What’s wrong with a little hate speech?

[Guest TruthTeller]

>Ok, that site would qualify as incitement to hatred. Is it

>still up?

 

It's still up. This is the United States, not Canada. Here, you're allowed to advocate anything you want, including the killing of abortionists. That's what "free speech" means. Calling it "incitement" (whatever that means) doesn't change that.

 

The appellate court in this case held that, under the First Amendment, the Government is barred from punishing the proprieters of the web site for the opinions they expressed. You can punish the people who actually shoot doctors - since they commit a crime - but you can't punish people for expressing the view that such killing is justified.

[Guest Esc_Tracker]

>That wasn’t my point, but…maybe he would. My point is that

>simply having legal restrictions on hate speech is not

>enough to make someone feel more secure. Whether the Nazis

>demonstrate or not…they manage to instill fear in the lives

>of foreigners in Germany. Perhaps, as others of have

>suggested, it would be better to allow them to demonstrate

>so that they can face the ridicule that they receive in the

>US. It might actually make someone feel more secure to see

>that the majority of the community passionately disagrees

>with them.

 

Well unfortunately, they don't always receive ridicule in the US. Do I have to remind you of how long Blacks in the Southern US were kept down and intimidated from voting by the shows of strengths racist Whites were free to put on? What about stalking through, for example, one person standing outside your door (but on a public sidewalk) waving a skull and cross bones sign at you during daylight hours. That's a form of "harmless" free speech. I'm sorry, but I'm with those who believe you have a right to live secure from implied threats and without overt hostility being pushed in your face. People have a right to be left in peace, and this is precisely what your interpretation of free speech would deny them.

 

But regardless of that slur cast against Germans, whom I have never found to be more or less racist than most people (at least since the war), I find it bizarre that you should somehow assume that racism in the US is less than in the rest of the world because of your first amendment. From where I sit, it appears to pervade your politics, your news, and your social discourse. Your obsession with race is just baffling to us, and I suspect a large part of it has to do with your attitude to "free speech". I can only think of one (debatable) race riot in Canadian history, and we are hardly a country free from inter-ethnic tension and discrimination.

 

In most of the democratic world, if you make a public nuisance of yourself, you spend the night in a lock up until you cool down.

[BewareofNick]

Well, is that abortion site encouraging people to kill or is it providing people with information? Is it suggesting targets or merely chronicling those who have been killed? How do you make the distinction?

[Guest cp8036]

<...Excuse me? I'm a Canadian. We have no "u" shortage north of the 49th parallel. If you want to use defective spelling, feel free. But I don't have to follow your rules just because I live on this continent. Your "we" does not include "me", and it is presumptious on your part to suggest otherwise...>

 

 

Esc,

 

Thank you for alerting me to the fact you are Canadian. Had I not been so self-absorbed in ethno-centrism and our (United States of America's) zeal for world power in spelling, I would have noticed the Maple Leaf icon on your posts. Perhaps the fall colour scheme instead of the traditional one is what caused my oversight. I humbly admit I was remiss to think ours was the correct way.

 

In that I was born in England, and lived in Canada for 4 years, I am aware of the differences, just as how the USA says "ZEE" and you say "ZED", and of course the pronounciation of "schedule". However, in my adopted land, I have mindlessly taken on the local spelling -- defective as it may be. Your gentle nod about my errors brings to light not only my faux-pas about Canadians being present here, but also how imperialist and self-centered we can be.

 

I will never include "you" when I speak of "me" or "we".

 

For whatever reason, the USA drops the "u" in favour. In schools across the USA they spell as "favor", there are other examples of where USA spelling took a departure from the British English spelling.

 

In your country the spelling is defective, while in this country it is not. It is presumptious for you to remark that our spelling is summarily defective, just as it was presumptious of me to assume you had to live by our rules.

 

Now, lighten up, go ouuuut and meet me at Tim Horton's for a donut, eh.

[Guest cp8036]

Why, how do they spell it in Mexico?

 

Thanks, Dick for bring that up.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

I yield to no one in my admiration of and fondness for Canada. Margaret Atwood's one of my favorite writers. I have several phenomenally happy memories of Montreal, many of them sexual. (Toronto wasn't represented too well by the coke fiend I went home with on a bitter cold Halloween night, but we'll let that pass.) My longest relationship was with a biracial (half Asian) Francophone from Manitoba. I won him over by knowing where Portage and Main (the windiest intersection in North America) is. I campaigned for a Canadian-style single-payer health care system for the US in the early nineties. When I lived in Minneapolis I used to listen to CBC broadcasts on Minnesota Public radio. I like the Canadian sense of humor. I think it is good and important that there is a Canadian experiment going on alongside the American experiment on this continent.

 

Still, I have had enough conversations with enough Canadian ex-patriates and Canadians who wish they were Canadian expatriates to make me, well, not wish I was Canadian (a few months in Montreal probably wouldn't kill me). None of these people have met each other; they didn't get together and practice, but they rail with one voice against this smothering conformist quality to the Canadian experience. I think it has to do with what Margaret Atwood called the Canadian obsession with survival. Life is cold and brutal up there, and maybe Canadians need a few more "freedoms from" than Americans do (who like our "freedoms to"). It's a different temperament, with more of a tendency to worry and think of reasons NOT to take risks, make messes and fuck up outright.

 

I can see why Canadians are skittish. The continued existence of Canada as Canada is always being called into question, not by American cultural hegemony, which is undeniably an issue, but by Canada's internal ongoing rift with Quebec, and the growing regional divides. I remember reading a poll in which Canadians said the three things that made them Canadians were 1) the maple leaf 2) ice hockey and 3) the fact that they weren't Americans. This last component tends to necessitate thinking of America in caricatures. Canadians don't speak of Americans as if they can afford to be magnanimous. Still, no country having such a hard time keeping itself together can afford to look too smugly upon the United States' difficulties in running a multicultural society. Look at the Canadian government's laudable attempt to make Canada a bilingual country. It has stirred up much resentment while doing little to cool the seperatist fire. You actually had Quebec banning store signs in English, for god's sake!

 

The fact is, multicultural societies are hard to keep together. No country has a stellar record, and most are downright awful at it. Americans may be obsessed with race, but it's a sign that we are making efforts, however imperfect, to deal with it. I find it telling that Esc_Tracker had to go back to the sixties to augment his pessimistic outlook on American race relations. Of course, one place where race relations are strained and heated is American universities, where one can also find...speech codes.

[Guest IM_Moore]

Nothing you cock sucking, boring asshole, wanna be somebody, moron who should be pissed on but would like it too much so instead I think I will light a fire and watch the indians dance.

[Guest cp8036]

correction....."In your country the spelling is defective.."

 

should be "in your country spelling "favor" is defective..."

[Guest cp8036]

Devon,

 

Isn't Montreal a fun city... I used to live there for a few years... and was sorry to leave. A great quality of life there, save the severe winters. Attractive city, affordable, low crime, good food, fun people, cultural, historic, and a great gay community.

[duke37]

I am sure TruthTeller could follow up his learned post citing Supreme Court opinions with a discussion of the origin of the idea of punishing acts not thoughts in English common law and the Judeo-Christian tradition.

 

Suffice it to say that I believe that I don't have the power to look inside another human heart and truly understand or hope to judge what he thinks. How can I know? I can however judge people on how they act.

 

Perhaps the Founding Fathera believed only God had the power to truly know the human heart, in any case they stood solidly behind the idea of judging acts not thoughts.

 

As hateful as I believe ( believe) the speech is of white supremacists,or anti-abortionists, I have an unshakeable conviction that the only way to stop these cockroaches is expose them to the light of day. Ban the "Turner Diaries"? No. We are always better served in knowing what hateful people want to tell us. I hate what they stand for but now I know what they are and what they are capable of.

 

On the other hand we are not required to stand idly by if people using the cloak of the First Admendment seek to terrorize and intimidate. I have no problem with a burning cross. However I am all in favor of arresting the ass who lights one on a black family's lawn as the vandal he is. Punishing the vandalism is enough.

 

But it doesn't have to end there. If we encounter hateful speech we can oppose it with speech of our own. We have that right. In fact we have the responsibility to act, if we claim to love freedom. I am amazed at how quickly some people want to give away the responsibilty to defend our freedoms to someone else.

 

"Love is the only thing that makes things one without destroying them." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Isn't Montreal a fun city... I used to live there for a

>few years... and was sorry to leave. A great quality of

>life there, save the severe winters. Attractive city,

>affordable, low crime, good food, fun people, cultural,

>historic, and a great gay community.

 

Mais oui! The vibe there just teems with sensual energy. And the way you feel that you're in a European city and a North American city at the same time is really amazing. LOL, I'm starting to talk myself into planning a visit! :9