Why can't you make attacks on groups of people?

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Notice to mods: I'm not questioning WP-rules, I'm only questioning the core-philosophy behind the ban on hate-speeches in general, be it legally speaking or otherwise.

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Not only on WP, but just about everywhere - even legally speaking in some countries, there is a ban on hate-speech on various groups of people.

What I do get is that there is some sense in banning hate-speech because of people's skin color or ethnicity.

But why extend this to people's religious and political opinions?

There's a difference between, say a skin color and your political leanings: You don't CHOOSE you skin color. But you certainly choose your political beliefs!

That's the reason I don't get it - at all - why I can't make attacks on people because of their political opinions!

Add that GROUPS of people are far better standing against hate-speech than INDIVIDUALS.

Which makes it quite ironic that you CAN make attacks on individuals, but NOT groups!

Actually there have been laws against slander and libel (defaming individuals) far longer than there have been laws against hate speech against groups.

But "attacks" on groups are punished more severely than slander and libel against individuals.

Why is that?

Individuals are always weaker than the group.

Slander and libel against individuals should be punished more severely, and groups should only get light protection.

Last edited by thinkinginpictures on 13 Feb 2020, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can you? I think no, in every environment Im can think of (including WP) where attacking grups is prohibited, attacking individuals is prohibited even more.
Public personas may be an exception of this rule, though, attacking e.g. the president of the US is not considered a personal attack (he's a public persona) but attacking his random supporter on WP is a personal attack.


Are they? I try to avoid both so I may have little experience here.

Not sure about that neo-nazis still get to assemble and have hate marches...and so long as they don't commit violence during it, they don't really face punishment. Perhaps angry counter protesters but no legal punishment.

Might be the difference between explaining in civilised terms what you have against a group of people as opposed to going "all people in X category are a***holes and I want them do die". And that's not allowed against individuals either.

The problem is, you can't do that either.

A lot of forums on the internet, has a ban on saying something like: "I don't like [insert adherents to an ideology] because they believe in this and support that, which I find outrageous."

It's bad logic, the fallacy of "Special Case," which is attributing to a whole the characteristics of the part.

For example, there are a lot of misogynists in the pro-life movement. It does not therefore follow that pro-life people are misogynists, but it would be that Mike and Sally Judgeothers are. However, there are a ton of women in the movement, feminist men, etc. that would prove this wrong, and in fact they are in the majority. It is unfortunate that the bad apples have spoiled the bunch.

Just because Joseph Mengele was an abortionist (in his career under a pseudonym in Argentina, he practiced back-alley medicine because getting a license would have proved him to be Joseph Mengele & he would have been executed) does not mean that abortionists are unredeemable people. Abby Johnson was Planned Parenthood's Woman of the Year and is currently running some major pro-life organization having published a book about her strange story & been the subject of a dramatic motion picture. (I went to a screening once, having not been to a film in years; the audience was nearly entirely women, which was funny because people say pro-lifers are all Republican males.)

Generalizations are not accurate enough for us to use them; after all, we want to treat others with charity.

Because you are reducing individuals to be one homogenous lump rather than seeing them as real people, which they are.

Not all people from one group are the same. They may share similar ideas, but they don't agree on every tiny thing. There is variation in every group. Saying you dislike them without even getting to know them as a person isn't right.

Also, disliking a person because they belong to a group is plain wrong. You can disagree with the ideology. But saying you dislike a person who has ideas different to yours is judgemental, narrow minded and hateful.

That's how genocides happen.

First off that's wrong. You can get your pants sued off for libel.

Second: an individual person can actually be held responsible for an individual act, good, or bad, in ways that an entire category of people cannot.

Bernie Madoff stole millions, or even billions, so he can be convicted and put in jail.

But you cant hold him up as an example of say...."all Jews" (because he happened to be Jewish). Or blame all Italian Americans because of Al Capone, and Lucky Luciano. Or all persons of the male persuasion for the crimes of Ted Bundy. And so on. Because large groups like that cant be accused of a crime commited by some individual member.

Attack groups of Neutrons and Protons.

"All protons are identical with all other protons. There are no differences, even ones that are too small to detect.

"All neutrons are identical with all other neutrons".

https://www.quora.com/Are-all-protons-i ... -to-detect

There's a lot of pressure if you're from a minority group to be absolutely freaking perfect, otherwise people will say anything you do wrong is because you are a member of x group.

"Oh those people are so bad because she did x thing."

Last edited by hurtloam on 14 Feb 2020, 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know that I completely understand what you are asking. Maybe I don't understand your use of the word 'attack.' It is pointless for me to 'attack' someone based on a personal opinion of them. For instance, "I hate all X because they are ugly and they stink." That's personal. And maybe someone else thinks they are beautiful and smell wonderful. It's a matter of opinion and only serves to hurt. It serves no logical purpose, imo.

I don't understand why it's wrong to produce irrefutable facts to substantiate a point. Other than it smashes someone else's delusion and that's apparently not okay. Even if that delusion hurts other people, we still must not defend the 'other' for fear of offending the deluded. Why? I don't know. The only truth that remains is unspoken and that you will get thrown out if you speak it. So, it's up to you to decide if speaking truth, supported by facts is more important than having an audience to speak them to. If you value truth, speak it to your walls. If you speak it to an audience, the end will ultimately be the same and you'll be left speaking it to your walls anyway, because you'll be kicked out.

On WrongPlanet, and specifically this forum, the rule against attacking political groups is at least partially pragmatic rather than moral. I don’t think there’s anything particularly “wrong” with saying “such-and-such are bad”, but it definitely makes conversation difficult as those comments are likely to enrage.

They can also be used as proxy personal attacks - if someone starts a thread about how they are a libertarian and someone else responds “libertarians are stinky and illiterate” then... OK I haven’t explained this well, but essentially it is a personal attack by stealth.

As for why, in general, hate speech laws protect religious groups - because one of the overriding motivations for hate speech laws is the Holocaust.

If you’re somebody from a Western country with a soft Protestant background who is now an atheist then maybe it seems like your beliefs are a rational choice rather than an aspect of your background, but for most people their religious identity is a product of where and when they were born, their ethnicity, their national identity, etc. In the West today, substantial volumes of hatred are directed at Jewish and Muslim communities. In other countries, minorities are persecuted for their religion which lines up with their ethnic background - the Rohingya, the Uighurs, the Yazidis, the Druze.

In Britain at least, you will not get in trouble for criticising a religion. It’s fine to criticise systems of belief. It’s even fine to criticise the practitioners. But when you go beyond “criticism” and into “hatred” then you have a problem. And if you go around propagating blood libel or saying that Muslims are terrorists then you’re doing something just as heinous as racism.

^^This is very well said.

An example of generalization like that and its dangers can be seen in the 2016 election (along with many other fallacies) when Hillary Clinton made the speech characterizing Republican voters as an "irredeemable basket of deplorables."

Look who's president now!

Yep.

Say “all x’s are dicks”,
Makes you look like a dick,:
So people treat you like a dick.

It’s for your own protection as well as the protection of x’s