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Or you know, hate speech is illegal: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf updating for the angry: hate speech, as in

Or you know, hate speech is illegal: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf updating for the angry: hate speech, as in "fighting words," which is to say language used to incite violence towards a specific person.

function_seven 9y ago
What page of your link supports that? I don’t see “hate speech” referenced anywhere in the PDF.
- daveguy 9y ago
  The relevant passage doesn't specifically say "hate speech. It's the fighting words / treats section. Here is the relevant passage: --- Fighting Words and True Threats So-called “fighting words” also lay beyond the pale of First Amendment protection.19 The “fighting words” doctrine began in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, where the Court held that fighting words, by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace and may be punished consistent with the First Amendment.20 In Chaplinsky, the Court upheld a statute which prohibited a person from addressing “any offensive, derisive or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place,” calling “him by any offensive or derisive name,” or making “any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with the intent to deride, offend or annoy him, or to prevent him from pursuing his lawful business or occupation.”21 The state court construed the statute as forbidding only those expressions that “have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark [was] addressed.”22 Given the limited scope of application, the Supreme Court held that the statute at issue did not proscribe protected expression.23 --- Most hate speech falls under this category. For instance, advocation of the murder of a large group of people would obviously be unprotected hate speech.
  - function_seven 9y ago
    > advocation of the murder of a large group of people would obviously be unprotected hate speech. It really isn’t. Every day there are thousands of people in this country that say something to the effect of, “We should nuke the entire Middle East and turn it into glass”. That is not a crime. You may find that idea repugnant, but it’s not “fighting words”.
dabbledash 9y ago
Under which exception do you believe hate speech falls?
- jbapple 9y ago
  Some people may say that the Virginia v. Black, which allowed the state to ban "burning a cross with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons", allows the state to make "hate speech" illegal. A person who believes that might say that cross burning is "hate speech" but not a "true threat", which is what the court called it. That person would presumably then believe that some "hate speech" can be made illegal in the US, and may still be illegal in Virginia.
didgeoridoo 9y ago
Listen, you ignorant little wannabe totalitarian: "hate speech" is protected speech, and that link says nothing contradicting that principle. Where did you think this was going to get you? Did you think people wouldn't click through to read it?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  That's seriously not ok on HN and will get your account banned. Your other comment in this thread was much better. More of that, please, and none of this—regardless of how wrong someone else is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- SandersAK 9y ago
  This comment shouldn't be flagged and dead because ad-hominem is protected!
atom-morgan 9y ago
Cmd + F..."hate speech". Nothing.
- daveguy 9y ago
  Try Cmd + F..."Fighting words". Something. Advocation of violence toward others is not protected speech.
  - BadassFractal 9y ago
    Except, legally speaking, it doesn't work the way you think it does. This always gets invoked and nobody ever knows how it functions. Here's a lawyer chiming in on the history of Fighting Words and its current application: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...
jnbiche 9y ago
Not in the USA, it's not.
didgeoridoo 9y ago
Regarding your edit: Surely you recognize that the speakers that are being shouted down and violently assaulted on college campuses don't fit this description. When college students say that it's appropriate to use violence to stop speech, they mean to stop Charles Murray, not Charles Manson.
- SandersAK 9y ago
  Are we talking about this Charles Murray? "A huge number of well-meaning whites fear that they are closet racists, and this book tells them they are not. It's going to make them feel better about things they already think but do not know how to say.” —regarding his book, Losing Ground, quoted in “Daring Research or Social Science Pornography?: Charles Murray,” The New York Times Magazine, 1994 “The professional consensus is that the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century (the optimists) or all of the century (the pessimists). Women of all races and ethnic groups follow this pattern in similar fashion. There is some evidence that blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites, which could lead to further divergence between whites and other groups in future generations.” —The Bell Curve, 1994
  - didgeoridoo 9y ago
    Yep. Not seeing true threats in there, do you? Calls for extermination? Incitement to violence? Unpopular speech is not unprotected speech. In fact, it's the only speech where protection means anything.

function_seven 9y ago

What page of your link supports that? I don’t see “hate speech” referenced anywhere in the PDF.

daveguy 9y ago
The relevant passage doesn't specifically say "hate speech. It's the fighting words / treats section. Here is the relevant passage: --- Fighting Words and True Threats So-called “fighting words” also lay beyond the pale of First Amendment protection.19 The “fighting words” doctrine began in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, where the Court held that fighting words, by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace and may be punished consistent with the First Amendment.20 In Chaplinsky, the Court upheld a statute which prohibited a person from addressing “any offensive, derisive or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place,” calling “him by any offensive or derisive name,” or making “any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with the intent to deride, offend or annoy him, or to prevent him from pursuing his lawful business or occupation.”21 The state court construed the statute as forbidding only those expressions that “have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark [was] addressed.”22 Given the limited scope of application, the Supreme Court held that the statute at issue did not proscribe protected expression.23 --- Most hate speech falls under this category. For instance, advocation of the murder of a large group of people would obviously be unprotected hate speech.
- function_seven 9y ago
  > advocation of the murder of a large group of people would obviously be unprotected hate speech. It really isn’t. Every day there are thousands of people in this country that say something to the effect of, “We should nuke the entire Middle East and turn it into glass”. That is not a crime. You may find that idea repugnant, but it’s not “fighting words”.

dabbledash 9y ago

Under which exception do you believe hate speech falls?

jbapple 9y ago
Some people may say that the Virginia v. Black, which allowed the state to ban "burning a cross with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons", allows the state to make "hate speech" illegal. A person who believes that might say that cross burning is "hate speech" but not a "true threat", which is what the court called it. That person would presumably then believe that some "hate speech" can be made illegal in the US, and may still be illegal in Virginia.

didgeoridoo 9y ago

Listen, you ignorant little wannabe totalitarian: "hate speech" is protected speech, and that link says nothing contradicting that principle. Where did you think this was going to get you? Did you think people wouldn't click through to read it?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
That's seriously not ok on HN and will get your account banned. Your other comment in this thread was much better. More of that, please, and none of this—regardless of how wrong someone else is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
SandersAK 9y ago
This comment shouldn't be flagged and dead because ad-hominem is protected!

atom-morgan 9y ago

Cmd + F..."hate speech". Nothing.

daveguy 9y ago
Try Cmd + F..."Fighting words". Something. Advocation of violence toward others is not protected speech.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  Except, legally speaking, it doesn't work the way you think it does. This always gets invoked and nobody ever knows how it functions. Here's a lawyer chiming in on the history of Fighting Words and its current application: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...

jnbiche 9y ago

Not in the USA, it's not.

didgeoridoo 9y ago

Regarding your edit: Surely you recognize that the speakers that are being shouted down and violently assaulted on college campuses don't fit this description. When college students say that it's appropriate to use violence to stop speech, they mean to stop Charles Murray, not Charles Manson.

SandersAK 9y ago
Are we talking about this Charles Murray? "A huge number of well-meaning whites fear that they are closet racists, and this book tells them they are not. It's going to make them feel better about things they already think but do not know how to say.” —regarding his book, Losing Ground, quoted in “Daring Research or Social Science Pornography?: Charles Murray,” The New York Times Magazine, 1994 “The professional consensus is that the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century (the optimists) or all of the century (the pessimists). Women of all races and ethnic groups follow this pattern in similar fashion. There is some evidence that blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites, which could lead to further divergence between whites and other groups in future generations.” —The Bell Curve, 1994
- didgeoridoo 9y ago
  Yep. Not seeing true threats in there, do you? Calls for extermination? Incitement to violence? Unpopular speech is not unprotected speech. In fact, it's the only speech where protection means anything.