more a slip-up than anything else, back from a time when the word wasn’t considered rude. In the prospect of “the most adorable little picaninny girl”.

I think that’s what they’re getting at. But is it hate speech? Racist yes, or even bigoted. But malicious? Not necessarily.

18

Yeah, but “picaninnies” were born that way. They didn’t run around trying to turn everyone else around them into cute little black kids. :dubious:

19

See, I can see this comparison. I’m not necessarily saying “fundie” is nice (though I will continue to believe it until there’s an argument explaining why it isn’t) but it’s not on the level of the words Liberal has compared it to. Comparing it to a term of bigotry like “picaninny” (which, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard in real life) seems like a lot closer match.

20

Hold up.

Fundie, I thought, was just a shortened term for ‘fundamentalist’. Fundamentalists tend to be evangelical, but the very sweetest couple I have ever met is a fundamentalist couple. Very open, very loving of their gay and pagan friends, not even with that underlying ‘but you’re going to hell’ mentality. They lived their lives by example and talked about their religion when asked.

So…not ALL fundies are bastards. Unless fundie is specifically meant to be perjorative.