Americans, should the First Amendment protect "hate" groups?
- Thread starter USS Exeter
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No, no, Tiassa, I'm not "dedicated to the corruption of humanity", I'm a student of all the corruption of humanity. Big difference.
Where you and others see only the good in humans, I see all the bad. Where you and the others refuse to admit human traits towards "badness", I try to point them out to y'all.
Baron Max
Baron Max said:
And where you imagine what other people think and believe and understand, there are, in fact, real people who think, believe, and understand. Stop treating human beings as if they are figments of your imagination.
Symptomatically, though, I would say your analyses are a bit shallow inasmuch as they look at immediate considerations and tend to ignore certain evolutionary realities. Were we really so horrible, we would not have made it as far as we have. Perhaps you're cynical enough to believe that all progress is a coincidence of a great con job, but there are plenty of people who believed in that progress and its goodness, and we have not yet disappeared from the species.
In fact, we're gaining strength.
On a related note, would you agree that life is, to a certain degree, messy? I ask because many cynics seem to think that, while life is messy, progress ought to be clean and neatly-organized. At least, that's what comes from the (mixed?) signals they send.
Free speech means nothing if it does not protect unpopular speech. Popular speech needs no protection!
A rare instance in which we agree. I applauded the decision against the Westborro Church because it's not right to harry a family when they're mourning the death of a loved one. Go protest at the park!
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
It's reasonable for certain rituals to be treated as private moments, even if they occur in a public place.
I can appreciate the British concept of common law. Some conventions have been around for so long that they are treated as laws. Unfortunately that won't work in America for two reasons. One is that the country is too young and we don't have conventions that have been around since the days of King Arthur. The other is that we're not as homogeneous a people and we don't all have the same set of conventions.
We all, even us atheists, make peace with church bells. They're just part of American life even if they're artifacts of Christianity... like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Nobody complains because church bells disturb their peace.
But so many Muslim immigrants have moved into the cheap decaying real estate of Detroit, that they've set up electronic prayer calls that blast from loudspeakers eleventy-six times a day or however many times those folks feel the need to pray. The Americans are not comfortable with that and I don't blame them. Come to our country, get down with our common law. Leave yours back home.
Don't rag on people at funerals. It's not civilized. It's not British and it's not American either.
It get even crazier when you realize the many atheists spew vile hatred of anyone who does have a religion.
It's a damn slippery slope is what it is. Yes they should not be penalized by the government for what they say as long as they are not advocating the violent over throw of the government. On the other side private individuals, businesses, corporations and so on would be within their rights to not deal with these people.
Imagine how few racists there would be left if nobody would have any dealing with them, at all.
TW Scott said:
And from there it gets downright ridiculous when we stop to consider what some religionists consider atheistic hatred.
Wouldn't it be nice? But we cannot. Unlike the people who want to be pharmacists and then refuse doctor-authorized healthcare because said pharmacist doesn't like the patient's morals, I'm of the opinion that we cannot refuse people's business solely on the basis of belief.
At the store up the street from my place they sell those apocalyptic novels (Left Behind). Imagine if I was a cashier and refused to sell you that book because it offended my beliefs. Seriously, if a pharmacist can refuse medical needs for conscience reasons, what about the rest of us? Can you imagine if, in the wake of a particularly difficult episode involving a church in your town, nobody would sell you food because you were a known Christian?
Part of me says it would be great if nobody did business with the Westboro folks. But I'm an American, and we Americans are supposed to have at least some dignity. Additionally, I am a human being, and as such owe the consideration of decency even to the most wretched excuses for humanity in my community.
One only wonders at the size of the demonstration when Old Man Phelps finally kicks the bucket. Fred Phelps will burn in Hell. At least, so says the Bible.
I think in a country like America where people live candy floss lives behind white picket fences you can't just tap people on the shoulder to get their attention... you have to hit them with a sledgehammer.
Westboro Baptist Church are against the Iraq war.
That's not hate speech.
Till Eulenspiegel
Registered Member
Freedom of speech is not freedom if it isn't available to everyone including hate groups. It is easy to defend the rights of people who say things we like and agree with. It is much harder to defend the rights of people to say things we find abhorrant and hateful. However, that is exactly the speech that needs defending if Freedom of Speech is to mean anything.
Well, the speech might be expressions of freedom, but where they express their views is open to question. For example, if you paid to see a movie, would you approve of a small group of loud, boisterous people who stood up, ranted about some issue and interrupted the movie so you couldn't enjoy it?
Baron Max