[Serious] Far-Right Extremism Is a Global Problem

[The Architect Of Fate]

I am against allowing inciting violence, where people call for violence, and I've said that all along. I am in favor of allowing incitement of hatred because they are just expressing their views.

Then you have a strange cut-off point for a so-called "Free Speech Absolutist "Because both are "just expressing their views" And one is no less awful and destructive than the other.

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The various Canadian provincial human-rights provisions have been a nightmare for free speech.

No, they have not

[HappySkeptic]

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The various Canadian provincial human-rights provisions have been a nightmare for free speech.

No they have not

Have you researched the problem with section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act?  It was a nightmare.  It has since been cleaned up (I haven't read how they fixed it).  It was interpreted as stating that merely offending a member of a group was a human rights violation, and that truth or intent was not a defense.  A number of conservative journalists were charged under this section for criticism of Islam.  Under this section, most people in this forum are guilty of crimes.  It was left-wing right-speech gone crazy.

[The Architect Of Fate]

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No they have not

Have you researched the problem with section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act?  It was a nightmare.  It has since been cleaned up (I haven't read how they fixed it).  It was interpreted as stating that merely offending a member of a group was a human rights violation, and that truth or intent was not a defense.  A number of conservative journalists were charged under this section for criticism of Islam.  Under this section, most people in this forum are guilty of crimes.  It was left-wing right-speech gone crazy.

I am aware of section 13 and I'm even more aware of how the right has blown the issues and the history of it way out of proportion, And yes the laws were changed but hardly due to the dystopian fantasies your conjuring.

[The Grand Nudger]

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We cant, actually.  It's a myth that the US has no laws which apply to incitement or to the things that your government would call hate speech.  We just don't call them that.  Additionally, as in your country, we have a pretty high bar for successful prosecution on those counts.  It's almost never incitement, it's almost never sedition - until it is.  None of our free speech protects a person when they cross that threshold.

Do you have links so I can see what you mean?

Sure.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/492

That's Brandenburg v Ohio.  The supreme court sided with Brandenburg because it failed what we now call the Brandenburg test.  Speech can be prohibited if it's directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and is likely to do so. In describing how and why a kkk leader's rights had been abrogated, the court circumscribed what speech could be (not is or will be, could be) prohibited. Our system has space to dial itself up and down on speech, what it will, wont, or will tacitly fail to, prohibit or protect.

You can see how there are endless circumstances which would fail to meet the criteria - a person may not intend to say something that is likely to produce.  A person may intend something that is unlikely to produce.  A person may say something that was intended and did produce - but would be unlikely to do so with the group assembled.  A historical dunce just asking questions.  A nut on the street corner.  A presenter describing the facts of the first two cases to academia or an audience.  

TBT the last bit is the most productive for extremism.  Presenting itself as a collection of facts that are not intended to cause lawless action.  Just true, as a matter of reality which must be acknowledged.  I want to point out that while libs bicker about the legal fiction of rights that we maintain at great expense and effort - extremists are declaring something about the nature of reality.

Canada is more permissive than we are on this count, a departure from the usual state of affairs.  You'll notice that there's no provision for the truth of the proposition in our response.  In Canada, a person can defend themselves absolutely by demonstrating the truth of their statements- and isn't that exactly wat the extremists are really arguing for?  Here, we don't give a shit about that.  It could be true that the subhuman takers are fucking like rabbits and destroying our society and that something has to be done about them and that something has to be violent.  Absolutely true....and we're still not empowered to do so, or incite others to do so.

Ultimately, as so much else does - it comes down to motive.  That's our "hatred".

[Foxaèr]

To admit extremism is a global issue is progressive, but to ignore it in one's own community is absurd.

[The Grand Nudger]

Additionally, hatred - as we've seen, is violence when described in canadian jurisprudence, just as incitement here surrounds the provision of lawless action. It's not cogently possible to be for the prohibition of speech which is or is meant to incite violence, and against the prohibition of speech which incites hatred. They're part and parcel to each other in both legal systems.

Nothing in either of our systems prevent a person from expressing their views, not even those views which, if they fit the brandenburg test or canada's precedent, would be criminal. Accounts of the death of free speech have been greatly exaggerated by those who wish to clothe themselves in the language of abrogation and minority victimization in order to cast a wider net into the public while simultaneously shifting the overton window.

They've been very successful.

I do have some sympathy for a small set of people, in this - the absolute worst. Those people who so strongly believe in detestable views which are protected speech that they cannot fail to engage in criminal acts pursuant to the same. If a persons center of being is white separatism, for example - they cannot prevent themselves from pursuing it - and however we parse it for our own conscience - we've criminalized their state of being. The only reason that we don't wring our hands over this is that we maintain that being a white separatist isn't the same as having a penis, or being a particular shade of beige. Ostensibly, it's malleable. They don't have to be that way, they are that way by volition at some point - whether it is a willingness-to-be or a simple willingness to believe others lies contrary to demonstrable facts.

We'll burn that bridge with them on it whenever the extremists get there, I suppose.

[Irreligious Atheist]

I still think anything short of calling for violence should be allowed. Are you against stop and frisk? I'm going to assume you are against it like I am. You have the blood of young black men on your hands for not supporting it, as do I. I don't see the difference in me taking the side of freedom on this issue and me taking the side of free speech. Freedom for a little bit of security is not a good trade. You see what HappySkeptic posted and how quickly the slippery slope can become very real. Journalists in trouble with the law for criticizing Islam. Is that the world you want to live in? You're willing to trade less than ten white supremacist terrorist killings per year for the potential of that world?

[The Grand Nudger]

I still think anything short of calling for violence should be allowed.

Then you are not a free speech absolutist, and you don't actually object to incitement of hatred laws.  

Are you against stop and frisk? I'm going to assume you are against it like I am. You have the blood of young black men on your hands for not supporting it, as do I.

Does that have something to do with you having been wrong about your own position and laws, or about anything that we've discussed thusfar?  I just feel like we could close one item of grievance politics out before we open another.  I think that you'll find that the usual liberal concern arguments don't have much effect on me, at any rate.

I don't see the difference in me taking the side of freedom on this issue and me taking the side of free speech. Freedom for a little bit of security is not a good trade. You see what HappySkeptic posted and how quickly the slippery slope can become very real. Journalists in trouble with the law for criticizing Islam. Is that the world you want to live in? You're willing to trade less than ten white supremacist terrorist killings per year for the potential of that world?

You've yet to take the side of free speech.  You've only managed to be profoundly wrong at every turn of the conversation to this point.  You're now asking me what kind of world I want to live in, and suggesting that my better world requires that we allow what?  Terrorism?  Incitement?

Neither of us accept that in the present, and I fail to see how allowing for terrorism or incitement is a requirement to meet our full potential. What slippery slope do you think there is, and to where, to our shared position on the issue of protected and prohibited speech?

[The Architect Of Fate]

I don't see the difference in me taking the side of freedom on this issue and me taking the side of free speech. Freedom for a little bit of security is not a good trade. You see what HappySkeptic posted and how quickly the slippery slope can become very real. Journalists in trouble with the law for criticizing Islam. Is that the world you want to live in? You're willing to trade less than ten white supremacist terrorist killings per year for the potential of that world?

Accept HappySkeptic was wrong about section 13 and the journalists. It wasn't just for criticizing Islam regardless of how the right-wing media twist it .

[Irreligious Atheist]

I don't see the difference in me taking the side of freedom on this issue and me taking the side of free speech. Freedom for a little bit of security is not a good trade. You see what HappySkeptic posted and how quickly the slippery slope can become very real. Journalists in trouble with the law for criticizing Islam. Is that the world you want to live in? You're willing to trade less than ten white supremacist terrorist killings per year for the potential of that world?

Accept HappySkeptic was wrong about section 13 and the journalists. It wasn't just for criticizing Islam regardless of how the right-wing media twist it .

Right wing media like CBC?  https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/free-speec...n-1.720445