This is a discussion about Hate Speech in the USA, as defined by the US Judicial System. Below, I have listed a few web links that are useful to review. Starting with definitions is a good baseline for a debate/discussion. Please take the time to READ the references below or do your own searches etc ., BEFORE you start gushing and spewing quick emotional opinions, that would help get the thread started on an even keel. Not that I have much hope that it will.

A website with a dictionary definition of hate speech

hate-speech

Below is a website and link that purports to give a definition of Hate Speech

hate-speech/

The below link is to an excellent article from the Washington Post about Hate Speech giving the legal definition(s) and the supreme court decisions on relevant cases.

no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment

From the above link is a conclusion such as can be drawn:

To be sure, there are some kinds of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment. But those narrow exceptions have nothing to do with “hate speech” in any conventionally used sense of the term. For instance, there is an exception for “fighting words” — face-to-face personal insults addressed to a specific person, of the sort that are likely to start an immediate fight. But this exception isn’t limited to racial or religious insults, nor does it cover all racially or religiously offensive statements. ............................

..............But even when those restrictions have been upheld, they have been justified precisely on the rationale that they do not criminalize speech (or otherwise punish it) in society at large, but only apply to particular contexts, such as workplaces. None of them represent a “hate speech” exception, nor have they been defined in terms of “hate speech.”

For this very reason, “hate speech” also doesn’t have any fixed legal meaning under U.S. law. U.S. law has just never had occasion to define “hate speech” — any more than it has had occasion to define rudeness, evil ideas, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn but that does not constitute a legally relevant category.

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The following article discusses some of the same issues and the legal cases referenced in the Washington Post article, and also give a background on hate speech, it is from 1992.

journal_articles

A quick synopsis is that what many in the US public at large think is hate speech is different from what the legal definition of hate speech is, as determined by case law. In fact, hate speech is not even defined or exist in any legally defining way. Threatening or inciting speech (for violent or illegal ends) has its own definition and is not hate speech. Libel and other legal terms of restricted or limited speech is not categorized as hate speech.

Now of course others may disagree with this or think my interpretation of the above is incorrect. Post your own then or give links to reputable sites that reference useful/scholarly information.

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After considering and studying all the above and doing your own research do this:

Thought experiment for discussion:

Islam is a garbage can religion for garbage can minds.

Is the above hate speech to you? It is, apparently, not - by any US legal definition. Is it offensive speech? Does it have meaningful value? Is it protected speech? Etc............

Before I comment, I would like to go on record as suggesting this be designated a yellow triangle thread... for obv reasons

Thank you in advance

I don't see the reason. It's straightforwardly a content thread.

@zeno

I was having a very similar conversation elsewhere not long ago. The 'fighting words' idea is reiterating that speech is more than just speech and so can be made illegal even if we have unrestricted free speech.

It's not an issue in the UK as we don't have a constitution but as I understand it, in the USA the courts can achieve much the same result by deciding what goes beyond mere speech. 'Fighting words' is an example of that - I assume it's not written in the constitution anywhere.

In 'Murica, free speech includes speech that we don't like.

If we start limiting it while one party has power, then that just gives the other party precedent when they get in power. Who wants to see Trump granted precedent to shut down free speech from liberals?

It really isn't, tbqh.

Just use your own definitions.

Correct. See links for information:

preamble-to-the-bill-of-rights

amendment-1-freedom-of-religion-speech-and-the-press

First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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Beyond the above no particulars are enumerated in the US Constitution. A governing document, by the way, that you flabby limeys would never have the balls to adopt, let alone have the intelligence and wisdom to construct.

It's you people who've landed yourselves with Trump and, behind him, the wholly unelected Bannon, who has actually put himself on the National Security Council and thrown off the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the heads of the intelligence agencies. (Because your constitution dumbly allows for an unelected administration appointed entirely by the president's quasi-royal patronage, which is not good.)

In terms of British law, the phrase you mention in the OP does not go as far as outright incitement, so it would probably be all right.

And the purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee the freedom of religion (a principle the Trump administration has just torn up), and not to promote racist hate speech. The fact that white Americans venerate the First Amendment solely on the grounds that, in their view, it promotes racist hate speech... says nothing good about white Americans at all.

Not in this thread please.

and Jb, please accept a final warning not to do that in any content threads please

Thanks for the reminder, Chez.

* Was a bit slow, Chez is too fast off the line...

Well that's good to know. So there is one opinion that the experimental phrase would pass muster in the UK. My opinion is that it would also pass muster in the US, based on current law(s). Not that many would be pleased by that.

To clear up the particular part of your posts that Jb had fun with:

a) Having a gentle dig at the english is allowed although unlike with the USA it's not the minimum required.

b) These short digressions are allowed but then we have to get back to the topic.

So it's cool if I point out that some Americans like Zeno seem to have an affinity for bootlicking, provided it's done in a playful manner? For instance, with a smiley face like this...

It's even more embarrassing that I bootlicked a Limey. Now, can we get back to the thread, please?

It's derails, rehashing old fights and the traditional forum noise that aren't allowed. A bit if banter is allowed as is getting a bit heated as long as it gets back on track quickly.

Discussion of the rules is best kept in one of the moderation threads so I'd appreciate any more questions there please.

Chez, please stop derailing this thread with all your "moderating" babble. TIA.

Quite right. Take it to the moderation forum and lets keep it out of content threads.

It's amazing that my fellow Americans are afraid of "hate speech".

I guess the absurdity of having therapy dogs on college campuses is lost on you people.

I think calling therapists dogs is hate speech.

It seems like my own definition of offensive speech that should prohibited is too nuanced a standard to be widely adopted. I wouldn't consider "Islam is a garbage can religion for garbage can minds." worthy of prohibition because it isn't personal enough. The subject of the sentence is too broad to have anything said about it that can justifiably offend someone personally.

My basic premise is that if a reasonable person can be enraged or severely intimidated by what you say as a personal attack, then the speech should be illegal. I think our laws should catch up to discoveries of science concerning stress hormones, the human emotional response mechanisms in the brain, etc. It is possible to say things to people which can predictably elicit involuntary, negative, physiological responses. A person who doesn't volunteer for exposure to those responses should not be so exposed by someone else who means to do them what we now recognize as physical harm through speech.

Person dependent arguments are hilarious. What offends one person does not another

The world has gone crazy.

Not true on the first part, ldo on the second.

People have been living in groups for thousands of years. We've had a good idea what sorts of behaviors are reliably offensive/adrenaline inducing. Now we can prove it.

It might be true that calling someone out for being in another group might have, in some environmental context from the past, had some survival value for the issuer. However, our technology, which can see all destroy all decent human existence on the planet, calls for new values. Tribalism and nuclear weapons mix a tragic cocktail. We need new ideals, laws, and practices for this modern era of massive technological impact.

Governments have never been very good at determining what counts as reasonable though. In fact, they usually end up discovering that what is really offensive and should be banned is speech critical of the government or anything that riles people up.