@Invictus
As long as the speech is only speech you can say whatever you want. But when the speech is intended (I know it´s a blur limit on that) to drive some actions against someone it shouldn´t be allowed. In a very poor example, you can say "I don´t like Brasilians or Muslins or gay people", but you can´t say "Let´s arrest, beat, kill, deport, etc, brasilians, muslims or gay people" because this could end in some criminal act by other people.

How many times in their history has Italy been bested? Why couldn't they accept that they lost to a superior force? Because they were beaten by Africans.

Btw, this thread seems to have gone way off topic =P

OK, you're just reading racism into the whole thing. Well, begging the question does make arguments easier. :/

In the US, in the case of calling someone a "faggy Indian" this would be the equivalent of calling them a "N..." and is considered "fighting words" in court, which is against the law.

But again, I was chastising him, not calling for any censorship or saying what he did was illegal. and I was doing it as much in a tongue-in-cheek way as he was. It was a creative insult on my part (or maybe you don't think it was creative, what the fuck do I care...) and we don't have to drone on and on and argue the finer points of law unless you all really want to.

I'm not sure where this got derailed, but my original comment had nothing to do w/ legalities or freedom of speech. It was simply to state that hate speech is not a meaningless construct to curb people's expressions, but it is a reality and can lead toward violent behavior.

@ Acosmist: What was it that LanGaidin said that you consider to be "fascist" ?

I'm not sure where this got derailed, but I think my initial point was misconstrued or misinterpreted, as I was not questioning legalities nor freedom of speech. I was simply disagreeing w/ the idea that hate speech is a meaningless construct invented to curb or supress peoples' expressions. It is a reality that can lead to violent and/or riotous behavior. I'm not claiming anything else nor saying we need stricter laws to curb speech. I am not saying that most hate speech leads to crimes. I am saying it is ignorant to believe that it is never harmful and ignorant to believe that it never leads to violence or murder. It is not fascist to believe that hate speech can lead to those things, it is realistic.

I agree with LanGaidin. Some speeches can lead to acts of violence and instigating violence should be dealt with approoiately. However, I find the UK's decission to try and stop people entering the country because they may say something inflamitory laughable. All this does is limit free speech and make the person they are trying to ban into some kind of minor celebrity.

Crap, I'm sorry. I was on the wrong page and thought my reply didn't get posted:) Talk about redundant....oops.

And, I also think that any disagreements and subsequent violence should be placed at Draugnar's feet...isn't that how most most of these threads work:)

j/k Dragnar.

Mapleleafs comment has derailed this whole thread.

Once again I question Acosmist for calling someone a "fascist" and he refuses to explain himself. Ho hum.

Oh man are you still obsessing over me? ;_;

No, it just annoys me that you come out with insulting crap like that and then refuse to explain yourself.

Basically it seems that for you "fascist" just means "someone I don't agree with".

Suppressing dissenting opinions because they are supposedly dangerous is a staple of fascism :confused: that is why I said that.

I said that because there is a clear analogy with history

that is why I say things like that

please keep this in mind

Alternatively, just stop losing sleep over my posts.

Saying "we should attack the jews and burn down their homes" is not a 'dissenting opinion', it is an incitement to racially-motivated violence.

jews are members of a religion, not an ethnicity. if any ethnicity would come close to being the "jew race" it would be the semitic peoples of the lebanon/jordan/palestine/"Israel" area.
Which is ironic, because semitic people are the ones Israel kills on daily basis. (palestinians are semitic people, as well as some bedouins, gulf arabs, early phonicians [sp], and more ancient peoples, ie. caananites, aramhaic [sp] speaking peoples etc. ) Most Israeli jews are actually of eastern european descent, when there was a large scale conversion to judaism is the 1800's.

I highly doubt anybody in the nineteenth century would WANT to become a Jew. There was still quite a bit of antisemitism at that time, especially in Eastern Europe. I'd like to see your evidence for a large scale conversion of Slavs to Judaism, especially since Jews don't proselytize.

The Jewish people are what's called an ethnoreligious group. Their religion and ethnicity are intertwined, not surprisingly looking at all the hardships they've been through over the past five thousand years.

@ Acosmist. I think he was just expressing curiosity where you obtained anything fascist in the previous posts since there was nothing in what I said that hinted at suppressing opinion. I merely contested Jerkfaces' belief that "hate speech" is a meaningless construct as there are definite historical cases where the supposed meaningless construct led to violent action. I don't recall ever stating that people should not have the right to speak their opinions, even if they are hateful words. I only claim that those words have led to, and can lead to, deliberate physical manifestation.

While "Jew" would technically describe a practicing member of Judaism, there is a special connection between the religion and the people. Historically, Judaism had a relatively low degree of converts compared with Christianity or Islam. Due to widespread persecution, the only ones willing to bear such discrimination were often the ones who were born into it. Also, circumcision was a pretty hard sell for any male converts. The Jews themselves trace the concept of being Jewish through matrilineal descent. In Judaism, if you are born a Jew, you are always a Jew whether you espouse your faith or not.

This is why the idea of "Jews" being a race has some merit or at least more merit than incorrectly equating "Muslims" exclusively with "Arabs". To be more precise, "Hebrews" would describe the Jewish people better than simply "Jews".

I would say out of all the world religions, Judaism has had the least amount of conversion by far. I've only personally heard of converts through marriage i.e. a non-Jew converts to Judaism upon marrying a Jew. If the mother is a shiksa then the validity of the children being proper Jews according to tradition is thrown into doubt. I also have to imagine that circumcision for adult males must be an intense experience to say the least.