Comment by larholm
5 days ago
Freedom of speech is not absolute anywhere, not even under the 1st amendment in the USA.
Death threats are illegal whether they happen offline or online.
Yelling "I HAVE A BOMB!" in an airport comes with consequences.
I believe we can agree on these two examples.
Yes, we can.
But that's not what "hate speech" is code word for.
At this point in time any opinion to the right of extreme leftist ideology is considered by said leftist to be "hate speech".
Examples of "hate speech": criticism of muslims (but jews are ok), or minorities, or men playing in women's sport or breast amputation of 15yr olds, or immigration.
Nick investigating Somali fraud is racist and hateful.
The "hate speech" box is big enough that you can put a lot in it.
So yeah, we agree that there are limits to free speech. We agree that death threats cross the line.
But you tell me if we agree where that line is.
If you think there's such think as "hate speech" and it crosses the line, then we do not agree.
Where would any of your hate speech examples actually be illegal?
UK's made a fair few arrests for exactly those kinda things
The US should make an alternate internet without europeans so we can avoid them
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Countries in Europe (and most of the world) have positive constitutions, which defines what the government "must do" (for its citizens), whilst the USA has a negative constitution that defines what the government "cannot do" (against its citizens).
What constitutes hate speech is carefully defined in the constitutions of EU countries. Politicians can't just amend or extend the definition at will, except in the UK which has a strange system of laws and not a constitution like you're used to in the USA or in the EU.
In Europe we recognize that Hitler came to power by abusing free speech, which is why using the same rhetoric now can land you in trouble with the law. We also recognize that the pen is mightier than the sword and that unfettered speech can be used to persuade groups of people to use violence against other groups of people.
>In Europe we recognize that Hitler came to power by abusing free speech,
I've heard this again and again - no one mentions that the Nazis had roving bands of men intimidating people like a mob, and that Hitler came to power because of a false flag operation that burned the Reichstag.
But we should forget the physical threats of the Nazis and focus on thin parallels to their ideas, under the guise 'hate'.
When you do that, you end up with people arbitrarily deciding what's hateful and not, depending on their own values. Chants about English culture threatened by Muslims, hate, chants about Israel and Jews dominating the country, not hate (courtesy of UK hate speech protections).
Hitler was literally banned from public speaking for two years.
The Nazis came to power through widespread normalized political violence, not speech, and banning Hitler from speaking did nothing but further undermine the legitimacy of the government’s mandate to rule.
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> Yelling "I HAVE A BOMB!" in an airport comes with consequences.
It's not the speech itself that's illegal, it's the fact that they made everyone nearby aware they could have the means to mass murder everyone around them. People will obviously react to that by taking down the potential threat.
That's a convoluted way of saying "You have a freedom of speech but not after the speech"
It's more like the content of the speech matters. If you tell someone you're going to kill them, it becomes self defense if they kill you before that happens.