The Warring States of NPF - "Ladies And Gentlemen, The CCC" or "White Power!"

The Warring States of NPF (http://www.nuklearforums.com/index.php)

- Bullshit Mountain (http://www.nuklearforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3)

- - "Ladies And Gentlemen, The CCC" or "White Power!" (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=40283)

Yeah, if one believes in freedom of speech one cannot decide some things don't have the right to be said. If we make laws to pick and choose what speech is free, we lose the right to argue when someone decides our own ideas aren't good enough to be shared.

I think the only way to kill dumbassed ideas like Westboro Baptist's - let's pretend for the sake of the argument that they actually say the things they say because they believe in them - is to examine and explore them thoroughly and test them under realistic conditions and challenge them in free and frank discussion. This process takes many generations. An idea doesn't die until every single person who lives no longer believe it is viable.

And driving them underground, making them part of the counter-culture and exciting forbidden stuff only the bravest and most rebellious dare contemplate only makes it that much harder to fight them. When that happens - and it does, at least in my country - you're turning your own position into the fearful, ignorant, clumsy representatives of uncaring, oppressive authority and the ideas you don't like into Rambo. Ideas, it seems, become truly dangerous only when we fear them.

Silly Queen, ideas don't turn into Rambo. They turn into V.

The only way hate speech can be regulated is if someone is harassed (for instance if they followed specific people around on purpose and yelled obscenities at them, as opposed to protesting in one spot), if the speech is occurring in a private venue (wherein the owners can kick them out), or the people around them are constrained in some way to be near them (such as in schools), in which case the rule of "the sensitive" kicks in. This why schools can punish students for shouting "fag" down the halls of the school, because it is the law that a public institution like a school has to maintain a safe environment for everyone there because it's not as if the objects of this ridicule can just leave. Plus In Loco Parentis (i.e. it can be presumed that their parents don't want them to scream that at others), but even if you knew their parents were racist douchebags, it would still apply because of the other laws and "the sensitive" aspect of freedom of speech. That is why it would apply on a college campus for example (though to a somewhat lesser degree because hate groups can still stage protests on state campuses, but if hate speech were considered disruptive to class, for example, a student could be kicked out, or because it defies the school's own statutes of behavior for their students they could be kicked out).

Basically unless you're infringing on someone else's right not to hear your racist garbage you are allowed to say it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geminex (Post 1136111)

Mind you, there's exceptions. Here in Germanland, holocaust denial and expressing support for the Nazi regime are punishable by, I think, up to 5 years in prison. But the historical justification for that particular instance is so strong, I very much doubt there's any potential for abuse there.

Well European law is quite different from the U.S., the laws don't have to pass the muster of an inalienable constitution. Unless they are the Patriot Act, I guess?