Limiting speech that can be offensive to minorities

Post Reply New Topic

It's BS. The offended minorities will just have to suck it up.
It's bad enough we have hate crimes where it's somehow worse to murder someone if "hate" was involved. Murder is murder in my book.

Now you add hate speech to that and you have another tool for the authorities to toss people people in jail when they can't come up with anything actually substantial. You don't actually have to voice any hate speech, just have a cop say he heard you doing it and that's all it tales to get you to the jail house.

Since the immediate reaction will be "Hey wait a minute! You can't arrest me I didnt do anything!" resisting arrest can be added to the talley and maybe toss in assault on a law enforcement officer just for shits-n-giggles. Hey, it didnt really happen that way but let's just toss it in there and see if it sticks.

Not sure you'd go to jail for hate speech per say but I think its reasonable your presence can be removed from the premise if you are disrupting a public space and/or harassing people with it. Also people who own private property can certainly have rules that must be followed on their property pertaining to behavior. Pretty sure it is a crime to go into a grocery store and scream racial slurs and spew bigotry at the cashier, but I don't think it is a crime for a couple bigots to be having a racist conversation among themselves for instance though still distasteful.

Also I think typically regardless of if you've done something or not you probably don't want to say 'You can't arrest me, I didn't do anything' if a cop goes to arrest you. Best to get a lawyer after the fact and prove you in fact didn't do anything, I certainly wouldn't argue with a cop in that situation. Basically that already could be construed as trying to resist arrest regardless of what hate speech laws exist.

If it's unlawful I don't see why not.


Private property is a different matter since the property owner is the king/queen of thier property. As a greedy capitalist I would not want to see that change.


Initial reaction when you think you're being busted for nothing is to argue it out of desperation.

Well not all crimes have a sentence of jail or prison, so not sure all cases of someone being accused of hate speech would result in jail or prison should they be found guilty.

Also yes I am sure you wouldn't disagree that a private property owner gets to make the rules on that property. But even in public space there are still laws concerning speech and the manner of which it is conducted. Basically hate speech that's construed as disturbing the peace/too disruptive, creating a danger to the public, inciting violence ect...certainly shouldn't be allowed. But yes the two bigots casually talking racism have every right to have that conversation in public though they may want to develop thick enough skin to deal with the term 'bigot' or 'racist' when applied to them by people who over-hear.

And I know that is the initial desperate reaction, I also know much of the time the police don't care your reason for seeming 'difficult' so its best to fight that initial reaction when dealing with the likes of them I should think.

"You can't arrest me!"
"I am arresting you!"

It's not easy to provide a definitive answer to that question, as it depends a lot on the context:

These two statements might both be considered offensive to a minority, for instance:

- The Jews have certain traits. The Irish have certain traits - for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean.

- It is not only today that the PRF’s Inyenzi Batutsis want to take and monopolize power in order to oppress the Hutus and cast democracy out of the window, the Batutsi’s superiority complex has been around for a very long time.

... however, only one of the two was a deliberate part of a genocide of 800,000 people...

Furthermore, not all countries can afford the luxury of completely free speech.

In India, for instance, avoiding ethnic/religious strife is of paramount national concern, not only because of recurring secterian riots which have claimed thousands of lives, but also because of the potential of military conflict with nuclear-armed Pakistan, if the conflict was to involve the Muslim minority in India.

Inciting violence only. Like directly threatening to attack or encouraging people to attack.

This isn't becuase it is offensive though.

Offense can never be guarded against becuase it is subjective. Also it is a flawed approach to addressing bigotry or ignorance.

I think that depends. Would you want someone working for you if they harshly judged their patients and trash talked about them? How would that reflect on your company? Would you want a teacher around your child if they thought your kid's diagnoses was bogus and thought he was just a normal boy who needed more discipline and that is how she felt about most of her diagnosed students? Or would you even want to go to the welfare office and get help for assistance like food stamps and knowing you are being judged by a person there because she had posted online about "welfare queens" and you don't know if she is judging you based on what you driven there and what you have on and if your phone is too fancy and if you look poor enough and if your car is sh***y enough to not be judged because you had fallen on hard times?

I am starting to understand why places would fire someone over their opinion. You have a right to them but don't let your business know how you feel about them or about your patients or students or your customers, etc. and don't let them find out either what you think.

We're talking about being arrested, not necessary convicted. Even if the law as written does not allow for arrest at the time that doesn't mean it won't change over time. Something as goofy as hate laws are a slippery slope that can lead to that.

Limiting speech that can be offensive to minorities is racist, in that it would not provide the same limits against the same offensive language that minorities use themselves.

Take the "Evil N-Word", for example. As a white man, I can not even use it in an academic illustration (such as this one) without risk of being labelled a racist, charged with incitement and hate speech, and suffering the consequences of a trial and possible conviction.

Yet let one fine, upstanding young gentleman of African descent use the same word toward another fine, upstanding young gentleman of African descent, and it practically becomes a term of camaraderie, if not complete endearment.

Thus, if the "Evil N-Word" is to be made illegal for whites to use, then it should be made illegal for blacks to use, as well. There should be no double standard or preference given to one race over another in the use of language.

A law should apply equally, to everyone, all of the time, or it should be stricken from the books forever.

Correct. All the rest is just people arguing from a point extrapolated out from the actual definition of hate speech, usually in order to imply that they are already victims.

The question really should be, "Are they actually victims who are actually being harmed, or are they people of privilege who are afraid of losing their position of superiority?"

Also, in the case of hate crimes as someone mentioned, the crime is not simply attacking a minority. It is a determined act of terrorism against the entire group they represent. Beat up someone you've never met and you will likely get charged with assault. Do so while yelling, [TRIGGER WARNING] "Stop staring at me, you ret*rded aut*stic" and it becomes clear the attack was intended to instill fear in an entire group of people; in that case the add-on hate crime charge may be included. But only if such extra-add-on exists in your jurisdiction *and* the group attacked has been designated as a class that needs protection from such attacks, usually due to an overwhelming history of prior attacks meant to intimidate them as a group.

In short, it's the difference between beating up an individual b/c you don't like them, and putting a burning cross on their lawn letting the world know that they have been singled out and socially rejected because they belong to a certain group.

How could you tell if the person yelling "stop staring at me you ret*d ass-pie" meant it as attack to terrorize all Aspies?. Most likely it is bieng used to bully one person, make that one person feel inferior to the bully.

Ah I thought you meant jail as a sentence, either way that is why I think the 'hate speech' actually has to violate a law. Like sitting at a bus stop yelling racial slurs at a person and belittling them because their race would be illegal because it is harassment. Aside from that they can have the right to make racist remarks, and people have the right to be offended and react negatively.

I can see this bit getting played out everywhere, eventually ...

(With apologies to 'Goodfellas' and 'Taxi Driver' ... really, guys ... I dint mean nuttin ... I'm jus sayin' ... y'know ... jus talkin' ...)

Terrorism attacks like the one at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood do not simply occur in a vacuum.

They are the result of someone - or an organized group or groups of someones - convincing those who are easily swayed to do terrible things, usually by dehumanizing or demonizing the target, and making the attacker think that they are doing it for some greater good (either for themself or society). It's the most cowardly of attacks, set in motion by someone who can then claim innocence and legal immunity since they did not actually pull the trigger.

The perception of racism you express, while fitting the "dictionary definition" of racism, is flawed; it is not functional. What I mean by "functional" is this:

Racism is a social problem, a condition of shared beliefs (conscious and unconscious) and behaviors; the problem is that these patterns strike at society's moral goal of equality among humans by making inferior certain groups of people who are distinguished by certain superficial traits (i.e. race).

The problem with many white people's (dominant race in America--forgive the ethnocentrism) perception of racism is that it is too simplistic; they usually think of racism as mere "prejudice based upon race." The inadequacies of this definition are extremely hindering of progress towards equality: they do not address the significance of systematic thought and behavioral patterns, nor do they address that the problem of racism in the context of equality. This definition paints the problem to be "what is offensive to racial groups" when the real problem is "what is oppressive to racial groups."

I do agree with you however, in one regard: The N-word is much too policed. I think it ridiculous that I should have to censor myself while I recite from "Black Boy" or "The Color Purple."

However, I don't think non-black people should be casually using the word; it diminishes the power the word has in black mouths. The use of the word is so powerful and so endeared when used by a black person because it is an acknowledgement of what the race has suffered, in spite of efforts by the oppressing group to silence this acknowledgment and therefore avoid shared moral guilt. In white mouths, even if not violently used, the word becomes mainstream. The power is taken. It's usage by whites becomes offensive not only because of the history of the word, but because they in a sense are emotionally robbing the word, a word once used as a linguistic whip, till black people wrested from their oppressors, only to be commanded by these same people--purveyors of oppression now more subtle--that it is morally wrong for the word to be exclusive to black usage. This is outrageous and should make people angry.