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Originally Posted by RK77
I think I understand where you are coming from and as an African American --- it could EASILY be my kneejerk reaction to agree with you.
The problem is --- I am an American first. And one question that cannot be answered when you go to the extreme of codifiying censorship of hateful speech is "How do you then protect dissent?"
To return to your example of the holocaust--- your assertions are something I personal find sympathetic to my own beliefs BUT have you considered that one reason that the Germans could be corralled into allowing the genocide to occur under their noses was the inability of ANY dissenting views to be heard. THOSE views could have easily been labeled as "hateful speech" toward the Aryans.
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It played a part. The locations of camps, 'unbelief' ("we could never do such things!"), as well as communications at that time were part of it too.
...But I get your point, and yeah, branding discussions/questions as dissent & hate speech would be a dangerous restriction on free speech.
White Rose - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This would have been especially true as they began to mass murder women and children. Calling someone a mass murderer is a pretty "hateful" term when it is not true, is it not?
How would say a school teacher in Warsaw have PROVEN anything about what was occuring in the camps? Still--- would it not have been that teachers duty as a human being to attempt to dissent from a view that condoned such behavior?
Those of us who love American and believe in our constitution understand your argument---because in America there is no group --- NOT ONE --- that is free from the insults and painful mislabeling and abusive unto the point of threatening/frightening speech. But we also spring forth from ancestors who --- be they americans from the time of the revolution or from the time of the potatoe famines or from the times of the slave trades --- all would have DIED (and many did) to protect the rights of not only those who saw them in a favorable light---but also those who spewed hate speech at them and their families.
One of the things I LEAST respect about the fanatically pro- israeli jewish people is their determination to, in this nation, squelch the right of people to be stupid as shit and say offensive shit at will.
NOW--- that being said, the right to say want you want is accompanied by the right of those around you to--- in a variety of ways----hold you accountable for what you say. Our legal system codifies that right as well.
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Right, libel/slander...
So hate speech holds legal/civil repurcussions only under the following circumstances?:
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The ONLY punishment of "Hate" that I can concur with is when that emotion/ideology is translated into an action---be it discriminatory practices or attempts to terrorize or attempts to harm. Those who hate can and should be made to live with their hate (choke on it as it were) or pay consequences for acting on it, imho.
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Yet discriminatory practices, harrassment and such can be extremely difficult to pick up on one's radar, especially when one or the other group is in denial, and their impact on peoples lives shouldn't be underestimated because they don't have an overt act of aggression to go with them
Since these cases have to have a great deal of substance to be adjudicated, I don't see them as dangerous to our freedom -- far more ominous is Canada's complicity viz-a-viz CIA kidnappings, and I'm alarmed by the mob mentality I see building within my own country.
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In a very real way, it is this freedom, above all others, that makes America---America! Those who need for their neighbors rights to be curtailed to enjoy their own would likely find themselves more comfortable in many of the other democracies throughout the world. Ours comes with freedom of speech!
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Sigh
Itching to post I Am Canadian anthem