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I think crimes need to be dealt with but once you start telling people how to think you can end up in a society where everyone must be racist for example or face persecution. I think history is important and there are things we are taught are wrong based on causing harm to others this doesn’t not need to be wrapped up in the tell of “racism”.
At the same time, if a group has been attacked this is simply what happened, then hopefully people are intelligent enough to extrapolate the essence of the matter.
But either way in my opinion it is much more important to live in a world where people understand causing harm creates harm and no one personally wants to be harmed so we should aim to show the same respect to others, rather than promoting corruption with the right” diverse look”.
People can think whatever they want just like there are people I do no like, but hate crimes are real. And illegal for good reason. This is different than policing thoughts..
I also think kids would benefit from a more practical application of injustice rather than seeing words in a class room that may contradict what their parents tell them at home... games that illustrate injustice I justice that we can feel viscerally and make our own inferences.
in my opinion Being told and blindly regurgitating “what is good” or “ what is bad” is always problematic bc it’s parroted words and good grades on years there’s no opportunity to think critically.. unless you have a reason to think critically which often in school kids do not. And this crates a learning rift between those who do and those who do not. On hands learning I think is best to circumvent brain washing at an early age. As kids get older you add more text book Info. Once a foundation has been laid.
I do not think anyone should be told how feel about about anything in history to date but everyone should learn about these things honestly. And of course illustrating instilling good ethics based on mutual respect & not harming others, bc if we all do this than we can not get along as a society, should be part of any foundation. And children should have the band width to safely experiment in a safe setting what that actually means rather than being told.
I think policing thoughts is a problem in the same way arbitrarily policing behavior is a problem. I don’t think police should have arbitrary discretion. A thing is illegal or it is not. The law is followed or it is not. If the law is short sighted then amend. It is a dangerous infringement on the right to conscience to have people acting above the law running around terrorizing people to fit their own beliefs.
We all have thoughts we are all fallible. It is the action that must have consequences. Otherwise we run the risk of people justifying doing harm bc they had good intentions.
There's thinking what you want and then there's acting based off those thoughts. Of course people have the right to think and believe what they want, but when those thoughts and beliefs start spilling out onto others, that's when it becomes problematic. You can be a racist all day but when your racism leads you to try harming others, then it becomes wrong.
I agree with what you said 100%, OlderAndWiser.
You can't force someone NOT to be racist. You can't change any kind of bigotry by force.
Just to take one single example, look at the number of guys on GAG who are bigoted against the female gender. Is it possible to crush their opinions through force?
The effort to force society to accept the idea that transexuals are not their physical gender, but literally the gender they identify as, is causing a rift. It's actually leading to more intolerance.
There is racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, sexism, fascism, antifa, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, strife between religious sects, right versus left, capitalism versus communism or socialism, anti-war and imperialism, vilification of Confederates, and any number of other beliefs and opinions.
I oppose political correctness and government efforts to fight "wrong thinking".
I think a healthy society allows different ideas to be out in the open. Naturally, violence should not be condoned. But merely expressing thoughts that some find distasteful is not violent and doesn't necessarily lead to violence. I think suppression of ideas leads to frustration and violence.
I oppose the idea of blocking certain speakers from speaking engagements. I oppose the idea of shouting people down.
A healthy, mature mind can hear things that they disagree with. You can take in information and possibly learn from it. You might find some points of agreement or at least understand where someone is coming from even if you disagree with them. You can form convincing rebuttals to ideas that are illogical. Freedom of speech is about the free exchange of ideas.
“I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This might be paraphrased to say "I disapprove of what you think, but I will defend to the death your right to think it." That doesn't mean that I don't have a right to try to change your mind through example or by putting forth convincing arguments.
The best way to change someone's perceptions is by example. That's what the civil rights leaders did in the 1960s and 70s. I've even heard of KKK members abandoning racial bigotry by being exposed to good, personal examples of black men and women.
Of course. You don't protect popular beliefs and opinions, you have to protect the unpopular ones, that is quite literally why we have the first amendment. Now do I agree with them? No, I think its idiotically stupid, but you don't fix this problem by attacking them or taking away their rights (how would that make you different from them?), you fix the problem by speaking the truth, pointing out logical flaws, and creating positive interactions with the group they discriminate against (Daryl Davis did this and he got hundreds of KKK members to turn away from the organization and racism simply by trying to have a dialogue and talk to them as equals.).
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Options C + E; I voted E. People are entitled to believe whatever they want to believe. It doesn't mean you have to associate with them. Only STUPID f*cking dimwitted people believe in, let alone want, "hate speech laws." As we can see in real time, once you get rid of people's ability to express themselves, you control their thoughts and actions. Then, you control their behavior. Then you control them. Like people currently using the "that's racist" card to literally destroy the entire Western civilization on Earth right now.
I could be whiter than milk I wouldn't give a f*ck if someone called me a "racist" at this point. Even before the Great Reset dystopia we're currently living in, I still wouldn't care, and I've actually KNOWN legitimate racists in my life. You just block them and move on. The real assholes in society, will sooner or later run out of friends willing to tolerate their behavior (unless they're rich). That's the way it SHOULD be, and mostly always was, in modern society.
Nowadays, we have a 50 Cent Army of Twitter sheep, following orders from elitists pretending to be SJW's on the internet, to target and harass people, and get them fired and cancel them by calling them istaphobes, while exploiting the dumbest human beings in modern existence, who also happen to be some of the most amoral ones, convincing them they're special and wonderful for being the first people who "hate racism" in society, while unironically being absolute asshole, nuclear-level bigots, themselves. Like the "orcs are racist, education is racist, milk is racist" type of unintentional bigot. Like at least five people who voted A, here. Likely the type who hate white men and think being "color blind" is racist, but see their bigotry as "justified." I think they're pants-on-head retarded, but they have every right to be that way.
The old response was to just laugh at their idiocy and ignore them afterwards. But not when people are giving them a platform. THESE are the people who believe "you do not have the right to be racist." They're fascists, and it's a slippery slope to be on, like what Gina Carano mirror on Instagram about what lead to Nazi Germany; ratting out your neighbors and friends. Today's Nazis are social justice warriors and you bet your ass they want to see hate speech laws put into place (most are idiots, but the minority of them are power hungry and as "evil" as real people can get).
TL;DR: Any society that believes you don't have the right to express your opinions, is a society that doesn't have freedom to begin with. Yes, I agree with you about free speech meant to protect "unpopular speech," and people 100% have the right to be racist. Doesn't mean you have to agree with them.
No. It's an artificial construct. Go back to the Roman Empire and you see a society that was colourblind. In the Roman senate you found African Roman senators with European slaves from the northern wars and European senators with African slaves from the North African campaigns, especially Carthaginians. Skin colour was irrelevant.
I'm not advocating slavery, of course, rather the ability to see the human being beyond their skin. Slaves were treated well for the most part in Rome. They may have been "property" technically, but they had certain rights nonetheless. They could buy their freedom, meaning not only did they have the right to earn money of their own - unlike slavery as practiced by the European settlers until Wilberforce got slavery abolished in the British Empire - which showed they were still respected as human beings.
Racism is not a natural state. It's taught by one ignorant generation to the next. The only way to eradicate it is to teach the correct attitudes. Racism is not a "right" in the world. It is a cancer that destroys communities and countries.
Nobody is reading between the lines of all these laws and movement.
The more you emphasize the existence of racism and display a desire to force people to refuse it the more you subconsciously program the youth to be racist as a rebellious act.
It's just like sex before marriage or at a young age, you are told early on not to have sex and so you crave it and rebell agaisnt your parents and the system and as soon as you hit puberty you start to explore.
Now imagine if a kid is always told racism is bad as soon as his brain is old enough to rebell he will say "what do you know? I'm gonna be racist just to spite you"
The best way to eradicate racism is to stop talking about it. To accept that it's not real that injustice doesn't discriminate there are poor people from every race, people in prisons from every race and CEOs from every race not to mention actors and singers and athletes.
So do people have the right to be racist? Well yes they should become if they did they will not be compelled go act on that right
Racism is absolutely wrong. Racism is absolutely evil. I support any and all laws that penalize *acting* upon racism.
That being said, I absolutely oppose legislation making racist *thoughts* illegal. I also absolutely oppose any legislation making racist *words * illegal.
I oppose legislation against hate speech because it now means you have to define hate speech, which will always be arbitrary and shifting, and it might very well mean that your words may be next. My friends, Dante was considered hate speech. Shakespeare was considered hate speech by some. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was considered hate speech. Malcolm X was considered hate speech. Both Martin Luthers were considered hate speech. Darwin, Lincoln, Galileo, Darrow, and on and on the list goes were at various times and by various groups were considered hate speech.
I absolutely support the maximization of the free exchange of ideas, no matter how stupid, hateful, hurtful, or triggering they may be. If you're hurt or even traumatized by words IT IS ENTIRELY ON YOU TO CONTROL YOUR REACTION TO IT OR TO EXTRICATE YOURSELF FROM THE SITUATION. Not the state's.
The way to counteract hate speech is through better argument. Not legislation.
While I disagree with racists, I often take a moment to myself and just put it into a more understanding way to help me accept them in society more, which is to ignore the title of their opinion being racism and just titling it as an alternate opinion, I then ask myself, if I put in any category of opinion that altered from my own in this, would they have the right to that opinion? Such as
Me - I like Turkish Delight
Other Person - I find that to be a gross food
I then think to myself, yes they are in their rights to have that opinion, they don't have to agree, we may not necessarily get along sometimes if it is a topic we are both passionate about but disagree on, but we are both well in our rights to have our own opinion.
I am not trying to make Racism seem less bad, I personally am very much against it, it isn't a subject I like the idea of being affiliated with it at all.
But there are many people in this world with views that I disagree with, but I still understand that it is their human right to have those views on life and that I shouldn't force my views on them, if I wanted to change their opinion, I should have a discussion that brings facts about both sides of our views and keep the ball rolling and keep a calm mood while doing so, a heated argument would result in violence, so we want it to stay peaceful, if by the end of our discussion including all our facts from both sides they disagree then I have to respect their opinion.
Well, obviously the thought police, the woke, who are also ironically the most racist in action, not in what they say, would like to control people's thoughts. But as a right? Yeah, it's protected by the constitution, under the 1st amendment. You are allowed to be a racist.
And wouldn't you rather know what people think? I would, because then I know who to avoid. If you make a mono-culture, you cannot tell bad from good. But mono-culture is the big push.
What people don't seem to realize, is that shit is about to get real. I just looked it up, there are 30-40 million evictions on the docket, ready to go. In many places 9/1/21 the eviction protection is up. The government is spending like crazy, there won't be anything left to even borrow or print before long. It's about to get real. 9/1/21 is the day thought to be the beginning of the 'Great Reset'. Those not taking jobs, live off government, and a whole host of other laziness are about to get shook. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And when the dam finally breaks, people aren't going to be so worried about what ever white person thinks.
I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to generalise that most people would probably agree we all have the right to be who we are, so long as that doesn’t inevitably involve harming others.
So, I can be a musician, but I’d better not play my bass too loudly late at night because it might disturb the people who live upstairs. Let me practice quietly at home, and turn up the volume when playing in specified venues.
Now, when it comes to being racist, this sort of falls apart, because how does a person be racist without behaving in a racist manner? Racism tends to be more than just the irrational private conviction that people of a different ethnicity are by nature inferior to oneself. It tends to manifest itself as social behaviour.
One might harbour racist thoughts but not act on them, and that would be, I suppose, sort of commendable, but probably not as commendable as trying to rid oneself of the irrational conviction in the first place.
But a person who actively exercises their racism by behaving injuriously towards people of a given ethnicity, doesn’t get a free pass by saying Hey, I’m just letting my selfhood unfold like the glorious and unique flower that it is.
Other people are entitled to say Hey, you—by behaving the way that seems natural to you, you are harming others who have not injured you. That is an offence. Prepare to face punishment.
So long as racism is practiced, so long as it translates into injury, it is a threat to the wider community and to humanity. As a mere private conviction which is at odds with a person’s social behaviour, it doesn’t do any harm, but people have a tendency to act on their convictions, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who was able to extend equal benevolence towards all folk while secretly believing the exact opposite.
Unpopular opinion coming up, so here it is. Unfortunately racism is protected and falls under free speech, even though it is hateful and has horrible implications and intent behind it. They are also classified with hate groups as well.
It also comes into play with individual morals and beliefs. People will never be able to agree with everything across the board regardless of what it is.
Do I like racists? No. Do I believe they should have the right to say fucked up shit regardless if it is bad? Yes. Because I can ignore it and choose to not I teract with them. Because again, why be around or be stuck with people who are like that? I don't have to be. I choose not to be.
Why waste energy on people who don't make up a majority of the population on an overall and obvious level?
Although controversial, it will never be and should not be eradicated because what that does is create inauthentic views and people as a whole. Truth and society is way more complicated than that and eradicating hate or racism from the world is creating a false lie of sunshine and rainbows.
I feel that although the idea sounds good on paper to be erased, how much will we lose in doing so? How much will society sacrifice to create a lie and make a domino effect into a utopia based on lies just to protect the feelings of others from a minority?
Those individuals that try to do that will be sorely disappointed because it is impossible.
A few things.
First of all, there's a pretty established precedent of public education in most countries getting a few things wrong here and there. When kids are taught stuff, there's an assumption on the part of the educator that what they have to say is correct, and the addled mind of the youngster needs to absorb the wisdom coming their way. 95% of the time, it's a reasonable assumption, but kids are taught inaccuracies all the time. I make this point because I don't think anti-racism "education" is any more or less exclusionary of conflicting viewpoints as would be a science class on evolution or climate science or even in a psychology class on the ever-changing categorizations of the DSM. So yes, teaching kids that racism is bad is contributing to the "rooting out" of racist ideas, but we as a society seem to think they're worth getting rid of, or at least worth discouraging.
Second point. I don't think the education system taking a stand against a view means that it becomes illegal to hold that view. In fact I would argue the opposite: by discouraging it, we implicitly grant that people COULD be racists, legitimately and legally, and we wish to appeal to a subject's reason to convince them to give up this view. If racism was illegal as a mental act, there'd be no need to teach people about it. So I think it's a bit misleading to say that the government is eradicating racism by telling school children not to be racist, while leaving open the possibility that they may become racist later outside of the purview of the state.
And lastly, there are always going to be things you should believe and shouldn't believe. I have reason to believe that 2 and 2 make 4. If you think that it makes 5, you can think that, but society will try to correct that impression. I think prejudice is slowly becoming a 2 and 2 makes 5 situation.
I’ve had people act racist towards me in the past, and trust me, it doesn’t feel good to be treated differently just because of my race. It’s fucked up. Even though people have the right to be racist and have their own views and opinions doesn’t mean that they should treat another human being like crap. That just makes you a shitty human being. You can be racist and at least be civil to people. I’ve been taught to be as open minded as possible. People have their opinions, I may agree with some things and may not with others. It’s just a difference in opinions
Racism will never go away.
Most racists are not educated, about other races and fear them because they don't understand them.
Why would teaching people something that could give these same racists a chance to form their own opinion based off of being Educated properly instead of learning from their parents and friends fake reasons to hate someone.
Goal isn't to force racists to not be racist, but to educate racists in hopes of having less racist.
u like Voltaire wisely said... ~You all have the right to be as stupid as you want to be ~
I do not have to agree with it, so I just don't.
I would never ever support any law that pretends to regulate our thinking... but I do think there has to be regulations and SOME laws, regarding acts of discrimination, thoughts and actions are two very different things, especially with the intent of harming others, or even affecting others. But on that, I would have to look at them one by one.
There are, definitely, some efforts that are meant to be anti-racism but their aim is to CONDEMN anti-racism and that's just pointing fingers in the wrong directions, I do not like those one bit (and I only refer to the ones that are just saying "racism is bad, and you should feel guilty for having privileged white skin") . It would be better if such efforts were aimed to actually prevent acts of discrimination that are actively harming our communities.
I think people have the right to believe whatever they want. But hold your panties I do wish that they remove their unnecessary hate from their hearts.
Is it wrong to treat people wickedly and act prejudice because of their race? Yes. Should I force them to believe what I believe? No, because they have free will. Is it wrong to inform them that being racist is wrong? No, it's not wrong or a bad thing, because it's not like I am forcing them.
Towards the people that are racist towards my race, I've recently felt no need to hate them I pity them because I believe no good will happen to them because of that way of life and thinking.
Have you ever asked a question on here and then just wished you could delete it? LOL
I have. I've read all the responses, and few people followed your directions.
YES, people have the right to be racist. Obama said his own white grandmother was a racist, because she was afraid of black people. Well, maybe she had good reason to fear black people. We don't know what she's been through in life, and neither does Obama. I'm sure there are many black neighborhoods that Barack would NEVER go into. Does that make him a racist?
Oh, and this is only slightly off-topic. When it comes to "stereotypes" it always makes me think of the age-old question. "What came first, the chicken or the egg?"
People have the liberty to think and say as they please as far as I am concerned up until when their liberty impinges upon my liberty. Example, label me a white cracker or whatever the phrase Dijour of the day is and I can careless. Now, walk up to me and sock me in the face because you hate “crackers” and you will quickly realize you happened upon that one son of a bitch you shouldn’t have fucked with. Till that point, you had all the liberty to say and think as you desired and I did not give one iota of damn. Except now I am spending 14 hours being debriefed by the local constabulary because I felt justified in divorcing your soul from its meat suit.
Yes. I'd agree with White Europeans being racist to the Arabs.
Their leaders' do not reflect their interests and never do, they keep importing millions of 3rd worlders into their country who hate white people and hate Europe.
A Danish boy on discord told me about how the Arabs bully him, they bully him for being white and disrespect his country, while their existence there was paid for by white danish taxpayers.
It infuriates me to no end, and he isn't even that racist, because its illegal there for him to be racist to the arabs, to even harbor such feelings is illegal. Obviously most of the people in the comments don't know or give a shit about the EU or what happens in the EU/Scandinavia but rather talk about petty shit in the US.
You have the right to any opinion you like, just don't expect it to be without consequence.
A better question would be what definition of racism you adhere to?
Moderates and conservatives will probably tell you the old definition related to a person acting with prejudice.
The critical race theory Marxist crowd will tell you that you're racist simply because you're white, and so is any institution that was founded by white people. They'll tell you this unironically via their iPhone from inside of a lavish san fran condo while drinking a soy latte in a neighborhood where working class people can no longer afford to live.
In my opinion the CRT people are pretty damn racist by the original definition and terribly unaware of their own privileged position in society and the world at large.
The reason I say that it is wrong is because it goes beyond someone’s personal belief and personal opinion when they allow it to have influence and control over allowing others the have jobs and other things so it would effect their well being and ability to survive or provide for their family.
Unfortunately, since racism is synonymous with stupidity, and since stupidity is not against the law, then no, racism is not against the law. Now for the caveat; if your stupidity causes harm, or worse to another humam being, then you will be prosecuted, (rightfully so!), for a hate crime.
People have a right to be stupid, and trying to force the stupidity out of people legally is stupid. The moment they commit a crime, specially a violent crime motivated by racism (which is likely) then they should be dealt with in the best way possible to both deter and rehabilitate them, if the later one is even possible.
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