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Is hate good? Should we allow the censorship of hate speech?


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Is hate good? Should we allow the censorship of hate speech?

 

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Proverbs 3:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

 

God seems to think correcting hateful thoughts or actions is good and correction often times includes showing hate for what is though or done.

 

I have tested the notions of and concepts of hate and love and find both to be quite useful.

 

There is a time to love and a time to hate even in these days where Google and others who control the net are actively censoring us?

 

Should we allow ourselves to hate and speak against those things that deserve to be hated or should we allow the censors to muzzle us?

 

Are censors coming to take away our freedom of speech if it has a hate component?

 

"First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me." – Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)”

 

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." - Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

 

Does hate serve a good purpose for us?

 

For evil to grow, all good people who know what to hate need do is allow censorship and the end of freedom of speech.

 

Regards

DL

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Generally speaking, I oppose the concept of censorship. I do, however, believe it necessary to restrict speech that's intended to incite violence against members of any specific group, which historically has been the intent of hate speech laws in democratic countries. In a free and democratic society, there must be no topics that are presumptively deemed to be beyond the realm of public discourse. The role of a responsible citizenry is to ensure that debate is fairly and civilly conducted. The tendency to bully others into silence has seemingly increased, and particularly so in academia, which is disturbing. Democracy can't survive without freedom of speech and anybody who says otherwise is either a fool or is taking the rest of us for fools. 

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1 hour ago, turningrite said:

Generally speaking, I oppose the concept of censorship. I do, however, believe it necessary to restrict speech that's intended to incite violence against members of any specific group, which historically has been the intent of hate speech laws in democratic countries. In a free and democratic society, there must be no topics that are presumptively deemed to be beyond the realm of public discourse. The role of a responsible citizenry is to ensure that debate is fairly and civilly conducted. The tendency to bully others into silence has seemingly increased, and particularly so in academia, which is disturbing. Democracy can't survive without freedom of speech and anybody who says otherwise is either a fool or is taking the rest of us for fools. 

We are on the same page buddy.

A slight caveat to your incitement to violence. History shows that even that might pass. Here I am thinking of the hate speech that may well have included violence before the North warred against the slavery and slave ownership of the South in the U.S. The same goes for the hate speech against Germany before we entered WWII.

Regards

DL 

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32 minutes ago, Altai said:

If it is a hate that will harm society life, it must not be allowed.

Please read my last.

The speech against slavery, even to the point of inciting violence, I think, was justified even though it did harm to the slave owning South and it's people. That was indeed bringing harm to the society in the South. That may not be the type of harm you meant.

Regards

DL

 

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39 minutes ago, Altai said:

If it is a hate that will harm society life, it must not be allowed.

It depends on what you mean by the word "hate." There's been an increasing tendency in the West to equate the meaning of hate merely with perceived offense. This is untenable in the Western intellectual context, which is grounded in a philosophy of challenge and objective criticism. In Canada, for instance, criticism of some religious practices and beliefs is often conflated these days with "phobia" or fear and is thus held to be promoting hatred, even where there's no obvious justification for this conclusion. Even defending secularism, which an eminently reasonable concept in a pluralistic society, gets lumped by some into the category of promoting hatred. We need to get back to basics here, and acknowledge the primacy of free speech before we lose sight of the virtues of Western intellectual inquiry and criticism.

Edited by turningrite
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2 hours ago, French Patriot said:

Please read my last.

The speech against slavery, even to the point of inciting violence, I think, was justified even though it did harm to the slave owning South and it's people. That was indeed bringing harm to the society in the South. That may not be the type of harm you meant.

Regards

DL

 


I dont think I gave a reply that difficult to understand. If slave owning is regarded as something legal in your society, then people must not be allowed to speak hateful against owning slave, you cant speak hateful and incite hatred against something legal. If you think that slavery is something wrong, you should ban it first. If you allow it but you also think that its something wrong, you are probably metally sick.

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On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 7:06 PM, Altai said:


I dont think I gave a reply that difficult to understand. If slave owning is regarded as something legal in your society, then people must not be allowed to speak hateful against owning slave, you cant speak hateful and incite hatred against something legal. If you think that slavery is something wrong, you should ban it first. If you allow it but you also think that its something wrong, you are probably metally sick.

You are the sick one if you do not speak against bad laws.

We have been adjusting, reversing and improving our laws forever because people spoke out against bad laws.

You would have women shut up when there were laws preventing them from voting and would also not speak up againt anti-gay laws.

You might want to start thinking before I let my bully attitude start talking about your I Q.

Regards

DL

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4 hours ago, French Patriot said:

You are the sick one if you do not speak against bad laws.

We have been adjusting, reversing and improving our laws forever because people spoke out against bad laws.

You would have women shut up when there were laws preventing them from voting and would also not speak up againt anti-gay laws.

You might want to start thinking before I let my bully attitude start talking about your I Q.

Regards

DL


Nonsense. If something is legal, this means people are allowed to perform it. This is why its called democracy. If you or your represantives in the parliament think that its something wrong and should be changed, there are legal prodecures to apply for a change. This is the only thing that you or your represantives can do to involve. In other case, it will be just a chaos because everyone has their own personal interests and therefore everyone has some laws they dont like and will speak against with hatred.

So as I say always, if you have a problem,  go to the closes court and prove it or just shut up.

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On 6/14/2018 at 5:06 PM, Altai said:


I dont think I gave a reply that difficult to understand. If slave owning is regarded as something legal in your society, then people must not be allowed to speak hateful against owning slave, you cant speak hateful and incite hatred against something legal. If you think that slavery is something wrong, you should ban it first. If you allow it but you also think that its something wrong, you are probably metally sick.

I think you are just missing possible context. If you have a system of laws pre-established before you AND that system bars you from having the power to alter it regardless, 'free speech' itself is all you have to compete against those systems by getting others to hear you. 

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17 minutes ago, Scott Mayers said:

I think you are just missing possible context. If you have a system of laws pre-established before you AND that system bars you from having the power to alter it regardless, 'free speech' itself is all you have to compete against those systems by getting others to hear you. 


Its called democracy because people have the power of changing it. (According to claims, I am not a democracy fan)

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18 hours ago, Altai said:


Its called democracy because people have the power of changing it. (According to claims, I am not a democracy fan)

There is always pressure from somewhere to TRY to hold specific power regardless of the people's will. But the people's will is also as much a right to question. At different times and contexts, the popular view is just as problematic. So there will always be a continuing battle to BE the ones in power, whether you belong to a popular crowd or to some specialized interest of some matter or other.

Dubai is autocratic but CAN be 'healthy' without essential democratic power. But this is only due to the fortune of wealth within that population. Democratic reforms occur where there is often MORE competition to survival (contrasts). 

Being from Anatolia, have you read any Socrates? His own voice argued why the extreme of democracy they had then was actually disruptive. That is why he (through Plato) suggested "Republicanism", a representative type of democracy. Had we not had voices that differ even in extremes, we wouldn't have discovered even BETTER means to improve ourselves. 

Free speech does NOT refer to the 'values' of the particular speech. (addition for clarity on edit): That is, free speech does not require being 'good' or 'bad' to the listeners, but to be heard first and foremost, regardless of skill, quality, or subjective meaning for or against it by all people.

Edited by Scott Mayers
critical: last sentence I forgot the "NOT" and had to add it.
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On 6/16/2018 at 12:28 PM, French Patriot said:

You are the sick one if you do not speak against bad laws.

She lives in a country which defines illegal speech as anything which is unflattering towards the government or towards Islam. And fully supports those restrictions.

And that is the problem with allowing governments to define 'hate speech' too broadly as there is a tendency among the autocratic to ban anything which might point out their own inadequacies or corruption.

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21 hours ago, Scott Mayers said:

There is always pressure from somewhere to TRY to hold specific power regardless of the people's will. But the people's will is also as much a right to question. At different times and contexts, the popular view is just as problematic. So there will always be a continuing battle to BE the ones in power, whether you belong to a popular crowd or to some specialized interest of some matter or other.

Dubai is autocratic but CAN be 'healthy' without essential democratic power. But this is only due to the fortune of wealth within that population. Democratic reforms occur where there is often MORE competition to survival (contrasts). 

Being from Anatolia, have you read any Socrates? His own voice argued why the extreme of democracy they had then was actually disruptive. That is why he (through Plato) suggested "Republicanism", a representative type of democracy. Had we not had voices that differ even in extremes, we wouldn't have discovered even BETTER means to improve ourselves. 

Free speech does NOT refer to the 'values' of the particular speech. (addition for clarity on edit): That is, free speech does not require being 'good' or 'bad' to the listeners, but to be heard first and foremost, regardless of skill, quality, or subjective meaning for or against it by all people.


I dont like to read or write long posts. Free speech is being abused most of the time to spread lies and provoke people. For example according to Oxford Universty, 49% of the politics news in my country is fake. This is the result of uncontrolled free speech. It should not be allowed, its sooooooo dangerous. If you have an objection against something, if you think that there are somethings wrong, you just need to go to the court. Positive free speech will end up with a happy public life, negative one will just cause a chaos. Most of the govts controls people's speech while they falsely make them to believe they have freedom of speech. 

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On 6/16/2018 at 5:33 PM, Altai said:


Nonsense. If something is legal, this means people are allowed to perform it. This is why its called democracy. If you or your represantives in the parliament think that its something wrong and should be changed, there are legal prodecures to apply for a change. This is the only thing that you or your represantives can do to involve. In other case, it will be just a chaos because everyone has their own personal interests and therefore everyone has some laws they dont like and will speak against with hatred.

So as I say always, if you have a problem,  go to the closes court and prove it or just shut up.

It's actually difficult in the courts to prove "libel" or "slander". You have to prove malicious intent. This sounds unfair, but it is done for a reason, the reason being that, otherwise, the government would be able to label something as libelous that it isn't comfortable with the people hearing (e.g., the truth).

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6 hours ago, Altai said:


I dont like to read or write long posts. Free speech is being abused most of the time to spread lies and provoke people. For example according to Oxford Universty, 49% of the politics news in my country is fake. This is the result of uncontrolled free speech. It should not be allowed, its sooooooo dangerous. If you have an objection against something, if you think that there are somethings wrong, you just need to go to the court. Positive free speech will end up with a happy public life, negative one will just cause a chaos. Most of the govts controls people's speech while they falsely make them to believe they have freedom of speech. 

The 'shortest' post is none at all. Would you respect it if someone simply told you to shut up?

Imagine that you are a family pet, like a dog, in a large family where no one is feeding you because each person there is busy doing their own thing happily thinking one of the other family members is feeding you. You try to get attention with one of them by nudging them but get, "not now, puppy, I don't want to play."

Then you go to another family member and get treated the same regardless of what you do. Eventually if you keep getting trivialized and more hungry, you whimper a little confused not being understood or heard. But you get rebuked for the whimper being interpreted as a trivial ploy to get attention.

Eventually if this continues, do you expect that you would be wise to go lay down somewhere? If you get more frustrated and bark, others might notice but think that you are getting more annoying when they are trying to enjoy their supper in peace and quite. At some point would you bite? If you bite would this make things better? But if you DON'T, they'll approve of your silence but you starve to death.

What do you do? 

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13 hours ago, JamesHackerMP said:

It's actually difficult in the courts to prove "libel" or "slander". You have to prove malicious intent. This sounds unfair, but it is done for a reason, the reason being that, otherwise, the government would be able to label something as libelous that it isn't comfortable with the people hearing (e.g., the truth).


This is what I mean, if you are not able to prove what you claim, you simply should not be allowed to claim. According to your mind, I can shot someone and I can claim that I didnt intend to shot him but I just  thought that there was a snake on his head and trying to shot that snake and I should not be punished for killing someone ??? does it sound logical ??? Also if you are a person with good intends, you would not make claims that you cant prove. 

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26 minutes ago, Altai said:

Also if you are a person with good intends, you would not make claims that you cant prove. 

By your logic, then, shouldn't religion and religious speech be banned? Almost nothing about religion can be demonstrated to be true and yet religion in many aspects foments discord between people. The basic premise of all monotheistic religions, the existence of a God, is definitionally beyond proof. John Lennon's song 'Imagine" posits a paradise in which there is no religion. Did he get it right?

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On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:33 PM, Altai said:


Nonsense. If something is legal, this means people are allowed to perform it. This is why its called democracy. If you or your represantives in the parliament think that its something wrong and should be changed, there are legal prodecures to apply for a change. This is the only thing that you or your represantives can do to involve. In other case, it will be just a chaos because everyone has their own personal interests and therefore everyone has some laws they dont like and will speak against with hatred.

So as I say always, if you have a problem,  go to the closes court and prove it or just shut up.

Been there and done that in real life. I fought the law and the law won, but they cheated.

That same law I fought has now been repealed.

I can tell you from experience that it is you who should do as you bid me.

I have the scars. Do you?

Regards

DL 

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23 hours ago, Argus said:

She lives in a country which defines illegal speech as anything which is unflattering towards the government or towards Islam. And fully supports those restrictions.

And that is the problem with allowing governments to define 'hate speech' too broadly as there is a tendency among the autocratic to ban anything which might point out their own inadequacies or corruption.

I agree and technology is at a level where corruption will be a lot harder to hide.

That marker, like most of the markers we think of as evil, are going down nicely.

Our demographers are happy.

Regards

DL

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19 hours ago, Altai said:


I dont like to read or write long posts. Free speech is being abused most of the time to spread lies and provoke people. For example according to Oxford Universty, 49% of the politics news in my country is fake. This is the result of uncontrolled free speech. It should not be allowed, its sooooooo dangerous. If you have an objection against something, if you think that there are somethings wrong, you just need to go to the court. Positive free speech will end up with a happy public life, negative one will just cause a chaos. Most of the govts controls people's speech while they falsely make them to believe they have freedom of speech. 

I agree that lies and those that use them should be held responsible for any harm that comes of the lies.

Especially in the religious lies.

Regards

DL

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On 6/14/2018 at 4:13 PM, turningrite said:

1) In Canada, for instance, criticism of some religious practices and beliefs is often conflated these days with "phobia" or fear and is thus held to be promoting hatred, even where there's no obvious justification for this conclusion.

2) Even defending secularism, which an eminently reasonable concept in a pluralistic society, gets lumped by some into the category of promoting hatred.

3) We need to get back to basics here, and acknowledge the primacy of free speech before we lose sight of the virtues of Western intellectual inquiry and criticism.

1) By whom ?

2) Some ?  Who ?

3) Why do we "need" to ?  You haven't shown anything at all, but pointed a flashlight at shadows in the corner.  "Some".  There is no doubt that liberal group-think exists.  Is it worse than the opposite ?  Is either school of thought anything to worry about at all or just something to chatter about ?

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1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) By whom ?

2) Some ?  Who ?

3) Why do we "need" to ?  You haven't shown anything at all, but pointed a flashlight at shadows in the corner.  "Some".  There is no doubt that liberal group-think exists.  Is it worse than the opposite ?  Is either school of thought anything to worry about at all or just something to chatter about ?

You're kidding, right? The politically correct left has led the charge on trying to restrict criticism of religious practices and beliefs by conflating such criticism with fomenting fear and phobia. You were around for the M-103 debate, right? The CBC's Neil MacDonald wrote an excellent article on the growing tendency to seek codified restrictions on free speech, as exemplified by M-103. http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/anti-islamophobia-motion-1.3994374 

I'm not shining any flashlights into dark corners, as you suggest, but pointing to issues, views, trends and facts that are more or less in plain sight.

You appear to operate on the premise that these forums should function as essentially academic-style debates, whereby theses must be presented and evidence provided to validate conclusions. Of course, the real world doesn't work in this fashion. And online forums certainly don't do so. To me, your expectation seems a form of bullying, which is intended to to shut down the expression of views you don't like and where you resort to ad hominem dismissals to counter those who express opinions with which you disagree.

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14 minutes ago, turningrite said:

1)  The CBC's Neil MacDonald wrote an excellent article on the growing tendency to seek codified restrictions on free speech, as exemplified by M-103. http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/anti-islamophobia-motion-1.3994374 

2) You appear to operate on the premise that these forums should function as essentially academic-style debates, ...

3) whereby theses must be presented and evidence provided to validate conclusions.

4) Of course, the real world doesn't work in this fashion.

5) And online forums certainly don't do so.

6) To me, your expectation seems a form of bullying, which is intended to to shut down the expression of views you don't like and where you resort to ad hominem dismissals to counter those who express opinions with which you disagree.

1) Yes, I was just looking for specifics and an example.  M-103 hysteria did not come to pass, for the record.

2) Not really.  I am fine with people tossing things out, but we have posters who love to make an extreme claim then when you come back on them it gets watered down, and dialed back, and the examples you ask for don't quite match what was stated.  

3) Oh, I see the problem.  You are confusing Rules and Guidelines with censorship.  For this very site that you are posting on, "If you are stating a fact, be prepared to back it up with some official sources (website links etc). It is also important to structure your post in a way that everyone can understand."

4) See 3)

5) See 3)

6) If you can't back up what you are saying and make it understandable how is it bullying to get you to back it up and clarify ?  I personally love to learn points of view from wise conservatives with a lot of knowledge.  My goal is to separate those folks from the ones who learned about politics in the last year and love to rush online, headstrong, with their newly learned clichés.  

-------------

The trouble is, pluralism and Western democracy works pretty well and most of the discussion around accommodating Muslims (which is what we are talking about 90% of the time) relies on noise to make the conversation interesting.
 

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1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

The trouble is, pluralism and Western democracy works pretty well and most of the discussion around accommodating Muslims (which is what we are talking about 90% of the time) relies on noise to make the conversation interesting.

 

I think there's a broad range of topics where free speech has increasingly been under attack. When raising concerns on topics like diversity, gender equality and immigration, among others, the politically correct tendency is to shut critics down, even if nothing that's said is particularly incorrect or even controversial in its own right. Often, labels like "dog whistle" are applied to dismiss the assumed and/or alleged intent of critics. Accommodating Muslims is only a minor component of the broader debate about free speech. Did you read Neil MacDonald's article, which notes that there has been a trend toward increasingly narrowing the parameters of acceptable discussion and debate? Mr. MacDonald holds that M-103 is a good example of this (anti-democratic) trend.

The issue is not whether one can back up what they're saying but whether there is a requirement in online fora that commenters must do so in order to express an opinion. If one disagrees with a comment, one is free to provide a countervailing opinion and back it up with arguments and/or facts if one so chooses. One can simply disagree, if one wishes. I spent years in academia and online fora are not academia and it's unrealistic to expect those who use them to observe academic process. Simply because most don't post in an academic fashion doesn't necessarily discredit their views. As for your critique of style, I don't want to get nasty or personal. I try to ensure that my posts are comprehensible to reasonably objective readers. I suppose one can cherry-pick aspects of a post with which one disagrees even while agreeing with the basic premise(s) of such post, but to be fair such qualified disagreement(s) should be clarified in a response. This is not about rules and guidelines vs censorship. Rather, it's a matter of promoting respectful and productive general discourse.    

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