The Westboro Baptist Church

So you're all okay with racism, anyone saying "No, because you're black" to another person.

Yes. No matter how disgusting I find it personally, the right to speech is chief among the natural rights of man. A man is nothing without his thoughts and the rights to express them.

Edit: You can't say "No because your black", you can say "I think your a terrible parasite on society and a lesser form of human being".

I'm not 'okay' with racism. I think racism is fucking stupid. But, damnit, people have a right to be as fucking stupid as they want. It's not okay to ban viewpoints and censor speech. Period.

I think it's a good thing that we're fighting racism and gender/sexuality discrimination. Banning it is a part of fighting it, just like banning drugs is a part of fighting drugs. No I don't see anything good about discrimination and I see all the needs for it to be illegal. We've moved on to a time where there is absolutely no need for discrimination (if there ever was) and can only do harm to our modern, developing society. If anyone does not disagree, he has all the right in the world to stand up for himself, and no official is going to stop him. I cannot gurantee he will have support from the people, but if he does I can gurantee that changes will be made. But we cannot tolerate discrimination that has absolutely no ground at all in our society. We, the people in Sweden decided that we will not tolerate discrimination because we see no good coming out of it and only bad. If anyone can propose a good reason for why it should be tolerated it will surely be taken into consideration. Somethings you have to limit, but discrimination was never part of our idea of freedom of speech anyways so I don't see this as a limitation. I could say that everyone has the right to commit suicide, to do hard drugs, to discriminate against eachother but I won't because I want to fight suicide, hard drugs and discrimination.

These are my beliefs, and I do not think we will come to an agreement but all my respect to you and your opinions, I value this discussion.

So... much... fail...

How about the fact that free expression is a, no, the fundamental human right?

There is one acceptable 'version' of free speech. The kind that isn't subject to any kind of government censorship or criminalization. Or, you know, actually free, free speech.

You're really not making yourself sound any better here. So far you've given wholehearted support to demolishing liberty wherever it can be found.

They do. Its their life.

That is debatable.

Why should you not allow to say "I hate blacks"? As long as you are not lying and saying "this black did this to me" when he did not do anything, or actually go and kill a black or anything because hes black or what have you, you have every right to say blacks suck or fuck all fags. Is it stupid yes. Should it be illegal? No because everyone should have the right to speak their mind no matter how offensive it is.

I think the fundamental point some of you are missing about American feelings towards racism is that we do hate it. Most of use would not want to associate with The Westboro Baptist Church, KKK, or any other racist organization. Just because we think that all speech is free, and thus they are allowed to speak, does not mean we condone their message.

Hold one for a second. I said your viewpoint would be different if Hitler had risen to power in the US. I said nothing about slippery slopes.

Well that's your viewpoint and not a right.

No you aren't. They are granted to you by the state. You have no rights, only privileges. Any state can take away those privileges if they want to.

You didn't answer me. How can hate speech benefit society in any way? Racism is not valuable, and the expression of it isn't either.

Of course it is.(like I said indirectly) Hitler(if you want another example then just ask) did this in the beginning. He blamed the jews and as a result they were persecuted by groups that worked independently. You are blind if you say that speech can't hurt the society.

No I'm not hiding behind anything. I told you upfront from the start that defending liberty was not the most important thing for me. That last paragraph is just ridiculous.
I think it's bad to restrict freedom of speech, but in this case the pros just outweigh the cons.

I've been up all night and I'm about to crash out, so despite my burning rage against this Orwellian plague that has overcome all of the Europeans on the forums, I need to sleep.

For now I'll leave the defense of all that is good in the world to the more effeminate honkies out there. Also pedro.

Unfortunately I can't think of any other big name speech defenders that aren't already involved in this particular discussion, or else I'd activate their bat signals as well and crush all your pinko hopes and dreams in one fell swoop.

EDIT: Damn I'm tired, I forgot about the damn juice!

Well considering no one has ever wanted our hate speech laws repealed I think they are reasonable limits on what people can say.

Before the Credit Crunch no one was concerned about the economy either.

But those laws has been in place since WW2

@Warburg- On the issue of Hitler, if you look at Germany historically he rose in a country that never had free speech, and no one leader even close has risen in America. Was free speech an issue.

If I understand you correctly you are looking at rights in a pragmatic way. Realistically if the state did not want free speech they could, but they do not give those rights.

Free speech means NOTHING if nobody is there to hear you.

What?

Sure you have freedom of speech, but a billionaire has billions of dollars to make sure every last American hears his, while you don't.

I fail to see the relevance.

I believe his talking about how the capitalistic market of the united states and world in general makes it so that the ones with the money are the ones that have the ability to be heard and as such have the real freedoms, but the worlds always been like that (see Crassus in rome)

Freedom of speech has nothing to do with how many people can hear you.

I believe (just my opinion) is that people with alot of money have the ability to prodcast there voice fair and wide and as such can influence or change the coerce of political elections and get events shape to what they say. so i would assume that he's arguing that this is not fair the rich have the ability to do this while the poor classes of the world can not (and with social media this has become fair more easy)