Homosexuality VS Camp: is homophobia a projected misogyny?

Generally, I trust the judges and magistrates in this. As a group, they're very good at smelling fishy "objectivity" and shoddy sources hiding weasel words.

It's their job to weigh words, after all. Oh, and it's not like Parliament hasn't given them broad guidelines. It's up to them to weigh each case on its merits. Or lack thereof.

edited 22nd May '12 3:26:07 AM by Euodiachloris

I'm not just talking about Holocaust deniers, I'm talking about any unpopular idea. What about when something you strongly believe in becomes unpopular and dangerous?

edited 22nd May '12 3:45:30 AM by Talby

All legislation requires judgement calls. "Is this murder or manslaughter?" "Is this slander?" "Is this reckless endangerment?"

At what point do you stop trusting your judiciary, and why should 'this line of speech is harmful' necessarily be it?

For the damage that unrestricted speech can do, just see the intelligent design fiasco. There are places in the US that simply don't teach evolution, and even medical schools over here are having to compromise what they teach their classes because some students believe in intelligent design. I repeat medical knowledge is being compromised by intelligent design.

Meanwhile, we have no idea what medical knowledge is being compromised by dismissal of ideas as bullshit, since we don't know which are simply labelled as such because they are harmful to the special interests known to influence science, like big pharma. This is why we need to keep free speech. Let all ideas compete, because you never know when something labelled bullshit might not be. (Even in your most extreme case of holocaust denial, while the notion of denying the whole thing is obviously wrong given the survivors, the still somewhat plausible notion that a few specific aspects of it might have been misrepresented could get uncovered, not unlike how evolution has been improved due to the scrutiny it has been subjected to.)

As for the things you listed, manslaughter still results in imprisonment, just less so. It's making something illegal that draws a line. Even slander would get you sued rather than jailed, and leaving judges to decide what's slander and what isn't is pushing it as it is.

This does nothing to contradict my statement that nobody should go to jail for expressing an idea, so long as they're not slandering someone or trying to incite violence. It is indeed up to the justice system to decide if someone has broken the law.

But what I'm saying is that there should not be a law that criminalizes any unpopular idea (like the claim that the Holocaust never happened) on the basis that it does some kind of nebulous damage to society.

That's a strong argument against accepting Intelligent Design into the curriculum on the basis that it is not science. I'm not seeing anything to convince me that proponents of Intelligent Design should be jailed or otherwise charged with a crime, though.

Anyway, this is off topic. Maybe we should make a new thread.

Uh... you can be jailed for inciting racial or homophobic hatred in the UK (but, it's usually a hefty fine: the degree of incitement is key here). It's not for the ideas you might actually produce.

Going all creationist... fine, whatever. That's not legislated against. And, you can teach it in schools... as long as you stick to the National Curriculum, as well (so, have to teach actual Science to minimum levels, however badly).

Heck, you can teach the Moon is made of blue cheese, as long as you also cover the National Curriculum. Which will cover moon-rock.

So, I'm not getting it... How are these alike? It's when you apply nut-job sensibilities to actually expressing hate of various people you get into trouble. In short, it's a sharpening of pre-existing libel and slander laws.

And, they've been codified for donkeys yonks (and, are now slowly catching up to the newfangled interwebs).

edited 22nd May '12 4:35:58 AM by Euodiachloris

I'm not sure whether or not hate speech laws would work in the US. In concept, I think it's a fantastic idea, because we have a fairly serious problem with people in positions of authority advocating violent discrimination (cough), but on the other hand, I don't want the Republican party going anywhere near it because of their track record with assuming that everything they disagree with is impinging on religious freedom.

Nice. <whistles> He ticked a good number of the boxes in just that one sermon. Over here, forget the fine: that would be gaol time. And, uh, kiss your career good-bye, pastor-man.

<hugs the European Convention on Human Rights and goes all sugar-sweet voice> People complain about Brussels impinging on UK sovereignty; but, oh, do I love you, honey? Oh, yes I do! You sweet, darling thing, you.

Uh... actually, maybe that's a way. Adopt the Convention? After all, Italy has, and that's one pretty darned Catholic country.

An American Convention on Human Rights... doesn't that sound nice?

edited 22nd May '12 5:33:41 AM by Euodiachloris

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, tossing a pastor in jail for saying that we should kill all the gays would be "religious discrimination" over here.

Have I mentioned how much I hate my country lately?

edited 22nd May '12 5:34:25 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

I bet if someone made a similar rant against him that they'd be thrown in jail for it.

...

Edited by fanty on Sep 28th 2019 at 2:16:18 PM

No, don't agree with that at all.

If we're talking about an impartial legislature, it doesn't matter what your personal feelings are about what's being said. What you like doesn't have any more weight on what gets persecuted than what you don't like. Nor should it, it's an emotional appeal: "how would YOU like it if X happened" isn't a compelling argument against legislature in and of itself, if it's determined a more prioritized freedom is being violated from it.

...

Edited by fanty on Sep 28th 2019 at 2:16:08 PM

Because all views do not have the same validity. Assuming that they do is a Golden Mean Fallacy.

edited 22nd May '12 8:27:38 AM by KingZeal

^^^

More prioritized by you. What you consider important and what I consider important are much different.

And thus the objectivity issue comes into play. How are rights prioritized? Who decides that?

^

While I understand what you're saying, the entire point is who gets to decide how much validity views have? You? Me? Or voting?

Amen, completely. I think it's great to be nice to people and all, and to have assholes get what's coming to them, but I won't sacrifice my rights to do it, and just because a bunch of lazy asses are willing to sacrifice their personal freedoms, should they ever need them, over not hurting peoples feelings, does not mean I want any part of it.

edited 22nd May '12 8:28:23 AM by Barkey

...

Edited by fanty on Sep 28th 2019 at 2:18:26 PM

So, we should just allow people to advocate violent crime with no repercussions?

edited 22nd May '12 8:32:06 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

Realistically speaking, an accountable authority. And that's the best we can hope for.

Assuming that any authority is automatically qualified to make a decision is false, but assuming that NO authority is qualified to make a decision is false from the opposite direction. But the authority in question needs to be held accountable for the decision and subject to scrutiny. Thus, if mistakes are made, they can be changed as efficiently as possible.

In my view? The law. If the law says that our top priority is that humans have certain liberties, then we need to protect those liberties in order of importance and by context. For example, most of us would agree that citizens have a Right to Live that would supercede someone else's Right to Privacy. However, a braindead coma patient with no feasible chance of recovery and is draining valuable resources from a medical institution would be an acceptable sacrifice of the Right to Life.

And I think that's a real nice sentiment, but I couldn't give a crap about your right to freedom if you own, say, a school and refuse to extend education to a particular demographic.

But what you're saying is a Vicious Cycle. By allowing any viewpoint to go rampant, you allow politicians to hold that viewpoint and, possibly, for it to become memetic. Let's take misogyny for example. So we assume that the male viewpoint is always the "correct" or "default" one. Thus, all legislature that gets passed and enforced is built upon this viewpoint, whether it's correct or not.

The more important issue is that the people who are law-making or law-enforcement authorities do not get to default to these views. They're free to feel them, but they're not allowed to spread them without some sort of culpability or accountability. The problem is that our system of accountability (popular vote) has the EXACT SAME WEAKNESS. So if everybody is holding that same view, then the same fallacious viewpoint gets put into law.

edited 22nd May '12 8:40:28 AM by KingZeal

...

Edited by fanty on Sep 28th 2019 at 2:18:36 PM

But you're also against restricting people's ability to incite violence?

...

Edited by fanty on Sep 28th 2019 at 2:17:33 PM

Okay, because I'm pretty sure everyone here has been talking about incitement of violence specifically, not blanket bans on certain topics.

Which is pretty much where freedom of speech is now. Charges like inciting a riot, or charging the speaker as an accessory. I don't see that we really need to go further than that.

Except that neither of those are ever enforced.

edited 22nd May '12 8:44:38 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

This really should be another thread (everyone looks incredulously at Starship and his long line of derails)...What?!

Anyway, I DO see the appeal of outlawing ideas on the basis of their veracity and truth. I honestly do. The people who want Appeal To Logic to be the basis for having ideas believe they'll get a society where people are only allowed to think reasonable and provable thoughts. This sounds like a plan.

But I think what the free-speech crowd is trying to say is that there is no system for legislating thought and speech that doesn't run into the problem of WHO starts determining WHAT is logical, scientifically provable, or reasonable.

Zeal and others think that an Appeal To Science is neutral base. It isn't. My point in proving the fallibility of science isn't that science isn't good. It's because of science we're discussing this in a forum on a fiction wiki with cool people from around the world. I'm a fan of science.

I'm saying we need to understand that science isn't a set quantity. Our knowledge of ourselves and the universe we live in changes constantly.

I didn't mention this before, but I will now. People are constantly saying "It's conclusively proven homosexuality is not a choice." According to my research, that's not true. The truth is nobody exactly knows what causes homosexuality. There are studies that point to it being a natural disposition, and there are others that point to societal factors and upbringing.

In another example, yes, it's obvious that organisms change and evolve over time. Short of going back in time, there's no way to know for certain (yet?) that a god didn't create life or that it really just spontaneosuly emerged.

There are questions that no amount of science will answer in our lifetime. And then, as with abortion, even when the science is irrefutable, we're still left with questions that begin to fall under the purviews of philosophy, morality, and justice.

The point is that not even science will escape the problem that at a certain points someone is going to have make a ruling. And that person will be well-meaning and think they're doing the right thing, and they may still make a mistake.

That is why you can't put thoughts and speech up to a review panel. The creative thought process is the backbone of humanity, and if you hamstring it, you've hamstrung humanity.

Btw, someone quipped that England has restrictive free speech and isn't a fallen civilization, as I'd posited. This is true. China isn't a wasteland either, and yet I don't see anyone here opting for their restrictions either. Just sayin'.

edited 22nd May '12 8:46:02 AM by TheStarshipMaxima