Springheel

Someone's first post that has a link to an external site, and references nothing that is actually connected to this forum? I'm guessing spam.

If that work had been done, and if it did show that certain types of hate speech can cause violence, then we would at least have something to discuss. But that work hasn't been done, and there are too many examples of "hate speech" that have no rational connection to violence whatsoever (even examples posted in this very thread) to make me think that is a likely conclusion. But, even if it were, it still wouldn't immediately follow that hate speech should be banned. We already know that religions can cause violence (at least according to the people committing it in the name of that religion) but because it is only a small percentage of the population committing that violence, we don't ban religions or religious texts. When Democrats demonize Republicans and then someone shoots a bunch of Republicans at a baseball game, we don't ban harsh political criticism. Nathaniel White said Robocop had inspired him to kill one of his victims. We don't ban violent movies. There was plenty of violence at the BLM protests last summer, but no one dreamed of banning the anti-police rhetoric, even after two police officers were murdered in their car. I could go on.

It's odd to me that you would, in an attempt to justify hate speech laws, compare them to a law which we now recognize to have been unjust and without valid justification. Laws against homosexuality are exactly the kind of laws states should not be allowed to make...ones where the state cannot justify making the behaviour illegal beyond vague statements about protecting society from "offensive" behaviour. In that way, they are precisely like hate speech laws. And while hate speech laws may eventually be recognized as obsolete and be repealed in the same way homosexuality was decriminalized, that's not an argument in their favour. If a law can't be justified, it shouldn't exist. Period.

Another irony...while hate speech advocates list Nazis as one of their primary enemies, and point to Nazi Germany as what can happen if hate speech is allowed, the Nazi party was actually one of the most enthusiastic supporters of banning "problematic" speech...as all power-hungry proto-dictatorships are. This is exactly why preventing violence is not a sufficient argument for banning "hate speech". If you can't see the problem with making laws that require "good faith human analysis", where two reasonable people can't even agree on what is or is not against the law, I don't know what else to say. If we could rely on good faith, we wouldn't need laws at all.

Oh please. You're going to try and argue that the Quran and Bible get a pass because they aren't "current"?? They're among the most widely read books in the world. "The Holy Bible is the most read book in the world. In the past 50 years, the Bible has sold over 3.9 billion copies. " Coming in at #3 in the world, "The Quran is believed to be the words straight from God, Allah. It is the book that the Muslims use as a guide full of religious texts of how they should live their lives. ... The Quran is the most read book in the world by the Islamic community. " https://capitalizemytitle.com/what-are-the-most-read-books-in-the-world-of-all-time/

Ok, great. We're generally in agreement on that point. Books like the Quran and the Bible can tell their followers to do violent things, and some of their followers DO violent things, but we don't try to make the books illegal. Instead, we condemn the violence and we try to use reason to counter the violent messages. Why is that approach not also sufficient for "hate speech"?

And? This isn't a courtroom, it's a conversation. When someone's argument suggests a conclusion, a suggestive question is a good way to find out whether the person has considered and supports that conclusion.

It's ironic that this is the same argument used by those who blame Islam for terrorist attacks like 9/11. "His religion told him that what he was doing was right. The Quran's command to "make war on the unbelievers" was not the sole reason, but it contributed and may have given the final impulse he needed." I guess, by extension, you would be supportive of making that religion illegal? A dictionary definition doesn't answer the original question, which was "What does it protect against that isn't already covered by other laws?"

It's apparently not easy at all. I've been trying to get a straight answer to "what hate speech is" for two pages now. Until we establish a clear definition of what hate speech laws are supposed to do, we can't begin to have a discussion about whether they are successful or not. But for some reason, hate speech proponents seem determined to avoid answering the question. That is absolutely NOT the way you establish laws in a just society. You don't just let the state make laws without explanation and hope they eventually work out...what could be more fascist than that? If the state doesn't have a good justification for making something illegal, then it should not be illegal.

I find it strange how hard it is to get a coherent answer to a simple question, given the sheer volume being written in response to it. Instead I'm getting lots of examples of speech that people don't like. And some of the examples that are presented as "obvious" reasons why we need hate speech laws seem to me to be obvious reasons why they're a bad idea. The closest things I could find as potential answers were: "The point of hate speech is to create a proper atmosphere where everyone can be encouraged to speak out" and to protect society against "ill will euphemisms thrown around, fake bot accounts, provocateurs that cultivate and spread the angst." Is that what you think hate speech laws are supposed to do? I think it's pretty clear that hate speech laws don't do any of those things, and aren't even designed to do so, but that would at least give us somewhere to begin a discussion. We can't even begin to talk about whether hate speech laws are important or effective or hypocritical until we have a clear answer to the question of what they are intended to do. How was it established that the increased aggression was "caused by speeches" as opposed to other factors? I've already pointed out how that exact same argument is used all the time to ban things: "Violent video games may not directly incite school shootings. But the bloodlust created by these violent, murderous games leads to increased aggression and violence in our youth, and school shootings have gone up ever since these violent games were released. Therefore violent video games should be illegal." If you're going to accept that argument for hate speech laws, you'd have to accept it for violent video games/movies, role-playing games, most forms of music, comic books, etc.

I don't want to get into the specifics of any particular politician or political party, as that video does, since I'm not familiar enough with the politics of Italy. As for directly inciting violence, I've already pointed out that this is already illegal in North America. So is actual violence. So again, I'm still left without an answer to the question "What does it protect against that isn't already covered by other laws?"

Protection from the majority. The original question was " What does it protect against that isn't already covered by other laws?" This response still doesn't provide an answer. Protection from the majority doing what??

Again, this is incredibly vague. Protection from what?

So we agree that it's not precise. What's your argument for having it at all? What does it protect against that isn't already covered by other laws? Directly inciting violence is already against the law. You don't need hate speech laws for that. If you're trying to draw a direct casual relationship between hate speech laws and homicide, you're going to have to do better than that. I can show a correlation between absolute government censorship and low homicide rates...but I don't think anyone would accept that as a justification for government censorship. I haven't seen anyone here (or anywhere else) arguing for absolute freedom of speech, so let's put that straw man to bed. If you agree that freedom of speech is a fundamental right, then it follows that any government wanting to restrict it must have a good reason for doing so. So let's start there. Why do societies need hate speech laws?

"They are speeches by politicians who point out certain groups as 'enemy of the country' and cause of all the problems of the people. This is what I deserve, that is how it also began in the 1930s in Germany with the Jews and I think the final consequences have been quite clear." There's lots to unpack here, including the same slippery slope fallacy I mentioned earlier, but I think talking about politicians is too much of a niche case. That isn't the primary purpose or target of hate speech laws, so let's set that aside. Saying it "comes down to the civil servant" is the DEFINITION of poorly regulated. In a just society, laws should be objective and easily understandable...if you can't know what behaviour is going to be criminal until after you do it, that's an obvious problem. Because power corrupts, and the more power the state has over its citizens, the worse off those citizens become. I don't think anyone who knows the first thing about psychology or human history could argue that point. When the state is looking for more power over its citizens, it should be required to justify why it needs that power, not just take it unless someone can argue otherwise.