Im in favor of hate speech

pretty much I'm in favor of scrapping any law that criminalises someones opinion, we used to have a law of threatening behavior so you had to prove the other person intends immediate violence, and that was it now you have this group and that group you cant offend and its all pretty silly .

I remember the women off east enders having to apologized for say that orientals are inscrutable meaning to say you couldn't tell what they were thinking apparently someone complained .

My sisters exhusbands chinese and she says pretty much the same thing

Anyway I think I'd scrap all hate speech laws

 

as long as the person is not being an absolute dickhead towards an other person then they should be able to say what they want really...

 

as with anything that relates to freedom of expression vs. the possibility of social unrest etc. this surely has to do not so much with what is said as the manner in which it is voiced, the context and intent/desired effect of the words is the really significant factor here. after all, there are certain situations where the intent of speech is to create violence, oppression and segregation. in a situation such as this, is the person speaking not conspiring to create violence or at least to encourage it? this is where words can blur the line between freedom of speech and criminality. i should stress that these are only VERY extreme cases, but the point stands, freedom of speech is extremely problematic.

political correctness is something completely different, however, and there are those that would argue that although the intent of political correctness is to create a state wherein all are treated as equal, the actual result is that political correctness engenders divisions in our society, and that deliberately ignoring cultural differences is inherently reductive, rather, we should celebrate cultural difference, as it is what makes multicultural society so rock and roll.

i should stress that these are not necessarily my own views, but i thought a counter-point might make for some interesting debate. i should also stress that i'm a little drunk, so please forgive any incoherence in this post.

 

There are no laws against offending people or groups.

 

There are. In your own country see the Racial and Religious Hatred Act.

I can't believe more people aren't attacking this thread. Why should the right to an opinion stand at the apex of our rights and not, rather, the right to freedom from racial, or any other sort of hatred? Our society decides what is acceptable in society - as such, we have an extremely broad range of freedoms in relation to speech of all kinds. Where that freedom is limited in a very small number of cases is where it is used to stir up hatred and spread lies.

 

No, that outlaws "inciting hatred", not offending. Offending's fine.

Inciting hatred is basically making threats: "A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred."

This act specifically outlaws using direct threats of violent crime against a racial and religious groups. You can be abusive, you can be insulting, you can be offensive - all fine.

 

You may be right about this specific law. I do not know how that law is applied in the UK - also it is a fairly recent law (2006). In Australia there is an equivalent Racial Hatred Act which clearly prohibits 'offensive behaviour based on racial hatred'. The phrase to 'stir up racial hatred' in the UK Act is much more vague but I would still assume that at least one determinant of that is if something inflammatory or offensive. The "direct threats" of the kind you talk about are already prohibited and are classified as criminal assault so if you are right about the kinds of prohibited acts, I do not see the need for this Act.

But I just looked up the history of that 2006 Act and found you have a more substantial Public Order Act 1986, deeming "(1)A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby". So it seems the 2006 Act was a kind of 'stop-gap' for offenses not covered by the act, and on my research it actually looks like it was made in response to the Nick Griffin aquittal which the government in power was not happy with.

If I'm wrong, there are other UK laws which clearly prohibit offensive racist behaviour - the Football Offenses Act 1991. The Crown prosecution service says "This offence is committed when a group of people, or one person acting alone, chants something of a racialist nature at a designated football match. To prove this offence, the prosecution has to show that the chanting, which means the repeated uttering of words or sounds, was threatening, abusive or insulting to another person because of that person's colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin."

 

Interestingly, this law seems to have been clarified by an amendment in 2008:
"In the circumstances of hatred based on religious belief or on sexual orientation, the relevant act (namely, words, behaviour, written material, or recordings, or programme) must be threatening and not just abusive or insulting."

Thereby clarifying that the key point is that the specific act of intentionally "inciting hatred" by means of threatening words is the relevant criminal offence. Yes, racist chanting at football matches is also something that is specifically outlawed. I can't really imagine anything much more threatening than such a chant coming from a group of football hooligans, given this country's history of large scale football violence, with which that legislation is specifically meant to deal, so it's very clear that here, too, the key point is that inciting hatred where people are likely to fear for their safety as a consequence is the offence.

All of this makes clear that the suggestion that there are laws against "offending people or groups" is a simplistic misunderstanding of current legislation.

 

well as I understand it, John Terry is under police investigation for using a racial slur against Anton Ferdinand on the pitch, which would seem to be a one on one incident rather than an incitement to racial hatred.

Police launch investigation into John Terry-Anton Ferdinand incident

 

In the UK anyway. I know for certain that in Australia there have been many successful lawsuits based on offensive racist comments, nothing threatening. There was one recently involving a journalist commenting on aborigines claiming too many welfare benefits.

 

I guess this would come under racially motivated harassment of an individual. Again, yes it's illegal to victimise a person with abusive speech. Again, there's a big difference between that and not being able to express an opinion because that opinion may be deemed insulting or offensive, as the original poster was trying to claim - it's simply not true.

 

Interesting story ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8921283/Woman-arrested-over-racist-rant-on-tram.html

The woman has apparently been arrested for a "racially motivated public order offence", i.e. the offence itself would be something generic such as the classic "breach of the peace" with racist motivation.

 

How exactly was this lone women with a baby threatening the black and polish people on the tram, she wasn't a horde of football hooligans yet shes going to spend Christmas in jail for her opinion .

Is anyone of the millions of people who made personal threats against her on face book or youtube going to end up in court

 

If she was a Australian aborigine and she said this country's rubbish now and your not real aborigines, to a tram full of white Australians would it be a good idea to jail her ?.

Humans are territorial they are also pretty tribal and she's in a area where she feels her territory is under threat, I find it amusing that shes accused of attacking racial minority's when she is or soon will be the minority in London and in the uk generally and thats planned by her government .

 

Here behaving like that would at least get you kicked off the bus and charged with causing a disturbance, regardless of what the rant was about.

 

so you would be in favor of jailing the aborigine in my example, imagine aborigine women with baby on a bus full of white australians saying the same thing this women said your not real aborigines this country's rubbish now .

Imagine one of the white people said we are only here because we do jobs you aborigines are to lazy to do, because thats what one of the black people said to her, I would think thats a racial supremacist statement saying that white people are inferior but that women isn't on trial

 

She was not arrested for her opinion, holding her opinion is fine. It was a public order offence. Had she chosen to express her opinion in a way that did not cause a public order offence that would've been fine.

 

So she can have her opinion as long as she doesn't tell other people her opinion is that what your saying, because I don't see how she was threatening other people she was sitting down with a kid on her lap and she was out numbered .

I don't see how she could express her opinion and be less threatening

 

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is what I said above.

 

what are you saying then ? how was it a breach of the peace or a public order offense, I can understand she said things that would annoy people but if I was on that tram and some one said what she said to me I would not feel threatened .

Much like I wouldn't feel threatened if a aborigine told me your not a real aborigine and things were better before you white people came here .
I might not like that I might well argue back but I wouldn't feel that I was going to be attacked