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What is hate speech?

Are hate speech laws not infringements upon free speech? Is it not the expression of unpopular ideas that needs protection? Who decides what is or is not free speech?

Rick82518 3 Apr 3
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11

Anything that is true and offends leftists.

8

“Hate Speech” is whatever the person (or agency) calling it such determines it to be. Especially if they can get a handful of Government Types to seem to agree.

“Hate Speech” Laws ... if indeed they become actual “Laws” are definitely an infringement on the Rights Guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.

Who decides? Therein lies the most treacherous aspect of the question. I think that there are many who think that the concept is great ... until the “other side” gets the chance to start applying the label.

Speech is either Free or it’s NOT Free.

It is like any value judgment. Purely subjective. Like what is porn? Subject to the decision makers values.

8

An overused term devoid of meaning...

8

Make believe path for weak minded people to be offended

7

Hate speech is a political construct, not an actual thing. A label applied to persuade public opinion and drive support for government intervention. See also: "assault weapon".

7

Free speech is free speech.... the good, the bad AND the ugly.

7

If you are a "snowflake", anything that makes you uncomfortable

Especially the unvarnished truth

7

There are two specimens: 1) is when you destroy a child. Tell them that they will never amount to anything; that they are losers like their father/mother; then they have to go into their world - when they leave for school - and project their lessons from their parents onto to other kids. Then it extends into their adulthood. 2) Deflection of personal responsibility becomes essential when one has never been grounded in essential personal responsibility and their actions reflect a certain Victimhood and a notion that others owe them in most ways. They have indeed never amounted to anything; they have indeed became that loser. Then, when the this TRUTH is exposed...it is hate speech. Demonstrating personal defeat.

Wow, nice post.

6

I think that's what we're figuring out right now, and it has little to do with your sensible questions. It's probably closer to raw power and control. Identity politics, political correctness, micro-aggressions, hate speech. These are terms or have become terms weaponized for power and control--disempowerment. All of the other noise around it is just theater adding drama and/or distraction. Ugly stuff. This is the root of destroyed friendships, strain in families--just a naked, aggressive brawl for control.

5

Hate speech is a label that people put on another’s opinion when they want to drown out or outright oppress the right to free speech.

5

Anything that does not fit the left wing narrative.

5

Anything said that a LIberal or Democrat doesn't agree with

5

Hate speech is speech that pussy hat wearers don't like. Anything they say, of course, is just carefully considered social commentary.

The idea of hate speech is ridiculous. As much as I despise Nazis and Communists, they should be free to publish their views. Part of living in a country with a Constitution like ours is that we trust the populace to make the right choices, by and large. [AOC is a notable exception]. Shouldn't we trust them to reject unacceptable ideas as well?

@DrN1, Suzanne? Aaliyah?

4

Hate speech is defined ( these days ) as ANYTHING that contravenes the opinion of the socialist left.

Example: Socialists are not interested in " your " opinion.....but what they ARE interested in is hearing THEIR opinion coming out of " your " mouth. Anything that is deemed as hate speech is merely another form of " political correctness " - which ( in reality ) is nothing more than a political " ball-gag " for ANYBODY that has an opinion which is at odds with the left's opinion. If the left can latch on to such an opinion, its quickly escalated to the level of " hate speech ", so it will be shut down as fast as possible by using " emotion " instead of logic to try to " brow-beat " the person responsible for the purported " hateful comment ", then try to tear them to shreds in various public forums and attack their career, their professional as well as personal lives all in order to turn the public against them for what might otherwise be a logical, and rational comment or opinion.

4

Western society has always operated on the “sticks and stones” standard. Mere words, we always believed, do not constitute assault. The Western tradition would only criminalize incitement of violence. That principle has been thrown out by post-modernists, especially in countries like Canada, who are rapidly entrenching the opposite belief: that words equal violence. Hate speech laws shut down any speech the progressives subjectively feel is “violent.” The problem is, who decides? So far, it’s been the progressives themselves, who now police speech, writing, literature, history, and to some degree, by using the dog whistle concept, even thought.

4

Hate speech to me is flat out gaslighting years of mental abuse not just a few comments but constant bullying targeting people and belittling them to their very core.

Oh and speech that turned violent

I would add to that... And on top of that proactively going out of your way to convince everyone else, behind their back, that THEY DESERVE it thus snowballing a hate campaign against them

4

I can only talk about UK laws since that is my area of expertise.

Hate speech in the UK has two parts to it: a) threatening, abusive, or insulting language directed towards a racial/religious group. AND: b) this threatening language intends to stir up racial/religious hatred. In order to be true and legal "hate speech", it must satisfy both parts.

Let me give you an example. If you said "there are too many Muslims in this country and I don't like them", that would NOT be hate speech. But if you said "there are too many Muslims in this country and I don't like them - we should do something about it and scare them off", this would be hate speech because you're encouraging violence towards someone.

Free speech, on the other hand, simply means that you can say what you want without the government punishing you for it. So I can say "I hate the corrupt UK government" and they can't put me in prison for it. But a Chinese person can't say "I hate the Chinese government" without being jailed for that. China doesn't have free speech. Free speech doesn't mean that other people can't disagree with what you say. It just means that your government can't punish you for it.

'Free speech' is designed to protect you from your government. You should be allowed to criticize your leaders without being killed/harmed/imprisoned. 'Hate speech' is different; hate speech is to protect citizens from being killed/harmed because of their race/religion/sexuality/etc.

In society, you're allowed to voice unpopular opinions as much as you want, as long as they don't encourage violence and hatred towards other people. So hate speech laws don't infringe your right to free speech unless you want to incite violence (which is illegal). I hope that clears up the confusion?

Some behaviors and ideologies deserve hatred and righteous anger from those who will be harmed by the ideology or behavior.

And yet, there have been people in Britain, who have been arrested for preaching what the Bible says, because people who have never read the Bible don't know what it says.

@MarPep could you give me an example?

@Dagdthompson source? Who has been arrested for preaching what the bible says?

@Option_Other Pedophilia, Communism, and Supremacist Religions that demand death or subjugation of non-believers. Gangs like MS 13 or the Mexican cartels. Plenty more, but you get the idea.

@Option_Other [dailymail.co.uk]

[premier.org.uk]

[shoebat.com]

That's just three examples. I could go on.

3

In 2017 SCOTUS ruled there is no "hate speech" there is simply speech. So the people trying to screech about hate speech are pushing yet one more lie.

3

Hate speech has no definition. The people that like to fling around the term use it to silence those with whom they disagree. So, it's definition varies by who that is and what they are saying. Like many tenets of the left, it's not internally consistent.

3

It is measured subjectively and as a society moves more extreme left anything mentioned that is right of that position is hate speech. It is a term designed to shut down presentations of truth (when it contradicts the party line)

3

Hate speech is anyone of euro decent speaking up for their right to exist and have an opinion on the decline of our culture.

2

"hate speech" is an arbitrary term. that is to say hate speech is just what a self identified person or group of persons says it is at any given moment and the relative factual basis of the spoken words have no bearing on the perception of the listener(s) interpretation of its content. Example: I am an "old white guy" and I make the following observation. Bruce Jenner is a man. Factual though that observation is, it is nevertheless determined to be hate speech. Bruce Jenner makes the following observation; That old white guy is the bane of modern society; this is determined to NOT be hate speech for the following reasons: 1)old white guys are not classified as a victim group even though life for old people is sometimes excrutiatingly difficult. 2)the observation was issued by Bruce Jenner who is individually his own victim class. 3)despite its lack of voracity his statement fits the modern day accepted narrative that homosexual Bruce Jenner can say whatever he likes about old white men and that is good because old white men have it coming to them.

2

Hate speech Should be defined as.... "Speech intended to motivate violence and or discrimination against a group or individuals of a group for nothing more than their being a member of said group or the defining characteristics or practices either physical, religious, cultural or genetic that identify that group." Under this definition terms like White Privilege would and should be hate speech.

Hate speech should not be banned it should be challenged, loudly and openly. Debated exposed and defeated. What hate speech is in practice is thought and speech control by those that can not defend their own biases without the power to silence their detractors!

1

Hate speech - abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.

I got this on Google and there's much to unravel here. Let's start with the first line: Threatening or abusive speech. That is and should be illegal. It's understandable that making threats toward another person or group isn't just infringing on freedom of speech, that crosses a line we need to keep.

The rest though...The rest is negative and isn't nice and isn't always or even usually necessary, but should not be considered 'illegal'

On one hand just because something isn't nice doesn't mean it should be legally stopped, we should be free to choose to be nice or not in this country (USA).

And on the other hand, just because we have freedom of speech here in America shouldn't give people license to say whatever they want to everyone and hurt people just because they can. They CAN, don't get me wrong. But there's some responsibility to that freedom we have and some of it goes in the hands of the ones who CAN speak freely.

I personally think the term is used incorrectly even legally, talking rudely against someone about their sexual orientation should not be punishable but the law.

1

I agree entirely. I don't like the notion that there is any kind of speech that isn't free.

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