Canadian Hate-Speech Law Violates Charter of Rights 651
MrKevvy writes "The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has found that federal hate-speech legislation violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equivalent of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights. This decision exonerates Marc Lemire, webmaster of FreedomSite.org, but may have farther-reaching consequences and serve as precedent for future complaints of hate-speech."
Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad this is gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank god this is done with at last.
Hate speech requires a hate listener. Let's work on that problem, because that one doesn't violate anyone's rights.
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
CHRT has no teeth on this. All they can say is "unlawful" and go on about their business about prosecuting people. If it was a real court we wouldn't be in this position now. What a pile of BS.
But...they can bury you in fines and ruin your life without ever having to be judged by the actual laws of the land. That type of stuff really pisses me off.
Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:2, Insightful)
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
The real issue is people worrying about giving censorship a foot and they'll take a mile.
You Cannot Give Offense (Score:4, Insightful)
You can only take it.
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because conservatives have done nothing to increase the power of government. Come on, if you're going to criticize the left, use a criticism that cant be turned around and work just as well against the right.
Surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone really surprised that anti-hatespeech laws violate the basic 'free speech' right? I mean, either a person is free to say what they want or not.
I'm not condoning hate speech. I think it's still immoral and unethical... But it's still covered under 'free speech' no matter how much I hate it.
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI
Citation needed.
Repugs
Repugs? Tell us what you really think of 33% of your fellow citizens.
Anti-hate speach legislation, while ill-founded, at least had at its heart the idea to stop the traditional practice of inflaming the mob's anger so as to go out and lynch minorities.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
That shouldn't mean you get to outlaw it though.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is now "Sticks and stones can be forgiven as a condition of growing up in a fatherless home in urban America. But words will land your but in court for both civil and criminal sanctions..."
Re:But or And? (Score:3, Insightful)
"This decision exonerates Marc Lemire, webmaster of FreedomSite.org but may have farther-reaching consequences and serve as precedent for future complaints of hate-speech."
If the author means complaints against claims of hate speech, I'd say "and may have" is more appropriate. If that's not what the author means, the logic baffles.
I believe you have parsed the sentence you quoted incorrectly. While an additional "may" would have clarified I believe most people are capable of reading that sentence to understand that the "may" applies to both verbs following it in the sentence: "...may have....serve...".
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:5, Insightful)
If I remember correctly, Trudeau and his government were the architect for this legislation. Not only was he the largest asshole to ever come out of Quebec. He thought all of Canada his personal playground, reguarlly believed he was unstoppable, and in general an asshole to the Canadian public. All while...people loved him, while he fawned terms similar to "hope and change".
Yeah...if you don't know how far the liberals have gone to get power in Canada you don't know squat. Including collapsing the government on a friday, using a non-confidence motion, after everyone had already gone home.
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think larry flints lawyer in the movie about him (maybe the real lawyer also i duno) puts this whole point in an awsome nutshell
"I am not trying to suggest that you should like what Larry Flynt does. I don't like what Larry Flynt does, but what I do like is the fact that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for ourselves. I like the fact that I live in a country where I can pick up Hustler magazine and read it, or throw it in the garbage can if that's where I think it belongs. "
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
The real issue is people worrying about giving censorship a foot and they'll take a mile.
Please define "hate speech" in a way that is objective and clear and does not require knowing what is going on inside the mind of the person using it.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope.
I saw a video on youtube where a guy was invited to a university to talk about immigration issues, and his own group's belief that the Mexico/Canadian borders should be closed, except for those who obtain a legal Visa for entrance. After about 10 minutes the students started shouting at him so he could no longer finish his prepared remarks, and he asked, "Don't you believe in free speech?" and one of them yelled, "Not when it's hate speech." The professor then walked-over and apologized to the speaker.
Since when is saying, "We should enforce the Congressional laws," considered hate speech? Also speech is not free, if you're only allowed to say what is "approved" speech by whatever group is in power (the students). That sounds like pure censorship to me - if you don't like what you hear, chain the person's mouth and shut him up.
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been discharged a while (USMC) but that doesn't offend me at all.
It might be because I believe prayer to be a completely worthless means of getting anything done, but it also might be because I know that even though people have all sorts of beliefs I consider weird, very few of them have any actual impact on my life.
A good day for Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, "leftie". You're so 1980.
Americans don't even know what "left" is, because your right wing republicans are a bunch of fucking nuts who believe secret prisons, Jesus, and Homeland Security are the way to go.
Your "leftist" democrats are a bunch of corporate shills, and are basically old republicans who discovered that rights for gays and minorities are okay.
People at this very moment are screaming that socializing health insurance will destroy the American health care system... which is actually just a bunch of hugely profitable HMOs deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. Yes, that's so much better. Why find common ground that's best for the public when you can get together mobs of people and storm the debates to disrupt them. American politics provides no end of entertainment to the rest of the world.
Anyway, back on track to the article. Whatever the content of the site of the complainant, it's good to see a law being revisited. If only laws were created with expiration dates of less than a generation. Make the politicians work for their money, and keep the legal system consistent with social development.
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI
Citation needed.
http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=111986&SecID=2 [news8austin.com]
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0513-11.htm [commondreams.org]
http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/past-cases/united-states-v.-brett-bursey [ccrjustice.org]
http://www.blogd.com/archives/000743.html [blogd.com]
Real issue is circumventing double jeopardy (Score:5, Insightful)
Because in the US that is what hate speech laws are being used for. Get off from a high profile case that "bothers" some politicians and you can be sure a hate speech charge will crop up. Been done in a few visible crimes around Atlanta, suddenly the Feds are brought in because there was enough to convict on the real accused crime.
The other point is that prosecuting under the guise of a hate crime can devalue the real crime. I don't care why they selected someone's house to rob/burn/etc, all reasons should be treated the same : equally bad. Yet we try to differentiate the crimes by assigning severity based on what they were thinking or what we think they were thinking?
Fortunately in both countries we can still each have our opinions, I just hope the Supremes start tossing the US version out as well... which reminds me, did the group who declared it wrong in Canada have the last voice on that?
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Public university, I assume?
I wonder if the students were reprimanded in any way. It would seem that, for the most part, university "free speech" tends toward the PC side. Ok, not "tends." Is.
Try speaking out against abortion at a university some day.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
College campuses are notorious for that. They either engage in outright censorship (try organizing a students for concealed carry [concealedcampus.org] protest on your local campus and see how the campus powers-that-be respond) or they just drown you out when they don't agree with you. Rather hypocritical of a group that usually claims to value free speech and liberty so much, isn't it?
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does freedom of speech require that people not drown you out? That seems a rather interesting definition of freedom of speech. By that measure, people are required to assist you with your speech, not merely not punish you for it.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is not freedom to be heard.
Re:Freedom of Speach ! ... At What Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it means you should be able to say all that. The alternative is being able to say only that which the current $POWER thinks you should be allowed to say. That alternative is far, far worse than any of the examples you cite.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that just because you *can* say a thing, it doesn't mean you *should* say it. However, it's a long, long, long way from there to "you should be legally prohibited from saying it." If free speech is allowed so long as that speech toes the line of political correctness, it's not free at all. Sure, that means people can deny the holocaust. Advocate child molestation (NAMBLA, anyone?). Print Nazi and KKK literature. Promote radical Islam. Etc. Offend, insult, infuriate the whole of society. Yes, they should be able to do that. The test of free speech isn't the middle ground. The test of free speech is the corner cases, and if you don't allow those, you don't have free speech. There's a reason why the amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech is first; it's the most important. Without free speech and a free press, you don't have a free society. You don't have a democracy. You don't have a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." Sure, there's a good argument that we've gotten pretty far away from that already, and to a great extent, it walks hand in hand with restrictions (whether legal or social) on what sorts of speech should be allowed.
In most societies, people who say those sorts of things are going to have to stand the heat for it, so it's not for the faint of heart, but people should be legally able to state their beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are. You can't have partial freedom of speech; it's all or nothing.
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree.. I think we ought to encourage MORE people to speak their minds to make it easier to figure out who the bigots, racists, and just plain jerks are.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
We have laws against libel and slander for that. We don't need the state deciding what's "hate" speech.
That's exactly right. If I say "operagost touches little children" it's slander and you can sue me. If I say "operagost is a [insert racial epithet here]" that's just me being a dumbass. It doesn't harm you in any way and only serves to make me look like a complete moron. Why does the Government need to get involved here?
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the legal sense, no. But the freedom of intellectual inquiry that's a bedrock of the university requires tolerance for a diversity of views, which is unfortunately not popular among the current crop of students (and some professors).
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
So, Martin Luther King, Jr. advocating and inciting the unlawful conduct of sit-ins, unlicensed Freedom Marches, and other demonstration actions directed at segregationist members of the U.S. South... is hate speech?
I would be certainly want to say "of course not", but your definition doesn't leave me much room.
No matter how well you want to codify it, much of the definition of "hate speech" is "I know it when I hear it."
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sticks and stones (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"?
So if I hire ten guys to go beat you with sticks and throw stones at your head you think I should be free of criminal liability? After all, I just gave them money and spoke to them, neither of which hurt you directly.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the people in the audience who wanted to hear the speaker and whom couldn't because of their classmates that can't stand an opposing point of view?
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Try speaking out against abortion at a university some day.
I don't do protests anymore, but when I used to encounter that kind of resistance, I followed this script:
- "If you're so certain that you are right, why are you afraid???"
- "I'm not afraid."
- "Then prove it. Prove you are not afraid by letting me speak."
If they quiet down I finish expressing my thoughts. If they are not quiet then I tell them point blank, "You are no better than the Iran Shah. He too is a coward. He too is afraid of other people's ideas. That's why he kills people to silence them, and you are no better than he is," and then sit down and wait until they leave the area.
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only was he the largest asshole to ever come out of Quebec. He thought all of Canada his personal playground, reguarlly believed he was unstoppable, and in general an asshole to the Canadian public.
In other words, he was the only honest politician we've seen in quite some time. He gets respect for that alone.
Not All Wet (Score:2, Insightful)
>or to cause to be so communicated
>to hatred or contempt" based on characteristics such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and so on
The issues are very complex. My family goes well back into Canada's roots on both sides and, as a family we reside pretty much country wide.
Canada's heart lies in the idea of a cultural mosaic, maybe that came from our bilingual heritage and the more orderly development of our frontiers. Maybe it came from it being just to fucking cold to bother to with hate, and, hockey got rid of the aggressive edge. I think it was J. Cartier who said, "This must be the land God gave to Cain." What is certain is that Canada as a country bound to the idea of a cultural mosaic has always been deeply attentive to the rights of minorities and not without reason. Mackenzie King, one of Canada's longest reigning PMs, who held seances with the spirits of his dead mother and his dead dog fought against immigration into Canada by the mountainous Shik people of northern India because our climate would be too inhospitably cold for them (not as cold as the Prime Minister's shoulder).
I think what's new to the mix is a shift in demographics, a shift in political tactics and maybe the first hint of a Brave New World. The European stock that initially invaded North America has been recently outnumbered and, last year, Asian immigrants were the most prevalent. The shift in demographic to a truly multi racial, multi cultural mix probably has heightened the likelihood and exposure of racial hate. The law was to some extent enacted to combat racism doing more than rearing it's hydra heads. Political Correctness, OTOH, has become a witch hunt captained by any cavalier politician seeking power at any means. It's amusing that the Harper Government, presently in power, openly, passionately uses "attack ads" while posing as politically correct. It's all very relative.
The problem Conservatives in Canada and Republicans in America face is that both parties have taken a Sophist, relativist approach to gaining and holding power. In a Godless world both parties have embraced the religious right and pretty much any other splinter group in an attempt to cobble together enough votes to gain power. Rove in America, like Harper in Canada embody the philosophical, relativist road to power by any means. Hate speech legislation is just another iteration of the political rights perennial attempt to position themselves as the voice of what is right, proper and politically correct at the expense of freedom of speech.
In an ever shrinking, heavily populated world of limited resources Hate Speech legislation is a card that will probably be repeatedly played as countries come to terms with a Brave New World. As a species we're creatures of context and thus there's ample evidence to suggest something akin to Hate Speech legislation can be effective, even if people like myself view it as voodooism.
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't mean you shouldn't be offended by it, sure, but to go back the RobotRunAmok's original quote - "you cannot give offense, you can only take it."
They are doing something they know other people won't like to make a point. You find their actions deeply unpleasant and disrespectful. Fine. I actually agree with you, but that's beside the point. They know a lot of people will become angered by what they do, and that is their goal - to get people talking about them and help spread their message.
You are taking offense. They can't force you to be offended, offense is your reaction to their action. You control your reactions, not them. If you decide that they control that, then you have decided that they own a little teeny piece of you.
If you decide that their actions are worth anger and resentment on your part, then (a) you are taking offense, and (b) you are allowing their asshattedness to control you. You choose to take them seriously. They can't make you do so. You choose to mention their name in a discussion board. Guess what? That's what they want you to do. They want you to repeat their name as often as possible, and mention their actions. They are marketing, and you are giving them free ads. Don't take it personally, we all get manipulated this way.
If you decide that they are jsut a bunch of effing asshats and ignore them, then you are not taking offense, and they are not controlling you. You can still consider what they do offensive, but you can also choose to consider it irrelevant because they are asshats. You can stop mentioning them, and you can forget about them. If they do actual harm to someone, that merits a reaction, but reacting in their intended manner to their actions means they own you, at least a little. They win.
Your offense, ironically, justifies their actions in their minds. Ignoring them denies them the control over you they crave.
There are TWO kinds of hate-speech: (Score:3, Insightful)
The one that you're just a pussy for complaining about it.
And the one that causes physical pain and is known by the speaker to do so.
Yes, it's proven nowadays, that emotional pain is no different or less real than "real" physical pain to the brain. Same chemical reaction. Same everything. So being left by your girlfriend really hurts. And perhaps some painkillers would actually work!
So if you know it, and deliberately hurt someone, it does not matter in what way you are doing it. What matters is, if it hurts or not.
And the only reason we're discussing this at all, is that it is so hard, to prove emotional damage.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Does freedom of speech require that people not drown you out?
It does when you've been invited to a lecture, spent a lot of time preparing the speech and/or driving to the location, and then they shout you down. That's roughly-equivalent to inviting a person to a party and then when they show-up, you throw a bucket of paint on them (see Stephen King's "Carrie"). Another Example: I remember when I had a job interview, and I spent about an hour getting dressed, drove 2 hours (roundtrip) to get there, and it only lasted 5 minutes because the boss looked at the resume and said, "I don't think we can use you." That was just plain rude. He could have reviewed my resume before I showed up, or even phone-screened me first.
Anyway it was rude of the students to waste another person's time like that. He was invited, and he should have been shown the same respect as Al Gore would have received if he had been invited to discuss global warming. If they didn't like what he had to say, they could have left quietly instead of acting like junior high teeny-boppers.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was shocked the other day (I wish I had the links) when someone pretty much proved me wrong when I said that it was nice that in the US we had no hate speech laws.
Apparently we do...
I don't think we need them. And lynchings were illegal LONG before we had any semblance of laws inhibiting speech that was hateful.
Putting up a noose, or a nazi swastika....is just speech through a symbol. In and of itself, it is NOT threatening. Actions and actual threats against anyone, are threats and have been a crime for a long time. Using a noose on someone, is a crime, but, merely displaying it, while extremely, and understandably distasteful to many, is not and should not be a crime.
True freedom of speech (I'm not talking about things like Fire/Crowded Movie house) pretty much necessitates there there be no freedom from being offended.
You have to be VERY careful about this type thing. I can see good people having good reasons for it, but, once you let the cat out of the bag, you can get very screwy with this type of thing. One prime example of this.
There was reported in the past year or two, incidents of home owners, who were charged with crimes for putting up a hangman's noose in their front yards, as part of a macabre HALLOWEEN decoration set up. It had nothing to do with anything racial (PLENTY of WHITE people have been hung in the US, I'd dare say more whites that black have been hung in our nation's history), and yet, this guy was charged with a crime, I think he got off with a fine, but, really...is that right?
While I agree that anyone threatening anyone's well being, for ANY reason (I don't think threatening due to sex/race or whatever is a special case) should be a crime and be protected against, merely saying unsavory things, or even displaying unsavory symbols or whatever should not at all be a crime. If it is not a direct threat to you (ie:I'm gonna kill your honkey ass with this knife right now asshole), then there should be no rules or laws officially against it. If the general public wants to shun you due to it, well that is their right, but, the govt. should have NO say in setting the boundary for what you can say or publish or preach.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you put up a noose, you're threatening to lynch someone. Moreover, it is obviously racially motivated.
Why? In the old west, white men were typically hanged quite often. Perhaps it is Halloween... The point is that YOU choose to see the noose as racial, regardless of what I am thinking if I put one up. In this case, it is less the action of the speaker than the interpretation of the listener.
Which is the same thing as if I choose to take your statement as a hatred of all white men, and you as attacking my rights to free speech.
People still get lynched, though it is becoming rarer.
And does killing hurt more if it is racially motivated? Lynching is illegal. Lets focus on evil actions, because there are plenty of those.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes: The students had the right to leave. By shouting him down, they prevented anyone from listening. That is censorship.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe others have said it best: (Score:4, Insightful)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Evelyn Beatrice Hall (As a summary of Voltaire's beliefs.)
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Especially if they're in a required lecture rather then something extracurricular.
Very few lectures in college are required. The students could have left. Or stuffed Ipods in their ears. Or whatever.
And in the rare case where this might have been a "required" lecture, there's a reason for it - because they prof wants the students to listen to the speaker's words. Therefore the professor should have told the students to shut-up, stop acting like teeny-boppers, and try to act like the adults they are. Or else, earn an automatic 25% reduction off their next exam.
And if they complained "that's not fair", then I'd tell them straight up, "No it isn't fair. It isn't fair that my friend here drove 2 hours and spent 1 or 2 hours preparing a speech, only to be shouted down. He is a GUEST to this classroom, and you have shown him disrespect. A 25% reduction is your punishment for being an asshole that lacks basic human manners. I don't tolerate rude behavior in my classroom or towards my friends/guests."
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you put up a noose, you're threatening to lynch someone.
No, I'm hanging a noose. If I hang a noose and say "bring me that nigger over there!" then I'm threatening to lynch someone. Merely hanging a noose is not a threat. I find it ironic that many people on the left would passionately defend those who burn our flag while condemning those who would hang a noose in the middle of a protest. A noose is merely a symbol and absent some other threatening gesture it should not be illegal to use one as a prop during a protest. It's a disgusting gesture meant to invoke a primal reaction but I wouldn't regard it as a threat on it's own.
People still get lynched, though it is becoming rarer.
This won't be a popular opinion but lynching would never have been the problem it was if the targeted population hadn't been deprived of it's right to keep and bear arms as a result of racially motivated gun control laws. Would you go into a community and drag someone out of his house to lynch him if you knew all of his neighbors had shotguns and were willing to use them?
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:4, Insightful)
It's slightly humorous, yes.
But to equate the Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party is patently ridiculous.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democratic Party, though I'm liberal. The Democratic Party is Corporatist, just like the Republican Party. It's nowhere near Socialist or Communist. Yes, there are *some* socialist aspects to the Democratic Party, but these are far outweighed by the corporatist (quasi-fascist) elements.
And Communism is about as far as you can get from the Democratic Party. When was the last time the Dems made any effort to put control of industry in the hands of the people working in the industry?
Wake up and smell the coffee.
The cash for buying houses? Handouts to the banks. The cash-for-clunkers program? Handouts to the car companies and the banks.
Socialized medicine? We don't even know *if* there will be a public option (which doesn't make it a socialized system anyway), and if there is, you can bet it will be like Medicare, which is a boon to practitioners, no matter how much some of them complain about it.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if that's the case, then whats the point of free speech? I'd argue they go hand in hand, and while no one should be forced to listen that doesn't want to, thats quite different than actively trying to drown out someone else's speech.
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree.. I think we ought to encourage MORE people to speak their minds to make it easier to figure out who the bigots, racists, and just plain jerks are.
Hi there! I'm a bigot. I do not have the time in my adulthood to attempt to understand all classes of people that offer me an immediate reason to dislike them.
I also find the ability to be a jerk has it's uses in life.
Racist? I think that is a funny made up term to attempt to define a society by classes based on the color of skin pigmentation. We human beings, regardless of our skin color and/or ancestry, are fully sexually compatible with each other for procreative means. Plus, speaking as a bigot, it just seems better to hate a person for a reason they offer you, rather than to hate a person because their skin is a certain color.
What do you expect? (Score:1, Insightful)
They are just kids. It only seems problematic when you think of them as adults.
21 is adult in a legal sense only. Most people don't start achieving a truely adult level of maturity for another decade or so.
Though I DO wonder if this is just because most college kids have spent their entire lives under their parent's wings, and in school. I am willing to accept that it isn't age so much as experiencing the hardships of real life in the real world that make someone grow up.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if that's the case, then whats the point of free speech? I'd argue they go hand in hand, and while no one should be forced to listen that doesn't want to, thats quite different than actively trying to drown out someone else's speech.
This has always been a problem with "free speech". It does tend to favor the loudest. Kind of like "freedom of the press" doesn't guarantee you a press. The quiet, the less wealthy, the less powerful or less popular do have a harder time making themselves understood.
In the case of a parliamentary assembly, however, it is vital for proper functioning that all present agree to forgo unlimited right to make themselves heard. This could be a government legislature, a board meeting of a business or charity, or even a "town hall" meeting. The assembly has the right to expel members who do not comport themselves within the standards of the organization. The loudmouths can then exercise their rights to scream like banshee outside the meeting hall/room/whatever. We've seen a lot of video lately of the failure of the process at US town hall meetings lately, and that's a shame.
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
And there you are. Bigotry comes in all flavors. Somebody will always hate somebody without warrant. Not all Republicans are "Fascist, Warmonger, Hatemonger, Criminal, Deviant, Brain-Dead" but yet you stereotyped them. It's part of the human condition, deal with it. Laws won't fix it either. Everyone knows where the line is and that's harm to another.
Re:Humanity is divided on this issue (Score:3, Insightful)
race is a byproduct of borders and hate.
nad those papers are flawed in that they do not take culture into account.
Different peopel ahve different cultures, some embrace educations, and some do not.
Many poor people don't raise there children very well, and the children of the ones that are raised well are very seldom poor when they grow up.
It's clearly a culture issue.
All modern humans a re a sub species, as noted buy the term "Homo Sapiens Sapiens"
You are referring to the idea of infrasubspecies.
Crimes are distributed evenly amongst income lines.
The report on IQ difference is flawed, seriously flawed.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, I'm Canadian - I don't think hate speech should be allowed.
But what is hate speech, exactly? To me, it's a speech filled with anger or passion - a speech that incites hate from other people - and a speech that has its bases formed from hate rather than law or proven fact.
I saw a video on youtube where a guy was invited to a university to talk about immigration issues, and his own group's belief that the Mexico/Canadian borders should be closed, except for those who obtain a legal Visa for entrance. After about 10 minutes the students started shouting at him so he could no longer finish his prepared remarks, and he asked, "Don't you believe in free speech?" and one of them yelled, "Not when it's hate speech." The professor then walked-over and apologized to the speaker.
There is hate going on here, but not from the party you think.
The fellow is talking about a lawful yet controversial issue. This is protected under freedom of speech. If he were discussing deporting Mexicans already here because they are dirty, worthless, and give nothing back to society, then I might have an issue, as that's hateful, and has no factual or lawful basis. It's also a huge generalization, applied to every Mexican, when most might have valid reasons for staying.
He, however, is getting attacked by hateful individuals. No facts or laws are being discussed - the mob mentality has kicked in, and everyone has decided he is wrong, and they are attacking him. It's hate - blind hate - for his lawful yet controversial point of view. I'm against that.
Freedom of speech and hate speech restriction are different things. You can find examples everywhere you look. Even on slashdot, people believing in Freedom of Speech will mod anything they disagree with into the ground. After all, the issue is controversial, and you hate their stance, so obviously they are a troll and their arguments don't deserve to be heard. However, the hateful posts attacking the original post must all be modded +5 insightful, because that is Freedom of Speech, and also you agree with them.
I make a point to mod interesting posts up, even if I disagree with them. When someone writes out a two page article on the benefits of the free market, and I think it's totally bollocks and the guy is a retard(because his stance has resulted in nothing but huge Monopolies and the whole market going to shit), I'll still mod it "Interesting" (not Insightful or Informative :P ), because his different point of view is interesting and should be protected. But hate speech? Random attacks on individuals? I could do without seeing either of those. I don't have a problem with forcing them to be removed, either (Take that, free speech! ^_- ) - but I would draw the line somewhere before real litigation, unless actual damages occured.
Hate speech is easy to identify - especially on slashdot. Simply compare the number of insults or attacks in a post. Stop reading to understand the point of view, and just read the words, then compare. A well laid out controversial post (with a point of view that you disagree with) could be modded -1 Troll & Flamebait, while a post with nothing but attacks and insults (that holds the popular opinion) will be modded +5 Informative or Insightful. And yet by the definition of Troll and Flamebait, those should be reversed.
Oh well. You've got a long way to go to convince me that Hate Speech should be protected under Freedom of Speech - or for that matter, that they're even the same thing. I don't think they are...
Re:aha (Score:4, Insightful)
As a white male it's not possible to claim "Hate Speech" in the US. It's a one-way street.