The problem with laws protecting persecuted minorities is that in America, everyone thinks they’re a persecuted minority.
No, the problem is people that claim that spurious claims like that is evidence that there are no persecuted minorities at all.
That doesn’t seem like a reasonable or logical conclusion at all, but I did choose her as an example because it was such an obvious one. I thought most reasonable people would accept it. If I could have thought of a better example off the top of my head, I would have used that one instead. None of that implies that she’s the only one. And if Sarah could have thought of a better example of her responding to racist tweets, like, for example, ones that happened around the time she was first posting racist shit, she probably should have used those instead of the ones she did.
I think you’ve entirely missed the point here. Free speech advocates absolutely do understand why good-spirited people might want to ban such things as Koran burning. The whole point of free speech protection is to allow expression of ideas that many people find unpleasant / offensive / dangerous / obnoxious, etc. The assumption (based on much history) is that endorsing legal suppression of unpopular views leads to bad things - far worse than allowing them.
The question is: what’s it doing in an article about suppressing hate speech? It gives a clear impression that the author has a conspicuously broad view of what constitutes hatred and is thus in need of suppression.
This is just “hate speech for thee but not for me”. Like attempts to justify Sarah Jeong’s hate speech, it’s just a lame attempt to give political cover to one side of the current political divide.
ETA: I think this bears repeating here:
She apologized and explained at length what the context of those tweets was. If she was so obviously and unquestionably REVERSE RACIST, you should be able to point out evidence of that in her extensive body of work, be it her articles at the NYT or Verge, the book she wrote specifically about online harassment and its possible avenues of moderation, the causes she openly supports, the talks she gives. You wouldn’t have to hang your entire hat on a handful of tweets from 5 years ago.
She’s just yet another in a long line of progressives (most often women, most often Other in some way) who get harassed and defamed by the alt-right and the ultraconservative media circus for cynical purposes in yet another iteration/incarnation of gamergate (WaPo paywall, but you can use your browser in incognito mode to access the article).
Not particularly. At least, I see that there are well-established laws in this country and that fighting against them would be a waste of time and energy, so I’m not going to do it now. If the rest of the country were ready to repeal them, I doubt I’d object much.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Sarah Jeong, but it seems to be a variation on the right-wing complaint about hate crimes. If a white man is mugged by a black man, we get the Trump nationalists screaming “It’s a hate crime!!! Black on white crime!! But the black man never gets charged with a hate crime!!!”
Meanwhile, the other side says, “Dude, that’s not how hate crimes work. Hate crimes are prosecuted not when assailant and victim are of different races, but when there’s evidence that the crime is an expression of a particular bias.”
So now for hate speech, the MAGA crowd is saying, “Sarah Jeong! Look what she said!!!”
It seems a reasonable point that saying something mean about another race isn’t the defintion of hate speech, that it would be closer to applying the hate crimes model to offensive speech. For example, remember the Dave Chappelle skit where he was an African American white supremacist who said all sorts of awful things about black people? That wouldn’t be hate speech.
Maybe Jeong is a racist. Maybe she says inflammatory things that are terrible, maybe there’s some context like the Chappelle skit. I don’t know. But I know I’m a white guy who doesn’t think that minorities in this country have it soooooo easy they concocted a plan to ruin white people and it has any chance of succeeding.
But do go on, HurricaneDitka. Tell us again why we should hate this nasty femme.
Okay. You’re okay with people lying to ruin other people’s lives, but you just don’t have the energy to try to change the laws.
I think defamation laws are generally fine, and so long as a judge or jury serve as the finders of fact, they can typically do a reasonable job of sorting out whether a statement is defamatory or not. Why can’t the same process apply to hate speech? Let’s just let a jury decide, like they do all the time in cases of libel or slander.
Of course there are, and there’s no greater risk to them than majorities who are convinced that* they’re* the persecuted minorities, and who weaponize their own sense of victimization in order to victimize others. I don’t think they should be given more power.
The same Brett Stephens, who melted down a couple months ago because a random college professor made a joke that he was like a bed bug? And he tried to get the professor fired?
Oh yeah, he’s a good role model for keeping one’s wits about themselves when confronted with mere speech and not trying to stifle “opposing viewpoints.”
Seriously, the guy deleted his Twitter account because someone called him a bed bug. I’m not exaggerating.
Way to find just the A-number one-perfect spokesman for your views, HD.
Non sequitur. Still hanging your hat on those tweets. Please show me all that sweet sweet hate rethoric hers, I wanna be outraged too ! I’m white, I should *get *to !
Oh shit, I didn’t even twig it was *that *guy ! Priceless.
ETA : if anything, you’re understating the meltdown. He equated that one dude calling him a bed bug with the relentless hate speech against Jews of the Third Reich, and from thence claimed the professor was trying to get him murdered IIRC. It was a sight to behold.
I’m aware of his imperfections. So is he, I think. And I think his points in the quote above are still good ones, and valid, even though he has at times failed to live up to the standards he has advocated for.
I’m literally laughing at this post.
So this is now the Sarah jeong thread? 
… You know what, you’re right. He did manage to derail the entire thread with the relentless nonsense. Well played, HD. Well played.
Brett Stephens will not stand for that!!! Why can’t white men receive all the attention?!?!?!
If this hijack continues, Brett Stephens is going to demonstrate his principles by ignoring them and quitting the Straight Dope. Because there’s literally no better way to point out liberal hypocrisy than by citing a melted-down conservative who failed to live up to his own principles.
(Also there’s no more ironic way to do the same, but then I’d be just putting too fine a point on it.)