Hate Speech

[Munachi]

a first research in german internet sites (though admittedly a forum, not a newspaper article) point to that the woman was NOT wanted to work as a prostitute, but rather was supposed to do a different work there. even brothels need cleaners, or people who work at the bar, or similar.

 

[SavannahMann]

A little off topic but...

The reason that France has so many nuclear power plants is that they are trying to makes themselves reasonably independent for power. They want to limit their dependence on foreign oil and the don't have much in the way of areas good for hydroelectric power.

I actually support Nuclear Power. It's obvious that it's a cheap and efficient manner in which to generate energy that not only drives our economy, but helps the citizens of the nations enjoy a standard of living that is among the highest in the world. http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

I know that nuclear power can be handled safely. The Navy has been doing it for many many years. The incidents they've had are considered lapses in safety, but never a major incident, for example, like the Three Mile Island incident.

Three Mile Island should be taught to future technicians of power plants. The initial incident was relatively minor, a valve stuck open, allowing some steam to escape. Bad, sure, but not a disaster. The disaster came later when an ill trained technician over-rode the automatic systems to turn off the flow of water to the reactor. He didn't know a valve could stick open, or break. Common plumbing problem right? So he assumed that the problem was that the automatic flow of water was the problem, and he turned it off.

The other thing that Three Mile Island could be used for is an example of how not to react to a problem. The company spent a great deal of time telling one lie after another. At first, this could be assumed that even they were unaware of how serious the situation was. After that initial period of ignorance, there is no excuse.

The situation kept getting worse, partially because it was almost a full day before someone turned the water back on, and by then the rods of nuclear fuel were melting. I was talking about this the other day with my wife, and told her that this was one of the times when I thought that Jimmy Carter, a President without equal as a failure, had done the right thing.

I give President Carter extremely high marks for personal integrity. This was one of those situations, he visited the plant personally, and reassured the population that everyone in government was working to control the situation.

I believe we should include Nuclear as a means of generating power. The price is reasonable, and the result would be that consumers of electrical power, that would be us citizens, would have energy for the next two or three generations while we continue to develop the alternatives which just aren't ready for prime time yet.

 

[rgraham666]

a first research in german internet sites (though admittedly a forum, not a newspaper article) point to that the woman was NOT wanted to work as a prostitute, but rather was supposed to do a different work there. even brothels need cleaners, or people who work at the bar, or similar.

Thanks Munachi. That's a facet that the original article overlooked. And so did I.

 

[Munachi]

What it boils down to, in the end, is that freedom requires a certain level of responsibility in the "free" citizens.

You can see this very clearly with children. The reason they do not have the rights and freedoms of adults is because they cannot be expected to use those priveleges responsibly. This is why we have laws to restrain them from smoking, drinking, and driving, and more controversally, fucking.

If our citizens insist on "abusing" their freedoms, they will be limited. Driving around with a noose on the back of your car is irresponsible. Burning a cross on your neighbor's lawn is irresponsible.

The Founding Fathers understood that public freedom had to be based on some foundation of private virtue. Of course, our values have changed considerably in the last 200 plus years. But if we have none at all, or at least none in common as a society, then we can not reasonably expect that we can survive as a society without an external imposition of discipline.

this is interesting, as it relates to something i was thinking about today. that is, how do those countries that give so much importance to free speech react to children when they say things they shouldn't? is it different than here?

here, if a child in kindergarden uses foul language, or insults other children, we usually tell them to stop doing so. if the insults make another child cry we usually comfort that child, though if the child always cries at everything we might also try to tell them not to be so easily upset about things.

so would in the US a child be allowed to say asshole and motherfucker and whatever? and woudl the crying child be told to just suck it up? or are things similar to here in that respect?

 

[SavannahMann]

Interesting take on the issue

this is interesting, as it relates to something i was thinking about today. that is, how do those countries that give so much importance to free speech react to children when they say things they shouldn't? is it different than here?

here, if a child in kindergarden uses foul language, or insults other children, we usually tell them to stop doing so. if the insults make another child cry we usually comfort that child, though if the child always cries at everything we might also try to tell them not to be so easily upset about things.

so would in the US a child be allowed to say asshole and motherfucker and whatever? and woudl the crying child be told to just suck it up? or are things similar to here in that respect?

Most of us, and although I don't have children, we have them in the neighborhood, we tend to address the issue from the age point of view. There are some things adults do, that you shouldn't as a child. A man's vice is not for children kind of thing. At least that's how I have addressed that particular issue before.

As for the crying child, I don't normally spend too much time with that issue. Frankly, life is rough, it's a contact sport, and you need to grow some thicker skin to survive. If you need to, get yourself a helmet.

There was a news story a couple months ago that had the wife laughing. It seems that these Generation Y kids were going out into the business world, and crying in the office if someone gave them a bad review or chewed them out. I laughed too when I read it. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3188531 In that story the entitlement mentality is addressed briefly.

So we have the first generation of kids with the new age educational programs and they are wimps. They can't deal with confrontation, and they aren't disciplined in the slightest. They won't show up to work on time, it's just too early, and they're just too special. In the real world, they are also unemployed rather quickly.

Now, I guess I'm an old school kind of guy. We have a Gen Y guy at work, he just started. He was assigned a more advanced job, and literally went to the Manager to complain that he wasn't sufficiently prepared for this more advanced job. That's unacceptable. I pulled the kid aside, and I call him kid, because that's what he is. I pulled him aside and told him that if he failed at the job, that's fine, we expect him to fail now and then. The purpose of this assignment is to see how he does under the pressure of the more advanced assignment. I told him to watch the movie Hondo sometime, and see how the kid is taught to swim. That's the way real life is, sooner or later someone's going to throw you into the deep end, and if you can't swim, oh well.

The purpose of raising your children should be to prepare them and give them the confidence and skills required to survive in the real world. Thin skinned people don't do as well, because they spend more time being offended, and less time being productive.

From the news article. "I had a human resources manager call me about a worker who received her performance review only to have her mother call up and complain that 'she's better than that,'" he recalled. "The HR manager was shocked and asked the mother why she was calling about her daughter. The mother responded, 'Because I've done so throughout my daughter's life.'"

Is that what we wanted to create with the kinder gentler approach to raising our children?

 

[rgraham666]

I often wondered why 'performance review' was synonymous with 'flaying a person's ego with white hot verbal wires' when I was in the working world. It seemed that many people took a book from Soviet management methods. I was waiting for the day when they would line up their employees and a manager would walk down the line and shoot every tenth person until their pistol was empty. Pour encouragément l'autres and all that.

Myself, unless the person was a complete fuckup, I made sure I praised someone's good points at least as much as I criticized their bad. People broken like horses make bad employees.

Life is tough. Tough and vicious are not the same things though.

 

[SavannahMann]

When I was in the Army, we would do it sort of like that.

I often wondered why 'performance review' was synonymous with 'flaying a person's ego with white hot verbal wires' when I was in the working world. It seemed that many people took a book from Soviet management methods. I was waiting for the day when they would line up their employees and a manager would walk down the line and shoot every tenth person until their pistol was empty. Pour encouragément l'autres and all that.

Myself, unless the person was a complete fuckup, I made sure I praised someone's good points at least as much as I criticized their bad. People broken like horses make bad employees.

Life is tough. Tough and vicious are not the same things though.

In the Army, we would list good things, and things that need improvement. I've always felt that was the best way to go. Honestly, everyone has something you can point to in a positive light. No matter how good they are, we've all got room for improvement. No one is perfect.

The point of the news story was these kids have had the idea that they were all so special, and so exceptional shoved in their ears day and night all their lives. When they get to the real world, and someone finds fault with something, they don't know how to handle it, because they've never had any experience with it.

My example in the previous post is just one, we've had lot's of them at work, and that one just happened this last week. There was a joke a few years ago about New Age Mathematics. The teacher asks the student what 2X2 is and the student says "Uh, Five?" The teacher says. "Oh, you're such a little genius." Because if she tried to correct him the self esteem of the student would suffer. The teacher in the skit finally gives the student a smiley face to take home to mama. He feels so good about himself, but is dumb as a box of rocks.

There are things that are more important than self esteem.

 

[rgraham666]

Well I grew up in an 'old fashioned' school system. In that system there were only two types of kids; normal and stupid. I wasn't normal.

I'm still trying to stitch up the scars.

 

[Pure]

a quick summary:

one issue that has gotten a bit muddied is that the American's doctrines of Free Speech (ADFS) have been characterized in rather macho terms: there is a rough and tumble, sort of like the free market, and that's conducive to the advance of truth. the europeans, EQRFW, their *qualified rights of free speech* are suggested to be pussies, or oppressed masses following the dictates of socialist tyrants and keeping their mouths buttoned.

these sort of rhetorical ploys need to be seen as they are. they rest on massive distortions. for one thing, you've got Americans like Box saying "you have free speech or you don't', meaning Americans have it (at least in Constitutional principle), unqualifiedly so. Yet the qualifications have been elaborated in the courts for years: yelling 'fire'; obscenity; defamation; revelation of official secrets; conspiracy. The tide has turned in the Supreme Ct and in the federal government: "obscenity" lives; the prosecution that were infrequent under Clinton, have risen again. *IT was a dogma of American jurisprudence that obscenity fell outside free speech protections.

the language of the Bill of Rights is part of the problem. Americans tend to read it as it literally is, "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech." Yet from the start, everyone winked as said, "well, except for..." The Bill is NOT clear as to the reasons for abrogating rights. it was up to the Courts to insert the exceptions, using sometimes ingenious lines of reasoning; YET some of the reason was bold and ridiculous: "The Founders CANNOT have meant that someone writes about Sally's cunt while she's fucked by Brother, and gets away with it." the Canadian Charter and some european documents are better are explicity recognizing exceptions.

NOTHING in the BR quite means what is appears to.

I will give roxanne credit, among American posters, as showing some sense of 'balance.' in effect she uses general phrases of the preamble, like 'provide for common defense' to override, in some cases, the clear wording of the BR.

the American right's rage over 'hate speech,' and hate crimes is partly caused by their buying the myths of 'absolute free speech,' and NOT agreeing from the start that exceptions are to be made. although many of them tend to support anti obscenity laws. further, despite all the rants, Alabama is NOT the freest place to state your opinions, just becuase you can fly the confederate flag. indeed, the theocratic portion of the right would be happy to have 'hate speech' laws if Xians could apply them to blasphemers and 'those who promote perversions that God hates.' that is one geniunely scary possibility.

the other massive distortion, is against the Canadian and European position: that somehow their qualifications have to do with 'hurt feelings' and extrmely unpleasant insults. IOW the laws protect the whiners and pussies. as has been stated a number of times, the exceptions are generally rooted in arguments that "hate speech" is causative of serious discrimation, of denial of basic rights, and possibily of violence.

in closing, i'd reiterate the point of several recent postings. some of the freest countries on this planet, e.g. those of W. Europe, have followed what i call the EQRFS, the qualified speech lines. one could argue that the laws aren't too effective, in that France's Le Pen continues to run and gain votes. BUT one can hardly argue [at the same time, and in the opposite direction] that the hate speech laws, in the context of these functioning democracies giving primacy of place to basic human rights, have caused oppression and tyrrany, or made it imminent or inevitable.

 

[Boxlicker101]

one issue that has gotten a bit muddied is that the American's doctrines of Free Speech (ADFS) have been characterized in rather macho terms: there is a rough and tumble, sort of like the free market, and that's conducive to the advance of truth. the europeans, EQRFW, their *qualified rights of free speech* are suggested to be pussies, or oppressed masses following the dictates of socialist tyrants and keeping their mouths buttoned.

these sort of rhetorical ploys need to be seen as they are. they rest on massive distortions. for one thing, you've got Americans like Box saying "you have free speech or you don't', meaning Americans have it (at least in Constitutional principle), unqualifiedly so. Yet the qualifications have been elaborated in the courts for years: yelling 'fire'; obscenity; defamation; revelation of official secrets; conspiracy. The tide has turned in the Supreme Ct and in the federal government: "obscenity" lives; the prosecution that were infrequent under Clinton, have risen again. *IT was a dogma of American jurisprudence that obscenity fell outside free speech protections.

the language of the Bill of Rights is part of the problem. Americans tend to read it as it literally is, "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech." Yet from the start, everyone winked as said, "well, except for..." The Bill is NOT clear as to the reasons for abrogating rights. it was up to the Courts to insert the exceptions, using sometimes ingenious lines of reasoning; YET some of the reason was bold and ridiculous: "The Founders CANNOT have meant that someone writes about Sally's cunt while she's fucked by Brother, and gets away with it." the Canadian Charter and some european documents are better are explicity recognizing exceptions.

NOTHING in the BR quite means what is appears to.

I will give roxanne credit, among American posters, as showing some sense of 'balance.' in effect she uses general phrases of the preamble, like 'provide for common defense' to override, in some cases, the clear wording of the BR.

the American right's rage over 'hate speech,' and hate crimes is partly caused by their buying the myths of 'absolute free speech,' and NOT agreeing from the start that exceptions are to be made. although many of them tend to support anti obscenity laws. further, despite all the rants, Alabama is NOT the freest place to state your opinions, just becuase you can fly the confederate flag. indeed, the theocratic portion of the right would be happy to have 'hate speech' laws if Xians could apply them to blasphemers and 'those who promote perversions that God hates.' that is one geniunely scary possibility.

the other massive distortion, is against the Canadian and European position: that somehow their qualifications have to do with 'hurt feelings' and extrmely unpleasant insults. IOW the laws protect the whiners and pussies. as has been stated a number of times, the exceptions are generally rooted in arguments that "hate speech" is causative of serious discrimation, of denial of basic rights, and possibily of violence.

in closing, i'd reiterate the point of several recent postings. some of the freest countries on this planet, e.g. those of W. Europe, have followed what i call the EQRFS, the qualified speech lines. one could argue that the laws aren't too effective, in that France's Le Pen continues to run and gain votes. BUT one can hardly argue [at the same time, and in the opposite direction] that the hate speech laws, in the context of these functioning democracies giving primacy of place to basic human rights, have caused oppression and tyrrany, or made it imminent or inevitable.

Pure, you are putting words in my mouth - or on my keyboard. I have never referred to anybody currently in Western Europe or Canada or Japan as pussies or oppressed masses, nor have I made any kind of references to "Socialist tyrants". I look with some apprehension on the idea of outlawing "hate speech" for several reasons. It is hard to define, and the government in power could construe it to mean saying anything negative about certain groups, such as members of Congress.

Personally, I avoid saying hateful things about most persons, and I don't like to hear or read them either, but I also believe the BR means what it says. Of course, if the hate speech is actually libelous, that could be another matter.

 

[shereads]

If the goal is to protect the world from another Hitler, I'd prefer to see it done by protecting civil liberties than by limiting them. I'll bet more harm was done to Germany's Jews by searches of private homes than by inflammatory rhetoric.

As a supporter of the ACLU, I find some of the speech we defend seriously disturbing. But what use is protected speech if it only protects what no one fears?

 

[SavannahMann]

Don't sweat it friends

Pure is finding herself alone in her cries for protections against Hate Speech, and is trying to minimize that lonely feeling. She decries the far right wing, yet those are just the people who would abuse such a law if it was passed. I know, I can't prove that to her satisfaction. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/18/MNBSUH518.DTL

Religious conservatives have dusted off a largely forgotten 1887 state law that allows citizens to launch grand jury investigations, and they are using it to help turn Kansas into one of the nation's biggest abortion battlegrounds.

A grand jury that was impaneled Jan. 8 by way of a citizen petition drive is investigating Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita clinic operator abhorred by anti-abortion activists because he is one of the nation's few physicians who perform late-term abortions. This is the second such citizen investigation of Tiller since 2006.

So foes of a legal procedure are able to use a law in a way it was never intended, to go on a witch hunt, but hey, they would never do it to abuse someones free speech right? How long after we had Hate Speech legislation would it take for some Fundamentalist nut to go and apply it to something that most of us don't consider hate speech? Remember that Scooter Libby was convicted not of outing Valerie Plame, he wasn't even the one, it was Armitage at the State Department, but it was a process crime, lying to the Grand Jury, in denying that he told them, that he was convicted of.

Which by the way is why I'm also opposed to Grand Juries. It's the one time, Constitutionally speaking, that you can be interviewed by the authorities, and not have a lawyer present. It's a fishing expedition, nothing more, done with the kings authority. Once I learned how they operate, long before Libby folks, I already decided if called to testify about anything, I was going to sit and repeat over and over again that I would not testify as it might be used to incriminate me. Especially if I was just a witness and not the actual suspect. So far, I've been spared this annoyance, but the point is real.

No, people never abuse laws, never have and never will. Why all people are kind and gentle, and only do what's best for us. Phooey. You want to see me celebrate? Eliminate half the Government, and throw the laws out the window. Start over with common sense laws with victims in the crimes. Make the court system responsible for finding truth, instead of obscuring it. No one is served by our current system, and giving it more power would be the height of foolishness.

 

[Pure]

note to sher

As a supporter of the ACLU, I find some of the speech we defend seriously disturbing.

i repeat, 'disturbance' or 'upset' or 'hurt feelings' are not the issue, the issue is are you threatened or intimidated: are people being encouraged to harm you as far as the exercize of your basic rights (including not to be 'roughed up' or killed.)

if you will do a simple search re the legal term 'defamation,' you will see that disturbance, upset, being deeply insulted, being outraged, etc. are NOT the operative concepts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think its a good thing to know what people think. What people say is kinda like a fire alarm or siren's song.

 

[cantdog]

As a supporter of the ACLU, I find some of the speech we defend seriously disturbing.

i repeat, 'disturbance' or 'upset' or 'hurt feelings' are not the issue, the issue is are you threatened or intimidated: are people being encouraged to harm you as far as the exercize of your basic rights (including not to be 'roughed up' or killed.)

if you will do a simple search re the legal term 'defamation,' you will see that disturbance, upset, being deeply insulted, being outraged, etc. are NOT the operative concepts.

That's what she said.

 

[Boxlicker101]

As a supporter of the ACLU, I find some of the speech we defend seriously disturbing.

i repeat, 'disturbance' or 'upset' or 'hurt feelings' are not the issue, the issue is are you threatened or intimidated: are people being encouraged to harm you as far as the exercize of your basic rights (including not to be 'roughed up' or killed.)

if you will do a simple search re the legal term 'defamation,' you will see that disturbance, upset, being deeply insulted, being outraged, etc. are NOT the operative concepts.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, it is "communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person." I would assume that different jurisdictions would have slightly different definitions of what would constitute defamation, or what would be required to prove it. I believe everybody on this forum is in agreement that libel and slander are not covered by the First Amendment. For purposes of laws against defamation, I would also assume that "person" would also include an organization, such as a company or a governmental agency. However, I don't believe it would include a race, or all members of a specific religious denomination, or all gay men, or any other large and/or ill-defined group.

If a person were to say something such as: "All men are after only one thing" or "All n----s are lazy" or "All college women are sluts" or "All Jews are crooks" or many other such things, those statements might be hate speech, but they would not legally be defamation.

Have you ever heard a woman say something like: "Men are all the same. They only want one thing!"? Would you want her arrested for uttering "Hate Speech"? If the slope is slippery enough she could be.

ETA: I want to make it clear that I am not defending hate speech, which I find generally repugnant. I am defending the rights of Americans, or people in the USA to utter or print or email, etc. it.

 

[SavannahMann]

She's really not serious.

In her own way, Pure is one of those Religious Fundamentalists. Let's take abortion for a moment. The Supreme Court has ruled that Abortions are legal under Roe V. Wade. Fine, so if you wish to ban them, there is only one realistic way. Go and pass a constitutional amendment. Short of that, trying to find a narrow crack to drive a law precisely worded enough to prohibit this procedure is asinine. That is exactly what they do though. Every election cycle we hear about this. Ever election cycle we hear that this time, we can do it, we can stop Roe V. Wade.

There is only two ways to do it, get the supreme court to overturn, and that's not going to happen, it's been established law too long. Get a constitutional amendment through. Again, that's not going to happen. However this election cycle Roe V. Wade is again a point of discussion and the endorsement of various groups depends upon, your position on this established law. It's stupid, yet we're doing it again.

Perhaps in the next election or two, Hate Speech will replace it, and Pure can find a candidate that approves of her position on Hate Speech, and then she'll be represented. In the mean time, the rest of us will enjoy our freedom. Shortly after Pure gets her position, the same religious fundamentalists will be knocking on her door for violating the courts interpretation of hate speech.

 

[cantdog]

Possibly, Savannah. On the other hand, Pure never claimed to actually believe the 'German' model should be imported. We have had a lively discussion, at least those of us who could rise above our prejudices long enough to consider a different viewpoint have had such a discussion.

And the rest of you have retrenched and fulminated in righteous wrath, and I'm sure you enjoyed that, too. It's in the air, this topic, due to the magazine case in Canada. You now have a position on the issue, if you discussed it, and you had some fun barking if you just did that. Where's the harm?

 

[shereads]

I think its a good thing to know what people think. What people say is kinda like a fire alarm or siren's song.

HOLYMARY!

JBJ makes an excellent point here.*

If I ever say that again, someone please hit me on the head with a shovel and put me out of my misery.

Pure, I do understand the distinction between inflammatory speech and offensive speech. But it isn't speech that burns down the synagogue, or drags the gay kid out of the bar and beats him to death. It's hatred, and hatred will find an outlet. Speech is the only outlet we can give it that doesn't actually shed blood - and that might, as JBJ points out, even tip the future offenders' hand. (The Columbine High School killers all but explained their plan on the internet.)

On a purely practical note, is it really possible to limit speech anymore? You can outlaw just about anything, from people's private sexual behavior to what we publish on the internet. You can even catch and prosecute violators, if you have the time and resources. But those resources might be put to better use, prosecuting cases of actual harm.

Christianity was once outlawed in much of the civilized world. Look how that turned out.







*He makes two points, actually, and they contradict each other, but we can't all be perfect.

 

[Liar]

It's hatred, and hatred will find an outlet. Speech is the only outlet we can give it that doesn't actually shed blood.

Or at least, keeps that blood off your hands.

Yes, there's that kind of speech too. I thought that was the kind that this thread was about. At least for a while. Maybe not, eh?