Free speech versus hate speech

@Raineh Daze Yeah, laws are not something that is supposed to remain static. So that social norms may change is not really relevant. Now as US Constitution has demonstrated that sometimes does not happen, but that is not the fault of the people who wrote the laws.

EDIT:added troper being responded to.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 1st 2024 at 5:40:09 PM

EDIT: Edited to remove the argument against Risa 123 due to a misunderstanding on my part.

Laws only appear and come into effect when lawmakers write them and vote on them, regardless of changes in social norms. I can say There Oughtta Be A Law about any given issue as much as I want, but unless enough legislators agree with my complaint to not only write a relevant bill but also pass it, I'm just venting. The same goes for larger-scale activism: it's absolutely vital for making the issues visible and convincing voters to vote for fitting legislators, but if the legislators disagree, then no legal change will occur.

Ballot initiatives and other direct measures can help, but they have their own practical issues, "tyranny of the majority" arguments aside.

• They're only available on the state level, and which initiatives are allowed varies from state to state.
• Hiring circulators to get signatures costs money. Underrepresented groups that would benefit from more direct democracy don't always have that money—but wealthy interests do.
• Initiatives that do pass can still be repealed or altered by the legislature. For example, an Arizona medical marijuana initiative that already passed was neutered by the state legislature.
• Republican legislators have been trying to make initiatives harder to bring and pass, sometimes by using initiatives themselves.

Edited by Negacube on Jan 1st 2024 at 11:47:58 AM

I suggest you read the previous page to which I was responding to. You are arguing against something I'm not saying.

OK, there was definitely some misunderstanding on my part. I apologize.

My argument is that we, the people who are directly affected by hate speech, don't have much legal power to enact anti-hate speech action without challenges from, and changes to, the legislative process on the "meta" level. Until then, there isn't much to legally do apart from civil suits and activism.

But I think I've confused myself more than anything.

Edited by Negacube on Jan 1st 2024 at 11:55:42 AM

What does that have to do with anything, though? This isn't a general politics thread.

That does not, we cannot discuss it, so while you are technically correct I fail to see your point. Also, while I recognize that this is a US majority forum, there are quite a few non-Americans, so one may not necessarily be talking about US hate speech laws (or lack of them). There are is no American hate speech in the title of this thread. Admittedly, I know more about US politics and laws than those of my native country, but that is just me.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 1st 2024 at 6:05:20 PM

To address a previous point about this making bigots more visible.

I would argue that's actually a bad things: By being visible they normalize their views and they can do damage just by being visible.

An analogy someone also once made I find appropriate: The situation is a bit like playing with a cheater. Yeah, it's frustrating if they hide it, but it's even worse if they cheat out in the open and gets away with it.

I think I need to lay out my understanding here to make sure I'm getting this right.

• Initial thread premise: Hate speech is a Bad Thing. Legislation to prevent it, both in the USA and elsewhere, could be a Good Thing, provided it is defined in a way that it can be updated as society changes, can't be used to discriminate against non-hateful speech, or allow hate speech further down the line as society changes.
• Counter-arguments throughout the thread: Writing anti-hate speech legislation that fits those requirements is hard.
• My argument: In addition to writing legislation that fits those requirements, the very structure of the legislative process and system of United States of America and its constituent states specifically^note I add this to prevent assumptions about hate speech laws and legal processes outside the US adds further challenges to writing and enacting anti-hate speech legislation. Therefore, changing the USA's legislative process itself on a "meta" level is needed to ensure anti-hate speech laws can "keep up" with society.

Am I getting this right, or did I move the goalposts on myself in this post?

Edited by Negacube on Jan 1st 2024 at 12:11:54 PM

Yeah, bigots being more visible only helps if that results in them being punished (by rejection if nothing else).

I see the point of this thread as taking about hate speech and laws regarding it in general, not necessarily propose a way to make such laws. Now we can certainly talk about that, but it is not a counterargument. To give an example, it is like coming to "benefits of interstellar colonization" thread and saying "we don't have the technology, so this whole talk is pointless". Perhaps I'm expressing myself badly, but that is the idea.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 1st 2024 at 6:30:52 PM

Yep, it's about hate speech laws worldwide.

And I'm going to bring up another variable that further complicates things: Here in the UK, hate speech is technically against the law, but xenophobia and transphobia are still on the rise. Probably in part because rich and influential people like J K Rowling can get away with expressing hate. That's something else to somehow get around.

I mean, here in Brazil, hate speech against say, black people or LGBT+ people can and will get you imprisoned.

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 1st 2024 at 3:27:23 PM

Yeah, one thing I've pointed out before in other threads whenever that topic came up was how the Nazis mocked people for giving them a platform and allowing them to spread their views:

- Josef Goebbels in 1935

There's always this idea that if you give a fascist a platform, they will just self-destruct and everyone will see how full of shit they are - it's why people keep thinking you should debate fascists.

But here's the thing: That doesn't actually work. Because the fascist isn't interested in actual debate, he just wants the audience you provide them with. And god help you if you are shit at applying debating techniques in the first place because then they also get those sweet video clips of them "destroying" you. Because public debates often just come down whichever person's got the better rhetorical arsenal rather than the actual validity of one's positions.

I'm actually reminded of a book by CS Lewis, Perelandra.

The protagonist gets into a debate with a man possessed by Satan. However, this proves to be futile because Satan is uninterested in serious debate, willing to lie and use bad faith tactics, and has inexhaustible stamina.

He then realizes the best solution is, literally, just to physically attack the body Satan is possessing and destroy it.

To my understanding this was intended by CS Lewis to be a Take That! to pacifists who argued that the fight against Fascism should only be rhetorical and spiritual, rather than physical.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Jan 1st 2024 at 10:45:27 AM

My opinion is simple. With free speech, the aforementioned paradox of tolerance still stands. Hate speech should be examined, defined, and outlawed. No Swastikas, no pointed white robes, no CSA flags, no Robert E Lee statues, etc.

Rather milktoast I know.

I think one of the more interesting resolutions I've seen is to stop treating tolerance as a moral principle, and just treat it as a social contract. If you're intolerant, then you've broken that contract, and nobody else has any reason to tolerate your shit. No paradox.

The problem with hate speech laws is that, like all laws, they are defined by the people in power. Which means that they are more likely to be deployed against socially weak groups than socially strong ones.

This is how we see hate speech and similar laws and regulations being deployed to silence pro-Palestinian groups and individuals, to fire people from their jobs, to suppress protests.

If laws against hate speech became legitimized and practicable in the US, critical race theory would more likely to get restricted than white supremacism.

Classic liberalism, in the sense of valuing the least government restriction on civil liberties like speech and assembly, isn’t about being nice. It’s about deciding “this weapon is sufficiently dangerous that it shouldn’t be used” rather than “we want this weapon, at the price of our enemies having it too”.

In fairness, a counter-argument can probably be made that hate speech laws exist in many countries that are not abused seriously.

Yeah, however the hitch in hate speech laws is as Galadriel said it depends on the people in power making it

That means that they could be worded and enforced in such a way that it harms the minorites they were (hopefully) meant to protect while barely punishing people spewing hatred over skin tone and such

People still have to hope that hate speech laws are created for protection of people getting attacked, passed and consistently enforced

And enforcement is also a hitch as police officers can be selective in enforcement even if at least in theory it could cost them their jobs, punishment for selective enforcement may not happen

That's the thing, either way, I think with any civic framework you can't just set something up and then look away assuming everything will proceed correctly the way you may want because of how you set things up. It requires constant engagement. A wall can be great defense, but if there's nobody manning the wall ready to defend and looking out, it's not going to be very effective.

If you extend this argument, Zendervai, would you then be saying that it's okay for people in non-public spaces (/pol/, Parler, TruthSocial) to spout their hate speech?

I'm all for harmless free speech, but a line does have to be drawn somewhere.

The issue will always be who draws the line.

While letting everyone draw the line may have issues, it's our best bet, that way even minorities get to be part of the line drawing, hopefully. Of course some less than savory falls may still try to push the line as far back as possible so they can say what they want even at the cost of others, but the average person is not an unsavory character so assuming minimal tampering would probably set the line somewhere that is beneficial for minorites, hopefully

Reading through these posts, the general consensus seems to be this:

1) Hate speech really is harmful, and if left unchecked, will keep spreading, silencing underprivileged groups and desensitising the general public.

2) Countering it doesn't work, because there's no way to reason with fanatics, and they're often manipulative enough to make their opponents look bad.

3) However, it may not be possible to keep hate speech in check, because depending on the country and the people in power, laws restricting free speech can be misused. And even in countries where laws are in place and defined clearly enough to not be abused, they're selectively enforced, as privileged groups often get away with illegal shit.

I'm starting to despair that anything even can be done about the swing to the far right.

Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Jan 1st 2024 at 11:27:16 AM

Letting everyone draw the line is more like having a lot of different lines and they all cross hatch each other.

Kind of a catch 22. But if we all were angels we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.