Hate speech - a rhetorical pickaxe
Preamble:
The phrase itself betrays its own bad faith intentions. A technical term that means something quite different from what it says.
Its a nonstarter. People - who wont say what they mean - will decide the meaning of what you say. Language under rule of forked tongue.
Question:
What is the real definition of hate speech?
What is its true function?
What would it be called if we werent caught in an Orwell-adjacent bizarro world?
The phrase itself betrays its own bad faith intentions. A technical term that means something quite different from what it says.
Its a nonstarter. People - who wont say what they mean - will decide the meaning of what you say. Language under rule of forked tongue.
Question:
What is the real definition of hate speech?
What is its true function?
What would it be called if we werent caught in an Orwell-adjacent bizarro world?
Comments (167)
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hate-speech
To reduce violence and make ordinary people safer.
A bullshit reduction measure.
The problem with "hate speech" is that it very often involves hostile translation. It very often amounts to, "You don't think your speech is hateful, but I do think it is hateful and I am going to punish you for it."
Another way to think about it is to note that if "hate speech" is an honest descriptor then it isn't bad, and if it is bad then it isn't an honest descriptor. For example, if someone were using "hate speech" as an honest descriptor, then Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany was hate speech, and yet it was not bad hate speech. And if someone is using "hate speech" the way it is usually used, as "bad speech," then Chamberlain's declaration of war fails to be hate speech for some magical reason that the person cannot articulate.
So the accusation is incoherent as used. Only pacifists or quasi-pacifists are able to use a concept like "hate speech" meaningfully, and the people trying to justify their hate on the basis of "hate speech" are far from pacifists. :wink:
Youre saying this is the intended function or the actual function?
Fear, the ability to channel/leverage/exploit fear, is one of the greatest organizing principles/forces in the universe. Everyone is always using rhetorical fear against others and themselves to get things done.
The kissing bug and the lyme carrying tick are parasitic vectors of chronic disease. They want to take your vital god given property and destroy it by their nature. They are waiting for you outside, hidden like tiny little soldiers of war in the bush. Disgusting species do not belong in the USA. They should go back to their countries of origin. They must be avoided and destroyed at all costs.
This is my hate speech against kissing bugs and ticks and pests in general. Luckily they can't register my speech as hateful. I could love them if they didn't threaten to eat and cheat me.
We must wage war on kissing bugs and ticks. And fire ants! They'll conquer the world if we don't fight back...
When you fall asleep tonight, dream of the pests sucking away your vitality. How terrible am I to plant the seeds of these bad dreams, to cultivate an unnecessary fear about your possibly impending decline and death.
That girl I made out with at the bar turned out to be a tranny! (Hate speech?)
The word hate is a generally well-functioning word. Intense dislike. Its your prerogative to intensely dislike people, and to say as much.
Hate is an inherently high resolution word. Intensity corresponds with specificity. Go ahead and check within - the things you hate most are very specific. So are the people.
By contrast, the hate speech version requires a lower resolution target - and so a lower intensity dislike. The territory of hate speech is much more like out-group etiquette than hatred. Look carefully and you will see the silhouette of a large wooden horse.
Who sees it differently? Please correct me.
Hate I suppose is in the eye of the beholder, to a point. I mean "I hate you" is pretty clear, and you could substitute "you" for all sorts of ethnicities, religions and whatever else and that'd be hate speech.
The question isn't so much what we call certain speech, but what we do about it. The line you cross in illegalizing certain types of speech is in suppressing free speech, so I would tend to defer to allowing more sorts of speech than others. That doesn't mean I can't otherwise be socially punished by my speech because speech has consequences.
So, whether you think anti-trans talk is hate speech or you think anti-Kirk talk is hate speech is up to you, and I don't think in either instance should someone be criminally punished for either of them. But, I do expect you might lose your job or social standing if you engage in certain types of speech (call it hate speech or not), but we can all choose which people we want to hate us by what we choose to say.
Maybe if you're really wondering what might be hate speech, instead of asking yourself whether you are hateful in saying it, ask yourself whether you expect others to hate you for saying it and then you can decide whether you want to be hated. Some people do, especially if they can get the people they already hate to hate them back even more. That's a fairly common game.
Importantly, that was not necessarily anti-trans talk at all!
I agree with you, but my interest here is not in the autistic navigation of evolving social norms.
If I recall, you are an American lawyer who will hold classical freedom of speech principles.
I am suggesting the concept of hate speech is fundamentally disingenuous. That it functions as a rhetorical pickaxe designed to chip away at the bedrock of all freedoms - freedom of speech.
I wonder to what extent the emphasis on the value of hate speech is libertarian humanism turned upside down. It may miss the spirit of civil liberties and freedom by collapsing it into a denial of the human rights and civil liberties, especially of those who are marginalised.
I know that so many oppose 'wokism'. However, this may be about allowing bullying and legitimising forms of oppression in the name of 'freedom to express hate', as a human right. This may end up in a philosophy of denial of human rights, and even a justification of oppression.
So Chamberlain's declaration of war would be hate speech if it declared war on Germany because it was full of Germans, but not if it was because Germany invaded Poland...
And advocating the destruction of ticks because they are ticks would be hate speech. But advocating their destruction because they spread Lyme Disease isn't.
The difference is in the relevance of the criteria for the expressed hate. Hate speech intends to "other" particular groups because of their status as a group, not because of what they have done. It is an attack on identity, not on activity. Hate speech is intended to incite violence against a group, not to admonish a behaviour.
Now comes the bit were folk point to fringe cases in the hope of showing some inconsistency in the very idea. The existence of borderline cases doesn't invalidate a useful distinction any more than the existence of dawn and dusk invalidates the difference between day and night.
It took me a few seconds to find the UN document. Who is it that "will not say what they mean"?
Those whove coined a term using the word hate to mean something other than hate.
Hate had a very well established meaning. The new meaning extends to luke-warm offense (in addition to a narrow subset of genuine hatred). The trick is to smuggle the original meanings limbic gravity over to this new one. Im sure you recognize this is a very common rhetorical move.
And then there is another layer of not saying what is meant. Because as long as this term has existed, it has had a working definition that is far more selective than your quote. No?
Ok, so the term can be misused. But nevertheless it is a useful term. Not a nonstarter.
Ill emphasize a subtle point that is important to me. There is a fundamental mismatch. The definition pertains specifically to low resolution preferences - and hate is a specifically high resolution preference with high resolution intensity.
Whatever ought to be done about bigotry of all shades, misnaming the problem is a bad start.
And, here, I will just show my cards - I believe the misnaming was a devious tactic rather than good faith misstep.
I also want to admit to a US-centric position on this. Freedom of speech has always been a core principle. That said, I personally think its something the US had right.
It's when you attack something a person was born as/under/or subject to without any effort or doing of their own. Something they have no control over. It's something weak people do. I.E. a "dick move." I suppose that's not entirely accurate since a person can become handicapped later in life or of course become elderly, and "hate" speech against handicapped people or the elderly (though patently silly) could in theory result in violence or discrimination against them resulting in their revolt and contribution to the start of a war (though, I suppose in those two particular cases the latter is fairly unlikely, but that's not the point).
I like the earlier post of the amygdala "fear response". It makes people feel unsafe knowing there's nothing they can do or change about their behavior or demeanor. Going back to the baby thing, it's like someone was just born "wrong" and should have been killed as a baby. Which is generally not what sane people believe.
Not a fan of the whole grouping of people who choose to become the opposite gender because of non-medical self-diagnosis being on par with say, black people who have been historically persecuted for being born with the color of their skin and for no other reason. Just seems kind of offensive to compare apples and oranges when it comes to human life, dignity, and well-being. But whatever.
I suppose religion is interesting because people can choose to believe or not believe anything they want. Otherwise they're legally and medically retarded or at least not a legal, functioning adult (I.E. is a child). So, in my opinion, it's not the same as persecuting someone who chooses to follow Mayor McCheese as Lord and Savior versus someone born with a different skin color than you through no action, desire, or will of their own. See the difference. One is a choice, one is not. I just can't find the two comparable legally, and yet they are so. Again, it's probably to prevent wars and group or gang violence, I guess. Something like that. The people in charge know what they're doing so just live your life. You don't really have many other options.
In my opinion some of the worst hate speech is used everyday without the average person batting an eye. "Size-ism". Calling somebody "little" (often prefixed with a strong secondary insult) just because they were born smaller than they were. That's discrimination. Miserable cowardly people (who know deep down the world would be a better place without them) cannot refuse an opportunity to attack, belittle, or demean a person smaller than them when it's easy. They cannot cope with modern society where everyone is equal, their size they based their entire identity on that used to mean everything as a child, getting them their every want and desire, now meaning nothing and getting them nothing, without spreading misery wherever they step. Cowardice laws should fix that right up. These arrogant, brainless giants need go the way of dinosaurs and experience the Great Flood in Genesis (but a non-literal legal, social version) if humanity is ever going to live in peace and prosper.
And yet there it is, being used by the United Nations. Likely the UN decided to use the term "hate" precisely because they need to motivate action and resources for what is essentially an educational approach
Perhaps take a look at the UN document, and see if there is something in the actions therein that is problematic.
The document is specific with regard to freedom of expression:
Perhaps your point is more about the misuse of an expression rather than an argument that it not be used at all.
The problem is that the contradictions about free speech to address hate speech incites cultural wars. Of course, unexpressed hatred exists as an unconscious subtext to life. Suppression of hostility may lead it to fester but there is the question of whether too much freedom is giving more power to hostile emotions as opposed to seeking common grounds beyond differences. It all seems symptomatic of fragmentation of value systems.
Possibly, but the bigger point being advanced here seems to be that the term "hate speech" is a lab created neologism designed for the purpose of denigrating one's opponent's political positions as being evil or shameful.
That is, under this description, if someone condemns transsexualsim, referring to that as "hate speech" is just a politically expedient way of shutting down the coversation as off limits in civil society.
The argument would therefore be that "hate speech" is not an otherwise useful term being misused, but that it's a term designed for misuse, a special tool to shut down one's opponents, especially as applied to values advanced by liberal progressives but disputed by conservatives.
While the UN might have a definition that limits the term in a way that should reduce its misuse, that doesn't impact how the term is typically used in the vernacular which is, of course, how it is commonly used, which is therefore what it commonly means.
Being told therefore that I might be engaging in hate speech might mean something serious or it might just mean my opinion is being vetoed as non-compliant with certain community standards.
So, what do you then think about Osama bin Laden's message? OBL declared that killing even American civilians would be correct and justified for Muslims. This is a quote from the guy from February 1998
And his followers did follow this message quite successfully on 9/11.
So... what other would you call his message above than hate speech? Would you really favor Osama's right to spread this kind of message, because of freedom of speech is a core principle?
In general, it is a means to protect people. Any means established to protect people will inevitably be used by bad actors. This is the cost of any freedom.
The same thign can be said of Human Rights. There are no such thing in the natural world, yet it is an idea that seems like a step in the right direction for hte betterment of everyone. Such ideas are always open to abuse because people are very creative when it comes to being bad actors as well as good actors.
Societal norms necessarily have to seesaw. This is better than overreaching for some utopian ideal imo.
As Pam Bondi recently discovered, there is indeed a tension between free speech and hate speech. Quoting Pam Bondi
The United States elevates free speech in a way not seen in other jurisdictions, perhaps to the point of fetishising it. Other countries have found it possible to implement restrictions on acceptable speech. Wikipedia kindly provides a list of examples. As with gun law, the United States is an outlier. The preponderance of US citizens here will render the discussion somewhat parochial.
There are indeed plenty of philosophical issues to discuss here. It's a topic of some interest in that it sits at the intersection of ethics and language. Of particular interest to me is how Austin's distinction of perlocutions from illocutions has been used in solidifying the performative aspect of hate speech, in separating the harm caused in the utterance of some particular speech act from harm caused as a later result of that act.
Quoting SEP
There was a time not long ago when such discussions might occur in this forum. The partisan and the parochial have changed that.
Did they physically raid one another's home and slaughter them Biblically? Have they forced you into cowardice? If none of these things are true, you complain over nothing. Can't you see that?
Oh well.
Just so.
I'm not saying your wrong or that people who have. as you said. seemed to have found the views you find truthful or relevant to have fallen out of favor. I'm saying, that's an organic process. No, and it could be horrible. Absolutely. A harbinger of a great ignorance sweeping over us all like an English fog.
But the idea that people need to be pointed out and shamed by titles, just needed a bit more explanation in my eyes. If that's fair.
My main point was, why don't you start and persist or rather insist in starting and maintaining these arguments? You're clearly able to. Just seemed like a silly quip of juvenile frustration, quite unusual from a mind like yours.
See how your reply is about me?
What exactly is 'hate speech'? Is the term used outside of polemical discourse, or is it just a snappy way of repackaging the notion of vilification and threats to harm? I guess this discussion will be viewed by some as a tributary of the "woke" thread. Sounds like Jimmy Kimmel has been identified by the Right as a purveyor of hate speech on the Kirk matter.
"Kill all the white people!"
Substitute any group you wish. Suppose a person with influence yells that to their people wanting an answer for their problems.
Is that free speech?
If so then "free speech" is the right to say whatever you want to say even if it results in death.
The recent lynching of a black man in Mississippi is free speech under this definition -- it's only the person who pulled the rope that is guilty of murder. We should be free to sing songs of lynching people.
And how! Marvelously done, if I might say so. Surely one can lead a horse to water. That's my point.
Quoting Banno
Well, let's be honest. You do tend to steal the show at times. :smile:
My mere suggestion was in regards to your concern that this website has changed from how it first was when you first began posting. You seemed to have expressed a sentiment, perhaps even a longing or sense of nostalgia of how things have changed. I merely reinforced your legitimate view that it might be negative by saying, yes, perhaps logic and "common sense" has fallen out of favor. Don't you agree with this possibility? At least, it's viability? Somewhat?
That's the conflict, isn't it - it's used "outside of polemical discourse", as the UN example shows, but from the sensitivities expressed by some here, who apparently felt offended or vilified by some uses of the term, as itself an artefact of hate speech.
In the Trump era, does it?
I think you have a gone way downhill from the past. And I think the American public discourse and media environment is very ripe to lose all those high minded objectives you say you have and cheriss.
If earlier some "woke agenda" and pressure group made the Corporate America to squeal, then it should not come as a surprise that these people will eagerly throw in the towel when it's the Trump administration is calling for it by making threats.
Me?
Not I. I drew attention to the fact that the US is an outlier, in not having legislation criminalising hate speech.
Quoting Roke
No. I'm saying it's the true function.
Are you deliberately fucking about, or is it just incompetence?
Sorry, you're from the down under Continent. I forgot. :sad:
You might appreciate this.
I actually had that in mind.
The whimsical thing is that these talk show hosts (Kimmel, Colbert) don't actually rock the boat in any way. For decades all Republican administrations have gone forward with the normal jabs from the mainstream television talk shows. The liberal bias has been evident, but it has been only a bias as typically any administration gets some roasting from the political comedians. The crude and crass actions that the Trump sycophants take when licking their God-Emperors ass is hilarious and likely to be very counterproductive.
Talking as a Finn who has observed just how Finlandization worked to make people in a democracy to self-censor themselves, this all could be done in a subtle and hidden way that only few would notice it. With these actions it's self evident to all. If the reaction is whatever/meh, how passive are the Americans?
Democracy is at threat when a television show gets cancelled, but when a guy holding a microphone gets publicly assassinated we should refuse to show empathy. Your comments over the past week are a the perfect instantiation of Western political hysteria.
ABC and Disney ended Kimmel because their local affiliates refused to air his inflammatory episode.
What I've noticed is that the law is invoked in various circumstances differently. "Free speech for me, but not for thee": anyone who speaks out of turn is punished by some other means by creatively interpreting the law to get rid of them -- or when the law is broken straight up lying to the judge who says "Sounds good to me" because he has to rely upon the police forces' testimony.
When the popo lie together that's where the weather goes.
Defenders of the notion of hate speech are also the best defenders of notions like gender is a social construct.
Pick a lane.
If something so clear as gender is actually vague and socially constructed, then something so vague as hate speech should quickly be recognized as even more vague than gender, so why are we thinking we could define it at all; Or, if you can make hate speech a useful term for laws and policies, you should easily be able to at least define male and female with some measure of objectivity, at least enough for bathrooms and sporting event policies (those should be so simple to the genius who can define hate speech). But the defenders of defining hate speech laws/enforcement dont do that.
Utterly incoherent.
Fine if you want to say you cant define woman. But then, you better not define hate speech for purposes of making policy, because who should believe anything you say? Woman cant possibly be harder to define than hate, or if it is, hate cant possibly be easy enough to define that we can enforce laws about it.
No self awareness of the in consistencies.
If you try to really give the definition and essence of hate speech I think youll find that it adds nothing to a conversation about political policy.
Hate speech, in fact, should be protected by law, not made illegal. (Pam Bondi was wrong.)
Person A murders person B. Thats murder. We have a law against it. Finding hateful motives might help find the murderer, but once you find the murderer, who gives a crap what they hate? Deal with the murder under the law.
The only political issue we should ask about speech is, was it political speech, or was it some thing else? If it is political speech, we all need to protect it, and the government has to stay out of our way. Free political speech is essential to stopping tyranny from taking hold. But if your speech is conspiracy to murder, or inciting immanent violence, or fraud that leads to actual harm, then the government can and should be able to step in a regulate it.
Thats it. Is it speech, or is it some verbal component of some unlawful act.
Here is the gun I want you to use to murder that guy. Thats not just speech, and is instead conspiracy to murder. What is the act, and when can/should we regulate acts?
But if the act is giving an opinion on any topic, its political speech, and there should be absolutely no governmental limits whatsoever. There can be social limits and private limits, but no governmental limits.
So to be fair, if the FCC or Pam Bondi threatened ABC/Disneys license in any tangible or specific way in order to silence Jimmy Kimmel, that is a huge problem. Thats tyranny. But if Jimmy Kimmel was privately fired because his private bosses wanted to fire him for their own private corporate policy reasons, thats called life in the jungle of free people. Thats called the free market of ideas. Thats called living the dream in a free society.
It is the same freedom enjoyed by ABC that allows them give Jimmy a microphone as allows them to take it away from him.
So the problems of all of these people being fired for celebrating Kirks death have nothing to do with the issue of free speech. That is about private policy and private employment - not law enforcement, not the first amendment.
How hard is that to understand? Simple consistency, based on the first amendment. Firing Jimmy is as much a freedom protected by the first amendment as was Jimmys freedom to talk bullshit about Kirks murder.
(And to be fair, if the FCC really did threaten ABC and you dont like that, where was all of the outrage when so many other governmental interventions in the media occurred? Does anyone think we can find much more threatening statements from many more liberal democratic lawmakers about Foxs license, about Tucker Carlsons job, about conservative AM radio? Do you think Pelosi, AOC, Biden (Disinformation Governance Board), and many, many others in progressive government had any opinions about silenced and de-platformed media on the right?)
Hate is a moral issue. Not a political one. We dont need government playing church and choosing who is hateful and who isnt for us. We need freedom, to fight (through debate and argument) amongst ourselves about what is hateful and who isnt.
When a politician spews hate they typically do so in some substantive context. Like saying Donald Trump is a racist pig and must be punched in the face and pulled out of office - sounds like hate, but who cares about that? The question is what did Donald do that requires we remove him from office? We can talk about those things. But the hate behind the word pig - who really gives a shit? When I hear that person is a pig and I also hear I have no substantive argument, just my feelings.
Trump sycophants take when licking their God-Emperors ass..
Everyone is dug in. We are all so superior to those we disagree with. No one wants to actually debate, or just listen.
Almost sounds as an advocacy for the separation of morality and politics. As though politics ought to be amoral. Is this in keeping with your sentiments?
As sometimes happens, what is your stance on a cohort of humans A articulating that a cohort of humans B consists of subhumans (which, as far as I can see, implicitly mandates that cohort B ought be treated as such with what would then be proportional rights, or the lack of such)? Of itself it is only speech. And, as with a good portion of speech in general, it intends to influence the mindsets of others.
I dont know what you are getting at.
We dont need laws telling us what is good or bad. We need discussions and communities deciding what is good and bad. Then we need to agree on laws that support the good and laws that protect against the bad. But I dont need a law telling me that murder is bad, or a law telling me that cohort B are subhumans is punishable hate speech and not just some stupid opinion.
I have no problem hearing out someone elses stupid arguments and opinions. In fact, I want to protect that as a right.
Quoting javra
So what? The fact that speech can influence others and lead to laws is how all good things happen too.
Hate speech is dumb and is for dumb people that I can deal with myself and dont need the government, but the notion of legally defined hate speech is Orwellian.
I'm told that empathy is now an unpopular term. It's application has become quite selective. The opinion piece cited considered more than Kimmel.
It's good to hear that the white middle class males here can handle themselves and are happy to occasionally be offended. No need to legislate, then.
This then stipulates that laws should indeed be moral: hence, supporting the good and protecting against the bad. Thereby entailing that morality and politics should entwine..
Quoting Fire Ologist
How does any law against murder not do exactly that?
If a law was made saying that antagonism toward fascism will be criminalized as terrorism, doesn't this newly made law then precisely express that antagonism toward fascism is bad?
Shouldn't decrying others as subhuman - if we happen to both consider that so doing is bad - be something that is not supported but instead guarded against. No, so decrying is by no means as wrong as is lynching others on account of so considering them as subhuman. But, here is a paradox I'd like you to consider and address:
Tolerance for what is bad (including for the expressions that other humans are subhuman) can only lead to proliferation of what is bad at the expense of the good and its very tolerance, eventually to the extent of obliterating that which is good and resulting in an utterly intolerant society that is replete with bad.
As to the legal aspects of hate speech, I'm no expert at all. Granted. And yes, any word can be perversely manipulated in Orwellian manners. Still, for one example, when someone addresses blacks as ni**ers that should all be lynched (I presume most of us have heard this and worse in our lives in relation to one populace or another) and then complains about the social tyranny of not having the freedom to so express, I can readily understand this expression as hateful speech intending to incite unjust violence against other humans. It is not something I deem to merely be a stupid statement, but something which if tolerated can readily beget the lynching of black folk in the community. And, so, like deceptively yelling "fire" in a crowded theater just so as to start a stampede, I so far find such speech something that is best politically mitigated to some extent. I know you disagree. But hey, we're discussing.
Words? Infammatory? Have you seen the light and converted or something?
I think that the difference you are pointing to here, is the difference between how we speak to another individual, and how we speak to a group of people. There is a big difference here because it is necessary that we continually have interactions with individuals on a regular basis, daily, while we much more rarely need to address groups.
In our day to day interactions with individuals, our emotions influence us immensely, and often we are inclined to say hateful things to another. Because of this influence of emotion, and passion of the moment, the tolerance level, what is socially acceptable to say to another, is quite high. That is simply because most of us do not have complete control over our emotions, and we cannot punish everyone who loses a little control over one's tongue in the spur of the moment.
On the other hand, when we address groups and types of people, our actions and words are usually well thought out in advance, premeditated, and planned. Emotion does enter into this form of "speech", as this is what constitutes an impassioned orator, but the tolerance level of what is socially acceptable is much stricter due to the fact that the speech is deliberate.
The reason why the tolerance level of acceptability in prepared, deliberate speech, addressing a multitude of people, differs from the tolerance level of acceptability in the spontaneous speech of day to day interactions between individuals, ought to be obvious to you. There is no difference in the meaning of "hate" here, just a difference in the social acceptability of different types of demonstrations of hate.
The pivotal point being the ambiguity in "dislike people". To dislike a person, and to tell them this, is socially acceptable. To do this to multiple "people" is also in principle ok, though it may indicate that you have a problem, and you are not actually ok. To dislike people, and tell them this, is definitely not ok.
Not my own position. But my position in general is that the right to free speech is not the same as the right to free broadcast or publication. We appear here, or not, at the whim of the site owner and the running dogs he allows to control his territory. That's the constitutional position, and if folks want to change the constitution, or change the site owner, they have some work to do that won't be done by posting on this site - if you see what I mean.
Yes of course. To promote good and prevent or redress badness. But we look to the government to tell us what the law is, not what morality is.
Quoting Banno
Wait, should good to hear and white middle class males even be allowed in the same sentence? Sounds like a hate-filled dog-whistle. :joke: Do we need a law to ban such obviously hateful juxtapositions in our thinking?
Or should no law abridge free speech?
Quoting ssu
Some roasting? Demonstrably, stupendously false. Biden wasnt roasted until the democrats rammed Kamala Harris down everyones throats. Liberals are shocked to hear right wing ideas because they hear them so infrequently in the media. Main stream media is normally a safe space. Like the university classroom.
To a liberal, a simple right wing idea is hate speech. Deport illegal immigrants. Thats hate. Even though it was the policy of Obama and Biden. Trumps somehow just different.
Ridiculous. Inconsistent. Incoherent.
The truth of the deep leftward bias of all legacy and main stream media (ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, LA Times, Wash. Post, CNN, all things Hollywood) is the fulcrum behind Trumps continued success and appeal - since 2016.
Libs refuse to see it. Its a total blind spot. Its why dems will continue losing outside of the areas where Al of their sheep flock.
The current legacy news media death rattle is due to their own inability to self-reflect honestly. They pander to half of the population. They are so biased. The right remains a sleeping underground of our culture. Even with Trump in office. Its been stomped underground by the media for 30 plus years.
Its still hateful to be republican. At least according to the media. And to expert libs.
And libs are so scared because of all the media bogeymen - instead of just talking to a right winger, like Kirk. Instead of talking to him, people are happy to celebrate his death.
The democrats have lost on substance with regard to immigration and the border, the economy, foreign policy, Ukraine, patriotism. The dems have no policies that address anything that matters to the country. And they are (currently, probably temporarily) losing the tactical advantage of being able to rely on the media to uncritically telegraph and parrot their agenda. Its not because the media is moving right, but because the media is losing credibility. Its because Jimmy Kimmel squandered his position. The media doesnt know how to be fair about anything - they arent used to it. If they wanted to be fair they would have to fire half of their people, because everyone is a progressive. Absolute echo chamber.
Before Colbert and Kimmel (who arent making very much money, which affects the answer to the question: are they worth all the grief?), Roseanne Barr, was fired for saying some ignorant crap about the Obama administration and for sounding like a racist. Who gave a shit about democracy then? Who celebrated then? Was that so different? Was it any different? It was even ABC.
Quoting Banno
Offense is so done as a motivator for political action.
Hate speech is a joke, right? Its not a law in the US because we all love to spew hate speech, right? From all sides. We love to offend. Almost as much as we cherish taking offense.
Offense is like pure gold for the left. No one ever cares how anyone else feels, but here is how I feel, and the more offended I am, the more interesting my instagram account will be.
Like adolescents. You just dont understand how much it hurts me . And this time its different.
Its no different. If Trump is limiting free speech, that is gravely bad. But what is so new to you libs? You who didnt care about Bidens Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board?
Government should stay out of all of it. Media should consistently and fairly report the facts. But they never did. Because libs give the government too much power, too many passes, and do not hold the media accountable at all.
Total irresponsibility.
Quoting Banno
Kimmel hasnt been arrested and thrown in jail. He was fired for being a highly paid ABC employee and talking shit too many times to too many members of ABCs audience. He is going to make a ton of further comment. He is going to make a ton of money. He is an absolute rock star for the left now. Unless he begs for his job back. Because he is free to do that too.
If you are worried that the people are not being allowed to comment, were you concerned about speech when Kirk was shot? Oh thats right, you reminded everyone Kirk supported the freedom to own guns.
Are you saying everyone needs to own a microphone and have a TV show?
Or should Twitter not be allowed to suspend Donald Trumps twitter account? Are you saying that?
Zero coherence. Zero rigor in the analysis.
Shooting Kirk is just bad. For all of us. For all politics. For all cultures. Its an easy topic. The left wont look directly at the world they have created.
I mean, shoot. You basically need a phone to have a job, to basically even exist these days. $0 down for the latest iPhone, last I checked. Just pop open your Camera, start talking about whatever, and put it on YouTube or TikTok. Before you know it, you're an "influencer." You are the TV show.
There are many people who are highly influential in shaping minds young and old alike who have never appeared on a syndicated cable television network.
To the point, everyone already does have these things. Just not quite the same audience, of course.
Quoting Fire Ologist
People have been offending and taking offense since even before the beginning of language. Let alone any form of government or political aversions. They have also been killing just as long.
Are you suggesting the assassin of Charlie Kirk didn't even really understand let alone believe his own opinions and was simply pseudo or "de-facto" brainwashed by groupthink and mob mentality? I.E. A sort of "all my friends think this so I do too" kind of mindset that absorbed any other sort of free will or opinion?
No. Im talking about people and the media not understanding how bad it is to see a guy shot for having a discussion. Probably not something to treat callously. The same people who think firing Jimmy Kimmel is a travesty of justice and fills them with fear for democracy.
Should someone say that Trump is a reprehensible criminal and must be sentenced, then that's not hate speech.
Then there are the in-betweens, special cases, maybes, perhaps depending on context, that seemingly require a case-by-case assessment. A discussion could take some of these up.
Is it possible to come up with one concise definition of hate speech, covering all, that we can go by? I doubt it (but maybe that's just me). For starters, (I think) the moral aspect requires assessment anyway. Largely, lying won't get you jail time (evidently), similarly for insults. We'd have to go by the spirit of a definition (versus freedom of expression), with the usual elements of harm, discrimination, incitement of violence, motives, dignity, ... Abuse of hate speech law is a real possibility. No easy general solution.
Moreover, I heard rumor that the big bad guv'ment had got itself involved. But I guess that is a-okay, here.
Must be some really interesting philosophy at work.
Great post. Like always. Shoutbox needs more news BTW.
Also, I feel there's an underrepresented if not flat out ignored dynamic of people who are simply inflammatory for inflammation's sake. What I mean by that, and let me give you a little example. A dried out dog turd on a sidewalk can make people frown. But to make someone smile, that takes skill. It's hard. And most people don't have that skill or desire to put in that effort. Shock is easy. It's cheap. Therefore, it along with those who purvey such cheapness as value should be considered socially lower ranking than those who try to bring light and joy into the life of an average person.
My larger suggestion or theory is, these people don't believe in anything other than ego. They, despite claiming otherwise, are actually apolitical. They're simply there for one reason and one reason only. Money. Fame. Power. Etcetera. It's why people use curse words. Or act out. No one paid attention to them otherwise, so they force us, they in affect hold society, and the future of children, mind you, hostage, because they want attention. It's time to stamp out these people once and for all, in my opinion.
What I mean by that last sentiment is, these people, or at least some people, they don't really have a point. Not really. Not one that can be expressed without sensationalism, vulgarity, exhibition, and the like. Not one that people would care for or give the time of day for without. Life is hard. It is full of cruelty and suffering. Therefore, people who are rude or callous must be "real" or "more trustworthy: than those who try to maintain a sense of human dignity. It's a common effect. More people are having kids now, which means the average voter and human person is generally more ignorant, naive, and above all susceptible and malleable than ever before. This is a fact of human history. And people, bad, naive, misguided, and everything in between are taking full advantage of this fact with full knowledge of such.
It's like the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton said himself: "What is shocking the first time, becomes boring and vacuous when repeated. Therefore, when we as a society value that which is cheap and shocking, we end up in a continual downward spiral of such, continually trying to "outdo" one another with filth and obscenity until that society is robbed of any and all recognizable morals, values, or virtues."
(Alright, Most of that is paraphrased, but I know if he was alive he'd agree spot on! Cheers. And here, here.)
It seems that this goes beyond perlocution and illocution. When someone utters, "I hate all stupid XYZs and I wish they would all disappear", the illocution might be an expression of contemptuous emotion, the perlocution might be hurt, feeling of exclusion, anger, or agreement. While we might dislike such locutions, this in itself hardly seems appropriate to legislate against. The target is presumably the second order effects of this kind of sentiment taking root, marginalizing, or worse, endangering, entire groups.
It's a phrase I find unusable, and I don't like "hate-speech laws" and "hate crimes" either. Their meanings are far too vague, which makes them useful for suppression of speech that someone doesn't like.
It's meaning is very simple and astoundingly clear. It means, of all the real hardship and suffering, true injustice in this world a man can and rightfully should get upset at to the point of action, you were too stupid but to do anything but worry about a trait or quality a man was born with or otherwise has no control over. You don't hate stupid people? I do. But good for you, if you're either that mellow or otherwise ignorant. It's a form of legal eugenics, which I support. If only it was enacted in time.
Not to say it hasn't morphed into something self-defeating. A moral white man coming across an immoral black man committing (or about to commit) a crime against another black man or woman and so the white man decides simply to walk on and not intervene out of fear of an unjust ruling. Who knows. Perhaps that was the very intention. Who could say.
And now the discussion becomes the usual parochial hectoring, as predicted.
In Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts Rae Langton consider an example elaborated from Austin:
Do we say that, since the act of shooting was not constitutive of the utterance of the first man, that he bears no responsibility for the killing? I think not. The consequences of an act might well be considered as part of that act.
Langton uses the argument here to support the case that pornography - a speech act in the broad sense - subordinates and silences women; that the subordination and silencing are inherent in the pornographic act. The subordination and silencing are as much of the pornographic act as the killing is of the order given by the first man.
Recent commentators seem to be in agreement with Langton on this point, when they hold supposed "left wing radicals" responsible for Kirk's murder.
At the least, it is apparent that there is much other consider here. My own intuition is, at least when considering responsibility, to treat the act as a whole, not separating out the illocution of the order from the perlocution of the killing. That is, there are illocutionary acts that are also acts of violence and hate.
Thank you for at least attempting some philosophical analysis.
Another example, from On Whites Only Signs and Racist Hate Speech: Verbal Acts of Racial Discrimination
What is the salient difference between the utterance as described, and the elderly white man saying "Whites only!"? (Seems that being elderly is relevant - presumed authority. I suspect that now the antagonist would be more likely to be a young white male.)
The conclusion, "we have good reason to believe that some racist hate speech (that in the public bus example) constitutes an illegal act of racial discrimination"; that absolute adherence to freedom of speech is naïve.
And yet outside the USA, they are ubiquitous. Some reasonable sophisticated communities have found ways to live with the tension other than a naïve adherence to freedom of speech.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Why are liberal communities composed of sheep but your community isnt? Should we judge these communities by who is winning and who is losing , as if either side is in a position to determine the objective correctness of the others social , political, ethical and spiritual views? Perhaps we need instead to respect the qualitatively different ways of life each chooses to organize themselves on the basis of.
We are not one country now, we are different cultures moving further and further apart. Urban America is a country within a country and all efforts now should be focused on creating as much separation between those communities as possible rather than urban America trying to appeal to conservative society. Trumps success isnt due to urban America getting anything wrong, any more than Erdogans or Orbans or Le Pens or Nigel Farages success is due to urbanites in those countries making some mistake of political calculation.
We simply happen to be living though an era in which the cities around the world have rapidly transformed their way of life ( including Hollywood, the urban media hubs, and academic centers) while the more traditional cultures surrounding them have not had time to catch up. Its not that they have to catch up, or even that they have to see themselves as needing to change in any way. The point is that I thrive in my urban community and support its values , but would wither away in a conservative environment, and will do my upmost to contribute to widening the intellectual gulf between what my community stands for and what MAGA stands for. And I urge MAGA supporters and social conservatives in general to do everything they can to further the direction they believe they need to go in. Obviously this will go most smoothly if both sides eventually give up the idea that one side must be winning and the other losing.
I want to enjoy my community and also look forward to travelling to the hinterlands from time to time so I can be a tourist taking in their exotic ways, like visiting an Amish village.
I'm not saying we should separate speech and consequence, where one is protected and the other isn't. I'm saying that the issue here doesn't seem to fit neatly into illocution/prolocution. It isn't how hate speech is received by individuals that is at issue. Rather the real danger, worthy of abridging free speech, are the consequences of a social environment where here speech is allowed to flourish, and especially encouraged by influential voices.
This is not reflected in the shooter example.
Analysis in terms of illocutions and perlocutions - speech and its consequences - provides a structure in which to understand the act as a whole. It's a counter to those who would say that we must protect the right to express oneself, even if the consequences are unacceptable. So it seems we agree in not accepting that the speech and its consequences are separable, at least for the purposes of ascribing complicity.
This is the argument now being put by sections of the commentariat on the right; that the left is complicit in violence that purportedly resulted from what they have said. It's curiously parallel to earlier arguments put by sections of the commentariat on the left, that and that is the apparent target of the OP. The shoe seems to have changed foot.
The problem of unambiguously hateful speech (as opposed to offensive speech) is that it inflames other people and can lead to harmful, injurious behavior. Keep it up long enough and it will lead to harmful, injurious results.
So hate speech laws are appropriate for unambiguously hateful speech. It's ambiguously hateful, offensive, annoying speech where hate speech laws are inappropriate.
Well, yes, and the issue there is the same as elsewhere - finding a balance between being able to express an opinion while not being permitted to incite or induce violence. Looking at other jurisdictions might show that the approach in the US, expressed hereabouts as a naïve acceptance of a refusal to forbid any speech, is fraught with inconsistency. We must acknowledge the capacity of speech to injure, beyond mere offence.
Hey.
There was a time when we held ourselves to a higher standard.
It was a while ago.
Bitter Crank?
Has everyone forgotten?
"Kill all the white people!"
Substitute any group you wish. Suppose a person with influence yells that to their people wanting an answer for their problems.
Is that free speech?
If so then "free speech" is the right to say whatever you want to say even if it results in death.
YES
Speech turns out to be a wise place to draw it.
We all agreed. The world worked.
Faggot
Nigger
Is it what you wanted?
If you do not quote or press the reply button, it is very hard to follow who you are replying to.
Sheep are all over the place for sure. The point was about the media. The shepherd. The media (when they dont cave) will always cheerlead for the Dems. Thats the only reason Biden made it all the way to Julys debate - the media told us (sheep) he was fit. But now that the news media is losing credibility for some people, (because of things like Biden making it to July for instance) they arent going to be as effective anymore.
AOC just said on the floor of the Senate: His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans far from working tirelessly to promote unity.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/aoc-defends-her-vote-against-165240740.html
Few things to make clear:
1. Although it should be needless to say, AOC and all Americans have a right to say and think every word of what AOC just said. That is a straightforward matter, at least it should be. We not only agree no one should be shot for saying things like this quote, but that no law can abridge saying it in any way.
Right? We all have to agree with that - it just basically restates the 1st Amendment.
2. In the protected quote, AOC says Kirk is ignorant, seeking not unity, but to disenfranchise. Ok, maybe so. But point 2 here is that, now AOC has engaged in debate. This second point is the reason for free speech, protected in point 1 above. We protect debate (political) speech no matter what, so that we each get to seek a hearing of exactly what we think. AOCs constituents elected her to say what she thinks, and she disagrees strongly with Kirk, saying he was ignorant for instance. (Astute )
3. Others get to agree or disagree, or debate, with AOC. Its never one sided.
All three are important. The principle on 1, and the content exchanged in 2 and 3. Thats the bedrock foundation of our political system.
Hate speech is a notion for those who cant or just wont debate. Or those who bring a gun or a protest slogan and a bullhorn to a conversation .
Pam Bondi is an idiot. Shell be gone in the next few months, unless she gets some kind of win soon.
Quoting Joshs
We should keep metaphors and facts clear. Kimmel wasnt silenced by the government, for instance, he was fired by his wimpy, cowardly boss, ABC/Disney. ABC has been doing it for years now.
If you say we are not one country is that a helpful rhetorical tactic? Towards what goal?
North, south, east coast, west coast, city, farm, black, white, little Italy, china town, rich/poor - the American system survived a massive civil war. We survived the 1960s and the murder if so many politicians, and 2020 elections and a maga insurrection. Nothing really new about a free nations people at odds with their own unity.
I dont think the metaphor that we are not one country helps. We are more than one country. For many, this is a question of whether we are one family or not. I think agreeable conversations can exist. Ask Van Jones.
We should learn something from the Kirk shooting, and together, turn over a new leaf.
But most of us probably wont do either one.
Quoting Joshs
I wouldnt compare what is happening in America to what is happening in any other contemporary of America. I wouldnt do that in 1780, 1880, 1980 or now. America is different than those other places. These generalizations of yours are not what I was saying.
Trumps success is because people in the cities, in the suburbs, on the farms, of every economic class, of all types of sexual preference, in every color, Hispanic, Native American, etc, etc, etc - so many agree. Basic street facts, like who is male, and who is the bully, and who needs help, and who is full of shit all of the time (Crockett) - they cant be hidden forever. Media is losing and the Dems are losing with them.
And what is lost? The argument. So now, having lost control of the debate, as a last attempt, we accuse our enemies of hate speech. The very notion of government enforced hate speech and hate crimes strangle debate and free speech. Or we shoot them the debaters in the neck.
Hate speech - what a shame. Its embarrassing really. So hypocritical too. Its only hate speech when you hate it, and when you hate something, where is the hate??? Not in the speech.
Just win the fucking debates. Try that - like AOC is trying to win about the resolution for Kirk, with her insights and wisdom.
The capacity of speech to injure, or the capacity of speech to lead to injury? How can speech injure?
In a political context, like on the Senate floor or in a debate among adults, what exactly does capacity of speech to injure mean? Whats an example of political speech that, by simply speaking, another person is injured?
Conspiracy can be speech that leads to injury (as opposed to speech that causes injury). But a discussion about who is more hateful, a trans activist towards Charlie Kirk or vice versa, no matter what is said between them, cannot be speech that leads to injury. It is not possible. Its just opinion and belief and facts analyzed and arguments tested - nothing for the government to regulate at all.
The distinction of a perlocution does not supplant and replace the judgment of the listener and her decisions to act, and it is only these acts that can cause harm - such actions happen after the debate stops. While the debate goes on, before anyone gets shot, illocution and perlocution are up for discussion, and have nothing to do with the capacity of speech to injure.
Inciting or inducing violence needs to be fairly clear, and is very contextual. Charlie would never meet the criteria for incitement. Neither would Kimmel or Colbert.
People who hear ideas and then decide to shoot people or destroy property, or commit some other crime, have to be the ones held responsible first and foremost. Thats not speech leading to harm. Thats assholes, or criminals fully responsible for being assholes and criminals no matter what speech they heard or who said it. What adult thinks otherwise? Political speech and debate and opinion and discussion and rallies - have nothing to do with the capacity of speech to injure
Legally defined and enforced hate speech adds nothing beneficial to a society that believes in free speech. I can handle hearing any idea whatsoever, if it is a discussion, and I get to respond. Thats the political environment the US constitution built. Hate in a speech is just more content.
Dude. You might want to be more precise and express in the points you are trying to make.
He's saying (or rather asking) what one who is adamant about hate speech laws (and I suppose general profanity including resulting profanity laws, which do exist in many American municipalities) really wants to prevent, and if that includes "dehumanizing words" that have a tendency to inflict emotional discomfort or safety concerns toward the individual. Which on paper, should be silly. Yet apparently, is not...
It's not hard to imagine being the only black guy in a room of strangers where everyone seems to be playing some sort of "game" with you or is otherwise just messing with you, not even for fun but with a deadpan expression. You don't know what that means. You don't know what's going on in their head. But I'll bet you you'd always have your eye on the nearest exit if so. In some contexts, speech is used as a form of intimidation. A very effective one at that.
Weak people need to constantly feed on those weaker than them to maintain a sense of identity, to feed their constantly fleeting delusion of control over this world and thus their own life. And if you're a minority, or shorter or smaller, at least in a given situation or context, you're the obligatory victim. They would literally lose their mind, without such. They wouldn't be caught dead on a level playing field. They will avoid such at any and all cost all while ignoring how blatantly shameful and cowardly their actions are, their brains are so pickled by their own ego, mired in inhumanity, it simply doesn't register. These so-called "people", are no longer people, but a disease; a blight on our society that must be removed at all cost if humanity is to survive. The first step is controlling their reproduction. But.. a coward is ultimately a liar. And without free speech, they would be silent, blending in, trying to appear like the rest of us sane, actual human beings. This would complicate efforts toward their eradication exponentially. Therefore, free speech must remain. Gentleman, to a better future for all..
q.v.
You can damage someones ear if you yell too loudly. Thats about the only way to injure someone with speech.
As you know these sorts of censorial claims, used as they are to justify silencing others, are testable. Injury is measurable. We can simply ask them to injure us with words and examine the results. I would even offer myself as the victim and sign a waiver. At the very least it would be interesting to know which combination of sounds can lead to the worst injury. But you and I both know that no such tests are forthcoming and the claims are piffle.
But you can lie and say I turned off Electrical Grid B to an electrician, perhaps in theory even just walking by without being employed by the company, and an electrician goes to work on it and gets killed. That's illegal. Or, you can stand by a bridge you know is dilapidated and cover leaves over it and if a person asks if it's safe, you can say "Sure", and they are also killed. That's quasi-legal, simply because no one can prove you did anything. So, no, this idea that speech cannot lead to real human death, possibly mass causality has already been legally codified. That ship has sailed, mate. So, that realization hitting you (or anyone who was ignorant of such) aside. What are you truly hoping to proliferate?
I dont know what that means.
All kinds of speech is regulated - fraud, conspiracy, libel, slander, incitement.
But if in a political context, and the only harm we are talking about is hurt feelings, America should never let some politician regulate that. Why would we?
Are hurt feelings the reason speech should be regulated? What do you mean speech that harms?
Neither did I at first. Apparently, if we were one of the cool kids like him, we'd know it stands for: "quod vide" roughly translating to "which see." Which generally makes little to no sense but it is a pseudo-intellectual meme that basically means "look again" or basically "I already answered your question, you mindless, unwashed pleb, stop bothering me." :lol:
I was actually going to mention loud speech, but then, that is a physical assault has nothing to do with the content of the speech.
Im glad you understand free political speech has to be fairly absolute. I also know you dont understand how fraud works or libel either. But those are not really relevant in a conversation about political speech like Kirks and Kimmels.
Anyone who likes hate speech regulation doesnt mind the government deciding what content is good and what content is bad. Thats the beginning of the end of freedom. There is a reason protecting speech is the very first amendment.
Thanks. Love it. Is there such a thing as Love speech?
I am always curious why he bothers with these non-responsive responses.
I think he hates me. Maybe that is why he likes hate speech regulation, because people cant be trusted not to spread hate.
Quoting Outlander
Yes for sure, and bullies need to have their ass kicked. But there is no way to regulate speech around intimidation. And some people arent intimidated. Some people are stronger than bullies - these types of people dont want some weak ass politician helping them protect themselves against mean words.
That is newspeak for we want smart people telling the masses who we should hate.
Anyone who supports more speech, not less, would quickly see there is no equitable way to define hate speech or regulate it.
I did my q.v. homework. You never gave an example of speech that harms. Definitions of hate speech arent examples. Tying the essence of hate speech to ethnicity, race, creed, is not showing how a word can harm and further, why we need to regulate this harm. Or how on earth a court could rule on words that harm.
Isnt regulating hate speech like rating movies R versus PG?
Are you saying there are some words no one is grown up enough to hear ever? Because they harm?
The inability to view Fox News as also mainstream media is very telling of you. That media channel would simply have a bias to the right, yet not much else.
Please don't confuse this absurdly hypocritical power play for an "argument".
And if we are talking about rhetorical violence, the discrepancy is even more stark.
Another Conversation article spoke about McCarthyism, and the inept far-right cancel culture that can be seen even in this thread. The question might be, does the US have sufficient self-awareness to understand this, and to push back on this "new era of McCarthyism" as it has in the past? The re-election of Trump does not bode well.
This time is different. During the Civil War one crucial issue profoundly divided the north and south, but on so many other cultural issues the electorate was mixed , not segregated by geography. Therenwas much more a rural or city resident of Massachusetts had in common with a resident of Georgia than what divided them. In the 1960s the country was at war with itself, but a large percentage of the Democratic voters in urban America were socially conservative. Most of those voters have since left the liberal cites for the more conservative South and the far flung suburbs, and joined MAGA. As a result, what had been a mixed electorate for the Democratic party from the 1930s though the 1960s , reflecting a wide mix of social values within the big cities , has now become ideologically purified by geography ( population density) to an extent we have never seen before in this country. In the 1960s the average blue collar resident of Chicago or San Francisco spoke the same language as a worker living in Cheyenne Wyoming. That is no longer the case.
Quoting Fire Ologist
There you go again with who is winning and who is losing. The media youre referring to is urban American , the Dems are urban America and I am urban America. You say people in the cities agree? Lets see what they agree about. This is how urban America feels about Trump; 70-80% in these major cities rejected him in 2024.
1)New York
2)Chicago
3)San Francisco
4)Los Angeles
5)Boston
6)Philadelphia
7)Seattle
8)Minneapolis
9)Milwaukee
10)Washington D.C.
11) Baltimore
12) Portland
Thats an overwhelming expression of solidarity and agreement about a way of life reflecting the values of a country within a country. As an actively participating member of one of these liberal urban communities, what am I losing beside taxpayer support from that other America? I know what I am gaining. I see it as I walk around the neighborhoods. My community has pulled together to affirm its commitments, and protect its values against encroachment from that other America, and to welcome refugees fleeing restrictive policies in red states. My own view of the larger picture is that what started out in the 1960s as tiny enclaves of hippies and leftist intellectuals in cities has spread over the past 60 years to become the strong majority in urban America and more progressive elements which began with small groups of academics in the 1980s has furthered the urban shift to the left. I dont see shrinking numbers over this 60 year time span but the opposite, a steady growth and the emergence of a new kind of city way of life. Trump would not have won if the rest of the country wasnt becoming aware of this growth in numbers , and becoming alarmed by it. No amount of legislation or political intimidation will slow its continued spread.
My best guess is a sharp economic downturn and likely recession will ensue, and a collapse of the crypto and A.I. bubbles will hurt many average citizens economically and cause a backlash against the political leadership.
I do hope that the US has the resilience to move beyond its present malaise, and expect that it does. In the meantime it makes for entertaining viewing for us in foreign parts. So much so that twice a week the ABC (ours, not yours) airs a late night show called "Planet America". Some might find it interesting.
I'm curious as to whether it is available in the US?
Solidarity on Election Day once every four years (towing the Dem party/media line like the morally superior sheep we are told to be) but what about the rest of the time?
Who are the murderers in those places, and who are they murdering the most? Dems or repubs?
What are the values unique to those cities that the Dems are fostering and building up but the repubs are resisting? What values and will promoting those values help make those cities flourish?
The value isnt debate and more unity.
Solidarity around hatred for Trump and maga (because the media says so in sound bites) but solidarity with each other?
You are kidding yourself.
None of those places could be a country - they rely too much on being fed and protected from outside. DC literally needed federal troops to reduce gun fire on the streets. Nothing to learn about the strength of our cities and culture there?
All of the those places are failing, sorry to say. You are making my point. I live in one of them. Liberalism is crumbling and taking its supporters with it. The urban democratic base better keep getting their welfare checks and EBT cards and virtue signals and AOC feel good speeches, or the Dems will lose them too.
Liberal utopia is more like China. Lets talk free speech or hate speech in China (does anyone really know, because China doesnt really let a lot of light in.). Is that the country within a country - socialist/communist paradise?
Over the next 4-8 years I hope people start recognizing the difference between a man and a woman again. Probably not, we are so far gone.
Someone who truly values diversity and inclusion would lament the disparity between urban voting patterns and non-urban. There is no new world order anywhere near us - just more fighting for no good reason.
Quoting Banno
I appreciate that. And we certainly will. Conservatism has been muzzled since Clinton in America (the reason Rush Limbaugh was born hiding in AM radio). Conservatives have let the adolescents pretend to be in charge too long. Celebrating the death of people just wont fly anymore. I dont think Dems realize how impossible it was for Trump to get re-elected, yet he did. That should really tell you something.
Isnt anyone concerned that the violent right wing monsters arent rioting over Charlie Kirks death? Surely they must want to do something in response? What are they planning?
Im sure the Dems fear riots and insurrections.
But instead they are going to get more conservative speeches and will lose more and more elections. Thats my prediction.
More conservative speeches, ie. more hate speech.
The bullshit wont work forever. You have to actually make things function.
Liberal Canada just announced 13 billion in government spending to build low income housing due to the housing crisis. They are goin to build 4,000 homes. Do the math - thats fucking the stupidest thing Inever heard.
Mamdani is going to be mayor of New York. Free buses and groceries for all (or a total mess made worse waiting for a republican to come in a clean it up.)
80% of the US population is considered urban., but Trump got 49.1% of the popular vote..
I think the community you're referring to is educated urbanites, probably mostly white, so it's the 45% of whites who didn't vote for Trump. The group to watch is Latinos, who are now 20% of the US population, and voted for Trump in larger numbers in 2024 than previously.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Im curious. Which of the cities I listed do you live in? Do you live within the city limits or in a suburb? If you live within one of those cities I listed, you must be bombarded with viewpoints that are abhorrent to you. No wonder you feel theyre failing.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Ive discussed the philosophical underpinnings of the spectrum of ideas on the left that runs from Hegel through Critical theory and that defines and organizes a range of political and social perspectives of the big cities. These philosophical underpinnings are not your cup of tea, so your criterion for flourishing will likely not be consistent with them. If you dont already, you deserve to live in the America where your philosophical values are shared by the lions share of your community. That way, you may be less tempted to engage in shrill competitive rhetoric concerning who is winning and who is losing. Dont worry about our flourishing. Well figure that out in our own way. If our ways are failing you, you need to tend to the flourishing of your own community in your own way.
Im focusing on the high population-dense cities themselves, not urban areas inclusive of vast stretches of sprawling conservative suburbs. The former are the communities I have in mind. Around 15-20% of Americans live within the city limits of the 50 largest U.S. cities by population.
The facts are readily available.
Notice this, too:
Nothing surprising here.
Ok, but doesn't that mean the "other America" you spoke of is 80-85% of the population? Is that what you meant?
I dont mean that literally 80-85% of the country is hostile to the philosophical and political values that urban America stands for. My point is that the cities give us the closest
thing to a consensus on these values, allowing us to think of them as representing a country within a country
We do have a record holder. [sup](2020, 2020, 2024)[/sup]
I guess people can double down with excuses or not care.
:up: This is a view of Chicago from the suburbs. It looks like Oz.
very cool pic
You didnt address the majority of what I asked you to address. So heres a simpler philosophical question:
Do you hold Hitler morally culpable for any unjust death? And, if so, why?
Last I checked, Hitler never physically killed anyone with his own hands. All he did was say stuff. And we all damn well know that a good sum of it was vitriolically hateful - very much that speech that got him into political power to begin with. I could say more as to how I take this to relate to the non-Orwellian instantiations of what the UN has coined hate speech, but it would be contingent on what your stance might be to the above two questions, and I dont want to jump the gun, so to speak.
BTW, though Id be disappointed, I wouldnt be either insulted or surprised by some stranger on the internet stating that, No. Hitler was in fact perfectly innocent of any murder, for all he did was speak: he never once stabbed, shot, strangled, starved, etc. another human to death with his own hands.
Striking a far different tone from that of Mr. Kirks widow, Erika, who spoke immediately before him, Mr. Trump said he disagreed with Mr. Kirks view of wanting the best for ones opponent.
I hate my opponent and I dont want the best for them, he said.[/quote]
Did you notice the hit piece in Crickey today, from that ratbag Bernard Keane?
Department of Educational Standards and Community Safety
Administration Announces Removal of Voltaire Materials from Public Institutions, Citing Harmful Content.
Following a comprehensive review by the Committee on Safe Learning Environments, the Administration today announced the immediate removal of all works by and about François-Marie Arouet, generally known as Voltaire, from public school curricula and library collections. The 18th-century author's writings have been deemed inconsistent with current community values and potentially harmful to social cohesion. "While we respect historical context, we cannot ignore the clear pattern of inflammatory rhetoric that permeates Voltaire's work," stated Dr. Patricia Mooreland, Director of Content Standards. "His persistent attacks on established institutions, combined with his documented use of divisive language regarding religious communities, creates an environment that is simply incompatible with our commitment to inclusive education."
The decision affects approximately 847 titles across the district's 23 branches, including "Candide," "Letters on the English," and various biographical works. Parents and educators have been provided with a curated list of alternative Enlightenment-era materials that promote critical thinking without the "needlessly provocative elements" found in Voltaire's corpus. School Superintendent Janet Brightwater emphasized that this action reflects the Administration's dedication to fostering learning environments where all students can feel safe and valued. "Education should challenge young minds," Brightwater noted, "but not at the expense of community harmony or respect for Christian beliefs. We remain committed to teaching the Enlightenment period through more constructive voices who advanced human knowledge without resorting to satirical attacks that could normalize intolerance."
(AI was utilised in the preparation of this post.)
Since we are experiencing planetary coolingwell, not according to most scientists and other learned fork, but what the hell do they knowas long as well have some hated books to burn in bonfires to keep us warm we should all be aright. Brings to mind the good puritanical Savonarola days of old! Yay!
Damn leftists and their censorship of free speech, such as of books, I say! Sure, certain books such as Mein Kampf are untouched by all. But there was the censorship of Orwell and now its the censorship of LGTB books. What will these leftists do next? Claim that slavery was good for slaves and that history books evidencing otherwise are fake and unpatriotic? More stuff to heap into the bonfire of the vanities I guess.
If this humorously intended sarcasm of mine offends anyone then it must be hate speech, together with all your mamma jokes and comments about unliked hairdos. And this offensive speech of mine must thereby be legally criminalized as hate speech, or at least I must be harshly penalized and harassed until I either learn my lesson or else die. But if you find such an understanding of hate speech distasteful, the only remedy is for laws to not give a hoot about any speech whatsoever. Therefore, receiving death threats from anonymous strangers on your cell phone who make it clear they know where you live and other such details, thats just free speech in the spirit of the law as interpreted by the forefathers of the constitution. Right? A death threat is just anothers humor and one then simply just doesnt know how to take a joke. The current laws criminalizing death threats are, after all, just taking away your constitutional right to the freedom of speech to threaten others with their lives. Its only speech, after all. Nothing more.
Yes, this sarcasm is in reply to a sarcastic post. With my sarcasm tentatively ended:
Im guestimating here, but, maybe, just as no one is OK with having their loved ones murdered, no one would be unharmed (nothing about insulted here) by receiving repeated death threats for the remainder of their lives.
Extremes are for extremists. And I don't find the issue of free speech to be an exception.
But anyways, still wanting to hear from @Fire Ologist if Hitler was in any way morally culpable for unjust deaths.
Not so much bombarded with views. Bombarded with condemnation maybe. Its more annoying or tiresome than abhorrent.
Im from Philly, currently in the suburbs, but born on Broad St and lived and worked in and around the city all my life. I always loved being from the city that hosted the scribing of such a great experiment in politics. Pretty cool to feel that history in the bricks around here. Something unique about the northeastern coastal cities - Boston to DC and all in between.
But the political debate today? Thats seems virtually the same where ever there is a Starbucks or a gas station around, city/countryside doesnt matter so much. Concentrations of voters just make the same old story louder, but the one narrative we all have to face is: who is the sexist, racist hater. Right? So if people really want to get into it, the conversations are not about practical issues and views on them, its more about the threshold issue: how could you be such a douche?
Right? I mean if we are being honest. We have all been well-trained to know who the fascists are. Its the republican, conservative, right wing. Giving them an inch is dangerous. Once we identify the republican/conservative, we at least know what type of character we are dealing with.
We need to address how Kirk was really a sexist about these women, and those trans. Was he being racist with Blacks here and illegal immigrants and whomever? How about Trump? How is Trump hateful this time, and that time? Always nefarious. Or Cavanaugh, or Clarence Thomas, or W. Bush, or whoever is republican, or whoever is conservative, on every channel (except we need to footnote Fox for some reason). And from every left-leaning leader, around the world, so that we all know: most republicans are racist, hateful, hateful men Its been this way since I first noticed in 1980 with Ronald Reagan (aka OG Hitler).
But before we go seceding the democrat rich cities from the anti-progressive rural country, what if Conservatives actually dont hate the different races, and dont hate the different sexes. Imagine that. What if we really dont hate anyone and just have much better ideas for what to do to improve the machine weve built ourselves?
Then we might actually want to debate guns, or Israel, or trans with a conservative. But..naaaaah. It is way too white supremecist to discuss border wall or ICE policy with a conservative.
Do you want the 15% or so conservatives who live in the city-country within the country to stay, or are we talking total political cleansing? Perfect the echo chamber?
I dont see anything so incorrigibly new about today that makes it necessary to seriously consider secession of cities from the country. And if not necessary, it sounds like an enormous effort.
You called me shrill and said I must feel bombarded with viewpoints that are abhorrent to me so you must feel bombarded too, no? Why else would you notice that about my words?
But should we blame the bombs we throw on those who somehow asked for them, or blame ourselves for throwing bombs at all? I blame myself. I dont want to be shrill if by shrill I simply push you away.
I certainly dont think Im racist or being racist, or sexist or hateful.
Circling back, I know well what it is like to be hated for what I think and say, because people hate fascist, racist pigs, and Im conservative, and like Hollywood agrees, we all know what that means. But I still dont see any wisdom or benefit in putting the responsibility of regulating our hate speech in the hands of any shitty government.
Wouldnt it be ironic if the people who like the idea of hate speech legislation, where the ones who hated others most often?
Quoting Joshs
I certainly agree that Dems win control or have much power in the big cities and the Repubs win control or sway everywhere else.
But what I see, is that the cities feed off of the land and cant survive without it. And the democrat cities also feed off of themselves. As soon as taxes start to chip away at growth, the rich people will flee the city. There can be no cutting out the conservative rural areas from a thriving city. I only mean thriving in one way: surviving with some growth.
Progressive/leftist ideas may work, but we would absolutely have to give up freedom and hand over much more power to the government. I dont think China or anywhere on earth is enough inspiration to change the model that built the US.
We are going to have to figure out how to stop talking about who is the worst fascist dictator or who is the hater. Its such a waste of time.
So because I am a conservative we have to clear up my relationship to Hitler.
You precisely exemplify my point to @Joshs just above.
Quoting Fire Ologist
To answer your question. Yes. Hitler was a homicidal maniac who seized control of a country and directly caused the deaths of tens of millions. Why do I think that? Because that is how tyranny rolls. Do we really need to breakdown a why question about whether Hitler was a murderer? Its just so tiresome.
Quoting javra
Please do.
Ill give you my take. Absolute freedom of political speech, allowing even Hitler to speak, is the only way to prevent us from finding ourselves taken over by a Hitler. Hate speech legislation is no way to prevent Hitler from taking over. Its a pathetically dumb idea. We need to be able to sound as hateful as we want when we see a Hitler taking over. We need to be able to scream Trump is a vile fascist baby Hitler if we want. The question isnt what we can and cannot say because we can say anything; the question is WHAT will we say now that we have this freedom. Is it important to worry about Trump? Or whats important to you?
But if all conservatives must be racist sexist pigs, whats the point of asking their opinion on anything anyway? Right?
The left and the right can both be tyrannical, or authoritarian in their own way. Its not really a comtinuum. Trump in his own way is just as bad as Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden when it comes to this bullshit. They all end up dictatimg certain shit. Question is what, and are the checks and balances in place. I wasnt afraid with Obama and Biden, and Im not afraid with Trump.
Question for you (that we should all know the answer to): is a black lesbian voting against her own interests by default, if she votes republican?
I agree. Stalin is not a meme in USA culture, but was far worse in many a way, at least when it comes to sheer number of deaths. And the gulags weren't kinder than the Nazi concentration camps. And other more recent examples abound.
Quoting Fire Ologist
To my knowledge, the UN defines hate speech as "speech that demeans or promotes violence against groups based on attributes like religion, race, ethnicity, gender, or other identity factors". The "demeans" part is too foggy to my liking; I'd much prefer "dehumanizes". And "promotes violence" I would hope is self explanatory. Quite famously by now, the Jews before world war two were first dehumanized via speech, with promoted violence against them following suit. So too were the Gypsies (about 1 million of them died too by the end of the war). The same occurred in Bosnia, in Rwanda, more recently in a place where to merely express humanitarian disapproval with mass starvation and the like is to be called Anti-Semitic and worse, with political consequences galore for many. Many are being silenced against speaking up for humanitarian ideals (and last I heard, Christ was quite the humanitarian person - as are the many humanitarian Jews now arrested for speaking their minds. As are many an atheist, and so on). And to be frank, I too now self censure myself in this political environment, just sitting on the fence with my mouth such watching what's unfolding.
So I'll go back to hypotheticals, this being a philosophy forum. If a group of people A scream out in solidarity while gaily dancing, "Death to all [people of your ethnicity]" such that group A greatly outnumbers the group to which their chanting "death to", those who claim this has no bearing on a preparation for physical violence have both a lot to evidence and a lot of history to refute.
I'm glad we do agree the Hitler was no angel. With this tinny little background given, I will contend that what makes Hitler guilty of mass murder and genocide is exactly the hate speech he engaged in. First paving the way for what eventually happened and then, or course, ordering the events.
Do you have a different explanation for why Hitler is morally culpable for unjust deaths?
Again, he never did anything else but speak.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Right. Same can be said on behalf of liberals. BTW, never saw a bumper sticker saying "conservatives suck". I've however seen plenty saying "liberals suck", neighbors included. Myself, I'm technically more of an independent - but, at least where I'm from, the hatred of the right toward the left far outweighs the hatred, if any (which is not the same as disapproval) I've personally encountered in the other direction.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Amen to that. You have Stalin (left), you have Hitler (right) and you have many another . My problem isn't with political sides and their differing views on how to improve society. Or at least I don't take one side and avoid the other in a tribalism mindset. My problem is with tyranny period. And when a majority of people in a society scream out "death to those we don't like the smell of" or some such, that is tyranny.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Of course. But only Trump is on record for inciting violence during his rallies.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Agreed with the first part. Pretty certain that the checks and balances in place pertain to the very community we're living in, vis a vis the community's rejection of political violence. Wherever you stand, Jan. 6th was about political violence. And all those currently in political power don't give a damn. Trump has joked about serving a third term. If this were to be (not beyond all possibility, for laws, as we know, can be changed more rapidly by authoritarian personalities and powers than by those who at least pretend to respect democratic values before the wide public), then the USA will become about as democratic as current Russia is. Putin too is an elected president, don't you know. "Afraid" might be overstating it, but I do find quite a lot to be concerned about.
Those who have no problem with speech that dehumanizes others and incites violence against them pretty much guarantee that such speech proliferates. And when it does, non-Orwellian understood tyranny follows. (The tyranny of the good, or the tyranny of truth, would be a blatant example of Orwellianized forms of the word.)
Nor sure how coherent my post is, or how well it comes through. But its late for me and I'm tired. So I'll stop short and leave it as it is. Hope I've answered at least most questions you've had.
Heres a chance to prove your case. Lets see you injure me with words.
Then why did you ask me if I think Hitler was a bad guy? Is it because Im a conservative republican - is that why you needed me to confess my true feelings for Hitler?
Hitler was a national socialist. He seems to me to have much more in common with the tactics and goals of the left (state control and power, hating groups of people like republicans, censorship and cancellation/extermination) than with conservatives. But you had to ask me anyway. And you didnt say anything about my answer.
So since you didnt respond to my answer to your question, I dont know whether you believe me or not. Most left leaning people dont believe conservatives when they say they are not racist. Thats what they say to my face. The left cant imagine it is coherent to want a strong border and to like Mexico. They think we are liars, and they think they know our true feelings. Which is prejudice and bigotry against conservatism, and unobservant. And just so wrong. About me. And there are millions of black, gay, women repubs - race is just not important at all to conservatism. The vast, vast majority of us know that Hitler is evil. Such a demeaning question. Maybe you didnt mean it that way, but if Hitler isnt morally culpable for unjust deaths, nothing makes any sense at all.
Now you never addressed my question:
Quoting Fire Ologist
You want to answer that?
But back to hate speech laws lets look at the text you provided and Ill give you my opinion (which is a form of speech called political that should be protected):
Quoting javra
Demeans is too vague. Get it out. I dont think your shoes go with that outfit is demeaning to some, and sometimes the facts are embarrassing and demeaning. What is demeaning may bring moral approbation, but cannot equitably bring legal punishment. Its too vague. So demeans has to be taken out (which you seem to agree).
Promotes violence is too vague. Promotes is in the eye of the beholder, and violence is too often used metaphorically. The phrase buy a gun promotes violence against squirrels and deer. The phrase fight meaning resist politically can be said to promote an insurrection, or maybe just voting and debating. The phrase beat the Democrats or whip the republicans speak for themselves. Some people are so frail, words alone are the violence. That is a psychological problem or maturity problem for them, not the basis of a law limiting political speech. The phrase dog-whistle scares me and makes me fear for my life and must be stopped as hateful. Such bullshit. Get promotes violence out of the law too. Its too Minority Report and thought police for me to enforce fairly, and I am a a fair guy.
Promoting violence is already called incitement to riot or conspiracy to commit a crime - we already have laws and dont need to find anyone demeaned or from a favored or at risk group in order to enforce these laws. Being mean and saying you wish others were dead is terrible, but not something I want or need the government picking and choosing to enforce this way and that way - what a total mess that would be. Like the UN is a total contradictory mess most of the time.
Other identity factors? Do these need to be explicit by the perpetrator of the hate speech - does he need to say them, or can some jury define the identity of who was being bullied? If the latter, if hatred of some group can be inferred and need not be expressly spoken by the hater, then other identity factors means anyone can make a case about a hate crime about anything. America, the ones who first implemented freedom of speech, has too much common sense to delude ourselves that any good will come from a hate speech law. Except for left leaning Americans, who for some reason wish Trump had hate speech laws on the books at his disposal.
It will never pass, unless enough republicans are silenced or shot.
Quoting javra
Sounds like a free Palestine, or BLM. rally. Wasnt there chanting about killing all pigs, meaning cops? But the chanting part, we have to allow.
Dont you think we can deal with terrible people chanting by simply countering with more speech? Like by chanting stop being assholes or wanting death means you are too stupid to debate or something? Make some posters? Hate speech might better be defined as a loud display of ignorance for all to hear.
The problem is the assaults and the destruction of property and the killing during these peaceful protests. Not the language that is supposed to be behind them.
Quoting javra
That is what most repubs have been doing for 30 plus years. Fearing cancelation for being racist and sexist because you think male and man are basically only biological terms and he points out anyone born with a penis. Total self-censorship of that view in the average public square. But that got everyone nowhere. And it led to a Trump victory despite all of the felony convictions and hatefulness he breeds.
Trump happened because conservatives can no longer stand watching what has unfolded.
Hate speech laws are all really about suppressing conservative speech, because everyone knows conservatives hate so many groups of people. Right?
You cannot censor thought. Let the thoughts come out so we can debate with the issues and show people how stupid their thoughts are. Otherwise we breed reactionaries and radicals in their moms basements.
Hate speech laws are dumb. I hate the idea.
First off, because Ive talked to more than one person who affirms he wasnt. And, with them being national socialists, they quite stringently affirm themselves and the national socialism they uphold to be thoroughly right and conservative abhorring everything about the left. And, as a reminder, I dont know you. Im not supposed to be telepathic, am I? You certainly dont evidence yourself to be in what you reply.
But far more importantly than this, I repeatedly asked you what makes Hitler so if not his very speech. Something you have not yet addressed, and Id very much like to hear your comments on.
As far as not saying anything about your answer, what on Earth was this:
Quoting javra
Quoting Fire Ologist
(if we "all should know the answer to" then wasn't the question rhetorical? All the same:) Obviously not. For starters, it would all depend on what her interests are, what she prioritizes politically, and so forth. Is that answered clearly enough?
Quoting Fire Ologist
You got me curious. I've mentioned my self-cencorship of humanitarian ideals, like the wrongs of mass starvation. As to thinking the gender always perfectly fits biological sex, I've been around for over 30 years and have been hearing this throughout - never once hearing a rebuttle of "you're racist and sexist" because you think this. And I live in "liberal" California. But, since you've brought this up, many of these same individuals I've so far talked to want to deny that over 1% (over 1 in every hundred) humans are birthed intersexed (with mixed genitalia) - neither male nor female. And that's a pretty significant percentage. But other than this issue of sex and gender, which I"m not yet buying, what else has folk such as Rush Limbaugh, etc, been censored from saying?
Ok, my bad. I skimmed that part and must have missed it that you are glad we agree. Im glad too.
But all speech is not political speech. When Hitler was campaigning and running for office and shouting at some pulpit, he was engaged in political speech and we should protect that type of free speech for all opinions. We get to debate every single idea we can think of.
But then Hitler became Chancellor, and at that point his speech was commands and orders, and enforcement of law, and setting of policy - not debate. These types of speech are heavily regulated and will always have to be. Checks and balances. Thats why hate speech laws are dangerous, because they give enforcement power to the government regarding anyones stupid opinion. And they allow the Furor to arrest those who say things he doesnt like.
We need to let Hitler speak his mind, so we can know not to elect him and we can know what arguments to make to defeat his stupid ideology of hate (like the lefts stupid ideology of identity power struggles).
We dont use the government to regulate political speech. Thats what Hitler did. He didnt just speak. He did many things besides speak.
Not all speech is political. When I say hey, watch out for that bus. Im not expressing a political opinion. Political opinions and debate have to be protected. When Hitler said build that concentration camp and bomb Stalingrad he wasnt just speaking - he was enacting policy and committing murder like a maniac. If a cop says drop that weapon he isnt offering suggestion - you better fall in line or get ready for a fight.
I find it confused for you to say that he never did anything else but speak. This is the best way I can address you asking me how Hitler, who you say only used speech, was culpable for so many unjust deaths. Not all speech is political. So just because he used words to command his followers, he did much more than political speech.
Quoting javra
Phillys DA, Larry Krasner, the chief law enforcement guy, just said at a town hall how republican policies are racist and sexist. First of all, who really cares, because the lefts policies are racist and sexist too. Race a sex issues are getting so old. But how about whether the policies are effective at achieving some sort of goal? Repubs or Dems effective policy makers? How about that discussion.
A despicable man like Trump was elected anyway because too many people are fed up with such blind stupidity.
And if the repubs start attacking free speech from the left, the repubs will get smacked by the conservatives. We dont like government. Trump is liked because he isnt a creature of politics.
Notice I didnt just say I like Trump because . I Used the passive voice Trump is liked because . This is my conditioning, by our left leaning media and DEI loving culture. Saying I like Trump can get you shot or fired. Certainly gets you hated.
Because I wonder if Trump thinks Hitler is culpable for murder? Hmmm good question. How could anyone actually like Trump? He must sympathize with Hitler. Right?
This mindset, I will acknowledge, being relatively new to me. If you feel like commenting, and if "conservatism" to you basically means the preservation of traditional values, do you then take all traditional values which are to be preserved to be non-authoritarian? (I've, for one example, grown up learning in church that the husband is the metaphorical head of the family and the women is the metaphorically subservient body - which must obey the head without question if things are to be in order. So I so far find this to be a traditional value in western culture. And I don't deem it an egalitarian, hence non-authoritarian, mindset, at least as regards the interaction between the sexes. Please do correct me if you think I'm wrong.)
As to: Quoting Fire Ologist
Is not "death to [x]" of itself a command - one that intends to bring about a certain order to states of affairs via speech? If the weakest of us all gives the strongest amongst us an order, does it signify anything in terms of what those spoken to do? As to enforcing laws, laws are nothing but words - verbal or written - that don't mean squat in practical terms without any physical enforcement. Sometime by a government that is intended to be of a people, for a people, and by a people. Not that I'm an expert on Hitler, but can anyone cite instances where Hitler physically enforced the laws that were put in place? If not, they were again just words. And the speech of politicians is one aspect of what political speech is. There need not be a debate involved.
At any rate, thanks for your previous answer.
Quoting Fire Ologist
That would be quite good, but it would be a different discussion that the merits/demerits of hate speech and the dangers/benefits of its being freely allowed without any so called "political correctness" getting in the way.
Here's just one example: When it comes to economy, I am all for capitalism when it stand up to its ideal of meritocracy: each benefiting economically based on their earnest deserve (rather than based on the goal of maximizing corruption so as to make the biggest buck). And, I am likewise for the existence of an economic social net to protect from devastating accidental events which can befall us all - welfare as its typically called - seeing absolutely no entailed contradiction between the two. Does that make me a conservative Republican, a liberal Democrat ... this stringent dichotomy is a bit bipolar for me. To me the discussion should not be about either or but about discussion what is best for one and all both in the short term and long term. But again, this would greatly deviate from the issue of hate speech and its intersection with free speech.
Quoting Fire Ologist
This being an example of the apparent deep resentment I've previously mentioned. No, not right. Does that then make Trump, the person who recently announced that it should be illegal for news outlets to speak negatively of him, not of an authoritarian mindset?
I see where you are coming from about my tone. But its not resentment. Its frustration. Its tiresome convincing people that I dont like Hitler, or that I dont secretly like oppressing women or something. Because there is no way to satisfy any request for such proof. Only a confession will do. And the debate on the issues is over before it started. Conservatives have let themselves be framed as racist sexist pigs for so long its a foregone conclusion. Its frustrating to deal with that in good faith.
But the actual progressive views and policies, some of them make total sense. No resentment from me when someone else has a better view. I dont write off anyone because of their politics. I answered your question about Hitler. I try to show I am arguing in good faith, but, because I am clearly not progressive, usually political conversations stay around Hitler and Nazis and how racist I must be. Same for all conservatives. Same since the 1980s.
Quoting javra
So lets be precise. Is Trump drafting legislation to make it illegal for the news to speak negatively of him? Because that would be stupid, and sounds like a dictator. The shit that comes out of his mouth sometimes. But I am sure such legislation cant and wont happen. Biden went so far as to set up the Disinformation Governance Board or something - much scarier to me, not because it was Biden, but because it had an enforcement structure to it, as opposed to crap Trump says.
Trump is not merely a chief executive officer enforcing laws and implementing policies. As you know Im sure, every word he says does not cause there to be a new policy. People do resist the all powerful president when hes an idiot. Thats how the checks and balances work. But He is still a politician, and a citizen, and gets to speak his mind, even when it is a stupid idea that goes against a free press. He has some dictatorial ideas for sure. That wont lead to policy imposed on the public though. Obama and Biden deported a lot of illegal immigrants you know. Trump isnt really a dictator.
There were people who said electing George W. Bush was going to be the end of democracy, that he wanted to allow women be raped, etc. But no president in my lifetime has been pilloried as badly as Trump. So if he gets overly sensitive and says it should be illegal to make fun of me I get it. But Im sure well see how that doesnt go anywhere at all.
Quoting javra
Basically full agreement on all points here. You sound conservative to me, no contradiction, but like you implied, who really cares about the label - the issue is what is best. (Plus I wouldnt wish the disparaging title conservative on anyone unwillingly).
So let me show you some nuances from my perspective on what we basically agree, to make a point.
Merit based hiring drawing from a pool of all worthy applicants regardless of race, creed, sex, etc. Total agreement. It makes sense for there to be laws on the books to foster fair, merit based hiring practices. Many are good laws, some are too vague and misused, some are bad - needs to evolve and continue being debated, and tested in court, but call it liberal or call it conservative merit based hiring is good, and many entities need to be regulated to keep it that way.
But DEI in corporations through the HR department - to avoid employment law issues - that is mostly crap and counterproductive. All it does is confuse common decency and humble respect owed between all people, by favoring one group and disfavoring another group. All it does is promote reverse racism and sexism. Its been terrible policy. It has led to so much abuse. It has little to actually do with merit. It rewards bad behavior more often than it helps anyone.
So if someone thinks I am conservative, and hears me saying DEI is crap, they will assume I am racist and sexist, and will think Im lying about merit based hiring for all races and sexes. Usually we dont get past whether Hitler would have been in favor of DEI or not.
I also agree with welfare and Medicare and a net for unfortunate circumstances. But Its the same on every issue though. For me to suggest some sort of parameter for how to distribute welfare, because Im conservative, it is really just me showing how I dont care about all black, hispanic and disabled people. If I suggest no welfare for that someone will say but that person is black, so you are just hating black people again. You see how it works?
The policy is always secondary to identity politics, and conservatives have the same identity as Hitler.
So lets jump to hate speech legislation. I think its too vague and too impossible to enforce, and will lead to drastically inequitable outcomes, and will certainly be abused by politicians to silence their opposition. So hate speech legislation is crap. But because I am a conservative, what I must really mean is that I am okay with people hating trans, or gay, or immigrants. I dont get to pass Go on that issue. I am a Nazi for some reason again because hate speech legislation is bad policy.
Or, like all republican politicians have to do, I have to answer for spreading hate all of the time if I want to have a policy discussion.
Quoting javra
So, lots to unpack. But first, I dont see this as a political question. And that is important to understand. If it is not a political issue, then it cannot lead to any government policy. So the outcome of any debate about an authoritarian tradition like men heading the family and wives being subservient, doesnt really matter in the public sphere. Its for each family to figure out for themselves. The dynamics of a marriage between husband and wife is more a psychological discussion, sociology discussion, anthropology discussion, and a religious tradition conversation (Jewish, Christian, Islam all have opinions on this too). But it is not a political tradition. Not for at least 100 years.
So if you are asking me how I think government should insert itself into such a debate with policy (like a rule of thumb type law about how to beat your wife, or voting rights for women), Id say the government has to treat all adults, men and women, equally and can make no law about the inner dynamics of a family. (And wife beating is abhorrent which should be needless to say, but again, I am a republican so I have to remind people that I dont like wife beating). It was always wrong in the US for there to be slavery, and always wrong for women not to have the vote. We all used to be apes that had no need for governing. Weve come a long way finally for women.
Women voting is fairly new, and one of the great contributions of progressive thinkers. It took too long for it to become policy.
But if you are just asking me, as a conservative, what do I think about man as head of the household, and wife as subservient to her husband? I like the way My Big Fat Greek Wedding put it: The man is the head of the family, but the woman in the neck, and she can turn the head whichever way she wants. This was said by the wife. So I try to seek the wisdom in the traditions that brought us to today, and, in this case, the wisdom handed down from both my mother and my father, but I live in the world I live in today. Most women hear wife to be subservient and they think you just keep telling yourself that. And the family goes on just fine.
Lastly, yes that is an authoritarian tradition. It has the word subservient in the very tradition. But I am not oppressed by the rules I voluntarily submit to. Sometimes the certainty of law and authority set you free. Placing a man at the head of the family can be a burden and duty for the man, and liberation for the wife. Its not a simple dynamic here that necessarily enslaves one while making a master of the other. And politically, the husband and wife must be treated absolutely as equals. Just like every other adult citizen.
I think modern society has a diseased view of authority, tradition and things like dogma. They seem unavoidable to me, and in need of integration into our lives, not mere resistance. We resist these things in adolescence, and we should question everything, but that is before we know some realities must be humbly accepted at times. We think for ourselves to determine which authority is good and right, and when to follow, and when to resist - but we also have to make our choices and act, and we dont get to avoid the existence of authority over us in our actions. Facts are dictators. Death is a tyrant. Taxes must be paid, or prison awaits. At times, someone has to represent the family, or someone has to be held responsible for the family, whether it be the man or the wife. Religion, not the government, provides a tradition that helps people who ask what to do determine for themselves how the family dynamics work. I would not just sua sponte tell anyone they were wrong or what to do - but if they ask, Id say there is wisdom in picking a head to the family at times, and a wisdom to making that head the man.
There was a lot said in reply with a good deal of it very well received. A question though:
Can the issue of hate speech be addressed without embarking on perceived issues of political victimization? (e.g. the victimization of conservatives by the left and the victimization of liberals by the right)
As a relative independent, I could, for example, have spent time in addressing how this inference is ill-suited, given that, to my knowledge, the overwhelming majority were peaceful supporters of humanitarian ideals:
Quoting Fire Ologist
But instead I did my best to stick to the issue of this thread.
If not, then I wont continue in the discussion. It will be purely political rather than in any way philosophical, without any foreseeable conclusion, and I dont have the free time for it. BTW, for over the past 30 years, my immediate family, a good deal of my friends and acquaintances, and most of my work colleges have been far more conservative than I am. My father, for example, listened to Rush Limbaugh on an almost daily basis. And the stuff Ive heard from them regarding the left, as I previously mentioned, has often times been quite hateful in what I took to be unjust wayssometimes a hell of a lot more than others (this without hearing anything alike in turn from the left toward the right). Shit, a small portion of these have even welcomed me into their house with a Nazi salute or else championed fascism (and Hitler) while visiting my place (apparently thinking Id be of the same mindset). This to me being facts Ive personally lived through. So Im not one to scapegoat political victimization onto one political party alone. I like and endorse democratic values and diversity which is ideally unified by these very same ideals. Yes, there are extremists on both poles of politics, but the loudmouthed extremists do not represent the majority on either side, at least not by my current appraisals.
Otherwise, heres what I gather we currently agree upon (feel free to disagree if not correct):
- Hate speechwhen interpreted in the spirit of what the UN intended, this being the spoken prelude to active genocidesis bad/immoral/wrong.
- As it currently stands, hate speech is very poorly defined, so much so that were there to be laws against hate speech in the US these laws could easily enough become utterly corruptat the very least in preventing freedom of speech (free speech being a very good thing to have in a functioning democracy, and utterly necessary to it).
- There should be some form of checks and balances within society to mitigate the legally allowed hate speech that might arise.
Id like to further discuss the details of this, but first Ill wait for your reply.
-----------
p.s.
Quoting Fire Ologist
In this, I want to reinforce that we both acknowledge the utter disconnect between authority and authoritarianism. One goes to the doctor precisely because the doctor has authority in realms one does not. This, however, has nothing to do with the given doctor being either an egalitarian or else an authoritarian in his/her predispositions and outlooks on life.
Quoting Attributed to Henry Thomas Buckle
Its a great question. I think it gets to the heart of what is wrong with hate speech legislation.
The important issue here is not the victims of hate speech. Its that we have to protect our ability to accuse our political opposition.
Libs need to be able to say repubs are scum, and vice versa. If it victimizes them that is their problem. We dont want the government to be able to take away anyones ability to reply and respond to an accusation with their own speech. And with this principle, allowing anything and everything be said in a political context, it becomes impossible to make laws that proscribe any political statement without shredding our ability to respond to the opposition. If the opposition is helping rapists and murderers and fostering destruction, we need to be able to call them rape lovers and murdering animals, to call them out, to muster political support to do something about the raping and the murdering.
People who support hate speech laws are trying to deal with the scenario where speech is not in a political context, but it is just say, a white supremacist on the street terrorizing people who are just trying to go to a store. He is calling them every racist, sexist nasty word and truly scaring them and hurting them emotionally, making them not be able to enter the store for fear of their lives. But this can be handled many ways and laws against words or speech are disproportionately destructive to political debate to deal with this asshole.
If we make a law that curtails speech instead of making a law that curtails behavior, we simultaneously limit the ability to argue whatever needs to be said in a political arena. And the good intentions behind hate speech laws become a practical issue. A comedian makes a joke about a murderer, and murder is funny. So maybe we can make laws that limit time and place and setting, like no F-bombs in G rated movies for instance. But for any group to tell any group what words are beyond all pale, and therefore illegal, incurring punishment - that is the end of healthy political debate.
All that said, just because it should be legal to say anything at all in a political debate, doesnt mean the politician who demonizes the opposition is an effective politician. That is up to us to vote for such a person.
We should focus laws on regulating the behavior, not the content of the speech. If someone is yelling in my ear at the top of their lungs, who cares what they are saying - the harm to my ear can be regulated as an assault. But the only harm to me is that they are saying words that I dont like to hear - that is not harm enough to limit free political speech.
So no, I dont think we can address the issue of hate speech without accounting for the victims of hatred. But in my experience, the one who hates is victim of his own hatred, and the one who is victim because of words is responsible for his own victimization - so to legislate against hate speech is utterly misguided and needlessly, pointlessly, takes a huge chunk away from our freedom.
(And not to mention, you put a law against certain speech, it will allow corrupt politicians in power to silence their opposition who is not in power. And it will never be applied accurately and fairly. I would be amazed that the UN floated such legal concept, but the UN has lots of bad ideas, and they all know their words are meaningless and cannot be enforced.)
Quoting javra
The hatefulness goes both ways, so none of that surprises me. Thats human, tribal psychology. But the Nazi salute and fascism and Hitler stuff - just vile. I never ran into that in my life. I knew of people like that, but no one I knew ever thought much of such losers. It just has nothing to do with conservatism (but Im sure I cant convince you or anyone of that unfortunately). Its like saying the gulag is essential to communism. Its been essential to the way communism has always been implemented, but its not an essential component to the ideology.
But here we are again, taking about how conservatives are mini-Hitlers.
Quoting javra
See, Nazis and white supremacists are not extreme republicans or conservatives. They are just fucking mutants. Its not conservative to give a crap about race. It just isnt. Racists give a crap about race.
A focus on race is not conservative. Maybe it used to be for some in the 1950s. But it just isnt the topic among regular conservative people anymore. The story you told above is an anomaly, not nearly the norm for the 70 million people who vote republican. I will say race seems important to liberals. They seem to draw attention to race often in order to discuss their priority issues.
Issues like, are all republicans racists.
Quoting javra
I agree hate speech is morally wrong even if it isnt spoken as a prelude to murder. But if you want to make it legally wrong, it needs to be more directly connected to things like murder and legal badness. It needs to be connected to harrassment, or obstructing the right of way, or trespassing, or fraud or libel or slander and leading to physical measurable harm. It cant just be offiensive to my ears and heart. We have to be able to say anything we want when the adults are talking about policy and laws and priorities and what is crime, and who is good for political office. The only way to protect that type of speech is absolutely - in a political debate context, absolutely anything and everything must be allowed. If it sounds like hateful shit, great, we call it hateful shit and tell the speaker now that they are done to piss off.
And instead of regulating speech, we regulate harrassment, obstructing the right of way, trespassing, fraud or libel or slander. If hate speech is a prelude to more badness, it is conspiracy to commit a crime, it is evidence of a criminal enterprise, it is incitement to criminality. So in that case, it is not the content of what is hated in the hateful speech that should matter to the government, it is the criminality of what the speech directly leads to that should matter to the government. We dont want the current administration judging speech for criminality. Right?
Well, I agree with this.
I also so far take it we're in agreement on the other two points I previously presented: that hate speech is ill defined and there there should be checks and balancers within society to mitigate it.
I've previously mentioned this, and I'll mention it again, maybe here more explicitly: I would rather that hate speech, however re-coined if so, be defined as speech that dehumanizes others and incites physical violence against them.
At this point, this has nothing to do with laws or other social means of mitigation but with definitions, So how do you take speech so defined? Do you yet find the definition vague?
This is a great working definition for hate speech. And it is clear enough to be an enforceable law.
But when we go to enforce this law, it looks to me like the dehumanizes part becomes superfluous. And the enforceable law ends up merely speech that incites violence.
As a test case:
In town, there is a rich white man who owns a Tesla Dealership. A woman stands on the corner and yells: I hate all white men, those dogs need to be put down. I mean dead! Musk and Trump are murderers for cutting USAID - everyone destroy the white mans Tesla dealership!!
Everyone who heard the speech screams hell yeah!! and turns the dealership into rubble.
Silly. Ive made some poor woman my foil.
But we are proposing as law: It shall be unlawful to make
So we press charges not only against the people who sacked Tesla for destruction of property, but we charge the woman who yelled on the corner with a new Hate Speech violation.
1. The white men are dogs speech seems to meet the speech that dehumanizes others prong of the law;
2. The people who where incited to destroy the dealership are brought in to satisfy the incites prong;
3. And the actually demolished dealership meets the physical violence prong.
It looks like, on these facts, we have a decent chance we meet all prongs of the law and we can get a conviction for hate speech.
But lets say instead, the woman makes the same speech on the corner, and nobody gives a crap. Nothing happens, and Richie White-man goes on selling Teslas.
Can we charge the woman with the hate crime now?
Without inciting any violence, she just gave a speech. Like every other politician does. She just went into the public square and floated an idea. Nobody happened to care.
With some speeches, people are incited to cheer. With others people are incited to tune out. Others, we think about. Others incite us to respond with our own speeches and writings. Maybe argument and debate. Speeches begetting speeches Others inspire us to do things it is legal to do.
The government should have no ability to regulate any of that activity at all. And even more emphatically than that, the government should never seek to regulate speech based on the content of the speech. We dont want the government picking what is good to say and what is hateful, and then looking at the content of what we say and determining for us what you said there was good, and what you said there was bad. In the basic political forum of adults speaking with adults, government doesnt get to judge the content of what we say. We get to say the government is shit, and everyone needs to be thrown out of office and we need new judges and we need new policemen and the entire government has to let me say whatever the hell we want.
But then, some speeches incite people to destroy property. Only at this point, do we allow the government step in, by making a law against speech that incites violence.
Any speech, hate speech, love speech, convincing logical argument, whatever - if speech directly leads to, or incites violence, that speech is a crime.
(And I think you can get caught inciting a crime even if the crime is thwarted mid-stream, if the violence itself is slight, only because it was stopped by a security guard or something... digression )
There is no need to look at whether the woman hated anyone. We dont need to know her motivation. Dehumanizing words may explain why all those white-men-haters were so inspired and incited to destroy the dealership, but we dont need to know their motivations either, because the womans words destroy the dealership and the rubble, with the violent mob connecting them, we can show that speech incited violence and arrest people.
So the that dehumanizes others is superfluous in application of the law.
Unless you are trying to make a law that allows government to arrest and convict people for speech before it leads to actual physical violence.
Thats too minority report. Now the government gets to judge how successful your incitement was likely to be. New definition is Dehumanizing words, that could lead to physical violence.
Now the law is hopelessly subjective/vague around the incites prong, and the physical violence against them part is superfluous.
Instead of working with the more specific hate speech that incites violence, we add add an aggravated speech that incites violence version of the law. If someone is a vile, hateful racist, you dont need to prove what dehumanizes, and instead just need to show generally how the hate aggravated things, and give a lot of leeway for harsh sentences - like incitement to violence is 2-12 years, and aggravated, is 10-30 years..
The UK is putting people in jail because they post extremely violent and dehumanizing rap lyrics on Facebook. A womans son died, and it was his favorite song, she posted the lyrics, and she was in jail and before the court, and back in prison for months. So wrong. Thats hate speech legislation applied.
There is no need to give the government so much power - power to screw up - and to give away our free speech rights just so that the government can take this power, and inevitably screw up application of the law, or worse, intentionally weaponize the law against political opposition.
Interesting idea, but really, what person are you talking about? :joke:
If you havent yet caught on to what Ive been saying in my posts, I agree that making laws against hate speech in the US can easily become utterly dystopian. It then follows that laws against hate speech in the US ought best not be made.
So we agree that hate speech is bad, that it can lead to mass murders and genocides, and, hence, that ideally it should not occur. And we agree that government sanctioned laws against hate speech in the US would also be bad due to their quite plausible potential to become perversely interpreted. Where were not yet clear on is the following:
Should there be a system of checks and balances within society to mitigate speech which dehumanizes and incites violence against others? And, if so, what ought these checks and balances within society be?
For example, Ive heard a lot of disparaging in my life of political correctness. The tyranny of such and so forth. So if we take away all political correctness, what checks and balances remain to prevent speech that can easily lead to mass murders and genocides?
More often than not, hate speech incites violence on the one who speaks it. Its why police defend the KKK and the American Nazi party to hold their rallys and marches, in order to protect them from violence. That threat of violence is always there, I suppose, and acts as somewhat of a deterrent.
On the other hand, hate preachers, holocaust deniers, and racists of all types are viewed as cranks in American culture. Chomsky makes this point, that anyone can publish works of holocaust denial in the US and no one really pays them much notice. If you do that in Europe, where it is often illegal, their work gets all sorts of press.
If youre ever in New York go watch the Black Hebrew Israelites hold their very public displays of street preaching. They speak hate speech pretty much daily, out in the open, with little to no effect on anyone. Its almost comical to watch.
At any rate, the idea that free speech leads to genocide is ridiculous in my view. No government ever involved in genocide had any commitment to free speech. In fact, quite the opposite. Clearly the issue is state-sanctioned mass murder.
I believe the checks and balances is greater free speech.
Does all this then mean you approve of the political correctness which societally, though not legally, mitigates hate speech as previously defined, this as the optimal mode of societal checks and balances?
So incitement is possible? Glad you came around in the end.
I did understand that, and so I should have said in my last post so let me put the legal status of hate speech to bed, and show why I agree with you that this need not be a legal issue.
I am curious if you agree that dehumanizes is superfluous to how a proposed hate speech law would be enforced. Or that giving the government the power to adjudicate what is hateful and what isnt creates the dystopia you just referenced. You agree with those two things?
Quoting javra
No. We dont need a system for this. We need more speech. We need the same exact system that allows for all speech. Hate speech is checked by reasonable rebuttal. Haters are always unreasonable, always ignorant, easy to prove they are incoherent and self-contradictory and ignorant. We all owe each other more respect and humility than a hate speaker can muster, so hating is a breakdown within the hater. And it is only defeated by changing minds and hearts through more speech.
But you said speech which dehumanizes and incites violence. Why do you keep bringing up incites violence? If it incites violence its a legal issue again, and we already have a system to put the violence in check.
I think you are worried about this: speech that dehumanizes and could possibly incite terrible violence.
Is that more accurate? If you keep bringing incites violence into it, then yes, we need the legal system we have in place to check against such incitement. We dont need a hate speech law, we have laws to handle anything that incites violence.
If you take out actual incitement, evidenced by actual violence, and just have someone spewing hate speech, then no new system makes any sense to me, just more speech, and common sense and rebuttal and education - maybe forgiveness and mercy are needed.
How would we systematize peaceful dialogue? The only way I see is to hear out the haters. And hear out everyone else.
The response to hate speech is rebuttal speech, it seems to me.
If you are not talking about the legal system, I dont know what social system you imagine could effectively stop a hater from hating out loud. Besides common courtesy, education in respect, education in love and forgiveness - all basically more speech.
The only real system to defeat hate is a moral system. Society has been trying to set that system up since the first Shaman said listen to me.
We each get to be Shaman in a free society, so I think the only system to combat hate speech is more speech.
As soon as hate invites violence, then the government pounces. Then the issue is no longer the speech or the hate though, its the violence.
Do you think speech IS violence when it is hate speech?
I have a few questions up above, so, I appreciate your time.
:up:
That shows one of the disconnects between progressive intentions and the actual effects of progressive policy on hate speech. There are others.
Sure, no one should be denying the holocaust - its a horrible, painfully provable fact. So any fool who denies facts should stick to their moms basement and listen to people when they tell him to shut up.
But progressive outrage leading to hate speech law to silence idiotic bullshit, ends up highlighting the idiotic bullshit - dragging it through court for a full hearing, answer the medias questions so they can do an Op Ed. And in the end, the hate speech policy intended to silence hate speech, advertises and promotes it.
Totally true.
you do have some splaining to do.
On the other thread you would never have said this:
Quoting NOS4A2
You do realize to incite is to cause.
So I agree with WHAT you are concluding here on this thread, but I have a feeling I still disagree with HOW you come to this conclusion per the other thread.
As always, no problem.
Quoting Fire Ologist
No. It can be quite harmful depending on subtext and context, but not all harm is violence. So, again, no.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Yes. But since we are not talking about laws I find this to be quite superfluous to the issue. To communally deem another people to be subhuman is a) unethical because it is b) harmful and can furthermore readily result in physical violence against them. And, as always, subtext and context matter in what is expressed: If I cordially tell a close friend, "f*ck you, you dog" in reply to a comment they make, this is in no way dehumanization. The same thing told to a complete stranger I detest would most likely be.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Again, yes: as always, I agree.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Because I'm not talking about laws. I'm talking about what is right and beneficial. Should I begin to justify why a person dehumanizing another person is wrong and detrimental? (a rhetorical question on my part)
Quoting Fire Ologist
No. I'm partly concerned about speech that dehumanizes, in and of itself.
I think that about covers all the non-rhetorical questions you've asked.
To reemphasize my position:
I, again, fully sponsor that the possibility of Orwellianized thought can occur at any time and in any way: physical defense against a physical assailant can become deemed physical violence and hence criminal; and vice versa: for instance, a mass murderer shooting people on the streets from building tops can be deemed to have only been engaging in legally protected self-defense against those whod take away his/her human rights. Both are perverse interpretations of what is ethical: The victim becomes the victimizer and the victimizer the victim. Something quite common in authoritarian systems and mindsets. And it is how tyrants gain power. All these judgments which attempt to influence others in terms of what-is-what and what should be done about it being first and foremost speech. And the issue of hate speech is by no means an exception.
Having reaffirmed that about Orwellian speech, is it anyones belief hereabout that more hate speech will mitigate the hate speech that might otherwise occur?
Heres an analogy that I so far dont find faulty: one rotten apple will spoil the bunch; the remedy to this so as to have a healthy group of apples is to add more rotten apples to the group. Replace apples with humans and healthy with ethical. The same conundrum results. The end result is the absence of health/ethics in the given cohort.
If you anyone sees it otherwise, can you then explain how hatred toward a dehumanized other (and an increased occurrence of it in opposing directions) can bring about greater equality of rights for all within the given community? The latter, as I think at least all Americans agree, being a necessarily upheld value in any functional democracy/republic.
To be quite clear: does anyone hereabout endorse the use of hate speech as beneficial? Rather than merely endorsing the absence of sanctioned laws against it.
So back to non-legally sanctioned systems of checks and balances. A lot of people have turned the term political correctness from one signifying politically ethical conduct into meaning something more or less along the lines of our tyrannical oppression by those with opposing political views. Granted, this can well be the case in any Orwellian society: within a self-labeled fascism or communism, what is politically correct will be that which is, at least for the most part, unethical, and it will tyrannically oppress those who strive for an ethical society. Well, to not re-ask the same thing in different terms, I will here simply repost what has so far not been directly addressed:
Quoting javra
Your time in replying to the non-rhetorical questions posed would likewise be appreciated.
And just as a reminder, this thread and its OP is pivoted on the idea that the very notion of hate speech is in and of itself detrimental and, thereby, unethical. It is this which I disagree with.
This caught my eye:
Quoting javra
From earlier:
Quoting Banno
Do we say that, since the act of shooting was not constitutive of the utterance of the first man, that the utterance was not a violent act? Well, is the issue here whether the utterance is violent, or whether the utterer is culpable? What part does the man giving the order have in the death of the woman?
You presented an interesting argument earlier, in response to assertions that utterances could not injure. You asked if Hitler injured people through his utterances. I don't think you received an answer, those you were addressing instead choosing to take offence by interpreting your argument as comparing them to Hitler - a merely rhetorical move, and somewhat sanctimonious given their attitude towards causing offence via mere words.
Perhaps the account I gave, from Searle via Langton, avoids the offence while maintaining the point. Can we sidestep the rhetorical deflection, and focus on the function of language in the action described. Do we hold the speaker responsible for the killing, despite his not having pulled the trigger?
It's also worth noting that the argument is not that all hate speech causes violence - another rhetorical ploy being used here. It's more about the othering that is central to hate speech, together with the issue of the culpability of the speaker in subsequent violence.
Cheers.
That seems important here. The way people are spoken to and described by others shapes how they see themselves, how valued they feel and how they are seen and understood within a culture, and can even legitimize certain kinds of treatment by others. Consider those who are homeless, so often described in public discourse as deros, junkies, or subhuman monsters. Much easier to have them killed or carted away somewhere if they don't qualify as citizens. It seems strange to think that language has no power or effect on behavior. Why would we have advertising, prayer, speeches or Fox News if language was powerless?
Indeed.
But that is the opinion expressed hereabouts. It has a place in the Sovereign Citizen virus, which has become more prominent Dow Nunder. It's part of the great myth of individualism.
Quoting javra
Ok, so just be sure we are eye to eye, in the former phrase speech that dehumanizes and incites physical violence you are more interested in addressing the speech that dehumanizes part, not the incites violence part. Which makes sense, because I think we dispensed with the incites violence part as a legal issue that is already addressed in the law and need have nothing to do with hate speech, which weve clarified has to do with speech that dehumanizes.
So now, this seems to me, would not be a political discussion but is a moral/ethical one. Maybe psychological or developmental. Maybe even linguistic, or aesthetic.
But all of this speech we are taking about is free - because we arent begging the government show up because of any violence that was incited by the speech.
Quoting javra
Focused on ethics, got it. I stripped this down. But I dont agree there is no such thing as ethical self-defense. Nor would I agree sniping from a roof top, unless a soldier in war, could ever be deemed self-defense.
Not sure I am following here.
Quoting javra
So does the victim become the victimizer, meaning circumstances change as x-victim becomes x-victimizer, or are you saying x was never really a victim? I think the former. But since you equated self defense with murder, I am not sure. So maybe I misunderstand. Can you restate your point here? How is self defense that leads to death the same as murder, if that is part of your idea here?
Quoting javra
physical defense against a physical assailant and a murderer seem common to humanity. We seem to be veering back towards who is fascist and the political again (which begs questions of law and government intervention, legal systems).
Quoting javra
So one hate speaker spawns a whole bunch of hate speakers. Thats called social media these days. :joke: But the trick is to respond to hate speech with rational speech. Then, the rotten apple either heals and becomes healthy, or it continues to rot on its own - but responsible adults need not fear being spoiled because of someone elses speech. I dont think we can somehow ban all rotten apples. We need to deal with them. And if they incite violence, well, we already agree there.
Quoting javra
I couldnt explain that. That sounds more like it would lead to civil war, not greater equality.
Quoting javra
Well, no. But who gets to decide what is hateful and what is not? Free speech is beneficial. If someone uses that freedom to spew hate, thats now open to rebuttal.
I think we have to recall there are various things people can do and can incite when they speak. Hitler used words to effect genocidal murder all across Europe. Those words were not free speech. He wasnt debating, arguing, convincing, defining - he was ordering, directing action, murdering...
Free speech is sacrosanct when it is political speech - debate among policy makers and elected officials and in political campaigns, and between two adults in a lounge.
Quoting javra
I agree with the thrust of where you are going here - the term political correctness is a misused weaponized frisbee. Many disparage the term itself. People usually use the term when they disagree with what they perceive the majority is demanding they think or say. Like its politically correct to say women can do anything men can do but I disagree. Thats when you see the term politically correct - when someone disagrees with what they see as the majority (polis) opinion of correctness.
But you are right. Political correctness is akin to simply being polite. If we took away all sense of political correctness, we would descend into verbal war, and likely incite violence.
That said, we just have to remember that we cant make laws about what is politically correct or incorrect to say. And I personally dont need any hard and fast rules. The law is that we can say anything. With that freedom we need to work out a polite society, together, hearing all opinions. And in that free process, we are going to hear some hateful shit. I believe that is unfortunately the best we can do.
Quoting javra
See, you just slipped in can easily lead. Do you really need a check for speech, meaning a mechanism to stop speech, if that speech merely can possibly lead to .anything? I mean what else can a speech lead to? Well never know if we stop it before we hear it.
You sound to me like you are trying to find away to regulate the speech of other people. Not by government maybe, but that there are things that, if even spoken, by default, require some sort of approbation or punishment.
What I would say is, we all know that crap when we hear it (because we know how to be polite). Id rather hear it, and deal with it with more speech, then come up with some system that states it can never be spoken.
I think it should be clear by now that speech isnt always political. You can do other things besides debate using words, like giving commands to shoot.
We went through this analysis above with incites physical violence.
See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1014774
Speech that incites physical violence can be regulated and punished. We all agree there.
Quoting Banno
I was so thorough about that, @javra had to tell me stop talking about it. Speech that incites violence gets regulated. Hitler did murder. No one contests that.
But we dont need to define hate speech to regulate anything that incites violence, and all we need to do is look at the violence to understand how to regulate it. It can be emotionless speech (as in shoot her) and it becomes illegal if someone attempts or effectuates murder because of it.
But Banno, and @Tom Storm, what happens if the second man doesnt shoot anyone? The Austin hypo is pretty stark - I mean such a cold shoot her - but what about something more realistic. Someone is spewing hate, stirring up a vigilante gang to go do murder, and everyone just mocks the guy and goes home. I agree the police need to check the obvious mental health and safety based on that scene, but do you want to just arrest him?
Dont you think we can regulate this without getting into the content of peoples speech? Or do we need banned words like Facebook?
Is there a forum for adults where absolutely everything and anything can legally be spoken, or do you think that is dangerous? I see more danger in NOT having a forum for all political speech.
Well, thanks. I appreciate that. Cheers. Yup, going about to doing other things is on my current list of things to do.
Quoting Banno
As with the example you've given, when a mafia boss, or Charles Manson, tells others I want them dead and these others then commit murders, of course the mafia boss / Charles Manson / Hitler / anyone who so says and thereby influences, really, will be culpable for the murders that ensue. In one train of thought wherein causes are defined counterfactually, because no murder would have occurred were it not for the given person so saying that it should, the person so saying that it should can well be deemed a partial cause for the murder. Otherwise Charles Manson should have remained a free man.
But the statement doesnt need in any way forceful in order to so be a partial cause. And if the statement is not forcefully aggressive, I so far dont find that it could be described as a violent statement and thus an instance of violence. That said, or course, the statement does cause violence to take place.
Quoting Banno
Nope, I didn't receive an answer.
Quoting Banno
Sure. Sounds good. Maybe the issue of whether Charles Manson should or should not have been incarcerated would likewise help out (Like Hitler, the guy never committed any murders with his own hands. He just said stuff).
Till next time.
Im baffled by your once again separating politics from ethics/morality. For one thing, you previously agreed the two are entwined. This would mean not separate.
Quoting Fire Ologist
You previously brought in the notion of Orwellian issues. Orwell wrote two political fictions: Animal Farm whose dystopia can be boiled down to the dictum that some members of the community are more equal than others and 1984 whose dystopia could be epitomized by the slogans of the Ministry of Truth: War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength to which could be added something along the lines of Hate is Compassion. All these could be argued for. For example: it is war that makes peace possible, to aspire to states of freedom is to be enslaved to an ideal of freedom, to be ignorant of what the powers that be do is to remain safe and sound and immune from external forces and harms and thereby be strong, and, as to my add-on, to actively hate the other is to maintain compassion for the in-group and oneself. Nonetheless, all theseboth when looked at at face value and when inquired into deeperare absurdities that, in one way or another, require double-think to be maintained. The same applies to the Orwellian thoughts I addressed in my previous post. But to engage in justifications, and potential ensuing debates, for why this is so is not something that I currently have the free time for.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Given the general statements you made, in relation to the topic of this thread, we then dont disagree on anything of much importance. Were both on the same page when it comes to the following: hate speech is bad for society, it is dangerous to criminalize, and the preservation of free speech should bring about a system of checks and balances within society to mitigate it.
For my part, Ill leave it at that.
The problem is he knowingly and specifically went out of the way, to target vulnerable people who in their disheveled state of life and mind would basically believe anything. To his credit, he wasn't your average simpleton, he knew his way around a conversation, shall we say. But it's not like he was out meeting doctorates with degrees and legitimately convincing them of his views. I mean, it's only human to cast a line where you know the fish will bite, no?
If you have time, take a look at at least the first few pages of Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts. It elicited an interesting discussion. At issue is the extent to which a perlocution is separable from an illocution.
Not at all. I disapprove. Im just trying to argue that speaking speech that can be construed as hate speech is riskier than hearing it.
I thought you wanted to separate out the politics.
Quoting javra
Quoting javra
Im baffled myself.
Quoting javra
Well, morality is entwined in every human interaction.
Quoting javra
But we can separate things to talk about them. I thought that was what you were trying to do.
Quoting javra
Exactly.
Quoting javra
Yes.
Quoting javra
Yes (and, to me, discussion around this point is the heart of discussion of the term hate speech)
Quoting javra
Close enough. (We probably agree here too. I might say here that, by keeping political debate free, we protect an opportunity resolve differences. So not so reliant on the emergence of checks and balances, but just opportunity to argue it out.
Quoting javra
Ill consider it left. :up:
Just curious, but how many products have you bought in ratio to how many advertisements youve seen? Using the power of your speech, perhaps you can convince those who say nay to hate speech legislation to believe otherwise. Both of these demonstrations ought to inform you on just how powerful speech really is, and that were not just thinking magically.
Fair enough, Ill take your word for it. But there is another way to frame it, and it doesnt involve attributing to scratches on paper and articulated sounds from the mouth special powers and unseen forces. Perhaps your disposition is to blame for your purchases, and not the words.
The point of hate speech laws was the ability to turn state crimes into federal ones for the purposes of trials being taken out of places considered too bigoted to adjudicate properly.
I'll try to check it out. Thanks.
Agreed with the OP - the term, as currently deployed, does not have utility.
Incitement to violence, as in Rwanda, via hate, clearly a different matter.
Quoting Jack Cummins
You can contend with the bullying without using the term 'hate' which is of course subjective. One of the things I, ahem, hate about wokeness is that it can encourage this framing. As a teacher, I seldom encountered anything 'hateful' in hallways or classrooms, but I always wondered how often the concept of hate replaces the concept of bullying. And what of bullying towards those with no 'hated' identity category?
I find it difficult to consider a 'hierarchy' of traumas for children. A straight white boy experiencing bullying will experience plenty of negative feelings. I fear the concept of hate obscures this in some cases.
I am a free speech absolutist. To my knowledge, there are no hate speech laws in the US, but here in Canada, we have them. We nearly had one that would have criminalized future speech. I kid you not.
And in the UK, people are being reported for non-crime hate incidents on a daily basis. Think of that Father Ted guy getting arrested at the airport over three tweets.
I find myself despairing somewhat to see US conservatives now invoking hate speech the way we Canadians do, despite the laws being so very different. So many US leaders, across the spectrum, seem to misunderstand free speech principles - the oft abused 'shouting fire in a theatre' meme, for example.
Quoting Roke
Well said. I am enjoying your comments throughout.
Quoting javra
Great question. Probably not? I certainly don't see anyone out policing hate speech against white people - the premise is viewed as laughable. There are certainly plenty of statements made by, say, DEI advocates about whites that would be considered hate if it were directed toward a group with less power.
It comes down to the power of the relative power of the group, a phenomenon we all witnessed when jews went from oppressed to oppressor overnight on Oct. 7th. (an oversimplification, for sure)
One of the dangers of 'hate speech' is that we don't know the demographics of the groups doing the hate speaking, but we know the culprit is likely 'white supremacy'. How hate speech by Muslims towards Jews represents 'white supremacy' is where things get dicey.
If 'power' is central to the definition of 'hate speech', that's just another subjective term that can be misused. Those who speak in the language of power certainly have plenty of 'power' - educational privilege, class privilege, etc.... Trudeau, calling voters opposed to his open-door immigration policies 'racist' seemed to be punching down, not up.
It is just too easy to abuse the language for tribal purposes.
I do wonder how much of the explosion in accusations of hate speech is due to the availability heuristic?
This is the best thing I've read on free speech in the wake of the Kirk murder. Greg Lukianoff is a progressive free speech champion. Glad to see conservative "The Free Press" giving him the platform.
https://www.thefp.com/p/bury-the-words-are-violence-cliche
"We need maximal tolerance for speech; zero tolerance for force".
I agree with Lukianoff.
Does a boy really know what sexuality is? What straight is? What race or being "white" is? They do not.
They know colors. Which have no meaning other than the visual perception they experience. Growing up, me and an African American boy would play hide and seek. Once or twice we would joke "Hey, that's no fair! It's getting dark, (boy's name here) is gonna hide and we'll never be able to find him!" And we all laughed and joked, equally. Sure, I suppose in hindsight that was "racist" but, not really, because we had no deeper meaning of the term. It didn't mean anything. So we all laughed together. Sure, it's not that way as an adult. No, not by far. But my point is, kids don't process any deeper meaning behind the words beyond what the words suggest.
They do. My son is 8 and extremely feminine. He is acutely aware of how this will follow him through life.
How's that? Is he smaller than others? Daintier? That means nothing, that's size-ism. Just because a person is born larger and another person is born smaller doesn't mean the larger person is a better person.
Does he talk with a lighter voice? That also means nothing, that's hormone-ism. Just because a person is born with a hormone or pituitary gland imbalance, doesn't mean they're a better person.
Is he more "whimsical", enjoying things like frolicking through the flowers and uh, just being a kid? Yeah. That's called just being a kid. Just because a person likes to express themself without caring what others think, doesn't mean they're a better person.
Can't you see those who think otherwise are slaves? Sure, there's more of them. And they're larger and stupider, therefore more violent. But does that really matter?
Just because some hypothetical other kid is larger. stronger, and what not, essentially a dull, basic rock-like form of existence that has no passion or intelligence or sense of joy, that will go through life pretending they do, doesn't mean you can compare that unfortunate being as "masculine" and another more spirited child as "feminine."
It just makes no sense. It's anti-human, really.
If you think he's too "whimsical", teach him discipline through physical work. Hard work. Like mowing the lawn or harvesting a field. He should be sore and sweaty after. I'd wager, he's just thin and so moves "daintily" compared to other children. That's a purely skeletal and locomotive trait. Nothing to do with gender, hormones, or sexuality. Thinner people need less testosterone because they have less muscle tone and require less energy to move about. Making sense yet? Perhaps he likes bright colors and ponies and whatnot. That doesn't mean anything but what you allow society to dictate it as. All that means is he has more intelligence to appreciate art and culture. Getting through to you now?
That has nothing to do with sexuality.
Quoting AmadeusD
95% of cases, it's 100% about size. Miserable people have the most kids, they're the lions share of humans alive on this rock. That means, they are raised by terrible people and have no guidance, they see their parents flaws, who in turn irrationally act out (they are also mentally ill, yes, most people alive are mentally ill by all legitimate, medical standard) are fully aware, and so take it out on the world around them. So they will bully smaller "happier" children. Now, if your kid was larger, they wouldn't dare. See what's going on here? The "strong" (mentally weak, or raised by the mentally weak) pick on the "weak" (physically smaller) because it's the only thing they can do to feel adequate being raised by mentally-weak subhumans who don't know how to raise children and should have no business having any.
Stuff like this is why I'm a staunch monarchist and royalist. Those Made to be subject to a Lord rebelled, killed those Made to be their appointed leaders, (I won't even get into the Biblical repercussions they'll face eternally), and that's the world we live in. For now. All I'm saying is, don't let this silly world be your kids mother and father. That's supposed to be your job.
Hello Outlander. I appreciate you commenting on my post! But I think these questions are nutso.
And, irrelevant. Who cares if they know definitions of these terms that you approve of? Kids do feel and think and know things. If the outcome of a belief system damages children, it is a problem.
Quoting Outlander
Lot of judgement here.
But setting that aside, "most people alive are mentally ill by all legitimate, medical standard" is, again, nutso.
Mental illness is not really subject to 'legitimate mental standard'. Psychology is, what, 150 years old? Mental illness is a different concept from physical illness.
Calling people who act poorly 'mentally ill' is insulting to those of us with mental illnesses. It is insulting to victims of those acting poorly. Etc.
You can't force people not to suck. None of what you have written here is 'making sense yet'. What are you suggesting?
Quoting marisonechko · Oct 8, 2025 · 37s
Quoting Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles: Personalized License Plate Guidelines and Restrictions
I don't see a case myself. Technically maybe, but otherwise too wishy-washy. Then again, if you could be threatened/fired for airing something negative about Kirk, or get picked up by ICE for airing something against Israel?
Quoting Outlander
No. He's generally larger than other kids. He will be far above average in height later in life.
Quoting Outlander
No. I can't understand why you're trying to talk about things I haven't said.
Quoting Outlander
I take it you do not have and have never spent much time with kids if you think this. A common problem for those commenting on human behaviour.
He is much more 'whimsical'. And that is feminine. Quite obviously. Objecting to this just lead to my above comment..
Quoting Outlander
I don't think he's 'too' anything. You've made up some crap to talk about again here. I'll not engage.
Quoting Outlander
I quite squarely don't know what hte heck you're asking here. You posited a load of crap I didn't say, intimate or agree with and then ask me questions in the face of those positions. I can't really do that my dude.
Quoting Outlander
I didn't mention him being bullied. I actually didn't mention any of this. You seem to be extremely angry at something that wasn't said, intimated or even hinted at by inference. I quite honestly do not know hte purpose of this repsonse other than to have a bit of a rant for yourself.
My son is very feminine. He does not get on with other boys as a matter of taste. He gets on with girls. Girly girls. He prefers feminine objects, activities and all else under the sun. We are not traditional parents in the gender sense, nor is his school traditional in this sense. Humans have fundamental inherent tendencies. Pretending that isn't hte case is anti-human.
That's fine, well, odd, if not disturbing, since you claim to be a professional who works with children. Or was that someone else?
The majority of the world, and all reputable science acknowledges the brain is not developed until well beyond adolescence and so children cannot be trusted to decide what's best for themselves or what they think they know. They are highly malleable, easily influenced, and can be led to believe anything. This is common knowledge and codified legal fact everywhere on Earth, which is why children are not legal adults until the age of ~18. Just for some real world context that cares not about your outlying and atypical opinion.
Suggesting a young child does not and cannot intimately and deeply know what sexuality or race is, was more of a statement. A common sense statement. The literal farthest thing from "nutso", since it is in fact normal, widely-held belief. If you cannot understand basic human nature, you have no business working with any child anywhere. Period. Sure, a young person can get aroused by human contact and feel "different" per release of hormones and various signals the brain sends to the body, that's normal. Sure, you can tell that your skin is one color and that another person's might be a different color. But these are surface level, beginnings of understanding what it means to be human, not indicative of anything, let alone set in stone just because you've been led to believe they prove something absolutely that will be inherent to the person's entire adult life.
Quoting AmadeusD
Then don't. The world and intelligent people are in charge and will decide what's best for children when adults fail to. You can bet your life on that.
Furthermore, just because you don't like, agree with, or understand something doesn't mean it's "crap", especially when it's a widely held belief the majority of the world holds and science, morals, and basic cultural and societal fabric supports and stands behind.
You're simply mistaken. It's not that big a deal, it happens to everyone at some point in life.
Quoting AmadeusD
I didn't "try" to talk about anything. I successfully asked a question. Not a statement-within-a-question, a simple question. A highly-relevant question that acknowledges common patterns of discrimination and prejudice toward people who are diverse or atypical in tone of voice or physical structuresurface-level, superficial traits that commonly result in illegitimate, ill-formed, and myopic opinion-heavy "determinations" of "feminine" vs. "masculine." Your answer was no. Moving on.
Quoting AmadeusD
And? He's a kid. Kids grow up. You can't predict a human beings entire life based on the first few years. Not for certain. So he likes expressing himself. Maybe he'll be the next rock star or something. You don't know. No one does. So don't act like you do.
Quoting AmadeusD
No one said you did. Simply these are common traits that occur in children who act differently than their peers. Sometimes bullying/ostracization is because they are different, other times it's just what happens that leads to one becoming and acting differently as a coping strategy. This is basic psychology. I notice you don't say "he's not", which leads one to believe, perhaps I was correct, and if so, you should listen to people who are correct about topics and persons they seem to have no way of knowing anything about personally. That's called wisdom.
--
I understand it's a tough, personal topic. None of my business. Nothing to discuss with a stranger in front of more strangers. You don't have to reply. Still, this post must be posted so as to educate and reach as many as possible who might be reading who have the same misunderstandings as you, even if such education fails to reach you yourself. If at least two people discover the truth and are now free from falsehood, when one might not, that's still a win for humanity and all that is good, right, and proper.