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Hate speech

Beaudreaux said:
Some people define hate speech as saying something against an idea, or a ideology, or culture. Not just people. Hate speech is whatever anyone wants it to be so they can use the term as a tool to shut down free speech.
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If person X has a facebook page littered with speech calling for the death of Muslims, Blacks, Christians, Gays, Women or whatever, and they then go out and kill themselves some Muslims, Blacks, Christians, Gays, Women or whatever, then we have a solid path to follow connecting hate speech to criminal action. I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person more severely than someone who simply acts out and shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever.
 
It is somewhat protected in criminal law although there seems to be numerous attempts to curtail it and we are somewhat at the mercy of judges who rule on the law and not on personal opinions.
However it has never been protected in civil law. And we have tons of lawyers who make money off of this.
 
The constitutionality of laws regulating "hate speech" is not nearly as simple as some people here seem to think. In 1942, the Supreme Court held in Chaplinsky that "fighting words"--words "which by their very utterance inflict injury"--are not protected by the First Amendment. But in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell in 1988, the Court reversed an award of money damages to Jerry Falwell for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The claimed source of this distress was a parody Hustler had published which claimed Falwell had lost his virginity to his mother while drunk in an outhouse. The Court distinguished this sort of bare-knuckle character assassination from the fighting words in Chaplinsky.

In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul in 1992, the Court held unconstitutional a city ordinance under which a teenager had been punished for burning a cross in the yard of a black family. Justice Scalia's reasoning was that the ordinance criminalized hurtful speech aimed at racial or religious minorities, while allowing the same sort of speech if aimed at other unprotected groups. The opinion makes clear that some fighting words are not outside the protection of the First Amendment.

In 1993, in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Court upheld a statute that imposed longer sentences for assaults that were motivated by the victim's race. The reasoning was that the statute mostly targeted conduct, rather than speech.

There have been a few more cases since then that I don't have time to get into right now, but just the ones I've mentioned should make clear this issue can't be reduced to some simplistic formula.
 
calamity said:
If person X has a facebook page littered with speech calling for the death of Muslims, Blacks, Christians, Gays, Women or whatever, and they then go out and kill themselves some Muslims, Blacks, Christians, Gays, Women or whatever, then we have a solid path to follow connecting hate speech to criminal action. I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person more severely than someone who simply acts out and shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever.
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The crime is what caused the harm, not the thoughts that were spoken or the motivation behind the crime. However, what a person says before a crime can be used to demonstrate intent, premeditation, and/or motive, which all go toward defining the actual crime. Such as the difference between First Degree Murder and Manslaughter. It makes no difference, or at least it shouldn't, why the person killed another person, other than to define the actual crime. Killing a person by definition is a crime of hate. You don't murder people you like.

That a person of one race killed a person of another race should not make a difference. That a person of one religion killed a person of another religion should not make a difference. That a heterosexual killed a homosexual shouldn't make difference. That a CIS gender person killed a trans person shouldn't make a difference.

The crime is the killing. The defining of the potential charge and potential sentence can be defined in part by motive, but motive is not the crime.

One thing I use to help me evaluate if something should be utilized by me in my thinking, is to reverse or exchange terms in a statement. For instance, in a statement that includes race, I would exchange one race of another and see if the statement still stands. In this instance, we could take your statement, "I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person more severely than someone who simply acts out and shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever." and change it around to say, "I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person less severely than I would someone who shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever."

If it doesn't seem reasonable to punish a person less harshly for killing a person just because they wanted to kill a person, any person, then it's not reasonable to punish a person more severely that killed a person because of some special classification. In both cases, there would be premeditation of murder. One that chose their victim for whatever reason (ease of access, simple opportunity of circumstances, or whatever) while the other was motivated by some other factor. The crime is the same.
 
Beaudreaux said:
The crime is what caused the harm, not the thoughts that were spoken or the motivation behind the crime. However, what a person says before a crime can be used to demonstrate intent, premeditation, and/or motive, which all go toward defining the actual crime. Such as the difference between First Degree Murder and Manslaughter. It makes no difference, or at least it shouldn't, why the person killed another person, other than to define the actual crime. Killing a person by definition is a crime of hate. You don't murder people you like.

That a person of one race killed a person of another race should not make a difference. That a person of one religion killed a person of another religion should not make a difference. That a heterosexual killed a homosexual shouldn't make difference. That a CIS gender person killed a trans person shouldn't make a difference.

The crime is the killing. The defining of the potential charge and potential sentence can be defined in part by motive, but motive is not the crime.

One thing I use to help me evaluate if something should be utilized by me in my thinking, is to reverse or exchange terms in a statement. For instance, in a statement that includes race, I would exchange one race of another and see if the statement still stands. In this instance, we could take your statement, "I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person more severely than someone who simply acts out and shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever." and change it around to say, "I see nothing wrong with punishing such a person less severely than I would someone who shoots a Muslim, Black, Christian, Gay, Woman or whatever."

If it doesn't seem reasonable to punish a person less harshly for killing a person just because they wanted to kill a person, any person, then it's not reasonable to punish a person more severely that killed a person because of some special classification. In both cases, there would be premeditation of murder. One that chose their victim for whatever reason (ease of access, simple opportunity of circumstances, or whatever) while the other was motivated by some other factor. The crime is the same.
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The issue is not that the crime was interracial or interreligious. The issue is that ideology is an aggravating factor in some crimes. From what I've read, crimes of that nature are more egregious, and perpetrators of them also have higher incidents of recidivism, which makes sense.
 
Serenity said:
The line for me is when hate speech crosses over into incitement to violence. I have a major issue with allowing that.

He's not American but Anjem Choudary springs to mind here. I support his incarceration.
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Incitement to violence is one of only a very few First Amendment exceptions, and the bar it has to leap to pass Constitutional muster is high.

I'm not sure where the idea that "hate speech isn't covered by free speech" got going, but I sure see a lot of people say it.
 
calamity said:
I disagree. State of mind is an aggravating factor when committing crimes.

If someone kills their wife for a large insurance payout, it's usually punished more severely than if he put a bullet in her head when catching her in bed with a neighbor. Same applies to hate. If a person kills someone or beats them up due to ideological idealism, it's punished more severely than if they did it because they were just having a bad day.
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Just because we're currently doing it that way does not mean that it's the right way to handle things. A man's incorrect actions should be punished, not his thoughts. It is impossible to really know how he was feeling or thinking, and it is sophistry to claim some judge or jury would be able to.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Just because we're currently doing it that way does not mean that it's the right way to handle things. A man's incorrect actions should be punished, not his thoughts. It is impossible to really know how he was feeling or thinking, and it is sophistry to claim some judge or jury would be able to.
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If someone has screwed up thoughts and they commit a crime based on those screwed up thoughts, damned straight I want to see them punished more severely.
 
calamity said:
If someone has screwed up thoughts and they commit a crime based on those screwed up thoughts, damned straight I want to see them punished more severely.
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Why don't you just kill him? It would save time and money.

So a man should be punished for his thoughts.....
 
Thoreau72 said:
Why don't you just kill him? It would save time and money.

So a man should be punished for his thoughts.....
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If those thoughts lead to illegal actions, they can certainly be used as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
 
calamity said:
If those thoughts lead to illegal actions, they can certainly be used as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
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Only if you're a priest.....:roll:
 
CLAX1911 said:
As of late I've heard the term "hate speech being thrown around a lot. So, my question is, doesn't the first amendment protect speech regardless of its emotional motivations?

The more I see this word tossed around the more it seems that people think it isn't protected.

Your thoughts?
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Hate speech is a term used almost exclusively by the left to reflect speech they dislike or disagree with. Luckily, however, the Constitution makes no such distinctions. But for those liberals who think 'hate speech' should not be protected speech, they can visit North Korea and see how a ban on that sort of thing works out for people.
 
calamity said:
You can say what you want, but if you start yelling N-word this and N-word that while shooting black people, you're going to be charged with a hate crime. Same applies for pretty much any group you do that to, including whites.
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Is that seriously your ****ing argument?
 
Serenity said:
And yet at the time of the Choudary discussions, there were posters suggesting that freedom of speech pretty much trumps all.

Edit to add: Just saw Matchlight's post. There's another example.
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Free speech does trump all, but not all speech is protected, hence it isn't free speech.

The confusion begins when people don't understand that there's a difference free speech and unprotected speech.

I've seen it ignorantly argued umpteen times on this forum that not all free speech is protected by The Constitution.
 
calamity said:
If someone has screwed up thoughts and they commit a crime based on those screwed up thoughts, damned straight I want to see them punished more severely.
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Where does the superpowered mind reading come from? I havent seen that app yet.
 
akyron said:
Where does the superpowered mind reading come from? I havent seen that app yet.
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Facebook, witnesses, friends, family and any other place where the dumbass said he hates so and so group of people before committing a crime against them.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Only if you're a priest.....:roll:
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Ok, articulated thoughts. Clearly no one knows what someone is thinking until they tell someone else what they are thinking. But, I sort of figured we all knew that since...you know--this thread is about speech. :roll:
 
Hate speech is stupid and all it does is give extra protection to classes of people...

I am gonna kill you man because you are rude...
I am gonna kill you man because you are white...

Why should threatening a white guy, or gay, lesbian, Jew, black, woman, etc. give the one threatening extra jail time?
 
CLAX1911 said:
As of late I've heard the term "hate speech being thrown around a lot. So, my question is, doesn't the first amendment protect speech regardless of its emotional motivations?

The more I see this word tossed around the more it seems that people think it isn't protected.

Your thoughts?
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Hate speech is protected by the first amendment. The limits of the first are reached when speech causes physical harm, The most notable example yelling fire in a crowded theater, which can injure or kill people, so doing so without valid reason can be abuse beyond the protections of the amendment.

Other things such as libel can be challenged in court, but the first amendment still protects the speech, it simply does not protect you from legal challenges of that speech over things like damaged reputation, ie it protects the speech but does not protect from the consequences of that speech.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Hate speech is stupid.
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/agree

You dont need more than that.

A crime is a crime under the law. Keep it simple.

Less bureaucracy. Less cost. Less processing time. Less sensationalism.

Same jailtime.
 
calamity said:
Looks that way. Why, what part of that statement confuses you?
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You're comparing public speech with assault/attempted murder/murder. :lamo
 
apdst said:
You're comparing public speech with assault/attempted murder/murder. :lamo
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Uh, no. I am combining public speech with assault/attempted murder/murder.
 
beerftw said:
Hate speech is protected by the first amendment. The limits of the first are reached when speech causes physical harm, The most notable example yelling fire in a crowded theater, which can injure or kill people, so doing so without valid reason can be abuse beyond the protections of the amendment.

Other things such as libel can be challenged in court, but the first amendment still protects the speech, it simply does not protect you from legal challenges of that speech over things like damaged reputation, ie it protects the speech but does not protect from the consequences of that speech.
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I love that old saw about yelling fire in a crowded theater. :lol:

Does that mean that if one does encounter a fire in a crowded theater, one should remain silent?

The whole "hate speech" thing seems right out of Minority Reports somehow.
 
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