Spoiler alert: they can already stop you from talking.
I've already been over that twice, in some detail. Maybe you'll allow me a bit of shorthand now that I've demonstrated that I understand how we strike balances like this wrt the Bill of Rights?
In this immediate exchange, you are arguing Ought, where as I am saying Is.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
What the fuck are you even talking about.
Dishonest bullshit like this post is the reason I don't come into these threads anymore. Literally none of what you said up there is an accurate reflection of what I've been saying. It's all fucked up hyperbole and...
You know what, it's fucking hatespeech, this post. You should be silenced by your government for bullshit like this.
Spoiler alert: they can already stop you from talking.
I've already been over that twice, in some detail. Maybe you'll allow me a bit of shorthand now that I've demonstrated that I understand how we strike balances like this wrt the Bill of Rights?
In this immediate exchange, you are arguing Ought, where as I am saying Is.
I don't follow. The state of play right now is one where we balance our freedom from government interference with exceptions based on danger to the public (fire-in-crowded-theater, incitement to riot, obscenity vs. pornography).
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal.
Not "can" be abused, "IS" abused. Again, you cannot show support for homosexuals or admit to being gay in St Petersburg and other parts of Russia are considering passing the same law. And let's not even get into the Middle East.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal.
Not "can" be abused, "IS" abused. Again, you cannot show support for homosexuals or admit to being gay in St Petersburg and other parts of Russia are considering passing the same law. And let's not even get into the Middle East.
Even worse, repressive governments can point to the West's speech codes as justification for their own repressive shit.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It becomes an issue when the level of discourse directed at a group is so vile and pervasive that the more barbaric segments of society take that as a "go for it" when it comes to victimizing those people in other ways.
As you said, the problem is not the linguistic utterances. The problem is the actions that may follow from those linguistic utterances.
Limiting actual acts of victimization is keen.
Limiting noise is silly. The discrete linguistic utterance does not do anything. The act that results from a person who hears it, interprets it, and is motivated by the interpretation can be problematic.
Whether it's a cause or not aside (I feel that it may be, but I can't prove it and I admit that).
I find it intriguing that when we have a horrific incidence of violence in this country there is a subsection of the population that is just adamantly allergic to looking at causes.
I mean, OK look: This is you arguing that we should ban violent video games now. Also that D&D causes satanism.
What is going on here?
Any restrictions on free speech not flying off the rails are dependent on having a good government.
Do we have such a government? No. But that's not some flaw in design, it's a flaw in the population, since roughly half of us actively prefer bad government.
I'm arguing that it's quite possible to outlaw the "kill all fags" hate speech without banning video games and dancing and interracial marriage.
And it is!
Whether it's possible in America, given our current situation is an issue I have never addressed, and do not care to.
This argument really started, originally, when I felt that some forumers were being unfairly critical of an Albanian law. And their reasoning was based on what America is like, and I called that cultural jingoism.
Because Albania isn't America, nor is Canada or France.
That other countries can restrict really vile speech without flying off the deep end is a simple fact. That some countries cannot is also a fact.
That America probably would but can't because changing our Constitution is virtually impossible is a separate argument that I don't really care about at all.
tldr: see the bolded section.
I want to add on to Jeepguy's thought train here and just say that there are plenty of clear cut, good cases for curtailing hate speech that already exist, are enforced well, and serve as a good model for legislation going forward.
For example: a man holding a sign that says "KILL ALL FAGS". That's hate speech. For bonus points, it's also incitement (the unspoken subject of the sentence is "You", so it's a command phrase, therefore: incitement). That's the kind of hate speech I'm cool with punishing and sanctioning. Strictly defined, easy to enforce. Borderline cases turned over to the courts for deliberation, the way godProphet Comstock the ghost of Alexander Hamilton intended.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
I am failing to see how hate speech is a problem that needs fixing. I also wonder where each of you is drawing the line for the right of protected speech, because AFAIK, it's only to protest or for duress/oppression. "KILL ALL FAGS" is neither of those.
We can outlaw hate speech in public, but should not do so for private settings. Video games is weird because it's "sold" in public, but consumed in private. We should also, not ban it because we dislike it.
Do we ban a protester saying those words? What about a pamphlet? Where do we draw that line, and through what medium?
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I am failing to see how hate speech is a problem that needs fixing. I also wonder where each of you is drawing the line for the right of protected speech, because AFAIK, it's only to protest or for duress/oppression. "KILL ALL FAGS" is neither of those.
We can outlaw hate speech in public, but should not do so for private settings. Video games is weird because it's "sold" in public, but consumed in private. We should also, not ban it because we dislike it.
Do we ban a protester saying those words? What about a pamphlet? Where do we draw that line, and through what medium?
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
Katie Couric's blog is not an academic source, last I checked. (And yes, there are some findings on short term aggression in video games).
And you're not being clever or original, just so you know. Yes, of course, the next step after fining Limbaugh will be THE GOVERNMENT telling us that we can't criticize McDonalds, and the next step after that will be everyone being shaved for the barcode tats, and after that well obviously it's off to the FEMA death camps.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal.
Not "can" be abused, "IS" abused. Again, you cannot show support for homosexuals or admit to being gay in St Petersburg and other parts of Russia are considering passing the same law. And let's not even get into the Middle East.
The middle east didn't turn anti-gay because of hate speech laws.
I can see the argument against them, but the whole slippery-slope-to-fascism line doesn't strike me as a particularly great one.
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
Where do we draw that line, and through what medium?
Where I say so, and in the mediums I don't like.
Feel free to replace I with "A judge I like, but not a judge i don't like" where needed.
See this is why our laws are crafted the way they are.
Imagine someone getting in power that likes things a lot less than you do. Like, say, video games. They have to fight a long uphill battle to just not get laughed out of court and the legislative branch.
KILL ALL FAGS is a highly proper thing to get upset about. But what about "KILL ALL MUSLIMS" or "KILL ALL JEWS" (page 4, that's gotta be a record for a godwin).
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
I am just going to say no to the whole concept of basing my government on an internet forum.
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
These forums are perfectly fine with blistering hate speech, you just have to level it at Christians or the GOP.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
Katie Couric's blog is not an academic source, last I checked. (And yes, there are some findings on short term aggression in video games).
And you're not being clever or original, just so you know. Yes, of course, the next step after fining Limbaugh will be THE GOVERNMENT telling us that we can't criticize McDonalds, and the next step after that will be everyone being shaved for the barcode tats, and after that well obviously it's off to the FEMA death camps.
To be fair, the FEMA deathcamps are very well furnished.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
Katie Couric's blog is not an academic source, last I checked. (And yes, there are some findings on short term aggression in video games).
And you're not being clever or original, just so you know. Yes, of course, the next step after fining Limbaugh will be THE GOVERNMENT telling us that we can't criticize McDonalds, and the next step after that will be everyone being shaved for the barcode tats, and after that well obviously it's off to the FEMA death camps.
To be fair, the FEMA deathcamps are very well furnished.
Assuming we're just using the term "kill all fags" as argument, I'd think it would be fairly easy to to know where to draw the line because thats pretty unambiguously an imperative to violence. I mean you cant get more unambiguous than verb pronoun noun.
It would probably already be covered under "incitement" law though.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
I'm not especially fond of using this forum as a model for governance, in no small part because it's literally a dictatorship without recourse.
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
There is absolutely a relationship. Unmoderated forums descend into shit very quickly.
Much like the American political discourse. Now, that's not to say we should immediately toddle off to restrict the political discourse, however, totally unrestricted discourse does in fact end up in a shouting match unless both sides were inclined to agree to begin with.
And not always even then. Surely I'm not the only one who has experienced the 'liberal echo chamber effect' where there's no one to argue the flip side of an issue and no one steps up to play devil's advocate so the conversation turns to spitroasting anyone who has a slightly unpopular variant view of the point which everyone technically agrees upon?
(case in point: in a gender thread after everyone had hashed out the fact that no one believed women should be treated less than equitably someone stormed in and declared that I was, in fact, a nazi because I declined to identify myself as "a feminist" I could not even make up such a ridiculous example if I tried.)
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
It's also worth mentioning the elephant in the room:
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
I'm not especially fond of using this forum as a model for governance, in no small part because it's literally a dictatorship without recourse.
That anybody went for it as proof is basically making my argument for me.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
(case in point: in a gender thread after everyone had hashed out the fact that no one believed women should be treated less than equitably someone stormed in and declared that I was, in fact, a nazi because I declined to identify myself as "a feminist" I could not even make up such a ridiculous example if I tried.)
I remember that thread. I kinda almost miss those days.
Reddit is probably a better example of a forum that best represents the US. It's got some people in charge, the group as a whole basically polices bullshit, of course, not everything is super proper and some shit squeaks through, and sometimes people do weird shit in private, and you've got a really vocal minority for some strange topics, or people who take things way too seriously, but it's pretty close all things considered.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
Katie Couric's blog is not an academic source, last I checked. (And yes, there are some findings on short term aggression in video games).
And you're not being clever or original, just so you know. Yes, of course, the next step after fining Limbaugh will be THE GOVERNMENT telling us that we can't criticize McDonalds, and the next step after that will be everyone being shaved for the barcode tats, and after that well obviously it's off to the FEMA death camps.
Man you must be a flying monkey cause you kick ass at ripping up strawmen.
I never claimed Katie Couric was an academic source, I claimed she cited a large number of them in her report on how video games are harmful.
And I'm not being clever or original because the Right to Free Expression is a - if not THE - cornerstone of a liberal and free society. I made no slippery slope argument whatsoever. I pointed out that just because there's a class of speech you find offensive you don't have a right to censor it because similar arguments bolstered by similar studies have been made about everything from Rock and Roll to the Pokemon to the Civil Rights movement itself. Whether or not the offense is justified or studies sound is irrelevant. Whether or not hate speech is wrong and dumb is irrelevant. Dumb, wrong, hateful, wrongheaded, counterproductive, offensive, immoral, and/or nonsensical speech is speech. And a society that represses speech based on the content of ideas that are being expressed is one that is no longer allows for free thought.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Can you give an example of how this would detriment where you couldn't extrapolate what would happen if someone stupid got ahold of it?
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Can you give an example of how this would detriment where you couldn't extrapolate what would happen if someone stupid got ahold of it?
What he's saying is that if your government is designed to function well even if there are idiots in charge, it is by definition a paralyzed, non-functional government.
The U.S. government is designed to be ultra-stable, and yet when we get idiots in power it still goes south pretty wildly.
-edit-
And in order to prevent that you'd need a constitution that essentially prevented the government from acting. A paradox.
The quote is about how any law can be abused, so talking in terms of, "This law could be abused, therefore the law is bad," is nonsense unless you want to espouse some libertarian ideal. I've cited an academic source for why harassment & verbal abuse are known to be damaging, and your reaction was basically a glib, "NUH UH," followed by later accusing Canada of being a police state & citing a racist idiot's popular press book (where he elaborates on a theory that good 'ol white Europe is being outbred by the dirty Muslims) as evidence, and then inserting some homophobic slurs into the thread for good measure.
It's almost as if you're not arguing in good faith.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
How? Some restrictions on free expression are not harmful.
Your entire thesis rests on the idea that the government can never make any determination on what kind of free expression is and is not harmful.
Which is kinda ludicrous. Even the US constitution isn't interpreted that way.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Depends on whether or not what you wanted fixed required sweeping, unchecked powers.
Though if it does it means whenever the other guy gets in to power they get sweeping, unchecked powers to dismantle everything you've done.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Can you give an example of how this would detriment where you couldn't extrapolate what would happen if someone stupid got ahold of it?
I don't really understand this question, sorry.
That said, supermajority requirements that hobble the Worse People also prevent you from getting things done, see: Filibuster.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Yes, strangely I think many people have zero problem with the government doing that.
You want an example? Go look at the thread on gay rights.
You could perhaps base such laws on the intended targets. If the targets are a protected group (perhaps using the acceptable criteria of a discrete, insular minority with some innate characteristic), then the speech criticizing them would be "hate speech." And perhaps hate speech doesn't have to be criminalized in and of itself, but can serve as indicia that the speech in question is intended to incite violence, or is obscene, or otherwise fits into some category of censored speech.
eh?
We already have laws and regulations against speech that incites violence or is considered obscene.
Too bad we don't have laws and regulations against failing to read what I said. My point is that "hate speech" can be used AS INDICIA of illegal speech, rather than creating a category of illegal speech in and of itself. I know that these regulations exist--that is the entire basis of my idea.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Depends on whether or not what you wanted fixed required sweeping, unchecked powers.
Though if it does it means whenever the other guy gets in to power they get sweeping, unchecked powers to dismantle everything you've done.
This thread has taught me that regardless of what Ideology/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Gender you are, at the end of the day everyone basically just wants the Government to make people adhere to their own beliefs/morals/practices.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That's a terrible way to run a government. At some point you have to trust in the judgement of the people in charge. That's why judges get leeway in the judicial system and why you get pardons and such.
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In this immediate exchange, you are arguing Ought, where as I am saying Is.
What the fuck are you even talking about.
Dishonest bullshit like this post is the reason I don't come into these threads anymore. Literally none of what you said up there is an accurate reflection of what I've been saying. It's all fucked up hyperbole and...
You know what, it's fucking hatespeech, this post. You should be silenced by your government for bullshit like this.
I don't follow. The state of play right now is one where we balance our freedom from government interference with exceptions based on danger to the public (fire-in-crowded-theater, incitement to riot, obscenity vs. pornography).
Status quo is fine with me.
Not "can" be abused, "IS" abused. Again, you cannot show support for homosexuals or admit to being gay in St Petersburg and other parts of Russia are considering passing the same law. And let's not even get into the Middle East.
Even worse, repressive governments can point to the West's speech codes as justification for their own repressive shit.
I want to add on to Jeepguy's thought train here and just say that there are plenty of clear cut, good cases for curtailing hate speech that already exist, are enforced well, and serve as a good model for legislation going forward.
For example: a man holding a sign that says "KILL ALL FAGS". That's hate speech. For bonus points, it's also incitement (the unspoken subject of the sentence is "You", so it's a command phrase, therefore: incitement). That's the kind of hate speech I'm cool with punishing and sanctioning. Strictly defined, easy to enforce. Borderline cases turned over to the courts for deliberation, the way god Prophet Comstock the ghost of Alexander Hamilton intended.
Using a law as it is intended - to repress the expression of unpopular ideas - is not equivalent to falsely convicting someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Want an academic source for speech that is known to be damaging? There are many in this report:
Are Video Games Ruining Your Life? by Katie Couric.
You see, video games are turning kids into addicted murder machines. Hide your kids, hide your wife.
I mean Heavy Metal music. Or is it Rap? Or Dungeon's and Dragons? Rock and Roll? Bebop poetry? Associating with Negros? Jews?
I guess we should ban them too right? They are clearly abusive.
And what about Muslims? They keep saying there is no God but their God. But that's not the Merica God of Jesus and Apple Pie. That's offensive, and it hurts my family values. I have tons of studies that show regular churchgoing is correlated strongly with lower crime rate, lower suicide rate, and greater reported happiness. How can you justify prohibiting saying that blacks are inherently inferior as harmful when you allow people to say there is no God or that my God is the wrong God?
Judging the content of a speech as inherently harmful is censorship. The repression of free expression is itself doing fundamental harm. It doesn't require secondary links based on fallible social sciences. And when a government is formed based on the very democracy that requires the free expression of dissenting ideas in order to be valid, the repression of those unpopular and dissenting ideas must lie fundamentally outside the authority of that government even if they are dumb or might hurt some people's feelings.
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We can outlaw hate speech in public, but should not do so for private settings. Video games is weird because it's "sold" in public, but consumed in private. We should also, not ban it because we dislike it.
Do we ban a protester saying those words? What about a pamphlet? Where do we draw that line, and through what medium?
These are all very good questions!
Katie Couric's blog is not an academic source, last I checked. (And yes, there are some findings on short term aggression in video games).
And you're not being clever or original, just so you know. Yes, of course, the next step after fining Limbaugh will be THE GOVERNMENT telling us that we can't criticize McDonalds, and the next step after that will be everyone being shaved for the barcode tats, and after that well obviously it's off to the FEMA death camps.
The middle east didn't turn anti-gay because of hate speech laws.
I can see the argument against them, but the whole slippery-slope-to-fascism line doesn't strike me as a particularly great one.
Where I say so, and in the mediums I don't like.
Feel free to replace I with "A judge I like, but not a judge i don't like" where needed.
These forums have very, very restrictive speech rules. As do the Something Awful forums, for that matter. And yet the PA forums and Something Awful forums are considered some of the best forums on the internet in terms of quality of discussion & user decorum.
Do you think that there is a relationship between the restrictive rules and the quality of the environment? Or do you think these two things are just coincidental, and REALLY, if users just policed themselves with the 'Heckler's Veto' and all that, you'd still have great forums?
See this is why our laws are crafted the way they are.
Imagine someone getting in power that likes things a lot less than you do. Like, say, video games. They have to fight a long uphill battle to just not get laughed out of court and the legislative branch.
KILL ALL FAGS is a highly proper thing to get upset about. But what about "KILL ALL MUSLIMS" or "KILL ALL JEWS" (page 4, that's gotta be a record for a godwin).
I am just going to say no to the whole concept of basing my government on an internet forum.
These forums are perfectly fine with blistering hate speech, you just have to level it at Christians or the GOP.
To be fair, the FEMA deathcamps are very well furnished.
Thanks, Obama.
It would probably already be covered under "incitement" law though.
I'm not especially fond of using this forum as a model for governance, in no small part because it's literally a dictatorship without recourse.
There is absolutely a relationship. Unmoderated forums descend into shit very quickly.
Much like the American political discourse. Now, that's not to say we should immediately toddle off to restrict the political discourse, however, totally unrestricted discourse does in fact end up in a shouting match unless both sides were inclined to agree to begin with.
And not always even then. Surely I'm not the only one who has experienced the 'liberal echo chamber effect' where there's no one to argue the flip side of an issue and no one steps up to play devil's advocate so the conversation turns to spitroasting anyone who has a slightly unpopular variant view of the point which everyone technically agrees upon?
(case in point: in a gender thread after everyone had hashed out the fact that no one believed women should be treated less than equitably someone stormed in and declared that I was, in fact, a nazi because I declined to identify myself as "a feminist" I could not even make up such a ridiculous example if I tried.)
You'd think so.
(I don't actually know if it is.)
I don't think it is, you're not commanding people, you're saying you're opinion on the subject of.
If you said "We should kill all fags" that might be different.
I really hate having to type that over and over.
Which is exactly why you don't make laws about how you feel about stuff.
It should always be crafted around the concept of "if the worst person in the world who is completely different than me got in power, what could they do if we did this."
That anybody went for it as proof is basically making my argument for me.
I remember that thread. I kinda almost miss those days.
Almost.
That's a terrible model for government. If you don't have the opportunity to fuck something up, you also don't have the opportunity to fix it.
Would the person in power be bound by the laws?
Man you must be a flying monkey cause you kick ass at ripping up strawmen.
I never claimed Katie Couric was an academic source, I claimed she cited a large number of them in her report on how video games are harmful.
And I'm not being clever or original because the Right to Free Expression is a - if not THE - cornerstone of a liberal and free society. I made no slippery slope argument whatsoever. I pointed out that just because there's a class of speech you find offensive you don't have a right to censor it because similar arguments bolstered by similar studies have been made about everything from Rock and Roll to the Pokemon to the Civil Rights movement itself. Whether or not the offense is justified or studies sound is irrelevant. Whether or not hate speech is wrong and dumb is irrelevant. Dumb, wrong, hateful, wrongheaded, counterproductive, offensive, immoral, and/or nonsensical speech is speech. And a society that represses speech based on the content of ideas that are being expressed is one that is no longer allows for free thought.
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Can you give an example of how this would detriment where you couldn't extrapolate what would happen if someone stupid got ahold of it?
What he's saying is that if your government is designed to function well even if there are idiots in charge, it is by definition a paralyzed, non-functional government.
The U.S. government is designed to be ultra-stable, and yet when we get idiots in power it still goes south pretty wildly.
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And in order to prevent that you'd need a constitution that essentially prevented the government from acting. A paradox.
How? Some restrictions on free expression are not harmful.
Your entire thesis rests on the idea that the government can never make any determination on what kind of free expression is and is not harmful.
Which is kinda ludicrous. Even the US constitution isn't interpreted that way.
Depends on whether or not what you wanted fixed required sweeping, unchecked powers.
Though if it does it means whenever the other guy gets in to power they get sweeping, unchecked powers to dismantle everything you've done.
I don't really understand this question, sorry.
That said, supermajority requirements that hobble the Worse People also prevent you from getting things done, see: Filibuster.
Yes, strangely I think many people have zero problem with the government doing that.
You want an example? Go look at the thread on gay rights.
Too bad we don't have laws and regulations against failing to read what I said. My point is that "hate speech" can be used AS INDICIA of illegal speech, rather than creating a category of illegal speech in and of itself. I know that these regulations exist--that is the entire basis of my idea.
Then you get the Canadian Government.
That's a terrible way to run a government. At some point you have to trust in the judgement of the people in charge. That's why judges get leeway in the judicial system and why you get pardons and such.