And your response to the couple led off in handcuffs for wearing an anti-bush t-shirt is....?
My reply is that according to the posted article, they were arrested for being in a no-trespassing area without a ticket. It doesn't say anything about their t-shirts or their speech being a cause. It appears that a ticket was necessary, they didn't have one, refused to leave and were arrested.
Perhaps you would have felt better if Al Franken had tackled them, and then helped a bunch of no-necked security types carry them out.
Based on the interpretation of the case provided in the Blog entry at stefangeens.com, it would appear that Green was in fact sentanced for insulting / offending rather than for actually inciting / encouraging violence or criminal acts. If this interpretation is accurate, I would agree that this the case represents an instance where the court making an error in judgement.
However, the court might not just be judging the case on whether Green actually said "go out and beat up a fag today". Some of the comments in the stefangeens.com Blog appear to indicate that the ruling found there to be a combative aspect to Green's polemic. The Swedish word from the ruling that is translated into English as 'insult' apparently has other meanings in other contexts. If the court felt that Green was trying to incite violence without actually saying "I want you to commit a crime" then the judgement would seem to be within the intent of the law.
Great links... let me quote a bit from them.
Quote:
The right of homosexuals as a group not to be exposed to insults must, in the opinion of this court, be more worthy of protection than Åke Green's right to make these insulting statements in the name of religion.
Note, no violence...
The blog entry also questions some other scenarios that would now be illegal according to this ruling..
Quote:
For example, which of the following scenarios are now also illegal?
* A non-Muslim speaker at a feminist gathering rails angrily at Muslim men, accusing them of being predominantly misogynistic, as evinced by her personal experience from working at battered women's homes.
* At Friday prayers at Stockholm's mosque, a preacher asserts the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real.
* A drunken Brit tells a lot of Irish jokes at an Irish pub in Stockholm. A lot. And they're not funny. But quite mean.
* A group of rather patriotic Turkish immigrants publishes a pamphlet in Sweden denying the Armenian genocide.
* Some annoyed Stockholmers insult a group of Dutch tourists after a football match that Sweden loses, hurling all manner of vile stereotypes their way. A random Belgian eggs them on.
Yes, this is a Pandora's box that's been opened.
There is some discussion as mentioned about how certain words translate with regard to intent, so there could still be some margin of error, but it appears that it was about insults, not violence.
My reply is that according to the posted article, they were arrested for being in a no-trespassing area without a ticket. It doesn't say anything about their t-shirts or their speech being a cause. It appears that a ticket was necessary, they didn't have one, refused to leave and were arrested.
Perhaps you would have felt better if Al Franken had tackled them, and then helped a bunch of no-necked security types carry them out.
Nick
Read that again. It never says they didn't have a ticket. The implication is they did.
The Franken thing involved a belligerent screamer who had been asked several times to calm down. As in "creating a public nuisance." If the guy had been wearing a t-shirt, nothing would have happened.
So apparently you think it's shameful for a private citizen to deal with disruptive drunk, but fine if the police put a person in handcuffs for wearing the wrong t-shirt.
As it happens, I think the Swedish decision is pretty much bull-shit, though hardly 1984.
So I can't understand, given you sensitivities, why you're not more outraged by official repression in our country.
What about the Canadian man who was fined for taking out similar ads in newspapers. Why was he fined? It's almost like he was fined for his thoughts. Why didn't they fine the newspaper instead since they were the ones who published it.
You can't outlaw "hate speech" in the US because that would force us to define exactly what it is. We have pundits and haters from all ends of the political spectrum that we could throw behind bars then. Hmm, not a bad idea actually...
If you truly believe in freedom of speech, then a subset such as freedom of hate speech must be allowed to tag along.
Read that again. It never says they didn't have a ticket. The implication is they did.
The Franken thing involved a belligerent screamer who had been asked several times to calm down. As in "creating a public nuisance." If the guy had been wearing a t-shirt, nothing would have happened.
So apparently you think it's shameful for a private citizen to deal with disruptive drunk, but fine if the police put a person in handcuffs for wearing the wrong t-shirt.
As it happens, I think the Swedish decision is pretty much bull-shit, though hardly 1984.
So I can't understand, given you sensitivities, why you're not more outraged by official repression in our country.
The reason I'm not outraged is because I know how our country works.
Say you are correct that they had a ticket. The police would have then arrested them without cause. Their own case gets tossed out and additionally they can sue for harassment and false arrest.(read: PROFIT!!!)
I guess I don't equate that with going to jail for six months, but you can call me crazy.
From the article I can draw three scenarios. I already outlined the one involving them actually having a ticket above. The other two could be that they didn't have a ticket, entered the area and refused to leave. They were ticketed and released, hardly the same thing as rotting in jail for months. One last scenario could be that they weren't in the designated area, but had found a way to be seen in what would be an off-limits area. Either one would have been wrong.
Just as an aside, I went to a rally like this for Clinton in 1996. It was in Orange County and was exactly the same. The protesters were kept outside and at bay. You had to have a ticket to get in. The tickets were given to Democratic party members who were especially enthusiastic and they were all driven into Orange County on buses. I got a ticket from a family of four who had left a couple tickets at home. There were four of them and they only had two tickets so they gave me one. I went in, listened to Linda Ronstadt sing in Spanish. They I listened to Clinton rally the troops so to speak. There wasn't a single protester allowed in the place.
Free speech is protected in Sweden except in cases involving hate speech against groups because of race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. I'm not 100% certain, but the Swedes may have enacted this by constitutional amendment (there was some press about it last year).
I guess if you don't like their laws you could always move to Sweden, take Swedish citizenship, run for public office and campaign for another constitutional amendment so bigots could hide behind God when they wanted to go fag bashing.
(The Model A) "You can order it in any color you want, as long as its black" Henry Ford.
(Animal Farm) "All animals are equal, its just that some animals are more equal than others".
(Soviet Officials) "Of course Soviet citizens are free to travel within the Soviet Union, that's why they they must apply for official papers".
(Swedish Press Office) "People in Sweden can say whatever they like, including those who are jailed for it".
It definitely appears to me that that speech implies that action should be taken, though it doesn't say so directly. For instance, "a horrible cancerous tumour in the body of society" definitely implies that homosexuality should be "cut out". Where are are Swedish friends to help us translate? Online translations are not being very effective here.
Even so, the speech emanates from one individual. Hypothetically, what if one of these people was a model citizen in every other way imaginable? Can you really arrest him because youthink it *might* be implying action be taken? That is so circumstantial it hurts.
Quote:
Now, imagine if in a speech condemnig gays were targeted at an ethnic group instead. For each time the word "gays" appeared, you saw the word "niggers" instead, or even the word "blacks". There is no way that would be accepted in our society, and if there were any implication that action be taken against a certain group, you bet the speaker would risk prosecution.
It isn't accepted, but it doesn't mean it's illegal. There are other ways to arrest these people. If they are clearly involved in direct harassment, trespassing, vandalism or violence, then they can be appropriately dealt with. Since lamenting the loss of personal freedom in the US is a popular topic these days, wouldn't it be terrible if its citizens had to fear the penalties of merely voicing themselves?
Quote:
What is this saying? That it is very clear that people think we have more of a "right" to attack and target homosexuality than we have to target ethnicity in hate speech. This should definitely not be the case. Hate speech against homosexuality, whether in a religious context or not, is still hate speech. I'm glad Swedish courts recognize this, and I only hope more countries get the message that bigotry against a person's sexual identity is on the exact same level as bigotry against a person's race.
Don't confuse law with social tendencies. Both are equally acceptable. Hate is not illegal, and it shouldn't be. Maybe there will be a landmark case involving "Speech Murder" or something where a person is convicted of murdering the victim with words. Wouldn't that be great?
And if this is really what you want, shouldn't all forms of discrimination be treated equally. If I have loud opinions on my distaste for licorice, should I be put behind bars? Am I allowed to hate criminals?
You hate that bitch, Patricia Heaton. It's time to lock you up.
Bad law . . . . saying what he thinks about homosexaulity is not inciting action against gays . . . it isn't really 'hate' speech . . . defend freedom of speech people!!
What about people who never say anything hateful, but clearly relay their hate with facial expressions and primal grunts?
I know what you mean, there is always someone who's not a "team player" - a goat hiding among the sheep. They try to hide their true insidious feelings.
No doubt the Swedes need an "attitude inspector" to stroll through social functions, alert for those subtle 'tells' that some people are just not "on the train".
I wonder if this preacher had his papers in order?
I know what you mean, there is always someone who's not a "team player" - a goat hiding among the sheep. They try to hide their true insidious feelings.
No doubt the Swedes need an "attitude inspector" to stroll through social functions, alert for those subtle 'tells' that some people are just not "are not on the train".
I wonder if this preacher had his papers in order?
Now, imagine if in a speech condemnig gays were targeted at an ethnic group instead. For each time the word "gays" appeared, you saw the word "niggers" instead, or even the word "blacks". There is no way that would be accepted in our society, and if there were any implication that action be taken against a certain group, you bet the speaker would risk prosecution.
What is this saying? That it is very clear that people think we have more of a "right" to attack and target homosexuality than we have to target ethnicity in hate speech. This should definitely not be the case. Hate speech against homosexuality, whether in a religious context or not, is still hate speech. I'm glad Swedish courts recognize this, and I only hope more countries get the message that bigotry against a person's sexual identity is on the exact same level as bigotry against a person's race.
Forgive me if this is a bit long, but after reading Tonton, and other comments, I thought I?d retell a story relevant to this discussion. About a year ago (on another board) a poster, Mr. Smith, was incensed over a conservative student group that was selling cookies on a university campus to protest affirmative action ? he was angry because they were selling the cookies, priced according to race and gender; the black female students payed the least. He supported the University?s closure of the group?s sales stand because:
?Their ?freedom of speech? was designed to promote hatred and contempt against women and minorities. Not surprisingly, some students responded negatively and the situation might have escalated into violence. The University did the right thing to shut it down. . . when a group attempts to say that certain categories of students shouldn't even be admitted to the university, that goes beyond "free speech" becomes the willful promotion of hatred.?
When I read Mr. Smiths comments, it reminded me of an incident I read about (relayed by Nat Hentoff) and I posted the following back to him.
'A few years ago, a young but very well respected New England librarian spoke at a university library school?s graduate seminar on the subject of censorship. She was the first speaker in the seminar and she presented a lengthily report detailing her agonizing "inner dialog" over the limits of free expression. She asked her audience to imagine a beautifully written novel that made "pro-life" characters very compelling and caring, and "pro-choice" characters cold and selfish. What if, she asked, this novel was extremely convincing, and repeatedly called abortion 'murder'? She asked herself (and the audience) if she could allow such a work to "poison" young minds to a fundamental right for women. She said she finally concluded, "that if being free to warp young people's minds in the name of intellectual freedom is what I should be doing, then maybe I could do with a little less freedom".
After a pause, an older, long-time Rhode Island librarian rose to ask a question of the speaker. " I want to make sure,? said the woman to the first speaker, "that I understand what you are saying. Are you saying we should put limits on what children learn and think and explore - so that they will be able to think for themselves when they grow up...So that they'll be more free when they grow up?" The first speaker repeated her assertions that there ideas too dangerous for high school student readers, but she had lost her audience. After the seminar a Librarain came up to Hentoff and told him the speaker had (inadvertently) actually reminded them of the purpose of their job. So when Smith says a university, dedicated to free inquiry, ought to put limits on what young adults think and do...well, do we need to ask him the same question?'
Canada faces it's own problems in this regard. As such things go in Canada, a great many laws depend on interpretation, so we'll see where we end up, but I hope we don't go the route Sweden has chosen.
Hate-speech laws are backwards, there's no way around it. I got three posts into this thread, and obviously Tonton was there to shout down with glee the religious. How utterly misguided. Tomorrow, someone will be sentencing you to jail for all you may yet say about religions. It cuts both ways, and this is not a time for the liberals (I count myself as one) to go hypocritical.
Freedom of speech/thought/idea MUST trump the desire to weed out hate. Hate must be defeated as an idea, in the forum of ideas, not as a sentiment via the mechanism of law. Crime must be defeated by law.
The idea that he was sentenced for what he said and not what he thought is laughable. Hate-speech laws are simply too vulnerable to political agenda. They are easily as dangerous as some of the speech they seek to supress.
If we have laws against uttering threats, conspiracy, and encitment to, or commission of crimes, then those ought to be enough to cover all the eventualities where speech can either lead to or be itself a crime. Threat, conspiracy, encitement, slander.
There is absolutely no need for hate speech laws besides a perverse mechanism to silence unpopular speech.
It's amazing that so many people can pretend this backwards (ultimately cowardly) legal idea is a progressive/enlightened one.
Freedom is not easy.
Now if we're talking hate-crimes laws, where if in the commission of a crime we can show that victims were specifically targetted because of race/gender/creed etc etc... that's a different case, though even that is problematic. You have a greater capacity to be sensitive to particulary dangerous paterns of victimization while confining yourself to actual crimes, and not expressions, words, thoughts... you might deter crimes rather than words.
Some words may betray a general aptitude for these "hate" crimes, but unless they rise beyond some very well established legal benchmarks, any attempt to criminalize these words is simply a contravention of free speech.
The Patriot Act is a valid topic, but it can clearly survive on its own. The current topic is relatively uncharted here in AO. It would be a shame if the discussion were derailed in favor of yet another privacy debate.
It's fascinating how attitudes on censorship flip-flop according to specific example and personal agenda.
Hmm. I´m disappointed about what I have read about the trial. But as more have said its an (unfortunetly) trend in more european laws, that to make derogatory statements about groups is not allowed and is often enforced when its minority groups that are hit. I am dissapointed because we have parliamentary systems, where all views can gain representation and the views can be countered in open discourse.
I am likewise disappointed that Mein Kampf is illegal in Germany. Its important to be open and counter arguments with arguments and not silence. Take the priest out in the media instead of in the courts.
I am also surprised he didn´t get a suspended sentence.
Comments
Originally posted by Scott
This is the extreme stupidity of the PC movement. Let's hope it never comes to the US.
And your response to the couple led off in handcuffs for wearing an anti-bush t-shirt is....?
Originally posted by addabox
And your response to the couple led off in handcuffs for wearing an anti-bush t-shirt is....?
My reply is that according to the posted article, they were arrested for being in a no-trespassing area without a ticket. It doesn't say anything about their t-shirts or their speech being a cause. It appears that a ticket was necessary, they didn't have one, refused to leave and were arrested.
Perhaps you would have felt better if Al Franken had tackled them, and then helped a bunch of no-necked security types carry them out.
Nick
Originally posted by kneelbeforezod
Okay...found more info here:
http://www.stefangeens.com/000407.html
And there is a transcript (in Swedish...anyone care to provide a rough translation? Anders, how's your Swedish?) of the ruling here:
http://dagen.se/pdf/Dom00.pdf
Based on the interpretation of the case provided in the Blog entry at stefangeens.com, it would appear that Green was in fact sentanced for insulting / offending rather than for actually inciting / encouraging violence or criminal acts. If this interpretation is accurate, I would agree that this the case represents an instance where the court making an error in judgement.
However, the court might not just be judging the case on whether Green actually said "go out and beat up a fag today". Some of the comments in the stefangeens.com Blog appear to indicate that the ruling found there to be a combative aspect to Green's polemic. The Swedish word from the ruling that is translated into English as 'insult' apparently has other meanings in other contexts. If the court felt that Green was trying to incite violence without actually saying "I want you to commit a crime" then the judgement would seem to be within the intent of the law.
Great links... let me quote a bit from them.
The right of homosexuals as a group not to be exposed to insults must, in the opinion of this court, be more worthy of protection than Åke Green's right to make these insulting statements in the name of religion.
Note, no violence...
The blog entry also questions some other scenarios that would now be illegal according to this ruling..
For example, which of the following scenarios are now also illegal?
* A non-Muslim speaker at a feminist gathering rails angrily at Muslim men, accusing them of being predominantly misogynistic, as evinced by her personal experience from working at battered women's homes.
* At Friday prayers at Stockholm's mosque, a preacher asserts the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real.
* A drunken Brit tells a lot of Irish jokes at an Irish pub in Stockholm. A lot. And they're not funny. But quite mean.
* A group of rather patriotic Turkish immigrants publishes a pamphlet in Sweden denying the Armenian genocide.
* Some annoyed Stockholmers insult a group of Dutch tourists after a football match that Sweden loses, hurling all manner of vile stereotypes their way. A random Belgian eggs them on.
Yes, this is a Pandora's box that's been opened.
There is some discussion as mentioned about how certain words translate with regard to intent, so there could still be some margin of error, but it appears that it was about insults, not violence.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
My reply is that according to the posted article, they were arrested for being in a no-trespassing area without a ticket. It doesn't say anything about their t-shirts or their speech being a cause. It appears that a ticket was necessary, they didn't have one, refused to leave and were arrested.
Perhaps you would have felt better if Al Franken had tackled them, and then helped a bunch of no-necked security types carry them out.
Nick
Read that again. It never says they didn't have a ticket. The implication is they did.
The Franken thing involved a belligerent screamer who had been asked several times to calm down. As in "creating a public nuisance." If the guy had been wearing a t-shirt, nothing would have happened.
So apparently you think it's shameful for a private citizen to deal with disruptive drunk, but fine if the police put a person in handcuffs for wearing the wrong t-shirt.
As it happens, I think the Swedish decision is pretty much bull-shit, though hardly 1984.
So I can't understand, given you sensitivities, why you're not more outraged by official repression in our country.
You can't outlaw "hate speech" in the US because that would force us to define exactly what it is. We have pundits and haters from all ends of the political spectrum that we could throw behind bars then. Hmm, not a bad idea actually...
If you truly believe in freedom of speech, then a subset such as freedom of hate speech must be allowed to tag along.
Who here believes in free speech? Show of hands?
Originally posted by addabox
Read that again. It never says they didn't have a ticket. The implication is they did.
The Franken thing involved a belligerent screamer who had been asked several times to calm down. As in "creating a public nuisance." If the guy had been wearing a t-shirt, nothing would have happened.
So apparently you think it's shameful for a private citizen to deal with disruptive drunk, but fine if the police put a person in handcuffs for wearing the wrong t-shirt.
As it happens, I think the Swedish decision is pretty much bull-shit, though hardly 1984.
So I can't understand, given you sensitivities, why you're not more outraged by official repression in our country.
The reason I'm not outraged is because I know how our country works.
Say you are correct that they had a ticket. The police would have then arrested them without cause. Their own case gets tossed out and additionally they can sue for harassment and false arrest.(read: PROFIT!!!)
I guess I don't equate that with going to jail for six months, but you can call me crazy.
From the article I can draw three scenarios. I already outlined the one involving them actually having a ticket above. The other two could be that they didn't have a ticket, entered the area and refused to leave. They were ticketed and released, hardly the same thing as rotting in jail for months. One last scenario could be that they weren't in the designated area, but had found a way to be seen in what would be an off-limits area. Either one would have been wrong.
Just as an aside, I went to a rally like this for Clinton in 1996. It was in Orange County and was exactly the same. The protesters were kept outside and at bay. You had to have a ticket to get in. The tickets were given to Democratic party members who were especially enthusiastic and they were all driven into Orange County on buses. I got a ticket from a family of four who had left a couple tickets at home. There were four of them and they only had two tickets so they gave me one. I went in, listened to Linda Ronstadt sing in Spanish. They I listened to Clinton rally the troops so to speak. There wasn't a single protester allowed in the place.
Nick
Originally posted by kneelbeforezod
Free speech is protected in Sweden except in cases involving hate speech against groups because of race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. I'm not 100% certain, but the Swedes may have enacted this by constitutional amendment (there was some press about it last year).
I guess if you don't like their laws you could always move to Sweden, take Swedish citizenship, run for public office and campaign for another constitutional amendment so bigots could hide behind God when they wanted to go fag bashing.
(The Model A) "You can order it in any color you want, as long as its black" Henry Ford.
(Animal Farm) "All animals are equal, its just that some animals are more equal than others".
(Soviet Officials) "Of course Soviet citizens are free to travel within the Soviet Union, that's why they they must apply for official papers".
(Swedish Press Office) "People in Sweden can say whatever they like, including those who are jailed for it".
Originally posted by tonton
It definitely appears to me that that speech implies that action should be taken, though it doesn't say so directly. For instance, "a horrible cancerous tumour in the body of society" definitely implies that homosexuality should be "cut out". Where are are Swedish friends to help us translate? Online translations are not being very effective here.
Even so, the speech emanates from one individual. Hypothetically, what if one of these people was a model citizen in every other way imaginable? Can you really arrest him because you think it *might* be implying action be taken? That is so circumstantial it hurts.
Now, imagine if in a speech condemnig gays were targeted at an ethnic group instead. For each time the word "gays" appeared, you saw the word "niggers" instead, or even the word "blacks". There is no way that would be accepted in our society, and if there were any implication that action be taken against a certain group, you bet the speaker would risk prosecution.
It isn't accepted, but it doesn't mean it's illegal. There are other ways to arrest these people. If they are clearly involved in direct harassment, trespassing, vandalism or violence, then they can be appropriately dealt with. Since lamenting the loss of personal freedom in the US is a popular topic these days, wouldn't it be terrible if its citizens had to fear the penalties of merely voicing themselves?
What is this saying? That it is very clear that people think we have more of a "right" to attack and target homosexuality than we have to target ethnicity in hate speech. This should definitely not be the case. Hate speech against homosexuality, whether in a religious context or not, is still hate speech. I'm glad Swedish courts recognize this, and I only hope more countries get the message that bigotry against a person's sexual identity is on the exact same level as bigotry against a person's race.
Don't confuse law with social tendencies. Both are equally acceptable. Hate is not illegal, and it shouldn't be. Maybe there will be a landmark case involving "Speech Murder" or something where a person is convicted of murdering the victim with words. Wouldn't that be great?
And if this is really what you want, shouldn't all forms of discrimination be treated equally. If I have loud opinions on my distaste for licorice, should I be put behind bars? Am I allowed to hate criminals?
You hate that bitch, Patricia Heaton. It's time to lock you up.
Originally posted by Eugene
What about people who never say anything hateful, but clearly relay their hate with facial expressions and primal grunts?
I know what you mean, there is always someone who's not a "team player" - a goat hiding among the sheep. They try to hide their true insidious feelings.
No doubt the Swedes need an "attitude inspector" to stroll through social functions, alert for those subtle 'tells' that some people are just not "on the train".
I wonder if this preacher had his papers in order?
A Concerned Citzen,
H. Himmler
Originally posted by MaxParrish
I know what you mean, there is always someone who's not a "team player" - a goat hiding among the sheep. They try to hide their true insidious feelings.
No doubt the Swedes need an "attitude inspector" to stroll through social functions, alert for those subtle 'tells' that some people are just not "are not on the train".
I wonder if this preacher had his papers in order?
A Concerned Citzen,
H. Himmler
Originally posted by tonton
Now, imagine if in a speech condemnig gays were targeted at an ethnic group instead. For each time the word "gays" appeared, you saw the word "niggers" instead, or even the word "blacks". There is no way that would be accepted in our society, and if there were any implication that action be taken against a certain group, you bet the speaker would risk prosecution.
What is this saying? That it is very clear that people think we have more of a "right" to attack and target homosexuality than we have to target ethnicity in hate speech. This should definitely not be the case. Hate speech against homosexuality, whether in a religious context or not, is still hate speech. I'm glad Swedish courts recognize this, and I only hope more countries get the message that bigotry against a person's sexual identity is on the exact same level as bigotry against a person's race.
Forgive me if this is a bit long, but after reading Tonton, and other comments, I thought I?d retell a story relevant to this discussion. About a year ago (on another board) a poster, Mr. Smith, was incensed over a conservative student group that was selling cookies on a university campus to protest affirmative action ? he was angry because they were selling the cookies, priced according to race and gender; the black female students payed the least. He supported the University?s closure of the group?s sales stand because:
?Their ?freedom of speech? was designed to promote hatred and contempt against women and minorities. Not surprisingly, some students responded negatively and the situation might have escalated into violence. The University did the right thing to shut it down. . . when a group attempts to say that certain categories of students shouldn't even be admitted to the university, that goes beyond "free speech" becomes the willful promotion of hatred.?
When I read Mr. Smiths comments, it reminded me of an incident I read about (relayed by Nat Hentoff) and I posted the following back to him.
'A few years ago, a young but very well respected New England librarian spoke at a university library school?s graduate seminar on the subject of censorship. She was the first speaker in the seminar and she presented a lengthily report detailing her agonizing "inner dialog" over the limits of free expression. She asked her audience to imagine a beautifully written novel that made "pro-life" characters very compelling and caring, and "pro-choice" characters cold and selfish. What if, she asked, this novel was extremely convincing, and repeatedly called abortion 'murder'? She asked herself (and the audience) if she could allow such a work to "poison" young minds to a fundamental right for women. She said she finally concluded, "that if being free to warp young people's minds in the name of intellectual freedom is what I should be doing, then maybe I could do with a little less freedom".
After a pause, an older, long-time Rhode Island librarian rose to ask a question of the speaker. " I want to make sure,? said the woman to the first speaker, "that I understand what you are saying. Are you saying we should put limits on what children learn and think and explore - so that they will be able to think for themselves when they grow up...So that they'll be more free when they grow up?" The first speaker repeated her assertions that there ideas too dangerous for high school student readers, but she had lost her audience. After the seminar a Librarain came up to Hentoff and told him the speaker had (inadvertently) actually reminded them of the purpose of their job. So when Smith says a university, dedicated to free inquiry, ought to put limits on what young adults think and do...well, do we need to ask him the same question?'
Originally posted by addabox
And your response to the couple led off in handcuffs for wearing an anti-bush t-shirt is....?
Ummmm? They weren't arrested for wearing T-shirts? But you'd have to be a person not blinded by anti-Bush hatred to see that.
Hate-speech laws are backwards, there's no way around it. I got three posts into this thread, and obviously Tonton was there to shout down with glee the religious. How utterly misguided. Tomorrow, someone will be sentencing you to jail for all you may yet say about religions. It cuts both ways, and this is not a time for the liberals (I count myself as one) to go hypocritical.
Freedom of speech/thought/idea MUST trump the desire to weed out hate. Hate must be defeated as an idea, in the forum of ideas, not as a sentiment via the mechanism of law. Crime must be defeated by law.
The idea that he was sentenced for what he said and not what he thought is laughable. Hate-speech laws are simply too vulnerable to political agenda. They are easily as dangerous as some of the speech they seek to supress.
If we have laws against uttering threats, conspiracy, and encitment to, or commission of crimes, then those ought to be enough to cover all the eventualities where speech can either lead to or be itself a crime. Threat, conspiracy, encitement, slander.
There is absolutely no need for hate speech laws besides a perverse mechanism to silence unpopular speech.
It's amazing that so many people can pretend this backwards (ultimately cowardly) legal idea is a progressive/enlightened one.
Freedom is not easy.
Now if we're talking hate-crimes laws, where if in the commission of a crime we can show that victims were specifically targetted because of race/gender/creed etc etc... that's a different case, though even that is problematic. You have a greater capacity to be sensitive to particulary dangerous paterns of victimization while confining yourself to actual crimes, and not expressions, words, thoughts... you might deter crimes rather than words.
Some words may betray a general aptitude for these "hate" crimes, but unless they rise beyond some very well established legal benchmarks, any attempt to criminalize these words is simply a contravention of free speech.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...patriot09.html
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
And here I thought this thread was going to be about this:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...patriot09.html
The Patriot Act is a valid topic, but it can clearly survive on its own. The current topic is relatively uncharted here in AO. It would be a shame if the discussion were derailed in favor of yet another privacy debate.
It's fascinating how attitudes on censorship flip-flop according to specific example and personal agenda.
I am likewise disappointed that Mein Kampf is illegal in Germany. Its important to be open and counter arguments with arguments and not silence. Take the priest out in the media instead of in the courts.
I am also surprised he didn´t get a suspended sentence.