i just kicked a drunk woman out of my hotel for calling my gay coworker a fag

sir, we reserve the right to refuse posting to anyone. My oink administrators, BIG HOOS, and myself will not tolerate your hate speech on our thread. we have not and will not charge you a cent and you're free to take your posting elsewhere. i'd rather not call the police, but if you insist on continuing to disturb our HOOS i will. please leave.

*throws a rose with shining eyes*

in america the term 'hate speech' is synonymous with advocating laws to make 'hate speech' an imprisonable offense, which is what disgusts me

interesting. people in the UK have already been imprisoned for 'preaching hate' (a couple of Islamist 'preachers') and taking the act to what has been deemed a step too far. levels of punishment to fit levels of severity of what is being said (with inevitable inconsistencies).

i think they were locked up on incitement charges, not hate speech charges. i'm not sure where the new laws about discriminating against religions takes us though.

If you threaten violence/killing against another individual or group, or exhort others to do so, then you get nicked, in the UK.

WAHT EVEN WHOOPI GOLDBERG?

No. If you threaten her then you have to marry Ted Danson!

Pre-Frasier Ted Danson!

now that's waht i call haet speech

If you threaten violence/killing against another individual or group, or exhort others to do so, then you get nicked, in the UK.

-- suzy, Monday, May 28, 2007 3:10 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you do in theory, yeah.

i don't think saying or thinking anything should be a crime.

darraghmac is darramous, right?

i don't think saying or thinking anything should be a crime.

-- darraghmac, Monday, May 28, 2007 3:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

really? i mean, if ran a newspaper and printed a headline every day saying you were a paedo/rapist/murderer, would that be okay?

umm, nope. but i may yet be j0hn d@rnielle.

kidding, that's just something my cat told me to say.

xpost

not by me, obviously. but should it be illegal?

um, can't think why it should be, tbh. convince me.

what do you think should be illegal, darraghmac, and why?

darraghmac what if because of believing quitney's headlines people started attacking you on the street?

throwing someone out of a hotel has nothing to do with legal rights

we're moving on

Racists should be allowed to speak their mind. When they do, the rest of us should be allowed to throw them out of hotels, post on the internet about it, and expect our peers and compatriots to buy us a beer or at least offer a congratulatory pat on the butt. This one's for you, Hoos.

Ironically, if Hoos had just walked in on a drunk lady getting it in the ass from some dude and told them to stop it everyone on ILX would have been fine with it.

God forbid he should ask what tip her tho.

"darraghmac what if because of believing quitney's headlines people started attacking you on the street?"

then their behaviour would be clearly illegal, and they should feel the force of the law.

"what do you think should be illegal, darraghmac, and why?"

actions, not words or thoughts.

isn't speaking, writing, and publishing "words" an action?

sry i just don't really see where you get to make the distinction between "actions" and "words." or "actions" and "thoughts" for that matter.

i mean its not the THOUGHT of libel thats illegal--its the ACTION of publishing it.

i think you just clarified the distinction for yrself

i'm not sure what i can add to that, actually- in a libel case, you have to prove material loss, as far as i know, certainly you have to bring more to the table that 'oh, i didn't like what he said"

btw, i don't condone racism, homophobia, nor that particular woman's behaviour.

and it's pretty irritating that i should feel that i even have to post that last line, but i guess that's the way threads are going today on ILX.

do you think people should be allowed to deny the holocaust in Germany, Austria and other countries where that's illegal?

sure!

don't mean this to be so interrogative, just curious to see if an exception can be found (xp)

i wasn't kidding

in america the term 'hate speech' is synonymous with advocating laws to make 'hate speech' an imprisonable offense

Ethan is often right about a lot of things, but he is not right about this. I can't think of any serious community of people trying to make speech itself illegal -- only groups of people who want to be sure that

(a) when bigotry is aggressively directed at a particular person, it's firmly considered a form of abuse/harrassment and not tolerated, plus sometimes

(b) organized hate crimes are differentiated from random casual crimes, because they have an extra element of threat or "terrorism" to them (e.g., spray-painting Q-bert on a synagogue is just unsightly vandalism, but spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue creates an atmosphere of worry / threat / harrassment that's slightly more serious).

criminalising holocaust denial had its roots in specific historical circumstances though, ie post-ww2 in certain countries the risk of neo-nazi groups using it as a strategy of rebuilding support (and in the process assuaging national guilt) was too great. i may have imagined this but wasn't there a debate in austria recently over whether it should be decriminalised? along the lines of "as a nation we have clearly moved past this, everyone knows holocaust deniers are loonies, we should not need such an arcane law any more"

xps

"do you think people should be allowed to deny the holocaust in Germany, Austria and other countries where that's illegal?"

oh for the love of god- i'm irish, non practicing catholic. i have absolutely nothing against the hebrew people as a whole.

i am not a nazi, neo-nazi, sugar-free nazi or sunday nazi.

but are you really asking me if an historian (however controversial) should have been jailed for holding conferences (even ones in biker bars) and writing his beliefs that the holocaust was exaggerated?

that is a crazy, and dangerous law. people should be allowed to deny the holocaust if they like. would you like GWB to introduce a law making it illegal to deny God?

the terms "fag" and "faggot" are manifest of ego gone awry. they are symbolic of the American propensity for competition, and like some of the intense reactions to this thread, they are shorthanded attempts at superiority. that "fag" and "faggot" are still abused today, and that standing up against homophobia can spur such ridicule as demonstrated here, points to the Western sacrifice of sensitivity to an individuality troubled with small-mindedness, ignorance and spite.

xpost

spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue creates an atmosphere of worry / threat / harrassment that's slightly more serious

i see and kind of agree with your point, but i would still be uneasy of making grafitti more or less of a crime because of the who the targets are. i'd find it extremely difficult to draw the line.

every crime has to have a victim, i just think that an action should be judged consistently, not on the identity or sensitivities of the victim/target. and I know that's not a perfect point, before i get nailed.

darraghmac you've being needlessly defensive here (altho understandable on a thread where hoos is accused of boastfulness/smugness/whatever)! you don't have to qualify your views with 'i don't condone this btw' and 'oh for the love of god'.

the trouble is, darraghmac, not everyone is as 'enlightened' as you. to you, people who deny the holocaust or use hate speech are loonies, no one takes them seriously surely? but these laws are all predicated on the fact that if unchecked, historical lies and derogatory words aimed at dehumanising minorities will proliferate

xps

every crime has to have a victim, i just think that an action should be judged consistently, not on the identity or sensitivities of the victim/target

it's not about the sensitivities of the target (or only partly), it's about the wider social consequences of hate speech/historical lies

Hey, wow, I get to say "LEX OTM!" Hi-five! Cause once again, like basically NOBODY EVER in the U.S. has seriously advocated criminalizing Holocaust denial, and yes, nations that have those laws tend to have them as remnants of de-Nazification programs and political reconstruction and whatnot.

Seriously, freaking out about the alleged potential for abstract political speech to be criminalized in the US is every bit as frantically ridiculous as thinking there's a "war on Christmas" or that all black people are plotting to rape and kill you.

xpost

i would still be uneasy of making grafitti more or less of a crime because of the who the targets are

It's not the TARGET that makes the difference in that example, it's the CONTENT. And you already live in a nation where the content makes the difference: if I spray-painted "I am going to kill you" on your front door, that would be a rather more serious offense than spray-painting my name.

xpost

standing up against homophobia can spur such ridicule as demonstrated here

i'm really not trying to take a stand here on abuse of homosexuals, but i think any ridicule was aimed at the self-congratulory and (possible) complete dramatisation of the event as breathlessly relayed here.

i am fully aware that this may make the guilty parties look a bit arseholish, myself included, but can we not be so po-faced all the time?

i'm sitting on the fence but i am at least facing darraghmac's direction.

what...opposite him?

numerous xposts

hey, i did say that i wasn't making perfect points- and regarding being over-defensive, i think you'll agree that even on ILX it's hard to even play devils advocate on racism/homophobia kind of issues without getting completely and unneccessarily ripped to shreds.

i think nabisco's point about content is otm, but that content isn't made any different by the fact that i may be homosexual/jewish/a woman/a clown or whatever.

what things is it okay to be self-congrtulatory about on ILE now?

being drunk
maybe finding some sort of unbelievable bargain in the sales

anything else?

liking shit 80's music i think

Spelling "self-congratulatory" right? (Kidding, kidding.)

P.S. Darraghmac has just fallen into the great lie/fear that's at the center of people fearing this stuff -- this bizarre leap to assume that things are being dealt with based on the identity of the victim, as if someone's being offered "special protection," or it's suddenly "more of a crime" to harm a minority than it is to harm a white person. And this very, very obviously isn't the logic: it's that some crimes carry an element of terrorism and threat. If you beat up every Latino who comes into your neighborhood, you're not just committing assault -- you're engaging in systematic intimidation against all Latinos. (Cf a black man in -- I think -- being prosecuted recently under hate crimes provisions for throwing something through a woman's windshield while complaining that too many white people were coming to the local mall.)

"enlightened"

yeah, it's pretty outlandish to argue for hate of any kind, even if it's a word - not as small as it may seem.

xxxpost self-congratulatory = pride, and there's nothing wrong with being proud of being open-minded. it's not as common a characteristic as it may seem. and whether it be pride or homosexuality, the crux of the issue involves ridicule, a small but biting form of hate, both unnecessary and unjustified.