Problematic Stuff

[Forty Two]

No, that provision does not make the expressions of political opinions or public demonstrations unlawful. There is no finding that the expression of miserable, horrible far left views, or "alt right" views inflicts or is intended to inflict severe pain or suffering. Do you have a single example of torture by public expression of noxious idea? One example.

Intention doesn't enter into it. The fact is it does cause "mental pain and suffering."

Read the definition of "torture" again in the treaty you cited. It must be intentionally inflicted. Article 1.1 "For the purpose of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..."

It's not torture to stand on a soapbox in the public square and advocate Marxism or totalitarianism, or racism, just because someone suffers severe mental pain as a result of having to listen to it. If you think it does, cite one example where a tribunal has so held.

[Forty Two]

Or maybe you're denying that what your people are doing is psychological torture?

None of them is my person.

Whether what a person does is psychological torture or not depends on what that person does, specifically, in a given case. The expression of a view that is considered by some to be "alt right" is not per se psychological torture, nor is the expression of far left views, even though both might be upsetting to listen to.

[Jason]

The one you quoted doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It doesn't say anything about public expression of alt right ideas amounting to torture. What it's talking about is the intentional infliction of severe pain and suffering for specific purposes

Now you're just stating blatant falsehoods. It clearly covers torture that occurs "with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or
other person acting in an official capacity." What you need to argue here is that your officials are not in acquiescence.

Things that have amount to "mental" torture is where a captive has been subjected to certain kinds of sounds or messages over a prolonged period of time nearly driving the person mad, or actually doing so. If you are of the view that this treaty means that alt right people are committing torture by expressing racist views in public, you are sorely mistaken, and you have not one example to hang your hat on. No court. No tribunal. None, has ever ruled in the way you describe.

That's your opinion, not a binding legal fact. This is how law works, lawyers argue the interpretation of the general provisions of the law - specificity is not required nor desirable for the principles to be binding.

Oh, are they inflicting mental pain and suffering? Maybe. But so are communists. So are antifa shitbags. Their verbiage inflicts a lot of mental pain and suffering of the kind suffered by people who don't like what fascists and neonazis say. Take a Muslim who hears jokes about his stupid religion. Take a Christian who hears jokes about his stupid religion. When South Park has the Virgin mary bleeding from her asshole, and when they lampoon Jesus, the holiest of personages in Christianity, that causes Christians -- some of them say -- a lot of pain and suffering. The good thing is, that kind of pain and suffering doesn't mean it's "torture" for people to joke about Christianity (or Islam), and it wouldn't be torture to serious advocate the elimination of all religion or some religions.

Once again - give me an example of one tribunal which ruled that the public expression of noxious ideas rose to the level of torture. One.

Once again - precedent is irrelevant to this consideration of the application of international human rights treaties. Your argument is entirely specious and is predicated upon a Tu Quoque fallacy (I'm beginning to understand why rEv approaches argument with you the way he does).

[Jason]

No, that provision does not make the expressions of political opinions or public demonstrations unlawful. There is no finding that the expression of miserable, horrible far left views, or "alt right" views inflicts or is intended to inflict severe pain or suffering. Do you have a single example of torture by public expression of noxious idea? One example.

Intention doesn't enter into it. The fact is it does cause "mental pain and suffering."

Read the definition of "torture" again in the treaty you cited. It must be intentionally inflicted. Article 1.1 "For the purpose of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..."

It's not torture to stand on a soapbox in the public square and advocate Marxism or totalitarianism, or racism, just because someone suffers severe mental pain as a result of having to listen to it. If you think it does, cite one example where a tribunal has so held.

Very amusing. Your contention that the fascists and neo nazis are perpetrating their campaign of psychological violence against their victions in all innocence of the mental pain and suffering it inflicts upon them is utter illogical verbal swill.

[Forty Two]

I didn't ask for precedent. I asked for an example of a tribunal that ruled that any public expression of a noxious idea was torture under the UN torture treaty. You can't, because no single tribunal anywhere has ever held anything close to what you're suggesting.

And, you misread the language of the treaty. It does not include in the definition of torture the public expression of alt right ideas. It doesn't. If you think it does, prove it.

[Jason]

Or maybe you're denying that what your people are doing is psychological torture?

None of them is my person.

Whether what a person does is psychological torture or not depends on what that person does, specifically, in a given case. The expression of a view that is considered by some to be "alt right" is not per se psychological torture, nor is the expression of far left views, even though both might be upsetting to listen to.

You defend them. Either you're their court-appointed representation, or you're aligned with them. Implicitly.

That's like the word of the day here... implicit.

[Forty Two]

Very amusing. Your contention that the fascists and neo nazis are perpetrating their campaign of psychological violence against their victions in all innocence of the mental pain and suffering it inflicts upon them is utter illogical verbal swill.

Siva, you said that intent doesn't enter into it. The very treaty you rely on, however, says otherwise. I quoted it.

I'm not contending anything about what "fascists and neonazis" are innocent or guilty of. Whether a person is committing torture depends on what they specifically say or do to another person (intentionally). There is no law that says that expressing fascist ideas constitutes psychological violence against anyone, and the treaty you seem to be relying on definitely doesn't say so.

The suggestion that I'm engaged in illogical verbal swill by someone making the argument you're making is rather laughable. Your argument is fatuous and absurd, and unsubstantiated. You've not presented anything other than your own misreading of Article 1.1 of the treaty.

But, if you think you make sense here, then good for you.

[Forty Two]

Or maybe you're denying that what your people are doing is psychological torture?

None of them is my person.

Whether what a person does is psychological torture or not depends on what that person does, specifically, in a given case. The expression of a view that is considered by some to be "alt right" is not per se psychological torture, nor is the expression of far left views, even though both might be upsetting to listen to.

You defend them. Either you're their court-appointed representation, or you're aligned with them. Implicitly.

That's like the word of the day here... implicit.

I defend the far right and the far left's respective rights to say what they want to say, and I find such individual liberty to be essential to the functioning of a healthy republic. I do not, however, explicitly or implicitly defend either the far left or the far right when I defend their rights to speak.

The reactionary view that some ideas are too dangerous to be expressed is one that every generation has to battle, and the conservative elements that would silence the individual in the name of the supposed public good have always been wrong, and they continue to be wrong today. It is not for the government or the State to prescribe an orthodoxy, no matter how noxious they may find a given viewpoint.

[Jason]

Even the advocacy of the merits of pedophile activity is protected, as reprehensible as that is. Such viewpoints might significantly bother other people, but then again, there is hardly any viewpoint that doesn't significantly bother other people.

Yes, you've critically identified another point of failure of the philosophy of American free speech. Leaving aside my personal belief that convicted child molesters should be burned alive at the stake along with their advocates for perpetrating and supporting one of the most egregious violations of fundamental humans rights that occurs in western cultures today, there are clearly subjects, opinions, and beliefs the expression of which, publicly, if not privately, must not be allowed to be protected.

[JimC]

Do you think society should support people's right to advocate limiting or removing the rights of others?

I think the law should protect people's right to advocate limiting or removing the rights of others. If it didn't, how could someone advocate for gun control, which is the advocacy of limiting the rights of others? How could one advocate for an age minimum to drive or to smoke cigarettes, which is advocating limiting the rights of others? How could one advocate against employment or other discrimination based on a new classification (maybe like transgender or gender expression or personal appearance), that would be advocating the limiting or removing the rights of employers, wouldn't it?

Many on the left advocate for limitations on what they say is "hate speech" or "discriminatory speech" or "racist speech" - they're advocating for limiting the right of free speech of others.

Otherwise, I think that different individual members of society can support or oppose (lawfully) whatever it is they would like to support or oppose. If someone wants to oppose the US constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government, then have at it. Maybe they want us to be a Monarchy. I wouldn't want to live in a country where a person couldn't advocate the merits of a King or Queen, even where that might ultimately be advocacy of the elimination of everyone's rights in favor of an all powerful Monarch.

Maybe a person philosophically opposes the entire concept of rights, suggesting that rights aren't real and that the majority will should be what controls.

It is pushing it to ridiculous levels to equate rational suggestions for limiting freedom such as the age requirements for drinking or driving with the clearly hate-motivated calls for people of different races to be deported or worse.

[pErvinalia]

The reality is that nobody has such foreknowledge, and that nobody really knows if person X would ever commit a crime.

Yeah, we can't possibly know what uniformly clad lads bearing torches and chanting "Jews will not replace us" are aiming at as they march down the street.

You know precisely as much about those individuals as you do about masked antifa asshats marching down the street as part of a revolution and "resistance" who will "do what it takes" etc. I wouldn't arrest or suggest hitting them, would you?

We know that one side are white nationalists and racists, and the other side are opposed to white nationalists and racists. They're not even close to equivalent.

The left and the center do not own virtue and righteousness, and they are not exempt from claims that their views can lead to violence and oppression.

Oh. An echo of an earlier, shorter version: "There's good and bad on both sides." Here's news for you. It shouldn't be news because you've been told repeatedly, but I guess some people are just not much good at digesting intelligent debate, but here it is again: Belting the living daylights out of a white supremacist, racist, fascist fuck is not the same as driving a car into a bunch of people who disapprove of white supremacist, racist, fascist fucks. There is no equivalence of violence from fascists and violence from anti-fascists.

No, but it is the same as belting the living daylights out of masked antifa protesters, who themselves advocate violence against their political opposition. And, violence against "a bunch of people who disapprove of white supremacist, racist, fascist fucks" is one thing, but violence against "a bunch of revolutionary communists and anarchists who advocate (and actually commit) assaults, batteries, destruction of property, and other crimes while advocating a murderous ideology that results in massive oppression of individuals" is much the same as violence against racist fucks.

You keep trying to pull this one, despite it being total bollocks. ANTIFA isn't pushing a political ideology. They are anti-fascists. They aren't advocating for communism or anarchism. This idiotic point of yours has been refuted too many times now.

There's no equivalence between ANTIFA and the alt-right.

Leftists are not privileged to do violence against those they think are wrong and hateful, without other people also being privileged to take action agaisnt the Lefists who many people believe are hateful and wrong and deserving of violence against them as well.

No one is saying they are privileged (and others not privileged). We are saying that there is moral justification for meeting 'fascism' and the like with violence.

That's why - and this has been repeatedly explained to you - that OPINIONS - VIEWPOINTS -- and nonviolent protest/demonstrations are allowed and are to be free from state oppression and also private physical violence -- even if those opinions and viewpoints and ideologies are hateful, racist, communistic, anarchistic, and the like. Anyone who physically attacks a person who is just talking, protesting or demonstrating is in the wrong, and it doesn't matter if the talker/protester/demonstrator is an antifa scumfucking douchebag or an alt-right scumfucking douchebag.

And it's been explained to you repeatedly that no one is arguing that it should be legal to punch the fuck out of facists. You can't seem to seperate legality with subjective morality, can you?

There ARE assholes on both sides - on the extremes - the left are full of scumbag fucking assholes advocating a bankrupt ideology that repeatedly ends in mass killing and oppression.

Absolute bullshit. ANTIFA don't advocate for communism or anarchism. They are wholly concerned with opposing rising fascism and the like.

[pErvinalia]

Also, once again, I am not defending the alt right.

You effectively are by downplaying their threat with the "there's good and bad people on both sides" rhetoric.

[Seabass]

I defend the far right and the far left's respective rights to say what they want to say, and I find such individual liberty to be essential to the functioning of a healthy republic.

Oh, please. You only defend free speech when it comes from the far right bigots. Benedict Donald might just be the most anti free speech president we've ever had.

Trump's threat to revoke Obama-era security clearances is a brazen attempt to silence critics, not protect national security

White House bans network pool reporter from Rose Garden event

[pErvinalia]

Wait on, I thought Donald was going to be the most liberal President we'd ever seen.

[Brian Peacock]

Do you think society should support people's right to advocate limiting or removing the rights of others?

I think the law should protect people's right to advocate limiting or removing the rights of others. If it didn't, how could someone advocate for gun control, which is the advocacy of limiting the rights of others? How could one advocate for an age minimum to drive or to smoke cigarettes, which is advocating limiting the rights of others? How could one advocate against employment or other discrimination based on a new classification (maybe like transgender or gender expression or personal appearance), that would be advocating the limiting or removing the rights of employers, wouldn't it?

Many on the left advocate for limitations on what they say is "hate speech" or "discriminatory speech" or "racist speech" - they're advocating for limiting the right of free speech of others.

Otherwise, I think that different individual members of society can support or oppose (lawfully) whatever it is they would like to support or oppose. If someone wants to oppose the US constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government, then have at it. Maybe they want us to be a Monarchy. I wouldn't want to live in a country where a person couldn't advocate the merits of a King or Queen, even where that might ultimately be advocacy of the elimination of everyone's rights in favor of an all powerful Monarch.

Maybe a person philosophically opposes the entire concept of rights, suggesting that rights aren't real and that the majority will should be what controls.

It is pushing it to ridiculous levels to equate rational suggestions for limiting freedom such as the age requirements for drinking or driving with the clearly hate-motivated calls for people of different races to be deported or worse.

Aye, confusing regulation on the minimum legal age for driving, drinking or smoking etc presumes that everyone has a right to drive, drink and smoke regardless of age, and that rights are conditional in law - suggesting that a right is whatever freedom is left over after the law has had its say.

The kind advocacy for limiting or removing the rights of others which I asked if society should condone and support was obviously that engaged in by certain white supremacists groups - those groups who agitate for the limiting or removing the rights for members of non-white ethnic groups. Although that might seem obvious within the context of the discussion, I'll ask the question again, and more specifically to avoid confusion, in the hope that it receives a more charitable reception.

42: Do you think society should support white supremacist groups' rights to advocate and agitate for limiting or removing the rights of those who do not fit their desired racial profile? The matter can also be addressed by considering if society should support Muslim groups' rights to advocate and agitate for limiting or removing the rights of those who do not fit their desired religious profile.