Prof Wants KKK Banned From University

[Elfdart]

The anti-hate law in Canada already has a loophole you could drive an oil tanker through: The "God Told Me To Say It" exception!

The full name of the KKK is "The Christian Knights of the Klu Klux Klan". They say their hatred is based on the Bible: Jews killed Jesus, Asians and Indians are the accursed descendants of Cain and Blacks are the accursed descendants of Ham, who had the misfortune of seeing his dad (Noah) get drunk and whip out his dick, and are slated by god to chop wood and carry water. And don't get them started on homosexuals.

[Darth Wong]

The anti-hate law in Canada already has a loophole you could drive an oil tanker through: The "God Told Me To Say It" exception!

Agreed. I don't like this loophole either.

The full name of the KKK is "The Christian Knights of the Klu Klux Klan". They say their hatred is based on the Bible: Jews killed Jesus, Asians and Indians are the accursed descendants of Cain and Blacks are the accursed descendants of Ham, who had the misfortune of seeing his dad (Noah) get drunk and whip out his dick, and are slated by god to chop wood and carry water. And don't get them started on homosexuals.

True, they could try to use the loophole to escape prosecution. But they would have a tough time making that case, since a judge could easily argue that it is merely creative interpretation (certainly nowhere near as explicit or unambigious as that "it is an abomination" homophobic stuff in Leviticus).

But how does a loophole justify your claim that hate-speech laws will lead to McCarthyism? If anything, it means that the hate-speech laws are weaker than they should be, not excessively restrictive as you suggest.

[Elfdart]

That's why Nazi Holocaust deniers like David Irving and Ernst Zundel are constantly trying to get prosecuted up there: They love it when the authorities try to slap them with fines or deport them.

And interestingly enough, they have never managed to create successful followings.

A sure way to peddle a book or website in this country is to tell people that it's being suppressed in another country. Holocaust denial, Princess Diana gossip, you name it. Irving and Zundel don't just use their problems in Canada to try to win converts and money up there. They also use it in fundraisers in this country and elsewhere.

When the government censors or bans "hate", they do four things that actually further the cause of the skinheads:

1) They give them free publicity. Yes, there are people shallow and stupid enough to see a cross-burning on the tube and say "COOL! How can I join?"

2) A large number of people are instantly on the side of those the government is against. If the state brands a group as outlaws because of what they THINK, the group -no matter how vile- will get sympathy. What speech codes have done in schools here in the US is encourage a new generation of YAF creeps to go out of their way to bait blacks, immigrants, homosexuals.

3) Assorted losers and misfits realize that a sure way to get attention (and money) is not just the shock value of being an overt bigot, but the publicity they get from the media and state. Being a hatemonger can pay well since a fool and his money... are welcomed everywhere. At the very least, these shitstains can parley their hatred into a guest shot on Jerry Springer.

Last time I checked, Springer's guests got $300 per appearance.

And last time I checked, Springer was an American show. Please present your evidence (not just speculative predictions) that Canadian hate-crime and hate-speech laws have actually encouraged this behaviour.

See above.

Do you think Pastor Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps wants to WORK for a living? This free publicity puts money in their pockets and helps them attract followers.

So let me get this straight: you feel he will be more able to get his message out if he is thrown in jail and his literature is destroyed?

Yes.

4) When the state decides what is acceptable speech, one person's definition of "hate" becomes just as good anyone else's -as long as they can muster enough votes.

Bullshit. Hate speech is explicitly defined as advocation of violence or discrimnation against an ethnic or religious minority. It's not just "whatever we think is 'hate' today".

Today, it's people who bash blacks, immigrants and homosexuals. Tomorrow it could be people who think certain Christians are off the deep end who are brought into court on charges.

"Slippery slope" fallacy.

"Slippery slope" is not a fallacy. Like Dracula, once certain people are invited through the doorway, it's pretty fucking hard to get rid of them. See below.

What a lot of people don't know about the Red Scare of the late 40s and early 50s, is that the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committe) wasn't started to harass communists, left-wingers or liberals -it was founded to investigate American Nazis ("Silvershirts") and other fascists. CPUSA supported HUAC at first! They only complained that Trotskyists weren't being hounded by the FBI.

Interestingly enough, these agencies were granted the power to do this despite a total absence of hate-speech laws. Kind of blows a hole in your argument, doesn't it?

Not at all. This is an example of someone using a law intended for one purpose for something sinister. The newly-formed Department of Homeland Security (which was supposedly formed to prevent another 9-11 attack) was used to hound legislators in Texas who were boycotting an attempt to disenfranchise minority voters.

A sufficiently hateful population will make these kinds of things happen, hate-speech laws or no hate-speech laws.

Exactly, so why bother with such laws in the first place?

Don't be so eager to use the power of the state against those who practice bigotry. That stick could easily be picked up by the bigots to club you!

Prove it. Show how the existing hate-speech laws could be used to arbitrarily shut down anyone who says anything that annoys anyone.[/quote]

We don't have hate speech laws here, but public schools and universities have speech codes that are similar. What was intended to prevent (for example) harassment of black students has been used to try to ban "black studies" courses, intimidate black teachers and professors, harass black students and allow bigots to appear as martyrs. What do you think the hysteria over "political correctness" was all about? Bigots were able to use the codes to try to pass themselves off as the second coming of Sir Thomas More who were being sent to the block for saying "coon".

If such codes were made into law, and the penalty was a fine or imprisonment instead of a reprimand, they would REALLY get mileage out of it.

[SirNitram]

"Slippery slope" is not a fallacy. Like Dracula, once certain people are invited through the doorway, it's pretty fucking hard to get rid of them. See below.

Stop writing. Get off the soapbox and put it away. Go directly to some centre or repository of knowledge and educate yourself on basic logical principles. THEN come back. If you are ignorant enough of such things as to honestly think Slippery Slope is not fallacious, you are in need of such self-education, and you're going to get flamed out of your mind if you keep repeating such.

[The Aliens]

"Slippery slope" is not a fallacy. Like Dracula, once certain people are invited through the doorway, it's pretty fucking hard to get rid of them. See below.

Wrong.

Also, please use quotes correctly, that red is a nuisance to read.

[Glocksman]

We do have a functioning democracy.
But we do not have this absolutly free Free Speech. It has certain limits, which, mostly, go down to either our bad history, or from article 1 of our constitution: Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
This is THE defining principle of the German Basic Law. Everything else is subordinbate to it, even free speech (which is called Freedom of Expression around here...)

The US has limits on the right of free speech as well. The most well known one is that you cannot threaten the life of the President.

I guess the difference here is how far each of our societies are willing to go when setting the limits of free speech.

I have to disagree with the "ignore them and they'll go away" crowd. When the Klan marches unapposed, kids who see the march begin to think that the Klan is acceptable. Only by demonstrating that the Klan goes against what the community considers to be acceptable can we keep them from gaining very many new members.

The problem with banning or counterdemonstrating is that some of your young rebel without a clue types will see the fuss and think 'Wow. I can piss off half the town by painting a rebel flag on the roof of my car and wearing a bedsheet'.

[Elfdart]

Considering that most legal systems rely on precedent, it's not a fallacy to think a law designed to suppress one form of speech might (A) be twisted to suppress another or (B) set a precedent for more laws that stifle free speech. A fallacy would be to claim that gay marriage will lead to goatropers marrying their goats.

I would think that after the anti-pornography farce in the early 1990s, Canadians would have learned. Thanks to two American meddlers (Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon), Canada's Supreme Court ruled that "degrading" images of women could be banned. But what did customs seize at the border? Books by Andrea Dworkin! The authorities also went out of their way to use the new precedent and climate to pick on gay and lesbian groups.

Here in the US, the Comstock Act (Anthony Comstock made John Ashcroft look like Hugh Hefner) and other anti-porn laws were mostly used to go after medical journals, birth control advocates, sculptors and even a book on evolution "Why Do Marsupials Propogate?". If you think the anti-hate laws won't be used in a similar way, you're kidding yourself.

[salm]

He didn't state specifically that banning Nazi propaganda was good. What he did state was that free speech is highly overrated.

The problem with that statement is that you cannot have a functioning democracy without the free exchange of ideas.
Free speech is the root of a democracy because the people need information on which to base their decisions.

i still think that free speech is highly overrated.
a free exchange of ideas is something different. ideas can be spread with an objective point of view, analysing these ideas more than promoting them.

for example i can write a book or hold a speech which tells people about the nazi idea, without spreading hate against jews or roma.

totally free speech on the other hand would allow promoting hate against certain groups. it also allows spreading outright lies about people or groups.
that´s why i find free speech overrated.

[General Zod]

Considering that most legal systems rely on precedent, it's not a fallacy to think a law designed to suppress one form of speech might (A) be twisted to suppress another or (B) set a precedent for more laws that stifle free speech. A fallacy would be to claim that gay marriage will lead to goatropers marrying their goats.

I would think that after the anti-pornography farce in the early 1990s, Canadians would have learned. Thanks to two American meddlers (Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon), Canada's Supreme Court ruled that "degrading" images of women could be banned. But what did customs seize at the border? Books by Andrea Dworkin! The authorities also went out of their way to use the new precedent and climate to pick on gay and lesbian groups.

Here in the US, the Comstock Act (Anthony Comstock made John Ashcroft look like Hugh Hefner) and other anti-porn laws were mostly used to go after medical journals, birth control advocates, sculptors and even a book on evolution "Why Do Marsupials Propogate?". If you think the anti-hate laws won't be used in a similar way, you're kidding yourself.

instead of arguing that a potential law is bad because someone might abuse the law in the future how about arguing why the law is bad based on its own merits? Your own argument is indeed fallacious, and little better than fearmongering.

[Elfdart]

Considering that most legal systems rely on precedent, it's not a fallacy to think a law designed to suppress one form of speech might (A) be twisted to suppress another or (B) set a precedent for more laws that stifle free speech. A fallacy would be to claim that gay marriage will lead to goatropers marrying their goats.

I would think that after the anti-pornography farce in the early 1990s, Canadians would have learned. Thanks to two American meddlers (Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon), Canada's Supreme Court ruled that "degrading" images of women could be banned. But what did customs seize at the border? Books by Andrea Dworkin! The authorities also went out of their way to use the new precedent and climate to pick on gay and lesbian groups.

Here in the US, the Comstock Act (Anthony Comstock made John Ashcroft look like Hugh Hefner) and other anti-porn laws were mostly used to go after medical journals, birth control advocates, sculptors and even a book on evolution "Why Do Marsupials Propogate?". If you think the anti-hate laws won't be used in a similar way, you're kidding yourself.

instead of arguing that a potential law is bad because someone might abuse the law in the future how about arguing why the law is bad based on its own merits? Your own argument is indeed fallacious, and little better than fearmongering.

Because that's not the way law works. It's not the way politics goes, either. Laws that are intended for one thing can easily be twisted to do another OR establish a precedent for similar laws whether in the courts or the legislatures. Do you think speech codes on US college campuses have curtailed race-baiting or discrimination? If you do, I've got some Enron stock I'd like to sell you.

[General Zod]

Because that's not the way law works. It's not the way politics goes, either. Laws that are intended for one thing can easily be twisted to do another OR establish a precedent for similar laws whether in the courts or the legislatures. Do you think speech codes on US college campuses have curtailed race-baiting or discrimination? If you do, I've got some Enron stock I'd like to sell you.

are you saying that fearmongering is an acceptable debating technique then?

[Elfdart]

No, but people should consider the likely consequences. I've already given several examples of laws intended for one thing being used for another. There are countless others. Nobody who passed the RICO laws designed to fight the Mafia had any idea that they would be used to harass peaceful demonstrators based on their political leanings -and the leanings of the prosecutors -but that's exactly what happened.

[Darth Wong]

Considering that most legal systems rely on precedent, it's not a fallacy to think a law designed to suppress one form of speech might (A) be twisted to suppress another

Then show how. Show how the wording of the hate speech law could be interpreted to justify random persecutions. Unless you do that, you are engaging in nothing more than baseless fearmongering and speculation. Particularly since these laws have been in place in other nations for decades without these dire consequences coming to light, and (as you showed with your examples) a government which truly wants to foist this upon its people doesn't actually need such laws in place anyway.

[Elfdart]

The prosecutions are anything but random. A left-leaning prosecutor tried to use the RICO statutes to bankrupt anti-abortion picketers. Right-wing prosecutors have tried to use it against environmentalists and anti-war protestors.

The hate speech laws in Canada have already been abused to settle political scores. We have the case of Sunera Thobani, an assistant professor of women's studies at the University of British Columbia. She was harassed by the authorities in Canada (including a full investigation by the RCMP) under the hate speech laws. What was her great crime? Saying that Bush was bloodthirsty and that the US was only interested in oil and empire in the Middle East. That's just one case of this ill-conceived law being used to stifle dissent.