Increasing hypersensitivity to Nazi anything

[CanadaOne]

Freedom of speech is for the guy you hate the most, or it means nothing.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

To add on what coconut said, Brazil has a model that more or less covers most things in that aspect.

 

While freedom of speech is unrestricted by law, there is a crime called apologia ao crime - apologism to crime. In practice, this means that if your expression alludes to or directly commits a crime under the constitution, you are breaking the law. For example, if you make a demonstration that white people are superior to others, though you are free to express your will this is an act of racism and thus you are breaking the law. Same goes if you advocate violence towards any group and so on.

 

Though freedom of speech is a pillar to modern democracy stopping people from actively threatening a particular demographic in public has little cons and hardly constitutes censorship.

[unreasonable]

Though freedom of speech is a pillar to modern democracy stopping people from actively threatening a particular demographic in public has little cons and hardly constitutes censorship.

 

I agree with that - the trouble is that in much of what is now being categorized as "hate speech" no actual threats are made. The determination of "hate speech" is increasingly made on the basis of whether someone claims to feel threatened, not that they actually are threatened, or that a reasonable person would so feel, or indeed that they even actually have that feeling. This is certainly the case in the UK.

 

Incitement to violence has always been a border where free speech slides into criminality. The issue is, as the OP states, that the borderline is being moved purely on the basis of over-sensitive subjective claims.  If anyone can claim to feel threatened - or even just offended - and have speech categorized as "hate speech" and therefore criminal without any kind of test for reasonableness, then no-one can safely say anything. 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Oh, most definitely. It's a byproduct of academic exaggeration from professors at universities and the access their students have to global platforms where they can expose/preach their ideas. That being said, from observation at least, very little of it actually translates into the real world (ie outside auditoria, social media and tabloidistic journalism) and even less into the legislative systems of the world.

[CanadaOne]

Only incitements to violence should be censored.

 

You can't have a march with people holding signs that say "Kill all the *******!"

 

But you can have a march that says "Group A is better than Group B."

 

For example, I adore my American friends and family and would never incite violence against them, but I know full well that Canadians are better than Americans.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

A better than B violates the principle that a country sees all its citizens equally in then eyes of the law. It is also the root of most genocides so at least to me it's a terrible idea.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

To expand on that, nobody ever woke up one morning wanting to murder a type of person. It starts with some grudge, evolves into 'us vs. them' feeling, further into 'we are better than them', some lies and eexaggeration get you 'they are a threat to us', which over time becomes 'we will be exterminated unless we fight them' and finally under the right circumstances you get 'let's exterminate them for our own survival'.

 

It's because of things like these that some countries have laws to cut it short at the root.

[Finkeren]

For example, I adore my American friends and family and would never incite violence against them, but I know full well that Canadians are better than Americans.

 

Canadians are Americans.

[THERION]

Canadians are Americans.

 

Yes they are.... they are the better ones!

[unreasonable]

A better than B violates the principle that a country sees all its citizens equally in then eyes of the law. It is also the root of most genocides so at least to me it's a terrible idea.

 

Just because a country sees all it's citizens as equal before the law - and quite right too, for those that do, which obviously excludes most more or less theocratic countries - does not mean that we all have to believe that all groups of people actually are equal in any other respect.  Just as well since this is absurd.

 

Groups are clearly different  although there might be disagreement about how much - that is what makes them groups.   I think that it is the better than that people find worrying. But I sense some hypocrisy, or perhaps just lack of clear thinking.  Psychopaths? Paedophiles?  Do you not think that you are better than them?  Perhaps not at serial murder or child molestation, but in other important respects? 

 

If you group people by culture - leaving aside those cases similar to my examples whom one could argue are suffering from a disability of some sort - can we really not voice opinions that some cultures are better than others? Are we not allowed values - except the value not to have values, or perhaps the value not to criticize other culture's values? 

[BlackSix]

Political discussion, closed