Does anyone remember Sioraf as Killeens? Now there was an irritating fellow, but only because he took himself too seriously with pseudo-philosophical nonsense.

and he also thought of himself as a bit of a poet.

My favorite thread of his was "On Ethics and the Long Defeat" or some such nonsense, mostly because tried to pass off Tolkien's "Long Defeat" idea for the Elves as his own creation. Splendid fellow. I miss him.

@ draugnar
I am Agokwa, a two-spirit. the term that comes closet to it in english is Pansexual.

I think the closest word in English is libertine.

@ draugnar. You seem to be attacking mapleleaf for using the phrase "faggy indian," but it seems quite hypocritical for you to be judging him doesn't it? When you say things like:

"@Ivo - Odds are I was writing software before your mom got knocked up by some stranger who gave her a dime bag if she would let him fuck her."

It makes me wonder how you can even view things as offensive. I have no problem with you saying things like that as it is not against the rules of the site at all, but I feel like you are in no place to attack another person for their comments on the forum...

@wydend
I have no problem insulting a person. The problem was with insulting an entire race and a sexual orientation. It's called hate speech. If you don't see the difference between calling someone a mother licking father fucking asshole and making a racist/sexist/homophobic comment, then we have nothing to talk about. One is a personal insult, the other insults an entire subset of humanity.

No, there's no difference. The same freedom of speech that lets you call someone a "mother licking father fucking asshole" lets you say all the racist things you want to too. If you want freedom you have to live with the good and the bad, or else it's just a censorship by a different name.

It's not polite, though. You can refrain from doing legal things. Sometimes you should.

There is no such thing as "hate speech". It's a meaningless construction designed to curb people's expression.

Eh... I don't know about that, not in all cases anyway.

Especially when that expression is to incite violence against another based upon religion, sexual preference, gender or race. Although I support everyone's right to express themselves, even if I disagree w/ their viewpoint, it does become hate speech when it's done with the intent to elicit violent or riotous behavior.

To clarify. I support someone's right to go out and say "I hate black people, or I despise Muslims; this should be a country for WASPs only". I have no issues w/ someone's right to be an idiot. I do have an issue if, within the context of that speech, the person is inciting others to take whatever action necessary to cleanse this country of those same peoples.

"Especially when that expression is to incite violence against another based upon religion, sexual preference, gender or race."

The thing is, Brandenburg is an excellent test that allows full scope for unpopular speech while maintaining order in a civilized, but free, society. Most of the speech condemned as "incitement" falls well outside the Brandenburg exception for speech inciting "imminent lawless action" and really ought to be protected. It's the law in the U.S.; it ought to be a guiding principle in other countries, too. "Hate speech" is rarely dangerous.

Unless you were a black man in the southern US during the height of the KKK, or were a Jew in WWII era Germany, or...were a woman in Puritan, Salem Mass, or....

Oh, was it speech that killed those people? I thought it was murder. I thought that is what killed them.

Oh, the fascist urge is hard to resist...

I'm not disagreeing w/ your toughts on the Brandeburg test, but I think it's a big stretch to say it's rarely dangerous. If the person giving the speech is highly charasmatic, then I would claim it is very dangerous.

I never said it was the speech that killed people, only that it can inspire/drive others to perform the actions.

A lot of hateful stuff is said; very little of it leads to unlawful conduct.

Of course, the KKK example is easy - crime-facilitating speech is not protected.

Re: Jews in Germany - Mein Kampf to the Final Solution was many years; I don't see this as a good example of a close nexus between hate speech and unlawful conduct.

Salem Witch Trials - I don't know much about them, but wasn't the problem here a perverse judicial process?

Here in Brasil, racism is a crime and you got in jail for doing some act of racism or for inciting other people to do that.
And I thinks it´s right, you have the right to say or write whatever you want, but you don´t have the right to act or incite other to act against what the society has defined as its ethics standard.
One of the biggest problems today is the "individual" ethics, so each one thinks he can do whatever he think is right and the only limitations will that dictated by the law.

That's Orwellian.

@Acosmist: "Oh, the fascist urge is hard to resist..."

What is it with you and calling people fascists?

"Of course, the KKK example is easy - crime-facilitating speech is not protected."

So you have freedom of speech, unless you are inciting someone to commit a crime? I would kind of agree with this if it's really your view, however for you, it would tend to render your other comment - "Oh, was it speech that killed those people? I thought it was murder. I thought that is what killed them," - pretty much worthless, because either the speech was criminal and therefore not protected by the concept of 'freedom of speech', or else the 'laws' in the country in question at that time (ie Nazi Germany) were so dubious that the concept of 'criminal' speech doesn't really work in those conditions.

I call fascist stuff fascist, man. Deal? I guess?

Read Brandenburg v. Ohio. There are limits to free speech. Speech that incites imminent lawless conduct is not protected. The speech that facilitates a crime is not protected (otherwise conspiracy would be awfully hard to charge). Speech that is libelous is not protected. Fighting words are not protected. Obscenity is not protected. Perjury is not protected.

I don't think the Holocaust would have been prevented by stopping people from saying stuff alone. The speech itself did not fuel the trains to Auschwitz :/

Wow, all this over my slam of a racist and homophobic comment made, I'm pretty certain, tongue-in-cheek.

I must say that against the law or not is irrelavent to me. I'm concerned with right and wrong, not legal and illegal. I was told that my profanity-laced invictives were no different than the racist and homophobic statement I was condeming. My words attacked one person and one person only for their attitude (and I like to have creative profane insults as often as possible, it's a hobby I picked up in the Corps). Racism and homophobia, even in jest, attack an entire class of individuals by essentially saying that they are second class citizens or worse, so using them in reference to someone else as an insult to that person is putting the entire class down as subhuman.

Fascists used racism as a tool to achieve their ends.

Well, what the Nazis did in the Holocaust were war crimes, not crimes against German law. The Nazis obviously had anti-Jewish laws which allowed for confiscating Jewish property and transporting Jews to ghettos and later concentration camps, and I can only assume that there was some kind of "legal" justification drawn up for killing them en mass too.

At any rate, there are very specific limitations on free speech in America. Some of them are things like fighting words and actually inciting people to commit a crime. Outside these rather strict guidelines, you can say whatever you want, and an abstract idea like "racism" as a whole cannot be illegal.

Come on, people. You can't just arbitrarily ban some people's speech because it's not popular or wrong. What if the shoe were on the other foot?

Did the Italians do that?

Use racism, I mean. That was to Herr LightBringer

Ask the Ethiopians