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Freedom of hate speech
keda
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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:30 AM:
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#11
Reformed Nihilist wrote:


For the same reason most things are illegal. They can be shown to have a tangible and direct causal link to harm. If I shoot a gun at someone, I didn't kil them the bullet did, but we can draw a pretty clear and direct line from my action too that persons death. Same with shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater.

Do you not find it strange that there are no pencil laws? A pencil can be used to harm someone, yet there is no law that specifies them, likewise most entities known to mandkind, yet specific entities are singled out. Does not the law of parsimony apply as well, to avoid all the bureaucracy that we can all refer to the law that to harm anyone is wrong?

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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:45 AM:
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#12
keda wrote:
Do you not find it strange that there are no pencil laws?


Not in the least.

A pencil can be used to harm someone, yet there is no law that specifies them, likewise most entities known to mandkind, yet specific entities are singled out. Does not the law of parsimony apply as well, to avoid all the bureaucracy that we can all refer to the law that to harm anyone is wrong?


Of course we can agree that to harm someone is wrong. Laws don't work in such a general way though. In a rose coloured world, we could all just agree when harm was done and what caused the harm, but real life isn't like that. That's why laws become specific. Someone appeals to some constituationally protected right to speech, and the law has to react by specifying that under specific circumstances that directly lead to tangible harm, one hasn't the right to free speech. Just like on might have the right to fire a loaded gun, but under the specific circumstance where someone is stnding in the expected trajectory of the bullet, one no longer has that right. If some constitutional right to weild pencils was used as a successful legal defence of someone who stabbed me in the eye with a pencil, then I would gladly invite "pencil laws".

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keda
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Posted 05/23/08 - 09:57 AM:
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#13
Reformed Nihilist wrote:


Of course we can agree that to harm someone is wrong. Laws don't work in such a general way though. In a rose coloured world, we could all just agree when harm was done and what caused the harm, but real life isn't like that. That's why laws become specific.

I don't see why that would require specific laws. If there is a situation where it is questionable whether harm was done or not and what caused the harm then we have something called innocent until proven guilty, right?

Someone appeals to some constituationally protected right to speech, and the law has to react by specifying that under specific circumstances that directly lead to tangible harm, one hasn't the right to free speech. Just like on might have the right to fire a loaded gun, but under the specific circumstance where someone is stnding in the expected trajectory of the bullet, one no longer has that right.

I would consider it right to shoot someone in self defense, and I would also not consider gun accidents a crime.


If some constitutional right to weild pencils was used as a successful legal defence of someone who stabbed me in the eye with a pencil, then I would gladly invite "pencil laws".

It seems to me the constitutional rights were put in place to prevent certain type of legislations that are particularly dangerous, and censorship at the state level seems to fit the bill.

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rabeldin
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Posted 05/23/08 - 11:06 AM:
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#14
Reformed Nihilist wrote:
The example that is usually given is about shouting "fire" in a crowded theater (which is an I believe should be illegal). We can attribute physical harm fairly directly (through a fairly straight and short causal chain) to that action. As causal chains get longer and less straight, the call becomes more difficult. Law involves trying to get specific where there are lots of grey areas. Speech that incites violence (hate speech) is not ewntirely unlike yelling fire in a theater. The speech causes other people to act in ways that cause tangible physical harm.

That said, I think that any legal limits that encroach on one's freedom of speech should be carefully crafted and enfocred sparingly. In my new city, with a population of about a Million, the enitre Aryan guard rallied on city hall. There were recriminations for "allowing" these people to do that, and evenb for local police showing up to protect them. It was in the papers for a few days. Want to hear the funny thing? The entire Aryan guard in my city of a million is 15 people. 15 nutbars played dress up and spouted nonsense at City hall, and we gave them days worth of media attention.


Expecting legislation that is carefully crafted and enforced sparingly is rather difficult considering the way we select our legislators and administrators. To avoid training a cannon on an ant requires common sense, something neither legislators nor adminstrators are known for.

Leave no assumption unquestioned.
keda
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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:14 PM:
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#15
The bureaucracy is in work here using loose language. Beware the collateral damage, that seems to be aimed at anything critical of the government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wJsovPRTEM
When the bill of rights is cut into small pieces, one piece after the other can incrementally be taken out. The bureaucratic strategy is to make law as complicated as possible so that it is hard to spot where or how it will start to erode your rights. Before you notice anything due process has already been dismantled and police and military merged. The rule of law may soon be history.

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7
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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:31 PM:
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#16
The trouble is that once unleashed unqualified free speech can bring about more than mere offense. The traditional way of illustrating this is to imagine someone screaming 'fire!' in a crowded cinema, or shouting 'bomb!' in the London underground. Whispers can also inspire torture, death, even genocide, when delivered in the right ear and at the right time. Rumour can lead to concentration camps. Such injudicious expressions of hatred seldom lead nowhere…the purposes they may be intended to serve, might not be purposes they actually do serve. Not so long ago in a small city in the UK in fact, a fever of hatred aimed at paedophiles led to physical attacks upon a local paediatrician.


If I say 'so and so is really a jerk, you know?' and you agree, then proceed to do harm to that person, what I've said inspired you, but no one would consider it hate speech. Just because it is possible for speech to motivate someone to injure others is no reason to ban it. The 'fire!' example is different because it causes a dangerous situation directly. In fact, the purpose of the action is to cause trouble. If you thought that there was a fire because you made a mistake, you shouldn't be punished, right? Well, people who engage in 'hate speech' probably believe that what they say is true. In effect, it's punishing people for making factual errors (presuming that they're not actually speaking the truth).
keda
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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:53 PM:

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#17

Just because it is possible for speech to motivate someone to injure others is no reason to ban it.

We are nothing more than a bunch of animals to the behavioural psychologists who push the view that speech directly causes violence, just labrats to be pushed here and there. Language is being dismantled in the way Orwell predicted, law is piecemealed and incinerated, civilization is detroyed. The new man is the programmable man. Its time to start deprogramming your life and take control of it, but the first step would be rejecting the idea that a man is a machine to be programmed, and that there is a causal link from speech of one to the action to another.

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The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin
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Glypt
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Posted 05/24/08 - 03:02 AM:
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#18
7 wrote:
If I say 'so and so is really a jerk, you know?' ...

Obviously, that would not qualify as hate speech in the first place and so the rest of the consequences would not obtain.
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Posted 05/24/08 - 03:18 AM:
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#19
keda wrote:

...but the first step would be rejecting the idea ...that there is a causal link from speech of one to the action to another.

So if I state that your comments are inane, that the vast majority of your messages are without intellectual rigour, and you are incapable of thinking clearly, that you are severely hampered in your thinking because you are unable to construct grammatical sentences, that the general tone of your messages indicate that you have the tendencies of a self- centred juvenile that has failed to recognise that you owe a duty of restraint and respect when dealing with your fellow citizens, that you are solipsistic in your views, that people like you constitute a very real threat to civilisation etc etc ...I can assume this will have no effect on your actions or psychology, that you will not refute these assertions and that you will remain unmoved to reply or interact in any way?
keda
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Posted 05/24/08 - 03:56 AM:
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#20
Glypt wrote:

Because your examples in (1) and (2) employ different forms of regulation regarding maliciously shouting fire in a theatre and are thereby not unqualified>>>


(self regulating)

and

(proprietorially regulating).

That's right but how does this limit my right of free speech?


e.g. >>>

Glypt wrote:
...it would ...constitute a loss of reason, a self-defeating response, where everyone involved is made to feel worse...

You have not really explained why it is self-defeating, why it would constitute a loss of reason, nor why everyone involved would made to feel worse.


So you see no difference between being attacked and someone merely annoying you?

Not any of relevance.

In what sense can 'not defending' yourself from someone annoying you cost you more than 'not defending yourself from attack?

I can get annoyed all day, and stopping him would cost me much less.

...Ultimately there is no such thing as unqualified free speech because if everyone demanded its full extent we would all end up in chains of our own making.

Why would we end up in chains of our own making?

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Free Europe Now How to fix your country
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin
If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild
It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin
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