Grey Day for Elcia said:
Therumancer said:
trying to argue against the right to free speech
Therumancer said:
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, I disagree with limiting it for this, hate speech, or any other reason
I'm arguing against your opinion that hater speech is part of free speech and shouldn't be limited. Hate speech isn't covered under free speech, yo, and is entirely illegal. Anyone with a basic understanding of the laws would know that.
Actually it is, even though it has been being chipped away at which is wrong. I actually know the laws involved quite well. In part because it's been my job to know these kinds of things for purposes of dealing with people trying to solicit/pass out fliers and similar things in the past.
There are efforts by the left wing to curtail this, but if you've ever paid attention:
http://annarbor.com/news/crime/klan-security-detail/?cmpid=mlive
That's one example, but if you just do searches for things like "Police Protect Klan rally" you'll run into tons of similar examples.
The basic point is that the freedom of speech goes so far as yo allow people to get together and decide to single out groups like ethnic minorities, homosexuals, etc.. and talk about how much you hate them and wish they were all dead, and encourage people to work to ban their very existance, and so on and so forth. It might be destestable, but it's supposed to be one of your rights, and attempts to curtail it are just wrong. The reason being that once you start doing things like this, it opens doors for anything that society doesn't like at the moment to be banned, and differant groups to wind up silencing their opposition.
As I said, freedom of speech is not "the freedom to say what I happen to agree with". I might not agree with the extremism of the Klan (all peanut gallery comments about how as someone generally on the right wing that I'm a natural fit aside) I agree with their right to say that crap, just like I agree with the right of anyone else saying something I don't like (including people from the opposite end of the spectrum from the Klan) to say the same thing.
Deciding to not take someone seriously who is contemplating suicide, or even telling someone that you think the world is better without them, is not illegal. It might be tasteless, rude and all manner of other things, but it's not a crime. You might get kicked off a forum for it, but your not, and should not, going to wind up going to jail for it.
I understand the logic and why people hate this, heck I've have prefered certain people not being allowed to express themselves at various times, and disliked the use the freedom was put to, but I ultimatly view it as the lesser of evils.
The very fact that you ARE seeing developments of the sort that are leading towards issues like this (pushing sucide victims, hate speech, etc...) becoming illegal is a problem to me, not because I love those things or anything, but because I believe freedom of speech has to remain free of such qualifiers, and recent changes, interpetations, and other things are a problem.
Also, don't confuse the principle, and how people have been trying to reinterpet the laws, and what some of the more recent changes have been, and the changes people want to make.