Thread: Free speech vs hate speech

Originally Posted by Alric

Free speech, is free speech. I believe everyone has the right to say anything they want, at any time they want, any where they want.

You seem to be an absolutist on a great many things. The world is not so black and white, and there are indeed exceptions to even the soundest of principles. Should you yell "bomb!" on a plane, or "fire!" in a school? What about walking down a street in a KKK outfit chanting "All fucking n***ers must die!!".

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You could easily become isolationist because the United States borders you to the south. No military would dare to fuck with you.

Yes, but that's not to case. And to say otherwise is disrespectful to those in service of our country around the globe. You could argue the same about any country in NATO, but NATO is so strong because everybody pitches in.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

You seem to be an absolutist on a great many things. The world is not so black and white, and there are indeed exceptions to even the soundest of principles. Should you yell "bomb!" on a plane, or "fire!" in a school? What about walking down a street in a KKK outfit chanting "All fucking n***ers must die!!".

I am an absolutist when it comes to freedom, since you can't have partial freedom. You are either free or you are not. There really is no exception however.

You should indeed be able to yell bomb on the plane, however you are responsible for what you do. If you cause damage or anyone gets harmed during it, they should all be able to sue you. If however, nothing happened while you probably should be banned from ever flying that airline again, which is well within their right, you should not be arrested. Because we do not need laws to enforce this, when other methods work just as well.

As for the KKK example, while it is a horrible thing to say. If they are on a public street and they havn't actually caused anyone harm, they should be free to say whatever they want.

So you shouldn't be stopped if you're causing a panic? You should only face the consequences after property has been damaged or people have been injured or died?

What if you called the media and placed a fake bomb threat? I'm trying to use extreme examples here to point out that the anti-hate speech law isn't there to keep people politically correct or even to prevent you from freely expressing your racism, it's there to stop you from advocating genocide and inciting hatred against any identifiable group. There's a difference between saying "I hate muslims, they should all take their camel to work" and "I hate muslims. We should bomb their cities and convert them to Christianity. Come on who's with me??! Kill all muslims!" In the latter case, you're not expressing an opinion, you're trying to spread discrimination and find supporters to "kill all muslims". Should we wait until you or your followers beat up a muslim or bomb a mosque to actually do something?

When did I say you shouldn't be stopped? I said you shouldn't be arrested and thrown in jail. Big difference there. It didn't take a law to stop Ann Coulter, it was the people protesting. Which just shows, that you can effectively use free speech to stop hate speech, without threating to arrest and jail anyone.

A person has every right to stand at the corner and scream out that we should bomb all muslims. It is my hope, that a more rational person who stand besides him, and scream out how stupid the idea is.

People aren't that rational, they fight hatred with hatred. If that KKK guy walks down the street saying that stuff, some black guy is going to walk up to him and knock him out. Then he is the one facing assault charges, where is the justice in that. This is how riots and feuds start, unrest and reprisals. The law is preferable to vigilante justice.

It doesn't matter how much they may have provoked the guy, attacking people isn't an acceptable thing to do. So yes, thats how it works. If one guy says bad things about someone else, and the other guy uses violence to deal with it. Its not the first guys fault, its the guy who punched him who is wrong.

This all comes together to form a very violent society, where problems are solved (or escalate) after harm has already come.

Why is it that if you call upon the death of a single person, it's conspiracy to murder, but if it's a whole race, it's suddenly OK?