Hate Speech

The whole concept of "hate crime" is nuts, because whenever a crime is committed out of anger it is a hate crime. The fact that it happens against a certain group should not make any difference at all, in fact treating groups differently in a court of law is simply wrong. Nobody should be judged innocent or guilty based on group association, and their sentences should not be effected either.

either you believe in equality under the law or you don't.
 
"Is your name Tammy Bruce???"

Tammy Bruce is a lesbian feminist democrat who was a high official in NOW and overall about as liberal as you can get without being communist and totally anti-american. She believed in her view points, but she never lost site of the greatness of the constititution which allowed her to express her views. She became totally appalled at what had become of NOW, the women's movement, and the extreme left in america.

Her book is about how the left hates freedom of speech, while simultaneously using it to their advantage.
 
Quote from picknclick:

Only if you act on your opinion that some group needs to be the target of violence because of who they are.
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yes, that is true I believe. for now, anyway. if you don't think this is a warmup for thought-only, actless crimes, you're kidding yourself.

and not sure whether the need for an accompanying act makes any substantive difference - it is still criminal punishment on the basis of disfavored opinion.

If john kills his gay boss out of boredom, and jack kills his gay boss while simultaneously disliking homosexuals, jack gets sentenced to an extra amount of time. that extra sentence corresponds, directly and solely, to jack's dislike of homosexuals. it is thoughtcrime.
 
Quote from dotslashfuture:

"Is your name Tammy Bruce???"

Tammy Bruce is a lesbian feminist democrat who was a high official in NOW and overall about as liberal as you can get without being communist and totally anti-american. She believed in her view points, but she never lost site of the greatness of the constititution which allowed her to express her views. She became totally appalled at what had become of NOW, the women's movement, and the extreme left in america.

Her book is about how the left hates freedom of speech, while simultaneously using it to their advantage.
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Thanks for clearing that up. If someone's going to post something on the board, please make it an informational reference instead of a direct link to someone's e-commerce "buy my book" page. That was my point with the "Are you Tammy Bruce" post. And have you read the book? If so, maybe you could give us some actual examples from within the book... and maybe something outside the scope of NOW, since the synopsis from the amazon link (which you restate in part above) makes it sound like she thinks NOW is the same as "the left". That's a comical viewpoint.

I'd still like to get more examples of how "the left" hates freedom of speech. And then, as a separate issue, how, once again, "the left" uses this tactic to their advantage MORE than "the right".
This is all so stupid anyway... please quantify what you mean by "the left" and "the right". I know it's difficult because there are so many interest groups, religious organizations, etc. that have political affiliations, but this isn't a very exact science until we've determined exactly what the target of our rhetoric is. For example: NOW would be "the left" in this case. And my point would be that nothing they do limits free speech. They are just a damn interest group. An example of "the left" limiting free speech would be the democrats introducing legislation to ban first amendment rights when talking about Bill Clinton, and making fire-bombing a viable form of political expression, but only against republicans. Now that would be an example worth debating.

So I take it you're not a lesbian feminist democrat, huh?:D
 
Quote from Madison:


yes, that is true I believe. for now, anyway. if you don't think this is a warmup for thought-only, actless crimes, you're kidding yourself.

and not sure whether the need for an accompanying act makes any substantive difference - it is still criminal punishment on the basis of disfavored opinion.

If john kills his gay boss out of boredom, and jack kills his gay boss while simultaneously disliking homosexuals, jack gets sentenced to an extra amount of time. that extra sentence corresponds, directly and solely, to jack's dislike of homosexuals. it is thoughtcrime.
More...

Whenever a group dislikes a measure it's a slippery slope. Similarly, a ban on late-term abortion is a slippery slope to a ban on abortion. Not true in both cases. Lines can be drawn.

VERY good example. The issue is that John killed somebody. Determining why he killed him is another matter altogether. Killing someone occurs in the real world, so there is no thoughtcrime. If he says "I'm going to kill my homosexual boss", and separately doesn't like homosexuals, then he is guilty of murder. If he says "I'm going to kill my homosexual boss BECAUSE he is homosexual", then he's guilty of a hate crime. I think that is the distinction.
 
another update on the absurd state of US education, and argument in favor of home-schooling:
Censorship rampant in US schools
From The Sunday Times
05may03

MICKEY Mouse is a scary rodent. Harry Potter is anti-family. Christmas should be avoided. Dinosaurs are banned. In the wacky world of US education, the language police are out of control.

After 25 years of creeping censorship of school textbooks, the full scale of political correctness has been exposed in a startling new survey of official meddling in education.

In a book acclaimed as the first comprehensive expose of a national scandal, former US government official Diane Ravitch argues that a laudable attempt to rid US schools of racial bias and sexual discrimination has been taken to ridiculous extremes.

"Some of this censorship is trivial, some is ludicrous and some is breathtaking in its power to dumb down what children learn in school," said Ravitch, an educational historian who has worked with both Republican and Democrat administrations.

Her astounding glossary of words and topics that have been banned by individual state agencies or voluntarily suppressed by educational publishers has sparked a national row over an epidemic of what The New York Times described as "bowdlerising texts, whitewashing history and eviscerating prose".

A reviewer in The Chicago Sun-Times concluded: "This book will cause readers to gnash their teeth as they read of the outrages against common sense."

In The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, Ravitch reveals that a story entitled The Friendly Dolphin was rejected by one school committee because it discriminated against students who did not live near the sea. Another story, The Silly Old Lady, was rejected because it contained a "negative stereotype" of an elderly woman who put too many gadgets on her bicycle. A story called A Perfect Day for Ice-Cream had to be rewritten without reference to ice-cream – because of a ban in California on any mention of junk food.

Mickey Mouse fell from favour in some schools either because of his rodent heritage or because he is also a corporate brand (banned in California and elsewhere).

Ravitch's list of test subjects that individual schools deem best avoided – on the grounds that they might distract sensitive students – includes disobedient children, ghosts, quarrelling parents, ski trips and birthday parties. In some schools, dinosaurs cannot be mentioned because they imply a theory of evolution that not all Americans accept.

Ravitch claims that the process of "cleansing" text in this manner is being applied routinely throughout the US school system. Book critics have hailed her research as the potential launch pad for a backlash against the "bias and sensitivity" panels that advise state education boards on reading matter for children.

Originally formed to eradicate blatant racial and sexual stereotyping, the panels now operate what Ravitch claims is "an increasingly bizarre policy of censorship" that has had the effect of "stripping away everything that is potentially thought-provoking and colourful from the texts children are to encounter".

Ravitch blames pressure groups of both the Left and Right for imposing dubious political agendas on the education process. She also complains that educational publishers have meekly complied in order to avoid controversy that might hurt sales.

As a result, she argues, too many US school authorities have forsaken the emotional, spiritual and aesthetic benefits of reading a good book in favour of a mechanical process they call "interacting with text".

US children, like their counterparts around the world, are at present revelling in the Harry Potter series, which breaks just about every law in the bias and sensitivity book.

Not only is Harry an orphan (banned – might be emotionally upsetting); he is also depicted as "curious, ingenious, able to overcome obstacles" (banned – sexual stereotyping); he is an "active, brave, decisive problem-solver" (banned – sexual stereotyping); and, worst of all, he has a pet owl (banned – owls are taboo for the Navajo Indians and are associated with death in some cultures).

Ravitch warns that children will not be fooled by a diet of sanitised texts when they know that Potter and similar adventures lurk on bookshelves and in cinemas. School is becoming "the Empire of Boredom", says Ravitch. "Something is terribly wrong here."

© The Australian
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