Should "hate speech" be a crime, 1st amendment aside?

[Anonymous]

My opinion is a loud resounding no. It's a slippery slope to the government controlling you.

Look at the UK and Germany.

Factor in the first amendment and you see how outrageous some of these politicians are speaking on regulating speech in the USA. Especially when a lot of the "hate" is factual but inconvenient.

[WhiteSteve]

My bigger question is why people want to use that amendment for such vile purposes as anything that might in any world be construed as “hate speech.” Like that’s a really, REALLY odd fucking hill to choose to die on, the right to say racial, etc slurs and to loudly suggest there’s something wrong with broad demographics of people based on their culture or lifestyle.

If there’s one thing I don’t respect, it’s using “freedom” as an excuse to be an asshole. And you tell them this and they act all indignant, like it’s this huge offense, or like we’re stifling necessary truth-tellers about how bad this or that group is🙄🤦‍♂️

Free speech was originally intended so it wouldn’t be like England, and if you said “King George sucks” you wouldn’t get beheaded by the government, or in our case, maybe “George Washington sucks” and the new U. S. government wouldn’t kill you. I bet these dudes —WHO OWNED SLAVES— probably weren’t even concerned about racial slurs. People love to play games with The Constitution and infer meanings into it that aren’t really there, but they just yell the loudest about you not loving America until you get off their back🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Wild time to be alive, lmao.

To be honest, I’d probably rather be under more rules than live in a world where people are freely assholes to each other for no good reason. Governments, as a general rule, just don’t scare me in any way.

[Asker]

Is pointing out statistical crime numbers "hate speech"? Is pointing out IQ or economic figures hate speech? Is calling a morbidly obese politician fat hate speech?

Sounds like China, Russia, or NK might be up your alley.

[WhiteSteve]

So, here’s a follow-up question, that I have yet to get a good answer from anyone about, so maybe you can shed some light….

“To what end?” Let’s say you’re free to point out crime statistics on a demographic level….. what happens next? In what way do you feel that will resolve the problems you perceive?

[WhiteSteve]

Because otherwise, it seems like you’re pointing out perceived problems just for the sake of denigration, not any plan for resolution.

[Asker]

The recognition of a problem is the first step to addressing it. However, when one side refuses to accept that (the FBI no longer mandating cities to report crimes to them then all of a sudden the FBI estimates drop dramatically in Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, LA, San Francisco etc as one example) and continues to push a narrative (socioeconomics and the only solution they have is a welfare state which literally just furthers the cycle of single motherhood) then it seems you're avoiding the problem at hand.

There's no point in denigrating them nor have I said that. It's not about one group, every group has its issues, in today's world anything questioning a Jews behavior or an Israeli actor or the entire war it's antisemitic hate speech too.

It's a slippery slope to authoritarianism and "thought crimes" where calling an obese women fat is a crime

[WhiteSteve]

Alright, well, I appreciate you being the first guy out of dozens to actually have any sort of response, haha.

I guess I’d take issue with some of the characterizations you’re running with. They sound MAGA-inspired, and it’s very important to remember that Donald Trump and anyone in his orbit have proven themselves very unreliable in terms of facts, and that’s where a lot of prominent social narratives today are derived from, which renders all of them pretty invalid. I’m sure you’ll disagree, but I think I can save us both some time and frustration and acknowledge that I don’t think either of us is going to change the other’s mind, and I’ll just say that without any poison on the arrowhead, but more to just frame the position I’m coming from.

So, according to a PolitiFact fact check, re: Biden’s claim of crime being near a 50 year low….

“EDITOR’S NOTE, June 4, 2024: This article has been updated to note that several of the largest cities in the U. S. missed an FBI deadline to report 2021 crime data. When that happens, the FBI uses estimates to fill in the gaps. Multiple crime experts told PolitiFact that this process does not undercut the validity of the data. PolitiFact’s ruling remains unchanged.”

I’m more in the camp of “Trump needs the people thinking we live in a social and economic dystopia in order to convince them that the Biden administration is worst thing since whiskey dick.” But I leave my house everyday and everything’s fine. Maybe things could be a little cheaper, but it is what it is, we live better than any other country and it’s only our own spoiled, entitled refusal to take any sort of step backwards in comfort or convenience as some horrible societal tailspin.

[WhiteSteve]

Bad shit happens, but bad shit has happened all my life. Carter couldn’t stop it. Reagan couldn’t stop it. Bush couldn’t stop it. Clinton couldn’t stop it. Bush Part Deux couldn’t stop it. Obama couldn’t stop it. Trump couldn’t stop it. Biden isn’t stopping it. Neither Harris or a second act from Trump can stop it. It’ll always be Whack-a-Mole with crime and other various bad shit. Extinguish one fire, another one you couldn’t previously have even imagined will start. Humanity is humanity, this is what we are, for better or for worse.

I’m a few months older than you😜, and take it from me, other than pretty frequent mass shootings, none of this shit is at all new. The city is the city. I’m a city kid, it’s just a different vibe there. Yes, it’s territorial. Yes, the rule is kinda “after dark, if ain’t from here, don’t come here.” That’s probably shocking to rural or suburban people, but even when I was a kid, I would hear stories from before I was born about ill shit that would happen. If you think shit just started going to hell in the 21st Century, guess again. Christ, I was at the library going through newspapers from 1949-51 trying to find an old clipping for my dad, and there was all kinds of horrific shit happening. I remember one story was they found a missing girl in a trunk in some crazy asshole’s house, raped, murdered, and dismembered. Back in those days I keep hearing were “great.” There’s nothing new under the sun, if I’ve learned anything in 45 years, it’s that.

And as far as demographic stats…I think the point of taking stats in such a manner is to analyze the situation and explore root causes that can maybe be dealt with better. They don’t take them with the mood of “ok, so let’s see which racial groups we should be most suspicious and fearful of, statistically.”🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[WhiteSteve]

I understand the idea of acknowledging problems to solve them, but I think we go about it the wrong way if we take stats in that light. Also, not for nothing, but every time I hear people suggest that maybe white people have some mirror-looking to do in how we treat people and just how we generally perceive and understand the dynamics of society, all the white people get defensive and are like “whoawhoawhoa…. why are we making things about race?” I think I’d be more receptive to criticisms from white people if we took them better ourselves.

But I guess I’m way off topic at this point, lmao. Anyway, I would revise one of my earlier statements. I’d more accurately the American government, as currently constituted, doesn’t really scare me, in terms of how far I think they’d go to infringe upon anything I care about personally. I’m more concerned for others who might be infringed upon.

And overall, as far as free speech goes…. who is being thrown in jail for their alleged hate speech? Getting “cancelled” or people just thinking you’re an asshole for what you say isn’t part of the promised protection. You aren’t free from CONSEQUENCES, you’re just free from legal repercussions. So I mean, you can call whoever you want “obese”…. but again, I just don’t understand what’s to be gained from that and why that makes you feel good to say it about someone else, that’s the weird part to me. I don’t envision a world ever existing where you just say whatever’s on your mind and everyone else is just like “oh, ok, cool, I have zero opinion of or response to that.”

You might like The Invention Of Lying for that kind of scenario😂

www.tiktok.com/.../7141401146823822597

[msmissydc]

@asker Ok I don't want to get involved in your argument because as I see you are one of the brainwashed fox fake news readers. This is pretty clear from the examples you try to give. I maybe start replying when you actually get your facts right. For those interesting in actual truth:

"Is pointing out statistical crime numbers "hate speech"?"
No it's not. It never was the issue. The issue was calling every person from a specific nation a rapists and calling for violence against every single person from that nation.
"Is calling a morbidly obese politician fat hate speech?"
No its not. Also not the issue. Have you actually seen the post this is about? Obviously I can't post it here because it involves pornography. The main part is about saying her immigration laws work by forcing immigrants to sleep with her. It combines racists and sexists arguments that have no correlation to reality. Her being fat is just used to make the sleeping with her seem as torture.(which gets obvious by the picture). It's not the actual insult.

"Sounds like China, Russia, or NK might be up your alley"
I love the irony, in seeing how the media you consume is not even trying to get the facts right while you say we are living in a dictatorship. You make yourself live in the consequences of a dictatorship by choice. Free factual media doesn't exist in a dictatorship but you don't seem to care about facts so maybe you don't care about that?

[Anonymous]

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Ideally, yes, I think hate speech should be a crime. It causes real-world harm. Much in the same way that the first amendment does not apply to slander. Exceptions to the first amendment already exist.

The real issue is that, especially in this day and age, people don't agree on what "facts" are. For far too many people, "facts" are whatever anecdotal experience they have personally had or heard someone else had. Or whatever makes logical sense to them. Which is not the same thing as actually being a fact.

So who gets to decide what would legally qualify as hate speech? Does it depend on intent to cause harm? Would it even be possible to enforce such a law?

And how would criminalizing hate speech make the government control you any more than they already do? They can see your entire browsing history, you carry a gps in your pocket, you willfully post every thought you have online for them to read, they take money out of your check to pay for the programs and projects they use to control you, they determine the laws you have to follow, and can even decide to send your ass to war basically whenever they want. But you know what? The government is controlled too. By corporations and the wealthy. They do what the wealthy tell them to and pay them to do.

So while you're busy worrying about whether or not it's ok for you to be an asshole to your countrymen (it's not), you're ignoring actual issues that matter. Which is a greater crime, in my opinion.

[purplepoppy]

Recent checkable examples from the UK of people slapped with hate speech laws include

A girl telling rioters to burn down a mosque with everyone inside.

A right wing politicians saying we should burn down hotels housing migrants.

This kind of stuff may be acceptable in the USA but I'm glad it's not here. Hate speech leads to harm and does nothing to sort out problems.

[strateguy632]

The real problem is not "hate speech" the problem is what gets included in hate speech.

If we were precise, "accusation should be a crime" but not something as broad as "hate speech".

For example no calling biden a traitor. Just describing his actions that betray america.

Equaly no calling trump a rapist in any form.

In the context of hate speech of ethnicity again "no accusing" a race nor ethnicity for example facebook hosted a page "israel sent islamic state" that would be an "accusation inciting hate" but if hate speech does not "forbid hating jews" it is fake hypocrisy.

[OtterMan68]

people on the left: Do you want Donald Trump and his hand picked attorney general deciding what is and what isn't "hate speech"?

people on the right: Do you want Kamal Harris and her hand hand picked attorney general deciding what is and what isn't "hate speech"?

If you answered, "no," then you should oppose hate speech laws.

[Asker]

Well said 👏 it absolutely goes both ways.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

I'll be much bolder, I think the way your free speech is implemented is detrimental to your society, it has the potential to amplify hate to a point where it can tear apart your whole country. To the point where I start to believe that your country may be two countries in one that need to split? I don't know the aftermaths of such a secession, but at first sight it would look not that bad to me...

[noohair]

Hate speech control is control of thoughts. Go to Europe or Canada if you want the government boot on the back of your neck.

[Dargil]

In this country, there is no setting the first amendment aside.

[Asker]

For the sake of argument/allowing a European view...

[gatixek710]

No it shouldn't.