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Comment by frabbit | Hacker News Reader

Would you mind giving me your name and address? I want to report you for spreading the mental image of a police officer with a slit throat.

You are reproducing a forbidden idea. It is no different to posting links to child pornography and support for terrorism.

At this time we all need to pull together and back the blue.

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You should report yourself as you are spreading mental image of child pornography.

If ideas aren't bad, why racism is bad, or sexism? Just because I say that I hate you because you are the race you are, I don't hurt you directly. Why is it not allowed then? It isn't real violence at all, I just call everyone to kill you and your family. I don't kill you myself of course, I'm nor criminal. But I make it very clear that I would be congratulating anyone who killed you, and I would make sure he is not punished for that.

This is what you are advocating for.

Racism and sexism is allowed. It's not illegal for a person to express a racist or sexist opinion and it should never be—it's just discouraged by most of society these days. There's a clearly defined legal line for where expressions of support for violence become credible threats or incitement of violence, and it sounds like some or all of these did not cross that line, which means the police acted emotionally and illegally to arrest them.

Oh really? So you are saying that if I said a sexist joke at work I could not be legally held accountable?

That's correct. Your employer might give you a talking to or fire you, but they could not charge you with a crime.

So you are telling everyone here that you could go to work, loudly exclaim that you hate niggers and they should die (analogous to police situation in article) and you wouldn't face any legal actions?

Not in USA at least. You would of course be immediately fired, but it's not actually illegal, so you couldn't be charged with a crime.

That's right. In the U.S., saying you think certain kinds of people should die is not illegal and is not considered a threat, legally. Nor is saying you hate certain people.

> Just because I say that I hate you because you are the race you are, I don't hurt you directly. Why is it not allowed then?

Damned if I know. I do not agree with hate speech laws. I think they are corrosive of the fundamental need to free speech in a democracy.

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