Poll: Right to Isms

[RexoftheFord]

Free speech good, hate-speech bad.

Don't go preaching yo' hate, because we'll just fling it back at you with force.

And you have just demonstrated the epitome of hate speech. If you return the hate speech right back, you're as narrow-minded and bigoted as the rest of them. This is a trap that many people fall into.

I didn't mean use hate-speech back at them (I should've been more specific); I meant as in stop them from preaching it. Free speech is good and all, but preaching and persuading people to kill others just isn't right.

Well if you stop them from preaching hate, you effectively disassemble the whole concept of Free Speech. And by the way, persuasion or conspiracy that results in murder is an illegal offense. Totally not covered in the Constitution of the United States.

Hate speech can be preached as long as the followers of the doctrine maintain a civil manner about it. Which means: no burning crosses, no assaulting people, no murder, etc.

It's a tough argument I know. But I just posted this to get an idea of what people thought.

 

[thiosk]

This board is full of a bunch of anti-racist and anti-sexist bigots.

Racists are people too, you know!

chukle

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Free speech good, hate-speech bad.

Don't go preaching yo' hate, because we'll just fling it back at you with force.

And you have just demonstrated the epitome of hate speech. If you return the hate speech right back, you're as narrow-minded and bigoted as the rest of them. This is a trap that many people fall into.

I didn't mean use hate-speech back at them (I should've been more specific); I meant as in stop them from preaching it. Free speech is good and all, but preaching and persuading people to kill others just isn't right.

Well if you stop them from preaching hate, you effectively disassemble the whole concept of Free Speech. And by the way, persuasion or conspiracy that results in murder is an illegal offense. Totally not covered in the Constitution of the United States.

Hate speech can be preached as long as the followers of the doctrine maintain a civil manner about it. Which means: no burning crosses, no assaulting people, no murder, etc.

It's a tough argument I know. But I just posted this to get an idea of what people thought.

We let the BNP go around preaching hate because they do it civilly (they used to be skinheads that attacked people), but we know if they got in it'd be like Hitler all over again, but British, and that's fine because everyone can see how truly stupid and ridiculous they are for it. If we stopped them from doing this they'd probably go underground and become violent again, so it's for the best.

I had to argue for the forced protection of freedom of speech in my politics class, which I do agree with; it's just sometimes I can't stand those that you know wish to do terrible things and are pretending to be civil so they can deceive everyone and actually do what they want.

 

[CosmicCommander]

As set out in this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bzTA_D5NpU]

 

[McClaud]

The poll's kinda hard to answer as-is.

The act of racism and sexism is more than just talking. It's also a way of behavior that includes harassment, segregation and illegal employment practices (to name a few).

Is it their right to be able to have racist and sexist thoughts, and talk about them? Yes. Is it a right to act on them? Absolutely not.

 

[RexoftheFord]

I think most people are reading the question they want to answer here instead of the one given. The question pertains to the US Constitution and its concept of Free Speech, and whether racist or sexist speech is protected under this document. There is nothing in my question that deals with the acting upon these spoken motives. But if you would like to continue to misread the question, it's fine. I kind of get a good chuckle at it, but I also do like hearing about the practices of other countries as well.

 

[McClaud]

Your poll question should be reworded then to say, "Is it a right to voice sexist and racist opinions without action?" Because as I said, the words "racism" and "sexism" are complete definitions of both action, speech and thought.

As I said, the poll itself is hard to answer as-is, without reading your OP. Which about 90% of the people on the forum tend to do (answer the poll without reading the OP).

Mind you, I voted after reading your OP. I understood only after reading your opening post.

 

[RexoftheFord]

Attention to detail is great, and I noticed that the poll question was a bit off myself after I posted it. But I always read the OP to gain an understanding of what the thread is really getting at before I do the poll. These polls aren't just there for people to breeze over them like some challenge to do more polls than everyone else. But yeah, I do see your point.