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Oh, when I say limiting violent speech, I just mean with respect to one of the classes identified under existing anti-discrimination laws (e.g. the laws about e

Oh, when I say limiting violent speech, I just mean with respect to one of the classes identified under existing anti-discrimination laws (e.g. the laws about employment), i.e. the same classes that you would commit genocide against. The government is not such a protected class. At least some of the non-US G8 countries with hate speech laws don't limit violent speech against the government, as far as I know, and I do understand why being allowed to talk about overthrowing the government is important. Minimally though, I still don't understand why we need to allow people to advocate genocide. It's pretty clear what genocide is, and it's pretty clear that it is never good. In some countries, if I remember correctly, this is the only form of hate speech that is forbidden. Like, I get that the argument is that it's a slippery slope, but many other countries have demonstrated there's a workable middle ground (Canada, UK, France, etc.). If you read the hate speech laws for each country on Wikipedia you'll see that in some cases they are quite narrowly defined, and I'd be perfectly happy with those.

einhverfr 13y ago
So, suppose the secular humanists get their way and we remove religion as a class but ethnicity and race are. Would that mean that advocating violence against Jews would be a problem but against Atheists would be ok? But at that point, do we have a problem where people are not equally protected under the laws? This may seem manufactured, as a hypothetical and it is, but one can come up with plenty of cases where such would not. For example, if one advocates killing anyone with a felony drug record, this would hit blacks much harder than whites. One could effectively advocate genocide by attacking proxy issues like this just as one can effectively discriminate in such a way (why the EEOC has generally held that blanket policies of not hiring convicted felons are racially discriminatory). But if you go to such analogies, I think you have a problem. I don't think that hate speech bans are compatible with equal protection under the laws.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  > I don't think that hate speech bans are compatible with equal protection under the laws. Ok, so I'll agree with this, but only because most / all laws work this way. I believe that in those instances some protection is still better than no protection, e.g. protection against murder is good despite the alleged ethnic prejudice in the acquittal of George Zimmerman. I mean, even though it's unfair and far from ideal, you're not losing anything if it's illegal to advocate genocide against Jews but not against Atheists, are you? What's the advantage of it being shitty for everyone?

einhverfr 13y ago

So, suppose the secular humanists get their way and we remove religion as a class but ethnicity and race are. Would that mean that advocating violence against Jews would be a problem but against Atheists would be ok? But at that point, do we have a problem where people are not equally protected under the laws? This may seem manufactured, as a hypothetical and it is, but one can come up with plenty of cases where such would not. For example, if one advocates killing anyone with a felony drug record, this would hit blacks much harder than whites. One could effectively advocate genocide by attacking proxy issues like this just as one can effectively discriminate in such a way (why the EEOC has generally held that blanket policies of not hiring convicted felons are racially discriminatory). But if you go to such analogies, I think you have a problem. I don't think that hate speech bans are compatible with equal protection under the laws.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
> I don't think that hate speech bans are compatible with equal protection under the laws. Ok, so I'll agree with this, but only because most / all laws work this way. I believe that in those instances some protection is still better than no protection, e.g. protection against murder is good despite the alleged ethnic prejudice in the acquittal of George Zimmerman. I mean, even though it's unfair and far from ideal, you're not losing anything if it's illegal to advocate genocide against Jews but not against Atheists, are you? What's the advantage of it being shitty for everyone?