I feel the same way about hate speech laws.
Edit: I'm glad this is a popular opinion. 31 upvotes within 12 minutes.
Edit: I'm glad this is a popular opinion. 31 upvotes within 12 minutes.
I'd probably draw the line at a limit number of items (e.g. 5 or 10 or 100 specifically named items, I believe similar to Germany). If the government decides something new is important enough to be regulated, they must decide whether it's important enough to replace one of the previous items.
You certainly can consider a very large set of potential victims - there are a lot of real people who get gravely offended by cases of blasphemy.
Your statement that God isn't real is, in the eyes of such court, saying something clearly untrue that offends others and harms the social order. The existence and reality of God is an undisputed axiom in many legal systems - the court will rule that God is real, the legal acts will explicitly state that God is real, and it might even be enshrined in their constitution as a fact above all law. It's even plausible that the holy text e.g. Quran is the basis of all law there; there may be additional regulations but the core of law comes from God.
What states like Saudi Arabia or Iran do in their law should simply not be accepted.
Even Turkey was officially secular until at least recently.
I'd agree that it would be nice that if it was differently, but saying "shouldn't be accepted" is just like wishing for a pony, it has no connection to reality - we simply don't get a say in such matters, and I'd bet dollars to pennies that a magical totally fair democratic vote in those countries would prove that the average voter there definitely supports prohibiting blasphemy and restricting speech to do so.
It's ridiculous to simply unilaterally declare that your moral system is more valid than someone else's, and forcing your constitution on some other place is just as reasonable as someone else wanting to replace your constitution with theirs.
Well my moral system is that I can do exactly that.
If morality is relative, then your opinion that I shouldn't do this isn't any better than my opinion that I should do this.
So I am just going to go ahead and do that.
What, are you going to call me immoral? YOU are the one who believes in moral relativism.
Too many people take our current state for granted. It is actually the result of the centuries of the fight against the backwardness (especially religious). If we give up we'll lose what we've already and with a lot of fight achieved.
We have to offend the superstitious and those that want to protect the backwardness, otherwise we're doing it wrong, and we'll lose so much we can't even imagine.
We have what we have today in spite of the religious texts not because of tbem. Otherwise there would still be more burnings at the stake and beheadings. Not to mention the treatment of the women.
We should never forget that, and we should act. It's getting critical again.
If literal concentration camps or starving literal millions of people to death aren't sufficient to bring real action, is it realistic to believe that free speech of all things will be the reason because of which we will start to topple regimes that we consider immoral?
If we can achieve a consensus sufficient for action on regimes who kill and torture people just because, then it might be appropriate to consider stopping (as opposed to just criticizing) regimes that simply repress people not following an arbitrary social code of conduct.
Historically, most of the thinking world already once managed to see the mentioned books as the stories which aren't to be taken seriously. The superstition is fighting back now thanks significantly to our forgetting what is it actually about. Not caring for the intolerant being "offended" is our moral duty.
1) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-idUSKCN...
North Korea "has long sought a peace treaty with the United States and other parties in the 1950-53 Korean War, as well as an end to military exercises by South Korea and the United States, which has about 28,500 troops based in South Korea." The U.S. rejects the peace talks every time.
The problem, though, is that when you go around toppling regimes, millions end up dead, when before only 10s of thousands were being killed by the secret police.
So yes, if I could wave a magic wand and give human rights to the entire North Korean population, with no negative side effects, I'd do it.
But we don't have that magic wand, and we have to balance the good that we'd be doing by fixing North Korea, with the bad that'd be done through the millions that would end up dead.
The U.S has a huge history of the direct organization of toppling the regimes only on the principle "they don't do what we want them to do." Therefore, Saudi Arabia, one of the most intolerant places on the Earth "are the friends" and the dictators are somewhere else. And these "friends" thanks to that "friendly" support magnificently exported their mind-boggling intolerance all around the world. And some circles bend over backwards to teach us that "it's good so."
If I could topple NK overnight and get rid of the death camps I would do so.
My opinion on Saudi Arabia is the same. That dictatorship should be toppled as well, hopefully by their own population.
Charlie Hebdo
> it's not bad for mental health
Causing someone to doubt and/or lose their religion is extremely damaging. It can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health crisis.
> it doesn't discriminate
Islam gets a lot more flak, than, say, Buddhists.
> It doesn't actually harm people, it merely offends them.
Speech is a weapon and can be very harmful. That's one of the major reasons totalitarian governments are terrified of free speech. In the West we've largely decided that the benefits of free speech outweigh the costs.
That's not even remotely what "incitement to violence" means.
> Causing someone to doubt and/or lose their religion is extremely damaging.
People blaspheming is not generally believed to cause religious adherents to lose faith. And even if it did, losing faith is not generally considered to be harmful either.
> It can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health crisis.
Citation please. I've never heard this argument before. And since you brought it up, I could just as easily say that losing religion can help cure mental issues. A classic example would be a gay person who has been brought up to believe that they're going to hell for being gay. Losing religion is probably the best thing that could happen to their mental health.
> Islam gets a lot more flak, than, say, Buddhists.
"it doesn't discriminate" doesn't mean all religions are equally blasphemed, and I can't imagine what sort of confusion would lead you to think that made any sense.
> Speech is a weapon and can be very harmful. That's one of the major reasons totalitarian governments are terrified of free speech.
Wrong type of harm. You're talking about spreading ideas that people don't like. I'm talking about the very words themselves harming the victims.
So those are already covered.
> It's an incitement to violence
No, it's not. Otherwise, wouldn't that imply we should outlaw being mean altogether? Is being mean always an incitement for violence? Yes/No? I think it's clear, it's not.
> it's horrifically bad for the mental health
Citation needed.
> as a form of discrimination against those people
Again, no. Discrimination requires that it be 'unjust or prejudicial treatment', hate speech does not. Hate speech could be as little as explaining factual reasons you don't like another race.
Part of the problem in this discussion seems to be that people have different definitions of 'hate speech'. That definition could be applicable to their country of origin or personal belief but it's pretty clear that definitions aren't even remotely compatible and it makes any sort of level-headed debate very difficult.
We don't need hate speech to cover that. That's just called incitement to violence.
>> No, it's not. Otherwise, wouldn't that imply we should outlaw being mean altogether?
I don't understand what you're trying to imply here, it doesn't seem to make sense. Being mean could be telling someone they look ugly in those clothes. No incitement to violence. "All minority are evil, kill all *minority" would be an incitement to violence. Pretty clear cut. Being 'mean' has nothing to do with it.
>> Hate speech could be as little as explaining factual reasons you don't like another race.
Citation needed. Where is this law or definition of hate speech?
Besides the obvious "fire in a crowded theatre" there a raft of things you may not say:
• you are not permitted to reveal to people material classified in certain ways
• you are not permitted to broadcast copyrighted material
• you may not make death threats against people even if you can prove that you are not a threat to them
• you may not reveal information about certain companies if you are in certain positions
These are speech of 'any' sort and I'm comfortable with the penalties (sometimes criminal) for them. I don't think they're dangerously close to criminalising certain ideas and thoughts. In almost every case you're free to think what you want and imagine what you want.
Any opposition to laws that attempt to abridge hate speech cannot derive from a general opposition to abridging freedom of speech unless one also objects to the restrictions I mentioned earlier.
You have rights; you are responsible for the consequences of exercising them.
This was the justification for banning so-called trolls from twitter.
> classified material - potential threat against life
> copyrighted material - protected by the constitution elsewhere
> death threats - direct threat against life (ability is irrelevant)
> corporate espionage - generally falls under contract law
Any and all of these may be abused regularly, that doesn't mean that any of them are protected under free speech.
That's only because your pet ideology (whatever it is, I have no idea who you are or what your politics are) hasn't yet been criminalized as hate speech.
Recall that there's no objective definition of "hate speech," and in practice the definition will always be tuned by the loudest faction as a weapon against its enemies.
Because if it's the first, I suggest you look again, and if it's the later, I don't see how it is relevant.
Therefore humans are required to emulate that classifier. Perhaps we call them "judges" or "arbitration panels" or whatever, the name doesn't matter.
My point is that politics will guide the emulation of the classifier, such that it emits results favorable to the loud faction and unfavorable to that faction's enemies.
So, that's like every other criminal law ever created.
I do agree this is something bad (for Law in general). But it does not lead to your point that the definition will increase unexpectedly in scope.
If you don't like their ideas, it's your duty as a member of a free society to engage with with them in meaningful dialog to show them (and everyone else paying attention) what's wrong with those ideas.
Free speech is the mechanism by which people resolve their disagreements without killing each other - Jordan B. Peterson
Why?
Anything else is allowed.
[1] http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/articles/Individualism-...
The US isn't doing great in the Press Freedom Index[0]. Norway, or my home country the Netherlands, would IMO be much better examples of "extreme freedom of speech". I'd say the US is strong on this point, but not at the extremes.
"... which asks questions about pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure"
that's not the same thing as speech, in the US at least.
In the Netherlands you prosecuted Geert Wilders!!! Some press outfits from the U.S.A. would be prosecuted left and right.
On the Geert Wilders issue: it is a lot more nuanced than how you present it. The quote Geert Wilders prosecuted for (translation mine):
"In this city and the Netherlands, do you want more or fewer Moroccans?"
the crowd starts chanting 'fewer'
"Then we're going to take care of that!"
This was not just a casual remark, as the judge determined that it was a scripted section of a speech meant to evoke that particular reaction from the crowd. The charges were "inciting hate", "inciting discrimination" and "criminal insult of and inciting discrimination of a group", the group being the Moroccan race (race as defined by Dutch law)[0].
The first charge was dismissed, but he was convicted of the latter; the judge decided to give no penalty because he considered the public conviction enough in the case of a public figure. The maximum penalty he could have received was two years in jail, though that would have been highly irregular; a fine is generally used.
Personally, I think Geert Wilders adds little of value. He consequently refuses to set (literally) any concrete goals for his party and only runs on populism.
The context matters, too. The Dutch legal system works very differently from the American system. Jurisprudence and the letter of the law are used, but the principle of arriving at a reasonable, proportional and good faith judgement is weighed very heavily when compared to the American system.
Our prison situation is that prisons are closing. We have 9,145[2] prisoners as of September 2016, out of a population of 16,979,120[3].
[0]: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_zaak-Geert_Wilders [1]: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redelijkheid_en_billijkheid [2]: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=... [3]: http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37296...
Yeah, we call it the First Amendment.
I guess I'd define "extreme end" as a country that doesn't threaten jail time for wrongthink.
Similarly it's possible to have freedom of speech but no free press, e.g. anyone can say whatever they wish on the street and out loud but all major media organizations systematically overwhelm or crush journalistic dissent and control the media narrative as dictated by a tiny oligarchy of wealthy elites which is in some large part the case in the U.S. or by the government directly as in many other more traditional repressive countries.
Also, any idea how they quantified individualism? There isn't any sort of unit.
Sometimes the extreme ain't a bad place to be.
The minute the threat of state sponsored violence and kidnapping for "bad free speech" is there we don't have free speech. We have permitted and unpermited speech.
Too bad they, uh, aren't. [1]
[1] http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-no-its-not-about-crimi...
"Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression may very well be interpreted by the courts in the future to include the right to be identified by a person’s self identified pronoun. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, for example, in their Policy on Preventing Discrimination Because of Gender Identity and Expression states that gender harassment should include “ Refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun”. In other words, pronoun misuse may become actionable, though the Human Rights Tribunals and courts. And the remedies? Monetary damages, non-financial remedies (for example, ceasing the discriminatory practice or reinstatement to job) and public interest remedies (for example, changing hiring practices or developing non-discriminatory policies and procedures)."
Deliberately, consistently, and maliciously misgendering someone is discrimination.
Doing so while punching them in the face, or calling for the death of all trans-gender people is a hate crime.
The fact that this was added to both discrimination, and hate crime statues is a non-brainer.
That is a very, very bad idea.
and thank god they can't, at least not for now. i can still say any bullshit i want on the internet, as is my right.
from your own article:
>Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression may very well be interpreted by the courts in the future to include the right to be identified by a person’s self identified pronoun
nice precedent
>Policy on Preventing Discrimination Because of Gender Identity and Expression states that gender harassment should include “ Refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun”. In other words, pronoun misuse may become actionable, though the Human Rights Tribunals and courts. And the remedies? Monetary damages, non-financial remedies (for example, ceasing the discriminatory practice or reinstatement to job) and public interest remedies (for example, changing hiring practices or developing non-discriminatory policies and procedures). Jail time is not one of them.
oh ok, no jail time, but i'm forced to hire someone that identifies as an attack helicopter, great!
>So what does this mean for pronoun misuse? Well, refusing to use a person’s self identified pronoun is not going to be considered advocating genocide – unless the refusal to use the pronouns was accompanied by actually advocating genocide against trans and gender non-binary folks.
so its fine unless i promote genocide, kinda makes sense but its still a slippery slope imo
>Similarly, it’s hard to see the refusal to use the appropriate pronoun –without something else – rising to the threshold of hate speech. Hate speech laws in Canada have only been used- and only can be used – against extreme forms of speech – explicitly and extreme forms of homophobic, anti-Semitic or racist speech.
so pronoun misuse is still legal, unless it gets to "extreme", whatever that means. and who decides what "extreme" is?
>Moreover, prosecution needs the approval of the Attorney General.
so in the end the attorney general decides..
I think it should be up to the individual case; deliberate misgendering can cause significant psychological trauma and distress, especially if in multiple occurrence.
Meanwhile, Facebook and TV stations censor nipples and four-letter words. Can someone explain this double morals to me?
Hate speech laws would be involuntary. You could not opt out and there would be a threat of force if you should fail to behave as demanded. Worse still... who gets to define what "hate speech" is and when the use of force gets called in?
It's legal for Facebook to say what it wants, and it's legal for Facebook to never say anything that it doesn't want to be said.
It's legal to make your own Facebook with nipples, four-letter words, blackjack and hookers; and it's legal for Facebook to forbid any posts containing letter x if they so choose.
AFAIK it's not - youth protection regulation gone wild is enshrined in law at least for TV stations and I'm sure that if FB wouldn't fear angry mothers with "uuuuuh buuuh my 16-year-old-boy saw a naked boob on FB" they wouldn't give a damn about boobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#Hate_speech_laws_b...
US
The original case that created it, Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, would seem outrageous if it were upheld today.
It's crazy how much censorship is assumed to be normal and commonly accepted in here.
I guess it just comes down to the lesser of two evils.
Honestly this would make a great movie - a society where being mean is outlawed.
You're making this into a slippery slope when it need not be. The parent commenter didn't say anything about mean things, they were talking about hate speech.
Examples off the top of my head: the demonization of "illegal" when in reference to people who cross the border without the right to do so.
The willful conflation of "Muslim" as a race rather than a religion.
1. Who decides what is hate speech?
2. In 1800, would describing all slaveowners as "immoral, godless abominations" and calling for the destruction of their property and livelihoods have been hate speech? If not, why?
In the context of a country, a judge or the people elected to represent the people do. This is often touted as some kind of immense showstopper to restricting speech, when really, it's not. The same people who decide what rights you have also decide what things you can say in public.
>In 1800, would describing all slaveowners as "immoral, godless abominations" and calling for the destruction of their property and livelihoods have been hate speech?
Perhaps, I don't know the law of the time. Were there hate speech laws at the time? If so, then it probably qualified as hate speech, if those laws included such statements.
Restricting speech is not necessarily a slippery slope (though it has potential to be one); the old argument of "who decides what is hate speech?" is a tired one with a relatively simple answer.
Speech is not violence or actions. They should not be conflated. Incitement of violence should be treated as such.
"Hate" speech can never be well defined. I can hate things. I can hate ideas. And the when I speak about them, you can tar me with hate speech to shut me down.
This is antithetical to a free society, the foundation of what the United States was built upon, and generally the modern "western" philosophy.
People should be free to speak their mind. If others disagree, or find what they're saying offensive, then they can choose to not associate with these people.
The problem of racism "on the street" (and most other places, really) is almost always more subtle than blatant hate speech.
Besides violating free speech, hate speech laws don't help with the cultural root causes of racism.
Going to point out that your language is ambiguous. What does "being racist" actually mean in the context of what you think should be disallowed?
It's an important question, because odds are very good that if you think through a real example of what you think ought to be criminal, there's a good chance there's already some other law that's already being broken, such as harassment. Of course, one consequence of this is that the censorious types have been diluting the term "harassment" to mean "anything anyone says that makes me feel uncomfortable." (Twitter is rife with this ridiculousness). But I digress. The fact is, harassment laws exist to protect people against the abuse of speech in public places, and there's no need for any particular special groups to have protection.
Here's some sample language:
He or she engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which alarm or seriously annoy such other person and which serve no legitimate purpose.
The greater evil in this case is using the state's monopoly on violence to enforce what should be a norm of civil society.