Brian Peacock wrote:Forty Two wrote:pErvin wrote:The fact that Islam doesn't have an authority structure means that there is no Pope like figure to tell all the non-thinkers what to think. The moderates can only speak out. And large numbers of them do, we just don't hear about it in the western media.
You mean...speak out AGAINST a religious group? That'd be hate speech. It's be like saying we want fewer fundamentalist Muslims in this country. That's definitely hate speech.
Is it? Why?
That's what I've been asking about Geert Wilders' comments. The explanations were, basically, that we know what he's really thinking and we know what he really wants to do, so, when he says he wants fewer Moroccans, that's hate speech. When he criticizes Islam and its ideology, he's really committing hate speech.
Brian Peacock wrote:
OK. You're pointing out that some people can seemingly say some bad things about some other people, and get away with it, and some people can't. I don't think there's an absolute moral delineator here,
Oh, moral? Sure. When we're talking about whether some people want to bash Wilders harder than someone else for saying the same or similar stuff, well, that's really just a function of the marketplace of ideas. but, the issue at bar in this thread and related to Wilders is not whether people can morally hold one person to one standard and other people to different standards. They can. This is a "legal" issue - and what should be legal and illegal in terms of speech.
Brian Peacock wrote:
and, as I've said previously, the ability or willingness of some person or group to take offence is not the measure of whether whatever it is they're offended by is offensive, or indeed not. Saying something offensive is not hate-speech, so why over-egg the pudding by suggesting that it is?
Because, in part, it is. Part of any analysis of "hate speech" is whether it causes offense or is likely to cause offense (or insult, or some other such term). So, whether a person says they're offended or insulted is very relevant to the analysis.
Brian Peacock wrote:
Not only should we let the bigots and hate-mongers speak, for that's how we identify bigots and hate-mongers, but we should protect their right to have and express appalling ideas.
O.k., agreed.
Brian Peacock wrote:
However, that people have a right to be idiots and bullshitters does not mean they have a protected right to act on their ideals.
Agreed.
Brian Peacock wrote:
When it comes to incitement and hate-mongery some line has to be drawn,
Indeed. To be an incitement, words must be directed to causing violence, or a riot, etc. Saying "I fucking hate priests, man. They're buggerers and liars!" Is not an incitement, by any definition. Someone listening to the words might get riled up by them. Lots of words rile lots of people up. I might say "Men are pigs!" and some Meninist might get all bunged up and claim it's hate speech. It's still not an incitement to do anything. Also, if a person takes a step toward committing a crime, then that's not mere speech.
Brian Peacock wrote:
unless we want to devolve society to a point where merely having and unshakable conviction in the virtues and merits of one's viewpoint is all that is need to justify action in accordance with that viewpoint.
That doesn't necessarily follow from being able to hold and express any unshakable or shakable conviction in the virtues and merits of one's own viewpoint. E.g., hold and express all you want the view that Christians are animals, pedophilia is good, heroin is a vitamin, and murder is good recreation -- but, if you take a step toward hurting someone, committing another kind of criminal act, buying heroin, diddling young boys, then you're not just speaking anymore.
Brian Peacock wrote:
A radical feminist proclaiming 'All men are bastards!' or a white-supremacist declaring 'All Muslims are terrorists!' might be appalling, but it's of a different order to saying 'All men are bastards and therefore we should castrate them at birth'
But, there are feminists who do say that, and they are free to. There is nothing that should be illegal about saying we should castrate men at birth. Lot's of castration talk happens all the time. How many times have you heard women talk about castrating a cheating boyfriend, or how some jerk should have his balls cut off.
Brian Peacock wrote:
or 'All Muslims are terrorists and therefore we should round them up into camps and gas them',
See - I think your policy of letting the hateful people speak so we know who they are is perfect for this example. I surely don't want the Nazi-types being undergound. Keep them where we can see them. If he starts building a walled facility, then send the cops over to check it out.
One of the reasons the Nazis in the 1930s were able to start building camps is that they ended what had previously been very open free speech in Germany. It is the State shutting down of dissent that allows the camps to be built.
Brian Peacock wrote:
which itself is of a different order to some feminist group forcibly castrating boys or KKK members gassing Muslims. So if a line has to be drawn it is, imo, better drawn somewhere between the declaration and the advocacy of action rather than between the advocacy of action and the action itself.
Understood. I would submit that a much clearer line can be drawn between words and actions than can be drawn between "declaration" and "advocacy." Whether a declaration becomes advocacy will, IMO, inevitably get back to a subjective assessment of what a person "really believes." Wilders, I'm sure, will say that he doesn't advocate hurting Muslims in any way. What he advocates, he has said and will say, is that Muslims not be allowed in in as great numbers as they are and that many of the ones currently here be deported.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
