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Comment by apower | Hacker News Reader

And where do you think the LEGAL basis coming from? Thin air? It's backed by and enforced by the Aus government.

The legal basis, though, are racial vilification laws. Welcome to the censorship/freedom of speech grey area.

There is no gray area. If you support laws against hate crime or hate speech, you're against freedom of speech.

I'm sorry, but no issue is black and white like that. There is a gray area because two human rights are in conflict on issues such as these: freedom of speech and freedom from discrimination. In most countries, including Australia, limitations are put on freedom of speech specifically to address this issue.

You can support laws such as these without being 'against freedom of speech'. After all, the very first article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Both this and article 19 (freedom of opinion and expression) must be supported, and when they are in conflict, a balance must be found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...

We all know that the UN is retarded. By increasing the penalties for crimes motivated by discrimination against selected groups, you imply that crimes motivated by discrimination against groups that haven't been so selected are less severe. If someone went around and started killing geeks because they hated us collectively, they'd be less heavily punished than if they were targeting a protected group, such as Christians. Is that fair?

The point of hate speech / hate crime laws isn't that crimes motivated by discrimination are worse. It's that they affect the whole group. If I kill you because I want your money, then you and your friends and family suffer the consequences. If I kill you because you're gay, Christian, black, Jewish, female, or whatever, then in addition to the effects on you and your friends and family everyone else who's part of the same group feels just that bit more afraid and that bit less able to be themselves; and everyone else who hates that same group gets just that bit more inspiration to go out and do likewise.

Unless you give this zero weight and think every reasonable person should do otherwise, then I do not think you have any excuse for saying that approving of hate-crime laws means being "against freedom of speech".

(Unless by "you are against freedom of speech" you mean "you think that there might be other considerations that sometimes justify limiting freedom of speech". In which case every reasonable person is "against" just about everything.)

There is no hate-crime legislation making it extra-bad to kill geeks because there aren't a bunch of malefactors out there killing geeks. It's arguable that hate-crime laws should be written in a more general way, instead of calling out particular discriminated-against groups, but if you'd accept that then congratulations, you're "against freedom of speech" in your own terms.

We know the UN is retarded because they don't proactively find and label all social groups? Also, the UN does crime now?

So if I call you a motherfucker, you think I should be censored for "discriminating" against you? Then you really are a motherfucker.

It is only a grey area in certain countries.

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