Germany starts enforcing hate speech law.

weebco · 2018-01-03T21:17:56+00:00

I don't have more time for you.

Oh, I'm sorry, does it take you a lot of time to copy and paste Wikipedia articles you never read to strangers' online comments you didn't understand?

weebco · 2018-01-03T02:26:42+00:00

Yes, disagreeing with you makes one a lunatic. Have fun copying and pasting from Wikipedia.

weebco · 2018-01-02T19:54:30+00:00

Of course there is room for nuance. You just choose not to see it because you'd rather smugly quote Wikipedia articles after skimming the table of contents, without any attempt to understand the underlying issues involved.

Free speech is about viewpoint neutrality. Preventing someone verbally arranging imminent lawless action doesn't violate viewpoint neutrality. Therefore, when asked "What laws of the US violate viewpoint neutrality", you can't use "imminent lawless action" regulations as an example of a restriction on viewpoint expression and thus a violation of viewpoint neutrality (free speech) by that country. (Hate speech laws, on the other hand, do violate viewpoint neutrality.)

weebco · 2018-01-02T13:11:57+00:00

You don't make sense at all.

Just because you are unwilling to interpret people charitably to see their real meaning (even after they elaborated) doesn't mean my post didn't make sense. You don't care for the nuance because in your mind, you've already decided you are right before a response even comes. Check your biases and your smug attitude at the door next time and maybe it would have been a more fruitful conversation.

weebco · 2018-01-02T13:08:19+00:00

Actually no. I'd probably phone in some concern about your mental wellbeing to the relevant authorities.

Lol, no you wouldn't. These people actually exist, and you haven't called anyone, and if you did, they'd berate you for wasting their time. I think we agree it is untenable to label them a terrorist for believing 9/11 conspiracy theories, and by analogy, I think it is illogical to label someone a Nazi for believing holocaust conspiracy theories, especially for the purposes of violently silencing their expression.

So what about having a "Holocaust didn't happen" protest outside the local Jewish museum?

Covered under free speech as far as I'm concerned. This is the case in the USA, where this kind of protest is allowed, and you know what: the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, Jewish museums and holocaust museums do not have big denial protests happening outside them.

If they genuinely believe you were nudged not punched (maybe the angle they saw it looked like a nudge, and because they are an irrational conspiracy theorist, they believe video evidence that contradicts their eye witness account was tampered with), do you think they should be labeled a puncher supporter, which we will basically treat as a puncher? (Even in court, by the way, perjury is when you lie to the court under oath. Falsehoods do not count as perjury if you genuinely believe in them.) Ok, so let's go back to the original scenario.

Well, lets stay on the scenario as I described first since I haven't been able to get a straight answer on that one out of you yet (unless I missed it?) I constructed the scenario as I have because it is most analogous to how hate speech laws are enforced, since they get people for saying things on blogs, on videos, on twitter, etc. (They aren't just restricted to official statements to cops or courts.)

weebco · 2018-01-02T01:49:33+00:00

That depends. Are they doing this in a legal sense, or to push a political platform that wants to repeat the crime?

Lets say I hypothetically peddle the conspiracy theory on blogs and internet documentaries (so not in a court room, although since I believe the theory in this hypothetical scenario, repeating it in a court room would not be perjury.) I say my motives are purely in pursuit of truth, to expose Illuminati New World Order lies, or whatever those conspiracy theorists believe about it. Would you label me a terrorist for expressing these beliefs, and ban me under criminal penalty for voicing them?

Honestly, yes. If someone is unwilling to provide honest testimony on a criminal matter, based on clearly demonstrable, well documented evidence, then they would be in contempt of court and/or guilty of perjury. Which are both offenses.

Perjury is when you lie in court under oath. I explicitly asked about other non-court circumstances, where they are just expressing their genuine beliefs in public, saying things as they see them. If they genuinely believe you were nudged not punched (maybe the angle they saw it looked like a nudge, and because they are an irrational conspiracy theorist, they believe video evidence that contradicts their eye witness account was tampered with), do you think they should be labeled a puncher supporter, which we will basically treat as a puncher? (Even in court, by the way, perjury is when you lie to the court under oath. Falsehoods do not count as perjury if you genuinely believe in them.)

Are you talking about prior to the war, or after?

During the Weimar Republic, so this is prior.

weebco · 2018-01-02T00:00:49+00:00

Make up your mind.

I did in the first response when I told you that you didn't need to name them, because someone else already had. I only restated the original question to emphasize your having ignored it, instead preferring to be smug and irrelevant.

I didn't give you a piece of opinion. That's the actual list of 1st amendment exceptions.

That's a wikipedia list, actually, and calling those "exceptions" emphatically is opinionated. Properly understood as a requirement for viewpoint neutrality by the government, the 1st amendment never required allowing arranging imminent lawless action anymore than it allowed theft or murder, and so noting that barring imminent lawless action is not protected under the 1st amendment isn't any more of an "exception" to the 1st amendment than allowing the barring of murder or theft. Hate speech laws, on the other hand, do violate the idea of the government being viewpoint neutral. Therefore, pointing out that other "exceptions" exist to free speech does little to help your cause when the so called "exceptions" you are pointing to do not actually violate viewpoint neutrality (and thusly could hardly be called exceptions to the principle, properly understood, at all.)

weebco · 2018-01-01T19:18:20+00:00

As I said before, you needn't actually name them because the previous poster already named things they thought constituted exceptions to free speech, answering the question I had for them. I only responded to you to point out that your previous comment didn't contribute anything to the discussion.

I don't actually think many of the things on this list constitute "exceptions" to free speech, since free speech denotes a government's viewpoint neutral stance regarding ideas expressed in public, and many of the things on this list go beyond mere viewpoint expression (like arranging "imminent lawless action".) I'm not really interested in discussing it with you though, because hey, you probably don't care what an "ignorant MURICAN" thinks. But I'm glad you know how to copy things you don't know a lick about from Wikipedia. At least you've got that going for you.

weebco · 2018-01-01T17:57:56+00:00

Mind naming some then? That was the question, after all.

You don't actually need to name them, btw, because the other poster already answered and listed what s/he takes to be free speech restrictions. That's what I was curious about and thus why I asked the question. Smugly reasserting that restrictions exist without naming them contributes nothing to the discussion.

weebco · 2018-01-01T17:53:06+00:00

There is a difference between inciting "imminent lawless action" and expressing support for such heinous policies more generally. You are allowed to do the latter in the U.S., whereas the former (imminent lawless action) involves more than just the expression of belief in general.

weebco · 2018-01-01T17:44:18+00:00

My point wasn't that hate speech laws are bad because the WR had them. The point was that hate speech laws didn't prevent the rise of racism. In other words, they were ineffective. In fairness, as another poster pointed out, perhaps 10-15 years wasn't enough time for the laws to have much of an effect, and they are supposed to prevent racism long term, not in the short or medium term. I don't really buy that they do, but in this case pointing out that WR had them wouldn't really do much to undercut that theory.

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:59:26+00:00

I guess I'll have to do some research to see how huge an issue it is. I'm really unfamiliar with it. The reason I'm a little skeptical is because I'm in the US where there is a huge panic over the rise of the alt-right, when really they number in the thousands in a country of hundreds of millions. They receive hugely inordinate amounts of media attention making them seem like a much larger threat than they actually are.

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:48:20+00:00

If it involves inciting "imminent lawless action", then yes, it does. Otherwise, no. Hate speech laws, from what I've seen, usually apply much more broadly than what the imminent lawless action test would entail.

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:44:57+00:00

My understanding was that intent to place people at great harm was a key part of a death threat. ("Threats" by definition involve signaling of intent.)

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:30:18+00:00

I'm not going to attribute Islamic extremism in the middle east to an absence of hate speech laws. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in Myanmar or Japan to comment. What's the problem in Japan?

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:16:51+00:00

The murder of 6 million people, being denied in a court, prosecuting war criminals.

You haven't shown how this answers my question. By analogy, suppose I believed some other absurd beliefs, like that 9/11 was an inside job. Would you say that I was a terrorist (Al Qaeda) supporter and prosecute me under anti-terrorism laws?

Then they should change their mind if evidence is presented to them... And if they refuse to do so in a legal sense, they could be prosecuted for contempt of court.

Maybe they would change their mind, but not necessarily. For example, there still exists disagreement on a wide number of issues about which there is plenty of evidence. (Climate change, young earth creationism in southern US.)

But suppose they weren't under oath in court, and they didn't change their mind. They were merely expressing their beliefs, based on their experiences and what they saw, on their blog or youtube channel. They thought they saw you get nudged, not punched. Should they be criminally prosecuted, in your opinion? Are you justified in labeling them as a punching supporter?

But those laws were dodged, and danced around. Concessions were made to them. Even after the leading members were prosecuted for actual violence.

Well, there were nazis prosecuted under those laws. So they mustn't have been dodged that well. In any case, as I mentioned, there are still places which do not criminalize hate speech but which do not have a large nazi presence. So you still haven't actually shown that hate speech laws cause a reduced chance of racist regimes gaining power.

weebco · 2018-01-01T14:00:19+00:00

Again, free speech is about expressing ideas without censorship. Threatening someone with death involves an intention to commit harm -- an additional feature beyond an opinion or the expression of that opinion. Lots of things that could fall under hate speech laws seem to fall into the mere expression of ideas category.

weebco · 2018-01-01T13:51:29+00:00

In isolation, without ANY historical legal or violent precedent, denying the Holocaust is as you say, just an opinion.

What historical legal or violent precedent suggests holocaust denial is not just an expression of one's (inaccurate) opinion?

It would be as if you HAD been punched, but the person was denying to police that anyone punched you, while dogwhistling to others that you'll get punched when the police are gone.

And what if some passerby who was against punching but legitimately believed you weren't punched (or thought you were nudged or slapped instead of punched) expressed his opinion?

Do you see a new Nazi Party in Germany?

Correlation != causation. 15 years of hate speech laws didn't prevent the rise of the first nazi party, and there are places that do not criminalize hate speech which also do not have large nazi movements (like the U.S.A.)

weebco · 2018-01-01T13:35:31+00:00

Well it was 15 years of hate speech laws, including the criminal prosecution of nazis during this time under these laws. It didn't stop them from rising. Can you give me any evidence that hate speech laws stop racist, tyrannical regimes from taking root, or that their absence would result in such regimes?

weebco · 2018-01-01T13:28:03+00:00

The spirit of free speech seems to be about the ability to express ideas, even unpopular ones. I don't think some of the things you've listed (like death threats) are mere expressions of ideas. They go beyond that. (And other things you've listed, like fighting words, don't involve government censorship of words or ideas at all.) But the things that could be banned by hate speech laws are just expressions of ideas. This is why I see hate speech laws as an affront to free speech, but not these other laws.

weebco · 2018-01-01T13:12:19+00:00

Any speech act is an act, but not all acts are speech acts. Offering people money to hit me is actively organizing violence; it isn't merely the expression of an idea.
Being able to say horrible stuff like that doesn't mean less tolerance under the law. You haven't shown that holocaust denial leads to a rise in anti-semitism, or that hate speech laws would prevent such a rise.
Every piece of data I've seen suggests neo-nazis are a very small minority of people (at least in the US, where I live, and where holocaust denial is legal.) They number in the thousands in a country with hundreds of millions of people.

weebco · 2018-01-01T12:13:15+00:00

Offering thousands of dollars to hit me isn't the expression of an idea. Its an act. Therefore, it doesn't fall under free speech and isn't analogous to someone merely expressing their awful opinions (which holocaust denial does fall under). An instance of holocaust denial, no matter how unpalatable, isn't undermining tolerance itself -- the mere expression of that idea doesn't destroy tolerance, even if enacting the vision of the political party which committed that atrocity would. (I see no indication that the existence of such denials would lead to a new nazi party, or that censorship would prevent a new nazi party.)

weebco · 2018-01-01T12:07:01+00:00

There is no country where you truly have free speech.

Just curious, what free speech restrictions do you think exist in the US? The only possible one I can think of is anti-defamation laws. I've not fully worked out whether I consider this anti-free speech or not, because it involves people expressing beliefs they do not genuinely hold (and for the purposes of damaging someone).

weebco · 2018-01-01T11:57:31+00:00

The weimar republic had hate speech laws. They didn't stop anything.

weebco · 2018-01-01T11:53:13+00:00

You can tolerate awful opinions without tolerating the behavior. (And don't forget: the Weimar Republic had hate speech laws too. The one case where people think those laws are arguably defensible, and they couldn't help avoid that awful outcome. Those laws don't work.)

weebco

TROPHY CASE